The Snake Whisperer

My sweet baby LOVES snakes!!! She has no fear of them, in fact when Jay was holding this particular snake he was quite agitated and didn't want to be held.  He handed the snake to Zaria and it calmed right down and she held it for 15 minutes.  Dillon got home and tried to hold it and the same thing, snake was agitated and wiggly.  Dill passed it back to Zaria and it was calm as ever!!  When I took the kids to the zoo this last time, I had them all pick an animal that they really liked and wanted to learn more about and told them that we would go to the library to pick out a book about that animal and make a little report about it......guess which animal Zdog picked out??? You got it - snakes!

Fashionista!

I had to share some pics of our little "dresser-upper".  Zaria literally goes through probably 15-20 different clothing changes in a day.  She likes to change things up, I guess.  Here is a sampling of her choices!

Happy Birthday Zaria!

My sweet baby turns 3 today!!!! I cannot believe my youngest is already 3! Zdog, you are such a spunky, fiesty and loving little girl :)  We love you so much! Happy Birthday!

Sleeping Beauty

Wedding Pictures

Jason's youngest brother got married last month and they asked Zaria to be one of the flower girls in their wedding! She looked so cute!! She walked down with her cousins, Cora and Koleson.  It was very hot that day but they all did great!  Here are a few pics that Jason's sister took from the day.

Fishing Fun!

The other night the Zaria was begging Jason to take her fishing, and it was a nice night so he took all the kids across the street to try and catch some bass.  They all had a great time and I think they may have each caught at least one.  Rosie and Zaria's were the biggest of the night so they got their pics taken.  By the way, Zaria is hooked (get it - ha, ha) she woke up the very next morning asking to go fishing again.  Then she wanted to go today but it was raining, so she is hoping it clears up by tonight.... we shall see!

Twinkle, Twinkle....

This morning we went to the zoo and Zaria walked most of the time. When we got home she played outside for a while.  When we decided to come in for her nap, I laid her down in bed and then was doing some work in the basement and ran upstairs to check on her.....this is what I found.

Apparently she only made it to the corner of the hall thinking that she wasn't tired before she fell asleep!

So, So Cute!

That is what I heard probably 50 times in the 10 minutes that we were looking at the baby chicks at our local farm and home store.  I saw the sign advertising baby chicks coming to the store on March 1st, so I told Zaria last night that I had a surprise for her and Naomi (since Naomi doesn't have school today).  She was so excited when I told her that we were gonna see baby chicks that she started jumping up and down and giving me lots of kissies.  Then she said, "I'm not gonna squeeze 'em mama." I had to explain that we weren't gonna hold them, just look with our eyes.  I wondered last night if she would remember about the chicks this morning, and sure enough within 2 minutes of waking up she was telling Naomi about the special surprise for them!  They were so good at the store and there was no one else by the chicks at the time we were there, so they got to look in each of the containers of chicks and enjoy seeing them together!

40 oclock

I just finished tucking Zaria in for her nap....again.  She was playing with toys and needed to potty - again.... so I laid her down and said, "OK Zaria, now it's not play time, it's what time?"  I was looking for nap time, instead I got, "It's 40 o clock mama".  Way too cute, I just love it!!!

Update on Potty Training

Zaria is pottytrained!!!! She was SO easy.  For the last week she's even been sleeping through the whole night with big girl undies on!! She caught on so quickly.  I must say though, I was always like "WOOHOOO no more diapers", when the other kids pottytrained. This time I'm like, "Oh, no more diapers I guess."  I am feeling sad that my last baby is out of diapers.  Still, I am very proud of Zaria!

Guess Who's Potty Training.....

Yup, you guessed it Zdog!! She decided to start last week and has been doing GREAT!!!!! She is going through the day with almost no accidents and even napping in undies with no accidents in bed yet!! I am so excited for her, she is always so proud after she "goes" on the big girl potty.

Morning update!!!! Last night sweet girl went through the whole night completely DRY!!! What a big girl!

From A to Z

I so enjoy watching our oldest child and youngest child interact with eachother.  They REALLY enjoy being together! It brings me such joy to see especially since I was very worried when we found out we were pregnant with Zaria that the bigger boys would be like, "Oh man, another baby".... or feel weird that they were older and there was gonna be a little baby again.  There has never been one time that that sentiment was expressed in our home. On the contrary, just the other day Adam said to me, "Mom I wish I could freeze time and have Zaria stay little just like she is now..."  The funny thing is, in my journal just the day before I wrote that same sentence, in fact the title of my journal entry was "Freezing Time".

On the other hand it has also been so exciting to watch our oldest son grow from boy to young man.  He is so helpful to me and such a neat kid.  He is such an outdoorsman and I love listening to him talk about hunting or fishing or bbgun shooting. 

I believe it is truly important to savor each and every moment that you have with your family because no matter how much you wish you could, you cannot "Freeze Time".

Don't worry, use as many wipes as you want Z-dog they're cheap - right???

Happy Birthday Sweet Zaria

With all of the busyness of the new baby being born last week I didn't get a chance to post a big Happy 2nd Birthday for Zaria!!! She had a great birthday, we took her to Build-a-Bear and she got to pick out a Pillow Pet like her big sisters!! We had a great time celebrating with Jay's family this weekend as well!

Tidbits

Not much big going on here, just lots of little things....

First, now that beautiful spring weather is here, I cannot keep Zaria inside! She loves to play outside....this pic was taken 5 minutes after she woke up one morning, she ran to find her shoes and proceeded to put the non-matching pair on and pound on the front door to go out!

The boys are in full swing with wrestling and baseball! They are both quite busy right now!
Adam has strep throat :(
We made our tiny garden from last year about 3 times bigger this year (still a small garden), and the kids are very excited to get started planting our vegetables!
The kids are looking forward to summer break from school, especially now that the weather has turned nice.
We (Jason and I, the kids not so much) are looking forward to some good spring/summer thunderstorms this year. It seems like last year we really didn't have many good thunderstorms, maybe because it was so cool.
Not much else going on, but wanted to give a quick update!

Daddy/Daughter Night

Tonight Jay and the girls had a very special night out with Uncle Joel and Olivia!! They went to a Father/Daughter Banquet and Concert that was put on by one of our local radio stations. Everyone had a very wonderful time and enjoyed the food and the music and especially the time as Father and Daughters. This afternoon was a bustle of excitement around here as I helped get the girls ready and their hair and dresses just right, and just for this special night they all got to wear just a little of mommy's makeup. I know very special memories were made tonight and I hope that they can maybe do this every year. Here are some pics of the night. (The first pic has little Zaria with Daddy and her sisters. She was a little too young to go to the dinner tonight but we didn't want to completely leave her out of the experience.)

Someone Likes Elmo

Here is a couple of cute pics of Zaria enjoying Sesame Street.

Tea Party

Now that "Z" is getting bigger she is learning to play very well with the bigger kids and I just happened to peek in on Ruby and Zaria playing tea party together on the snow day this week, I wanted to catch it on camera. So here it is: