Happy 1st Birthday Zoey!!

 Happy Birthday Beautiful Girl!!  We love you so much!!

 Zoey is a very happy girl.  Everyone comments on how happy she always is.  She is very active.  She loves to climb.  She loves people and is very social.  She is also very vocal and loves to scream.  (all of these factors makes church a nightmare). 

She plays very well by herself.  The play kitchen is her favorite.  

We call her the rock cleaner.  I used to try to keep the rocks out of her mouth but she puts them in, cleans them up, and spits them out.  Then onto the next dirty rock.  Sick!!
She thinks she is too big to be fed.  She wants to do it herself!!  Her binki and blankie are her lifelines.  When she sees her blankie she squeals, buries her face in it and laughs.

She loves her Daddy.  Everyday when he gets home she crawls over to him just before he can pick her up and then crawls away so he will chase her.

Zoey took her first few steps a week ago.  She now is walking about 6 steps at a time but still prefers crawling.  She has 6 teeth.  She takes 1 nap a day for about 2 hrs.  

She still LOVES her sister and her sister still LOVES her!!
 

 My mom helped me make her Birthday cake.  I admit it's a lot of pink.  Maybe too much.  We were in a huge hurry.  I didn't love how it turned out.  Oh well many more to come right?

 It could have killed her sister to let her open her own present.  Good Thing Zoey had no idea what was going on. 

Summertime Events

Maggie at her dance recital.  Her dance ended with all the girls on the ground.  Right after the music stopped Maggie jumped and and yelled out "tada".  Everyone laughed it was super cute. 

 When Brooks was on Medical leave for 6 weeks we did all kinds of fun stuff.  We took a little trip to one of my favorite place, Fort Collins.  The girls loved a jump house that we found there. 

 The Fort Collins Petting Zoo. 

 Maggie playing in the water pump at the Zoo. 

 We also sold our boat.  We took it out for one last go. 

 Zoey was not too fond of the life jacket. 

 We found a GREAT water park in North Ogden.  We visited twice and will be going back soon.  Maggie loved the frog slide.  She had a very hard time standing in line and taking turns. 

 We had a family reunion over the 4th of July.  We did a little scavenger hunt to show all the kids places around town and to teach them a little about each of their aunts and uncles.  It was Super Hot, but fun.  This was a stop at Grandma's old house. 

 We also celebrated mom's 60th birthday.  Her brother brought this as a gag gift.  It was so fun and a huge surprise. 

 Maggie jumping in the jump house at the Pete reunion in Fielding.  Thanks Trudy for the action shot. 

 This is Zoey's favorite thing to play with.  The Kitchen and all the food.  She loves to open and shut the cupboards. 

 Zoey the Zebra.  I wasn't that into zebras before Zoey.  But it works so good I can't pass it up. 

 Saturday our family went on a 4-wheeling trip.  The girls did really well. 

 I love Zoey's crazy hair (the little that she has) and her arms all up.  I was hoping she would be more reserved and less crazy like her sister but that doesn't seem to be the case. 

 Catching skeeters on one of the stops during wheeling. 

Maggie throwing rocks into the water on the 4-wheel trip. 

It's been a super fun summer.  There is still more fun to be had.  My sister and her kids wanted to see pis of Zoey.  That was the main reason for my post.  It's just a bunch of pics and a few descriptions.  It does the trick.   

A Dr. Day

Wednesday Morning I took Brooks in to get some old hardware removed from a teenage motorcycle accident.  After a few hours of being home, he got cabin fever and had to go outside.  Maggie went out to play with him.  Her battery wheeler was dead so she chose to ride the push wheeler that she is too big for.  She crashed into to curb and flipped the wheeler on top of her.  She crashed her chin right into the curb.  When I got her untangled from the wreckage, I knew right away she needed stitches. 

Brooks has just taken a fresh batch of pain killers but with his arm couldn't hold her.  So he drove us (all doped up on pain meds) to the ER while I held Maggie and prepped her for the shots to come.  She was such a brave girl.  She only cried when she got the shot.  She talked the whole time and the Dr. had to tell her more than once to hold her chin still. 

It was my first experience with stitches too.  I had a hard time keeping my chilli down.  When he had to dig and cut out the mashed up flesh, I almost lost it.  He had to tell me to pull myself together a couple times too.  Yucky Yucky. 
Like Father Like Daughter. 

3 inside and 5 out. 

Should have been the 1st

 Zoey got mixed up in the family order.  She should have been the first child.  Here is why.  She loves to be held.  (maggie preferred to be on her own).  I would have had more time to hold her if she was the first. 

She is a little slower in development than Maggie.  You always compare your second to your first.  Zoey isn't slow by all means just slower than Maggie.  

She is a mammas girl.  She takes after her boring/scared mom too.  She doesn't like to be thrown in the air, spun around, or drive fast in the wheeler.  Maggie loved crazy adventures.  Since our first did it, Brooks thinks all kids should love it. 

We really do love our little Zoey.  Her and Maggie are best friends.  The Bigger Zoey gets the Better friends they become. 

She is almost 9 months now.  We took her for her well baby yesterday.  She weighs 17 lbs 1oz and is 26 inches tall.  She is in the 25% in weight, height, and head.  A very proportioned baby.  

She learned to craw.  She eats EVERTYHING.  She is growing out of sleeping just anywhere.  And like I have said before, she LOVES her sister.  And her sister loves her. 

6 months!!

I can't believe how time flies. Zoey turned 6 months old and I'm shocked how it went by so quickly.

She was sick with a yucky cough for 2 weeks. So we missed a trip to Utah to visit Uncle Justin's family. Bummer.

She weighs 15 lbs 6.5 oz and is 25 inches long. Everyone comments on how fat she is. I don't think she is that fat. She just has a perfectly round head. Like someone set a ball on her shoulders. Her cheeks make her look chubby too.

I know I post this every time but she LOVES her sister. Brooks and I try to make her laugh and the second Maggie walks up she cracks up.

She has a giggly time every night. For about an hour or so she just laughs at everything. Super cute.

She was making me get up and put her binki in sometimes every hour in the night. That came to a stop 2 nights ago when I decided it was time for her to learn to self sooth. It is going Wonderfully. The whole family is getting much more sleep!! Yahoo!!

She LOVES food. She is eating twice a day and two jars a feeding now. She would eat more if we let her. I tried baby treats but she chokes on them. She does love to suck on fruit roll ups though!! It doesn't happen very often because it is a MESS.

She went swimming for the first time last night. She was thrilled and so was Maggie.

She can sit up all by herself. It's getting to be longer and longer amounts of time every day.





Feed ME!!
She just sits with her mouth open till you get her another mouth full. Like a baby bird.


Fruit roll up. Yummy. Her treat on her 6 month birthday. Maggie can't wait till she can eat more food. She is going to chunk up then because Maggie will be filling her full of everything she can get her hands on.

This is where Zoey spends a lot of her time -the bumbo. She probably won't crawl forever because she is always stuck in this thing. But this is where she is happiest. So that is where we put her.

I look forward to seeing her learn and grow through the next 6 months! We just love her so much. Summer will be so much fun for her and her sister.

Z turns 5 months

Zoey is such a happy baby. She loves to laugh and is super ticklish. She LOVES her big sister. She will watch her run around and you can see in her eyes that she can't wait to run with her.

She refuses to roll over. She will roll on her side but won't push herself to her tummy. This makes Brooks and I a little crazy. We have training on rolling every night. She just laughs during it most the time.

I could set my clock by her eating. She eats 5oz every 4hrs. on the dot. She used to go longer in the night but she has reverted back to only going 4 hrs. 4 hrs. of sleep would be great BUT she is a binki addict and when it falls out she cries and I have to get up almost every hour to put it back in. I am so done with this but don't know what else to do.




The Binki addict.


Zoey is so my child. In her 5 months of life she has had a couple weird sicknesses. The latest was a bout of roseolla (sp). She ran a temp. of 103 for 3 days. Scary! She also had to have a urine test and blood work to make sure there wasn't anything else wrong. Luckily it was only a high temp and a little rash. She also has had a reaction to her immunizations that makes her poop turn blueis and really really stinky. Luckily those immunizations are done. Over Christmas she had an ear infection and the blue poops. That was interesting.

She is also mine because of her lack of patients. When she is hungry she is hungry right NOW!! Brooks said she gets that from me and my grandma Sneddon said I get that from her. It's a family thing. Or maybe just a female thing.

At 4 months old she weighed 13 lbs 9.5 oz and was 24.5 inches long. This is EXACTLY what Maggie measured when she was this age. Crazy. Pretty much 50% on everything.

I feel like a slacker with the second one. I take half as many pictures and am not nearly as worried about dates and mile markers. I am trying!!

Nessen's take on san Diego

We visited San Diego this past weekend. It has been a trip I have wanted to do since we got married. I waited 8 years for this. It was worth the wait. We had a blast. Jerry had a carving show down there so we tagged along with my mom and Jerry. Here is our trip in backwards order. (that is how I loaded the pics oops).

Lego Land. Our favorite part of the trip. Mom and Jerry went to the carving show for part of the day so it was mostly just our family. The weather was the best this day. It started out raining so I was a little nervous but it turned out wonderful. Besides the rides there is a lot of hands on things to do within the rides. Maggie loved it.

This was her favorite ride. You got to shoot water cannons at the people watching and others on the ride. You also got shot by others too. It was a lot of fun. They have a "parent swap" program so if you have a little one that can't ride, one parent rides and then you switch. The best part of that is that the kid gets to ride twice. Its only advertised on line I'm stoked I found it.

This is so my Dad. The socks with sandles and the loud shirt pins him perfect. Not to mention asleep on a bench.


Maggie with Lego surfer. EVERYTHING is made of lego. It is really cool to see.


Mom and Maggie riding the helicopters.


Maggie and Zoey with a lego dinosaur.


Princess Lilly at Lego Land.

That sums up Lego Land for us. We wish it would have been hotter because there were a lot more areas to play in the water and some more water rides that we didn't do. On the other hand that would have meant more people. The lines were super short. The most we were in line was 10 minutes and some of the rides we walked right on. It was perfect.

A funny story. There were these little shows. We happened to catch one right at lunch time. It was about some guys applying to be fire fighters. The ground was squishy and they would do all these stunts and silly things. They got the crowd all into it. Asking them questions and stuff. I had just turned to Brooks and told him how cheesy this things was. Next thing I know I am so into this show that they asked if they should put the fire out and I shouted right out loud "NO", and threw my hands up. I couldn't believe myself. Brooks was cracking up. I was a little embarrassed. Super funny though.

Sea World. This was the coldest day. So we had to skip the splash zones and the water rides. Bummer. Maggie's favorite show was the dolphins, because of the princess.


Maggie and the dolphin princess.


Feeding the sea lions. A stupid seagull flew by and tried to eat our fish and flapped Maggie right in the face. They were everywhere and it was super annoying.


This was Maggie's Favorite part, the star fish. Mostly because she could touch them. She is super hands on. It's a good thing they are durable little creatures.

That sums up Sea World. The polar bears were super fun to watch too.
We all had our favorite shows. Mom liked the Shamu show, Me and Maggie loved the dolphins and Brooks' favorite was the sea lions and otter show.

Safari Park. We chose to do the safari park over the zoo. I figured Maggie wouldn't know the difference between San Diego or any other zoo. It was super cool to see the animals in their natural habitats. The elephants were my favorite. They let them out once a day to find food that they have hid and buried to keep them rummaging and learning. That was super cool to see. They had a little baby that was born a week after Zoey. Super cute.


The fam on the Rino.


Maggie's favorite, the carousel. I don't know why but she loves these things. She picked the rabbit of all things. Whatever I guess as long as she was happy. And she was.


The baby gorilla. So so so cute. He was only like 18" tall and was all over the place. There was one daddy and three mommies. They were like his jungle gym. We watched him for a long time.


Brooks and Maggie Hanging with the bats. We decided to take pics here but skip the bat house itself.


Brooks and Maggie riding the Rino.


Mommy and Maggie in a nest thing.


Zoey in an egg.


Brushing the goats at the petting zoo.


Zoey's 1st airplane ride. She did so good on all 4 flights. We flew southwest so they of course had to drag us through half the country. we stopped in phenix both ways. The flights were just over an hour so perfect for the girls. Straight threw would have been nice but this worked out great too.


Maggie's 1st airplane ride. She liked the bathrooms the best.

We had so much fun. We also went to the beach the first day (no pics) and Coranado Island for dinner on a fairy the second day. We swam at the condo one night before we came home. The other nights we were so pooped we went to bed around 8:30-9. We are still recovering. It's very hard to come home to the cold and snow. BUMMER.