Dear Zoee...

Our little dancing girl!!

Dear Zoee,

As with your brother, WHERE DO I BEGIN!!?? You are growing so fast sweet girl!! You are really forming a personality of your own and it is fun and sometimes a little scary. You have a very intense personality. When the nursery rimes say that girls are full of "sugar and spice" they are right. You are just that. Sometimes you are just so sweet and you will come running in and hug me. Other times you want nothing to do with me because you have your own mission to fulfill. I think that you are going to be harder to discipline than Asher. Even though we continually train you not to touch things like power cords and electrical sockets, we still sometimes see you going for them!! Just like Asher, you LOVE life and love to laugh and smile. Tonight when I was giving you and Asher a bath you just started laughing for almost no reason. Yes, I was being a little silly but you just bursted out laughing and continued laughing for a few minutes. It makes me so happy to see how such little things make you laugh. Here are some things going on with you lately...

1. You love animals (which is funny because I am not much of an animal lover). I think your favorite animal is the elephant (you like the sounds that he makes on Baby Einstein) or the cat (you got a cat that makes noise from Mimi and Papa for Christmas and you carry it around with you constantly). You also got some plastic animals for Christmas and you love to carry them around with you- especially the giraffe and the lion.

2. You LOVE to watch Baby Einstein. You will go to the TV and say "mo-mo" (movie) when you want to watch it. I think that you would keep it on all day if I would let you.

3. You love to eat still! You love veggies (green beans seem to be your favorite), blueberries, bananas, waffles, yogurt melts, grapes, vanilla cookies and graham crackers, and chicken. We had to take you off of all dairy because of your spitting up and you seem to be doing well. Finding food for you can be a little more challenging because so many foods have milk. Hopefully you will grow out of that soon!

4. You are talking a little more now. You can say "Momma" "Dada" "Mimi" "Papa" "Ah (Asher)" "ball" "bapa (diaper)" and of course "nak (snack)"

5. You love your brother! Sometimes you love to annoy him but most of the time you just love to be with him. You will sometimes run up and almost tackle him!

6. You LOVE to dance. ALL-THE-TIME. You even dance when there is no music on!! It cracks us up. If someone starts singing a song, you start dancing!!

7. You love to read books. You like reading the Baby Einstein book that has lots of animals in it. You especially love seeing the elephant in those books because I will try to make the elephant sound and it makes you laugh =)

8. You actually are pretty "girly." Sometimes you will bring me your headband and start trying to put in on your head! I look forward to doing lots of girl stuff with you in the future!!

Little Zo-bear, you are such a gift. At times it has been harder with you lately because when you do not get your way you can sometimes throw a fit. We are working on that, though and I believe that the Lord can use your "determined" personality for good. Zoee, we love you so much. You are such a joy to be around and you make us laugh everyday. We pray that you will love the Lord with all the strength and passion that He has given you!

Love,

Mommy

Dear Asher...

Dear Asher,

Where do I begin??!! You are growing so fast and becoming your own little man! I cannot believe that you will be 3 in June!! Yikes!! You have one of the kindest, funniest, most sensitive personalities I have seen in a toddler. You LOVE to laugh (runs in the family) and you love to make others laugh. You simply enjoy life. Even when you are sick (which you have been for almost a week) you still love to be your adventurous, silly self. Here are some things going on with you now at 2 1/2 years old...

1. You LOVE sweets. You and Daddy love to eat pretty much any kind of hershey kisses and Daddy recently introduced you to his favorite chocolate- Toblerone. You obviously loved it!

2. You LOVE the new fort/slide that you got from both sets of grandparents for Christmas. The other day we spent about 4 hours outside. I love being outside and now that you have this new slide to play on- you love being outside too. You love to get to the top of the slide and roll down all of your cars.

3. You are really into monster trucks. You and Daddy will go on YouTube and watch tons of crashes and jumps and all kinds of monster truck videos. Hopefully Daddy will be able to take you to a real monster truck show soon =)

4. At the opposite extreme of monster trucks, you also like to watch Barney. It was weird how we even discovered it. I was browsing Netflicks and you saw the big purple dinosaur and wanted to see it. Now you like to watch a few minutes of that show or Bob the Builder every morning while drinking hot chocolate.

5. You are very close to being potty trained. This might be too much information but the other day you told me that your poop looked like a bunny. You are quite an imaginative little man!

6. You like to do puzzles and color. This is our version of school right now and it makes me really happy that you enjoy it.

7. You still like to build towers for your cars to go through. Almost every day you will ask Daddy and me to build towers with you. I love when you come in the room and say "play with me Mommy"- I seriously cannot resist! Your sweet little voice and adorable smile are irresistible!!

8. Here are some foods you like- apples, bananas, chicken (especially from chic-fil-a), blueberries, peas, brocoli, yogurt, prunes, peanut butter, cheese, macadamia nuts and cashews (you will pick through a whole can of nuts to find the ones you like), dip (any kind- guacamole, hummus), and of course you cannot forget that you love anything with sugar and you eat all of your chicken with these 3 condiments: ketchup, honey mustard, and ranch dip!!

9. You sing the ABC song about 20 times a day (at least) and you often make up your own words to it. Cracks me up!!

Asher, you continue to be a joy to raise. We love the silly and sweet things that you do. You are very good at stalling before bed and I sometimes smile at the reasons you make up for why you cannot fall asleep yet. You love Daddy and me to read you the story of Noah in your bible because you love the picture of the animals and the rainbow. You make us smile everyday. You are a great big brother and such a blessing as a son. We pray that you will follow the Lord with your whole heart!

Love,

Mommy

Additional Grandparents....

In writing about grandparents, I had to add this additional post... in addition to having 2 sets of wonderful grandparents, Ash and Zo also have some "God" grandparents that continually bless our family. The Burkes (Nana and Uncle) continue to love and adore our kids and us as their own. We are so thankful for them and the love they continue to shower our family with so much love.

Asher giving Uncle some icing =)

Nana and her precious grandbaby, Kinley (daughter of our friends Jake and Kristen) taken almost 1 year ago!!)

Wonderful Grandparents...

I am continually humbled by the wonderful parents and in-laws that the Lord has given to Sonny and me and the kids. My parents (Mimi and Papa) and Sonny's parents (Grandma and Grandad) are simply wonderful. They check on us constantly, offer encouragement and wisdom, help us when the kids are sick, and babysit regularly so that we can continue to have date nights (they even spent a whole day to build the kids a wonderful swingset so we can spend more time outside). The list is even longer than that but those are the biggest things that bless all of us so much. I love that Ash and Zo get to have such involved grandparents. The kids light up when they get to see them- it is precious! Here are some pictures to prove how much the kids adore their grandparents!!

Ash and his Papa...

Ash and Mimi...

Zo and Mimi (Zoee had an infected outer ear in this picture! I couldn't take her to her doctor because we were in Richmond and it was Thanksgiving weekend but thankfully my grandma's neighbor is a doctor and took a look at her for us- she recovered pretty quickly but it sure did look painful!!)

Ash and Papa again...

Grandma and her babies...

Grandma and Asher...

Grandad and Asher...

Date Night!!

Wow! It has been so long since I have had the time/ energy to write. I feel like since Zoee's birthday life has been going in 5th gear. I take pictures as often as I can but rarely have time to sit and edit and post. Almost once a month Sonny and I try to visit our favorite Italian place, Arturos, in uptown park. It is a quiet Italian restaurant close to the Galleria that has EXCELLENT food. We love the "ravioli-de-Arturos" which is a seafood alfredo ravioli. It's wonderful!! After dinner we almost always go to the Galleria to walk off the Italian food then stop by the Cheesecake Factory to get dessert for when we get home. I love that we have our little routine. I love getting dressed up and going on dates with Sonny- it is so refreshing and relaxing! Thank you Mom and Dad for watching the kids for us!! =)

Family Time

Christmas break is finally here! Though we do not get to take the whole time off, we are trying to scale things down a bit so that we can spend good time with the kids! For me, with my slight OCD and obsession with cleanliness, this particular "castle" adventure was a little hard to swallow, but I knew the kids were having a blast. Daddy used couch pillows to make Ash and Zoee a castle. They LOVED it! It was so nice to get in our jammies early and just hang at home =).

Dear Asher...

Ash and his car at Mimi and Papa's house... He loves to take the keys in and out and pretend to go to the store to get me cookies and coffee =)

Ash and Mimi playing the "monkey game" on her i-phone

Dear Asher,

Wow- you are becoming quite a little man. I never thought that hearing you talk in complete sentences would make me sad and happy at the same time. I love that you are growing to be such a kind little man but I hate that you are growing up so fast. I remember when we brought you home from the hospital. I thought I knew a little about parenting since I had babysat so much but bringing you home made me realize how much I needed Jesus to help me. I was so scared that I wasn't going to be a good Mommy. Thankfully, the Lord has provided so much help and I no longer feel that overwhelming sense of inadequacy (only by His sweet grace). You are a delight, son. Though you struggle at times with sharing, you are overall a very kind and thoughtful person. You have been more willing to share with your Sissy these past few days and have even wanted to comfort her after she gets in trouble for taking your toys. I love to see your compassion for others. Here are some other things going on with you lately...

1. You are doing very well in potty training. You have been going potty at least once a day on the actual potty and that has been encouraging. We are not stressing about it- just trying to take it one day at a time and I think it is going well. You get very excited when you "go" on the potty and get your potty treat (which is either a Hersey's hug or kiss =) ).

2. You seem to like school. We have been learning the letter "A" lately and you seem to enjoy the challenge of finding the "A's" in the words I print out for you.

3. I think you are going to own your own business someday and be more of a delegator than anything else. Today when we were coloring, you did not want to color but you preferred to hand me the next color you wanted me to use and then you liked to tell me when I was all done. Too funny!

4. You still love sweets. You like to have hot chocolate all the time. I have to limit it because I think you would drink it all day long (I guess you like your hot drinks like your Mommy =) )

5. You have tons of energy and even after playing all day you will still talk to yourself in bed for HOURS!! Sometimes we will put you to bed at 8 and still hear you talking to yourself at 10pm. Crazy boy!!

6. You don't really like large crowds. At Thanksgiving and when we had a retreat with our youth students, you seemed to get very overwhelmed with so many people. You prefer a small crowd of people that you know very well and you prefer to be in an environment that you are used to. It's funny because Zoee seems to be oblivious to any crowd or environment.

I think that's all right now. You are a joy, Asher. I love spending time reading with you. I love cuddling with you while you drink your hot chocolate and I drink my coffee. I love seeing you love on your Sissy and Daddy. I love your sweet smile and joyful spirit. I love that you are sensitive- even though at times it can still be tough to know how to encourage and teach you. I look forward to seeing the man that you will become. I continue to pray that you will love Jesus with all the strength that you possess and that you will come to love Him at an early age. We love you Ash.

Love,

Mommy