Saturday, April 25, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Zook Family Updates - April
Here are some things that have been going on with the Zook's:
- everyone's been sick with upper respiratory infections and has been on at least 1 round of antibiotics :-(
- Natalie has had 3 ear infections (and 3 rounds of antibiotics) in the last 3 months and when we went for her checkup last Friday, her ears were still infected!!......so we did 3 rounds of shots. It was sooooooooo sad to watch her get them (1 in each leg) Friday, Saturday and Monday. Thankfully, the shots had a numbing agent so as soon as i picked her up, she stopped crying. So far, it looks like this last round is doing the trick. I hope so, because if it doesn't we will likely be talking about tubes again.
- we are going on our first family vacation soon - and I CANNOT WAIT!!! we planned it around matt's scheduled days off and will be flying down to San Antonio to go to the Zoo and the Riverwalk. Our hotel is on the Riverwalk so that will make it convenient and hopefully we'll have a lot of fun. I'm sure you'll see pics from our vacation soon.
- Since we've been going to see the doctor a lot, i also thought i'd mention that Natalie's weight (with clothes on) is 19lbs!!! She has been feeling so heavy to pick up lately and now i know why! Also, it seemed like she gained weight overnight so it's likely a combination of too much food and a growth spurt. When we go to her 9 month check up in May, I'll post her stats.
- Here is the solid food she is eating: applesauce(organic/store bought) and pear sauce(organic/homemade), yogurts (YoBaby brand), sweet potatoes with cinnamon(homemade), squash, (organic/homemade), mixed veggies & carrots(both organic/homemade) but they have to be mixed with applesauce or pear - otherwise she gags, rice and oatmeal cereals, green beans, peas (both organic store bought), bananas, mango, avocado, biter biscuits, puffs, and cheerios.
- she has fruit/cereal for breakfast, veggies/cereal for lunch and veggies/cereal/fruit at dinner. she was having 8 oz of bottle at 7am,11am,3pm,7pm but I've reduced that down to 6oz. I try to keep these amounts as a general rule, but i mostly watch her cues to let me know when she needs more/less.
- we're still working on the sippy cup, she's not a fan on the cup yet. she is holding her own bottle (most of the time)
- her bedtime is typically 8pm now. we use to take a bath and then read but she's currently terrified of the bathtub although we're not sure why. when she was on the last antibiotic, it made her bottom very tender and she had a bad bathing experience one night. I'm thinking that this is the cause of the problem and haven't quite figured out what to do. for now, we are doing sponge baths in the sink most nights. i always end her day with reading "The Going to Bed Book", "Are you my Mother" and "The Wonderful Sounds Mr.Brown can do"
- she is teething and we have the spotting of her first tooth. unfortunately for her, it is coming in VERY slowly. the tip of it has been exposed for about 2 weeks now - i hope for her sake it comes thru soon (but not during our vacation) :-0
- in the last week or so she is showing extreme separation anxiety for mommy. while i enjoy that she wants me, it makes dropping her off at daycare or visiting her at lunch much harder. her teachers are great and will take her from me so we can wave bye and then get her distracted once i leave. i sometimes sneak a peak at her after i leave and thankfully, she's fine. unfortunately, she is also showing separation anxiety at home when matt is holding her and i am in the same room. she cries for me and it makes it hard for matt to spend time with her. i've had to leave the room now several times so that she can focus on daddy time. Hopefully, she will outgrow this soon so that Matt and I can enjoy spending time together with her.
- she is doing a great job crawling and is pulling up on everything (especially my legs!). she even stood for 2-3 seconds by herself this weekend - it shocked me- unfortunately no one else saw it. matt did she her wrestled a baby almost twice her size to get a toy she wanted and I found out today that she was diving out of the baby play pen at daycare. she's definitely "fearless" - I think she gets this from Grandpa Cadden!
- she is not talking as much (due to her ear infections) but is very good at saying dada and mama. i have found that when matt spends time with her in the mornings, she talks a lot more on the drive to work.
- everyone's been sick with upper respiratory infections and has been on at least 1 round of antibiotics :-(
- Natalie has had 3 ear infections (and 3 rounds of antibiotics) in the last 3 months and when we went for her checkup last Friday, her ears were still infected!!......so we did 3 rounds of shots. It was sooooooooo sad to watch her get them (1 in each leg) Friday, Saturday and Monday. Thankfully, the shots had a numbing agent so as soon as i picked her up, she stopped crying. So far, it looks like this last round is doing the trick. I hope so, because if it doesn't we will likely be talking about tubes again.
- we are going on our first family vacation soon - and I CANNOT WAIT!!! we planned it around matt's scheduled days off and will be flying down to San Antonio to go to the Zoo and the Riverwalk. Our hotel is on the Riverwalk so that will make it convenient and hopefully we'll have a lot of fun. I'm sure you'll see pics from our vacation soon.
- Since we've been going to see the doctor a lot, i also thought i'd mention that Natalie's weight (with clothes on) is 19lbs!!! She has been feeling so heavy to pick up lately and now i know why! Also, it seemed like she gained weight overnight so it's likely a combination of too much food and a growth spurt. When we go to her 9 month check up in May, I'll post her stats.
- Here is the solid food she is eating: applesauce(organic/store bought) and pear sauce(organic/homemade), yogurts (YoBaby brand), sweet potatoes with cinnamon(homemade), squash, (organic/homemade), mixed veggies & carrots(both organic/homemade) but they have to be mixed with applesauce or pear - otherwise she gags, rice and oatmeal cereals, green beans, peas (both organic store bought), bananas, mango, avocado, biter biscuits, puffs, and cheerios.
- she has fruit/cereal for breakfast, veggies/cereal for lunch and veggies/cereal/fruit at dinner. she was having 8 oz of bottle at 7am,11am,3pm,7pm but I've reduced that down to 6oz. I try to keep these amounts as a general rule, but i mostly watch her cues to let me know when she needs more/less.
- we're still working on the sippy cup, she's not a fan on the cup yet. she is holding her own bottle (most of the time)
- her bedtime is typically 8pm now. we use to take a bath and then read but she's currently terrified of the bathtub although we're not sure why. when she was on the last antibiotic, it made her bottom very tender and she had a bad bathing experience one night. I'm thinking that this is the cause of the problem and haven't quite figured out what to do. for now, we are doing sponge baths in the sink most nights. i always end her day with reading "The Going to Bed Book", "Are you my Mother" and "The Wonderful Sounds Mr.Brown can do"
- she is teething and we have the spotting of her first tooth. unfortunately for her, it is coming in VERY slowly. the tip of it has been exposed for about 2 weeks now - i hope for her sake it comes thru soon (but not during our vacation) :-0
- in the last week or so she is showing extreme separation anxiety for mommy. while i enjoy that she wants me, it makes dropping her off at daycare or visiting her at lunch much harder. her teachers are great and will take her from me so we can wave bye and then get her distracted once i leave. i sometimes sneak a peak at her after i leave and thankfully, she's fine. unfortunately, she is also showing separation anxiety at home when matt is holding her and i am in the same room. she cries for me and it makes it hard for matt to spend time with her. i've had to leave the room now several times so that she can focus on daddy time. Hopefully, she will outgrow this soon so that Matt and I can enjoy spending time together with her.
- she is doing a great job crawling and is pulling up on everything (especially my legs!). she even stood for 2-3 seconds by herself this weekend - it shocked me- unfortunately no one else saw it. matt did she her wrestled a baby almost twice her size to get a toy she wanted and I found out today that she was diving out of the baby play pen at daycare. she's definitely "fearless" - I think she gets this from Grandpa Cadden!
- she is not talking as much (due to her ear infections) but is very good at saying dada and mama. i have found that when matt spends time with her in the mornings, she talks a lot more on the drive to work.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Jello
This year on St. Patrick's Day, Natalie's daycare class made green jello and they let the kids play with it - they called it a "sensory skills" teaching. I decided to have my own "sensory skills" teaching class today (which just happened to be Easter). What can I say, Matt was working, it was just the two of us and I was kind of bored of playing on the floor with her. Plus, I wanted to see how she reacted to the jello. You can't really tell by this video or pictures, but she didn't care for the jello very much - it took her about 10-15 minutes to warm up to it before she would even touch it. Mom made most of the mess in the pictures (at least I had alot of fun!).
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Our Little Crawler
Natalie has been so active lately and is just getting around everything and everywhere. At daycare, they say she's fearless - she climbs over things and goes where ever she wants. She's even taken to grabbing pacifiers out of the other kids mouths (and she doesn't even like pacifiers). We've also found a great new "toy" for her - the very expensive laundry hamper. When you flip it over, the base is just the right size so that she can easily pull up and not topple over. Also, it is lightweight enough that it will slide on the carpet very slowly and this allows her to practice walking. Check it out for yourself how quickly she's up and going.
Birthday Parties
Last weekend there were a couple of birthday parties for the kids at church - with so many babies, there is just about a party a month for the entire year! Check out Natalie's cute party dress (and shoes!)
Matt and Joby hanging out.
Some of the babies hanging out - Natalie's one of the boys here.
Where are they all headed to? 
Matt and Joby hanging out.
Some of the babies hanging out - Natalie's one of the boys here. 
Where are they all headed to? 
These little girls were all tuckered out from the parties this weekend.
Blury Pictures of Natalie and Mom
I'm so happy that Natalie has finally started saying MaMa now (not that i was ever jealous of her always saying dada). She is also starting to get alittle bit clingy which is actually a good thing because for so long now she's not wanted to cuddle with either of us and now she let's us rock her and she actually crawls up to me and gets in my lap or gives me hugs. I LOVE this!!! 
These pictures aren't great but since I usually take all of the pictures, there aren't alot of Natalie and I together. 
My "Twins"
Here are "my twins"
Matt shaved his hair off a couple of weekends ago for a Children's Cancer Charity and now that his hair is growing back, he and Natalie look more like twins than ever.
This particular night, Matt and Natalie were enjoying watching one of her baby DVD's - the two of them look so cute with similar hair styles and i just love her pants with the little heart on the bottom. It was alot of fun seeing the two of them locked into the tv - they were having so much fun hanging out that night.
I just love her little hand touching daddy's arm - they were clearly enjoying hanging out together.
Matt shaved his hair off a couple of weekends ago for a Children's Cancer Charity and now that his hair is growing back, he and Natalie look more like twins than ever.
This particular night, Matt and Natalie were enjoying watching one of her baby DVD's - the two of them look so cute with similar hair styles and i just love her pants with the little heart on the bottom. It was alot of fun seeing the two of them locked into the tv - they were having so much fun hanging out that night.I just love her little hand touching daddy's arm - they were clearly enjoying hanging out together.
Grandma's House in Louisiana
Natalie and I flew down to Louisiana to see my mom, brother Aaron and sister-in-law Ginger last month. We had so much fun and can't wait to go back and see them - hopefully next time Matt will be off work and can join us. We did alot while we were there - plantation tour, hanging out at the park, eating boiled shrimp (YUM!!!) and wedding cake snowballs (SUPER YUM!!)
Ginger is a tour guide at Laura Plantation and she took us on her tour - she did such a good job! It was a beautiful day and we had fun taking pictures around the plantation.
Below are picture of my Nowegian baby doll that I had when I was 8 years old. My mom has kept it all of the years later and we thought it was really funny how similar in size it was to Natalie - she also seemed to love the doll and acted like it was another baby.
Below are picture of my Nowegian baby doll that I had when I was 8 years old. My mom has kept it all of the years later and we thought it was really funny how similar in size it was to Natalie - she also seemed to love the doll and acted like it was another baby.We went to the park - she loved hangout out with Grandma and seeing the other kids too. She alos had a small bite of Grandma's snowcone and naturally - she liked it...that's my girl :-)
Natalie's first "cat" experience. She liked him very much - of course the cat tried to get away as soon as possible.
Uncle Aaron is silly...he make me laugh - Aunt Ginger likes to play with me - I love her.
Pictures of Natalie playing with Uncle Aaron and Aunt Ginger. 
CHECK OUT OUR "MOVIE" INSPIRED BY NATALIE at:
Misc. Pics
Ok, so it's been a really time since we posted anything and we've had alot going on since the last post. Natalie and I flew down to see my mom, brother and sister in law in Thibodaux. We also had a couple of birthday parties and cookouts - lots of fun! We've also been sick alot and Natalie's on her 3rd ear infection - we may even have to get tubes put in her ears...bummer :-(
I love this picture - her expression is too cute - she looks mad but i think she was concentrating alot.
Super spazz!! she's a cutie
I love this picture - her expression is too cute - she looks mad but i think she was concentrating alot.
Super spazz!! she's a cutie
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