Here Comes A New Shelmet

With daycare closed today, and a light schedule at work, I packed up Zoe in to the car and brought her to work with me. She sprung up from her bed at 5:56am asking, "Daddy, are we going to work today?!" We made it down, with what looked like a week's worth of baggage, to take up residence in one of the meeting rooms for the day. She alternated between drawing, watching videos on a huge screen and wandering around the building. Here are some pictures of her drawing. From top to bottom we have Zoe at the table working on a flower picture for mommy, Zoe wearing a Post-It note that says I smiley face MOM, a rendering of her fish Cinderella in her tank with a castle and some bubbles, the superhero from the cover of 10 Trick-or-Treaters, and finally, my favorite, a picture of mommy holding baby Zoe and angry Joe Pop. Those last two are really wonderful likenesses. The other highlight of the day was the meeting I brought her to where, at the end I asked her, "What d

Yesterday was a quite a full day. It started off with a little light shopping. We went to Lowe's to pick up some items that would help us finish some projects around the house. While we were there, Zoe fell in love with a snowman. From there we went to Target, because we always need something from Target. Some things we didn't need were new hats, but that didn't stop us from trying on some of the latest fall fashions available. We managed to leave with the black cat hat, but not the flamingo. Oh well. After that we decided to make a quick stop at Sesame Place to do a little trick or treating. They had all of the holiday decorations up and there were a few character sightings. Some went better than others. She wasn't too happy when we go to Oscar, but I suppose that's fitting. After that, I stole Zoe's treat bag and ran off with it, she gave chase with her hair flowing behind her. Once she got it back, she was in no mood to take a selfie with dadd

Yesterday I drove to work so that I could pick Zoe up from daycare. When I got there, she was happy to greet me. We gathered her things from the classroom and headed down the hall. We got about halfway to the front door when she turned to me and said, "Daddy, I have to tell you a bad story about me." "What happened love bug? Did you do something bad?" "Yeah." I had no idea what she was talking about, so I turned to listen to her as we stopped in the hall. "Yesterday when mommy picked me up I hid in Miss Sarah's room and mommy was made. She didn't make this face." At this, Zoe put clenched fists on her hips and grimacing her face into the frowny scowl of her mother. It was eerily spot on. She then relaxed her face and put her arms at her sides. "She made this face." Now she did the same thing with her hands, clenching them on her hips, but her face was more of the disapproving Cheryl. What really got me was when she

After a long day at work, I got home to quite a treat. Zoe agreed (read, demanded) to paint my fingernails. It was a painless process and my nails looked beautiful when she was done. Once mine were done, she wanted her own nails painted. She was nice enough to let me do that for her. I don't think I have ever painted nails before, but I did a pretty good job. Well, maybe not since after the first hand she asked mommy to finish it.

We made our way south to Wildwood, which is one of our favorite spots for games and rides. The first stop was the arcade. Zoe was quick to get her first prize, a Hello Kitty, and I had a turn in the crazy, money grabbing, cyclone box. Those things are definitely not as easy as they look. After that it was off to some rides. First up were the family favorites: The Seagull Cycle and the Ghost Ships. Both are awesome, but one of them can be a little scary. After those two it was on to the rest of the rides. Zoe was on the swings, the boats, the trucks. You name it and she road it. Those swings were the first time that she was ever on a ride by herself. She's getting so big! When we made it to the end of the boardwalk, she took a seat in one of the prop go carts. After I checked the sign and realized we could ride together, we got in line and took a spin around the track. She had a great time zipping around the track. It was an awesome, long day and we all sl

No one was going down to the shore house for Memorial Day weekend, so we asked, packed our bags and braved the traffic to squeeze in an early beach trip. We were able to head down a day early, so after we arrived on Thursday, we ran right out to the beach. Zoe was so excited, that she spent the first few minutes dancing in her dress in front of the waves. Cheryl was smart enough to bring Zoe's suit to the beach, so after a quick change, it was straight into the freezing water. This involved a lot of single and double wave jumping. After a quick towel dry, it was time to play in the sand. This involved a little castle building and hole digging. Thankfully there were plenty of shells to use as decoration for the creations. This was followed closely by a round of Chasing the Gulls, a seasonal favorite with the under 10 crowd. Then, when attempting to look for even more shells to add to the castle, I found a shark tooth! In all my years of going to the beach, I had