Here is Zoe and me at our town festival. This is at the petting Zoo:



Here she is with her friend Hailey











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We took a family trip to the Tucson Air and Space Museum. Zoe had a blast.... Get it?









What's Zoe's problem?









My Girls....



Note to self... get a haircut.
------>









See Zoe? She's not tiny... that's just a really big airplane.
<-------












"All systems cleared for takeo... uhhh, what are you lookin at kid?"








Future Astronaut????










Future Army soldier??? Uhhh... No.





Zoe cuddling up to mommy after a long day at the museum... Awwww












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One kiss deserves another:




_________________________


Happy Valentines day!

Last night, we decided to get serious about getting Zoe to stay in bed. Up til now, when she wakes up in the middle of the night (usually between 2 and 3am), we've been going into her room and cuddling with her until she falls back asleep. Then, when she wakes again (usually at 5am), one of us will go into her room, put her back in bed and then sleep on her floor until she wakes up for good (we shoot for 6am or later).

Well, now that everyone is over their colds and sicknesses, we decided it's time to get tough! So, last night, we implemented "tough love". As it turns out, it wasn't necessary. For the past few nights, I've been putting her to bed and then hanging out outside her door (as opposed to in her room in her rocking chair) until she falls asleep. So, last night, I put her to bed and waited for her to fall asleep (it took about 1.5 hours). She then woke up at her customary 2am timeslot, I went to check on her and she was hanging out at her gate. I just told her "Back to bed, it's not time to wake up yet" then braced myself for her rebellion. It didn't happen though! She immediately turned and climbed back into bed and went back to sleep. I closed her door and went back to sleep too! Again, she woke up at her customary 5am time. Again, I went to her and told her "Back to sleep, it's not time to wake up yet". She went back to bed and didn't wake up until 6:30am!

I hope i'm not jinxing it by writing about it but this is very good news.

Current events:
*Since last post, Barack Obama has won 10 primaries in a row! gO-Bama!!!
*The Writers strike ended! The Daily Show will be funny again! Yay!

Zoe is 21 Months old!
*Yea, she's a big fan of Elmo

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Zoe is still acclimating to her big girl bed. She still gets out of bed once a night (usually around 2 or 3am). She is pretty good about going back to sleep after that.

At night, before she goes to sleep, if I leave the room, she'll get up and come open her door and hang out in the door entry way (we put up a gate to keep her in her room). When I come back to check on her, she'll see me and turn and run back to her bed.

She loves to sing. She can sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and "Row row row Your boat".

She can recite the alphabet and count to ten.

She loves to chase Lucky around the house... She yells out" "Luuuucky!" and "Lucky, c'mere!". Lucky does his best to stear clear.

We have a few new milestones....

After Zoe fell out of her crib (see last blog entry), we decided to convert her crib into a toddler bed. So Zoe is now sleeping in a bed. We bought rails for it so she can't roll out.

So, the 1st night, she just wanted to play in her new bed. She loved the idea that she could just crawl out if she wanted to. So she'd get in and out... in and out...

That night, she slept fairly well. She woke up at around 4:30am and Kia went in and slept on the floor.

Last night... she slept through the night and woke up on her own. She crawled out of her crib and came into the bedroom and said" "Momma!"

Current Events:
*Housing market... bad.
*Recession... looming
*The South Carolina Primaries end tonight.. Barrack is favored.
*The Clintons are playing dirty politics by injecting race into the campaign.

Zoe is 20 Months Old!


This is an outfit that Grandma got her for Christmas.

Some new developments...
On Jan. 10th, Zoe said "Octagon" to describe an octagon.

She is beginning to form 3 word sentences: "Mama read it". Telling Kia to read her a book.

This morning, Zoe achieved a dubious accomplishment, she managed to crawl out of and over her crib (about 4 feet). Fortunately, she landed on her butt and suffered no injuries. She was more startled more than anything else. I guess it's time to convert her crib to a bed. We'll see how that goes...

And Here is Zoe's 19 Month Picture (on the exact day):


Zoe's milestones:

• When we put Zoe in the car, she now climbs into her own car seat. Although when she gets there, she just stands in it backwards, she won't actually sit down.
  
• Just last week, she started pointing to herself and saying "I'm Zoe".
  
• She knows and can say colors (Red, , Purple, Yellow,Blue, Green, and Orange.)
  
• She will say "Thank You" on her own. She says "Thank you momma, thank you dadda" when we give her things.
  
• She can count to TEN! Repeating after us of course. But she will say some numbers on her own.
  
• She took her 1st picture with Santa. I need to scan it and I'll add it later on. But she did great and didn't cry (probably because we were in the picture too).
  
• And here's the biggie, she pooped in her potty for the first time!!! She had recently been giving us a warning before she went. She'd get a strained look on her face and say "Poo Poo". But we failed to pick up on her sign (I know, I know, "How'd you miss that sign? We're busy and stressed!). Then one day while I was at work, Kia realized that Zoe was actually saying "I gotta poop!" So Kia ran her upstairs to her potty and sat her down and she went!
  She has done it a few times since then. Very exciting. One day, Zoe will want to kill us when she reads and sees this.

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What's going on in the world right now:

• The Presidential caucuses are about to begin. Democrats: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Republicans: Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and McCain.
  
• Housing market is down 6%. Ughhhh...

OK, here is Zoes 18 month picture... This is an estimate, probably not the exact day, but close enough. Sorry Zoe, it was a busy month.

Here are a few new milestones for Zoe:

She is doing really well in school. Whereas before, she would say "Bye Bye Zoe" when leaving class to say Good Bye to her teachers and classmates, she is now beginning to say their names... i.e. "Bye bye Sarah"

When we are driving in the car and approaching home, she will say "ha ha home?"

She is beginning to put together 3 word phrases.

She can say "Corey" and "Kia". Ver cute.

Kia found her ticklish spot and when she tickles Zoe, she goes bonkers and starts trying to distract Kia by saying "High five???" to get Kia to stop tickling.

She loves to pet Lucky and give him kisses.

She is in the middle of some serious "sleep training". Kia is training her to sleep throught the night according to a book that a friend told us about. She says it worked wonders for her, so we (Kia) are giving it a try. Prior to last night, she slept through the night for 3 nights in a row. Last night, she woke up at 4:30am. But we feel we (Kia) are making progress.

Since Zoe is already a Princess, her Halloween costume was easy...






We trick or treated at a few houses and then Zoe ran out of steam. It was fun though... It was a minor miracle that she kept her costume on the whole time.

Remember Lucky????

Zoe is 17 months old!!!
***Yes, that's a G-Unit jacket



Zoe has started pre-school. She goes 3 days a week and has adjusted really well. She still cries a little when we drop her off, but she recovers really quickly.

As you can see from her picture, she is growing up really fast.

***Bonus Picture:

Zoe's 16 month picture

Zoe is beginning to form 2 word phrases. Her first was "Buh bye Shoes". She'll also say "Buy bye Zoe". Oh yea, she can say her own name.

Yesterday we went to Jacks 2nd Birthday party. They had a mini moon bounce. Zoe got in and did some bouncing. She had a blast and kept wanting to go back in.


Zoe is also making a lot of new friends. Her best friends are:
Peyton
,







Hailey









Dylan.










And Jack (picture not available yet)

She loves to play w/ bubbles. We take her outside and blow bubbles and she'll chase the bubbles around saying... "bubble.."

She gets a kick out of seeing airplanes flying across the sky. If she as much as hears an airplane, she'll stop what she's doing and say "Airplane" and look up into the sky to find it. When she finds it, she gets a huge smile on her face.


She likes to "pounce" on things like pillows and Mommy and Daddy and as she lands she'll laugh and say "boom!"

She loves belly buttons. For no reason, she'll pull her shirt up and point out her belly button. Then she has to pull Mommys shirt up to see her bellow button, and if I'm around, she'll pull my shirt up to see mine.

She gave her 1st hug. Kia was babysitting Hailey and Hailey hugged her. Kia caught the magic moment on film:




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Zoe's 15 month picture!

Zoe is now 15+ months old. I have her 15 month picture, I just haven't transferred it from the camera yet. In the meantime, here are a few cute pics.




She is really coordinated. She loves to throw tennis balls for Lucky.
She loves to kick balls around the house and is very good with her feet.

Zoe is 14 months old!!!


We went and saw Grandma in Arlington, VA for the 4th of July.





Zoe had her 1st trip to the Smithsonian and The Museum of Natural History. She wasn't impressed.


We saw a Chinese dragon show. Zoe loved it!
In fact, she loved it so much, she cried when we had to leave. :(











She is an expert walker now... She can even do a bit of running. She has now moved on to mastering walking backwards.

She loves to stand and turn in circles.

One of her favorite things is to get up on the couch and play. She will just walk back and forth on the couch, falling down, laughing and getting back up.

Zoe's 13 Month Picture!!!!

Well... we wound up going to the ER last night. The pediatric advice line suggested that since she hadn't had "wet diapers" all day, she may be dehydrated and we should take her to the ER.

So we did, we took her to Tucson Medical Center. Fortunately, they have a child emergency services center, so we didn't have to wait 5 hours amongst the dredges of society... (did I say that outloud?). Jokes....

At any rate, we were emitted pretty quickly, about 4 nurses took Zoes vital signs before informing us that she has a cold/stuffy nose. We tried to maintain our dignity and at least get them to "suction" her nose, but they didn't even do that! We tucked our tails between our legs and headed home.

This is what we use to suck snot out of Zoes nose... this and our fingers. This device gets the "material" onto Zoes upper lip (if we're lucky), our fingers finish the job. (i'll spare you the snot):













**Current events update:
Paris Hilton got sent BACK to jail to finish her sentence a day after her release. Justice served!!??!!

The Spurs swept the Cavs in 4 games. A snoozefest. Labron was NOT Kinglike.

Some dude, knowing he had TB, decided now is a good time to take a friggin world tour.

Zoe loves to say "Hat". Any time she sees a hat, or sees someone wearing a hat, she'll say "Ha" and sign "hat". The other day, she saw me wearing my Dallas Cowboys baseball hat. I took my hat off and set it aside. All of a sudden, she wouldn't let me take my hat off. She was following me around to make sure I was wearing my hat. If I put it down, she would grab it, and bring it to me to be sure I put it back on.

Friday, June 15th, Zoe got sick for the 1st time. She caught a cold and had a fever of about 101.4. The worst part is she is all congested and her nose is stuffed up. She has trouble eating, drinking, nursing and sleeping. She is handling it all very well.

Here is Zoe catching a cold:

Zoe can Walk!

It is so incredible to see her walk after all this time. She literally just started walking on her own today. It started with Kia this afternoon, and by the time I got home from work, she was in rare form. She was so excited to be able to walk, she was just walking all over the place and giggling and laughing. She'd fall down, and Kia and I would cringe, but she'd just get back up and walk some more.

Here she is walking on her own for the 1st time:



Of course, as any parent knows, this is a double edge sword, cuz now that she is fully mobile, we have to be even more attentive of her activity. We now have to run out and buy gates to block her in, and keep her off of the stairs. Whose idea was it to get a 2 story home??? (I think Kias)

Other milestones:
She is saying more words....
1st words were Mama and Dada, at around 6 months
2nd word was Dog (although she drops the G)
3rd word was Hat (she drops the T)
4th word was "Ball" (she drops the L's)

I know... I know... "If she is dropping the end of the word, how do you know she is saying what you think she is saying??? She's just saying Ba, Da, and Ha"
-Well, in addition to saying the words, she signs them too.

In addition to the actual words she is saying, she is just always talking and running her mouth about something. And if she gets hurt or upset, she'll unload on the nearest person or object. For example if she falls and hits herself on the banister, she'll point at and talk trash to the banister. So cute...

Last week we got her a new Car Seat. We still have her facing the rear but that will have to end soon cuz she's getting so big.

Sleepwise, she is doing really well. She is sleeping through the night again (after about a week of her waking up every night). She goes to sleep at about 7pm and has been waking up lately at around 4:45am.

I know there are things I'm leaving out, but I need to go to sleep now. I'll add more at a later date.

Here are a few "current events""

• Paris Hilton went to jail. (and was released 4 days later, today in fact)
  
• The San Antonio Spurs are playing the Cleveland Cavs in the NBA Finals (SA is up 1-0)
  
• The Democratic front runners for 08 are Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Republicans have Mit Romney and Rudy Giuliani

We went back to the Bay Area to celebrate Zoes 1st birthday! It was fun for all.

Here is Zoes 1 Year Picture!!!

Zoe has 1 more tooth coming in... it's the top right tooth.

Here are a few other pics of Zoe being silly....

[ RSVP for Zoes 1st Birthday Party Here! ]


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Party is Saturday, May 19th 2007