Holiday Brunch

This weekend we went over to some friends of ours we met during a birthing class we attended. They had a little girl, Lauren, about a month before Zoe. We've kept in touch through each birth and Kate and Rosa would see each other at Mommy and Me playgroups. We finally got everyone together for brunch before the holiday bonanza. Zoe and Lauren had fun playing together (or at least being on the same mat together).

Teething

I guess this is what happens when you're teething...

Super Nanny

Zoe finally had to say goodbye to MeMa last weekend. It was a sad day for everyone! The good news for MeMa was that she only had to wait another 2 weeks before continuing her jedi grandma tricks on Zoe. The bad news for Mom and Dad was that super nanny's return to California wasn't going to be soon enough...

Somehow MeMa managed to play with Zoe all day, do laundry, run errands, cook dinner, and cleanup all in a day. Mom and Dad can barely manage that together over several days. Needless to say we were all pretty spoiled.

Zoe loved having MeMa around and would search for her the whole time Mom or Dad were holding her. She would grin and smile and even giggle. But what ends up happening when MeMa is so efficient and lets Mom and Dad sneak off to San Francisco is that we only end up with a handful of pictures of her and Zoe before she leaves. But they were good ones and you can see how happy Zoe was!

Zoe's 1st Tooth

Zoe cut her first tooth on Thursday and has been busy putting anything she can in her mouth...including my chin. Brian calls it her snaggle tooth :-) Lots of drooling...

Zoe is having lots of fun with MeMa. She loves all the attention and snuggles. Of course she's taking her 1.5 hour naps for Mema as well. Go figure.

Here are some pictures from the past couple weeks. She's come around on bath time and really enjoys it now. She's smiling a bunch, but is still pretty stingy on any giggles unless its for Grandpa. You'll notice she's sleeping on her side and that has turned into sleeping on her belly. She's rolling over a ton and starting to sit in her bumbo as well. It's crazy how much she's learning everyday.

Indianapolis

Over Halloween weekend, we packed up Zoe for her first plane trip to travel back to Indianapolis for my friend Ryan's wedding. She did great on all 4 legs of the trip! (Hopefully Christmas will be just as easy) The best decision we made all weekend was moving to the back of our Southwest flight after a very busy family decided to sit right behind us during boarding. We picked up, moved back, and Zoe slept through the whole flight!

While we were in Indy, Zoe finally got to meet Uncle Phil (she decided she didn't care that he came out to see for her birth, she was staying put). She also met Great Grandma Shirley and Great Grandma Mary.

Mom and Dad got to enjoy 2 nights out and lots of fun with their friends, Mom got to have some wine, Grammy and Grandpa got to enjoy uninterrupted Zoe time, and Zoe got all the attention she wanted!

Meeting the GG's...

Meeting hyper-active Uncle Phil and getting the first of many eye exams...

Hanging with Aunt Nats...

I love my fist...

Hmmm...

Happy Halloween (yes I know it's December)...

Mendocino

For Kate's 30th birthday, we went to Mendocino for Zoe's first road trip. We stayed at a B&B along the coast with a pot belly stove that kept us toasty warm. Mendocino is a very quiet, storybook type town and went at just the right speed for a newborn.

Giving kisses.

Dad and Zoe bundled up.

Pt. Cabrillo lighthouse

At the botanical gardens

Happy Thanksgiving

We have quite a logjam of photos and videos since we haven't posted in awhile. With reinforcements here for a couple weeks, hopefully these will be a little more frequent. Here's our happy little girl!

I'm Giggling

We thought Zoe was pretty close to her first giggles before we left for Indianapolis last weekend. She had done a couple in her sleep and was giving us some super big smiles, but she was still being stingy with the actual audio. On the plane, we kept telling her we bet Grandpa would get some giggles out of her. Sure enough on the first night...

And Rolling Over

Lately Zoe has been doing her baby bridges a lot (and mainly on the changing table of all places!). Towards the middle of the week, she kept pushing herself onto her side and we thought it wouldn't be long until she finally rolled over onto her tummy. By Thursday morning, we were finding her in her crib on her tummy. On Friday, she rolled onto her belly while on her play mat, but made sure to do it when Daddy wasn't looking. Finally, Saturday morning rolled around and she was amped up to perfect her new trick. Mommy and Daddy weren't going to miss it this time...

Megamind

Our newest movie, and my first with an artist credit, opens tomorrow. Believe or not, my Dad attended the friends and family screening with us and really enjoyed it. He sat still the whole screening, 3D and all!

I ended up with 2 credits: as Production Coordinator and CFX artist. The first credit will be seen at the end of the "Character Technical Direction" and the 2nd will be seen towards the end of "Character Effects" under "Additional Character Effects" (I think those are the proper names).

Basically the CFX department does all the clothing and capes you will see throughout the movie, along with animation cleanup, and additional animation of props and ambient movement within scenes.

Anyway, go see the movie and make sure to stay through the end. Enjoy!

Standford

This weekend we decided to drive up to Standford for our morning walk. It was a beautiful day (it is California after all) and Mom was a little stale on her walks to Safeway.

Zoe had a great time while Mom and Dad had a picnic and walked around the campus. Many of the pictures have recognizable backdrops from our wedding pictures.

Mom & Zoe...




Dad & Zoe...




Flower shots courtesy of Kate...

6 Weeks

A couple weeks back we had a friend of mine from work do a photo shoot for us. We spent about 3 hours at there house taking pictures. Zoe did great the whole time (she especially enjoyed the parts where she was naked and free to pee all over Mom and Dad).

The pictures turned out fantastic! Of course that posed a problem for us since we had to choose 15...and everyone knows how well we decide things. :)

Here's a slideshow of the pictures. If you would like to see the full gallery of what we had to choose from go to http://www.suzannesolsona.com/clients/zoe/ (login: brian, pass: virginia). Enjoy!

The artist formerly known as Uncle Todd

The whirlwind that is Uncle Tim blew through here after Grammy's last visit. Evidently convincing little Catie to call him Uncle Todd until he came to visit worked because we're seeing more and more of him since.

Zoe was very excited to meet Uncle Tim and the incessant noise emanating from his mouth or the commercial volume of said noise didn't seem to bother her in the least. In fact, on Daddy's first night home from work, she was passed out with Uncle Tim...go figure!

All of us had lots of fun with him here. Uncle Tim joined Mom and Zoe on their morning Jamba Juice walk. Zoe had fun with all the nursery rhymes and pure motion. And of course Dad had fun because it gave him somebody to tease.

Here are some pictures from the visit...

This is what happens when Daddy's not around to prevent the headgear...

Happy Birthday Grammy

Grammy came to visit the weekend before last as part of her birthday present to herself. Zoe was very excited to see her again (as were her mom and dad)! Zoe had lots of fun picking out Grammy's new charm, walking around Los Gatos, visiting her first winery, and snuggling with Grammy.

Grammy took care of mom and dad, cooking us breakfast, making us dessert treats, and cleaning our pit stain of an apartment. All of us miss her already (especially mommy's belly) !

Hello again!