Cuddles

Zoe crazily examines her ice cream next to her sweet cousin Micah at Mimi's. She ended up not wanting to finish the cone, clearly she did not inherit my ice cream eating ways... which may end up a good thing for her later down the road.

Z continues to crack us up daily. She has discovered her stomach and her nose. Lots of times now while playing she'll lay down on her belly with her toys out in front of her and kick her feet, like she is just chilling. Also, you might just find her with her finger stuck directly up her nose with it just hanging out up there. What an amazing discovery! Nostril and finger are roughly the same size, making it a snug but comfortable (apparently) fit.

Yesterday while playing in her bedroom she kept crawling into Matt's lap and sitting facing out, or laying against his chest and hugging him. She even crawled up, layed down, kicked her feet and starting giggling like she thought herself the silliest thing in the world. What a cuddle-bug!! She does all of that to me also, but it's a great breakthrough that she is appreciating Daddy a lot more now!

She is consistently only taking one nap a day. It pains me to write those words because I think they may be actually true --- but she also sleeps much later. Sometimes until 8:30. 8:30!!!!!! This is big, fat, far cry from the 6:30a she once did. I try to wake up before her, because otherwise I have 0 morning time to myself, but I'm not actually that good at it. Especially since Matt and I can't make it to bed before midnight for some reason. Awful.

Hm, for those of you who don't know: I won't be going back to nursing school this fall. I got my fall schedule and couldn't stand how much I was going to have to be away from Z! Since, thankfully, there is no need for me to work really, I'm choosing to be a full-time wife/momma right now and someday later hopefully pursue nursing again. I really, really enjoy it - but I enjoy my baby Z so much more and I'm not willing to lose these times of her life to studying, school and schedule madness. So I've just been meeting with girls in the college ministry alongside Matt and have been going to the beginning of youth group and it's a wonderful change of pace from nursing school.

Z isn't saying too many words yet. She'll say "dog" sometimes but she is really on a "bababababababababa" kick. She can say momma and dada and says "nana" to mean water. We have no idea why she does this. We think it could be from "aqua".. it sounds sort of like her "nana" -- much more than "water" does anyways. Matt is excited about this possibility because it means all his spanish speaking laboring has shown some fruit!

Speaking of fruit, I planted a tomato!!!!! We'll see what happens.

In addition, I made these two bracelets and the gift box for a turkish teenager's going away party. I *made* the multi-color larger beads on the beaded one - paper beads, ridiculously easy peasy. And I knitted the gray one with buttons... it was sort of a disaster that I somehow managed to salvage by turning inside out, connecting the ends and adding another button. Good crafting times.

Finally, enjoy a comparison of Mother and Daughter sporting their best duck faces...