I'll Be Right Over

This morning, my cell phone alarm went off at 7 AM and I immediately sent my my a text. I asked if Zoey was up, and if so, had she eaten? I said that I would gladly come over and feed her. I was told that she was just waking up and that it might be best for me to come over, as she didn't take the bottle very well last night. I couldn't put the phone down fast enough! I threw on some clothes, wiped the sleep from my eyes, told Michael I'd be back, and raced out the door! 

When I arrived, Zoey was wide awake and playing happily. She was all in one piece, with a sleepy smile on her face, and I could breath again. After nursing, she fell back asleep and I headed back to the hotel. On the way, I picked up some McDonald's (no free continental brekkie at the Hilton!) and then hopped right back into bed next to my hubby, who hadn't moved a muscle.

After waking up for the second time (hooray for sleep!!), we packed up our things and bid adieu to our comfy accommodations. When we arrived at my mom's, this is what we found...

Sleeping Beauty, in a new outfit from Granny!

The room was quiet, except for the Adele coming from the iPhone in my mom's sweatshirt pocket :) We tiptoed in and both enjoyed a cup of hot cocoa as we watched her sleep. When she woke up, Zoey seemed a bit confused, but eventually lit up as she realized her mommy and daddy were back.

When I went to load her things into the car, I dropped her poor Sophie, right onto the bug covered grill! (car hasn't been washed since the Montana road trip...my bad...)

So glad to have our girl back!! 

Some pictures from last night:

Dinner at Sarajevo Lounge. Yum!

Michael had the Cevapi, which came highly recommended from restaurant reviewers.

It's Bosnian beef and lamb sausages on a yummy fry bread.

My Chicken Sish Kebab with Sarajevo Potatoes (french fries with a salty, tangy seasoning) and salad. 

We also shared an appetizer of Gyro Sliders. So, so good!

When I told my mom that I had planned for us to ride the Great Wheel after dinner, she asked if that could be her anniversary gift to us. She gave us that and two Starbucks gift cards! :)

The Seattle Great Wheel!!

Standing 175 feet tall, it's the largest "observation wheel" on the west coast.

It was lit up in WSU Cougars colors because they were playing that night.

This is when I started to get a little nervous. I was actually going to get into one of those gondolas!

The workers accommodated anyone who asked to have their picture taken (which was everyone)! I guess that shouldn't have surprised me, but it did.

The wheel extends nearly 40 feet beyond the pier!

A little blurry, but you can see the stadiums off to the left and a ferry coming in.

One last shot of it on the way back to the car.

Our fancy desserts! Haha

We stopped at the QFC next to the hotel and each picked out what we wanted.

By the looks of it (two bottles of wine), you'd have thought we were about to par-tay!...

Not at all. 

We were two lame, pitifully exhausted parents who just wanted to eat their sweets and go to bed! And the wine made for a great sleep aid; one minute we were sipping in bed, recounting the nights events, and the next thing we knew, it was 7 AM and our cell phone alarms were going off! 

Maybe the party animals in us will reemerge in time for our four year celebration? :)

A Night Away

When I woke up this morning, I was filled with a mixture of excitement and nerves. I was excited because Michael and I were going to be celebrating our 3 year wedding anniversary with a night out in downtown Seattle. I was nervous because we were going to be leaving Zoey to spend the night at my mom's. Our morning got off to a really slow start and I was definitely putting off getting ready; the sooner we got ready, the sooner we left; and the sooner we left, the sooner we dropped off Zoey...

She had no idea that her momma was a nervous wreck!

She always has a way of making me smile...

All of those awesome toys and she's sitting there sucking on her toes!

That's better.

She's reaching for her new Vtech Move & Crawl Ball. So far, it's pretty awesome. 

We'll see if it helps inspire her to start crawling (it moves on it's own so she can go after it).

Once we had the hotel picked out for the night, I started to feel a little bit better. We chose the Hilton Garden Inn in Bothell. We were only going to be about 10 minutes, maybe less, from my mom's house. So, if I needed to feed Zoey because she wasn't taking a bottle, or if I had a major breakdown and needed to see her right away, it wouldn't be a problem!

When we finally got to my mom's (we were running late, as usual), I fed Zoey while simultaneously giving my mom verbal instructions on how to care for her. You'd think I would have written pages and pages of notes before leaving her in someone else's care, but, I don't know why, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't really think straight, to be quite honest. If I sat and thought about all of the little things I do for her each night and tried to get all of my personal thoughts and preferences down on paper, I knew I was going to lose it. Instead, I took the approach of telling my mom the important things and not really giving myself too much time to dwell on it. I knew she was going to be in good hands, and I kept reminding myself that that was all that really mattered. 

After briefly explaining Zoey's bedtime routine and what to try if she woke up in the night (the thought of which made me want to start bawling), Michael and I kissed our angel goodbye and headed downtown. I had made dinner reservations at a Bosnian restaurant called Sarajevo Lounge. We had been wanting to try it and even though it wasn't the fanciest place, I knew it was something that Michael would actually appreciate. After dinner, the plan was to ride the Great Seattle Wheel and then head to the hotel for some dessert and wine (and a much needed night of uninterrupted sleep!). 

I really only set myself one goal for the evening: Relax and have fun! I knew it was silly to tell myself not to think about Zoey or to try not to talk about her. She is my world, but Michael and I deserve each other's attention, too :)

New Breaks

I had to be at Tiny's Tire Factory in Sumner, at 10 AM this morning to get my rear brakes replaced. I had taken my car into Les Schwab and they recommended that I get all of my brakes replaced, and happily printed out an estimate for almost a thousand dollars! The next day, I took my car to Tiny's and they told me I still have 20% left on my front break pads (man, Les Schwab must take me for a sucker!) and that my rear breaks did need to be replaced, as one of them was actually grinding metal to metal! (So thaaats what that noise was?! Oops!). 

So, at nearly $400 less than what LS quoted me, I was getting new rear breaks. I'm going to ride out that 20% on the fronts, until we save up enough to replace them too. (Sooo many things to save for! Being an adult is no fun sometimes!)

They needed to keep my car for about 3.5 hours and I was relieved once I realized that Fred Meyer was within walking distance of the shop. I am a notoriously slow shopper, so I knew I wouldn't have any problem killing the time! 

Rarely is Zoey up, dressed and heading somewhere in her car seat by 10. 

She was still pretty sleepy (as was I).

The ten minute walk to Fred Meyer was actually really nice, and by the time we got there, Zoey was ready to help me shop! I decided to try my luck in the dress section first. Hey, for all I knew, I could have gotten lucky and found something totally unexpected and great! I didn't...but I could have.

Apparently, she was in the market for a new blouse!

I didn't even think about how Zoey's grabby hands would be able to reach things as we went down crowded aisles  One minute I'd be pushing to stroller just fine, and the next minute I'd feel some resistance, as my strong girl had something in her grip!

After spending a good 40 minutes in the dress section (I also nursed Zoey in the dressing room. Shoot, it was early and no one was around!), close to an hour and a half in the infant clothing section, about 30 minutes in the toy section and another 20 minutes ordering and eating a turkey wrap from the deli, it was time to head back to the shop.

Spotted this gem while walking through the Halloween section on our way out! 

Costume/Adult Footy Pajamas, complete with bunny ears on the hood!

I was so glad to be reunited with my car! Zoey was getting hungry again and I just wanted to get home. Unfortunately, I only made it to the train station a few minutes away from the shop, before Zoey made it clear that she couldn't wait any longer. 15 minutes later and we were back on the road. 

We were only home for a couple of hours before Mike arrived and we got ready to meet some friends for dinner. We went to Z'Tejas; a Southwestern grill located in Bellevue. The food was absolutely delicious! My Achiote Chicken Chopped Salad, and the company of our friends, was the perfect way to end a long day :)

Update

Wanted to give an update on the status of the giant hole in the wall by our front door. The water has dried, the mold is gone and now the hole has finally been patched up! Michael had a few setbacks while trying to get the drywall up, but hung in there and figured it out. I'm pretty proud of him for doing it by himself (although, if I had my way, we would have called someone and had it done right away!). As you can see, he has applied putty around the seams and over all of the nail holes. He'll have to do another round of putty so that everything is flush with the rest of the wall. When will it be finished?... I have no idea. We can't paint the spot without repainting the whole entryway. That means painting the entire hallway as well. At least when we do start painting, we can choose a new color and do it exactly the way we want to (trying to look on the bright side! :)

Pretty sure we're going to salvage the carpet and keep it until we have enough money for hardwoods throughout the entire bottom floor of the house.

Today, Zoey and I went to check out the new TJ Maxx in Puyallup. I am still on the hunt for a dress for our anniversary celebration on Saturday (no surprise, right?) and much to my dismay, the new store was a total letdown! Their dress section was pretty much nonexistent and I ended up getting sucked into the picture frame and toy sections. Two picture frames and a toy drum later...I guess I won't be one of those happy, well dressed "Maxxinistas" you see on TV all the time; at least not today.

Testing out her new Infantino Tap and Go Musical Drum.

It's not the best toy I've ever seen, but it was only $5.99 and I thought she might enjoy banging on it. We'll see...

Not sure what wrestling move this is, but I'm pretty sure I've seen it on TV before! 

Haha, don't know what puppy did, but he's paying for it! :)

The following picture is one that I forgot to share yesterday. Zoey was playing on her jungle mat like usual, and next thing I knew, it had collapsed on her! She has taken to kicking the arches and I've seen her lift the mat up before by doing so, but today was the first time the whole thing fell over! Welp, looks like the arches will be coming down. Good thing all of the toys detach and the mat will still make a great surface for her to play on.

Too strong for her own good! 

Play Date

Zoey and I spent the first half of our afternoon at a play date at my friend Brittni's house. Brittni's son, Bronson, is almost 9 months old, and it was so fun to see him again. When they were last at our house, he wasn't crawling yet and didn't have any theeth. Now, he's got 4 teeth and is crawling ALL over the place! Brittni had put out a bunch of Bronson's toys (I wasn't sure if I was supposed to bring Zoey's toys; this was our first play date at someone else's house...) and Zoey  loved playing with them all! Watching her and the other kids go after everything, made me realize that she doesn't really have that much to play with at home. Other than her new learning puppy, she's really only got teethers and the small toys that came with her jungle mat or are attached to her activity seat. I'll have to get on that...

Not only was it nice to see Zoey playing with new toys and interacting with other babies, but I had a great time talking with the other mothers. Everyone was really nice and they all had fun stories to tell. All of the babies, except for one, were older than Zoey. They were also boys, but I still got a kick out of watching them and seeing what I have to look forward to, development wise. 

Towards the end of the date, we decided to try to get the babies lined up for a picture. Boy, that turned out to be quite a task!

L to R: Stella (2 weeks!); Luke (7 months); Bronson, in Brittni's arms (8 months); Cain (7 months); Zoey (5 months). 

Poor Bronson, he did not want to hang around for the picture. He kept crawling off and would cry each time Britt brought him back! 

Zoey and Cain appeared to take a liking to each other and weren't phased by all of the commotion :)

Stella and Luke's mommies are best friends and we were all oohing and  aahing when Luke began gently petting Stella! So sweet.

(Stella weighed the same as Zoey when she was born, and was almost the exact same length! It seems like so long ago that Zoey was that tiny!)

My baby girl, sitting tall and entertaining herself!

She and Cain seemed to be both fascinated by, and scared of, this spiky ball.

When we left, it took less than ten minutes in the car before Zoey was completely zonked out! A definite sign of a good time!

After swinging by Michael's work and dropping of a surprise grande Java Chip Frappuccino from Starbucks, we went home and waited for him. In honor of our 3 year wedding anniversary, I made one of his favorite dinners, burritos. We had intended to enjoy a nice glass of wine together after I put Zoey to sleep, but it took a lot longer than usual, and when I came back downstairs, he had already finished his glass! Oh well, they'll be plenty of time for nice, uninterrupted, drinks and conversation on Saturday night :) 

No Big Deal

Well, I would consider Zoey's first night in her own room a success. Although she woke up four times in the night (I was able to rock her back to sleep twice, but had to feed her the other two times), she was happy as could be this morning! I stayed up pretty late last night and I think it was partly because I didn't want to sleep in my room without my baby in it. I watched the monitor for a long time. I held my breath each time she moved and even though I wanted her to be successful, I also wanted her to need me. 

Once I finally went to sleep, I was out, and I think I was in a bit of shock when I woke up this morning. I had made it! I didn't set up the air mattress in her room like I had wanted to...I didn't cry my eyes out like I thought I was going to. When I heard her first whimpers this morning, calling me to come get her, I couldn't wait to scoop her up! When she saw me, her face lit up and I felt a sense of pride. I was proud of both of us.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Mommy's big girl.

Waking up happy, as if sleeping in her crib was no big deal!

This afternoon, we went over to my dad's and spent some time with him and my sister Deidre, who was also visiting. Zoey was in a great mood and happily showed off her sitting. She was also very chatty, as she clung to her giraffe teether and lovey.

We joked that he and Zoey have matching bellies! :) 

After leaving my dad's, we stopped at the mall on the way home. I finally decided to get Michael a pair of leather dress shoes for our anniversary. There was a pair of  black, Kenneth Cole Reaction, slip on ones that he liked at Nordstrom Rack a few years ago and I was determined to find them! After calling numerous stores and scouring through the two in my area, I found them! I'm not sure if we're exchanging gifts tomorrow, or when we celebrate on Saturday, but I'm anxious to see what he thinks (and if they fit). I'm also giving him a CD that he's been talking about for weeks, just in case the shoes are a flop...ugh, stupid leather!

Trying Broccoli

Upon receipt of Zoey's birth announcement, some family friends sent us a Babies 'R' Us gift card and asked that it be used to buy Zoey a cute outfit. In my thank you note, I promised to send pictures of her in whatever outfit I purchased. Well, the skirt is still a little big on her, but I want to send the pictures before she outgrows the top (it won't be long!).

"Zoey Rae, please look here. We need to send this picture to Chris's parents."

"Wait, you're going to send my picture to some people I don't even know?!"

"Um, this isn't what I had in mind, but Ok. Stay there, that's kinda cute!"

"Ugh! Come on Baby Girl, work with me!"

"Wait! Where are you going? We're not done!"

LOL

"Ok, I think I've got enough to choose from."

I'm crossing my fingers that all of these poses mean we'll have a great portrait taker on our hands. She may not stay where you put her, but you're guaranteed to get something good ;)

Tonight, after many attempts at getting it nearly liquefied, I was able to serve Zoey her first helping of broccoli! (I eventually realized I needed to boil it to death, before I could blend it). I'd say she reacted the same way she did when she tried bananas for the second time. The taste and texture were still shocking to her, but she kept pulling the spoon back to her mouth. She ate  a whole tablespoon before showing me she was done by chewing on her bib and no longer grabbing the spoon. 

Broccoli face!

She went to rub her eyes and got broccoli right between her brows :)

She was sweet enough to share some with the bug on her seat!

Not only is tonight a new food night, but it's also going to be a new room night! Although I'm totally dreading it, I'm going to keep my word and move Zoey into her room tonight! Hopefully it will be harder for me than it will be for her...

Long Lists

This morning we managed to make it to 10:30 mass at St. Andrew in Sumner. We are still searching for a church to attempt to attend regularly, but we have been to St. Andrew a few times now. I don't have any major issues with the service, but each time we've gone, I've left saying "I think I said this last time, but I don't think this is our church". I don't know what it is, but I don't quite feel "at home". I also really want to get Zoey baptized soon, but I don't know if it's "against the rules" to do it at a church where you aren't a regular parishioner? We need a church for our family regardless though, so we just have to keep looking. 

As soon as we got home, the sight of our messy house reminded me that I needed to make some serious To Do Lists. My mom was going to be over soon and I wanted to get as much done as possible. Michael was not pleased at the length of his list, which included things like "continue working on patching up the wall, spray bug killer around the outside of the house, go through the stacks of mail, add what you want to the grocery list, bathe the dogs". After reading it over, he decided to start with the wall. My list, which always has the same thing written in the #1 spot ("Zoey"), included "sweep, mop, laundry, add things to grocery list, vacuum, help go through the mail (we get SO MUCH junk mail and it always piles up! grrr), send picture order to Walgreens", etc, etc. I had grand visions of getting it all done in a few short hours, but I should have known better than to set the bar that high.

After finally getting Zoey down for a nap, I was only able to finish sweeping before my mom arrived! She was away on a business trip last week, and we were gone in Montana the weekend before that, so we hadn't seen her in two weeks! I was more than happy to stop working and hang out for a bit. It wasn't long before Zoey was awake and my mom didn't even try to hide how excited she was to have her back in her arms :) Zoey proudly showed off how well she sits up and, after a lot of watching and waiting, her granny was able to see how she's trying to crawl!

Once our visit was over, it was right back to work! Not much more got checked off of my list before it was time to start our bedtime routine. I know for a fact that both lists will stay right where they are, all week, and will be buried under a brand new stack of mail, when we go to reference them next weekend! Oh yippee! (a measly emoticon can't even come close to my real life sad face)

Always needing to be in on the action, I had to put Zoey in the kitchen while I swept it! :)

Do The Puyallup

This afternoon, we met up with Michael's sisters, Diane and Christy, Christy's husband Jesse and their boys, Jacob and Ryan, at the Puyallup Fair. I have some fun memories of going to the fair as a child, and now Michael and I try to go every year. It's always a great time when we go with family, so when Diane told us that she had free tickets this year and invited us along, we jumped at the chance!

I was super excited to bring Zoey to her first big fair! She was very well behaved and even cooperated as I changed her diaper IN her stroller (the family stall in the restroom was repulsive; dirty diapers everywhere! And the smell...(gag))

That face! 

We took this picture over and over again; this is the best we could do.

Always nice to have so many people who want to hold Zoey.

I was able to devour my curly fries and lemonade while she hung with her aunt :)

Little Miss was apparently too cool to smile for the camera today!

So, I had heard that many women lose the ability to handle stomach turning activities (like roller coasters, winding car rides, etc.) after giving birth. I have always liked roller coaster rides, but just looking at them today, had me feeling queasy. I eventually found a ride that looked like a good "tester", to see whether I could still handle it. Diane and I hopped in line, and her excitement helped ease my nerves a little. 

Happy, before I realized what I had gotten myself into!

Diane: excited and fearless

Me: terrified and worried about my hair

The ride that had previously looked so tame, turned out to have us screaming non-stop! We got up to a pretty decent height and speed, and the way the seats spun, made you feel like you were going to run into the car in front of you. It may not have been the best, most calm ride to ease me into things, but it was a lot of fun. 

LOL!!

While Christy and Jesse took the boys over to the kiddie rides, I left the next big ride up to the adventurous (crazy) brother-sister team. After snapping a few pictures of them on the insane Kamikaze, Zoey and I slipped into the BINGO tent and played a few games. With last year's victory still fresh in my mind (I won a waffle maker!), I went in with a good feeling, but ultimately came out empty handed.

Daredevils 

That's them, upside down, on the top right! CRAZY!

We concluded our fair experience with a few games of skee ball and, being the talented athlete that he is, Michael scored the 150 points needed to win a small prize!

Meet Captain Quack...Captain Quack Sparrow!

Hahaha

After a few more attempts to get Zoey to look at the camera, it was time for my Elephant Ear (what's a fair without a sweet treat?!) and the long walk back to the car.

Not interested...

Way too much going on to be worried about Mommy and her silly camera!

Finally!

Thank you Zoe Zoe :) 

Another successful year at the fair!