Easter and Mommy's First Night Away

Easter is a rather busy time for our family. That whole pastor's family thing makes things a little crazy. About three weeks before Easter, Zoe started walking. This makes church a bit of a challenge. She wants to walk everywhere. She's not too ornery and she doesn't get into things at church, but she must walk around.  I wanted to let her just walk around in church on Easter Sunday, but she would surely knock over all the Easter Lilies and then wipe her dirty hands all over Daddy's white stole. Needless to say, we walk around outside of the church. She loves walking. She's getting more stable every day.

After church, I took Zoe home for a nap. She had been up for a while and needed a good snooze. I may or may not have caught a few winks myself. In the afternoon, we went over to Pastor and Stephanie Lorenz's home for a meal. We had a great time there with our friends. We even had an Easter egg hunt!

Here is a video of her walking on Good Friday.

Easter family picture.

With her Easter Basket

Happy to see a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse DVD

Done with the basket. Is that a camera you have, Daddy?

Lemme see, please!

Really?

Whaaaat?

My girl.

Walking around...

Looking for eggs!

Thanks for holding my eggs, Daddy!

Titus found most of them.

Plastic. Yum.

This past weekend and the first part of this week I was invited to a lovely women's retreat by one of our members. We went to Margie's family's ranch. It was huge! I had no idea how big Texas family ranches are. It was so beautiful outside. That is the understatement of the year. The sky was a clear blue and there were huge white clouds. There is a huge porch on the ranch with big rocking chairs. One of my goals in life is to have a house with a porch so I can rock, sip wine and watch thunder storms. I met some fantastic women and got better acquainted with the women I already knew. It was a great time of Bible Study, fellowship, laughing, silliness, relaxation and cooking. It was possibly the best retreat I have ever been on. 

One of the things that I loved about this retreat was that the ages of women ranged from 28-84. I find it so refreshing to learn from women with far more life experience. Also, more often then not, they are hilarious people. The women with the most life experience were up until 1AM giggling because they were trying to take selfies. These women were simply fantastic. I want to be them. I am so thankful that I was invited to participate in this experience.

Goats!

Love these so much!

Gorgeous Sunset

This was also the first time I had spent a night away from Zoe. I was nervous in the days leading up to my departure. I made all kinds of lists for Nate and the others who watched her. Every time she was scheduled to leave home, there was a packing list. I was ridiculous. Being out of control is just not my style. I knew she would be fine. She had a great time with the Ruiz family who helped watch her while I was gone. She also had a fun time with Daddy. I did get a chance to do a Google Hangout (Skype) with them while I was gone. It looked like they were having a great time. Technology is a wonderful thing for a mom away from her baby. My wonderful husband also washed his clothes and cleaned the floors. He is fantastic. They did well and I didn't go crazy. 

Reunited.

That's all for now. God is good.

Rough Baby Days

Zoe is a wonderful baby. She is usually very happy and oh so cute. The past couple of weeks have been a little tough. We have made the change to whole milk, cut out bottles, dropped a milk feeding and contracted an ear infection. I have been wanting to get rid of her pacifier, but I think we would all lose it. Luckily, she only uses it at night.

Today was a good day, finally. We only had a little bit of sadness in the morning. I shouted for joy when I found out that Mark Consuelos would be co-hosting Live with his wife tomorrow, as he did today. I love Michael, but Mark Consuelos is also fantastic. Yes, it is ridiculous to care that much. Anyway, I exclaimed when I knew that Mark would be on the show tomorrow as well and it startled Zoe, putting her in a bad mood for a little bit. There was some thunder this morning too, that also concerned her. After her afternoon nap, she was in a great mood for most of the night. She's so cute and snuggly.

Last week she was unusually clingy and pulling at her ears, I thought it was teething. On Friday, she got a low grade fever. Because she is prone to UTIs, I was worried that if I didn't take her in to the doctor, we would be stuck in an ER waiting forever while I had another Terms of Endearment moment with the admitting staff. It's a good thing I took her to the doctor. Her ears were infected, my poor baby. We had to check her urine anyway, just to be safe. The girl did NOT have to pee. I offered her water every other minute and even resorted to taking the top off her sippy cup. She loves to drink from a cup like a big girl. Needless to say, there ended up being more moisture on the front of her shirt than in her diaper. After watching about half of Toy Story 2, she peed. I forgot how much I love that movie. No UTI. Yay! Hurting ears, ouch. 

Over the past couple of weeks there has been a lot of screaming, crying and whining. Most of the time I have been good at keeping my cool, but yesterday we both broke down in tears. Some people know that if I am very hungry my mood changes. I like to call it hanger, angry when hungry. The only people that usually see this are my close relatives. Poor Nate. Anyway, it seems to be that Zoe, like her mommy, suffers from this condition. She screamed until I gave her dinner and then when I gave her the food, she put too much in her mouth and I had to fish it out. That lead to more crying, mommy and baby.

 Woody looked like how I felt last night.

I can't imagine what she must be going through not being able to communicate what she wants. Everyone knows that I am a talker. Even when I am not talking, it is obvious how I feel about something. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I can't imagine what it would be like if I couldn't communicate my wants or feelings to the people who are taking care of me.

I know one day she will be talking my ear off and telling me her every feeling at every moment of the day. It will be wonderful and crazy. She will be stubborn because she is the product of two stubborn first-born parents. She will sing and talk. Nate is going to have a run for his money with all the talking in our home.

We will all survive this rough patch. It really isn't all that rough anyway. It is rough by our standards. 

At the end of the day, she is the sweet girl that falls asleep in our arms. We go to bed and say to each other, our bug is so cute. I then say, "I miss her." The cycle continues. 

Being a parent is awesome, frustrating and terrifying. I recommend it.

I know you all click on my blog for pictures, so here are some.

Loving life because she is eating Mac N Cheese. My girl!

She won't let me make dinner these days. All mommy, all the time. So, she hung out on my back.

She got upset last week because I told her not to throw her food on the floor.

She's still my beautiful baby and I love her so.

That's all for now. God is good!