Weather

Today there were some pretty awesome clouds associated with the flood warning in the mountains. Thought I'd share the picture.

No way!

No way it has been seven months since I last posted! My sister laughed and said, "Still potty training?!" Well, actually, yes! I took off a few months to give Zoe a little bit longer to "grow up," and have started it again just recently.

A little over two years old now, Zoe is talking in complete sentences, responding well to commands, and growing so big! We are weaning her off of her "passis" (i.e., pacifier), and she is doing alright with potty training. We enrolled her in the library reading program two weeks before it finished, so we read three more books than we would have, and she received two prizes (a toy train and a new Scholastic book). She was pretty excited to go with her cousin to do that. Next year, I'll sign her up at the beginning of the summer. She's becoming familiar with her ABC's and can count to ten forwards and backwards quite well. She likes watching PBS in the mornings and loves finding movies in our room and opening them up to show me the disc inside. She is such an adorable little girl and our lives are so blessed to have her in them!

We have been living with David's mom and stepdad since the end of March while we waited for our tenants to move out of our duplex, and we have been spending three months cleaning it up and getting ready to move back in. We should be ready to move by the end of next week. Having all three of us living together in one room has given me a new perspective on just how little we need to get by and survive (rather happily, I add!), so I plan to go through our stuff and have a garage sale so that I can start out fresh in our "new" place and not worry about all the time and effort it takes to keep things cleaned and organized. Like Ecclesiastes says, what good are things we accumulate except to look at them? (Okay, that was a paraphrase. lol)

So I hope to post more often and keep this updated a little more often than every seven months. lol! See y'all later!

Potty Training

So it is now Day Two of our big adventure (for the first time around?)... potty training our nearly 21 month old daughter! Such fun! Okay, to be honest... it's a little discouraging, but everything I read says not to give up and to keep a sense of humor. She has only gone once in the "big girl toilet" in two days, so when I'm mopping up yet another mess in the kitchen tile or on the living room carpet, I remember that if I keep at it and keep reminding her to "go in the toilet," she will eventually catch on and be a big girl. :) She is so excited about those M&M's sitting in the red plastic heart on the sink... maybe that will be the motivation she needs to go. More posts to come...

July Update

Wow - April, huh? My last post was about three months ago. How time flies! Summer is in full swing here, even though the last couple of days have been rainy and cooler than normal. We picked four huge bowls of apricots off our tree on Sunday, and spent about an hour washing and cutting and freezing them. Now I have 14 Ziplocs of frozen apricots in my freezer, and I must figure out what to do with them. I can't plan to eat them too fast over the winter, because I already found out that too many at one time makes the eyes turn yellowish-orange. LOL! Apricot recipes, here I come!

Zoe is growing so fast.. she will be 15 months old on August 1, and will have her 15 month check up on Tuesday. We'll find out how much she weighs and how tall she is at that appointment. It's always fun for me to find out how much she's growing. She has consistently stayed in the 10th percentile for weight and 25th percentile for height, so I'm not expecting this check up to be much different. LOL. Because her pediatrician is completely booked for the next three weeks, and has 100 people on his waitlist (that's literally what the lady told me!), I scheduled her for another doctor. She has been to this other office once before, when she had a reaction to the antibiotics she was on for what turned out to be a non-existent ear infection. The nice doctor at this other office told me to take her off the antibiotic, and her rash went away right away! (Wow, that was a mouthful - "went away right away!") Anyways, Zoe has been walking for 5 months now, she has 9 teeth including some of her molars, she signs "please," "more," and "thank you," and she has a vocabulary of "daddy," "mama," "doggy" (everything is a doggy right now!), "please," and basic gibberish. She is starting to mimic more of what we say, and it won't be long now before we start having conversations. :) She is learning what it means when Mama says "no" to certain things around the house... and she is just a bundle of fun at all times! We are so blessed to have her in our lives!

What blessings God pours out upon His children, and we are so grateful for each new day to spend learning about Him and His purpose for our lives. What an honor to bring Him glory in all we do. May this day find you and yours rejoicing in His constant and faithful love to you, and may all the blessings of God be upon you!

Zoe :)

Two more weeks and she'll be one year old! :)

Playtime!

Here is Zoe, being just as cute as a button, falling into and tearing down the blanket covering her playpen. Okay, I know she's technically supposed to be taking a nap, but once she discovered she could do this....... well, bye-bye nap time! :) lol

Short version:



Long version:

Zoe is a Walker! :)

Big day! Zoe took her first "official" steps!!!!! Yay! She is growing so fast, even as she gets over croup and RSV. She's 10 months old, and just as cute as can be! LOL