Sew Obsessed

Sewing Zoe's temple dress reminded me of how much fun it is to sew.  I have been a little obsessed since then, buying quite a few patterns, and sewing any time I get a free minute.  I don't really have time for a new obsession, but I am loving every minute of it.

My favorite project up until this point is this one.

I think she is about the cutest thing in the world.

I made this outfit out of an old shirt and pair of pants of Robby's.  It was so easy and I think it turned out really cute.  I think my favorite thing about it is that the shirt reminds me so much of Robby, but yet now it is so girly.  It is fun that when I look at it I can think of both of my kiddos.

7 Months

Wow, I can't believe that Zoe is already seven months old.

At 7 months, Zoe is

... legally ours.  We even have a birth certificate and adoption decree to prove it.

... totally in love with food.  Especially anything that appears to be grown-up food.  She loves eating things like pasta, bread, chunks of cooked vegetables, basically anything that comes off my plate.  She also never says no to a jar of baby food.  Over the past month we have discovered a number of odd tastes that she likes including salsa, pickles, and even lemons. That girl loves her food.

... saying dadada and mamama although at this point she has no idea what they mean.

... still pretty much immobile and not at all happy about it.  She now refuses to sit up for long.  Instead, she dives onto her belly, convinced she is going to take off across the floor.  She gets up on her hands and knees and rocks, but that is far as she is going at this point and she finds that very frustrating.

... a very good, but noisy sleeper.

... very attached to her mom.  She doesn't like to let me our of her sight and is getting very wary of strangers.  I have to admit, sometimes it is kind of nice to know she loves me so much, but it can also be incredibly annoying.

... finally getting some hair in her bald spot.

... hating that she has to wear socks.  She is always trying to pull or kick them off.  She will love the summer.

... in love with water.  She thoroughly enjoys her bath.  She loves to stick her head in the water as it is coming out of the faucet.  The other day I let her "swim" in my big bathtub and she loved it.  She would just dive right in.  She is so opposite of Robby in that way.

... the greatest daughter we could ever ask for.  We are so incredibly blessed to have her.

Valentine's Day

Wow, I am behind.  Oh well, I will get caught up sometime.

We had a great, but very simple Valentine's Day.  We bought a heart shaped pizza from Papa Murphey's and ate it while we watched a movie.  We watched City of Ember, which was actually really good.  I read the book last year and loved it, but didn't have very high hopes for the movie.  I was pleasantly surprised.  Robby absolutely loved it.  I think that we might have to check the book out at the library and read it together.

This is Robby's valentine box for school.  Their theme was "I love to read".  He decided to make a Cat in the Hat hat.  I thought it turned out great and he was definitely proud of it.

I gave Robby this poster.  He thought it was pretty cool!  It is amazing sometimes how easy it is to impress a seven-year-old.

I had a great day.  There is nothing I enjoy doing more than spending the day with my three favorite people in the world.

What a Beautiful Day

It has been a crazy week, and I am a good two weeks behind in blogging, but I should probably start with the most important stuff.  So I am finally getting this posted..

Last Saturday, we went to the Mount Timpanogos Temple and had Zoe sealed to our family.  Later that day, Kirk blessed her, and we had dinner with our friends and family.  It was an awesome day.

The temple was absolutely wonderful.  We dropped the kids off in the nursery.  Zoe didn't even cry when we left. (Although later, Robby informed us that she cried 1,000,000%, the whole time.  I guess she cried almost immediately after we left until she finally fell asleep for a few minutes.  Poor girl!  And poor temple workers that had to put up with her screaming!)

The moment that they brought the kids into the sealing room was awesome.  They looked so beautiful in their white clothes.  Zoe was a little angel for the sealing.  She sat there and put her hand on top of ours and didn't move.  She just stared at Kirk the whole time, holding perfectly still.  It was so cute!

The blessing and dinner were also wonderful!  Kirk gave a beautiful blessing.  We had lots of family and friends there.  It was nice to just enjoy everyone's company.  Dinner went well.  Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and despite all my worrying, we didn't run out of food.  Zoe was great through the whole day.  She didn't get any time to nap, but I don't think she cried once all day (except for the whole time in the nursery.)  Robby was awesome all day too.  He was a little overwhelmed but really happy with the temple.  He gave the opening prayer at the blessing, which was everyone's favorite part.  It was short and sweet, but he said he was thankful that his baby sister could be sealed to our family, which was adorable.  He was also a great help and just a good kid all day.

I can't even put into words how much the day meant to us.  It is so nice to finally have it over.  As of last Saturday, Zoe is officially ours in the eyes of the law as well as in the eyes of the church.  It is now no different than if she had been born to us.  It was kind of weird in a way.  From the moment I laid eyes on Zoe, I knew she belonged to us.  From the moment we brought her home, she has been a part of our family.  Our family would not be complete without her and I can hardly even remember life before she came.  The adoption finalization and the temple were amazing, beautiful, and wonderful, but they almost seemed  like reaffirmations of what we already knew, that Zoe is ours and belongs to our family.  I cannot express how much she means to me.  She is happy and fun and beautiful.  She brings laughter and joy to our family.  We love her with all of our heart and are so grateful that we can be with her forever.  I am so thankful for temples and for our Heavenly Father's beautiful plan that allows us to be forever families.

Here are a couple of pictures of Zoe in her dress.  These weren't taken that day, but show the dress pretty well.  I was really happy with the way the dress turned out.  It was exactly what I wanted.

Here are just some of my favorite pictures from the day!

Our forever family!

My amazingly handsome little guy.

The cutest two kids in the world.

And Little Miss Zoe herself.

I am one lucky mom!

Shattered

Last week, Kirk, Zoe, and I, had quite the crazy experience.  We had to get a few things done while Robby was in school.  We were about an hour away from home, driving down the freeway; Zoe was asleep in the backseat.  All of the sudden, we heard a weird shattering noise.  I looked over, and the driver's side side window on the car had completely shattered.  Kirk was covered in glass and wind was whipping in through the window.  Kirk quickly pulled over do assess the damage.  We were all okay (and very thankful for safety glass), but absolutely clueless about what happened.  We have no idea why the glass shattered.  We think that either somehow a rock flipped up and hit it or else there was a weak spot in the glass and we hit a bump just right.  It all ended up okay.  We drove the car to the nearest glass repair place.  They had to order the glass in, but it only took a couple of hours to get there and another hour to install.  The biggest problem was that we were not in a great neighborhood to just hang out in.  There was nothing there to do.  Three hours with nothing to do, especially with a 6 month old is not exactly fun.  We ended up wandering around Macey's for a while and then eating an early dinner at TGIFridays.  Luckily, we have glass coverage with our car insurance so we didn't have to pay anything.

Of course, that happened to be the day that I didn't have my camera with me, but I did snap a couple of pictures with my cell phone.

Our poor car without any glass.

This was what Kirk's seat looked like when he got out of the car.  There was glass everywhere.

So anyway, our couple hour trip to run some errands turned into an eight hour nightmare.  We still managed to have fun just hanging out together though and we can definitely laugh at it now.  How random.