The long post

Zoe is now 6.5 months. I've been meaning to do a post for weeks. There were so many things to write about that I've decided to just include as many as I can. So prepare yourself for a lot of pictures and videos. There continue to be a steady stream of "firsts." This past month and a half she's begun experimenting with her consonants (mamamama, papapa, even a little dada, though it sounds more like thatha). She's had her first fall from the Bumbo. (She was technically still in it, but somehow managed to bump her head on the table.) She's fallen off the bed. :( (Of course her first fall was a couple of months ago and much scarier...when I tripped while holding her.) She's had her first tastes of rice cereal and avocado. She's enjoying new textures, like Daddy's scratchy face. She's enjoying her exersaucer and LOVES her tigger bouncer. And in slightly less exciting news, though nice in its own way...she now goes most of the day with no bib. I can actually see her clothing. :)

Zoe still fits in her swing. We LOVE the swing. She ends up in strange positions a lot but doesn't seem to mind too much.


Here's a picture of some of the people I work with. Zoe tags along sometimes.

We were able to visit Wichita last month. Zoe really enjoyed hanging out with her Grandpa and Grandma.

We had some very relaxing time out in the backyard. So beautiful! It was a little chilly, but it's always fun to snuggle with Zoe.

One of my favorite things about Zoe lately is how she likes to snuggle and put her head on my shoulder when she gets sleepy. I wish I could capture and remember each of these moments.

Zoe had an encounter with the cat at Jesse's parents. (If you can't tell, there is a screen door between Zoe and the cat.)



Zoe is always eager to get _anything_ into her mouth. During my mom's last visit, we decided to go ahead and try rice cereal. My mom was very excited to be the first to feed Zoe in her highchair. She was so excited that we had to repeatedly stop her from giving the first bite until we could get the camera. My mom was more excited than Zoe. =) Zoe ate her first few bites like a seasoned semi-solid food eater. After the novelty wore off, she realized that the cereal didn't really taste like what she was hoping for. We've since tried avocado several times also, but the jury is still out on that also. I think Zoe will be content to keep eating her burp cloths and Mommy's arm and fingers.



These two pictures sum it up.

The cleanup afterwards was a little more fun. Still, she was very ready to be out of the highchair.

She is going through a phase (I hope it's a phase) where she cries whenever we put her down. Actually, she has incredible intuition to sense when we are even thinking about putting her down. ;) The solution that is working for now is to include her in just about everything we do. Here she is watching her daddy shave. She loves mirror time.

Some classic bib-cape action

Oh, and in case you hadn't heard, my brother, Tim, is getting married!! Her name is Sarah. They will be getting married later in July and be moving in down the street from us. Yay!

Here are some cute pictures of Zoe with her grandma. Thanks to Laura for the awesome dress. We love it!

Zoe and Carson interacted a little more on this visit. She would watch him wherever he went. She got to pet him a little bit, too.

I've worked a lot to clear some ground for a little garden. It's been hard work, and we are now enjoying the firstfruits.

Zoe wasn't too sure about the Tigger bouncer the first few times. Now, she loves it. She can jump for half an hour at a time! This video also highlights her new laugh. She squints her eyes, smiles a toothless, gummy grin, and breathes in and out really fast. It's so funny!

Bounce, bounce, bounce

It's been a fun couple of weeks. Zoe has been enjoying hanging out with us while we play games. She wants to be right in the middle of everything. Incidentally, here we are playing Carcassonne with our two favorite expansions, "Inns & Cathedrals" and "Traders & Builders."

Zoe likes her Bumbo, but frequently gets frustrated that it blocks her from getting her feet.


Zoe continues to enjoy her baths.

Her bibs have this strange habit of always getting turned around and becoming capes. Here are some recent poses.

Zoe finally started rolling over a week and a half ago. This is a picture of her first successful rollover, along with accompanying face-plant and arm-entrapment. We weren't in the room when it happened, but we rushed in to take pictures. We are working on capturing video of her new amazing accomplishment. She rolls over all the time now (but only from her back to her tummy).

Zoe loves playing games with her daddy. Warning: This video will likely make you dizzy.

Her feet continue to be a favorite entertainment (for her and us), but they sometimes get in the way of what needs to be done (like getting dressed). :)

And for the final amusement of this post....She's been getting bored being on the ground so much, so we decided to introduce Zoe to the joys of jumping.

Update: The feet are reachable! and more exciting developments

Shortly after posting the last blog entry, Zoe showed us that she could indeed put her feet in her mouth. She can't do it on her back, but the bouncer gives her back enough of a curve up to make it quite possible.

Zoe has many expressions that we love. Even though we wish she could always be happy, she makes a certain face with a deep pout that makes us smile every time. This is the closest that we have come to capturing it on camera. The full pout actually goes much deeper. She makes this face just before bursting into tears, mainly when she's tired and not sure what is going on. This has also been known to happen when Tim or Jesse startle her or even sometimes when they make strange faces at her. :) So far it has never happened to me.



Yesterday we had some very exciting developments that helped prompt this new post. Zoe is SO close to rolling over. She's been hanging out on her side a lot for the past few weeks, but yesterday she started nearly rolling over. We've helped her along a few times since these videos, but she still hasn't done it on her own yet. We're expecting it to happen any day. (I used to think it was a little funny that parents got so excited about all of these little developments, but now that we are new parents I completely understand.)

Here is a peaceful picture to close out this post.

Visits, visits, and more to come

Apparently, we are only going to manage to post once a month or so. There are so many cute videos and pictures that I have to skip or we'll never catch up. We've been having lots of visitors lately. Here's a smattering of pictures and videos to keep you up-to-date.

We had another visit from Aunt Laura. She and Zoe had some fun time with the mirror.

They went on lots of walks together. Zoe really had a good time; she just forgot to smile for the picture. :)


Zoe also really loves her Uncle Tim. They've been spending a lot of time together being goofy.



In the last week or so, Zoe has become very interested in her feet. They moved to the top of the list of the things she would really like to get into her mouth. My mom pointed out that Zoe's torso is so long that she can barely get her toes to her mouth. So Zoe spends most of her time frustrated, being taunted by the toes just out of reach. The one time she managed to get one toe in her mouth she scrunched up her face. Definitely not what she expected! At her recent 4-month doctor visit we found out that Zoe is in the 90-95th percentile for length at her age. Wow! She is only 25th percentile for weight, but we can't imagine her legs being any chunkier. :)

She's found that she can study and observe her feet longer by holding on to her pant legs.

Zoe also loves spending time with her Grandpa Fred. They spend a lot of time talking together. Well, so far it's mostly Grandpa doing the talking and Zoe loves to listen.

Here's a picture of Mommy and Zoe. We have very few of these because I seem to be the main one taking the pictures. :(

Lots of visitors and games

It's been way too long since our last blog entry. Zoe has already passed the three month mark! We've gone through all the photos and videos and picked out a bunch that highlight what's been going on. We'll probably post again in a couple of days.

There have been so many exciting developments in the last few weeks. Zoe has been sleeping 8.5+ hours per night for almost a month now. She is an expert at finding her thumb. Her strategy is very amusing. I'll see if I can get a video of it soon.

We've been having lots of visitors lately. First...we had a visit from Aunt Laura!!! Yay! We had a fun time. Zoe even let us play a bunch of games without her. We've also had visits from both sets of grandparents, but we don't have any pictures to show for it right now. :(







Also, Jesse has been playing a new game with Zoe where he pretends to sneeze. Zoe loves it. :) Except for the one time where it made her cry. :(

She already knows when the camera is around. She always stops what she's doing. So we're working on catching her when she doesn't know it's there. In this video, I tried to have the camera off to the side, but she still noticed it. Watch her eyes keep darting to the side.

We have several other videos of Zoe on her playmat, but we'll save those for next time. We recently unpacked the playmat from our treasure trove of things that Cousin Erik left us. She's progressed from barely noticing Mr. Giraffe and Mr. Elephant hanging above her to actively trying to get Mr. Giraffe's feet in her mouth. She also loves looking at herself in the mirror. (Tummy time is still quite a struggle. She'll barely stay on her tummy for more than a minute or two without becoming very fussy.)

She's fallen asleep on the floor several times now when we leave her to play.

Thumbs and Bumbos

Well, I've been meaning to post for the past week or more. (I'm sure I'll be saying that a lot.) These pictures and videos are from two weeks ago or so.

Here are a few pictures of Zoe's room. (I'm sure Tamara will find most of the room filled with very familiar things. Thank you again!) Jesse has started playing guitar and singing to Zoe, so for now this is its new home.
We also really like the Winnie the Pooh border that Jesse's dad put up for us.


We had a big snowstorm a few weeks ago, though we missed the much bigger one while we were in Chicago. Our pool is somewhere under there. We are so happy we got the pool cover on this season.

Zoe's big thing was getting her thumb in her mouth. She's much better at it now, especially when she's just falling asleep or just waking up.

And some cute Zoe pictures to close this post...This was her first time sitting in the Bumbo. It didn't go very well (plenty of spitup), but we got a few cute pictures.

New and exciting developments

In the past week, Zoe has had many exciting milestones. She began to go six hours between feedings at night, which means Mommy gets more sleep. Yay!!!! She also has continued to work very hard at getting her fist in her mouth. Here is her first video debut. Not too exciting, but it highlights many of her abilities so far: flailing arms, hiccups, and yawning. :) You can also get a peek at her new bathtub in the background. This was a week and a half ago. Hopefully, I can get a more current video up soon. She's already grown up a lot! (Sorry for the graininess of the video. It lets me upload a max of 100MB . The video was 112MB, so I tried a different format. Now it's around 20MB. Let me know if you have tips for doing it some other way. I'm fairly new to all of this.)



She is working on other things right now like...

Zoning out

More zoning out















Laughing at Uncle Tim's funny faces

Lots of practice smiling and being generally cuteFor her final amazing achievement this week, Zoe finally found her thumb! She had been crying in her crib and unexpectedly quieted down. When I went to check on her, this was what I found.


She's been trying to repeat the feat since then, but hasn't had much success. She is more determined than ever.