Halloween

I thought since Zoe was quiet for a few minutes that I better throw some pictures of Halloween up here.

Zoe was a Crayon for Halloween.

My mom made the costume for us.

The back of her costume.

Ben and I were the paper that she colored on. That is why there is pink ribbon taped to our shirts.

Surprisingly, she loooved the little hat. If we took it off she would grab it and try to put it back on. I think she made a pretty cute crayon.

It's a......Baby!

I had my ultrasound done this morning. I'm glad to announce that we are having another little girl. Zoe and this little girl will be such good friends. How fun!

TMI

I am going to copy my friend Erika and do a TMI (to much information) post on my blog today. So if you have a week stomach or have no desire to hear about the gross aspects of my life right now, please feel free to stop reading.

1. I am sick and tired of getting up in the morning and the first thing I do is throw up. It's getting real old. And there is not a whole lot I can do to help it. Eating crackers first thing? I just throw them up too. It's more pleasant if it's only water coming up. (By pleasant I mean less disgusting.)

2. It is not fun to have to get up several times in the night to use the bathroom. The sad part is that if I get up past 5:30 it usually wakes up Zoe. Sad, I know. Actually I take that back, she's getting better at not waking up if she hears the toilet or me wandering around.

3. Zoe was teething 4 molars at once. Which took about 3 1/2 weeks and made her diapers so totally disgusting. Yuck!

4. Speaking of nasty diapers, I am grateful that changing a poopy diaper has not made me throw up this week. It has happened several times in the last few weeks and I am so glad that either I am feeling better, or Zoe's diapers are not as disgusting as they were.

5. My word of the day seems to be "disgusting".

Well there is my TMI post. Sorry to you poor souls that actually decided to read it.

I did warn you!!

And here is my random cute picture of Zoe.

Because I decided that you needed to see something cute to make up for all the disgusting-ness.

Teething

Zoe only has 6 teeth. Since she is 16 months, she should have probably have about 8. But the last 2 1/2 -3 weeks Zoe has been teething. Drooling, incredibly grumpy, waking in the night, a slight fever every now and then, Teething stuff. I have been looking and checking and no teeth. I could not figure out where she was getting them in. According to the chart of how things are "supposed" to happen she should be getting the lateral incisor teeth on the bottom. (see following diagram)

I don't think Zoe feels the need to do things the way she is "supposed" to. This evening Ben was playing with and hanging her upside down (safely of course) and he saw what he thought was food in her mouth. After more hanging upside down and laughing he discovered that she is actually getting one of her molars in. Surprise! According to my beautiful chart that I found she is within the "normal" time frame of getting a molar. It was just surprising because everything says that you get your other teeth before you actually start getting your molars. So I wasn't even thinking that she would be getting her molars yet. No wonder it has been an incredibly grumpy 2 1/2 weeks. Poor little girl!

walking

In the last few weeks Zoe has finally decided that she wants to use walking as her primary mode of transportation. She will still crawl if she wants to get somewhere quickly, but she is trying to walk more. She is so pleased with her self.

Her walking has been described as:

a drunken lady

a monkey

and a drunk monkey

All in all it's pretty cute.

L. Ron Hubbard's Awards Dinner

Annie's brother Josh recently won the L. Ron Hubbard Illustators of the Future Contest. He was flown out to LA and we got to drive up and see him. Here are a few of the picures from the night.

It was at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in the same room that they held the first Oscar awards in 1920 something.

This is Josh and Jordan. Josh illustrated the picture for Jordan's story. They were quarterly winners.

This is Josh mingling before the awards ceremony. I think he was too nervous to sit down.

This is Josh actually receiving the award. The guy that presented him with the award is the special effects person that sank the Titanic and did something with the USS Enterprise on Star Trek. He seemed pretty cool, we got to visit with him before dinner.

This is Josh giving his awards speech.

This is Josh much happier after he was done with his award speech.

This the book that the stories and illustrations are published in. Annie and I got free copies.

It was a really fun evening, but a long drive home. It would have been nice to just stay at the hotel that night, but we couldn't spare the $360 for a room.

Click on the illustration for his website.

Baby's First Picture

I keep forgetting that we even have a blog, but Annie said that I should put these pictures up. We went to the doctor and got the first ultrasound today. Here are the pictures. The due date is March 21st. Annie is still feeling sick most of the day, but everyone says that it means the baby is healthy. I think we are going to have a REALLY healthy baby.

4th of July

So I thought I should put a post of what we did on the 4th of July. But...sadly...we forgot our camera the whole entire day!!! So this post will only be words.

In the morning we went to the beach. It was such a pretty day, nice blue skies, beautiful ocean, but the water was a little chilly. At first Zoe didn't like the sand. She wouldn't touch it and she had to be held. After a while Ben made a sand castle and took Zoe over and helped her destroy it. After that she liked playing in the sand. She especially liked the bucket of water we brought over for her to splash in. So much fun. None of us really spent a lot of time in the water, but it was fun to just hang out and watch Zoe play in the sand. And luckily she only tried to eat the sand once.

After the beach we went to Ben's parents house and had a barbeque. Zoe loves to follow her cousins around. She wants to play with the big kids.

For fireworks we went to another beach, and from that point we could see 3 different fireworks displays. One was really far away and one was kind of behind us. But the best one was the one right in front of us that was set off from the barge on the ocean. It was really cool. The only thing that we missed was the music that went with the fireworks. Poor Zoe was so tired by the time the fireworks went off, but I think she enjoyed them for a little while.

That was our 4th of July. It was a lot of fun, and we will have to go to the beach again and get some pictures and pretend like it was from the 4th.

Vacation-2

While we were in Idaho we got to see my Grandpa. I haven't seen him for awhile so it was nice to be able to visit with him.

We were able to get a 4th generation picture with him. It's kinda cool because we have been able to get a 4th generation picture from both sides of my family now.

While in Idaho everyone burst into spontaneous song. I was the picture taker. Zoe looks confused.

We also had a great big family dinner with all my aunts and cousins. I think this is one of the only pictures of the dinner we have. But look! I'm in it!

And here is our token cute picture of Zoe. She looks so grown up, or something.

Our trip was a ton of fun and I can't wait till we can go back.

Vacation

In June we visited my parents in Idaho. One of the days we were there we went for a drive and had a picnic.

Zoe hanging out. She was spoiled on our trip and got her pacifier alot.

Me just haning out.

On our drive we went to see some Beaver dams. It was really cool to see the all the trees chewed up and made into dams.

This picture is a little blurry...but...there is a beaver pushing a leafy branch through the water. It's in the middle-ish. I have never seen a beaver before and it was cool to see one swimming around.

This is a cave that Ben really wanted to go in. But he chose not to since he did not have a flash light.

Zoe eating at our picnic. Yummy!

Zoe playing with Daddy's hat while gnawing on a chunk of jerky.

It was so pretty up there in the mountains in Idaho. Man I miss it.

Graduation

In may Ben graduated with his Masters. Yay! We are so excited. No more school, No more homework, No more Un-paid internships, and No more late nights driving home from Long Beach (for Ben, not me).

There was no place for me take pictures of Ben while he was walking to get his diplomna and what not and so these are the only good pictures we have of Graduation. There were crazy people walking around yelling at me (and at everyone) for standing in the aisles trying to take pictures, O well. He still graduated.

Ben's Wild Ride--Finally

I have finally gotten around to updating our blog. This is a video Ben took while we were camping, a looong time ago. Ben's little brother was pulling the nieces and nephews around in our plastic wagon. And Ben thought it would be a good idea to ride the wagon down the hill that we were camping on. About half way down he realized that wagons do not have breaks.

Needless to say, I am incredibly greatful he didn't break his neck.

Camping

We went camping over Memorial Day weekend. It was Zoe's first camping experience. 

Zoe's choices were to be in the dirt, be held or play in her Pack N Play. She didn't like the dirt, she didn't want to be held, and so she spent a good amount of time in her Pack N Play. She was surprisingly content in there.

She didn't get enough sleep camping. Poor sleepy girl.

We went on a little hike to some falls. It was beautiful. 

If your wondering I am holding a pacifier that was thrown in the dirt. Yuck.

Zoe going to the falls. Her daddy was crazy taking her over rocks and off the side of mountains. What's funny is that she went to sleep on the way back to the car. A little off roading does wonders.

When I get more pictures of Ben at the falls I will post them. Right now these are the best pictures we have of camping.

 Future Attractions

Ben's wild ride

The party

Here are a few pictures from Zoe's party, and yes they are all of her. 

Just playing around.

Yummy!

Going into a sugar coma.

Time for presents!

Making the cake

Thanks every one for helping me decide which cake to do for Zoe's birthday. Due to popular demand, and the fact that Ben wanted it, I decided to make the fish.

First we made the cakes. We made two round cakes and two circles. Thank goodness for cake mixes. I just made yellow cakes due to the fact that I didn't think Zoe needed a whole lot of chocolate along with all the sugar she would be eating.

Then I decorated the two round cakes. I tried to make them look like they had waves on them. I think I did a pretty good job.
Me plopping the first half circle on my waves. The "directions" said to frost first then put on the base, but if I were to do this again I would skip this step. My round cakes had enough frosting that I really didn't need extra between them. 
I have discovered that I do not have the patience to decorate a cake. Don't get me wrong, it was fun and I will probably do it again. But I do not have the patience to make it look nice and uniform. Especially since it was so hot, my icing kept melting and I didn't want to take the time to put it in the fridge to re-harden. (is that a word?) 

I made the fins and tail out of orange-ish tag board. I cut two pieces out and glued them together with tooth picks between the two pieces. That made them very easy to stick to the cake. That was Ben's idea. Isn't he so smart?
And here is the finished product. A lovely yellow blow fish. I made the eyes out of marshmellows with chocolate chips jammed on. Then squish on some swedish fish, throw on some brown sugar and Voila!! Zoe's birthday cake.
Here I am jamming a candle into it's head. Poor fish.

And one last look at my great accomplishment.

I applaud anyone who decorates cakes and decorates them well. You must have a ton more patience than I do.  Kudos to you!