Zoe’s Christmas Recital
The first week of December was a crazy one for us with Ava’s art market and chorus concert plus Zoe’s dance recital. It was a busy week with late nights but it was so fun to watch both girls shine doing things they loved. Zoe’s ballet class danced to “The March of the Toy Soldiers” from The Nutcracker. She and her little dance friends were such cute toy soldiers. Zoe did an amazing job and nailed her choreography. She was nervous to go on stage this time but once she was with her dance buddies she was happy and it was such a cute performance. During the finale number, they had fake snow falling…well, Zoe was right under the snow machine and ended the night covered in “snow” foam, which we were still picking out of her hair 2 days later. We are so proud of our tiny dancer!
Ava’s Performances
Ava has been doing chorus again this year. She is really enjoying it this year. They had a small performance during the 4th grade Veteran’s Day program where the 5th grade chorus sang one song. Then they had a Christmas program with the 4th grade chorus. Unfortunately, due to a much longer than expected dance rehearsal and a much shorter than expected chorus concert, Zoe and I did not make it in time but DJ and my mom were there to support Ava (Papa was sick so they could not make it either). Thankfully, Ava didn’t seem to mind that we weren’t there, she was too happy to be with her friends. We’re very proud of her for getting up on the stage and singing. She has a beautiful voice and we love seeing her do something she enjoys so much.
This semester, Ava has also been doing an after school art program at TR Makers Co. They’ve learned different art/craft techniques over the semester. Then they each chose the technique they liked the best to create products to sell to each other and parents during their market. Ava decided she liked sewing the best and made purses and pillows to sell. Her business name was Paris Mtn Pillows and Purses and she did a great job.
Christmas Tree 2022
The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we began our Christmas traditions and went to get our Christmas tree. We went back to the Merry Christmas Tree Farm in Central and it is remaining our favorite spot to get a tree. We picked out a beautiful tree, the girls had hot chocolate, Zoe wrote a letter to Santa (she has decided this year she loves Santa, even though we don’t encourage Santa…must be the influence at school), and they even agreed to take more pictures with the little trees. We especially loved when they found the perfect Charlie Brown tree. That afternoon, we decorated the tree with very carefully selected ornaments…ones that we would not be upset if a certain puppy destroyed. The tree doesn’t have near as many ornaments on it as usual but we wanted to make sure it was safe from the dog(s) playing. So far, it hasn’t been knocked over and no ornaments have been chewed up…but Christmas is far from over so I’m not going to stop keeping a super close eye on it.
Fall Through
As always, I have to compare the girls at the apple orchard throughout the years….
Halloween 2022
This year the girls got to experience true trick-or-treating, thanks to some of our really good friends from church. They invited us to join them in their neighborhood and the girls had a blast! They loved running from house to house (with Paul and Zoe leading the way) and getting lots of candy. Ava chose to dress up as Uma from Descendants and Zoe came up with her costume on her own and chose to be a Princess Fairy Ballerina. It was such a fun first trick-or-treating experience.
Skytop 2022
Over the girls’ fall break, we were able to make it up to Skytop to pick apples. We had planned to go a few weeks before that but we all got the flu so it was postponed. However, it was nice that we waited because it wasn’t crowded at all. Fall break was later this year due to the election so I think that really helped the crowds a ton. We didn’t have to wait long at all to get apples and it wasn’t overrun with people in the stand. My mom joined us again this year and it was really nice to get to share the day with her, especially to be able to do something fun after her back surgery and recovery over the summer. We picked our favorite pink lady apples, visited the animals, ate donuts and enjoyed the new gem mine. As always, it is one of our favorite fall traditions.
50th Day of School
Zoe’s class celebrated the 50th Day of School with root beer floats and fifties attire. We borrowed a poodle skirt from a friend and Zoe looked so cute! We were so thankful she got over the flu quickly so she wouldn’t miss her first dress up day at school.
Zoe is 5 and a half
As always, it is crazy to me that we are halfway to Zoe’s birthday. I cannot believe she is 5 and a half already!
Zoe is now 44” tall. She is wearing mostly size 5T clothes. Although, finding jeans that fit her has been difficult because her little waist is so tiny nothing stays up. But, she isn’t complaining about that because she prefers to wear dresses or skirts every day. She is wearing size 11 shoes. She is growing but is still so petite.
The past 6 months have been big for Zoe. She finished her very first year of preschool. She absolutely loved her preschool. She learned so much and made some really sweet friends. We knew she’d thrive in school and she definitely did. But now, she gets to go to real school. She started kindergarten in August and she is so happy to be at Ava’s school. Her teachers this year are so sweet and she loves going to school every day. She gets excited to order lunch at school and especially loves her special treat of ice cream on Fridays. The first several weeks of school they focused on a few letters a week. Now, they are working on learning to read. Zoe already recognizes a few sight words. She is obsessed with writing her letters these days and she loves to try to figure out how to spell things. We think she will be reading soon if her interest continues to be as strong as it is right now. They also had their very first field trip a couple weeks ago when they went to a goat farm to learn how they make soap from the milk. It is so fun to see Zoe thriving so much in school and we cannot wait to see how much she grows this year.
Zoe is still doing dance. She had her spring recital at the beginning of June. The recital theme was songs from movies. Her Hip Hop class danced to Space Jam (from the original movie) and it was such a cute dance. She did an amazing job in the recital. Over the summer, she got to go to 2 different dance camps at her dance studio. And now, she is in the big kid ballet class. She is becoming obsessed with ballet and loves her class so much. You can even see her practicing some ballet in her pictures. She’s already excited for her Christmas recital where they will be dancing to a song from the Nutcracker.
Zoe had some big changes in life these past 6 months with school and dance but her favorites haven’t really changed much. Her food preferences are mostly the same. She still loves bread, rice and plain pasta. She loves her yogurt and applesauce and fruit too. She loves breakfast foods like pancakes, waffles and biscuits. She did recently start liking peanut butter and jelly, which has been great for school lunch. But, she definitely would prefer to live on her almond milk and plain carbs.
Zoe’s favorites in other areas haven’t changed a ton in the past 6 months either. She still loves music and prefers Disney music to anything else (especially Disney Jr music like Mira the Royal Detective). She does request to listen to “Eye of the Tiger” a lot though and has asked to hear it at Clemson. Unfortunately, we can’t make it to a game again this year but we hope one day we can finally get Zoe to Death Valley to hear “Eye of the Tiger” at a game. Zoe also still prefers to watch Disney Jr shows. She really likes Eureka, Mira, Elena, Puppy Dog Pals, Fancy Nancy, Vampirina, Doc, Bluey and Chicken Squad. She also likes My Little Pony (the new series that is based on the old school My Little Pony, not the more scary series). Zoe also loves Encanto, Frozen and The Little Mermaid. We let the girls watch those on the way to Disney, skipping the scary scenes, and she loved them.
Zoe still loves to build with her magnatiles. But, I think her dolls have taken over as her favorite toys these days. She loves to dress her dolls up and take care of them. She even refers to them as “The Girls” and is so cute when she talks about them. She recently used her Christmas/birthday money to buy a Healthy Roots Doll (whose name happens to be Zoe) that you can actually wash and style the hair. The company was started to encourage girls to love and be proud of their natural hair. Zoe loves picking out matching hair styles for her and Zoe doll. She still is not a fan of hair day (she’s super tender headed) but I keep hoping Zoe doll will help her like having her hair washed and styled more. Zoe also still loves to play outside. She loves to look for rocks, snails and now acorns all over the yard. Eeyore is still her favorite stuffed animal and she sleeps with him every night. But, she also added Piglet and her gray bunny that she slept with as a baby into the mix. One super cute attachment she recently added is to a bear that was mine when I was little. It is one my dad gave me and Zoe has decided to name him Bobby and uses him when she’s scared at night of the dark or of a thunderstorm. I love that she feels comfort from the bear that my dad gave me as a baby.
Zoe still loves to read books and loves to go to the library to pick out new books. Lately, she has been looking for ballerina books at the library. She loves looking for books about dancing. Angelina Ballerina books continue to be a favorite series. She also loves any Disney books with the princesses or Disney Jr characters in them. She also likes to read books with animals as the main characters. I think now that she is seeing she can read some, we will be getting the early reader books each visit from now on.
Zoe is still our goofy little extroverted kid. You can see her silliness in these pictures. Some of the best smiles actually came after she was sticking out her tongue and I told her to put her tongue back in her mouth. She loves to make people laugh and will turn up the silliness if she knows people are watching. She loves school because she gets to be around people all day. She definitely gets a high from social interactions. She has no trouble making friends and will start playing with any kid on the playground. We love watching her blossom so much!
Zoe loves big and is still super cuddly. She is happiest when she is touching us and still wishes she could be carried around all day. I think she would be happy if she could still be worn in the baby carrier. She is our snuggle bug for sure. She is starting to apologize a lot more for her disobedience or bad attitude. She can be super sassy but then is super sweet when she snuggles up to apologize.
Zoe is still just such a joy to us and our family. We love her so much and are so thankful to have the privilege of watching her grow. We do not take any of this lightly and we think about her birth mama all the time as we do life with Zoe. She means the world to us and we are so grateful to have her and Zoe in our lives.
Frozen and Encanto on Ice
We surprised the girls with a day trip to Charlotte to see Disney on Ice Frozen and Encanto. It was such an amazing show! Those are the girls’ favorite movies (and music) and it was so fun to see it played out on the ice. The most impressive parts were when Isabella and Mirabel did flying acrobatics above the ice and when Bruno lit a ring of fire on the ice. The girls absolutely loved the show (as did we) and it was a fun day together.
School Firsts for Zoe
Zoe is loving kindergarten so much. She’s learning so much and making great friends. She’s also already experiencing some school firsts. She had her first dress up day for the letter fashion show (she was the letter J), first e-learning day due to the hurricane (kindergarten google class meets are fun) and first field trip to a goat farm to learn how they make soaps. We can’t wait to see what all she does the rest of the school year!
