Christmas Break

Zoo Time

We took Scotty on his first trip to the Houston Zoo 12/23.  It was so fun for us to watch Scotty witness the many great creatures that God created so up close and personal for the very first time. One of our first stops included an otter that swam continuous routine circles for Scotty and me. Every time he swam by, Scotty would smile the most contagious smile that I couldn’t help but smile too.  We also made a stop in the children’s petting zoo. Scotty was very gentle with the Billy Goats and wasn’t afraid to touch them. I think this went better then my first time in a petting zoo with Billy Goats because my mom mentioned that they tried to eat my clothes! This thankfully did not happen to us. Scotty is also very interested in birds. He enjoyed the city birds just as much as anything. You know, city birds are those birds that invade your space because they are used to so many people. (Not my fav) Yea, those birds made Scotty’s day… “Bird ma-ma”, what about the elephant Scotty?! Scotty also managed to throw his sippy cup into the fence at the monkey exhibit. Great job mom! Next time I will remember not to let Scotty have his sippy cup while we stand near the exhibits. Luckily daddy was able to retrieve it! We wrapped things up after this because Scotty was really tired. We can’t wait for the next trip!

Checking out the Fish

3 Longhorns, 1 future Longhorn if it's up to Da-da!

Oh, so that's why mom calls me a monkey?!

Giraffe Time

Scotty at the children's petting zoo

Checking out the animals

What's a day without a little climbing involved?!

Christmas 2010

We spent time with a lot of family and friends over the Christmas week.

We spent Christmas Eve at The Hick’s. We exchanged gifts and also had our traditional White Elephant exchange. We also attended church at St. Peter’s that evening for a

 Candlelight service. We took Scotty to the nursery where we found him with some new extra large sweat pants on upon our return. I guess he had a little accident! Christmas morning we spent as a family playing with the cool new kitchen that Santa had left for Scotty. If you would have asked my husband 2 years ago if it would be ok for his little boy to be playing with a kitchen, he would have said “What?!” “I don’t think so”. However, once you have children you soon realize whatever works, whatever keeps them busy in a positive way so you can actually sit down for just 2 minutes to rest,  then it’s all ok.  This is the toy that allows that for us. Scotty loves that kitchen and we love it even more I assure you!  We spent lunch with Grandpa and my family, and ended that part of the day with smores by the fire. We spent the afternoon at our house opening presents. What a wonderful Christmas. We hope yours was just as wonderful! Oh, I forgot my camera at our first Christmas round so I hope to add some more soon from Gary! Hint hint if you are reading this. 

XOXO, 

The Zuehlke's

Christmas came a little early with Scotty's 1st pair of Nike's

Little Ryan and Scotty

Ryan, Jen, Wes and Stacy

Rare picture of just Me and my big Scott

Mimi and the boys

Grandpa Gary and the boys 

The Hostesses Perry and Carolyn

Cousin Scooter and fiance' Alissa...Mam-Maw in the background

Milk and Cookies for Santa

From Santa

Dre' and Flip getting their Christmas Presents too

Christmas Morning

Grandpa and Flip a do!

Scotty and Cousin Jackson being silly

Let's go Grocery Shopping! Da-Da is buying!

Dre'  in trouble again!

Grandpa and the boys.

Cold Christmas Day

Playing with his new kitchen

Mom with her photo album and Silhouette of Scotty

Papa and Scotty...oh and Bella (Dog mom)

Merry Christmas 2010

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas! Have a wonderful Christmas and may God bless you and your family this coming New Year!

XOXO, 

The Zuehlke's

Pictures done by: http://jenniferfrancophotography.com/

My Mantle this year

Our Tree  2010

Merry Christmas!

Portable North Pole

http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/watch/guest/IMF3yHJmMSpntKWlvFwtyw

Scotty's first message from Santa. 

XOXO, 

The Zuehlke's

Ceramics, Chucky Cheese's, Christmas

Dad has been off work a few extra days in December and Scotty and I have really enjoyed spending some  family time together.
Thursday we had a play date at Ceramics by Tess. The mom’s painted mementos of their little ones on plates or mugs while we distracted the kiddos with a portable DVD player and Mickey Mouse! I am no artist, so I can’t wait to see how my plate turns out! I pick it up later this week. It does have Scotty’s foot print on it, so I am sure I will love it no matter what. Here are a few pictures from the day.

Concentrating

Dean and Scotty

Watching Mickey

We took a trip to Chucky Cheese’s on Friday. Scotty’s 1st time! He had a blast playing with all the games and pressing all the cool, colorful, light- up buttons. Mom and Dad played a little basketball, baseball and skee-ball too!

That evening we took Scotty to 2nd Baptist Church to a Crazy Christmas Puppet Show! We met up with the Feiglesons and we had a great time! Scotty really would have preferred to be in the play vs. watching it so I had to wrestle with him most of the time to keep him off the stage! He also showed off a lot of his new dance moves. Dancing is new as of this week! The lady in front of us had her poor fingers stomped on more then once!

We also had the Wacker/Shifflett Christmas at my parent’s house. Both of my cousins recently got engaged, and so they brought their Fiancés’ with them. It was great to spend time getting to know them. Megan also asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding in June. What an honor. Thank you!  Here are a few pictures from our Christmas.

We fixed the time stamp. This is 2010!

           I had these made for the girls thanks to Tagged by Tiff. Her contact info is listed here:            http://taggedbytiff.blogspot.com/         Check her out!


XOXO,

The Zuehlke’s

Timeout and No No

Well, we at last have a timeout chair for Scotty. It's located in the corner in our dining room, a perfect boring place for a toddler. Scotty goes into his timeout frequently! You know that moment where you tell them NO and they smile at you and do it anyway? It's in that little moment where Scotty is trying to decide which direction to take...right or wrong? I was told that this is how you "train their conscience." Yes, something we have to have in order to do the right thing. I really hope this works as of course we always want him to try and make the right choices in life.  Well, yesterday after putting Scotty in his 2-minute timeout, after making the wrong choice, I went to get him. Before I get him, I always tell him why he is in timeout. So this time I pointed at him and said, "You are in a timeout because you threw your sippy cup into the toilet" "Please do not do that again" and it was in that moment that Scotty mocked me! Yes he pointed his finger at me, said some baby gibberish along with the word "No" and just smiled. I wanted to laugh so hard, but I couldn't let him know I thought it was funny and oh so cute. (I know funny and cute won't last long, but it was a "first").  Later that day he was sitting on his Poppa's lap and Dre' ate his cracker. Once he had another cracker in this hand, Dre' tried to steal the cracker again. Scotty immediately put his finger up and said "No" "No". Oh boy we are in trouble!

XOXO, 

The Zuehlke's

Santa Claus...HO HO HO

Well, we went to visit every little kids favorite guy this time of the year...Santa Claus! Yes, Santa happened to be at Katy Mills today and Scotty had to meet him. While we waited in line as the cute little girl in front of us screamed her head off, I wasn't so sure how this was going to go.  Since it was just about nap time and we had been taking pictures all morning, it was touch and go...anything could happen. (We had our Christmas photos along with Scotty's one year shoot earlier.)  Anyway, Scotty showed Santa that he was a good little boy and deserved lots of toys! No screaming, simply waving, which was a good start!  Once he got into Santa's lap he was VERY interested in Santa. Now that I think of it, he was probably more interested in Santa's glasses then anything else! He loves to pull off glasses, and it's totally worth a "timeout" per Scotty.  As Scotty sat there trying to come up with a plan on how to achieve this, but not disappoint Santa, we tried everything to get him to smile...shaking a stuffed reindeer, noises, smiles, clapping etc. Nothing worked! We settled on a picture of Scotty looking at Santa which we of course totally love! Merry Christmas!

XOXO, 

The Zuehlke's

Squeak Squeak

So, thanks to Miranda we have the coolest, most fashionable, every kid wants a pair shoes in Katy! (Not surprising coming from Miranda) That's because everyone can hear us coming as they squeak with every step!  I would love these shoes even more if I could figure out a way to keep them on him at times where I need to keep tabs on him!  However, this plan will never work for me because Scotty prefers to go without shoes. Socks are optional, but usually barefoot is his choice.  Since Scotty is walking, I make sure he has some sort of shoes on every time we go somewhere. Yes, this takes more time. Anyway, after going through the trouble of putting shoes on a squirming little boy the trip goes something like this.. in the car driving, all of a sudden a shoe is flying, then another... oh and then some grunting. In this case, the grunting is him muscling his socks off, and then by the time we arrive at our destination viola! Look mom! We are barefoot! I am not talking sometimes; I am talking EVERY SINGLE TIME WE GET INTO THE CAR. Yes, it's so fun!  I guess this is what happens when you decide not to put your child into shoes until he can or is learning to walk. I mean, what is the point of shoes if everyone is carrying you around the first year of your life anyway?  Oh, let’s not forget that we live in Houston where it's always HOT! So who needs shoes!

XOXO, 

The Zuehlke's

Into Everything

We made it through our busy Thanksgiving. Dad and I ran in the Turkey Trot, and Scotty, Mom, and Scott were there to cheer us on. I added a race shot link, horrible picture, but I love the guy behind me so happy to be running and fist pumping! We plan to do this every year unless I am pregnant or post delivery like last year!

 http://raceshots.net/app/event/zoomPictures?eventInstanceId=21937&picture=5961489 

Scotty this week is still recovering from a cold, but it hasn't slowed him down a bit. He is everywhere and into everything. Just this afternoon I walked into the half bath only to find my child having a blast in the potty water. You know, it's water mom, so it's fun?! Last week, I had to make an extra trip back to Memorial City Hospital because I had dropped off a goodie bag for a homeless boy that we decided to sponsor this Christmas. We hope one day to teach Scotty about the meaning of giving and helping others. Anyway, phone rings, lady on the other end sounding very unsure...is this a toy? is this a cell phone? No, this is my home phone. Yes, Scotty had added the home phone into the big blue bag. I guess to a 1 year old it looked like the perfect place for a phone?! Or maybe since he loves to play with ours, he thought the other little boy would too. I find keys in my running shoes, make up brushes in random bags, bottles in the trash. If you come to my house please hang onto your belongings! I can't guarantee if Scotty is around you will leave with everything you came with. 

XOXO, 

The Zuehlke's

My favorite guys

My best boy

My wonderful Dad

GRANDPA

Anita and Scotty

The cook and Anita

Best Buds Dre' and Scotty