Hanging Out & Havin Fun

Pop-pop Jim's grandson and our friend, Brayten, came over and hung out with us last night (Saturday) while his mom & dad went to a grown-up function. Zoie and he had a lot of fun together and had us cracking up!

Can you say cheese?!



Zoie: "Can you hear the words comin outta my mouth?!" Brayten: "Woman, what you want now?!"

Pears & Tumbling Along!

Juicy, fall pears - one of Zoie's favorite snacks, except for the peel. Notice how she eats it down, like a slice of watermelon to the rind!




I enrolled Zoie in a "Tiny Tumbler" class at our local YMCA and she LOVES it! They do some little stretching exercises first (she's so darn flexible!) and then get into jumping, somersaults, balance beam and by then, a group of ten 2 year olds are pretty much done! Here are some pics from her workout one evening...Jane Fonda, eat your heart out!

Lil Santa

Trying to get Zoie more familiar with who Santa is, we started talking to Zoie about him and how he has a big belly. To illustrate the point, Grandma made Zoie into a "little Santa" using her pillow. She walked around with her face scrunched up going "HO! HO! HO!" in her little deep voice...

Doctor & Dentist Visits

Last week, Zoie had her 2-1/2 year old (yes, she's that age already!) check-up. A couple of days prior to going, we did a lot of pretending that she was "Dr. Zoie" and she would check Grandma's heart and mine...we had to take a LOT of deep breaths! She even got to play with Grandma's real stethoscope and heard her own heartbeat finally...before this time, she was too afraid to put the earpieces in her ears for very long. All this play must have paid off - or else she really is just growing up...*sniff, sniff*...because she did GREAT at the Doctor's office; no crying at all! She also got her flu shot and made quite the face when the needle went in but still didn't cry...she did say, "It hurt!" She is very healthy and doing great on all fronts! Her stats this visit:

Heighth: 38-3/4" (97+ percentile; almost a 3 inch gain in 6 months!)
Weight: just about 31 lbs (75th percentile)

This last Monday, we completed our round of yearly maintenance by hitting the dentist! They have nice flat screen tvs in all the rooms so once they got her focused on Scooby Doo, she could have cared less who was prodding around her mouth! She wasn't too keen on that darn suction thing though and I don't blame her! She did like 'riding' in the chair that went up & down and back & forth as they adjusted it as well as the 'diva' sunglasses they let her wear while laying back in the chair! All I had was my phone camera, but it gives you the idea! After a glowing report from the dentist, she got to pick out some toys and was sent on her way with a little goody bag full of toothpaste, toothbrush, stickers & toys...she said, "Bye, Doctor!!"

Squirrels, Cats & String Beans

Granny D has a couple of little stuffed squirrels that she uses as part of a fall display decoration in the house and Zoie got the opportunity to play with them a little bit...and, of course, added her own personality to the experience!






On this day, the cats had been up and crazy all night long so they were sleeping the day away and re-fueling for another night full of antics! I hadn't posted pics of the kitties for a while so I felt they warranted some blog time:






Because the Nebraska VS KU game was pay-per-view, we opted to go to Barnes & Noble and meet Connor & Vonda and watch the String Beans instead! The kids were a little subdued compared to other times they've seen the Beans, but came to life when they figured out afterwards that they could run around the store...gotta love 2 yr olds!!

The Big D - Pt 2

As part of my job is to provide support during elections as requested, since I was part of the team who was in Texas in October, I also had to go back for the big General Election on November 4th. I was one of the very lucky ones who traveled to a place that had a very smooth election! No problems, no crazy stories to relate, just smooth sailing! The day I got in, I went over to Amber & Lance's house and got to see their kids...hadn't seen Miss A since she was a little over 6 months and had never seen the twins! All 3 are just as adorable as can be! I really hated that Zoie wasn't there as I knew she would have had a BLAST with them all! Amber & then got together with Sophie & Sloan at our favorite place - PF Chang's!

I had previously arranged to take another couple of days off and stay in Texas to visit more friends, so after the election wrapped up, I headed to McKinney and got to meet Frank, Deb, Rachel and Brad for dinner then went over to Frank & Debs for after dinner drinks. We got silly and had some great laughs!




Frank & Deb were very gracious to let me stay at their house while I was there....the next day, I met Frank, Sonya, & Jarret for lunch then did some shopping. I hit the Ikea store and Sam Moon - oh yeah! That evening Sonya & I had dinner but I didn't get a picture. After dinner with Sonya, I stopped at Rachel's to say "see ya!" to her and to see her kids - they all used to be Indie's babysitter when I lived there. It's when you see kids that you realize how long it's been since you've seen people - they've grown and matured so much!


I hadn't seen all these friends for 2 years but it didn't seem like it had been that long at all - a sign of true friendship! It made me miss being there and working with them!

Trick-or-Treat, Pancakes & Haircuts

Last night was All Hallows Eve...or Halloween to most of us. If you ask me what Zoie's costume was, I'm not really sure...kind of a combination of a princess, ballerina and fairy. The costume ended up in our hands last Halloween as a gift from Wendy for Zoie to use as dress-up and we never got around to using it so there ya go - this year's costume! We stopped at a couple of neighbors (including Pop-pop's) and then met up with Wendy, Porkchop and Marty (the Husker Linebacker) at the local mall (which was CRAZY and we'll probably by-pass that next year) for a little while then came back to our neighborhood and visited a few more houses around here. Zoie got quite a scare at one house...the man hadn't heard her knock on the door and came around the corner with a scary monster mask on - she flew off their porch into my arms! The man felt SO bad but when Zoie realized that it was just a mask, she was ok.

Here is the little diva dressed in her costume, or gown, as Zoie called it...




Here are a couple of trick-or-treat photos at the mall and around the neighborhood...






And, of course, once we got home we had to check out all the loot and Zoie enjoyed the fruits (or chocolates) of her labor!




This morning after a hard night of candy-gathering, I decided we should have pancakes for breakfast...and I had an excellent chef's assistant. These were some of the best pancakes I think I've ever had!


Our next big thing for today was....Zoie's 1st Haircut (kind of)!! I had cut her hair a couple times at home but today we officially went to a beauty shop and Zoie sat up in the big stylist chair and got her haircut! She was chatting away with Bettie, the beautician, and Amelia, another customer who was under the dryer. It was very sweet...