Happy Birthday!

Two years ago, Zoë Anastasia came into the world, and the world was forever changed. :)

We celebrated Zoë's life today with all sorts of things that Zoë loves: a special butterfly themed birthday breakfast (with favorites banana and chocolate), a trip to the zoo with mommy and daddy, presents, ice cream, a shopping "spree," fun at the park, and painting in the bathtub.

All decorated and ready for the birthday girl to wake up!

Zoë loves butterflies. And it is perfect that she loves them,
because her middle name, Anastasia, means "resurrection" and butterflies are a
 Christian symbol for resurrection. Cool, huh?

Butterfly Breakfast!

Delicious Banana Chocolate Chip Baked Donuts 

(made with Greek yogurt too, so basically healthy ;)

Blowing out the candles

Zoë truly is full of "life," and brings joy and delight wherever she goes. She has a tender heart and shows great empathy for her age - giving hugs to anyone who is sad (including characters in her books). Her hugs and kisses are precious.

Hanging out with the "penguins" at the zoo. :)

Chillin' by the elephants with her new "Hello Kitty" water bottle

Zoë's intelligence is almost frightening. Every day we are blown away by her comprehension, her memory, problem solving and the connections she makes between words and between people and experiences.

Zoë is a super independent and self-motivated. She basically potty trained herself last week and has been accident free for 6 days! (At barely 24 months - what?!). She is also very spirited (a.k.a. strong willed), and stubborn as a mule (I don't know where she got that...) and has given us a run for our money trying to figure out the best and most godly way to guide/shape that spiritedness into a gift rather than a curse (for her and for us!). 

 

Presents! Regrettably, we let her open her gift from Auntie Judy first -

 a VTec digital camera. She didn't really care about any

 of the other presents after that... :p

The words are really starting to come out now. Some of her recent favorites: "dress"(which she asks to wear EVERY day), "shoes", "gackgack" (a.k.a backpack), "hand,""stop" and "go", "ba-bye", "butterfly" and "mingo" (flamingo).

She loves books. Zoë will sit in her room or on the potty and read, read, read. Any kind of book - children's books, our camping book (her current favorite), songbooks, road maps, and checkbooks. Lately, she has been asking be to read some of the longer books, like Seuss's "Horton Hears a Who!," and sits (mostly) and listens to the whole thing!

Zoë loves this camera!

(And now we can start to avoid the tantrums 

when I want to take pictures but won't let her touch mine! Yay!)

My present to Zoë: Butterfly wings made from fabric taken from old stained baby clothes, ruined quilts, worthless velcro diaper covers, and scraps from things I made for her in the last two years. She can wear the elastic straps around her shoulders and hook her hands into elastic handles on the wing tips.

Unfortunately, Zoë was not thrilled about the wings today and wouldn't even put them on long enough for me to get a picture. *Sigh.* Even though I told her it was making mommy VERY sad! Oh well. Hopefully she will want to wear them on Saturday for her "official" birthday party.

Ice cream is one of Zoë's most favorite things. 

We knew we would have to include a trip to our

 neighborhood Baskin-Robins for her birthday. :)

The funniest part is that she decided she didn't want her ice cream cone, 

and wanted daddy's milkshake instead. Crazy girl!

The grocery store across the street gave Zoë a $5 gift certificate for her birthday.

She picked out this blue bunny. :)

(Thanks Auntie Gloria for the new dress too!)

Zoë is full of adventure. She's a thrill seeker and likes a challenge. The playground is one of her favorite places to "monkey around," and do all sorts of things that make mommy a little anxious. :s If the big kids are doing it, well, so can she! She has mastered the somersault and is working on the cartwheel. :) Zoë loves to dance. LOVES to dance. She requests that we turn on some music at least once every day so that she can show off her moves. And if she hears music outside or in a store, she'll immediately start groovin'.  

Enjoy a little glimpse into the everyday life of the now-two-year-old Zozo:

We love you, Zoë Anastasia! We thank God for sending you into our lives, 

and for blessing us with such joy and delight!

Make New Friends, and Keep The Old

One is silver and the other gold.

Last week, Zoë and I went on a road trip adventure up north to Seattle and Edmonds. We stopped at Seattle Pacific University to have lunch with my cousin, Michaela, then continued on to the cozy town of Edmonds, right on the edge of the Puget Sound to visit and old friend of mine.

Bethany and I have been friends since we were 12, but have been in and out of touch for the last few years. After moving to Portland, we both have been saying "We need to get together!" and finally made it happen. And it was wonderful. And Zoë made some new friends. BOY friends. :)

Here are some pictures from our adventure:

Playing on the beach by the Puget Sound

We had such beautiful weather all three days!

This girl LOVES the waves

Sandcastles

The boots didn't last long. Barefoot just like her momma!

The trio decided to start a band :)

We took a ride on the ferry across the Sound. It was so fun!

"Oooo! Oooo! Look at that!"

Zoë decided that she really liked holding Everett's hand. :) 

Ice cream sandwich time out on the front of the ferry - 

Zoë enjoyed being pushed around by the wind.

Coren enjoyed his ice cream sandwich as well :)

Bethany and Everett

Look at those beautiful smiles!

We went to downtown Seattle for dinner, and once again, 

Zoë decided she wanted to hold Everett's hand, instead of momma's. :P

After dinner we drove around Seattle and savored a gorgeous sunset.

What a gift it is to have a childhood friendship carry into adulthood! Thank you Bethany and Weber boys for a wonderful time! We will see you again soon. :)

Big Girl Bed!

It is time.

Up to this point, Zoë has been quite happy and contained in her lovely crib. She is tall, but hasn't had the arm strength to pull herself up...until today. I decided it was time to test her abilities and asked if she could climb up onto the diaper changing table this morning. After a little bit of effort, she did. Eek!

 

So, Daddy spent a few minutes unscrewing the front, and viola! Big Girl Bed! Zoë was VERY excited and immediately put all of her stuffed animal friends on the quilt and started jumping. (So, we had a little conversation about one of her favorite songs "Five Little Monkeys" - "Remember Zoë what happened when the monkeys fell off the bed? Yeah, 'ouuuwww' is right! We don't want you to get owies on your head either." :)

Currently, Zoë is in her room with the shades drawn attempting her first nap in the Big Girl Bed. So far, nap time has consisted of several attempts to open the door and repeated knocking. But now she is quietly talking to her friends. I'm getting hopeful - at least for her to have some "quiet time" if not a nap. We'll see what happens!

It is all a little bittersweet. Happy to see our little girl grow up and become her own person, but sad to see her moving out of all-things-baby. We cherish the sweet memories of her almost-two years of life, and at the same time, look forward to the crazy adventure still ahead of us!

Resurrection Hope

"Then bursting forth in glorious day

Up from the grave He rose again!

And as He stands in victory, 

Sin's curse has lost its grip on me;

For I am His and He is mine

Bought with the precious blood of Christ."

Here in the love and power of Christ, we stand.

Zoë - Life

Anastasia - Resurrection

Truly an Easter child. Holding her Lamby.

Happy Easter!

We celebrated Easter this year along with my grandparents, mom, brother, aunts and uncles and cousins in The Dalles. We witnessed a community production of "The Last Days of Jesus," a Passion Play that stretched from Thursday evening through Sunday morning, re-inacting the Last Supper through the Resurrection. We are so blessed to be able to celebrate our Risen Savior with our extended family! 

Ready for the Resurrection 

(Passion Play sunrise service)

With the cousins :)

After seeing the re-inactment of the Resurrection, we all went to my grandparents' church service and enjoyed some special Easter activities - animal petting zoo and an Easter egg hunt (of course). We then went home for a delicious meal, and off to the park for our own Easter egg hunt. 

Pure delight!

Searching for eggs with Anna

Our sweet cousins Wesley and Joshua

 found the golden bunny and "let" Zoë find it. :)

After-egg-hunt eggs-haustion. LOL!

(In truth, I'm not a fan of Easter egg hunts. I feel like it becomes such a big deal for kids and adults that it overshadows the true reason for our celebration. But I discovered "Resurrection Eggs" which sound really cheesy but really are a powerful way to "baptize"the secular symbol of the Easter egg. Each of 12 eggs contain a symbolic object to help tell the story of Christ's suffering, death and resurrection, correlating with scripture readings and devotional conversation. Very cool. And great for kids, even as young as Zoë! She LOVED opening them up and discovering all the treasures inside. I had a great time reading through the selected scripture passages and talking about it with my cousins on Holy Saturday.)

2nd Easter egg hunt at the park

With Wesley

Gorgeous magnolia tree by my grandparents' home

With Uncle Judah and Lola

What a beautiful reminder of new life!

Happy Easter from our home to yours!

 May we truly live in this "new life" offered to us by Christ, 

and walk in Resurrection Hope every moment of every day.

Winter Adventure

One thing I miss the most is snow. Of all the places I have lived, Portland is the first place I have gone through an entire winter without snow. It's just crazy! I have to admit, I have enjoyed not needing to shovel or scrape feet of snow off our van in the mornings, but I really, really have missed watching falling snowflakes, tromping in deep powder, and seeing the sparkly snow at night.

Since I couldn't make it through a year without any snow, we went looking for some! We took Zoë and a couple of our friends, Jeremy and Amy, four pairs of snowshoes and a little blue sled to the Trillium Lake trailhead on Mt. Hood. It was a beautiful day - the perfect temperature, and the snow was a delightful powder.

Zoë enjoyed tromping around in her snow gear (and I couldn't help but giggle at how cute she looked all bundled up!), and had a good time being pulled on the sled...until she got tired of that and wanted to pull it herself. Then be carried. Then go back into the sled. Then be done.

We never made it to Trillium Lake - Zoë was ready to turn around and we had run out of food for bribery. But, we had a great time, nonetheless!

22 months going on 23 years

Zoë LOVES all things "grown-up." She loves carrying around mommy's purse, she loves putting on lipgloss and painting her nails (even though mommy never does), she loves talking on the phone and reading to herself in the rocking chair. She wants to drive our van, push her stroller, feed her baby doll Madeline, cook in the kitchen, wash the dishes, push the shopping cart, carry everything possible at once, and climb up the stairs all by herself. 

Oh, and she LOVES all things "techie." iPods, iPads, computers, cellphones, keyboards. All of it. (They are the main source of tantrums as well. :s) Every time we go to the chiropractors office, she asks the office ladies to sit in the office chair and type on the keyboard (and they let her!). We call her "Little Miss Secretary."

Who is this big girl, and where is my baby?? :) It is a little crazy to see how close we are getting to the 2 year mark. Wow. The time really does go by quickly, and I need to remind myself to cherish every moment - even the tough ones.

Love you, Zozo!

Love-Love-Love: 21 months

This Valentine's Day I am especially mindful of how important it is not just to show love to one another, but to also tell our loved ones how much we love them - every day. We never know what tomorrow will bring.

Though it seems impossible, I find myself growing to love Zoë more and more each day. She steals my heart with her smile, her kisses, her giggles, her hugs, and she is continuously teaching me how to love with the love of God: with patience, kindness, gentleness, humility, sacrifice; with encouragement, trust and hope and perserverance. Love that never fails; love that never ends.

Happy Valentine's Day to our dear family and friends! 

You are loved!

Our little sweetheart!

"I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." 

Ephesians 3:17-19