Soren, Meet 'Sophie'

This evening my parents, my niece, Soren, and I went to the General Store in Minnetonka to do some holiday shopping. I absolutely LOVE this place, the bottom floor looks like Christmas exploded, and the top floor is all sorts of cool knick-knack gifty stuff. The place is HUGE! Last year we went and I had just found out I was pregnant, and was nauseous most of the time. This year Soren was in his stroller and squealing for most of the 2 hours we were there...he was definitely a fan! One of the neat things they have here are ornaments that you can have personalized for free while you shop. Here's last year's ornament grab:

And this years:

I still want to find a "Baby's 1st Christmas" ornament where I can put his picture in it, I'm gonna do a hunt online since they didn't have one in the store.

I have been eyeing this popular "Sophie" the Giraffe, which is basically a glorified squeaky rubber giraffe. I finally bit the bullet and bought it (at an outrageous price). BUT, after seeing Soren play with Sophie for the first time, I would say it was well worth the money:

For whatever reason, Soren woke up about an hour after I had put him down for bed tonight. While he was sleeping during that hour, Brian and I set up the tree. When he woke up I HAD to come show him our first family Christmas tree all decorated. He was too sleepy though :-(


Just a couple more days before work starts, and I have a to-do list about a mile long. Thanks for all the ideas on the last post, they're all very helpful!