Zooey wearing her Thing 1/Thing 2 hat.

Hanging out in overalls.

This is an old Princess Leia doll I found at the bottom of a box of my childhood things. The red goo on her neck is actually residue from a balloon, which I apparently wrapped around the doll for extra decoration. It . . . um . . . melted onto the doll.

Zooey's first newspaper hat.

Here's Zooey at my Grandma's 90th birthday party. Zooey's on the right. On the left are my cousin Debra's kids, Landen and Kendra. My cousin Sharon is in the background.

Zooey playing with Landen.

Crashing out on the car ride home.

A few weeks ago it rained. And rained. And then it rained some more. Over the course of the storm we made a discovery in the back yard: a new river! If it returns we may have to give it a name. The Miskatonic River, perhaps?

Here's Miss Zooey's first trip to the baby pool. Lauren Bacall, eat your heart out.

Playing with the fountains in the pool.

And finally, here are a couple of shots of Zooey at the State Fair petting zoo. She was unimpressed.

Check out this fantastic new blog layout, courtesy of my talented husband Nick. It's simple. It's clean. It's easy to navigate (I hope). You'll notice the url is different, so please update your RSS feeds, etc. Enjoy!

... as described above.

I have been remiss with my postings lately, so forgive me if I include a few more pictures than usual in this entry. There are just so many great ones, and apparently I do not have the ability to choose between them! So first up, here are a few shots of Zooey being extremely excited about a balloon.

And another one.

And another one. Could anything be better than this balloon?

Here's Zooey enjoying the new little playhouse Grandma Janelle and Grandpa Joe got her.

This makes me think of a very short pirate carrying a cutlass in his mouth.

Zooey wandering around on the driveway.

Here she is looking slightly wistful in her floral jumper.

We recently found a box of my old ballet costumes, so we thought it'd be fun to let Zooey try some of them on. We thought it was adorable, but she seemed somewhat dubious about the whole endeavor.

Here's Zooey wearing a beautiful little dress that my talented friend Mary Ann sewed for her.

And here she has somehow managed to get it down around her waist. Good job, honey!

Smile!

We got the official ok to switch the car seat from rear-facing to a forward-facing position. This means we can look back and see her while we're driving, and more importantly, she can see us. Here she is trying out the new set-up.

Happy April! Here are some recent and rather random pictures from our household.

Last fall we planted some flowers at our new house, and this past Thursday we saw our first daffodil come up! I'm so proud of us.

Lately, Zooey has started doing a thing where she has to examine and test the properties of all the objects around her. Step 1: Grab the object and/or substance and smoosh it around between the fingers....

Step 2: Put substance and/or object in the mouth.

Motorcycle!!

Still excited from the "ride" on Daddy's motorcycle.

Zooey in her Easter dress and floppy hat.

Here's another example of Zooey's new world investigation technique. Yes, she's tasting a rock.

Zooey pulling an Annie Oakley.

I came upon this lovely sight shortly after getting Zooey up this morning. I went to the kitchen to get some juice, and when I came back, more than half this box of Kleenexes had been emptied.

And lastly, here's a picture of Zooey being adorably sleepy.