She's just so cute!

Zoe's personality is just blossoming. She's a ham for the camera, so it's hard to get a picture of her true self unless you do it without her seeing you. As soon as she hears the camera turn on she makes a beeline for it. I caught her yesterday playing with her baby. She carries it around with her sometimes and rocks it. She found my shoes this morning and was hugging and rocking them too. Already has a love of shoes! :)

And one of her new skills this week is...



...standing on her own. You can't tell that well from this picture, but she's standing in the middle of the living room floor all by herself. She's showing off the socks she pulled from her feet. Look out! She'll be walking soon!

Youth activities

We took the youth group to the Solitude Nordic Center today with a few other adults from church to do some snowshoeing. In case you don't know what that is, you strap these awkward shoes onto your feet so you can go hiking through the snow. We had a really fun time.

Only 6 kids showed up, but in some ways a small group is more fun. We couldn't take the church van due to some mechanical issues, so we split up into cars and made the trek. The snow base up there is 72 inches. The hike we took was around a frozen lake and through the woods. It was a perfect day for a hike. Around 30 degrees with clear skies and just a little breeze.

Matt and I had to get some ski pants and boots, but they came in handy and will be used a lot. I've never skied, having grown up in south Texas, so I'm really enjoying our time in the snow. Zoe loves being out in it, but we didn't take her today. She stayed with some friends from church and had a blast at their house. I think this might become an annual event on the youth calendar. We're exhausted, but are already planning another trip before the snow starts to melt. :)

Click here to see our pictures.

Back row left to right: Justin Robinson, Gary Dowdy, Garrett Dowdy, Matt Crill, Jenny Crill, Griffin Howard

Front row left to right: Mona Greene, Kasey Greene, Brenda Dowdy, Melanie Howard, Michael Benshoof

Utah Sunrise

We've had a lot of snow this winter. I think there's at least a foot of snow piled on our lawn. Sunday morning we had this glorious sunrise. Isn't God a wonderful artist!

Mommy and Daddy time

Just a couple of cute shots of the 10 month old with her adoring parents. :)

Weekend Adventures

We had some good fun this weekend! I draped a sheet across a couple of chairs and Zoe had a blast! She kept laughing and swatting at the sheets. She even brought a couple of toys under it to play with. Ah, the simple things. :)

She also has discovered that she can push the car seat around if we don't put it away. Sunday night, before we put the car seat up, she pushed it from the dining room into the kitchen and then tried to use it to reach up on the counter. TROUBLE!

She's already tall enough to reach the table top. Next thing we know she'll be trying to climb onto the couch!

The simplicity of life

I have to say that motherhood is lots of fun. Sure, there's challenges, but how else do you get to experience the world through the eyes of a child all over again? For example, who knew you could get so much joy out of simply blowing bubbles. The giggles and wonder are enough to keep you doing it for hours if you can. And a simple load of laundry becomes an adventure...not only to fold, but for Zoe to explore textures. One of my favorite things is to have Zoe crawl as fast as she can into the kitchen whenever she hears me filling a glass with ice from the ice maker. She has a huge smile on her face and begs for a piece of ice.

Zoe's 10 months old now. She's changed so much!

I love dogs!

Yes, it's true. I love dogs. I'm hoping Mommy and Daddy will buy me a real live one soon. Mommy keeps saying she doesn't want to have to wake up in the middle of the night for both me and the dog though. I guess I'll just have to settle for Nana and Papa's dogs and my toys. Oh well.

Zoar

Mocha

Fiddle

Our Christmas Story...finally

Zoe's first Christmas went pretty smoothly. She's a spoiled child for sure. Her Aunts and Uncles and Grandparents were very generous and now we have more toys than her toy box can hold at the moment. It's time to do some sorting. Zoe's been real good to leave the tree alone and just wave at it (which is incredibly cute). Matt and I opened our presents the night before so we could focus on her and keep the paper out of her mouth. That's quite a challenge! She decided she had waited long enough to open gifts, so she started tearing into one before Matt finished getting the video camera set up.

I think we're going to copy my sister and her family and get Christmas pajamas every year. She's just too cute in her pj's. I'm surprised the hat stayed on for as long as it did. :) Matt's present to me for our anniversary and Christmas was to paint and decorated our bedroom. It's beautiful! I'll get pictures of it soon to share.

Happy New Year!

You know things have changed when you stay home and watch a movie on New Year's Eve rather than getting together with friends to party in the new year. :) We got Zoe down for the night and thankfully she slept through the fire works in the neighborhood. She also slept straight through the night for the first time in a while. Sadly I didn't get to enjoy that because I kept waking up with a cough. Hopefully she'll start sleeping well again and I can feel better.

I'm a bit behind on my postings. I'll post more about Christmas soon.

We wish you all God's blessings in this new year!