Winter Holidays

Here is a long overdue look at baby Zoe's first Christmas and New Year's holidays! We bought a DVD camcorder and recorded Zoe's Christmas morning with it, and I've been waiting to post the pictures until I can get the pictures extracted from that video, so that I can post them too. But after we finally got the new computer and the software for video editing, the software doesn't work for our camcorder :( So I decided to go ahead and post some other pictures that we took during the holidays.

First, a few days before Christmas, Zoe went to visit Santa Claus and told him what all she wanted for her first Christmas. She had never seen a man with a beard that long, nevertheless she didn't get scared or cried (like we thought she would) and like many other little kids did!


And then of course came Christmas! Zoe loved the Christmas tree and all the ornaments, lights and the smell of fresh pine in our house. And when she woke up on Christmas morning she found a MOUNTAIN of presents she had to open, which was the funnest part! (This is the part we video recorded so no pictures yet) She loved opening the presents, but seemed more interested in the wrapping paper and the boxes than the presents themselves :) Needless to say she got oodles of new toys, books and clothes from her family and friends!

Then we went to visit her aunt Martha, where she got to open many more presents from the Ussery family and friends:
Her favorite present was the soft musical Sesame Street book from aunt Martha-each page makes a different instrument sound when you press it!

And here she is with aunt Martha:
After Kershaw, Zoe went to visit her Ritchie aunts and uncles. Here she is on "big" uncle Mike's lap (she also has a "little" uncle Mike:)

So Zoe's Christmas day was very long and eventful, the biggest day of her life since her birthday. Of course, as in addition to Christmas Day, it was also her big 6 MONTHS birthday!

Once Christmas rolled around the corner, it was time to celebrate another holiday- New Year!
Zoe hosted a little party at our house, with a few of her parents' friends: Roman and Lyubka (who are also expecting a little girl of their own!), and Leonard and Iko. She wore her new winter dress that she got for Christmas from Roman and Lyubka and entertained everyone:


But then she got tired of being dressed up, changed into her pajamas and stayed up with adults until 11:30 PM - she knew it was a special night!
And because she also understood mommy and daddy wanted to have a New Year's cheer and raise their champagne glasses, she went to bed at 11:45 and fell asleep at once- what a smart little girl!

This holiday season has been the most exciting one for our little family - it's been so much fun to celebrate with our baby Zoe and we look forward to celebrating with her for many more years to come!

THE big milestone- Zoe is 6 months old!

Hard to believe, but our little girl is half a year old now. She’s changed so much in the last few weeks that it seems like she grew older by a lot more than just one month. Here are some highlights of Zoe's 6th month:

She hosted a play visit of her little friend Mason, who is 3 months older than her. And as a good hostess she shared her toys with Mason.
We figured out she is quite a dancer after she loved dancing with her daddy to Snoop Dog one evening- she smiled, giggled, bounced and kicked her little legs to the rhythm:
Meeshka tried to keep up with Zoe and put a few moves on himself:

Zoe started spending a lot more time playing with her toys, content exploring them one after another for much longer periods of time than she did before:


Zoe is not yet crawling, but has definitely mastered the technique of rolling over- she can make it from one side of the room to the other in a matter of a couple of minutes now. She also became very social, loves new people- not at all shy, makes funny faces and smiles all the time and even learned how to laugh when daddy makes silly faces at her!

Zoe loves to sit up now, even though she can't quite sit up by herself from a flat lying position.
She enjoys sitting on her daddy's or mama's lap and play with anything and everything within her reach:
She also found her favorite toy, but she has to compete for it with her daddy- it's the remote control!
Another major milestone- is Zoe's first "adult" food- rice kasha (cereal) - she really liked it!

Zoe also got to take her first BUBBLE! bath- she thought it was really fun!
So the first winter month in Zoe's life flew by and brought a lot of new experiences to our little girl. Although it hardly seemed like winter-most of December has been so warm and sunny that Zoe continued wearing her summer clothes:

Well, those were some of the highlights from Zoe's sixth month. The next update will be dedicated to the holidays- baby Zoe's first Christmas and New Year, and all the good things that go with the holiday season like Santa, presents, etc.