Life Escalated

I can’t believe my little Zoe is two.  She is growing up so fast.

Here she is when we brought her home from the hospital at 2 days old, on her first birthday, and on her second birthday.

We had a birthday party for Zoe last Saturday.  It was a lot of fun.  All of our family was able to come; Grandma and Grandpa Atkinson, Aunt Emily, Grandma and Grandpa Lapray, and Uncle Gavin, Aunt Karena, and their boys.

Zoe was very opinionated about what she wanted for her birthday party.  She wanted a pink Tinkerbell cake, pink ice cream, and pink and purple balloons.  She is turning into such a girly girl.

She was so excited to blow her candles out.  She practiced all morning so that she could do it.  When it actually came time, she froze a little.  I think she was a little unsure about the fire on the candles.  It was so cute to watch her pucker her lips though and try to blow them out.

She loved eating the pink cake and ice creaam.

She was very spoiled and got a lot of great presents, which she really loved opening.

I think her favorite present was this drum from Aunt Emily.  She loves to play it.

All in all, she had a really great day.  She walked around all day singing happy birthday, and loved being the center of attention.

We love our birthday girl and are so thankful she is a part of our lives.

I was just looking at some pictures on my camera and realized that I have a lot of catching up to do.

Robby had a great time in 2nd grade.  Miss Pugliano, his teacher, was wonderful.  He loved her and loved going to school everyday.  The end of the school year was truly bitter-sweet for him.  He had a great time with all the end of the year festivities, and he looked forward to summer vacation, but the thought of not being in Miss Pugliano’s class anymore and of missing his school friends was a little sad.

I was able to go with him on his end of the year fieldtrip.  We went up in the canyon for a hike.  It was actually kind of a long hike and the kids were a little tired by the end, but Robby loved it.  He was smiling and excited the whole time.  At the end of the hike, we ate our lunch and then went to the Bean Museum.  It was a lot of fun.

At the Bean Museum.

The second graders also had an authors’ day when families were able to go to the school and look at all the stories and papers the kids had written through the year.

This is one of my favorite pictures ever.  After we finished looking at Robby’s writing portfolio, he went and found a book and was reading it to Zoe.  She was so excited to be at Robby’s school.  I just love the look on her face.  You can just see how much she adores him.  He is such an amazing big brother.

I am glad that Robby had such a great year and that he enjoys and does well in school.

I  have a million posts I need to catch up on, but I couldn’t resist posting this one today.

Today, Zoe got her hair braided, and it looks so cute.  I took her to this very awesome teenage girl.  She was adopted from Ethiopia, and is absolutely amazing with hair.  I was so sure that I could learn so much from her, but her fingers flew so fast that I didn’t have a clue what she was doing.  It was the first time anyone, besides me, has done Zoe’s hair.  Zoe didn’t like it; she cried the whole time, but she loves it now.  She keeps telling everyone to look at her pretty hair.   It was so worth it to get it done.  Even with Zoe crying, throwing herself around, and lots of breaks, she had it done in about an hour and a half.  It takes me far longer than that to do a style not nearly as intricate.

We love it.  She looks so beautiful.