White Oak Digital 10/22/21 White Oak Digital 10/22/21

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!!

White Oak Digital 8/9/21 White Oak Digital 8/9/21

July 11th

I still cannot believe Ava is 9 years old! It blows my mind that she is only a year away from double digits. But for now, here is a look back at Ava on July 11th for the past 9 years!

Rachel Wetzel 7/23/21 Rachel Wetzel 7/23/21

Zoe Through the Years

It’s time for my annual look back at Zoe on her birthday every year.

This isn’t actually April 7th, 2017 but it’s one of the closest pictures I have to that day.

Rachel Wetzel 7/22/21 Rachel Wetzel 7/22/21

Ava is 8 and a half!

It is so crazy that Ava is already halfway to 9! Well, more than halfway now. The past 6 months have still been so crazy and strange with COVID that it feels like time is flying even faster. I don’t want to admit it but I know her birthday will be here before we know it. She is just growing up way too fast! She really seems like such a big kid now. We wish we could keep her little much longer but it is fun to see who she is growing up to be as well.

I feel like I don’t have as much to update for her half birthday this year because she isn’t changing quite as much these days. But, I do have plenty to write about. So, here is what Ava’s life is like at 8 and a half.

Ava is really growing so much these days. She keeps having huge growth spurts and getting so much taller. I really feel like it won’t be long before she is as tall as me, or even taller! Since she hasn’t been to the doctor (thank goodness!), I don’t have any weight or stats. But, I did measure her on our growth chart and she is 52.25” tall. She’s grown about 2 inches in 6 months!

We can see how much Ava is growing in her clothes. She is already outgrowing some shirts and some of her pants are looking a little short. I am just hoping they hold on until it gets warmer. She is wearing size 8 in most things but I’m looking at 10s for the summer, especially in shirts because of her height (they start getting a little too short on her belly). She is wearing size 3 shoes. It is crazy to me how close she is getting to juniors/adult sizes!

We also see how much Ava is growing in how much she wants to eat these days. She is always hungry because she is always growing! She is getting pretty good at trying to make sure what she is eating is healthy. Although, she does still love her snack foods like crackers and goldfish. She is learning to eat more foods because she gets free lunch at school (one tiny COVID benefit). She thinks it is so fun to get lunch at school and gets excited to try new things there, which has helped us add new foods to our suppers, like chicken pot pie. One of Ava’s new favorite things to eat is roasted kale chips. She gets so excited when we have that as a side for supper and we try to do it very often so she gets some good leafy greens. Unfortunately, due to COVID and some new dietary restrictions for me, we haven’t been able to eat out much. Ava definitely misses eating out at any Mexcian restaurant, Tropical Grille, Sidewall Pizza and Swamp Rabbit Cafe. We keep hoping things will get better COVID wise so we feel more comfortable eating out but that isn’t the case right now. She will be so excited when we can finally go to a restaurant!

Ava is growing physically but she is also growing so much in school as well. This is the strangest school year ever but she is making the most of it. We are so thankful they are in person full time now because she thrives in the classroom with her friends and her teacher. They have plexiglass dividers on their tables and have to wear masks all day long, which is so strange. But, she loves being there in person and is so much happier with school than she was when it was virtual. She is working hard to learn multiplication and division facts. They have been doing a lot of culture studies in Social Studies. And they are constantly working on writing books. I think she is writing a book about Red Pandas right now, because of her favorite stuffed animal. She says she loves science because of the experiments. She also loves her art and music classes. This year is definitely strange (like having to send valentines in a few days early to quarantine and no field trips) but her teacher and school are trying to make it as special as they can despite the circumstances. We’ve also been working with her teacher from last year to help with some extra tutoring. She loved her teacher (who was really a long-term sub) last year and is so happy to have that one on one time with her once a week. We started it when they were virtual, to give her some extra support but she loves it so much we’ve continued it. They work through her homework or on any subjects she needs a little extra help with. She’s doing so well with her work and her report cards have been great! We are proud of how well she’s doing in this crazy year!

Ava’s favorite subject at school is reading. She could read all day some days. We cannot keep enough books around for her. Books are the one thing she wants to spend her money on and what she asks for the most for Christmas and birthday gifts. She can fly through a short chapter book in one evening at bedtime. We let her read for about 45 min at bedtime but a lot of nights we do find her reading much later and have to tell her it’s time for lights out. She gets so caught up in the books that she loses track of time some nights. Some of her favorite series are American Girl books (any of them), Star Darlings, Whatever After, Princess Diaries, Never Girls and Magic Treehouse.

Ava also continues to grow socially. She is still very shy but comes out of her shell much easier. School has been the best thing for her socially and we are so thankful she gets that social experience this year despite all the craziness. She has a new best friend at school this year because her other best friends from previous years are not in her class. Makayla was in her class last year and they played some but weren’t super close. This year they’ve grown very close and it’s so nice to know she has a sweet friend at school. We haven’t seen many other friends lately because of COVID. We aren’t going to church in person anymore now that they’ve moved indoors so she doesn’t get to see her church friends like Ella and Maisy. We are so ready for the weather to warm up so hopefully they can start having church outside again and we can see friends. Ava definitely misses all her friends that we don’t see these days and will be so happy when things can go back to at least a little more like normal.

One area where Ava has really grown in the past 6 months is ice skating. Our local rink finally opened back up in October and she was able to start her lessons again in November. We weren’t sure how well she would do after such a long break but she shocked us and her coach Ms. Juliana with how she picked it all right back up. She is working on spins, one foot spins, skating backwards, gliding on one foot and little cross over hops to start. She loves skating and it is fun to watch her do something she enjoys so much and to see her improve each week.

Ava has also really mastered her bike in the past 6 months. We always knew she could do it but she was pretty timid and afraid to fall. She learned how to pedal without training wheels a while ago but would never really get going with it. One day she finally decided she was going to do it and it clicked and she’s been unstoppable on the bike ever since. She just needed the confidence to do it and now she loves riding her bike. She also loves trying her roller blades that she got for Christmas. I saw several figure skaters on Instagram practicing on roller blades and thought that was a great idea since we can’t get on the ice all the time. Ava loves being outside and is so excited about our new house (which should be done in the next month or so) and having a flat concrete driveway to ride her bike and roller blade on. She and Zoe have already decided on a hide out area in the back yard near the woods and love playing in that area whenever we go check on the house progress.

Ava is also still obsessed with crafts. She loves being outside but she is quite content to spend all day inside making crafts as well. She loves to cut and glue creations together, especially paper dolls and their accessories. She says abstract art is her favorite kind of art because she loves just drawing different shapes and putting them all together in a design. She says she wants to be an art teacher when she grows up. Another benefit of COVID right now is Bonnie, a college girl from church, is doing school virtually at home this year and Ava has been able to hang out with her some. Bonnie is in art school and Ava loves working on art projects or just coloring with her. Bonnie is also adopted so it is wonderful for Ava to have an older girl to look up to who’s been through similar things in her life. Bonnie has been so sweet to mentor Ava this year!

Ava’s current favorite toy is her doll house. She loves to spend time playing by herself with her doll house and creating her own little worlds there. She also loves her American Girl doll still but says the doll house is what she enjoys the most right now. We recently found a new show on Netflix called Gabby’s Dollhouse. It is about a girl who can shrink down into her dollhouse. I think Ava wishes that magic was real and she could play with all her toys in her dollhouse too!

Speaking of TV, Ava and Zoe both look forward to the weekends because they know that means they get to watch TV in the mornings. It is hard to find shows that an 8 year old and a 3 year old can agree on but lately they’ve liked Vampirina, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Hatchimals, Pete the Cat, Curious George, and Magic School Bus Rides Again.

Ava and Zoe are still best friends. With COVID, they have really had to bond well together because they are usually the only playmates available. They definitely have their normal sister moments of fighting (a lot more when we are stuck at home) but they really do love each other so much. They are going to be sharing a room when we move and we hope it will be a special time for them. The first little while will definitely be an adjustment. The few times we’ve let them have sleepovers in Zoe’s room, Zoe keeps Ava awake talking way too much. She is super social and will have to learn not to talk all night. But, we think once the newness wears off, they will really enjoy being together. They have a big age difference, which can be hard sometimes. Ava always says she wishes Zoe was older. But, now that Zoe is getting bigger, they can do so much more together and they have a blast together. We hope they are always each other’s best friend.

Ava is still a very sweet kid. Teachers and anyone who is around her always comment on how sweet she is and how she is such a good friend. She is very empathetic and cares about making sure other people are not hurt. She is still sassy (always keeping it real) but she always makes sure to tell us how much she loves us.

We are so thankful for the past 8 and a half years with this girl! Our lives would not be the same without her. But, as I always say, we know that our joy in her comes with pain for her birth mama and we never take that lightly. She means the world to us. We are so thankful for her and are thankful for the relationship we have with her.

Happy Half Birthday, Ava Girl!

We love you to the moon and back!!