Zoey's 1st Halloween

For Zoey's first Halloween, we decided to go really crazy and have three costumes for her.

The first costume was one I found at my Grandma Voigt's house when we were cleaning it out after she passed away in 2005. I'm not sure why, but she had some new baby clothes in storage. I like to think that she bought some cute things along the way for her "some day" great-grandbabies. Obviously, Zoey was not around then, but I saved a few things for my "someday" baby. :)
This adorable pumpkin costume was even more adorable on my little Zoey. I think she knew how cute she looked, so she really hammed it up for the camera.

Of course, our other baby, Lucky, needed to get into the picture too. Since one of his favorite treats is canned Pumpkin, I like to think that he was checking to see if Zoey was the real thing. :)

She looks like she's saying, "Tell him I'm not really a pumpkin!"

Zoey's next costume was from something I saw online a while ago and shared with my Mom. She had been crocheting Zoey some cute hats, so together we knew we could do it. And by it, I mean turn Zoey into a Cabbage Patch doll. :)

My Mom made the hat and I added the bangs and pigtails. The next step was to find a Cabbage Patch doll for Zoey. I had a few growing up, and Jay had one too, so we thought that she definitely needed her own. The only problem was that the new Cabbage Patch dolls don't have yarn hair anymore. 

Luckily, you can still get them with the yarn hair from their website. So we ordered one for Zoey, and when it came, we couldn't believe what the doll's name was! It was Zoie Emily! Kind of crazy! We then dressed the doll in one of Zoey's old dresses, which she had in two sizes. 

On Halloween, we took Zoey over her cousin Addy's house to go Trick or Treating. Addy was dressed as a Fairy Princess, and looked adorable as usual. 

Then we hit the streets. Zoey didn't really know what to think of it all, but she still had a great time!

Our cute family pic before getting some candy!

We put Zoey in the Becco carrier on Jay and attached the doll. At most of the houses we stopped at, the people did a double-take, thinking that there were two babies or two dolls attached to Jay!

Zoey's final costume was for the annual Woof N' Treat Halloween event and Bubbly Paws in St. Louis Park. Last year, Lucky got first place in the Most Unique category, so we knew we had some big shoes (or paws) to fill!

Since Zoey was still wearing her helmet at the time, we wanted to incorporate that as well. 

So, she was a jockey and Lucky was a horse!

We got a few pics at home before heading out. 

This picture of Lucky isn't the best, but he had a blanket, saddle, tail & mane!

Here's the back of Zoey's outfit. I made her jacket, boot covers and cover for her helmet.

She even had a riding crop that she swung around all day. 

Jay caught me adding the final touches to Lucky's costume. 

And a little better picture. Lucky wasn't wearing the mane yet. 

Zoey's ready to get some candy!

On stage for judging.
Lucky gave the audience a nice view of his bum. :)

A little family photo.

Zoey had a blast and loved seeing all of the dogs!

Unfortunately, we didn't win this year – there were a lot of amazing & creative costumes. 

But we're already planning for next year... :)

Pimp my Helmet

We finally picked out some awesome decals to decorate Zoey's helmet with. We read that putting the child's name on the helmet and decorating it can be helpful, especially when people see the helmet and don't know what to say. They may be more apt to say something like, "Zoey, you have a cute helmet!" rather than, "Why does that baby have a helmet?" or be Midwest nice, stare for a moment, and not say anything at all. :)

Since we've added the decals, we've already had people comment on how cute her helmet is. Most people are curious why she has it, but probably don't think it's polite to ask. So once they comment on how cute it is, we can explain why she has it. And Zoey doesn't mind people fawning over her in the store. She's a bit of a ham. :)

We started by adding her name very big on the front.

We site we brought them from, Little Bumpies, had a lot of very cute ideas, and we decided on the Watermelon theme, with a cute message on the back. 

It says, "Just fixin' my melon"

And of course, we had to make it even girlier by adding velcro to attach some crocheted flowers that Grandma Dottie made. 

And here's one last picture of Zoey being silly. 

Lindsey

Zoey's new hat

Zoey received some new headgear on Friday - she has a brand new pink helmet!

She has the helmet to correct a flat spot on the back right side of her head. She will have to wear the helmet 23 hours per day for about 3-5 months. Right now we're working her up to wearing it all day & night, but as you can see from her picture, it doesn't bother her too much.
We've ordered some cool decals for the helmet, and we'll definitely post more pictures once we get them.

If you're interested, here's some information on what Zoey has and why she has to wear the helmet.

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To start from the beginning...
We noticed that Zoey always slept with her head to one side, but we didn't think much of it. Until her Daycare provider also mentioned that she had noticed it and recommended that we bring it up with our Pediatrician, which we did. The Pediatrician didn't see any troublesome signs, but gave us a reference to see a Physical Therapist.

Zoey had a lot of fun at that appointment, because she got to play on a big bed with lots of toys! The Physical Therapist told us that Zoey has a condition called Torticollis, which is where the muscles on one side of her neck are shorter than the other side.

Torticollis is fairly common, and can sometimes cause a head tilt, but in Zoey's case it just slightly affects her range of motion. It mainly causes her to sleep on only one side of her head, and she can't look as far over her left shoulder as her right.

The good thing is that it's pretty easy to treat before the age of one. We just have to do some stretches with her every day, which she tolerates, for the most part. :)

Because she slept with her head turned one way, it caused a flat spot on one side of her head. A little flat spot usually isn't a problem, but if it gets bigger, it can cause issues. The way they can tell if it's big deal or not is by measuring her head.

First, they measure her head from one corner to the other. Then the other corner to the other. And then see what the difference is. (See the image to the right).
If the difference is less than 7mm, it's considered to be cosmetic. Zoey's difference was 11mm, which is beyond cosmetic, and is called Plagiocephaly.

So we had two options: wait and see if it corrects itself, or get her a helmet.
The only problem with waiting is that around 1 year of age, there's not much the doctor can do to fix it, because the skull is too hard. And the best time for correction is between 4 and 7 months.
Plus, it could get worse, and Plagiocephaly can cause complications like facial asymmetry, vision problems, and jaw problems.

Here's a Before & After picture of another child who has Plagiocephaly that is similar to Zoey's, although Zoey's isn't this severe.

So we decided that, in the long run, getting a helmet would be the best thing for Zoey. It's pretty easy, painless, and she looks pretty cute. :)

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~ Jay & Lindsey