Zoe's first Halloween!

Sure, barista might not be a typical first halloween costume, but it was a Pinterest find and I thought it was oh-so-cute.  Plus, in a few years she's going to want to pick her own costume, so we should be able to have some fun before then, right?

We went to a friend's house on Saturday night for a baby-filled Halloween Party and I am proud to say she was the only barista there.  :)  There were SO many babies (all adorable) and we had a great time.  It was a good reminder of how much our lives have changed in the past 9 months!  Before we went to the party we stopped by Starbucks to show off the cutest costume in the world and we got the exact response I was looking for from the three female baristas: "Oh my goodness, she's so cute!  Can I take her picture?!".  She was a hit.  She also wore her costume to Lindbergh High School and was a hit there, too.

Loves standing, we'll be fine waiting a while
until she can pull herself up on the crib, though...

She's been changing so much, per the usual, and the biggest change the last few weeks is that's she's scooting on her belly!  It's not quite an army crawl, but pretty close.  She started with laying on her side and it looked like she was doing the side-stroke without being in the pool.  We think her favorite position is still rolled up on one side, looking around.  The most enticing things to put in front of her are a phone (loves that screen) and a pile of blocks.  Baba taught her to "kaboom!" the blocks by knocking them over when they're stacked.  She loves it and completely understands what "kaboom!" means.  Chris has fun setting them up around the carpet for her to knock them over one tower after another.

Happy morning baby!

I decided to do "sensory Sunday!" and get her touching some fun stuff, so I set up a glass dish filled with oats and put in a few blocks for her to discover.  Well, I should have known that she would go STRAIGHT for the blocks and completely ignore the oatmeal, but I didn't, so I ended up taking out the blocks so she would focus on the oatmeal.  She was pretty tentative at first and I thought, "well, this is a bust", until I sat her IN the glass dish IN the oats and started cascading the oats all around her.  She eventually got her hands into it and was pretty well entertained for about 20 minutes.  It was fun, and now we have oats that are for play only.  :)

Going straight for the blocks.

What IS this stuff?

The "not for your mouth" experiment didn't work too well...

One more chance with the blocks.

She is rolling like a fiend, HATES to have her nose wiped (as we're really discovering now after she was sick for about three weeks, got better completely for about two days, and now has a cold again), and is blowing raspberries like a champ.

A delightful combo of avocado and pureed carrots.

She has been eating like a champ, too, and eats a full jar of baby food twice a day.  Green beans are definitely her favorite, with peas being a close second.  Weird child.  She canNOT eat anything more solid than a puree.  She'll gag and then throw up everything she's got in her stomach.  It's weird.  She can suck on Mum Mums just fine, but ANY solid anything results in the gagging.  Even a few grains of rice.  She tried some avocado the other day, but even that resulted in a lot of gagging.  She has a nine month check up tomorrow, so it'll be a good conversation to have with the doctor about her progress there.

No, she's not even eating Nutella.

"You know I'm going to gag on this, right?"

Nine months!

Whelp.  The show must go on...despite being robbed today, we got a picture (it's blurry) for Zoe's (and, don't ask me how irritated I am right now because I can't figure out how to type an umlaut on this keyboard that is not MINE because it was stolen) 9 month birthday.

So over it.

Look, I'm standing!  :)

I came home today and walked into our bedroom to find it completely trashed.  Dresser drawers opened, mattress askew, clothes pulled out of the closets.  Ugh.  A policeman came, my parents and Chris' mom came, and we pieced the house back together including boarding up the back door that the burglars had splintered to break in.  We've determined that they took the laptop, ipad, playstation, cameras, video camera, and my Theta badge so far.  Which means all of the pictures and video are gone.  Gone are the pictures from the last few months (I had just dumped them off my phone not two weeks ago) because I hadn't backed up the computer since early (I think) summer.  Gone are the pictures from pumpkin picking, summer time, each monthly picture, and all of the daily pics from my phone.  Gone are the videos of me holding Zoe for the first time, the videos of her coming home, the videos of her Teta holding her for the first time.  And gone is the slideshow that I had begun to piece together of a picture a day for her whole first year.  I was going to show it at her first birthday party, with the date in the lower right hand corner of each picture.  That's what got me.

I keep telling myself that because of my obsessive posting on Facebook I've still got tons of pictures.  Because I backed the computer up in early summer I've still got all of our wedding pictures and pictures from our early dating years.  Hopefully.  I'm too tired to check it now and too worried that I didn't back them up correctly.

BUT, we're safe, there's not any serious damage to the house (except for the door), and we are all home together to eat cookies and drink beer while Zoe slumbers in her crib (until about 1 or 2 am, since that's her MO lately).  Fiona and Joe are fine and all we're out are a whole bunch of electronics (and pictures).

Thanks to all of our friends who have inquired to make sure we're ok and offered help.  We so appreciate it and are once again reminded how very lucky we are to have all of you in our lives.

More on Zoe later this week, but I just HAD to make sure we posted her nine month picture today.  :)

Baby's First Pumpkin Patch

At the Thomasson Family Farm for Pumpkin Picking

Still no teeth, but now we've got a nasty cold.  :/  She'd been doing a better job of sleeping through the night this week until she caught a cold and has been terribly congested.  Like, wake up in the morning with crusted boogers ALL over her face.  Chris was the hero last night and slept upright with her in the chair in her room for several hours so she could sleep.

She has become a rolling machine and showed off last night for Drew by rolling over and over again in a clockwise circle around her blanket and toys.  She's even started to move like she's dancing when there is fun music on doing the baby bob up and down with her hands in the air.  Last night she finally figured out how to splash in the bathtub and made a gigantic happy mess.  Chris and I enjoyed every moment of watching her send *most* of the water in her bathtub onto the counters and floor.  I guess we're going to be moving to the real tub now which both makes me sad and terrifies me.

I want that stem!

This guy!

Happy Baba and Dedo

I attended the Just Between Friends sale in Renton yesterday and came home with several fun toys in addition to the play kitchen and grill passed on to us by the Thompson family and am feeling pretty set for Christmas and her birthday.  I wanted to get the shopping done early so I can focus on the decorating (Christmas) and party planning (birthday!) and also just enjoy the holidays and time off with her.  We'll be working on getting the playroom done before her birthday, too, so we have a place to put all of these toys.  :)

I'm this tall this fall (24", 15 pounds 5.5 ounces on Friday after getting measured by our home visiting nurse).