A little more Christmas

We headed to Grandma and Grandpa Smith's on Sunday to celebrate Christmas with them.

Zach showed off his crawling skills (have I mentioned he is crawling!) and how good he is at taking tissue paper out of bags

We all received great gifts and had a wonderful visit together!

Christmas

We have had such a wonderful week! My parents and sister were in town Monday to Thursday. We had some good family time! Everyone of course enjoyed being with Zach. It was a great first Christmas for him.

Zach and Grandpa reading a book before we go to mass on Christmas day.

After mass and nap time - it was present time!

Zach seemed to say "I'm not sure what all this is, but I like it!"

Go Cubbies!

And yes, Santa left Pete some treats in his stocking!

Here he is de-stuffing one of them!

Zach is already learning the family card games!

And...
Happy birthday Mom!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to you from the Smith Family!

We celebrated Christmas a few days early on Saturday at Grandma and Grandpa Young's house. We had a great day with family and of course Zach had presents to open under the tree!

Oh Pete!

For all you Pete lovers out there, here is proof again that we do try to include him in pictures with Zach. These are our attempts for the Christmas card photo. So like our friend and fellow blogger Jenni, I thought I would show you some of the funny pictures that didn't make the cut! (But they are still cute!)We never did get a good one of them together. Maybe next year!

Winter Picture

I was in the kitchen today and heard a 'tweet tweet' outside the window. There was a cardinal sitting in our ice covered tree in the front yard. I actually snapped a picture before he flew away (hopefully to somewhere warmer!) I thought it was a classic winter picture!

Funny hats

Zach seems to be fascinated when we wear any type of hat. So in my never ending quest to entertain him, I brought out all the hats I could find. We had fun trying them all on!

Here are a couple pics!

Pete

Here is a video we took when Zach and I got home from Massachusetts. It is of Zach's reaction to seeing Pete again after 4 days. He sure loves his puppy! (Sorry that it is sideways, don't hurt your neck looking at it!)

Sleeping Beauty

Wow, what a difference it makes when your little one actually sleeps! We have had 2 days of good naps and sleeping through the night. Maybe this is Zach's Christmas present to us :)

We had a fun weekend visiting with family. My parents and sister came into town on Saturday for a "Zach fix." Because of the weather we got to see Aunt Mo all weekend! :)

Tom and Kristie stopped by on Sunday for a Zach fix too.

Aunt Mo reading Zach his new book

Zach hanging out with Grandpa just after a bath.

Our big trip

As promised here is more about our trip to Mass. We had a great visit with Sarah and her family. Zach was such a good traveler. On the flights there and back he hardly made a peep. We were fortunate that there wasn't anyone in the seat next to us on either flight.

Here is a picture of Zach and Nadeem (5 months).

Sarah's oldest, Baha (2yrs), was very fond of " Baby Zach"

Zach was in love with everyone and was quite intrigued with the cats as well! I am waiting for Zach to ask for a big and little brother for Christmas!

On Sunday we headed into Boston to visit with Kate and Don. We saw their new place and drove around Boston a bit to see the sights.

Here is a picture of Zach with Kate...

And another one literally seconds later! Oh my! :)

A picture of the Leonard P. Zakim bridge in Boston

(Yes I still love to take pictures of bridges!)

Thank you to Sarah and Maher for their hospitality!

The Worm!

Here is a video of our breakdancing baby!

Winter Wonderland

It's our first big snow of the season! We woke up to a winter wonderland. I love it when that happens.

Massachusetts

We have had a great time in Massachusetts. Zach and I are headed back to Indy today. Zach was a great traveler on the way out here. Let's hope for the same today. He is very excited to see his daddy tonight! (me too!)

I have lots of pictures to share. Look for those later this week!

Zach and Pete

We managed to get Zach and Pete in a photo together last night. I put Zach in this laundry basket and Pete sat down next to him. How cute!

Zach really loves Pete. He is one of the many things he giggles at during the day.

Here is our handsome little guy in his Elmo jacket from Uncle Nick and Aunt Kara!

Zach and I are headed out on a trip today. We are flying to Massachusetts to visit our friend Sarah and her family. This is Zach's first flight. I am looking forward to the reaction of the person sitting next to us when we take our seat on the plane!

Pete!

So I had a request for more Pete (our dog) on the website. Pete has been moved way down the priority list since April and is slowly coming to terms with it. We still love him of course, just more so when he is calm and not eating one of Zach's toys.

Here is proof that we do try to include him in pictures with Zach.

And here is what Pete is typically doing - laying off to the side pouting!

This morning he was a bit frisky and I told him to go get a toy. He frantically ran through the house looking for something. I heard him go upstairs and he comes running down with one of Zach's yellow rubber duckies in his mouth. I should of been more specific on whose toy he should go get!

Sleepy Mommy

Some days the lack of sleep really catches up with me. Take this morning for example. I was a millisecond away from pouring my coffee into a cereal bowl and later I soaked my shirt with the sink sprayer (don't ask me how). Zach has had his issues with sleep. Its getting better, but his naps aren't great and he usually wakes up during the night at least once. We are now reading the book "Good Night, Sleep Tight" in hopes that this method works. The author, Kim West, says that a baby Zach's age should nap around 3 hours during the day (broken up into 2-3 naps) What?! Zach naps maybe an hour to an hour and a half during the day. So we've given the book to Zach to read and hopefully he can work out this sleep issue! Right now he's been napping for about an hour which is almost unheard of, so I guess he has started reading the book. :)

ps - Zach took a 2 hour nap this morning and has been in his crib for his afternoon nap for almost an hour! Is it too soon to get my hopes up? Too Late!

Rainy day fun

Zach was entertaining me on this rainy Monday. I let him drink a small amount of water out of his cup. He was so excited about it. It actually kept him occupied while I straightened up the kitchen. Make sure your sound is turned on.

Happy Thanksgiving

We hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving day yesterday. Mike's cousin and her husband had the family over for a great dinner.

It was Zach's first Thanksgiving! (Note the bib!). It was technically his first snow too. We had a few flurries yesterday. I don't think he noticed :)

Ally and Sy smiling big for the camera

Zach and Grandma!

Happy Zach

Enough of the big lip picture. More of happy Zach. Here he has built his first fort out of his kick gym. He pulled it over all by himself and was having a great time in it.

The big lip

For all of you that have seen Zach in person there is a good chance you have seen the 'Big Lip.' We have been getting that a lot in the past few days. He already has 2 teeth on the bottom, maybe the top ones are coming soon? Or maybe it is his cold? Or maybe it's ...(insert anything here). He was really fussy in mass on Sunday for the first time. Our cry room and narthex are closed due to renovation so I was left with only the small lobby entrance to try to calm him. He of course calmed down once he was in the car and fast asleep!

Here is the only picture I have of the big lip. He is around 2 months old in the picture. Zach and his lip are much bigger now. I can hardly believe how much he has grown and how much more hair he has now!

Date Night!

The name of the band is?

Mike and I were out on the town last night. Many thanks to Mike's mom Patty for watching Zach! One of our favorite bands was at the Music Mill. Cowboy Mouth puts on the best live show. We highly recommend going to see them. We had a great time and are exhausted today from jumping around and singing like we were 28 again! The cherry on top of our date night sundae was that I wore my 'skinny' jeans out! Ladies, you know what I'm talking about!

Ah-choo!

Well it has finally come, Zach's first cold. We made it 7 1/2 months without one - not too bad. It is pretty mild so far. He really just has a stuffy nose. He has learned that the snot sucker isn't just for blowing air on him and making him laugh. (See below) He tolerates it pretty well. If there is a good side to this, he is actually sleeping better at night and taking better naps because he is worn out from his cold!

Easily Amused

There is no better sound than a child laughing. Its always the simple things that are the most amusing. I was sitting up at the computer tonight and I could hear Zach giggling uncontrollably downstairs with Mike. Mike came to show me what was so funny. He was blowing air on Zach with the snot sucker. It was pretty funny to watch. We took a video of it so everyone could see!

Enjoy!

Almost got it!

Zach is trying really hard to crawl. Here he is on his hands and knees. He was doing a lot of rocking back and forth today. I can only imagine how our days will change once he is on the go. Watch out Pete!

The weekend

We went to Cincinnati on Saturday to visit the Floyds. They have 2 daughters. Lily is 2 years old and Anna is 2 months old. We had a great visit!

Lily is still getting good use out of the boppy pillow

Hey kids, look at the camera not each other!

Jen, Anna, Megan and Zach

Playdate!

Our friend Trisha and her daughter Ainsley are in town from Japan. Ainsley was born about 6 weeks after Zach. This is one of the few times Zach has had a one on one playdate with another baby close to his age. They were so cute together. But don't take my word for it. Check out the video!