11 months

Thinking that Zoe will be a year old in less than a month is making me a little sad... Oh how the time is flying by. Sometimes that makes me happy though...like when I think that this time next year we will be home for our stateside--enjoying our first Thanksgiving and Christmas at home in 3 years! Ahhhh...I'm already SO excited about that!!

Zoe is growing like a weed--still more length than pudge. But she is getting a little belly on her! She still has 6 teeth and they are almost all the way in. It's amazing how much her teeth have changed the way she looks. Still cute as a button though. She celebrated her first Christmas just a day before she turned 11 months old. She had a great time opening presents, watching Christmas movies, skyping with family back home, and listening to her daddy read the story of Jesus' birth from the Bible on Christmas night. We baked (and ate) Christmas cookies and had a grand old time!

Just within the past two days, she has started standing up on her own. Like from sitting on the ground to standing...not even pulling up on anything. But it's only for a few seconds. She stands up--looks to make sure we are watching, smiles with pride, and plops back down. She is eating less and less "baby" food and more of what we are eating at mealtimes--which she seems quite pleased with. She loved our Christmas dinner of meatloaf and mac and cheese (still so much like her daddy!) She has more energy than ever and it is almost impossible to keep up with her. This is what we found her getting into recently...she got the box out of the pantry, opened it and pulled out the plastic bag. Then got the oatees (like chocolate cheerios) and is enjoying the fruit of her labor:

We went to the beach to relax and celebrate Zoe turning 11 months. Here are a few pictures of us hanging out at the pool:

merry christmas!!

10 months (and a few weeks)

I'm totally slow on posting this...Zoe was 10 months on the 26th and we are almost halfway in to December. There has been so much going on since we moved to Dar...we are still trying to get our house in order (building a wall in Zoe's room, painting, putting up curtain rods and curtains, decorating for Christmas). There is much more going on here than there was in Morogoro which means less time for me to get on the computer.

Anyway, we celebrated Thanksgiving on the day Zoe turned 10 months. It was a Saturday because since Thanksgiving is just an American holiday, people were still working and kids were still in school here. So we celebrated with a bunch of friends on that Saturday. We had all the traditional foods of Thanksgiving--which is a rare treat here so we were really excited. Especially since we had chinese food on Thanksgiving day.

It seems as though each month goes by a little faster and my little girl is so close to turning 1 year old. Each month I'm amazed to look back at how she has developed and new things she has learned. This month she is finally up on her knees crawling. She did the army crawl for such a long time that we didn't think she would ever get on her knees. With our dirty floors and her scooting on her belly, it made for some nasty onesies at the end of the day. She has 6 teeth (4 on top and 2 on bottom). She is pulling up on everything and just starting to let go and stand still for just a second before she gets scared and grabs something, or just falls on her bottom. She can wave, clap, and give high fives. She is talking up a storm and loves to be the center of attention (sound like anyone in particular?) She is finally getting a little bit more hair and has one little curl on the top of her head. She also learned to drink through a straw--and more importantly for her--to blow bubbles through the straw. She is into anything and everything and never.stops.moving. It's extremely exhausting at times. But she is our love and such a blessing to us!