Bye-Bye, Bottle

I'm so excited to announce that we have easily, almost magically, even accidentally taken the bottle out of Ziva's life. I had planned on breaking her of the habit over the summer, knowing that she wouldn't need or be able to have one at school this fall. She was already down to just one bottle a day at bedtime, so I didn't think it would be too hard, but then the summer ended being much crazier than we expected, and I've always heard that babies and toddlers can only handle one big change at a time. So between packing, moving, a visit from Grandma, a vacation to Chicago, and starting a new school year that brought several big changes with it, there was never a good time to pack the bottles away. I had heard that if you don't take the bottle away by 18 months, it becomes a hard and fast habit that's much tougher to break. So as 18 months snuck up on us, I was feeling a little worried about how Ziva would handle not getting a bedtime bottle. And then, lo and behold, God in all His wisdom and mercy let Ziva get a cough. Sounds strange, I know, but let me explain....we wanted Ziva to sleep, and since milk always makes her cough worse, toward the end of last week I started offering her a bottle with just water in it. She would drink a tiny bit, and then be ready for bed. We did that for three nights. On the 4th night, she didn't want the bottle of water at all, so I put her straight to bed and she did fine. Slept great, as a matter of fact! And I realized after that night (which was just Monday), that perhaps we had broken the bottle habit without even realizing it! So last night, I didn't offer a bottle at all, and she didn't protest or even seem to notice, and went straight to sleep. Hallelujah! I hope any and all of our future kids are this easy!

18 months!

Ziva is 18 months old as of yesterday! We went to the doctor for her check up today, and she is right on track and, thankfully, perfectly healthy! This week she started saying "I love you," which we are super excited about, since Vince has been trying to get her to say that one for a long time. One of Ziva's new favorite activities is turning on the radio on my alarm clock and then dancing like crazy. We dance like crazy (and probably look crazy) with her, and it is so much fun!

I was able to get her hair in pig tails once last week, so here are the pictures. They were so cute! She really likes standing on her little stool and "brushing her teeth" on her own.

Good weekend

We had a good weekend! It turned into a 3 day weekend for me and Ziva...she wasn't really sick but she had too many diarrhea diapers (TMI, I know, sorry) at school Thursday, and they've got pretty strict rules so we got to play hooky on Friday! Vince was off this weekend so we had fun just hanging out, and Sunday we went to my parents for a birthday lunch for Mitch and Rachel. Here are a few moments from our weekend...

Nap time with Daddy

Not sure why the rotating didn't take on this one, but isn't it sweet?

Okay, and these two crack me up. This is the face she made when I asked her to smile for the camera. Both times!! This is what we call her "mean face". She's usually playing and being funny when she makes it, not actually being mean :)

A Few Pictures

How sweet is she?

Ziva loved climbing on the boxes!

My two "basket heads" :)

We're back!

After a long silence, we are back! Or still here, I guess I should say. We moved in to our new apartment a few weeks ago, just two days before I went back to school. We got it done in record time, and after just a few days we felt like we'd been here quite a while. We finally got our internet back up this week, so we should get back into a pretty good blogging routine. I don't have many pictures of these past few weeks, but now that we're settled hopefully we'll get back to taking lots and lots of pictures.

School is going well; I've got some great groups of kids this year. Ziva is adjusting pretty well to the toddler room. The hardest thing was (well, still is) getting used to just one nap.....she wasn't quite ready for that, but last week they let her move back into her old crib instead of sleeping on a mat, and that has helped. Vince is still loving his job, and we are all happy about that!

So, we're back....check back soon for another update!