Last night, for the first time ever, Z went to sleep in her crib!
Our usual method of putting her to sleep has been me nursing her to sleep in our bed and Joe then moves her into her crib where she sleeps the rest of the night.
For the last couple of nights she's been really restless. She would nurse, but instead of calming down and falling asleep when she was clearly tired, she would get up and wander around the bedroom.
The first night Joe took her and walked her around in the carrier for an hour and a half before she finally fell asleep.
When she started doing it again last night, I just went 'screw it' and I put her into her crib. She was fine when I put her in, but when I left her alone in the room, she did not like it at all. She cried, but didn't descend into full blown freak out, so Joe and I just kept an ear out and left her to her own devices. She settled down to occasionally whimpering (except when Joe stuck his head into her room to see how she was doing and she lost it a bit), and within an hour, she was asleep!
I'll probably still try to nurse her to sleep at night, but it's so nice to know this option is available.

In other news, we got a new stroller!


It's the City mini stroller from Baby Jogger and we love it!
We've been looking around for a new stroller for a couple of months now. The old stroller doesn't have a 5 point harness, only a lap belt so it was really easy for her to get out of it. When she started standing in it while we were out for walks we knew it was time for an upgrade.
When she got some cash for her birthday, we knew what it was going towards.
After a couple of visits to Toys R Us (where we could never find a salesperson to help- very frustrating) and Zellers (we even got a rain check for a pretty good stroller that was on sale for $50 off but it never seemed to be in stock), last week we went all the way across town to Macklem's. We looked at a couple of them, including a Jeep one with a built in speaker system for the child! but in the end we went with the city mini. Joe had the last say in what we bought since he is the one taking her around all day in it and he really liked the way it manouveres and how it folds up. The one downer, we didn't realize it didn't come with the parent console, so after we put it together we had to go out and buy the cupholder for Joe.

what we did on our summer vacation

Well that was a longer than expected break.
So much to catch up on! We had quite the eventful summer. The best I'll be able to manage today is a quick overview - with lots of pictures!

We went to the cottage for a couple of weeks



where we spent as much time as possible in the water!

We went to the park a lot!

She now loves the swing after being terrified of it for a couple of weeks. She also loves going down the slide with her dad.

She learned to walk!!

She's really steady now and can even run without holding on to anything, but she still likes the security of holding someone's hand.

We went to the Ex.


where we saw some animals including one also named Zoe




We packed the house up


and moved!



She had her first birthday


Where yummy cake was consumed!


Since then it's been all unpacking and trying to organize our new place. It's a bit of a challenge because I'm back at work now. So we only have a couple of hours every night and the weekends. Joe does as much as he can during the day, but he's now looking after her while I work so that puts a bit of a crimp in things.
She and Joe have been getting along swimmingly during the day together though. So much so that she barely misses me. When I get home, she lunges at me in order to nurse, but after that, she wanders away to play amongst the boxes quite happily. I'm in two minds about this. I'm really happy that she adjusted so easily to my being away all day, but of course, it's a bit of an ego crusher as well.

One upside to being back at work though is lots more Z free computer time! so expect more frequent updates.

Here's one more bounus shot of my little rockstar!