Lilly's Slipper Drive for PCH

Attention all Shoppers! Lilly needs your help!
After our recent stay at Phoenix Children's Hospital, it became apparent children need slippers! The other children in the hematology/oncology floor were quite taken with Lilly's Hello Kitty slippers. Many of the children walk up and down the halls pushing their IV poles wearing pajamas and socks. Lilly believes they all need slippers! When we arrived at Target tonight, all of the children's slippers were 70% off!!! Spongebob, Hello Kitty, Smurfs, Spiderman, Cars, hearts and more were $2.98 per pair. We are staring our SLIPPER DRIVE with the 37 pairs we bought tonight. Let's see how many slippers we can donate to the patients at Phoenix Children's Hospital. If you want to help, email me for a mailing address (loriksu@yahoo.com). Thanks in advance! Any size, especially XS, S, M for boys and girls are appreciated. Slippers must be new.

We will donate the slippers in honor of Hannah Huckfeldt, Lilly's best friend, who became an angel in April 2011. Hannah was also a patient in the hematology/oncology center at PCH.

Thanks in advance!

New hairdo...

We are home from our 5 night vacation at the hospital. The girls and I were home taking it easy today, when Lilly announced she wanted to get her haircut. So, we loaded up the car and drove to the hair shop. All three Z's have a new 'do.

Maggie wasn't behaving for the camera, but here's Claire Bear...

Love those straight bangs. She really does have the perfect hair! Lucky girl!

When the stylist asked Lilly what she would like done to her hair, Lilly told her she wanted it cut up to her ears. SHORT! The stylist looked at me for approval, and I said, "Whatever she wants!"

 

Biking entertainment

It's that time of year- Arizonans flood to the great outdoors in the wintertime. Our beautiful weather beckons bike rides and playing outside. We thought the kiddos would like to ride in the bike cage, so Rob aired up the tires and away they went...

If you look closely, you can see Miss Maggie waving away.

Here's Claire and Maggie bundled inside..

After riding around the neighborhood pulling these two turkeys, my legs really hurt! It's one thing to ride a bike, but it's another thing to pull a load! What a great workout!

Whole new world

Our little Maggie is growing, growing, growing. At her 1-year pediatrician appointment, she overachieved, again. She continues to be >95th percentile for height and weight. 

We try to see the same doctor each time we visit the office, we just like him the best, so I chuckled to myself when he began asking questions about Maggie.

Is she starting whole milk? My response... It's a slow transition but yes.

Is she still using the bottle? My response... Yes.

His response... In the next two weeks you need to transition her to a sippy-cup, no more bottle. 

 This last comment by him made me laugh. Our beloved doctor does not have children, so he does not know the difficulty we will face during the bottle/sippy cup transition. Two weeks? How about four?
This weekend I bought Maggie new cups- ones perfect for a transitioning baby.
This morning we added a yogurt drink to her sippy cup. She was hooked.

 She is also walking all over the place. And, we are please to report she is not using her pacifier at all times. We have our dear friend Meredith, Maggie's Auntie M, to thank for that.

Cinnamon roll follow-up

It should be no surprise we have been cooking again.

Last night before leaving for an event, we had the brilliant idea of making cinnamon roll dough in the bread machine- it would have been ready to roll out by the time we got home. Once rolled we could put them in the refrigerator and bake in the morning for breakfast. So, that is what we did.

The reason for this post is to tell you about an alteration I made to the recipe- an improvement.

Instead of adding 4 Cups all-purpose flour, as the original recipe asked, I added 3 cups all purpose (unbleached) and 1 cup whole wheat flour. This seems to be the perfect combination because the texture of the rolls was better than the original. I wanted you to know in case you take the time to make these yourself.

 To recap... my alterations from the original recipe

1. Flour alteration: 3C all-purpose flour and 1 C whole wheat flour

2. Frosting: combination of powdered sugar and milk

And, as the original recipe states, we also doubled the filling.

I hope you like them too!

First Soccer Game

What does every family of a kindergartner do on a sunny Saturday morning in January?

We found out this weekend... soccer games! Yes, that's right, the Z family loaded up in the car and headed down to the soccer fields to watch Lilly play in her first game.

In addition to her scheduled practices, Rob has been helping hone her skills in the backyard. Since she's only been at it one week, it was quite entertaining to watch. She had a few great kicks, did a good job following the ball and best of all had a great time.

Here's our soccer star.

  Here she is warming up before the game.

Waiting for Coach to call her in to play after a water break.

Music class, gymnastics, soccer... Mom's Taxi needs to start charging for fuel!

Soccer-excitement

I knew something funny was going on when I heard Rob's voice from down the hall... "Lori, come here and bring the camera." Let's just say Lilly is a little bit excited to begin soccer practice this week. Rob took her to buy a soccer ball, socks and shin guards this afternoon. When he went to read her stories at bedtime, this is what he found under the covers... 

I think we have convinced her the shin guards won't make comfortable sleepwear.

Let's hope she takes our advice.