More of Zack's Favorite X-mas Pics

Me, Mom, Aunt Janet, and Cousin Spencer. "Seriously, why so many damn pictures? Enough already!"

Giving my little cousin a kiss. He's tiny.

Picture with the Grandparents...yeah, I look bored.

Now this is more fun. "I got you bear. Take that."

"Seriously, why am I riding an elephant?"

I was pretty proud of myself for knocking all my presents over.

"Why am I dressed as the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man?"

"Mom, I don't want to make a snow angel...I'll make some yellow snow though."

Dad and my uncles thought they were quite the fashionistas.

Mom and Dad went sledding in the snow...and the dark

Merry Christmas!

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy 2009!

We are enjoying a beautiful snowy white Christmas in Aspen, Colorado.

We are so lucky to be surrounded by the family and friends in a gorgeous house right in Snowmass Village on the mountain. Zack has enjoyed opening presents every night since Monday. He doesn't really care what is in the package, but loves tearing off the wrapping paper, crunching it up, and then putting it in his mouth! He is just too cute for words in this phase...we are loving every minute of it. We say it all the time, but it is so amazing how Zack has grown so much over the last few months. He is such a big boy with such a zestful and happy personality...always making us laugh! Here are some pics ...more to come. There are some very cute ones of Zack with his new baby cousin Spencer (5 weeks old and cure as a button!) but they aren't on my camera.

Thanksgiving 2008

Happy Thanksgiving! Hope everyone had a great, relaxing holiday! Zack spent his first Thanksgiving in Florida...he was thankful for many things...
*for all his family and friends who love him so much
*the gorgeous weather which allowed him spend lots of time outside
*his first trip to the park (he loved the big boy swing)
*for meeting his great-grandparents
*for chicken and rice baby food (much more filling then the usual fruits and veggies!)
*for the Gators killing the 'Noles on Saturday

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! YUMMY!

FAMILY PHOTO

FIRST SWING RIDE

MEGS, BRUNO, ABBY, AND Z (Bruno is his new bff)
GO GATORS!

Z and CHASE (new friends!)

Thanksgiving with Gramps

Christmas card preview

Updates

Since Zack is our first baby and we don't have many friends with kids out here in SF, we don't really have anyone to compare Zack to in regards to his temperment and his development. We rely heavily on guidance from our pediatrician and from the emails from Babycenter.com. Everyone always tells us "wow, he's so mellow" or "wow, he's so strong" or "oh my, he's crawling already?" and we just smile politely and say thank you. Then this week a few things happened that made us realize Zack might be little bit ahead of the gang ...disclaimer (straight from babycenter website)...

Remember, your baby is an individual. All babies are unique and meet milestones at their own pace. Developmental guidelines simply show what your baby has the potential to accomplish — if not right now, then soon.

Having said that, here are the week's funnies:

*Lucas's Mom saw Zack crawling at daycare and was shocked that he was only 6 months old, because Lucas is 1 and just started crawling.

* the Babycenter email I received today said " Your baby can now roll over from his tummy to his back and vice versa." ... meanwhile Zack has just crawled over to his exersaucer and pulled himself up and is standing there looking at me while I read this email

*Pam, the daycare director said "We call Zack Hercules" and I chuckled a little bit, and she said "no, Im serious, he is really strong and pulling himself up on anything he can".

Jeff is so proud! He wants to enter him into a Strongest Baby contest...um, okay Jeff!

Other random pieces on info:
Thanksgiving is coming up so soon...when did it become mid November? Now I know what people mean when they say time flies....I can't even believe we have a 6 month old and that the holidays are fast approaching! We are headed to Florida on the 22nd for a week...can't wait!

Florida is in the SEC championship in Atlanta Dec 6th and we just bought plane tickets to Atlanta for the weekend! We are hoping to find some affordable tickets to the game in the next couple of weeks so we don't have to scalp them the day of. But, we are thrilled to be headed that way to cheer on our team!

On Halloween weekend, I ran a half marathon. It was a goal I had set prior to having Zack to try to lose some baby weight and to get back into the whole running thing. Well, the training was next to impossible with a new baby and a demanding job, but I did the run and it was amazing! I have never done a run and felt so great about it. When I was getting ready to cross the golden gate bridge, around mile 5, I looked up and there was a beautiful rainbow up in the sky overhead...to me it was just a sign of how great our life is and how lucky we are! As the run got tough, I was able to reflect on the last year of my life and think about how amazing life is now that we Zack is a part of it! I didn't break any records, that's for sure, but I jogged the whole thing, and when I got to the last quarter mile towards the finish, I looked up to see my amazing husband, my adorable little boy, and about 9 other friends standing there cheering for me...I have never felt better...so loved, I seriously smiled so big, and was overwhelmed with tears of joy. I wish I had blogged that weekend when it was still fresh in my mind, but as usual our busy life got in the way, and then I was off to NY but that was a very special day for me so I wanted to share it with all of you!

Here's our crew of runners after the race and the best cheerleader ever, Zack!

And here we are on Union Street after celebrating with a couple of mimosas (notice the happy napping baby!)

The Quintessential City Mom

Maclaren stroller-check
Designer clutch inside designer diaper bag-check
Designer jeans-check
Designer sunglasses-check
Banana Republic Shopping bag hanging over stroller-check
Starbucks iced soy latte in hand-check
Old Navy white tee covered in baby spit up and nothing to change into-triple check!!!

hahaha...thought that was good for a giggle or two...reminds me of a card lauren and greg gave me right after zack was born...gotta laugh!!! i know abby is cracking up right now!!!

YouTube Sucks!

So Zack is totally mobile and now we have videos to prove it. We figured we'd upload them to YouTube and then post them to the blog. Sounded like a great idea. I mean, how can you go wrong with the web site that made the Star Wars kid, the Numa Numa chunkster, the Chocolate Rain geek, and so many others with no talent famous?

Here's how you can go wrong...it's not as easy as you'd think to upload videos. It's a total process and takes forever! So we decided to post to another site because it was far easier.

Saturday morning I took a few videos of Zack's crawl. Let's just say he has a unique style and it's really all upper body. We also took a video of Zack playing King of the Foster and have the videos from the 1st time we fed him "real food".

It's pretty obvious that he wasn't a fan of the rice cereal at 1st, but tonight, he had about 4.5 tablespoons of rice cereal. Zack is turning into a regular Porky Pig. In fact, today I got another amusing status report from daycare. Zack finished his lunch, started screaming, and then started trying to grab the other kids' food. I figure we may need to send him with bigger lunches.

So here's the link to Zack's videos. Hopefully it works. Enjoy and try not to buckle over laughing.


http://www.dropshots.com/jessgoz

The Difference Between Mom & Dad

I'm sure we'll have plenty of other disagreements over how Zack should behave or what he should do, but this was the 1st time we didn't see eye-to-eye.

So every day when we pick Zack up from daycare he has a report card of sorts that says what he did. Yesterdays report was normal, "talking" to the care givers, playing with toys, liked his stroller ride, smiling...and then I saw the last comment. "Zack kept taking the toys away from the other kids." Of course we had also watched him the night before grab Sydney...and he had done it that morning at daycare too.

I sent Jess a text and let her know that our son was a bully. So here's where we have differences. Jess was all worried and asking what we should do because he can't behave that way. My reaction...I laughed. I'm totally cool with him being a bully. Seriously, I think it comes from his curiousness and being aggressive will just help him get what he wants.

Aside from that, with Jess NY for work, we miss her, but at the same time, I am really enjoying the single dad routine. So Zack stays up later than normal. And Zack was probably the only baby at Jillians watching the election results (but we had to meet up with Matty Cakes). But I really enjoy getting him ready for school, taking him, picking him up, feeding him, and hanging out before bed time. It's probably the most responsibility I've ever had...and I was nervous, but this week has been great (although it is only 2 days in).

Happy Halloween and Happy 6 Month Day Zack!

Zack had a big day today. His 6 month check up and his 1st Halloween.

First a few other updates that Jess didn't mention before.

* Zack spoke...or at least Jessie and Meghan claim he did. His 1st word was "Whoa!" He hasn't said anything since though.

* Great news...I'm fairly certain Zack is left handed. He reaches primarily with his left and throws things with his left. I'll just have to keep training him to be a leftie.

* There is a toddler at daycare that has a massive crush on "Baby Zack." At a daycare party, she sat down next to him and started petting him and then upped the ante to kissing him on the cheek a few times.

*Sadly, we are going to have to part with the snap 'n go stroller and the bucket carseat very soon as he is just getting too big for them both. The "big boy" carseat and stroller arrived today.

Alright, so back to today. Zack is recovering fine from bronchiolitis and had his 6 month check up. He's healthy, strong, tall, and skinny. He fought the nurses any time they tried to get him to do anything and he's 75th percentile on height (27 inches) and 45th percentile on weight (17 lb 4 oz). I guess this is a good sign that he won't be a midget like his dad.

He had fun at the doctor (tearing up the paper and crawling on the exam table) until he got 4 shots. I wouldn't let him watch (and I couldn't either), but he sure screamed. He has a short term memory though, as a minute later he was smiling and flirting with a nurse.

In all reality he handled his shots better than I handled my flu vaccine today. So I'm petrified of needles and pulled away from the nurse 3 times when she was about to stab me, before I finally manned up. In my defense, I think if I wasn't holding Zack and he could have gotten away, he would have.

After the doctor, Zack got to help celebrate his 1st Halloween and up to his billing as our little monkey. Here are some pics...


"Ooh-ooh, ah-ah!!!"

"What's this? A tail? Yummy!"

"Alright, let me try this crawling again."

"How the heck do I open this thing? I'm hungry."

"Alright, I'll eat my foot now." (Why are the feet on this costume so big?)

"Now I have to exercise too?"

"If only I had teeth."

"Seriously, you guys have to be kidding me. What the heck did you dress me in? Do you really find this amusing? Oh, I just went boom-boom in my diaper. Let's see how funny you think that is."

Bad Blogger

I admit it, I have become a total slacker with the blog...and I am very sorry to my loyal readers who have called me out on it! Our camera broke and for some reason I just can't seem to bring myself to blog when I don't have pics...have no fear, we will have a new one by Halloween so we can take pics of our little monkey (yes, he will be a monkey for Halloween and we are so excited)!

There are a few things to update about...
Our little guy has two little bottom teeth now, sharp as can be! And he has a third one coming in on his top right side.
He loves eating rice cereal (plain or with bananas), yogurt, and sweet potatoes.
He has become pretty efficient at crawling backwards, but has not yet started crawling forward (he does, however have a pretty mean rocking stance and can scoot pretty much anywhere he wants to go!)
He still LOVES his dogs and will follow them around the room and put their ears, paws etc in his mouth (gross, yes I know, but kind of amusing too!)
He is sleeping in his crib now, not sure I ever mentioned that. It was a process to get him out of our room...first moving the pack and play to his room and then eventually getting him in the crib after he got used to his room.
He still goes to be at 6:30 despite our many attempts to keep him up later than that...and thus he still wakes up between 3:45 and 4:45. Some mornings he will go back to sleep and other morning we are just SOL! hahahaha :-) We are still trying to move his bedtime back but have not really had any luck ie: tonight we had him in the high chair while we were eating dinner and all of the sudden at 6:30 he was dead asleep in his high chair (music on, lights blinking, and toys everywhere!)

Last week, Jeff and I had our first encounter with "life would be easier if we had a nanny (or a grandma in town"...Zack got bronchiolitis (not to be confused with bronchitis, bronchiolitis is a virus that tends to occur in babies under 2). The good news is that he is building up his immune system, the bad news is that he had a nasty cough and runny nose, and was contagious, so he had to stay home from day care for the whole week. It was very difficult to juggle work and taking care of our little guy. Although we both love being home with him, it is pretty much impossible to get any quality work done during the day... it was rough. I stayed home 2.5 days and Jeff stayed home 2.5 days. We would put him to bed at night and then the person that stayed home would hop on the computer and work until late to play catch up. On Friday night, I think we went to bed at 10pm..we were so exhausted! The lesson learned is...Staying home is fine, working is fine, but staying home and working, not so fine!

We are looking forward to the week ahead...Zack has his 6 month check up on Friday morning and then we hope to hit some Halloween parades in the afternoon.

A Trip to The Pumpkin Patch

Zack's first trip to the Pumpkin Patch was definitely more fun for Mom and Dad than it was for Zack but he was a sport and let us take a few cute pics that we wanted to share.

The Fam (Dad just got back from Vegas, but he was a trooper since he knew Mom really wanted to go and he didn't want the wrath! :-))

Some pics of me amongst the pumpkins

Me and my girlfriend Sydney (She is still bigger than me but I am catching up!)
Me and Mom

Happy 5 month day Zack!

Dear Zack,
Mom and Dad love you so much! We can't even believe you are already 5 months old...where does the time go?! You are currently teething and drooling like a champ...today the daycare even asked us to supply our own bibs because they can't keep up with you!
This week we started feeding you yogurt for breakfast and you seem to be enjoying it much better than the rice cereal we give you at night. Bedtime has become much less of a chore...you always seem to be tired and "ready" for bed at 6:30 (we really wish it was a little bit later but you get a little cranky if we keep you up much later than that)...You are still a very very happy, smiley, laid back, and mellow baby! You LOVE people, "talking", playing in the exersaucer or your new car, or just rolling around on the ground! You love laughing at your doggies and grabbing for their ear and you are really trying to crawl but just haven't figured out that your knees need to be on the ground, not up in a downward dog yoga pose! Oh well...You are going to be sitting up and mobile before we know it!
You are truly our little angel and we enjoy every second that we spend with you!!!!
Love Mom and Dad

Fun weekend Pics!

I love playing in my new car! Thanks Aunt Diane and Uncle Tommy!

Sitting up in my rocking chair

Back to School...

In the immortal words of Billy Madison, "Back to school. Back to school. To prove to Dad I'm not a fool." After cutting class most all of last week to hang out with his grandparents, Zack was back at daycare Monday and very excited. When I dropped him off he went back to his staring at a baby crawling and proceeded to start his "swimming" (attempting to crawl, but with his legs and arms in the air).

It does suck to drop him off in the morning. I don't cry like Jess did...not even close, but it's awkward. "Alright, bye little buddy. Be a good boy Zack."

Picking him up at night is just as bad and maybe worse. When I walked in today, he looked over at me and went back to what he was doing. He could really give a crap that I was there.

The good news is that Zack seems to be getting back on a schedule. After daycare, he comes home and we feed him rice cereal and a bottle and he crashes. The past 2 nights he has been out like a light...he didn't even fight it. Now we just need consistency on sleeping through the night. I guess we're already "those parents" pushing him for more. Oh well.

Real Food

So Zack had a doctor's appointment Friday and he's chubbing up well. He seems to have gotten his February Fat a bit early, because he's up to 16 pounds. He's gone from being in the 16th percentile on weight to 56th. At this rate, he'll be sumo class by his 1st birthday.

I don't even think that we had to explain to the doctor how Porky is always hungry and wants to eat, as I think he went after her hand. She thought maybe it was time to give our little butterball some real food. Since I'm still getting overruled on steaks, Zack got rice cereal. Saturday morning he was in for a surprise and I'm not so sure he was a big fan. 2 days in, he's still not sure what to think and he probably spits out as much as he swallows, but he's getting better at eating real food. Here are the pics of his 1st adventure in eating food.

1st Bite...Open Up!

"What the hell are you guys doing to me?"
"Not another bite!"

"Stop it already."
"Ha, I have the container, no more of this crap for me."