Day trip to Little Rock

Last weekend,after my Home Interiors meeting,we went to Little Rock for the afternoon to see some friends who we hadn't seen in almost a year. We went down to the River Market and walked along the river until dinner time. Here are some cute pictures that they took of us.

Can we say limber???

Darin and I will be attending a marriage retreat this newxt weekend, so...I will have to part with my baby for a weekend. *Sniff sniff*. I've been training her to take naps in her pack and play since that's what we'll take for her to sleep in. This is the position I found her in one afternoon when I went to check in on her. Almost makes me wonder if she was sitting playing one minute and just collapsed the next. She slept like that for almost 2 hours if you can believe it. I couldn't resist not taking a picture. And yes, her pants are completely taken off....I'll never know why she decided to do that.

Bubbles and Wagons

Well, the little red wagon has definitely become one of Zoe's best friends. She white knuckles the sides when we pull her in it, but she has an ear to ear grin most of the time that she's being pulled. And of course now she's figured out that she can somehow climb into the wagon from a standing position on the ground (although we wouldn't let her climb as far as she wanted to). She's also found a love for those little (and some big) clear spheres that float about...yup...you've guessed it...bubbles. Of course, she hasn't quite grasped the concept that when you grab at them, they pop. She has this confused look on her face when she pops one, kind of a "Where'd it go??!!?" look. Too funny!!! Below are some of her 10 month "photo session". I managed to drag Darin out there this time to help distract her.

Walking already??!!?

Zoe has been inching ever closer to the walking milestone for a few weeks. For a couple of months, she's been walking holding onto one finger from each of our hands. She's been the "leader" when she walks. This started, oh, sometime around 8 months or just before. Over spring break as soon as she started crawling, she also started pulling up and ever so slowly tried to cruise along the furniture. That's just another moment in the past. She goes in circles around furniture, and you can see it in her eyes every once in a while that she just wants sooooo bad to let go. She has started to get a little more gutsy and let go to stand alone. When she does, she succeeds, but then she realized that she's not holding anything and gets scared. She intentionally falls down most of the time. But when I hold onto her and let go, she falls down almost immediately. What's the difference??? Who knows...maybe part of the independence factor. A couple of weeks ago, she stood up on her push walker and took off. Surprised me to say the least. Here's a video I got of her doing that...one of the first times she ever did so.

The story of the ginormous bathtub...

Zoe had her first visit to the lake today. We packed the new turtle floaty, a change of clothes (forgot the towels of course), sunscreen, a picnic basket (ie: a cooler) and were ready to go. It doesn't seem to matter how warm it is outside...it usually takes the lake a good month after really warm temps to heat up. So one foot in yesterday sealed the fact that we wouldn't be going in just yet. But....there was a spot just a foot or so away from the actual lake that was filled with water...probably from all of the rain over the course of the last few weeks. But this was a pretty good sized little "pool" and shallow. It was probably a foot or so deep. And because it was shallow...it was warmed by the daytime sunlight. Almost felt like a warm bath. So, this became our "ginormous bathtub". Zoe didn't care where it was. She splashed, she kicked, she giggled, and she loooved walking. Although her steps were a little higher than normal, and at the beginning a lot slower b/c of her observing what her feet were feeling. After about an hour in the lake, 45 minutes or eating snacks and playing on the grass, and a 20 minute ride in the stroller, she was wiped out. Before we even got off of the park premises, she was out cold, head bobbing up and down in her car seat. Here are some pictures of our experience.

"Who said I'm a mess?"

Now that we're entering the messy stage, she gets baths more often than usual. If only I had a shower that I could just pull down from the cieling whenever I needed to spray off the peach juice and the spaghetti-o's sauce from her face, neck, arms, oh...and even sometimes legs.

Yes...that's a piece of corn on her head that you see. No, we didn't put it there. She's figured out how to throw food...a behavior we're working on correcting.

Rain rain go away...

Arkadelphia's not under water yet, but soon it might be. We've had more rain in the last few weeks than some of the ground can handle. And since we can't go outside for walks like we normally do, we have to find things indoors to entertain us (and by us, I mean Zoe). And as always, my trusty camera is nearby ready to snap some shots. She like "reading" now where she'll babble as she flips through pages of a book. We read to her quite often so she loves to flip through the books like we do...and as you can see is somewhat successful with turning the pages (she just may skip a few here and there).

READY....SET....GO!

First wagon ride today! Darin's mom and dad came to visit this weekend and brought a present with them....a shiny new red wagon. You could tell she was somewhat intrigued by it. So we started by circling inside the house a few times to make sure she wasn't going to try to climb out. After a successful few rounds, we went to the front yard, and then finally graduated to OBU's campus. She held on tight and thourougly enjoyed herself...as did Mom and Dad! :-)

Future Tiger(ette)

Daddy would be so proud! Someone from the alumni office sent him a shirt. She was showing it off in her mini sized rocking chair. GOOOOOO TIGERS!

What's that???

We're all about the new discoveries now. She's in such a learning curve right now and is so mesmorized by anything that moves, or doesn't move for that matter. Our main place to just walk around is on OBU's campus. She wanted to play with the dirt mainly, but occasionally a flower (until it was destroyed, of course). Oh, and she LOVED putting her feet in the fountain and kicking the water. She's all about the sensation of water and wanted to crawl in.