CoCo's birthday

We celebrated Coco's birthday by going to Royal China, one of our favorites and then to muffy and dusty's for cake and gifts.

Leila and Holden love to whip the food around on the lazy susan.

Leila's gift to CoCo...a matching bracelet.

Family Dinner and family pictures

We had a huge family dinner at Uncle Julios right after Christmas.  18+ Patels!!!!!! 

After dinner we took family pictures at 10:30 pm.  The pictures actually went pretty well.

The kids table

Adnan directing family pictures

4 Generations

Cousins

4 months old

This month has been filled with fun firsts.  I love so much hanging out with Zoe and continue to enjoy all the fun things she is doing.  She is a really sweet baby.  Lot of smiles...love the smiles that make you think you are the most important person on earth.  Leila and Holden got some belly laughs out of her toward the end of the month.  Holden was mad about something and he exhaled really loudly right next to Zoe's bouncer.  She gave him a big old giggle!  It was so funny to see Holden get laughed out my his little baby sister.  He and Leila thought it was great and continued to exhale to get her to laugh...she loved it.

Zoe slept through the night for the first time December 1st.  Adnan and I both thought it would be another couple of months based on Holden and Leila,  but she proved us wrong.  After the 1st week of sleeping through the night, she had a couple of 4:45 wake-ups, but she got back on track.  She still wakes up early in the morning for her pacifier, but does not eat.  Her last feeding is between 10 and 11 and then she will get up for the day around 7:30 or so.   She is still eating every 3 hours during the day, some days every 2 1/2.  She still sleeps in the pack n'play in our bedroom. Her schedule consists of eating and staying awake/playing for about 1 1/2 hours, then nap and it begins again.  She does this pretty consistently with some naps being longer than others.

She has really become a talker and when she gets going it's loud and for long periods of time.  She can swat her toys and has just begun to grab on to hanging toys and not let go.  She will then start to scream at the toy. We are not sure if she is frustrated because she can't let go or if she wants to pull the toy towards her.  She loves to play under her baby gym (this also protects her a bit from the big kids) and sit in her bouncer.  She is not in love with the bumbo seat yet.   She is getting to be happier on her tummy!

Leila and Holden are still taking really good care of her.  They always look for her in the morning and kiss her good night.  They both have her nicknamed as "The Zoster  or Zoekster."  

Zoe likes to:

sit in her swing

be swaddled-with arms down

have conversations

her pacifier

to stick her thumb in her pacifier and hold it

stick 4 fingers in her mouth at the same time

drool

baby talk, baby talk, baby talk

talk to her toys - 15 minute record

grab and hold toys

bring toys up to mouth (end of month)

sleep thorough the night- this is a big one

the vacuum cleaner

the sleepy wrap

Leila and Holden

having a blanket touch her face when she is napping in her swing

hanging out in just her diaper

Zoe still does not like

the car pool line

StrollerFit update:

She was a great workout partner this past month.  She arrives awake at StrollerFit.  Sleeps through class and wakes up for Abs.  Hopefully she keeps this up!

Her doctor's visit went well...she loved laying on the table and the noise the paper makes.

Height: 25.75 which puts her in the 90%

Weight: 14.9 which puts her in the 75%

Head: 16.25 which puts her in the 50%

Christmas evening

We headed to the Patel's in the evening to celebrate Christmas again.  We were also able to see some of Adnan's family that just arrived from Canada.

Zoe and her great grand parents...pretty cool!

We all had fun opening presents.  Leila's Hannah Montana set was a hit and she loved her high school musical blanket that played music.  Holden got an awesome racetrack and a spiderman blanket! 

Christmas Day!

The kids didn't get up as early as expected.  In fact, I was a little concerned when it was 7:15 and the house was quiet.  I was also concerned that the icy roads were going to prevent Muffy and Dusty from getting to our house (before noon).  I'm not sure the kids could have waited that long to open up their presents.

Zoe with her presents from Santa.  She loved looking at the monkeys on CoCo's pajamas.

Leila and Holden opening their stockings from Santa

(gum, cars for Holden and hair bobs for Leila)

We had so much fun playing in the snow while we waited for my parents to get to our house.  I had hurt my back earlier in the week, but couldn't help myself and needed to play in the snow.

Holden joined us after we had taken some pictures.  We headed to the back yard, where we had a snowball fight.  The kids got snow all over my face...brrrr...

My sister got the kids the Zhu Zhu hamsters.  Leila went around and told everyone, "she got the hottest gift out there."  My sister kept telling her that.  Holdens favorite gifts were his wii and ds games and sketcher shoes.  Leila loved her Heely's and twinkle toes shoes.

Zoe hung out in her bouncy chair with her gloves on...her hands were FREEZING.  She fell asleep during most of the unwrapping.

Adnan made a yummy beef tenderloin, onion puff pastrys, creamed spinach and salad.

On a side note: Each gift had a reindeer name on it.  Leila and Holden were so nosey, I didn't want them to shake, open or figure out whose present was whose.  When Leila first read the names, she thought all the presents under the tree were for the reindeer.  :(  Some of our friends had left her one present and she said, "those presents are for the reindeer I have one with MY name on it."  She was happy with her one.

After I told her that a reindeer represented a person in the family, she quickly figured out she was dasher!!