Happy 1st Birthday, Zoe!

Zoe's 1st birthday was a great day. Her Grammy and Poppy arrived early in the day to spend time with the birthday girl. Zoe opened lots of gifts from Mommy, Daddy, Grammy, Poppy and Great-Grammy! Zoe loved her wagon, the Leap Frog laptop and her wind-up ducks the best. Later in the afternoon, some friends came for an afternoon cake party which was lots of fun. Mommy made a Hello Kitty cake which was a hit with everyone except Zoe. She wasn't too interested in cake, which is just fine with Mommy and Daddy! We then hosted a neighborhood porch party to complete the night of birthday festivities. A good time was had by all!

Thank you to all of our friends and family, near and far, that sent their birthday wishes to Zoe. She appreciates every last one of them!!

Zoe's Adventures in Chi-Town

We returned earlier this week from a long weekend in Chicago. It was Zoe's 2nd trip via plane but the first one hardly counts since she was only 2.5 months old. Zoe was quite the traveler and did FANTASTIC on the plane. She loved "holding court" with all her surrounding seat mates and truly enjoyed the attention she received (we're in trouble when she gets older!). Zoe's favorite part of the flights? Definitely the touch-down when landing - she giggled every time we hit the runway. We have no idea what that's all about but hey, that's okay, she wasn't crying!

While in Chicago, we had a great visit with Dave's Aunt Merna, her children, grandchildren and great granchildren. It was great to meet some of Dave's extended family that I hadn't previously met.

Here are some pictures of Zoe's great adventure in Chicago:

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

So, it was a year ago today that I was wishing I had some green maternity clothes to wear in honor of St. Patrick's Day. Zoe's dress from Ireland is far cuter this year than any green tent-like maternity outfit I could have pulled together last year!

Mr. Ducky!!

When I was Zoe's age (or younger), my Pop-Pop bought Mr. Ducky for me and I played with him endlessly whenever I went to Grammy and Pop-Pop's house. Well...Mr. Ducky is now almost 40 years old and resides at Zoe's Grammy and Poppy's house. Hopefully Zoe will love Mr. Ducky as much as I did. Whether she loves him or not, she sure looks cute riding him!!

A Vacation for Everyone

Dave and I just returned from 5 nights in the Caribbean. We stayed at a great little cottage in Antigua that was perfectly decorated, had a nice big pool and the owners (who also live on the property) have 4 dogs that visited frequently throughout the day! It was a nice getaway. We enjoyed the beautiful beaches in Antigua (there are 365!), great dining (we sought out the local places and enjoyed some great Caribbean cuisine) and got a lot of SLEEP - Aaaahhh. I even read an entire book - it's been about, well, umm, let me see... 8 MONTHS since I've read a book!

Zoe also took a vacation - she went to Grammy and Poppy's house while we were away. Zoe was SPOILED all week with attention, play-time, love and constant visitors to "ooh" and "aahh" over her. A good time was had by all. My mother actually told me "it was one of the best weeks of my life" - Wow, that's a pretty good week!!

Here are a couple of pics from Zoe's vacation:

Two-For-Toothy-Tuesday

Yesterday (2/22/11) was "Two-For-Toothy-Tuesday" - Zoe woke up with her two bottom front teeth poking through her gums. We've been watching and waiting for a while and yesterday they finally appeared!

Zoe Eats!

Mommy let Zoe "feed herself" tonight. Hmmm...straight from the highchair to the bathtub! But it was oh, so much fun!!

Happy 7-Month Birthday, Zoe

What a great month it's been - we've made lots of progress this month! At 7 months old, Zoe:

• Sleeps through the night!! YEAH! Zoe sleeps from 6pm to 7am without interruption (most nights!) Mommy and Daddy are really enjoying more normal sleep patterns
• Is a full-time "sitter" - Zoe can sit on the floor and play with her toys quite well
• Sits in her highchair and eats 3 meals a day of baby food
• Sits in her baby bathtub (instead of laying down) and plays with her tub toys during "tubby time"
• Is still off the charts in height and 90th percentile for weight
• Is definitely testing out the vocal cords - she makes lots of screeching noises as well as her "talkie talkie". She says Ma Ma -
  we're still waiting on the Da Da
• Does not have any teeth poking through yet, but we can see them under her gums!

Sunday Best

Zoe's all dressed in her 12-MONTH (I can't believe she's fitting in 12-month clothes!) "Pretty Flowers" outfit and ready to go to Grammy and Grandpa's for the day. It's a beautiful day here - going to be almost 70-degrees - we have spring fever :-)

And a couple of pictures from our day...



Zoe's 6-Month Visit

Today was Zoe's 6-month visit with the pediatrician - it was rescheduled from earlier in the month due to an ice storm (in SC - go figure!). Anyway, it was a great visit and Zoe continues to do really well. She weighed in at 17 lbs. 11 oz. and is 28" long. She is in the 90th percentile for weight and off the charts for height.

Zoe has been eating baby food twice a day and she is loving it! She's been eating a fruit in the morning and a meat night. We'll be increasing it to 3 times/day soon so she'll have fruit in the morning, veggie in the afternoon and a meat at night. We think the protein at night has been helping her sleep. We're SO CLOSE to her sleeping uninterrupted for 12 - 13 hours at night. She goes to bed around 6pm and generally wakes around 7am. She doesn't require a bottle any longer at night but does occasionally wake to have us put the paci back in. We're working on that...

Zoe loves to be out and about and is so observant of everything and everyone around her. She is very, very happy, which makes us very, very happy too!! :-)