HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZOEY CLAIRE

Happy Birthday Zoey! We have had such a good day today. Joe and I both took the day off from work. We went to the mall to finish some Christmas shopping and just hang out together. Zoey had her first taste of Chick-Fil-A and enjoyed it. Then we headed to a Christmas party. I can't believe one year ago today our precious baby girl was born. What a joy it is to parent this little one and watch her grow. We love you so much Zoey!

Life's A Gingerbread Party

We celebrated Zoey's first birthday on Saturday with a Gingerbread Party. We had 5 babies, 9 adults, and one cake lovin' birthday girl! She took out half the cake in one swipe! She got some adorable clothes and new big girl toys which she is really enjoying. Unfortunately, we are home today because she has double ear infections. At least we made it a whole year before getting an ear infection. I'm praying she will be all better by Friday to celebrate her actual birthday with a trip to Build-A-Bear.

Happy Birthday Gran!

Today is Gran's birthday! She loves me just about as much as my Mommy and Daddy. Gran lets me play with the "no no's"-phones, remote controls, magazines. She lets me stay up late so I can snuggle with her. She never lets me cry and she even lets Mommy and Daddy get extra rest every time she visits. I am the most blessed granddaughter because of my Gran. I love you Gran and I can't wait to see you this weekend!
Love,
Zoey

Christmas Life

We got our Christmas tree on Sunday. We have gone to the same tree farm for 3 years now and it is the best! They serve hot chocolate, apple cider, and snacks. We even brought home some delicious pepper jelly. It was rainy all day but we decided to brave the rain and very cold weather to find the perfect tree. Zoey didn't move or smile the whole time. She just wanted to be warm but she did enjoy decorating the tree. She even has a pink mini Christmas tree in her room!

Playing in the leaves

Joe loves to take Zoey outside. The leaves are covering our entire yard so they did some yard work together. Well, Joe raked and Zoey watched but she got to play in the leaves. So fun!

We got Zoey a push toy a couple of weeks ago to encourage her to learn to walk. Joe put it together and I stood her up to it and....she took about 7 steps on the first try! It was so funny because she didn't even mean to. She just didn't know that the toy would take off as soon as she held on to it. After the 7 steps she fell and was afraid of the toy until this past weekend. Now she is off again!

Zoey's First Thanksgiving!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Tifton. My mom had the house all decorated for Christmas with a mantle full of stockings now that there are granbabies! My parents cooked about 15 dishes so needless to say, we were stuffed after eating. Zoey is going through a growth spurt and wants to eat everything. She even screamed when my mom would feed Mavis and not her. So Zoey loved her Thanksgiving meal and took a long nap afterwards. We got to celebrate her birthday with family and she had some cake a little early! The pictures say it all.




Matching Christmas pj's-a Sumner tradition

The only family photo from the day!

Somebody looks stuffed!

Life at 11 months

One month away from the big first birthday! I'm shedding a few tears just thinking about it. Zoey is quite the talker now. She would rather talk than sign. She is saying thank you, all done, daddy, mama, baby, no no (while shaking her head), uh oh, and Saturday she told Joe "mmm good" while eating a pancake. I'm not sure if she really knew what she was saying but it was pretty amazing. She is pulling up on everything. We just got her one of those toys that you push to help you learn to walk. She took four steps with it right away but as soon as she realized she could fall down, she doesn't really want to play with it. We keep practicing though. I haven't uploaded the pics but I will soon. We are headed on our first girls only road trip tomorrow. Watch out Gran and Grandaddy....here we come!

Mavis and Zoey

Mavis come over the other night and of course I had to take some pics. The girls are so cute now because they can actually play together. They recognize each other, smile, talk, and make music. We had quite the girly bath with pink water. Check them out!


Bath Time


Hanging with Uncle Joe

Here Zoey you can have the shaker

Just kidding! ; )

Mom do you here that music?

What beautiful sounds!

Halloween 2008

Zoey and Cayslee the Sheep

Mavis and Zoey

Somebody is having fun!

Mavis the cutest ladybug ever!

How adorable is that face?!



Let's go trick or treating!

Zoey was quite an adorable glow worm this year! All the baby costumes are so cute but when I held the glow worm costume up at the store, she got so excited and I knew it was the one for us. We went to Trunk or Treat on Wednesday night. Mavis the ladybug joined us and we had a great time walking around. Friday night we went to our friends' house for a party. There were so many cute kiddies. We had lots of fun!

Still such a cuddley baby!

Zoey was so tired the other day that she fell asleep in Joe's arms. What a sweet cuddle bug she still is at almost 11 months! She wants to crawl and pull up so much these days that it sure was a cherished moment for her to curl up with Daddy. I felt so bad having to wake her up for dinner but her "bed head" was pretty funny!






Check out that bed head!


Seriously mom, now is not the time for pictures!

I voted!

Zoey voted for the first time today. Well, actually she just pulled on the purse of the woman beside us while I voted! We waited in line for 1 1/2 hours but Zoey entertained all those around us. She smiled and talked to everyone. She pulled her socks off and refused to sit in her stroller. The lady handing out stickers insisted we both have one. It was an interesting time, needless to say, but it was a good experience for her 10 month old mind!

It's Pumpkin Pickin' Time!

We went to the Pumpkin Patch this weekend. Jake, Hannah, and Mavis took us to one that their church sponsors. It had so many pumpkins but unfortunately we didn't take one home. By the time we got there it was dark and there wasn't much lighting. Of course, we had to get pictures and we hope to return later to get a pumpkin. The girls were really cute together!

Laundry Time!

Zoey is really on the move these days but she stopped to help me do some laundry the other night. It was really cute! She kept looking in the basket and pulling things out until she was able to climb into it. We had lots of fun!

Life at 10 months

Tomorrow Zoey will be 10 months! I feel like their are so many changes each month now. Our big development is that we are crawling!! About 2 weeks ago Zoey started army crawling and now she is on all fours getting around and into everything. She has gotten a lot more independent. Zoey can play by herself for a long period of time. She is the only one that can hold her bottle now and she tries to feed herself with the spoon. She loves to say "ma" and "da" to Joe and I. I think she does know that is who we are. She can sign "all done" when she is finished eating. We had our 9 month dr. visit on Tuesday. She weighed 18 lbs and was in the 23 percentile for weight. She sure looks chunky to me, but I guess she is still petite comparatively. I can't believe our year old birthday is so close but Joe and I are sooo excited to celebrate the holidays with our precious girl!

THE STAGES OF CRAWLING

Here we go! We're up....


and we're down to do the army crawl


and maybe we'll sit now!


Do you want me to show everyone how I can crawl Mommy?


Because I can do it!


Let me just go over here...


and then over here....


Yup, I found something good to get into!


I think I'll just chew, I mean read these magazines for a while!