Apple Picking Through The Years
And of course, I have to compare pictures of the girls picking apples through the years. I love it but it is also torture. They are growing too fast!
Skytop 2021
We were excited to take our annual trip up to Skytop to pick apples this year. We took advantage of Ava’s fall break and went on a Monday morning. It was amazingly not crowded at all when we got there, which was so nice. We had heard that the orchards didn’t have as many apples this year due to a late freeze in the spring so we prepped the girls on the fact that we may not be able to pick apples. Well, we decided to get our donuts first thing and while we were waiting in line for them to open up we watched an employee erase the chalkboard that had info about pick your own apples. A few minutes later, a lady came to the board and started writing a note that u-pick was closed for the season. Thankfully, they had plenty of apples in the fruit stand so we were able to enjoy our donuts, apple cider and bring home a big bag of Pink Lady apples. We also enjoyed playing on the playground, walking around the orchard, going through the bamboo forest and seeing the animals. We especially loved the gorgeous peacocks. It was a fun day in the mountains!
Zoe is 4 and a half!
I cannot believe I am writing this update. I do not want to admit that Zoe is halfway to 5. But, I know that even if I am in denial, she is actually four and a half. She is just growing up way too fast and I really wish I could slow down time. Zoe has grown and changed so much the past 6 months. She’s had a lot of big firsts as well so it has been a busy 6 months for this little girl.
Zoe is now 41.25” tall. She is wearing mostly size 4T clothes. She can wear a few 5T tops but they are hand me downs so it is hard to know if they are actually true to size. She is wearing size 9 shoes. She is actually able to still wear a lot of the clothes she wore last fall. I even found a picture of her wearing a dress 2 falls ago that she was wearing just the other day. She is growing but is still so petite.
One big event that happened during the past 6 months was having her tooth pulled. The tooth she chipped back at the beginning of quarantine (right before her 3rd birthday) ended up getting infected. We think she hit it again when she and Ava were playing. She had been complaining about it hurting and thankfully had a dentist appointment coming up. The dentist noticed a bulge in her gums right above the tooth and said it was probably infected and needed to come out. We scheduled an appointment for that a few weeks later but 2 days later she started running a fever with no other symptoms. Thankfully, DJ had the thought that it could be the tooth, which it was. They put her on an antibiotic and moved her appointment up. The process of having the tooth pulled was very traumatic for DJ and I but Zoe doesn’t remember a thing. She was so out of it and doesn’t remember screaming (wanting to get out of the straps they had her in to keep her still). We are so thankful she doesn’t remember it! She looks super cute with her gap tooth smile too!
Another big event from the past 6 months was Zoe’s first dance recital. This happened just 2 days after she started the fever for the tooth. We were nervous she would have to miss the recital until we realized what was actually causing the fever. We were so thankful she didn't have to miss it because she had worked so hard all semester learning her dances and was super excited to perform. She got to perform with her hip hop class to “Party Rock Anthem'' and with her ballet class to “Tomorrow” from Annie. She was a little nervous the day of the performance but she did great! We were so proud of how well she did. Over the summer she did 2 different dance camps and we got to go watch her dance on the last day of each camp. Now this fall, she is still doing her hip hop class. She looks forward to hip hop every week. She loves the dancing but also loves the tumbling part of the class. She has really perfected her bridge and her forward roll. They are just now making plans and starting choreography for their Christmas recital and we can’t wait to watch her perform again.
And perhaps the biggest change in the past 6 months is that Zoe started preschool. She goes to preschool Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings. Those might be her favorite days of the week. She loves feeling like a big kid getting dropped off in car line and walking right into school. Zoe loves her teacher, Mrs. Sharpe. She is also making some sweet friends. I think her best friend is a little girl named Chloe. Every day she and Chloe play with either legos or baby dolls. Each week they have a different letter and different theme they are learning about. Zoe is getting really great at recognizing her letters. She is also really good at writing them. She is such a little perfectionist so when she wants to learn how to write a letter she will work on it over and over until she gets it right (and sometimes gets very frustrated when she can’t figure it out). This girl loves learning and was made for school!
One area that hasn’t changed a ton in the past 6 months is the food she’s eating. She still eats like a bird most meals but she appears to be full and she’s growing so we don’t push her to eat too much. A new favorite food is grits. She loves to eat grits with butter for lunch. For a couple of weeks that was pretty much all she ate for lunch. She still loves her carbs and prefers to just eat bread and plain pasta. She also still loves fruit and avocado. She’s been big into smoothies lately, which is a great way to get veggies in her diet. One of her favorite snacks is pretzels dipped in peanut butter. She still eats her yogurt and applesauce pouches every morning for breakfast.
Zoe’s favorites in other areas haven’t changed a ton in the past 6 months either. She still loves music and prefers Disney music to anything else (especially Disney Jr music like Mira the Royal Detective). Speaking of Mira, that is one of her favorite TV shows now. She also still loves Vampirina, Yoohoo to the Rescue, Puppy Dog Pals, and Gabby’s Dollhouse. But, her all time favorite TV show right now is Cocomelon. If she has a chance to watch TV without Ava (like during hair time or when I need to get a little work done), she always chooses Cocomelon. She is beyond excited for some new episodes to come out this week (as are we since we are a little tired of hearing the same songs over and over).
Zoe’s favorite toys these days are anything she can build with. She has become obsessed with magnatiles. She will spend so much time building different houses/structures for her Little People princesses. She also loves to build with the waffle blocks and mega blocks. Like I said before, she says almost every day after school that she played with Legos. It is fun to watch her little engineering brain work as she creates these buildings. Maybe she will be an architect when she grows up! She also still loves her baby dolls. She went through a phase of not really playing with them but recently has been playing with them almost daily. She is a sweet little mama to her babies. But, the toy she is still completely attached to is Eeyore. She carries him everywhere, changes his clothes daily and sleeps with him every night.
Zoe still loves to read books and loves to go to the library to pick out new books. Some new favorites from the library are the Click, Clack, Moo books. She loves these and thinks they are so funny. She also still loves any book about Winnie the Pooh (and of course Eeyore). Some other series she likes are Clifford, Angelina Ballerina, Fancy Nancy and any Disney princess books. She really loves any books with animals or babies in them and that is what she tries to find when we go to the library.
Zoe is still our little social butterfly. She is so happy now that we feel more comfortable going out and being around people (COVID has been hard for her little extroverted self). She loves going to church to see her friends and play on the new playground. She loves being with her dance friends. And she especially loves being at school and being around people. She gets so keyed up when we are around people and usually gets super silly. Sometimes it seems like she might be a little nervous around a crowd so she gets extra silly with one of us. But then she settles down and runs off to play. Speaking of silly, she still loves to make us laugh and is always trying to be funny (as you can see in some of these pictures). She makes us smile all the time with her smile that lights up the room. She does still have her attitude and gets very frustrated (especially when things don’t work the way she wants them to) but can usually calm down easily and use her words.
Zoe is still just such a joy to us and our family. We love her so much and are so thankful to have the privilege of watching her grow. But, as I’ve said before, we know someone very special is missing out on that privilege every day and we know how hard that is for her. We do not take any of this lightly and we think about Zoe’s birth mama all the time. We are so blessed to have her as part of our lives!
Happy half birthday, Zoe girl!! We love you to the moon and back!!
Biltmore Visit
Fall is always a super busy time for me with portrait sessions. So, on our last free weekend before the busy season started, we decided to go to Biltmore for the day. We stayed in the winery area and the girls loved playing on the playground, seeing the stickworks maze, checking out the animals and watching a sheepdog demonstration. It was a fun day away together before my Saturdays are booked with portrait sessions.
Recital Photos
We got back the professional photos from Zoe’s recital and the photographer got some amazing shots of Zoe and her dance friends!
Zoe’s First Day of 4K
The day has finally come for Zoe to have her very first day of school! She was beyond excited about starting school this year and was pretty much counting down the days. Her teacher gave her a sweet little note and a cut out heart to put under her pillow the night before school to help her get a good night’s sleep. Zoe had such a good first day. She loved every minute of it and said over and over again how much fun she had. I think her favorite part was being able to take Eeyore for show and tell. She had been so worried about not being able to have him at school so having him the first day helped settle the nerves a little.
Unfortunately, due to a summer cold (that we all passed around) and waiting on COVID test results for Ava (negative, thankfully), Zoe missed the next 2 days of school. But, she cannot wait to start back again! We are so thankful she gets to go to school this year and cannot wait to see all she learns and all the friends she makes.
All the First Days
As always, here is a look back at Ava’s first days of school through the years.
Ava’s 1st Day of 4th Grade
Ava started school on Tuesday and she is already having a great time in 4th grade. She absolutely loves her teacher. We are so thankful she got the teacher she wanted. She's a teacher we've heard nothing but good things about and the teacher Ava's tutor thought would be the best fit for her. Ava has several girls she knows from the past few years in her class so we are confident she will have some great friends this year. Her best friend from last year isn't in her class this year so she was disappointed about that but she is excited to get to know the other girls. Her first day was great at school but it was an eventful day in all. It happened to be the same day that Tropical Storm Fred was making its way through the area. It was raining when she left for school (which made for less than ideal photo conditions). We kept watching the weather as it kept getting worse during the day. They started a tornado watch right before pick up time. Thankfully, DJ was able to pick her up before the watch turned to a warning and many schools and busses had to shelter in place. We headed to the basement not long after she got home from school. Thankfully, the tornado wasn't close to us. Then after supper, we got another tornado warning. DJ watched the weather closely and this one didn't come close enough for us to need the basement either. It was quite an eventful start to the school year. We are hoping this year is less strange than the last two years but things aren't looking promising right now with the new COVID surge. We are praying things settle soon so this year can be as normal as it can be. Regardless, she is already loving 4th grade! I just can't believe this is her next to last year in elementary school!
Zoe’s First Day of Dance Fall 2021
Zoe’s next semester of dance started the first week of August. This semester she is just doing her tot hop and tumble class. This is the class that combines hip hop and tumbling. Because of preschool, we told her she needed to pick just one dance class this semester and she picked this class. She loves the beat of the music and the extra movement. This semester she has a new teacher, Miss Gabrielle and she loves her already. Zoe is the oldest in the class this semester instead of one of the youngest and it is fun to see how much she has improved! We can’t wait to see all she learns this semester!
A Girls’ Night Away
Tiffany and I planned a fun girls’ night away for us and our big girls. We took Ava and Grace to Charlotte for the night and spent 2 days shopping and enjoying time together. We met up at the Southpark Mall for lunch and then spent a couple hours in the American Girl store. Then we walked around the mall and let the girls shop (and of course the moms had to pick some stores to check out as well). We sent a picture to the dads of the girls in front of Tiffany’s saying we were taking them for a fun shopping experience…they didn’t appreciate that. We enjoyed supper at Cheesecake Factory before heading to our hotel for a fun surprise for the girls. Thanks to DJ’s hotel points, we were able to book the special American Girl package for them complete with beds and robes for the dolls to take home, robes for the girls to use while there, special hot pink linens, cookies and strawberry milk, and breakfast the next morning. They were in shock when they walked in and saw the goodies! The next day, we had breakfast at the hotel, let the girls play in the hotel pool and then spent a few hours (mainly for the moms) at Ikea. It was such a fun couple of days with our girls!
