Happy Birthday Zane!

Where has the time gone? From one to two in 12 short months.

Words now come out of you at a steady flow.
You've learned the power of "NO" and love to tell us so!
You love sing-alongs and milk in your sippy cups.
You have learned to open doors.
And throw tantrums on the floor!
60 seconds by the wall when you dis-obey.
A hug from us to let you know its all ok.
You're a creature of routine and always prefer to be clean.
Your cars always end up in a perfect line.
Your favorite songs are Itsy Bitsy Spider & This Little Light of Mine.
Slides you prefer to climb up and the best way down is always to jump.
Vacuums are one of your favorite things, as untraditional as that may be.
Yo Gabba Gabba is your favorite show & bubbles in the bathtub you love to blow.
Although I love to watch you grow, sometimes I just wish time would slow.
Where has the time gone? From one to two in 12 short months.

Pumpkin Carving!

Well, we finally carved our pumpkin tonight; I should say Josh carved our pumpkin tonight! This was Zane's first time to help...but he was not interested in helping at all! He was more concerned about playing with his trucks than taking part in any of the festivities. So, Josh cut, gutted and carved and I supervised as well as dug through the guts to pick out the seeds to roast tomorrow!




Notice the little piece of pumpkin gut in his arm-pit...that's from me picking him up, haha!


Comparing his pumpkin bucket to daddy's work!

Fall has fallen!

I love the colors of fall. I also love this hat!!

End to a great season.

Last night was the last regular season Sounders FC game and Josh and I had a total blast! Thankfully this isn't the last game all year though since we made the play-offs, we know we at least have 1 more to look forward to...and hopefully a few more!

My dad and his wife watched Zane for us last night and we were able to leave early to get down for the March of the Match, something we've wanted to do for other games, but have never been able to do! Very cool experience. We followed the band with hundreds of other fans and marched our way to the stadium. Once at the stadium the owners of the Sounders; Drew Carey and Joe Roth unveiled a very cool banner that as they said will "stand the test of time outside of Qwest Field from here on out". On this banner are the names of every inaugural season ticket holder...yahoo our name (ok, so just Josh's, but I'm on there in spirit) are listed on this banner that will be out there forever kind of a cool thing! But I think the coolest thing of the night was when I weaseled my way up through the crowd and asked Drew Carey for a picture with him!! He was so kind to say "yes"...he bobbed his head to the beat of the band playing for our picture, but I'm cool with that!!

Anyway, the absolute best part of the night was that we won 2-1!!! First score on our home field in 3 months, we needed that!!!

Off to the playoffs we go!
We found this "Waterfall Park" in Seattle on our walk to the march...I had no idea it existed and if anyone knows me, they know I LOVE waterfalls, so I was stoked to find it!!

The march...

Yahoo!! BTW you can't see it in this picture, but Drew has on green Crocs...just goes to show you that being a millionaire does not up your taste in shoes! (No offense to you Croc lovers out there)!

The banner!

Joe Roth (per my husband a famous movie producer...I sure hope I spelled his last name right)!

Coloring.

Zane is absolutely in love with coloring right now! Or I should say "loloring"! I love it too b/c it entertains him for a good 1/2 hour usually and I can run around like a chicken with my head cut off and get things done! I have learned a very valuable lesson though...he's only allowed to color while sitting at the table from now on though (unlike he is in these pictures). The little turkey colored on our carpet and a wall. Thankfully magic eraser took care of the wall just fine, but the carpet has been a different story. Who would've thought that Crayola crayons does not come out of carpet? I've tried everything and its faded, but not completely gone. I was informed by a friend that I need to by the washable Crayola's...I didn't even know they made ones that weren't washable, oops! Lesson learned!

Hives!

I picked Zane up from daycare Friday night and noticed he was scratching his stomach, I didn't think much of it at first, but then he just continued to scratch like crazy. I looked at his stomach and noticed a little rash and thought it was kind of weird, but just figured I'd put some hydrocortisone cream on it that night and it would be fine. Throughout the weekend it just got worse and started to look like little welts and the itching was uncontrollable for him :( Benedryl has become our best friend around here. I started thinking he might have hives, but I since I have never had hives or ever even seen them before, I wasn't sure. But after describing them to a few people (including the nurses at work today) its been diagnosed that he does indeed have hives. I talked with his doctor today and she said 95% of people who get hives never know what caused them (just as we don't for Zane) and they can take days to weeks to go away completely. She said they could be a delayed allergic reaction to his Amoxicillin (his last dose was Thursday night) although she doubts that is the case, she also said a lot of people get hives at the end of an illness for some reason, so maybe its that, who knows! We can give him Benedryl 3 times a day max or we can try switching to Clariton once a day to see if it works better. The craziest thing (well, crazy to me anyway since I have known nothing about hives) is that they disappear and then reappear in different spots a few hours later (obviously once the Benedryl has worn off). He really doesn't seem bothered by them other than the itching, he doesn't complain about them at all...but I still feel so sorry for him. I sure hope they clear up fast.

Pumpkin Patch!

Josh and I took Zane down the hill to the pumpkin patch today (we are so lucky to have one just 3 miles away)!! Other than being pretty muddy thanks to yesterday's rain, it was beautiful out and a perfect day to go! Zane loved riding in the wheelbarrow the most I think...he could care less about picking out a pumpkin, he threw a fit whenever we tried to take him out! I'm anxious to carve it next weekend to see what Zane thinks of the guts, pictures of that fun event to come!!!







Here is our annual family pic at the patch (this year's and last year's)...notice a common theme? Zane wants nothing to do with the picture, hey at least he's consistent!!!

2009


2008

Baby Scarlett!

My friend Sara from work had her baby girl on Thursday; Scarlett was 3 weeks early, but is doing great! My friend Megan (friend of college as well as a coworker too) went to visit Sara this past Saturday. Oh my gosh, I don't think I've ever held a baby this small before, so cute...such a little peanut. I just couldn't put her down, but I had to share her with Megan (thankfully Megan has a baby too, so I just traded one baby for another!). Zane did really good, he wasn't exactly thrilled with me holding Scarlett or Avery (Megan's baby), but as long as he could be right next to me, he was ok. Zane even helped feed Scarlett her bottle, he was so gentle and careful, it was really sweet to see. Seeing Scarlett almost made me want to have another one...I said almost people!!!

Atlanta Zoo, last day and coming home.

On Tuesday of our vacation (10/13) we were lucky enough (thanks again to the inlaws) to go to the Atlanta Zoo! It was a perfect day to go, weather was great and no crowds at all! Zane LOVED seeing all of the animals.





There are 2 really neat things about this zoo...1st is Ivan the Gorilla is there...Ivan used to live in Washington. Poor Ivan was locked up in a tiny glass cage at a store in Tacoma for YEARS and quite a few years ago he was freed and taken to the Atlanta zoo so he could have more space and be outside and such. Sad thing is, since he was never with other gorilla's growing up he had/has no idea how to interact with them, so he has his own area at the zoo. He seemed to be doing just fine while we were there!



The 2nd neat thing about this zoo was the panda exhibit, I guess there are only 5 zoos in the U.S. that have panda exhibits and another thing I learned is that all of the panda's are on loan from Japan...so each one is only in the U.S. for a few years, then sent back to Japan.



On Tuesday night Chelsea (Josh's cousin) took Zane on one final golf cart ride...he was sad to say good-bye to that thing!



On Wednesday, our last day in Georgia was "respite day" for me!! Josh's parents watched Zane and Aunt Jan took Aunt Carol and I into Senoia, GA to do a little sight seeing, shopping and lunch! Quite a few movies have been filmed in Senoia, she took us by the house that Fried Green Tomatoes was filmed in/at and to the bridge that also appeared in the movie (doctored up in the movie of course). The house is actually owned and lived in by a family who moved out for the filming of the movie and then were able to move back in...crazy!





Wednesday night Zane and I headed back to the airport to fly home! I cannot tell you how excited I was to get home! Of course when you are anxious to get somewhere...things never go as planned. We got to the airport about 2 hours early and then about 5 minutes before we were supposed to board we were informed that our plane was there, but our crew was not...they were on another flight still needing to land...ugh. So we waited about 45 mins for them to arrive and then once the plane was completely boarded we sat for another hour before taking off (with no reason as to why, which I think upset me the most!!). Thank GOD Zane was able to get an empty seat, he was pretty content just coloring and again pushing buttons. Once the flight got going it was again pretty uneventful (phew!); Zane and I were both VERY tired so thankfully we were both able to conk out for a couple hours. Once in Seattle, Josh picked us up and I finally felt complete again!

Georgia Aquarium and World of Coke.

On Monday of our vacation (10/12) we were lucky enough (thanks to the inlaws) to go to the biggest (as in gallons of water not square footage) aquarium in the U.S. and enjoy the World of Coke. The aquarium was fabulous, there is an awesome glass tunnel you get to walk through (like the aquarium in Newport, OR if anyone's been) and I think that was the coolest part! Zane loved looking at all of the fish, but I think he enjoyed the moving sidewalk in the tunnel the best; this kid is getting too comfortable outside of his stroller...ugh (haha)!!!









The World of Coke was very cool as well, I loved seeing all of the memorbilia from years past...very fascinating. My favorite part of the Coke museum was the tasting room at the end...over 60 different flavors to try for all over the world. I really wish I would've written down the ones I tasted, where they were from and whether I liked them or not...oh well, maybe next time I'll remember to be a nerd and take in a pad of paper and a pen!!



This is a "twuck" in case you all didn't know!


Its obvious I was way more excited about sitting with this polar bear than he was!!