Eight Months

Dear Zoey,

Pause. Pause, pause, pause! You are growing up so quickly, Love! You seem to think you're one of the big kids now and don't have any patience anymore for this whole babyhood thing that Mommy cherishes so much. I adore you, little bug! 

Eating: Exhibit A of your lack of patience with babyhood: You refuse to be spoon fed. REFUSE. Will not even open your mouth. Any pureed or mashed up food of any kind has absolutely no chance and ultimately just ends up being thrown away. I finally gave up and decided to give you table food. The same types of foods you'd been eating before... just in a completely solid form and not mashed up. I figured if you could eat the lasagna, brownies, and chips Lauren has been feeding you, eating small baby bites of a whole fruit or vegetable should be okay. And now... you love bananas! And avocados! You just wanted the whole banana, not the smashed stuff I'd been feeding you. 

Learning and Growing: For about a month now you've been army crawling all over the house! You got faster and more sure of yourself every day, and now just in the last few days you're up on your hands and knees! You can pull yourself to a stand using just about anything, and will take several steps while holding onto my hands. I think if we worked with you more on it, you'd be walking within the next couple weeks. I haven't pushed you to walk though. You will when you want to :)

 I love you, Zoey! I love watching you grow and learn new things! And I love when you decide you want to be a baby again, and fall asleep cuddling in my arms.

Love you always,
Mama 

9 Months

Dear Zoey,

Learning: This past month has been crazy in terms of how fast you are learning and changing. The month started with you crawling all over the place, and has ended with you practically walking. I say practically because you haven't realized you can do it yet. You'll walk (or even run, silly girl!) anywhere as long as you're holding on to someones hand with just one of your hands. And I've seen you take as much as two steps in a row! At that point you just stopped and then crouched down and continued on your way crawling. As though you realized crawling was so much faster right now and you didn't want to waste your time, lol. You're not just walking though, baby, you're CLIMBING things. You love to climb onto Lauren's bed and you think its especially funny if you can manage to climb onto the couch. You're so mischievous and have an adorable sense of humor. I think your giggle may just be one of my favorite things in the whole world. 

Your Favorites: The last few weeks you've discovered a new love: DANCING. You love it when I hold you and dance around, but you especially love to dance on your own. You'll bounce to the music or wave your arms and clap your hands. And of course your great love is still Teddy. It's more than just your eyes that light up when you see him- you get this huge smile and you stretch your arms out and give him the sweetest baby kisses and hugs- as though just his being there to play with you has made your whole day. 

TALKING: I love your words! You say Dada, Mama, and bye-bye! You love to wave at Daddy or I when we leave for work. And you've started signing too! You sign "all done" about 10 seconds after I put you into your high chair because you hate being contained in anything, lol. 

Teething: You have two adorable little teeth on the bottom! It was a long and painful process getting those two in, little bug, but you did it! YAY!! 

Eating: Once those teeth came in you became interested in eating again! Your favorites are scrambled eggs, spaghetti, peas, and green beans. And you're still completed uninterested in anything that has to be fed to you with a spoon. 

Sleeping: It's kind of amazing that you have the kind of energy you do with how little you sleep! You don't nap unless Lauren does- which is really hit or miss these days. And at night you wake up, well.... a lot. You're a very light sleeper and if Daddy so much as takes a deep breath or I roll over, you're up. Sorry, baby. 

I love you so much, Zoey! 

Love, Mama 

Love.

Just a little bit of lately, featuring my very favorite people!

This was taken moments before I turned around for 3 seconds and Lauren fed Zoey her first French fry- or 3 seconds before I realized I truly have no control whatsoever, sometimes L and Z just let me think I do. 

The first time Lauren let us push her on the swings :) 

One of my favorite smiles in the world. 

Bedtime stories and milk- my favorite part of the day (um, if no one is screaming, lol)

Hey sexy ;) 

Dear Lauren

Dear Lauren,

I love you, sweet girl. You are incredible, and you amaze me every day. You are one of the most loving and sweet people I know. You are such a wonderful sister. I love your creativity and your adventurous heart. I love your silliness. I love your independence and your cuddles. I love how much you love your teddy bear and your blankie. I love your curiosity and intelligence. I love how you love to do science, play dress up, run outside, hug trees, paint your nails, learn, and bake cookies.  I love that you're mine.  I am so lucky that I get to be your mommy!

I love you, Lauren!

Love,
Mommy

Seven Months

Zoey,

I never understood how quickly time goes until I became a mother. You change every day! I love everything you've been, and every new thing I learn about you. It's just so hard to believe how much can change in such a short time. You're seven months old now, baby! Here is a little bit about wonderful, 7 month old you: 

Learning, Growing, Playing: Um, oh my goodness are you mobile. Not just mobile, but FAST. You army crawl all over the house. You'll be playing on the floor in the living room, I'll turn around for a second, turn back, and you're down the hall crawling into another room.  You can easily get onto your hands and knees (or hands and feet occassionally), and crawl a few inches that way, but the army crawl is so much faster so you usually opt for that instead. Your fine motor skills are improving daily, which means I'm vaccuuming about ten times a day because you're trying to pick up teeny tiny little specks on the carpet and eat them. You're constantly exploring and I love seeing this little adventurous side of you coming out. Sitting up is not even a big thing for you anymore, you're on to trying to stand! You can pull yourself to a kneeling position using the slats of your crib or someones leg or the  couch or something. And when holding someone's hands you'll even take several steps!! 

Eating: You're starting to (kinda) like food (I think)! You don't make faces at me anymore and you even smile while you're eating sometimes! Faves so far are definitely avocados! You don't hate bananas anymore and you'll tolerate oatmeal, apples, and sweet potatos! 

Communication: You've said your first word!!! Your first word was Dada! And yes, you really meant Dada and it was not just babbling. When Daddy walks in the room you're suddenly, "Dada! Dada! Dada!" You did say Mama a few times a couple weeks ago too, but you haven't said it again yet so I'm not sure if it counts yet, lol. We've started signing to you, and I think you're starting to associate the sign "more" with its meaning. So proud of you, my love! 

Likes and Dislikes: You love cuddling, toys, exploring the house, and being outside. You do NOT love having things taken away from you. Sometimes your sister takes your toy or Daddy and I have to take away something you found during your exploration of the house, and oh my goodness do you get mad. 

Sleeping: Still a work in progress. I have hope that things are improving a little. Daddy and I FINALLY figured out you prefer complete and total silence while you're sleeping. We always had some kind of white noise or soft music playing, and you were waking up hourly some nights. I would try singing to your or humming and shhhhing and none of it ever worked. Finally we realized, you just want it to be quiet :) You still get up about 2 times every night, but it's better than it was! I love rocking you to sleep at night. Cuddling with my Zoey is one of my very favorite things. There have been a few nights though that you have been such a grown up girl and fallen asleep in your crib on your own!  

I love you, Zoey Bug!! 

Six Month Photo Shoot

All pictures by my amazing sister Emily!

Six Months Old!

Happy 1/2 birthday, Zoey! You're 6 months old! Seriously, where did the last six months go? This is just crazy how fast you're growing up! You are the sweetest, happiest, cuddliest baby ever and I adore every second of being your mommy!

Sleeping: We're working on it, and no two nights are ever the same. Sometimes you'll wake up only once, other times you're up at least once an hour. I know why you're waking up so often, but that doesn't help with finding a solution to help you sleep in the slightest.... you wake up because you are extremely mobile! You move around in your sleep a LOT. Sometimes rolling over wakes you up and scares you (like on nights when you're up once or twice an hour), other nights I listen to you roll around in your crib for a couple of minutes before you get upset- these are the times I generally find you stuck in a corner of your crib.  Napping doesn't usually happen because you like it at least kind of quiet and dark while you sleep, and as hard as I try it's kind of impossible to keep our house quiet during the day. Lauren wakes you up every time. I suppose you get her back every morning when you wake her up as well, lol. But you will sleep wonderfully in the car, so occasionally I purposefully plan errands and car trips for right when I know you'll be tired so that you can get your nap!

Lauren wanted to help and handed you your bowl of oatmeal.
OATMEAL. EVERYWHERE. 

Eating: You've started eating solid foods! You're still a little undecided I think about how you feel about that. You have one solid food every day, and you always eat while we have dinner together. You love that part! You love getting to sit in your high chair and eat like everybody else does! You don't always love what you're eating, at least so far. The very first thing you had was bananas, and you were not a fan. Then was oatmeal + bananas, and you didn't seem to hate that as much. Apples you're a little indifferent to so far. And while you still didn't seem very excited about it, I suppose we could say your "favorite" so far has been sweet potatoes!

Teething: Thankfully your little teeth seem to have given you a break for a moment. The drooling and discomfort seems to have backed way off the last couple of weeks. Still no teeth yet!

Learning, Growing, Playing: Oh my goodness! You are one advanced little girl! Even a week ago I was calling you "unintentionally mobile" in that you roll all over the place, you just aren't doing it to get anywhere intentionally. That is no longer true. You put several rolls together today to get to Daddy. You roll all over the place in your bed and seem to love to be on your tummy now because you can push yourself up on your hands and look around. You can sit up for as long as you want to, and even go from a sitting up to a laying down on your tummy position without difficulty. There was one night you had been sleeping and we heard you get fussy after much rolling, and found you sitting up in your crib! So although we haven't seen it happen and have no idea how you did it, we know you can get yourself to a sitting position all on your own! So grown up! Your favorite toys are ones that light up or make loud noises when you shake them.

Random things: You are my little Mama's Girl and I love it sooooooo much!