Seth & Juli + Rocco and Zeegan

On Easter Eve the Easter Bunny came to visit Rocco and Zeegan and left them a little bit of everything they love... The Easter Bunny also hid eggs all over the living room area.

Easter morning (we woke up late and were therefore late for church and not remembering things like to take pictures unfortunately...) Rocco and Zeegan came out and saw what had been left for them, and sadly were not very excited! Oh well!, Good thing presents aren't what Easter is about!! Zeegan was terrified of the big ball the Easter bunny got her ( I totally thought she would love it because she loves little balls and she says "ball" ALL the time!), and Rocco didn't seem to care one way or another about the Moster truck Lightning McMean that he got (I REALLY thought we'd nailed it on that one, cuz he's been asking for that particular car since Christmas!), but Rocco did love ZZ's ball! and both kid's had a blast finding the Easter eggs that were hidden all over the place!

Easter night we all went to Gramma and Grampa Petersen's house and celebrated all the Easter Birthday's! Unfortunately the only picture I got of Rocco and Zeegan TOGETHER on Easter was at this party and ZZ was no longer in her Easter clothes....

ZZ and Sammy who share the same birthday both got to have cake's again, which Zeegan loved!!! Only problem was that the blue frosting on ZeeZee's cake got all over her tummy and legs and dyed them pretty good! It took about 3 days and ten baths to get it off... but she lovved it!!

Zeegan had two Easter dresses this year.

The first one we got about a month and half or two months before Easter. Seth's Aunt got it for Zeegan and she looked SOOO cute in it! But when we pulled it out a week ago to take Easter pictures, but it wouldn't button up anymore (but we still took pictures, I just didn't button up her dress in the back!), and when we went back to exchange it, they didn't have that dress anymore, so we got her a different fun dress that she can wear this summer...

The second dress ended up being her actual Easter dress. It's this beautiful light blue striped dress that Grammy Purcell got for ZeeZee turning one! The neat thing is that this pretty little Easter dress just happens to be the same one Zeegan's cousin Autumn got for Easter, it's too bad they don't live closer together so we could get an Easter picture of the two of them!

We got all the Great-Grandkids (of Gramma and Grampa Petersen) and took a picture of them in their Easter outfits (well actually Rocco's not in his Easter outfit because it was dirty)... Unfortunately they were all being little pills and we couldn't get them all to smile for a SINGLE picture! But that's okay cuz the ones we got are fun and we did get one or two where they were all at least LOOKING at the camera, and really that's all we could ask for!

HAPPY -belated- EASTER!!!

A year ago I was in the most pain I had ever experienced to date. I had been in the hospital for over a week on all kinds of pain medicine. I was having kidney problems AND constant contractions. Because the contractions weren't making me dilate and didn't seem to be affecting the baby in any kind of harmful way, they weren't worried about stopping them. So I was stuck with the most horrible off the charts pain every 30 seconds! It was awful!

To add to the contraction pain, I had an 8mm kidney stone stuck in my ureter, plus more in my kidneys (apparently I'm a stone factory when I'm pregnant and I absorb EVERYTHING! So I create lots of stones and mineral-like deposits), that were causing ALL KINDS of problems and pain. So on the night of April 22nd, they doctors decided I need a stint in my ureter. After the stint placement surgery, I literally thought I was gonna die because of the amount of pain I was in! The contractions were even worse and I had pain in other areas as well... The pain continued all night long and they put me on some heavy duty pain killers to help. I was a CRAZY-person (seriously, I was yelling all kinds of things, and I was seeing things, and I was getting mad at everybody for no reasons... I would not be a fun druggie!)! Early the next morning (April 23rd 2010) the doctors checked me again, and lo and behold I was actually dilating! Woot Woot! So long story short; that day, Zeegan Samialaina Purcell, was born! and she was the most beautiful baby girl I had ever seen and all that pain suddenly became worth it, and honestly if I had died from the pain, even that would have been worth her, because she is perfect!

I'm not sure what time of day Zeegan was born. I honestly had and still have, no idea! Seth insists it was in the afternoon, because he had a final that morning and he did take it, but we're not sure what time he got done or what time she was born... BUT I do know this; Zeegan was 5 pounds 14 ounces in weight, and she was 19 inches long. AND she was (still is) BEAUTIFUL!!!

(Some people look great after having a baby- Obviously, I am NOT one of those people!!!)

Rocco was SOOOO excited to meet his baby sister! He got a pin that said "I'm a big brother" and was showing it off the everybody! He was a real sweetheart with Baby ZZ right from the start...

Some things I'd like to remember about ZZ at one year old are:

*Zeegan and Rocco are still the BEST of friends! They laugh and play and fight all day long. Her favorite thing to do with Rocco is take baths, they splash each other like crazy and put bubbles all over the heads and face and laugh about that as well!

*Zeegan is walking everywhere! Actually, she is running everywhere! She's so proud of herself for walking so good, that she tries to show-it-off. She walks backward and claps for herself, she runs around in circles and makes sure you're watching, she chases the other kids and gets SOO excited when she can actually keep up... she's a walking machine--- and she loves it!

*Just recently Zeegan has become a MAJOR Mama's-girl! She always wants me holding her or hugging her or clapping for her or talking to her. She throws a fit if I'm in the room and someone else is holding her, she just want me... all the time. It's adorable! The trick to getting her to come to you instead of me? Offer her chocolate!

* Zeegan LOVES chocolate! She climbs on top of things trying to get to it! She is a major chocaholic! and honestly I can't blame her, I think God put chocolate on this earth specifically for ZZ and Me, because he knew it would ALWAYS be able to make us happy!

*Not only does ZZ love chocolate, but she LOVES LOVE LOVES Spaghetti! I think she might have gotten that from me as well... Zeegan eats spaghetti like there's no tomorrow! She can eat more pasta then the rest of the family combined! and she gets it everywhere! and smiles the entire time!

*ZZ's a climber! Not kidding, she probably got that from me as well... She climbs on EVERYTHING!!! I feel as if I can't turn my back for even two seconds during the day, because if I do, she will climb on a counter or something! It's so cute though, because when she does climb up something big (chair, couch, fireplace, bed, etc....), She gets so happy and claps for herself and makes these high-pitched squeals that are just the cutest things ever!

*ZeeZee has 6 teeth now and she loves having them brushed, but she BITES really hard, so we have to be careful as we scrub those sharp little things! Her little gap tooth toothy tooth smile is so so cute!

*Zeegan is still such a little girlie-girl princess! She LOVES the movie TANGLED! I think she would watch it over and over again all day long if I would let her. She loves playing with princess things, she LOVES her little stuffed animal "Pascal" from the movie TANGLED, she kisses it all the time. She loves little shoes and purses with sparkleys on them, she LOVES my make-up and trys to put it on all the time!, She loves LOVES loves ALL things Girly!

*Last, the best of all the game; Zeegan is a kisser! She kisses EVERYONE! She LOVES kissing! I hope we can rid her of the habit by the time she's in her teens, but for now it is absolutely ADORABLE! I love her slobbery little open-mouthed-fish kisses! I loved her little puckered-lip pop-noisy kisses! I love her little rub-boogers-all-over-your-face-as-I-smash-my-face-against-your-face kisses! I love all her kisses!

I think she is the cutest little girlie girl ever and I love it and I love her! We are just so happy to have her in our family and the past year, although hard, has seriously been the best year of our life's ever!

So Zeegan's birthday this year just happened to fall on Easter Saturday. So in celebration of Easter we all had a big Easter egg hunt which both Rocco and ZZ LOVED! I think ZZ loved just being able to run around following a bunch of kids, and I think Rocco loved all the candy he got! Plus our friend Tia came with her puppy, Rudy, whom ZZ absolutely adores, so I think she was pretty happy with that. And ZZ's birthday buddy (they have the same birthday, which is why we gave her the middle name Samialaina---Sami) was there, and she just loves Uncle Sammy, so I think she was just happy with the lot of it!

After all the Easter fun, she was thoroughly pooped and took a quick power nap before Cake and Presents!

Rocco got ZZ a bath-time baby doll and was too excited about giving it to her, to wait until her party next week... ZZ loved the Baby doll and started giving it kisses! SO CUTE! It was seriously so adorable watching her kiss her baby that I couldn't help kissing my baby...

After her present, we let Zeegan have her very first piece of cake (actually, we let her have the entire cake... it was only 4 inches afterall...)! She was hesitant at first, but after trying a teensie bit, she went at it full force! She LOVED it! ZZ was seriously grabbing huge fists-full and shoving them in her mouth. Honestly, it was one of the cutest things I've ever seen in my entire life! and then to make it even better, at one point when she'd eaten enough cake to satisfy herself (I think); she grabbed a huge chunk of the cake, brought it to her mouth and stopped, then she sat there thinking for a moment and suddenly chucked it across the high chair right at Rocco! and to make it even better, she laughed about it! She has such a personality!!!

After eating all her yummy cake she got a bath in the sink which she LOVED! and then we fed her spaghetti (her favorite!) for dinner...