Swimming Natalie

We've been enjoying our swimming pool finally!!! After a long Texas winter, we had some cosmetic damage to the pool and some issues with chemical balances so we were going to get some work done on it but ultimately we had to do some more costly home repairs (roof & sewer leaks). My wonderful husband was able to fix the chemical levels and get the water cleaned up so that we could start using the pool for the rest of the summer. We decided to try out Natalie's floaties and "floating?" swimsuit i bought last year. and guess what.... it works like a charm! and little miss Rachel is totally chilling in her baby float so it's been very enjoyable for us. We're taking advantage of the hot triple digit heat here in Texas and we go swimming pretty much every day now. The girls love it and so do we!

Running Rachel

our littlest daughter is fast these days....she can go where she wants to go now and sometimes we loose her in the house (or mommy almost trips over her).

Ansel Adams.....watch out!

We have an aspiring little photographer on our hands. At (almost) age 3, Natalie knows how to turn on our little sony cybershot camera, take a picture AND view it! it's unbelievable. she also is learning how to get a centered shot BUT the only pose she will take is when you "make a silly face"!!! All these pics were taken by Natalie Ray Zook:

Grace's Birthday gym party

Last weekend all four of us went to another wonderful birthday party. this one happened to be in an indoor kid's gym and it was super fun!
The "big" kids got to play too - i forgot how much i liked jumping on the trampoline. and the best part of the gym room was the big blue foam pit. it was the best!




Matt and i could jump in and our feet never touched the ground. the only thing was that the foam "ate" things.....somewhere down there is one of natalie's pony tail holders and Matt's sock. other than that, it was good times.

Poor Natalie - we tried to have her hold Rachel (just like Zane is holding his little brother jack) but Rachel was so wiggly it only lasted 2 seconds. at this point, Natalie was hot and ready to eat some cake.


It just makes me ready for the girls' parties. we're thinking bubble guppies and disney princess themes.

Grace is the cutie and the head of the table.While the big kids ate at the table, the little brothers and sisters played "house"... it was funny.

videos of rachel

i posted videos of rachel walking but since i had started the blog entry last week, it posted down below.... enjoy!

Hanging with dad

Dad has lots of toys and rachel likes her dad and likes toys so it was a win-win time for both of my cuties.

Rachel's learning to walk!

hello everyone - just wanted to let everyone know out there in cyberworld that my littlest daughter is starting to walk! we figured she would try walking earlier since she is the youngest and has a big sister who can do cool things like follow mommy into the next room, run around with dad and jump off of couches in the living room. so what's a 10 month old to do?? practice until she gets it.... and that's exactly what rachel's been up to the last couple of weeks.


on June 5th, she started taking her first steps. of course the camera is never around to capture the very first ones so she was tired and more "falling" than walking once we got the camera going.

then she started practicing her speed crawling

Then this past week she really seemed to get the hang of it and started to taking lots of steps

And now she's pretty much got it down. now the fun part is lots of practice!!! and she is. she's walking everywhere. lots of times she gets tired and just sits down and plays but the cool thing is now she can go where she wants. when i'm in the kitchen, she'll walk in and play with the frig magnetics. sometimes she likes to play in natalie's room and we'll find her half way down the hall headed in that direction.

Father's Day hugs

Daddy LOVES his girls!!!!

Da Dallas Aquarium!

Natalie really loves fish, especially if they are pink and purple! (these are her inseparable two favorite colors right now). She also loves animals and anything science-y (for the moment). Grandma Zook loves air conditioning. Rachel loves to stick her tongue out! So we decided to put all this stuff together with a trip to the Dallas aquarium and indoor rainforest last Saturday. Hanging out with my family and having fun was the best Father's day gift I could ask for.

Da Dallas Zoo!

So, we went to the zoo when it was about 150 degrees with 200% humidity because we are brilliant. Somehow we managed not to spontaneously combust before we got the girls to the kids' area which has a play-river. We actually had alot of (sweaty) fun.







(if you click on the picture above and zoom in, it looks like Rachel has a giant buck tooth. Don't worry it's just a puff!)

Camp out with Grandma....in the living room

Here's how the Zook gals "rough it":


"no Grandma, you have to go thru the tunnel to get in".

"like this".

"Where'd Rachel go?"

Rachel's face says "indoor camping really stinks....."

...but I'm AWESOME at it!" (either that or she's been listening to KISS again).