Thank Goodness for Cousins :)

The main reason that we moved back to Colorado was because we wanted to be around family. We really wanted Sophie (and our other kids) to grow up around family and to have strong relationships with them. One of the best things about this, (besides Grandparents) is cousins! Sophie gets so much opportunity to play with her cousins, even her distant, not really cousins - like my cousin's kids. Recently my cousin Kathy was down visiting and brought her daughter Jada (who is 3 mo older than Sophie) and her brand new baby boy Jaxson. Sophie was in heaven playing with Jada and adored the baby (and she was very good with him as well).

Here is Jada, Sophie, Great-Grandma Clever, and baby Jaxson.

So, you might be asking yourself, 'why this picture? There are no cousins here...' Ahhh, but she's just not in the picture. Sophie was 'hiding' in the closet and I'd ask Jada where she was. Jada would throw back the door to the closet and they both would just giggle! Too cute!

Here Sophie and Jada are trying to hide inbetween the doors. They would have been out the door entirely if it wasn't locked.

The Gipp Cousins

We had a great early Easter with Grandma and Grandpa Troxel and the Gipp cousins. The cousins are SO good with Sophie. They love to play with her and help her out. She was really excited that her cousins were there and wanted to run after them, instead of the eggs - so they helped her find all her eggs.

Here they all are after they have their treasures.
This is before Sophie's face, hands, sweater, etc were covered with chocolate.

Now this is the sweetest story...
Sophie has always been scared of the swing. It didn't matter what kind of swing, if someone was sitting with her, if she was moving or still. She hated swinging. However, when all the cousins started swinging, Grandma Troxel decided to try Sophie too. I watched thinking, "Yup, this'll last about 2 mintues." And sure enough, Sophie was not happy with swinging - at all.
However, cute little Ale (short for Alexandria, not the alcohol) jumps off her swing and came over and held Sophie's hand. Sophie had a death grip on Ale's hand and wouldn't let go. That was ok with Ale though and she sat there and helped Sophie to swing for probably 20 minutes. By the end, Sophie was swinging by herself and loving it. Later, when it was time to go in and all the cousins were inside, she screamed and screamed when I took her out of the swing. :) Ahh, thank goodness for cousins!