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: 6 Months

Half of a year with Zee-Zee, and we like to say, "She likes to be in the mix. No, she is the the mix." She's what has her mamma trying to remember that little list of six month milestones while writing this when she's really almost seven months. Somehow we did manage to take the pictures at 6 months though...

Zina's percentiles are going down, but I assure you she's getting all she needs to eat, even in the middle of the night. Early in the month Daddy put a carrot to her mouth at dinner, and when he tried to take it away, she started moaning so she now gets all the pureed veggies and fruits too!

Zina is starting to sit on her own but not for long. She sat up just long enough to get a good half year picture and then toppled over. The Bumbo was working for us at the beginning of the month, but she very quickly started reaching and leaning out of it so the high chair is our best friend. She has started to play and inspect the things we sit before her in her seat which affords everyone a little more independence.

 Zee-zee is proving to be a Mommy's girl. She reached for me this month and definitely has separation anxiety. If she can see me or hear me, she wants to be with me. She even struggles to fall asleep when I walk her but does so immediately for Daddy when he gets home from work. He puts her in what he calls the human swaddle, she grabs his pinkie and she's out. It's very cute and baffling all at once.

Her hair is growing a bit more, and the bald spot is starting to fade. The pterodactyls have started to have syllables, and Daddy is convinced that her first word is his to claim.

Our Little Wonder: 4.5

She's four and a half (and then some, really), and I still say God added extra sugar when He made our Moriah girl....

She is this beautiful mix of cuddly and rowdy. One of her top love languages continues to be climbing all over you, and she'll give me a million kisses in one day if I stay still in one place long enough. 

Moriah loves to play legos, baby Merlissa and Husband, Lol Dolls, and so many other things with her big sister, but she loves sneaking away into her own little world with stuffed animals and dolls just as well. When she's living her best life, Moriah changes her clothes more than five times in a day and loves her cozy pajamas most of all. She's really good at dressing her little brother and all of her dolls too. Having a baby sister has been mostly a joy for her. She loves to stare at Zina and say all kinds of sweet things to her. 

Moriah is loving Cubbies and MOPS, but she tends to keep to herself in group situations. She recently told me that she didn't play because no one asked her to. She's just as happy sitting at the table and doing all of the hard puzzles quietly. Meanwhile she can be one of the loudest at home. She keeps our family laughing with all of her little voices, but she has a deep concern that others will laugh at her and can't see that it's just because she's really cute. 

My favorite recent Moriah story happened at Cubbies. She was taking a bathroom break while the class was talking about their story. The teacher was asking if anyone knew what God said after he made everything. No one was answering so finally Moriah flung open the bathroom door, poked her head out and said with confidence, "HE SAID IT WAS GOOD!" She then shut the door and went on with her business!

Also worth mentioning: Moriah can make a huge mess in her room, lost in her world of play. She likes to lock the door behind her. Her middle childness comes out any time she excuses herself from the table saying, "Guard my food." She's a sucker for sweets, loves ethnic foods and detests having her hair brushed.

This is Moriah's last year before Kindergarten. She insists that she wants to be home schooled. We spend a lot of time waiting on Moriah to get ready so I'm praying really hard she'll be ready when the time for kindergarten comes. Until then, this Mommy is trying to soak up the sweetness of my baby in the middle of two other babies, and I can't really sum up how I feel about her better than the words of Moriah herself: "I love you more than diamonds, hearts, jewels and sparkles all mixed together."

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:

Our Felicity: 8 Years Old

It's hard to believe that our first baby is eight years old! Felicity Renee lives up to her name and brings us more happiness than words can say. She is many things but confident, smart, motivated, hard working, persistent, creative and very social are some that stand out the most.

Felicity loves school and all of the learning and socializing that happens there. She's convinced her second grade teacher is a genius and always has a new story from the second grade lunch, classroom, or playground scene. Her teacher tells us that Felicity's classmates come to her for help and that she's eager to give it.
Music and Art continue to be a joy for Felicity. She loved playing Velveeta in her first grade musical "The Cheese Stands Alone", and she's always singing songs she's learning in class. She's hoping to play the violin, and she somehow manages to know every word to all of the songs on the radio. Felicity enjoys learning new art techniques and spends a good amount of her free time drawing, painting and coloring.

This summer, reading became a real love for our girl...or maybe Harry Potter became the real love. She read the whole series between the last two weeks of school and summer's end! I love that she shares the love of reading and will read to her brother and sister as they are going to bed at night. 

We are so incredibly proud of how brave Felicity was this spring as she took on swim lessons for the first time. It was challenging. We prayed a lot. She persevered and was able to meet her goal by September. It's such a joy to see her enjoy the water and bob her heart out!

Felicity is so grown up in many ways, but she still loves to play. Legos are one of her favorites. Her big present this year was the Harry Potter Great Hall Lego set, and she begged and begged to work with Daddy on it every day until it was done. She's also really good at using all of the jumbled up pieces from various sets to create a whole new world. I love her creativity and patience in the process. She also enjoys playing LOLs, Baby Merlissa and Husband (and Taunaties), and Barbies with Moriah, and she can't go to sleep without Teddy and Moosie (one under each arm).
This spring when Mommy was huge and uncomfortable (waiting for Zina) we started watching Just Add Magic as a family. The show really inspired Felicity in the kitchen. She created her own cookbook of magic recipes and asked us almost every day to let her and Moriah try their hand at cooking them!

Something we can't leave out is Felicity's continuing obsession with the KC Chiefs. If there was a queen of Chiefs Kingdom I think she would be in the running. She not only loves Chiefs games but now keeps up with other teams' records to see how we match up. One of my favorite quotes from our girl was "yeah, I think we're gonna win on Sunday. Trubisky and his crew aren't as hot this year." (insert smiley cry face and sorry to all our Bears fan friends!). We took her to her first game in December and a preseason game in August. Sadly, they lost the game in December at the very end because of a two point conversion by the Chargers. I'll never forget seeing her sweet little face melt into tears. Thankfully we won the preseason game so she no longer thinks she might have been bad luck ;).
The biggest blessing in our sweet girl's life is watching the love she has for Jesus continue to grow. She is so faithful to hide His word in her heart and flies through the AWANA verses with great joy. It's a gift to watch her apply the truths she's learning at Sunday school as she works through God time cards in between Sundays. At the end of first grade her teacher wrote us a note that said Felicity shined God's light so bright. We were amazed because that was our prayer for the school year, that God would shine His light upon her. Before second grade started, she wrote out a beautiful prayer for the year. We're not even half way through, and God has already answered so many things: she has a new friend, jogging laps in P.E. are getting better, and she couldn't be happier with her teacher.
Felicity enjoys her church family so much that she doesn't want to sit with her own family at Wednesday night dinners! She's eager to be baptized, and we are eager to see the good work God has ready for her in days to come.

When she grows up she wants to live in Paris or next door to us (we have to paint it something other than yellow first). I asked Felicity some things she'd like to accomplish in her next year. She said she'd like to learn to do a cartwheel and something that "probably isn't possible but..." she'd really love to learn to throw a football as far as Patrick Mahomes. When she grows up she wants to be a scientist, artist, ballerina or an Aldi worker. I just love all of these responses because they're so our girl...Eight years old, dreaming big with a good head on her shoulders.

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!