Flower girl

Zoe was a flower girl in my friend Monica's wedding last weekend in Culpeper, Virginia. Monica and I studied in France together during college and have been great friends ever since. We were so honored to be a part of her wedding!

 the Vandy girls at the rehearsal dinner

daddy-daughter dance!

the beautiful bride!

Easter 2012

Yep, that's it....those are all you get b/c I only took 2 pictures on actual Easter Sunday....Mommy fail, I know!  And I didn't even get a closeup of Zoe's precious bubble dress, oh well.  I'm gonna blame the rain we had at the lake that ruined our easter egg hunt hopes.  But we did make it to church, and Zoe seemed to survive the church nursery so that was a plus.

15 months

So I'm a little behind on this one, but I wanted to record Z's stats before I lose them forever.  At 15 months Z is: 23 lbs and 11 oz (60th %), 30.5 inches (50%) and 46.8 cm head (75%).  So not much new in that regard, but oh my lord, ever since the tube surgery, she is like an entirely new kid!!!  So much happier and generally all around in a better permanent mood.  And her vocab has taken off like crazy...I guess it really helps to not have your ears all plugged up with fluid!  She can say: bubbles, dog, Daddy, Mommy, cracker (or crackie I should say), baby, ball, hi, bye bye, night night, no no (she especially likes to say "no no" to Maggie when she's trying to steal her food).  She can point to all her facial figures, loves grabbing her toes and finding her shoes.  She is obsessed with this Your baby can read video we have and will dance along with the songs.  And as you can see, she loves putting on her tutu at appropriate times like before bed and when we're getting ready to go to school.....love this kid!

Easter egg hunt preview

So our friends Roxanne and Bob Wood invited us to their house for an early Easter egg hunt. It was so fun...they had a little petting zoo which Zoe was a big fan of, and then after that, they had a hunt for all the kids. We didn't know if Zoe would get the concept, but she totally did! I was very proud :)

all smiles when she saw the duck so she could show off her "quack quack" that she knows
ewww, goat, don't kiss me!

Big smile

family shot....yay!

i think i like these big ones the best!

get out, there's candy in these things!!

Tube Surgery

So yeah, we caved and finally got tube surgery for baby girl's ears. After we finished that last round of 10 day antibiotics, Zoe got worse and we took her back to the doctor. We got referred to Dr. Burkett, a pediatric ear/nose/throat guy, who confirmed that Z did in fact have tons of fluid in her ears that if we didn't get out could lead to hearing loss, so that was about all we needed to hear to decide to opt for the surgery. And it was about time, I think we had pumped just about all the antibiotics into the poor thing that we could.

We had the surgery at Cook's on Thursday. It was probably one of the saddest days ever, but it also made us feel incredibly fortunate to know that Zoe was otherwise completely healthy. We both knew that the surgery was totally simple and she would be completely fine, but it was still very emotional and scary waiting for her to go under anesthesia and wondering what if. Luckily we got to see all the other families in the waiting room that went in before us so we got to see what to expect. They put a little nose spray in her that made her all groggy, then they wheeled her off (at which point I completely lost it) and 15 minutes later we were talking to the doctor and hearing that all went well.

We got home and Zoe slept for an hour on my chest....best mommy moment ever! When she woke up, she was pretty much back to normal and off to play with her toys. We haven't looked back since....so far so good and she seems completely healed. We go back in this week for post-op but hopefully all will stay good and we'll be in the clear from here on out.

Hiking at Grapevine Lake

We took Zoe hiking for the first time. Went to this park on Grapevine Lake that had a great trail. Did about an hour hike and then had a little picnic afterwards. So fun...and I think Zoe really enjoyed it!