Last Day First Day: Thank you Mom, Dad, Tim, Rachel, Doug, Ashley, Beth and Abbey

Learning "doing school" and learning to count with Nonnie

At the fair

With Aunt Abs!

Sisters

The Uncles

This picture represents our family pretty well!

So today marks my last full day working at my Dad's office. I have been awaiting this day to get to spend some needed fun time with Zion. I am so grateful to my mom for giving up all of our days to love Zion while we had to work. We have no idea what we would have done without her and Abbey too! Abbey also clocked a lot of hours with the Zster and took her on special trips for hot chocolate. Not only am I so grateful for the practicality of this help but also the relationship they have built with Zion and all that Zion has learned from being with my mom and Abbey too. Zion has so many special things she does with her Nonnie and she often copycats Aunt Abs. If you were going to copycat somewhat Aunt Abs is the person to copy. Shes super cool but beyond kind and thoughtful.

We could never express our thanks appropriately to all of our family and how they have helped us during this very strange, often frustrating and sometimes bizarre last year full of transitions for us. All of our siblings and both sides of our parents have truly held us together....along with many friends too. I honestly don't think we could have made it without so much encouragement. Travis and I have been stretched and have grown as individuals and by God's grace I think we have grown closer as a family. We are very excited and anticipate how God is going to work in our lives this next year as we continue to deal with a few things that will likely carry over from this past year including the sale of our condo which is still pending. We are so thankful for God's grace and provision and for all of the many blessings of this past year despite the struggles.

Thank you Mom and Abbey for being with Zion when we couldn't, for teaching and guiding her, for giving her a sense of safety and security, for giving her hugs and kisses, and snuggles and for being patient with her and with us at our worst moments. Thank you Dad for not only giving me a job but for being patient with me too and for caring what I think. Thank you Tim, Rachel, Doug and Ashley for loving us too and for being our babysitting back ups. Zion would love to live at your house! And Beth we love u too....you are the special Aunt Bef who Zion adores. Hopefully this next year we will be a bit less high maintenance. (-:

Rachel, Tim, Doug, Ashley, Beth and Abbey....so glad we get to be near you all and be friends. Who would have thought we would even be neighbors someday like we are now.

Imagination Movers

Zion likes to watch this show at my parents house on the Disney channel called Imagination Movers. On the show they sing a lot and solve problems. My parents got her tickets to their show for her birthday and Travis and I got to take her. I had no idea what to expect but she loved it! She was pretty much dancing in the isle the entire time and Travis and I just had a great time watching her. SO thanks Grandpa and Nonnie for a fun night and for giving us the chance to have so much fun watching her have so much fun.

Daddy

Zion just loves her daddy. This evening I was going out with a friend and so Travis and Z had a date night at home and made pizza. She gets so excited about spending time with him! He is her hero for sure. She always says when referring to different situations "daddy will save the day" or "my daddy always saves the day". The other day in the car Zion asked me how the baby got in my tummy. I guess its that stage of fun deep questions to answer. I told her something about how God did it and she said "how" and then I said well God can do anything Zion. And then she says "OOOOHHH, like Daddy!!!!" So cute and funny....I love that she thinks her Daddy can go anything.

She got her first pair of shoes with laces and Travis was patiently showing her how to tie because she wanted to know.

Wedding

We got to go see a couple from our church that is in our small group get married so since we were dressed up we took a few pictures.

Zion kindly said to Travis yesterday...youre skinny daddy but mommy youre fat. I am certainly looking pregnant now but only a month and a little bit more to go.

The Circus

We planned some fun things to do with Z between her birthday and Christmas before the baby comes. She had a blast with Travis at the circus if you can't tell.

Princess Z

Zion was going to be a ballerina but at the last minute wanted to be a princess. It occured to me that we had this dress that I had been keeping away for dress up and it worked perfect. It was from our neighbor worked at Davids Bridal and got this and another flower girl dress for free. She had a great time going out with Landon the pirate....and they went out in Peters where they got mostly regular and king size candy bars it was crazy...and they had a blast.

Steelers Game

Travis's work has Steeler tickets so we got to go to a game and we even made a date out of it. It was super sunny and a beautiful day.

Z is 3!

We cant believe how grown up our Zion is getting and that she is 3 already! We are so proud of her and all the new things she is doing and learning. For her birthday we got her an easel. If you want an easel for your kids they have this one at Ikea for $14.00! It has a chalk board on one side, a marker board on the other, a tray for supplies and you can buy a paper roll to go with it. I thought it was a great deal. We had wanted to get her one before but the ones I saw were too expensive. She seems to like it!

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Schenk!

Thanks Angie, Kenci, Kaleb, Josh, and Angelina.....Zion is so happy that she has her own ballet class now in our living room. Its really helping with the disapointment of not getting to go to her class and its lots of fun!

Her invites for our family party were little brown bags with pumpkin candy inside.

We had the family over for a birthday breakfast to celebrate and Landon was able to come too! We needed to keep it simple this year and Z requested pancakes so that made it easy. She also requested orange cake....which she then explained was chocolate cake with orange icing. When I asked her where she got the idea she said "from my heart". SO chococlate cake with orange flavored icing it was and it was actually pretty good.

Ashley Dougs now fiance!!!!!!!! Made Zion these bunny ears which are awesome for dress up which is one of Zs favorite pass times.

The cake.....oh yeah with sprinkles too.

Travis made her pancakes that spelled her name thanks to some alphabet cookie cutters we have the Aunt Trish gave us.

Happy Birthday Zion we love you!

Incline

Zion and I drive by the incline everyday on the way to and from work and she always mentions it and the fact that she wanted to ride it so the other evening when we were on our vacation which unexpectedly turned into a "staycation" we took the opportunity to take her and she loved it.