Z-Cakes: 11 Months

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, skip to the end and get to Zee-zee...

The irony that her nickname is Zee-Zee, and she is the Queen of 23 Minute Naps is not lost on us, but we're telling ourselves God gave her those big blues so they could sparkle as much as possible. Sleep is negotiable. 

It took 11 months, but we can finally see her two little teeth that popped through at the end of last month. She's already quite the little meat eater. She loves hot dogs and chicken nuggets, roast and any chicken we have for dinner. Berries of all kinds are her favorite, and she eats cuties by the handful everyday. Less noticeable than her teeth is the tiny bit of hair growing just a little bit longer than the rest behind her ear. It's pretty sweet. 

Zina continues to love clapping, especially for herself, and she puts her hand to her mouth to blow a kiss. She is known to pound on her tray when we're not moving fast enough, and she loves to do little head butts with Daddy. 

If it's really quiet, and she's nowhere to be seen, you can usually find her standing up at a window to look outside or unraveling toilet paper in the bathroom. She lights up whenever you sit down to read her a book, and she loves standing up at the piano to reach for the keys. One of her favorite spots is on Daddy's lap at the piano. She even sang a few times too! 

Somehow Zina always seems to find writing utensils and knows the general motion of coloring. Thankfully caps have been on and she hasn't figured out how to press hard enough to do any damage yet. Try taking it away, and she will let you know she does not like it one bit.

The dishwasher has become her new best friend, and she has a knack for pulling out spoons. She loves them so much that she took a whole nap while I was holding her while on a zoom call with my moms group, and she didn't let go before, during or after the nap. Taking away spoons gets the same response as taking away writing utensils. 

We're all pretty taken with our little Zee. When I was pregnant with her, I ate a ton of sour patch kids. I'm not a fruity candy gal usually, but the craving was strong! It turns out we got a little sour patch girl of our own...she's got quite the punch to her personality, but we just can't seem to get enough! 

Z-Cakes: 10 Months

Covid 19 has seemingly brought the world to a halt just in time for Zina Kate to show more growth than ever. This pandemic has not slowed her down one bit.

This month Zina has learned to crawl, and she even pulled herself up just a few days after she really started crawling. 

Zina has not discovered that she can crawl from room to room and all over the house so she still gets pretty upset when she can't see Mommy. She loves me so much but only says "Mama" when she's really upset. Basically, she has us all trained. 

She loves playing on the blanket outside and inspecting the little kid sized car. Her reflection in a mirror or the dishwasher gets her really excited, and she moves to the beat of the music every time. Her face lights up whenever she hears it.

All of her siblings beg to see her naked so she has become the subject of our favorite new game, Pass the Naked Baby. 

She claps like a pro...

...And she loves waving to herself most. We can't blame her because she's definitely the cutest. We've started saying "I dream of Zinie" because she truly is a dream!

Z-Cakes: 9 Months

We used to say Zee-zee was "the mix", but this month she has transitioned to being "in the mix." She's responding to her siblings with big smiles, gasps of delight and bobbing up and down. She loves to get a response from them too. Her first "look at me moment" as the baby of the family happened around the dinner table. She figured out how to blow raspberries, and when the three bigs exploded with laughter she continued to oblige with the biggest grin and twinkle in her eyes between her sweet raspberries. 

Zina continues to be in a holding pattern as far as gross motor movement goes. She's still sitting up strong but going nowhere fast! We've enforced tummy time more regularly much to her dismay, but by the end of the month she was pushing her upper body up and rolling much more. 

Our girl loves table food especially chicken and has a great fine motor pincher for eating all the puffs. She also bounces up and down whenever music plays. Her whole being lights up when Daddy plays and sings at the piano. 

She has officially said Da-da but continues to "say" Ma-Ma by a general disgruntled whine, cry when I pass her off to someone else and reaching out for me. Zina's wide, open-mouthed kisses on the cheek are also reserved for Mommy alone! 

Zina still has no teeth, but her hair is coming in, and her bald spot is gone. Her sleep training has officially begun because we're all going crazy without it, but she's still the Queen of the twenty minute nap! Bless her heart, she just doesn't want to miss out!

Z-Cakes: 8 Months

These little photo shoots are becoming more and more challenging...

We had the flu in our house this month, Mommy included, so it all seems fuzzy. The best part of the month was the Chiefs Super Bowl win. Zina was super pumped!!!

So pumped that she continued to wake up three to four times a night :) For the most part she was in a holding pattern: no crawling, no teeth, no sleep, but she did start her own little wiggle we call the ziggle. 

Daddy continues to put her to nap best with his human swaddle pinkie hold while walking our downstairs circle. She just can't stand for mommy to do it. Her nap average is 26 minutes. Never more, often less. She just wants to make sure we're not deprived...

Z-Cakes: 7 Months

Not much changed in Zina's seventh month or maybe the sleep depravation made life so blurry that I'm struggling to see it. 

She's much sturdier at sitting up, loves to closely inspect anything in her hands, and enjoys squishy fruits and veggies and saltine crackers of all things. 

The first thing everyone says about her is "Look at those beautiful big blue eyes!" We like them too but just wish they'd stay closed a little longer at night! 

Z-cakes: 5 months

The Rilla's Here! Our latest little jingle comes from Daddy's nickname for Z and the latest NFL commercial. You'd have to know her and be here to get it, but it pretty much sums up life with Zina this month...

It's amazing to me how this little girl who was just sleeping and eating all day is now showing interest in her world. Playing, observing, following us with her big blue eyes.

Zina's favorite toy is her blue octopus. She also enjoys spinning the toggles on her bouncy seat. She does not tolerate the swing for long and still prefers to do very little tummy time. The bumbo seat is working great for her which is great because she has shown some interest in food. Daddy put a carrot in her mouth at dinner, and she made the funniest panting noise when he took it away. She did the same with a cucumber so we decided to start some pureed veggies and fruits. She is our best five month old eater to date!

Daddy is the best at getting Zee to sleep. One day I tried in vain, but she fell straight to sleep while Dan held her at dinner.
The most I have seen her laugh is when I imitate her voice. Zina is not one to flatter with her smile. It's safe to say this Big Mama Boss Lady has mastered her game face:

Z-Cakes: 4 Months

 What a month we've had with baby Zina! To sum it up, Zee-Zee has not had many zzzz's...and neither has mommy or daddy! But she sure is a cute and pretty sweet...

...except when she's not...

The best line of the month, "Zina, you need to get a longer fuse, girl!" -Daddy

Also overheard while I was attempting to cook dinner after pacing the girl and feeding her a million times...

"It's okay, Zina, I know it's hard, but you're not the only one in the family. You're not the only one who has to eat." -Moriah while bouncing her in the bouncy seat (She did get her to go to sleep. I guess the pep talk helped).

When she is happy, we love to make her laugh. Tickling under her neck and on her chest usually gets a good one. She also loves Daddy's silly little jingles, "Bad Z, Bad Z whatcha' gonna' do?, Whatcha' gonna' do when they come for you..."

At four months, Zina has finally accepted tummy time and has even rolled over once or twice. That silly arm still gets in the way most of the time!
Her favorite thing is Mommy. Sometimes she will scream her head off when others are holding her and calm down the second she's given back to me! Her least favorite thing (besides sleep) seems to be the car. She will not give it up until she's out of that car seat!

Our Felicity: 7.25

I can't believe it has already been three months since Felicity turned SEVEN! I was out of commission in the early days of carrying baby number four so we didn't get around to her pictures until recently. What a great excuse to get outside in Felicity's first for real, fluffy, you can really build a snow man snow since she was one and a half! I love it too because she has recently started reading Narnia on her own, and it feels like we got to enter into it for a bit...

For her seventh birthday party she wanted a Greatest Showman theme. She has fallen in love with the music and loves to crank it up and sing and dance her heart out. Our circus decorations were up, but she just couldn't resist dressing up as Belle, village Belle to be precise. I love that Beauty and the Beast still holds a special place in Felicity's heart four years later.

Our girl continues to love school and goes bounding out of the car full speed ahead each day. Her teacher says she's much more talkative this year and is a wonderful helper. Felicity has great enthusiasm for math and a mind made for it. She's always asking for math problems even during bed time snuggles. She likes to solve them on her sequins flip pillow. I'm amazed at how quickly she can do mental math with large numbers and how many math facts she already knows by heart. We're excited to have this new gifting in our house and not so sure we'll be able to keep up for too long!

The biggest surprise of the year has been Felicity's obsession with the Chiefs. We started casually turning the games on, and she was captivated. Week after week she learned the game and players by watching the entire game. She was so focused. We were amazed! Her enthusiasm caused us to become super fans as well so when things were looking good for an amazing season, Dan got tickets for all three of us to go to a Thursday night game. We bundled up in at least four layers, and Felicity cheered her guts out. She loved watching all of her favorites: Mahomes, Kelce, Hill. We played the Chargers in a close game that ended with a devastating loss in the last seconds due to a two point conversion. Her heart was broken, and her face showed it. Immediate tears flowed and an expression appeared that I haven't seen since we put stuffed Santa away after Christmas when she was three years old! Thankfully we recovered from the trauma and continued to enjoy watching our team through the playoffs. She took the AFC championship loss a bit better saying she was happy because we still had a good season, BUT she is still saying she will NOT be watching the Super Bowl!

A few other things that can't go without mentioning are her mad skills in Monopoly and Clue, her forever first loose tooth that finally came out just before her birthday (while Mommy and Daddy were both gone for the first time in her little life), learning magic tricks from Daddy, still downing cheeseburgers with the best of them, reading her first book of the Bible (Mark) on her own, and setting high goals: In response to the table talk question "What do you hope to accomplish in your life?"...

"I want to get a 100 on all of the rest of my spelling tests and get back my Arabic." 

                                                                                          - Felicity Renee

The Little Prince: TWO

Our little Prince is TWO, and we couldn't love him more! It has been so much fun to see his personality come out in the past few months...

...and that's all I wrote when he actually turned two. The joys of being three of four kids! As I write, Ephraim is closer to 2.5, and it's hard to remember what he was like at two because he has really become something else in just a few months.

I do remember being completely smitten with him and amazed at how sweet and polite our Ephraim was at two. Even when he woke us up in the middle of the night for more water, he would always say "Water please" and "Thank you, Mommy" in his gravely, half asleep voice. 

He also thoroughly enjoyed driving around to see Christmas lights. We loved his little "oooh, that's pretty" from the back seat. Opening presents was also a new experience this year. What was inside was no matter. All the fun was in the opening.

As I type I'm reminded of a few other things because the c, m and command keys are missing from our keyboard thanks to this little guy. If light toggles or the wooden pole that keeps our sliding door locked were missing, we always knew Ephraim had made his daily rounds. Dan joked that he had to get through the same destructive routine to make every day complete. Elevating and messing were his favorite past time for sure but always with a gentle, sweet spirit...

The way God has filled our hearts and home with this little Honey Cake are too many to count. There's just no way to remember them all, but that's ok. We treasure them up along the way by giving thanks to the Giver of these gifts, and that's more than enough...