Happy Half Birthday, Zoe!
I still cannot believe that Zoe is halfway to 7!
Zoe is growing so much these days. I feel like she definitely hit a growth spurt recently, although she is still petite. She is wearing mostly size 6 clothes. She wears size 12 shoes.
Zoe is loving 1st grade. This is such a fun year for school because the class size is small (16 instead of 25). Her teacher said they end up becoming such a close knit group because the class is so small. Unfortunately, her best friend from last year is not in her class this year but they see each other at recess most days. She is making new friends this year too. She’s learning so much too. She is a little behind in her reading but is catching the hang of it more these days. She is showing more interest in reading things as we are out and about too, which will help improve her skills. She knows most of her early level sight words and can sound out simple words. It is amazing to watch her figure it out. She knows her numbers and can do basic addition and subtraction facts.
Zoe still isn’t a huge fan of eating (well, she loves snacks). Zoe still loves most fruits but strawberries are her favorite. She also still loves any kind of pasta, brown rice, almonds, pretzels of any kind, quinoa, and any kind of bread. She still loves breakfast for supper foods. And she loves lasagna soup. Her favorite restaurant is still Mexican. But Tropical Grille is a close second. She also likes Cheesecake Factory, Culvers and Chick-fil-a.
Lately, Zoe has been more interested in playing games on the iPad instead of watching TV. She loves the Talking Tom game and Giggle Babies. When she does watch TV, she usually chooses between Gabby’s Dollhouse, Bluey and Dora. She’ll occasionally watch Fancy Nancy, Doc, and The Floor is Lava (which she usually watches with Ava).
Zoe loves to read books at bedtime and loves to go to the library to pick out new books. Some favorites are still any Disney book, Pete the Cat, Berenstein Bears, Fancy Nancy, Amelia Bedelia, and any book about dancers or fairies.
Zoe still loves being outside and wants to go outside every day she gets home. She loves bubbles, chalk, the swings and the trampoline outside. She can do all kinds of flips on the trampoline. Her most recent accomplishment outside was learning how to ride a 2 wheel scooter and even bigger, her 2 wheel bike without training wheels. She kept putting it off for so long but once she finally made her mind up to mastering the bike, she picked it up in no time. Now she is fearless on it and will ride down the hill in our backyard, squealing with excitement the whole time. She is also still obsessed with her baby dolls. She loves to dress them up and they are by far her favorite toys. Most of her Christmas list is doll accessories or new baby dolls. And she still loves to craft with anything she can find, especially boxes. We always have some sort of box creation like a car or a doll house or a doll swing. We love watching her creativity fly when she gets into a project!
So one of Zoe’s goals to accomplish while she is 6 was to learn how to swim and she did that this summer. She took a few weeks of lessons and then picked it up. We got a small above ground pool for our yard this year and I think the extra time in the water really helped her. She also loved going swimming at my grandmother’s neighborhood pool.
Zoe also wanted to learn gymnastics this year. Well, she hasn’t mastered gymnastics on any equipment but she is mastering floor gymnastics in her acro class. She can do a cartwheel (going both directions, leading with her dominant side and not), a cartwheel starting on her knees, multiple forward roll variations, getting into her bridge from standing and she almost has the handstand mastered. She loves acro and loves to practice it everyday. It is so fun to watch
Zoe is still a silly extroverted kid who loves to make people laugh (as you can see in a couple of the pics). She is a perfectionist and gets upset when the project she has envisioned doesn’t turn out quite right, which is something we are working on with her. She loves to cuddle and still wants to be carried everywhere. She’s getting more willing to walk but I think she still wishes she was a little baby. She loves big and we are so thankful for her. We never take our role as her parents lightly because we know someone else is missing out on that role. She is such a special girl and we hope that as she grows her birth mama can be part of her life and get to know this awesome kid.
Happy half birthday, Zoe!
