Blue Crayola appetizer followed with an entree of peanut butter

I love it when we get messy - and I'm pretty sure you do too Harper.  The other day you colored your face while I sat next to you approving your behavior.  I told you, "if you want to color your face that's fine, but it means we will have a lot of scrubbing to do later".  You happily continued with your blue beard while I sat there and thought about the wonderful picture opportunity it would be.  What kind of crazy mom am I? Letting my child color all over her face so I can take a cute picture later? Well that part yes, but also, why not? We always need to ask that of a child. Why not let you experiment with how it felt, what it looked like, and even what it tasted like. As a result we got a lot of giggles out of the project and as you can see I got some great photos to save for your high school yearbook:

I have to be brief today because naps are not going very smoothly. Zoie you are teething, and although you haven't cut any actual teeth yet, you are chomping on everything like a little rabbit.  Five months has been great thus far and in just a few days you're going to be 6 months old. A whole half year has gone by. WHEW! Let's see.....if I had to sum it up into a list this week, I suppose I would save a bit of time.

Harper. Five Things About YOU:
--You rocked out at the Kirkland Library's story time for "ones" last week - you jumped and flapped your arms for 30 minutes and got all the kids around you going. It was hilarious. You have started to sing the songs with the rest of the group as well....so cute. You love the song "Open Shut Them".
--You discovered sidewalk chalk at the park the other day. Another mom was nice and shared with you, and you walked around and drew a little green chalky scribble on every hard surface you could find. Marking your toddler graffiti all over the benches, sidewalk, slides, rocks, you name it!
--You are fascinated with sticks and pick them up wherever you find them. You always make sure that there are sticks for mommy and daddy as well. You often offer them to other kids at the park, who look at you like, "hey, okay, maybe this is a good thing to play with....your mommy lets you play with this"?
--You have been very interested in cooking and always want to be involved with what I'm doing in the kitchen. You love to dump the measuring cups and stir, stir, stir.  You even baked cookies with daddy and sat on the counter almost the entire time.
--You have been such a fabulous sister with Zoie. When you're jumping on the bed you always demand to me "Soie jump"....because you want me to pretend to jump her on the bed with you.  I told you I was going to put Zoie on the floor with you to play and you said to me, "Boppy"....and you went and retrieved it and set it on the floor near your toys. (We place Zoie in the Boppy while she's sitting so it protects her if she falls over...it's a C shaped pillow). You always bring toys to her. And just recently when she's crying you've started telling her "Soie Soie....no trying (crying).....Soie pop Soie pop......no trying!" It's so funny to hear you demand her to stop, or demand her to play with a particular toy, and then take another out of her hands saying "LET TOE!!!" (LET GO!!) Ahhhhhh, sisters.

Zoie. Five Things About YOU:
-- You are ALMOST sitting up on your own. SO EXCITING! That makes a huge difference in your play time, and you are much happier sitting playing with Harper than laying on your back.  You are reaching for toys and putting everything you grab directly in your mouth. I have to be careful because Harper keeps trying to feed you goldfish crackers, which I don't doubt you will stick in your mouth.
--You have discovered the cat. Every time you see one of them you track them silently with your eyes and stop with curiosity when one of them comes near you. I remember this with Harper too, fascinated by the cats. In fact, I think Harper crawled for the first time in order to reach Satchmo.
-- You are becoming quite the little flirt, giving anyone who gives you eye contact a huge toothless grin. You're definitely a cute little conversation starter, with kids and adults alike. We've been calling you "Zoie Pop", it just seems to stick...and when we sing "Zoie Pop, Zoie Pop (to the tune of Lollipop) you grin at us and laugh. It's so funny!
--You are FINALLY starting to sleep a little better at night. You have about 5 good nights in a row, and then 1 or 2 horrible ones. BUT, aside from those 2 nights you are sleeping pretty soundly - getting up at 1:00 and 5:00 to nurse and sleeping until about 8 am.  Perfect as far as I'm concerned, and way, way, better than where we were just 4 weeks ago.  Those two horrible nights are still pretty horrible though, so we just need to work that last bit of midnight madness out of your system and get on a 7 day schedule. I can't complain though, like I said, better now than one month ago!
-- You are loving rice cereal and eat it every day at lunch with Harper. We can't wait to start some sweet potatoes and pears, I just have to remember to pick some up at the grocery store the next time we're there. Time to get down the mini food processor and the stacks of ice cube trays. Homemade baby food here we come, AGAIN!!

Your mama loves you two :)