A Letter to a Hero

Dear Beecham Research Laboratories,

Thank you for being intelligent, for spending the money, and I dare say being guided by the Spirit to develop new and modified medication that has saved countless lives. My little baby is finally getting better after a double eardrum rupture. Twelve hours after her first dose of amoxicillin she no longer has a ridiculously high fever (105 degrees!) or massive amounts of puss coming out of her ears... oh and she's no longer screaming incessantly. For this reason you are my hero right now! So from all the moms out there that have seen the awesomeness of this medicine, I say thank you!


Before


After


Ahhh all better!

Labels: baby, Erin, pictures, Zoe

posted by Erin at 9:58 AM 2 Comments

Big Girl

We've had a big night with Zoe. First she started saying 'dadada' more clearly than she has before, and is now quite enamored with the sound. Then, as we're feeding her the last bottle of the day, I ask her if she wants milk, at the same time clenching my fist in the ASL sign for 'milk'. Zoe looked at me, then looked down at her right hand, and quite deliberately made the sign for milk. Then she did it again. I gave her her bottle, a few moments later she took a break, and when she was ready she made the sign again.

Way to go Zoe! We're so proud of you!

Our little girl is really getting big.

Labels: baby, Zoe

posted by Brett at 10:22 PM 6 Comments

Still Playing 'Catch Up'

So I have officially been an epic failure when it comes to blogging. But I'm honestly going to try better ... again... And yes i realize i have said this before. Sorry... But I'm almost up to present time. :)


Aeriana and Zoe are the best of friends, and I love it. They play and giggle together all the time and Aeriana can always get Zoe to smile. I mean look how Zoe looks at Aeriana you can just tell she thinks Aeriana is the coolest.


We had a big snow storm and Brett got to work from home one day and they even closed the office the next day! It was awesome! The car was crazy stuck in the snow and we don't have a shovel, so Brett dug the car out with our ice scraper. Yeah... it took him forever. But then I made him hot chocolate to make him feel better. :)


This is a snow man that Aeriana and I had made a few hours prior, when it was only snowing a little...




This is later after it snowed a bunch more. Poor snow man got buried...


My good friend Crystal lives right up the street from me, she took the kiddos out while I stayed inside with the babies. (She had a little girl (Lillie) two weeks after Zoe was born, and Rebekah her other daughter was a month after Aeriana. We like being prego together, what can we say.)


It's hard to tell in these two pictures but Aeriana was having a blast picking up the snow and throwing it in the air.


This is Zoe and Lillie chillin' inside. I love Zoe's face, it says, "Seriously, you licked me. I can't believe you just did that."


We have a baby that loves the bumbo. :) It's awesome! (Aeriana hated it.)

Zoe was super sick for about a month. It was so sad super high fevers and she had a horrible time breathing. She's all better now, but it took her forever!


One of Zoe's favorite things... Eating her giraffe and staring at herself in the mirror.


Speaking of giraffes, Aeriana has a giraffe too! And a pooh bear! And Bubblegum! And her Blanket! - all of which she wants to sleep with every night. I think she's going to be one of those kids with a million stuffed animals on her bed where you can't even see the bed, but they swear it's comfortable.


I tried to curl Aeriana's hair... It didn't work. I think she would have to sleep in the curlers over-night and there is no way they would stay in her hair with the way she sleeps (which is every which way). Any idea anyone?


We started doing a cousin exchange this year and Aeriana got her very first laptop from Evie. She loves it! At first she would walk up to it and say "No, no!" thinking it was mommy and daddy's laptop, but once she figured out it was hers she couldn't put it down.


Here's Zoe being the happy baby that she is... happy but loud, man this kid can make noise! Currently her favorite noise making technique is blowing raspberries. (and yes i know this toy got recalled... I sent it in, no need to send the parent police after me.) ;)


Aeriana loves to read and her favorite book is Dora! Well, she loves anything Dora really. She's obsessed!


But obsessions sure are handy when your friends come into town and you want to play games (yay Agricola!) and not be bothered by a two year old. :) Notice Aeriana in the background... yeah she's watching Dora.


And sometimes Dora is just great, but Aeriana has lots of energy and needs to move around a little while she watches... sometimes she decides to undress herself.


She's starting to realize that undressing, and attempting to get re-dressed, can be fun... and the results can be rather interesting.

Anatomy of an Early Morning Wardrobe Change:

Pants removed - check!
Diaper 90% removed - check!
Pants inside out - check!
Both legs stuffed into a single pant-leg of the pajamas - check!


This is Zoe's favorite position, she does this all the time and the picture just doesn't do it justice. She arches her back in this really weird way just so she can look around and see what she wants to. She tends to use this most often when Dora is on the TV; being placed on the floor facing directly away from the TV is no problem for a master contortionist.


This is her other favorite position. Pacifier and foot!


Here's Aeriana having fun with friends. Hanging out watchin' a movie. Three peas in a fleecy-blanket lined pod.


Zoe, super comfy and totally relaxed... (this mastery of relaxation makes her daddy proud).



I love the bed-head and I can hear Aeriana as a teenager saying "Mom what do you want from me, I just woke up?"



Aeriana got her first hair cut. It was much needed she was starting to look mullet-ish. And I would have none of that!


Pierson and Aeriana hand in hand at the mall. She loves to hold other kids' hands; it's so cute, we see her walking down the halls at church with one of her friends hand-in-hand all the time.


And last but not least! Happy birthday Brett!!! I love you!


Well, that was another long post but no need to worry, there is more to come!

Labels: Aeriana, baby, Brett, Erin, family, holidays, pictures, Zoe

posted by Erin at 5:26 PM 4 Comments

Two Photo Shoots, Thanksgiving and A Baby Blessing

Cutest Baby ever! Brett took some great pics of Zoe when she was still little. I love this first pose because I have a picture of me doing the same thing when I was little. :)




Another photo shoot. She's actually a few months older here than she was when she was actually blessed, but at least we took pics when she still fit in her dress. As a side note, Brett hasn't edited these yet so he may or may not be grumpy that they aren't a polished representation of his crazy photoshop/camera skills. I'll probably end up re-posting some when they get edited, but I'm trying to get to a current date on the blog, and it will drive me crazy if I don't go in chronological order... yeah I'm weird, but so is the rest of the family so I fit right in. :)


Man we have really cute kids. :)


We went down to NC for Thanksgiving and Zoe's blessing; it was so much fun. Aeriana loves her Grandpa, or as she calls him "Gan-pa". Here they are on the way back from a trip to the park.


The blessing was beautiful and wonderful. It was so awesome to have Matt and Renee there to take part in it with us.



Matt, Chad, Zoe, Brett, and Doyle. The men and the baby of the hour!


Brett's parents and us.


Uncle Riley loved to play with Aeriana (and the feelings were definitely mutual), but chasing her around was tiring. Of course, he still wanted to be close to a niece, so he look a little nap with Zoe. :)


We also celebrated Christmas at the same time since almost everyone was there. Matt, Renee, and Jaeden even joined in the fun! Isn't Jaeden the cutest!


Ahhh, the start of the obsession, she didn't even know she had just gotten her dream come true. DORA!!!!


Aeriana was almost as excited to watch other people open presents as she was to open her own. Almost.


After the blessing and presents, we all had dinner together. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of all of us together so this will have to do. You can see the tables a bit, we had the kitchen table plus two long folding tables and we were still squished. There were 20 of us, I think. It was crazy! But awesome. I love being a part of a big family.


"Ummmm, Uncle Brody, that's a really far drop to the floor and you don't look to awake..."


Also while we were there we threw Renee a belated Baby Shower! It was the first Baby shower I had ever done and I thought I got pictures, but I guess not. I think it was fun and that everyone enjoyed it. I do know that we had awesome prizes for the games, candy and gift certificates to Borders. :) Love you Ne-Ne!

Thanksgiving was incredible with Zoe's blessing, fun holiday celebrations, family and friends. What more can you ask for?

Labels: Aeriana, baby, family, holidays, pictures, trips, Zoe

posted by Erin at 10:42 PM 1 Comments

Family of Four

Welcome to the world Zoe! Isn't it awful that's she is almost six months old by the time we're getting this posted?

(Because we've gotten so many questions about Zoe's name, we wanted to clarify for people who can't hear our pronunciation - we pronounce her name 'zo-EE'; we were surprised to hear how many people pronounce "Zoe" as "Zo" without the hard 'E' sound on the end).



Grandma Etter spent a week with us and helped us get used to being a family of four. Aeriana loved spending time with Grandma. Zoe also really enjoyed the constant attention.

Grandma and Grandpa Garner (and Uncle Riley) surprised us and were at our apartment when we got home from the hospital. We walked in the door and they were just sitting on the couch hanging out. We just stood there with our mouths wide open shocked. It was awesome!


The start of a great friendship. Aeriana giving "loves"

Uncle Jason and Aunt Christine came up to see Zoe too. It was a party at the Garner house!


The week Zoe was born we took Aeriana out on a special date just the three of us (while Grandma Etter got some special bonding time with Zoe) and Aeriana got a special bear named Bubblegum. And of course she picked out a pink bear. (man i look exhausted... well i was, and sick to boot!)

The following weekend we got to see Matt, Renee, and baby Jaeden for General Conference. Jaeden and Zoe are only a month apart but when they are this little a month is a lot!

A few weeks later Grandpa Etter came down to help my brother move and got a chance to stop by and see Zoe. I'm so glad he got an opportunity to see her.

Halloween was lots of fun. Aeriana understood trick-or-treating this year and loved picking out candy. It was so cute to see her going from place to place getting candy. She loved it!

Daddy and his girls. The man couldn't be happier.

A month later Aeriana was still loving being a big sister. Thankfully that still hasn't changed - they adore each other.
Sunday outfits.They are so cute!

Labels: Aeriana, baby, Erin, family, pictures, Zoe

posted by Erin at 3:30 PM 5 Comments