It's been awhile, and my girl is growing fast! Not to mention acquiring quite the imagination. She's got these two friends, you see, Betsy and Steve who "ring" our house several, like 6, times a day. Zoe will run into the kitchen "Besty and Steve are ringing!", pick up the phone and carry on a conversation that goes something like this:
"Hi Betsy and Steve, do you want to come to my house and see my monkey?"
"Oh ok see you soon!"
Then she'll get off the phone, put it back on the counter and let me know that Betsy and Steve are going to come over and play.

Sometimes, however, Betsy and Steve are unavailable so she'll "call her Nana" and have the following conversation:
"Hi Nana, are Betsy and Steve there? I just want to see what they're up to."
"Oh, they aren't? I want to see if they can come over and play with me and my monkey too."
Again, putting the phone back on the counter telling me that Betsy and Steve aren't at Nana's house and she'll have to call them later.

Also, not sure how many people know this but she'll be having a baby sister in June, whom she's named "Paprika". I think it has a nice ring to it, what do you think?

And I'll leave you with her one liner for the day:
"Boy this coloring is really a lot harder than I thought it would be!"

No outsmarting a 2 year old...

For those of you who know my child, even remotely well, know that she LOVES chocolate milk. Every morning, it's the first thing she asks for. She also knows that her Mimi and Popsi always have chocolate milk, not just the milk and syrup kind either, they have the good stuff. Well, at our house, we're the milk and syrup kind of folk (since I can drink an entire gallon of the good stuff, no problem). It used to be that after her first cup of CM, when she'd ask for more, I could just pour plain ol white milk and shake it up so all she would see are the bubbles and think it was the same. Well... this morning I was filling up her second glass, with plain ol white milk, gave it a shake and handed it to my child. After one drink she handed me back the cup, looked up at me and said...

"More chocolate in there, please, mom?"

Have I told you lately...

How much I love this girl?

I know I know, it's been forever. But as I told you last time, I was going to spend time just lovin on my girl. Since last post, she has turned another year...Because it's been nice outside, we've spent our days at the playground, the zoo, and we average 5 backyard picnics a week...It's amazing how fast she's growing up, and I am so fortunate to be able to watch her learn and grow all day every day!

She would rather not.

Well, Zoe and I just made our first noman, and guess who hated every minute of it! That's right, little bits. She cried when I put her snowsuit on, cried when I put her boots on her (which is usual), and cried when I pulled her hood up, granted her hair was all in her face. As I rolled the three balls, she stood by repeating "alk, no" over and over. She loves to look at it, but when it comes to touching it, she would rather not. After I stacked the body, I found some sticks and told her we needed a carrot and some raisins, she bolted for the door. We got our supplies, and yes, I even took out the camera! We have a camera that gets used quite a bit, but uploading the pictures is a different story (as I'm sure it is with most). However, I even went as far as uploading the pictures (only added a few), so enjoy!

Noman?

Zoe's ability to relate things without being told really astonishes her dad and I. We had a slight snow last week, less than an inch that Zoe enjoyed looking at and especially enjoyed walking in. She kept asking "Alk, no?" Meaning, "can I walk in the snow?". Well, yesterday morning we were sitting at the table eating breakfast and she looks at us and says "No?" (how she says snow). I tried to tell her that the snow had melted and was no longer there. How you explain that to an almost two year old is beyond me, she just looked at me and said "No-man?" Now, she knows what snowmen are due to the season of the year, but how in the world does she know that you make a snowman out of snow? To you and I that seems ridiculous, and obvious, but to a two year old? I do know, however, that this morning when she wakes up she'll be either confused or exstatic when she sees the blanket of white out the front window. There's even enough for her to build a "no-man".

Mother Hen

We have come to notice in the last couple of months that Zoe is quite the mother hen. As she absolutely adores our dogs, especially Chester, she is the first to boss them around. While I'm working at my computer, I hear her little voice "Move Beben" because she doesn't want to walk around him, "Chesters, tenel" (Chester, Kennel) when she thinks he needs to be locked up, "Tome here Dex" (Come here, Dex) because she wants him to lay in his kennel with her. He's the last dog who would want to snuggle up with her in his kennel. She so much as looks at him and he runs away. I feel bad for the dogs because she chases them around the living room, puts her lipstick on them, makes them look at books with her and simply tortures them. It will be interesting to see how she acts with Baby Norbert, it's name until we come up with something better. Will she control it, or will she nurture it? I guess we'll have to wait and see.