Busy Day!

So today was filled with lots of activities for the Zooks. We went to church, picked up lunch, went to a baby shower (for me and Rachel!) and then small group tonight. Natalie didn't go to bed until 10pm!! yikes. Anyway, here are a few pictures from today.

Baby Shower pics (for Rachel!) This cake was sooooo yummy!

Small Group - kid chaos. There were 8? kids ages 2-5 running around like nuts during our small group tonight. Natalie had a blast playing with everyone AND dressing up. She also enjoyed Toy Story and riding on a tricycle.

Bounce! Bounce! Bounce!

Natalie wore Daddy out this weekend as they bounced in the living room! Also, we've noticed that she's been chubbing up alittle and seems to be going thru a growth spurt. We weighted her today and she hit the 26lb mark. She's still wearing size 18 but her feet are growing and she's moving into the size 24 month clothing now. I'll post more when she has her 2 year check up next month.

Natalie is also becoming a very girly-girl. I think it's time to start investing in dress up clothes. Her favorite right now is her yellow Belle princess shoes. She also tries to put her red Snow White shoes on mommy and daddy (with no luck I might add). And, her favorite book right now is Cinderalla.

July 4th Weekend

So our July 4th weekend started off on a sad note because this was my last weekend to fly and we had made plans to fly to Birmingham, rent a car and see my aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. I was sooooooo excited because it had been almost a year since I had seen many of them (if not longer!). Unfortunately, once we got to the airport, it was obvious that we were not going to make the original flight due to all of the holiday travel and there were very limited options to get there and back to Dallas. In the end, we decided to not go. I was SOOOOOOOOOOOO very bummed out. So, after a morning of crying my eyes out, we decided we needed to make the best of the weekend and just "spoil" ourselves. So that's what we did.
On Saturday afternoon, the three of us went to Going Bonkers in Lewisville. This is where we are planning on having Natalie's 2nd birthday party and we were curious to see if she would enjoy it more than last time. Good news! she really enjoyed it, actually she LOVED it! Daddy played with her almost the whole time and I took pictures. At one point, Daddy had to rest so I played with her in the toddler area and Rachel and I climbed around with her.

After that, we ended up going out to eat mexican food. It was so nice not having to cook anything. I wish every night was "going out to eat" night! We also rented Hot Tub Time Machine, Shutter Island, etc...(we don't watch movies often so it was a treat for us).
On Sunday, we went to church, did some grocery shopping and came home for lunch and naps. I watched a girlie movie while Nat took her nap and Matt did yard work. After that, we went swimming in the pool and had alot of fun.
On Monday, we went to the Dallas Zoo to see the new exhibit (Savannah). It was designed by Jack Hanna and was very pretty. It reminded me of being back in Kenya. Natalie had so much fun running around everywhere and Matt was such a trouper keeping up with her. They have a nice kids area that has a wading pool, horse rides, etc.. and Matt and Natalie enjoyed cooling down in the water. It was hot and we were ready to go home after around 3 hours.

Once we got home, we took naps and then headed back outside for more pool fun. Since we had planned on being out of town, we didn't have anyone over this year for a pool party but the three of us had fun anyway. We ended our weekend with watching Shutter Island once Natalie had gone to bed - it's a good movie worth renting (and not too scarey either).

Chillin at home

Now that mommy is waaaaaaaaaay pregnant - I spend alot of time on the couch instead of down on the floor playing with Natalie. Tonight, she decided to join me on the couch and I LOVED it.

Later, Matt got a cute shot of Natalie walking around in her princess shoes. Mimi bought her a red pair (snow white) and a yellow pair (belle) BUT Natalie thinks it's way better to wear one of each instead. Also, he got her on camera doing the Hot Dog dance (she LOVES!!!!!!! Mickey Mouse Clubhouse). I just wish that there was better lighting to see her do the Hot Dog dance in all it's glory.

A Pink Hat

SUCCESS!!!

It's been one week now since we switched Natalie to her Big Girl room and queen size bed and I'm very pleased to tell everyone that it has been such a successful week!!! Although she did not take any naps last weekend, she did really well at night and hasn't been a problem at all. Here's a picture of what we've seen each night this week.

She's been staying in her bed until today - so that is such a win. Today however was the first time she took a nap in her room. I am just so proud of her. So I went in to check on her because I had originally laid down with her (cause momma was tired!) and slept some, she had just played and talked. Did I mention she talks a lot when she's trying to unwind? well, she does. anyway, i actually took a nap, she was still talking and playing (which is what woke me up) and i told her that mommy was leaving. She got sad and cried but that only lasted for a few minutes. We always close our doors when we sleep and since she doesn't know how to open them yet, I heard her wiggled the handle for awhile. then there was silence.

I decided to peak in on her and this is how I found her. Too cute! It's a good thing i didn't try and open the hall door - I'm really glad we have the bathroom door too.

Father's Day Weekend - Part 2 (Aquarium)

On Saturday morning, we all went to the Dallas World Aquarium (it's was Natalie's first time to go) and we had alot of fun. Natalie was a little scared at first, especially with the little birds (reminds me of her mom) but she gradually warmed up and had fun. Matt and I took advantage of this and gave her lots of cuddles and hugs which or course we hated (he! he!).
The jaguar was very polite to pose with Natalie and Daddy. Why is it that she is scared of little birds but this giant "cat" was no threat? Maybe it is the cheerois - or maybe it's because Daddy is soooooooooo serious.

Natalie LOVED the pink flamingos - she was cracking us up because she kept calling them PINKO's and didn't want to leave the exhibit.

Some cool pictures with mom in the tunnel:

Father's Day Weekend - Part 1 (big girl room)

This has been a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG weekend for the Zooks. It started off on Friday - I took the day off to finish Natalie's big girl room, run errands and the constant obgyn appointment. The day was over before I knew BUT I was able to get Natalie's BIG girl room (from here on know as BGR) into somewhat decent shape. There is still some decorating to be done, but for the most part, it's complete. Her new room is the old guest room and we tried to use as much existing furniture as possible. She's going from a crib (which she has been very content with) to a Queen! size bed. ai-yi-yi........ (more on the progress later)

We left the dresser and chair but removed the nightstands and bought some bookcases from Ikea instead. The lamps were existing, as was some of the bedding. The biggest change of course, is the color which Natalie helped me with. Below are the "before" and "after" pictures.

Before pictures (I loved our guest room - it had alot of stuff from my grandmother)

After pictures - Natalie's new BIG GIRL ROOM

Crib to bed transition progress: I have been really nervous about it and she's been doing exactly what I thought she would. So far, there have been zero naps this weekend. Saturday night was her first time to actually sleep in her room. Matt put her to bed and she was so tired that she cuddled up to him and fell asleep almost instantly. Amazingly - she slept thru the night and slept in about 30 minutes longer than normal. Tonight was a different story. No nap today, but she did tire momma out! I was soooooooo frustrated and just have to remind myself that this is a BIG transition for her. She was so tired this afternoon because of not having a nap that she actually feel asleep eating dinner. It reminded me of when she was a baby.

Ok, so I decided to put her to bed about 30 minutes earlier because of this, but she had other plans. As soon as I put her down on her BG bed, she popped wide awake and stayed up for about 2 more hours. We did enjoy talking in bed and I finally left after 45 minutes or so (she was still awake) and it's been quiet now for the last 30 minutes. Praise God!! I'm hoping that she sleeps thru the night again cause momma needs her sleep for work tomorrow!

Swimming with Mommy

Natalie is LOVING our pool this year. Almost every day she's asking to go swimming and well, mommy is very pregnant at the moment and loves to be in the pool too. SO..... we swim pretty much every day now. Here are a few pics from our swim tonight.


Natalie gets a little crazy with the camera - watch out dad!

Watching Elmo with Daddy

Recently, Natalie has become OBSESSED with Minnie Mouse (actually the mickey mouse clubhouse DVD's we bought her) and Elmo. Sometimes in the morning when we're getting ready to go to school/work or in the evenings, she asks to see Elmo's song. So we pull her up on our laps, google a video on youtube and watch a short clip. She LOVES this!

Memorial Day - Omaha visit

We had a great visit to Omaha this past Memorial Day weekend to visit with Matt's cousin Renee and her family (Mike, Mallory and William). It had been 1 year since we had last seen them and the twins had grown up so much!
Mallory and William are 6 months younger than Natalie and we had so much fun watching them interact while we got a chance to visit. We also got a chance to visit with Aunt Maggie (matt's aunt), have a "date night" on Saturday and a cookout on Sunday. We flew back home to Dallas on Monday.

It was a BIG adventure for us and we're so glad we were able to make it out there. We forgot to bring our camera with us so we'll update with more pictures when we can but for now, you can check out all the pics on Renee's blog.
http://www.mrloftusfamily.blogspot.com/

Sick :-(

No pictures to update you with but just wanted to let you guys know that we've been sick with a late spring cold. BOO!!! It started off with Natalie getting sick (runny nose / congestion) last week. Then, Matt started feeling bad on Saturday afternoon and myself on Saturday evening. We had to cancel our date night (SUPER BOO!!!) and missed church on Sunday. I think I've felt it the worst (dr. said it's because I'm pregnant) and I basically felt like I had the flu without a fever on Sunday and Monday. I didn't even get out of bed until 2pm! on Monday and that was only so that I could go to the dr. office. Also, I decided to miss the monthly Mother's Night Out with my church girls too (BOO!!!).

Thankfully, we all seem to be on the road to feeling better (thanks to all the medicine and fluids we're ingesting).

The only upside to this weekend was that I bought all the new bedding and decorations for Natalie's Big Girl Room. It's going to be done in white, pink, red and orange. Fun!

Oh no!......Natalie's got the camera

Ummmm.... natalie got ahold of the camera. Interesting pictures.

New Haircut (Erica)

Yesterday I took the afternoon off work and had a long-awaited haircut. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do to it - I just knew I wanted a change. Here are some pictures.I picked Natalie up alittle early that day for a doctor's appointment and when we got back to the house, we had fun playing with the camera. I had alot of fun taking pictures with her.

Jenn's Visit

Tonight, we had a great visit with Matt's cousin Tom's fiancee Jenn. She was in town for a few days for work and we picked her up, had dinner at Blue Goose and brought her back to our house to visit more. Natalie loved Jenn's bracelet and sunglasses!

Here are some more pictures from her visit - Erica (6 months pregnant) and Matt.

Erica and Jenn