Almost Forgot..

I finally finished the mural in Zoeys room! I drew it on in pencil first, then painted the whole thing. After spending a few hours drawing, Eric suggested I make a stencil of each leaf.. Duh! Why didnt I think of that??!! Here it is!Also, we adopted a dog that Eric found on post. She was abused and very under weight. We named her Stella. Shes wonderful with Zoey and Chewy! Shes a Siberian Husky mix. Here she is with Chewy!

"Play With Your Food" Playdate!

I was waiting to write again until after the fun playdate that I planned for Zoey and her friends. We had soooooo much fun on Wednesday! The idea behind the playdate was to have fun but make sure everything was edible and safe for the little ones. When I was in preschool, I got to paint with chocolate pudding - its one of the few things I remember from when I was little. Also, one of my best friends husbands is a chef who does amazing things with food such as carvings and sculptures. His name is David Leathers and one of his signature phrases is "I play with my food" hence the shirt Z sometimes wears! So, between the two, I got the inspiration for this!

Heres Z with part of her mess! I made all of the kids their own "paints" out of vanilla pudding that I colored with food coloring gels. I also found a recipe for edible play dough in a book (Thanks Gramma (Sharon) Bujak!) that I was given for Mothers Day. All 6 of her little friends did so well with their crafts! I even made them a cute snack!

Heres a link to more photos from the playdate! Hopefully it works!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=241352&id=636585336&l=b1e7e4ab94

Banana Phone

Zoeys been playing pretend a lot lately. She pretends to cook, eat, feed her toys, dress up..

Shes so cute! I picked her out some play food when we went for groceries yesterday. Heres a couple pics!

Hello? Nana? Yes, it is a nana Z!

On another note, I have added two new albums to the shutterfly site. They include the photos of Zoey and her Granna Falk, our time with Gramma and Grampa Bujak in Florida and also the ones from the Bujak family reunion. Still working on the rest!

http://thebujakfamilyphotos.shutterfly.com/pictures

password -alaskabujaks

We Will Never Forget

Over the past 2 months, we have lost two very important family members - Zoeys Great Grampa VanDenBerghe and her Great Grampa Falk. We are so blessed that she was able to meet them and that we have these photos to remember the times by. We love you both and will miss you dearly..

Z and Grampa Falk August 09

Grampa VanDenBerghe and Zoey August 09

This was Gramma & Grampa VanDenBerghes cookie jar. When I think about them, I think about this & the windmill cookies that were always inside when I was a little girl. Now Z gets to enjoy it & we are happy to give it a good home.

She calls the owl "apple" - I guess they sound the same to her! She loves the windmill cookies too!

Piggy Princess

So, instead of uploading all of the photos that I wanted to, I chose just one. It took half an hour, but heres our piggy princess! I love her hair! Its long enough now that I can put clips and ponies in it plus the back is super curly. Her bangs are so long that they hang in her eyes. We had an old woman in Walmart tell us that we should buy a disposable camera to be sure we get enough photos of her - how sweet!

I have been working on animal noises with her lately. She can tell you what a dog, cat, bear, cow and fish say.. well, the fish isnt a noise, but she tries to make fish lips!

Speaking of, Daddy got Z her very own fish! He picked out a 20 gallon tank, 6 guppies, 3 tiger striped fish and a really strange bottom feeder. We all ready lost one tiger stripe, so he replaced that with 2 neon colored fish that zip around fast.

Heres the crazy bottom feeder stuck to the side!

Zoey loves watching her fish - we all do. They are very relaxing.

I have a few photos of the yard, but I'll save them for later. We rented some equipment and Eric spent the day tearing down the side yard. Its a huge waste of our land, so we plan to level it out, get the fence built, hydroseed, landscape an also make a play space for Zoey and a fire pit with seating for friends! We are working in stages as we save the money. Its been a while since we worked though since Eric has a midnight shift right now. I say "we" but all I'm doing right now is watching Z while he works. I only get to help while she naps. We will get pics up once its more than a pile of dirt!!

An update on the Monkey..

We decided Z was ready to go to a bouncy house! I took her on Friday and it was fun! Most of the play stations were a bit big for her, but she eventually found a few things she had fun on. We will get photos next time we go!

AT&T I hate you!

I've been trying to put more photos on our blog for the last three weeks. I know for sure now that it is our internet connection that is causing the problems. Please be patient with me as I struggle with this.. again..

New Things..

Zoey did a couple cute new things that we have to share with you all!

Shes had a cold for a few days now, but Daddy taught her how to blow her nose! She actually does it right and it helps so that we don't have to suck her nose as much. She will even do it on her own.. unfortunately she picked my dish towel to do it on! Super cute, so I don't mind!

Shes also been more aware of her diaper lately. We knew she had a poopy one the other day, so I asked if she wanted a change and she walked with me to her room. Before I could react to what she had started, she had the wipes bin off the table and opened, wipe in hand. She, fully diapered and dressed still, leaned forward, put her hand with wipe between her legs and began wiping herself! Shes done it a few times now. I let her since she thinks shes cleaning herself and it is so cute to see that she is learning what to do!

Zoey has been taking standing up showers with us too. She will wait to be soaped and then rub her own legs, belly and arms. She even likes to help wash Mommy and Daddys arms and legs.

She made her way down both sets of our stairs today all by herself as well. I asked her how shes gets down and she slid on her belly all the way!

Learning, learning every day!!