L'Shana Tovah!

Happy New Year! Here's Zoe all decked out in her new dress and Mary Janes (which you can't see). If you look at her forehead you can see that her injury is healing nicely. We hope there won't be a permanent scar, but if there is I'm sure she'll make it work for her...kind of like Harry Potter. Sophie declined to participate in the photo shoot. You gotta let a 2-year-old say "no" sometimes...hope everyone has a sweet new year!

New Skills

Both girls have been practicing some new skills. Sophie has been having fun helping mommy cook by using a butter knife to cut veggies. I observed her using a new technique - holding the knife upside down!

Zoe has also been practicing with utensils. Today she ate her yogurt all by herself (while I tended to a vomiting Sophie). I was impressed with how little yogurt ended up on her and how much actually made it into her mouth. Another skill that she showed off the other day is taking off her diaper. For the past couple of weeks she has been telling me when she pees in her diaper. She grabs the bulky crotch area and says "pee!!" When she poops she comes to me, grabs her diaper and says "butt!!" Since she has been there every step of the way of Sophie's toilet training, I figured maybe it was time to start her on the potty too. She loves to sit on it, but she doesn't quite understand that you only get M&Ms when the pee or poop actually makes it in the potty. Oh well. We have been so pleased with Sophie and how quickly she learned to use the potty. Maybe Zoe will be out of diapers by the time she's two!

Mt. Lemmon

Yesterday we said goodbye to Grammy Harriet after she spent a week visiting us here in Tucson. One thing that Grammy said she wanted to do was go up to Mt. Lemmon. It's a great place to go to get out of the Tucson heat (yes, it's still in the high 90s and sometimes triple digits). We packed a picnic lunch and Sophie's potty and headed out for the day. The girls had a great time exploring the foreign surroundings: pine cones, tree stumps, shiny metallic rocks and sticks for digging. After our picnic we headed to the top of the mountain to check one of the gift shops. The girls got to pick out enough polished stones to fill a little bag, and both Andy and my mom found some other gifts and treats to bring home. It was a beautiful day, but I have to admit that I was quite cold in the 70 degree air up there! Next time I'd like to bring food to grill - for eating and for keeping warm!

Zoo Trip

I was surprised to find out that my mom had never been to the Tucson Zoo. We ventured there early Monday morning and were pleased to find that there were not many other visitors. For Grammy, the highlight was feeding the giraffes. For Sophie, the highlight of the trip was seeing the rhinoceros poop. She talked about it incessantly for the rest of the day, and no matter how often we changed the subject, she always managed to bring it back to how the rhinoceros pooped. Zoe just had a good time getting in and out of the stroller to get better looks at the animals. I think she especially liked watching the polar bear play with his ball in the water, since a ball is one of her top three favorite toys. And I just enjoyed spending a nice morning out with my family.

Baby's Got New Shoes

Both girls got new shoes today. Zoe needed a new pair because her size 5's are too small, but Sophie's old size 6's are too big. And since Zoe got new shoes, Sophie "needed" a new pair too. I paid a whole $5 for her imitation Crocs. In the picture you can see Zoe admiring the "wower" on her shoes, and you can also see Sophie's complete disinterest in having her entire outfit match! We all went on a walk after dinner to break in the new shoes. I grabbed my camera as we left because lately we've been seeing the most enormous tarantulas in our neighborhood. We didn't spot any tonight, but we did catch a glimpse of the beautiful sunset from a neighbor's backyard.

Fishy Craft

Sophie did this craft at school the other day, and I decided to copy her teacher and repeat the craft at home. Yesterday the girls painted the paper plates, and today we decorated them with stick-on flowers and googly eyes. Zoe's fish appears to be hungry, and Sophie's fish looks to be a victim of some sort of genetic mutation! At any rate, the girls love doing arts and crafts and we try to do a project everyday.

Mmmm....Starbucks

This morning I had to meet someone at Starbucks to deliver some paperwork, and since it happened to be right around morning snack time, the girls got a special treat. Sophie thoroughly enjoyed her chocolate milk and petite vanilla scone. Zoe of course only wanted her water and one of those fancy green straws to chew on (she's currently cutting two molars). And for me? I got one of those fancy schmancy coffee drinks, but mostly I got a kick out of sharing one of my guilty pleasures with the girls!

Apple Annie's

Today we ventured down to Willcox, Arizona to pick apples at Apple Annie's Orchards. It turned out to be a beautiful day, and both girls enjoyed eating apples right off the tree. The highlights of the day were: riding in the tractor-pulled wagon, picking (and eating) the apples, and getting homemade apple pie ice cream after lunch. We had a lot of fun and plan to go back later in the fall for their big pumpkin festival!

Hair Dos

Sophie wanted to have her hair out of her face for our big trip to the apple orchard, and whatever Sophie does, Zoe wants to do too. Sophie wanted her ponies out before we even left the house, and Zoe pulled one out while we were driving to the orchard, which meant that I had to take the other one out. Fortunately water and sunscreen helped me fix her hair since it had dried while the ponies were in and looked ridiculous when they came out!

Daddy snuggles

Zoe woke up from her nap, but then she (and Andy) fell back asleep while snuggling. By the time she woke up for good, she had racked up 4 hours of nap time!