Christmas Day

Christmas Day

Christmas Day, Zoey actually let us sleep in until about 9 am, that was her Christmas gift to us. It was the dreamiest present ever, thanks Zoe-Zoe!

We came down stairs to find that Santa Clause came and ate his milk and cookie and even left Zoey a cute little note to say thanks.

Here was the set up. Santa had to leave the gifts on the couch since our tree is too small. Maybe we will save up and get a big one next year. Also, it will be so much fun when we have enough children to fit one on each couch cushion, just like we did when I was little. With eight kids in my family, every one got one square of the couch but, for right now, its all about Zoey.

This is a little blurry but, it is so cute to watch how Zoey acts in real life motion. She is hilarious.
Brian and I didn't actually "do" Christmas for each other this year, like a lot of people I know, so, It was really great to get a little surprise check from the Bowman's this year to help make Christmas extra special for Mommy and Daddy too. We spent the next two days off of work having fun shopping together. Thanks Mom and Dad!
It is funny that as you become a parent, Christmas changes its meaning entirely. It didn't even matter that we weren't opening anything. We had such fun watching Zoey getting surprised and happy opening all of her little gifts that it made the whole thing special to us and it is still so cool how easy it is to please a three year old. I can just hold off until the teens, like Erica says, when her kids started asking for Ipods, cell phones, etc..

Zoey was so funny unwrapping her gifts. Every time she tried to pull the wrapping paper and string off she would get a mad face, grunting and saying, "just get off of there!" Then, she would start to see what the present was and say, "What the heck is this doing here?" It was a riot.

Here is one of Zoey's favorite gifts, her arts and crafts pack that Mommy Clause put together for her. She will need supervision but, it will definately get her prepared for preschool to be able to cut, paste and draw.

Daddy was excited to help Zoey with all her unwrapping. He is such a big kid at heart which makes him such a special playful Daddy. He is so attached to his "little monkey". He will do any thing for her.

Oh yes and of course, here I am, bed head and all, with my nice fluffy robe on. I didn't care though, I figure that I am a 31 year old mother and that "I don't really care cause I am getting old anyway look", well, I've really got it now. Ha ha ha!

"Daddy's little girls"

This was our big present for Zoey, it was a big dry erase board with all the markers and such. but, as you will find out further down the page, as we did, Brian's Mom also got her one...an even better one with an easle and magnets and a chalk board so, Grandma wins and we took ours back to the store and traded it for a cartoon. We just found out that she likes the Little Einstiens, so we got her a total of 4 videos now! Spoiled? Maybe.

This is one of Zoey's favorite toys of all, her Magnetixs. This is the next series up where she she can build upwards instead of just across the floor. Mommy and Daddy had fun building with her too. Kids toys are so much fun.

Here is our quick and easy yum-yum breakfast since we had a deadline to be at Brian's parents house by 2 pm sharp. We made little rolls with cut up apple sausage rolled inside, flat pretzel chips with crnberry and fig hummus, (yes they make that kind now and boy, is it scrumpious), and Brian's famous breakfast dessert shakes with bananas, strawberries, icecream, orange juice or milk, and other secret ingredients he wont tell me about. Delicious!

This is our great friend Tiff, from across the street who brought Zoey a new baby doll gift for Christmas. She is really sweet to our family and invites us over to watch movies, have dinner with her family and has recently invited me into her "scrapbooking club", having bought me my first 'beginners set' of scrapbooking Paraphernalia for my birthday. Evika, her daughter, is also Zoey's best playmate besides over at Miss Liz's babysitting.

"See Zoey, this is how you do it. What a good Mommy you are!"

" I love babies, Mommy needs to have another baby in her tummy. I tell her all the time. I tell her that I want a baby brother. If I keep practicing, then, I can help her feed the baby, wash the baby and everything else Mommy's do." -Zoey


At the Hotchner Home

Zoey got a big surprise from the Hotchners...

Its your very own kitchen!

"Look Zoey, you can cook and use the blender and wash dishes."

Zoey absolutely loves this toy and Mommy is just extra happy that this one is staying at Grandma's house because we honestly do not have the room. Zoey's bedroom full of stuff has already overflowed out into our loft and Brian and I often joke about the idea that we need another bedroom just to make into her play room.

"Look Daddy, Look what I can do."

We enjoyed Nancy's traditional lazagna dinner and had a nice time although, I still find it difficult, like I know most my bsiblings do, to have Christmas away from Mom and Dad and the rest of the Bowman clan. I miss you an Love you all!

Back at Home

So, here is Zoey's ultra cool magnetic, dryerase, chalk board easle! I have to admit that it is way cuter than just a plain office dry erase board. Plus it has the whole alphabet in magnetic letters.

This is the special book that Daddy got for Zoey, it was written bty Tim McGraw and Faith Hill and I absolutely LOVE the illustrations. That level of perfection and ease as a scetch artist is my goal in wanting to do childrens book illustrations. Plus, the book even came with a little music CD with thier songs, including, his hit song, and the name of the book, My Little Girl.

Here is Zoey making little cups of hot choclate with her new cafe maker form Great-Grandma Frieda. This one came home with us since Daddy insists that evey Saturday, while I am at work, Zoey loves to set up and play tea party with her Daddy.

She spends a lot of time in her bedroom playing by herself now. It is fun to sit and listen to her little conversations with her dolls and stuffed animals, little songs she makes up and ideas she has for playing fun games. Her newest fun game is treasure hunt where I make a map and then, hide balls at all the pink spots on the map and at the end, she finds some cool prize. (I have a reserve sack from the dollar store.) Smart Mommy.

"Tea Time"

This is a cool toy Evika gave Zoey for her ponys and the bag sitting next to it on the floor is a show case of Zoey's entire miniture My Little Pony collection. I told Brian, thats enough, no more ponys.

Here she is playing with the toys from Aunty KayLynn.

This is the key board she got from The Hotchner's too. It even has a little microphone so she can karioke along. Its really cute but, pretty noisy. I almost begged this one to stay at the Grandparents house but, I would have lost. Ha ha ha.

With the money from Grandma and Pa Bowman, we bought Zoey clothes, including a brand new velvet dress for her first day of Primary since graduating from nursery last Sunday, a jewelry box and some new earrings, Brian got his long awaited Giants football jersey pullover and t-shirt, and we even bought a griddle for making pancakes and I bought a pair of black tennis for work, a pair of tall, brown leather boots (nice!) just for show and was able to pay for two of my fourteen 8mm video tapes to be turned into a DVD that we can watch on our TV. It was so special to be able to sit and watch Zoey as a little ity-bity baby after all this time. Oh, Thank You so much guys!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!