Letter Factory

A long time ago, Auntie Lorie gave us a Leapfrog "Letter Factory" DVD - and when we returned from Christmas, we thought that this might be the prime time to bring it out and let Zachary watch it - he's been interested in his ABCs to a large degree the last few months, and sure enough - the DVD was a huge hit!  So much so, that in the space of about one week, Zachary has mastered all of his ABCs (he knew them about 90% before, but he would occasionally miss one or two when you would point them out in a book etc).  Not only did he master the ABCs, but he has mastered the sound that each letter makes.  It's so fun to see your kids learn new skills!  He loves to tell you the letters and the sounds that they make now.  Amy has started having him guess what letter certain words start with by emphasizing the first letter of the word for him - and he's batting just about a perfect score so far!  He thinks that it's a quite fun game, so it's a win-win all around.

Kaleb's language is exploding - we've been including his new words in the weekly "phrase of the week" but truthfully his vocabulary has just taken off like a rocket.  He's trying to say Zachary, "peek" (very handy for playing peek-a-boo, and socks!  We hesitate to say it, but we also think that he might be crossing over into the "independent year" aka "terrible twos" so we're beginning to experience shrieking (shrieking enough to wake the dead) when he doesn't get his way.  Such fun (almost as fun as getting a shot! :))  Ah well, at least we know that it is just a phase.

This week we have seen a fair amount of rain, and one day as Karis was leaving Miss Jennifer's with the boys, Kaleb discovered the mud puddles - and before long the boys were jumping and playing in the mud puddles!  One of the true joys of childhood!

Phrase of the week:  Mom, you're the best in the whole world.  Ahh, phrases like that make up for the ones in which he tell Mom to leave early from Miss Jennifer's! :)  Kaleb's phrase this week "heese!" - he has already picked up the habit of saying cheese when the camera comes out!

A sweet moment with the boys reading their books together in Zachary's room - Kaleb is in the middle of shouting "heese!!!" in this picture!

 The boys are being quite good playmates, and were enjoying the remote control car that Auntie Lorie gave them for Christmas. (P.S. - thank you Auntie Lorie for the correction - this gift is actually from Gram-Z! Mommy's age is finally catching up to her, and the memory is beginning to fade! :))

The All-Over Body Itch

This has been a strange week - Zachary had a really itchy back on Monday and Tuesday - so much so that Miss Jennifer gave him a bit of Benadryl on Monday to help keep the scratching at bay.  We didn't think much of it, but on Wednesday it took a bit of an unexpected turn - not sure if the two incidents are related or not - but Karis woke up in the middle of the night with "armpits on fire" because they were so itchy.  That day, the itchy armpits continued to plague him (he described himself as a gorilla scratching his armpits all day!).  However, the itchy armpits on Karis then began to spread - the rash went first to his stomach where his belt is and then around to his back. By that night, it was also covering his hips, stomach and legs.  Thursday it spread to his palms (yes, isn't that just crazy) and his shins.  After conferring with doctor frinend Adrian - the cross-country diagnosis was that Karis was having some major systemic allergic reaction to something and should be taking Claritin twice a day through the weekend to see if that would solve the problem.

We have absolutely no idea what may have caused this allergic reaction - we haven't changed laundry detergents or fabric softeners.  We haven't been eating anything that is out of the ordinary, nor have we been tramping through the woods etc.

On other news, we celebrated Amy's mom's 65th birthday last week.  We have a lovely supper with Amy's cousin Rick, wife Millie and their daughter Lauron as well as Aunt Louise.  The boys really love to have company over, so had a grand time playing with them all.  At one point Zachary very seriously told Lauron "Thank you very much for coming over to my house to play."  Lauren is in grade 8,  so she was very kind to play with and amuse a little 3 year old!

  

Phrase of the week:  Okey-dokey-artechokey.  This is the new favorite phrase for Zachary - not sure where it came from but it is said multiple times daily.  Kaleb's added the word "Amen" this week, which is awfully precious!

Rick and Zachary reading stories

 

Zachary playing "old man" with Rick's glasses

The boys had grand fun running across the room to Grandma and doing headstands

First Official Haircut

We've had a lovely week - mostly a quiet week, but those are good to enjoy now and then!  The most notable news this week was the fact that Kaleb had his first official haircut.  Before this, he's had hair trims (mostly to keep it just out of his bangs and to keep it all even across his head, but no length really cut off).  So, with fear and trepidation that we'd be saying "adieu" to his curls forever, Amy finally took the plunge to cut off some of the hair in the back as it had in fact grown so long that it was starting to pull the curls out straight.  But, we are thankful to reprot that even though it was cut just a bit (somewhere between 1/2-1 inch off), his curls are still there!  Yahoo!

This picture is after the haircut, so you can see his little eyebrows now and there are still curls in the back!  Aren't they just a picture in their matching pajamas!  Zachary now insists that they both wear these pjs on the same night, which are thanks to Auntie Lorie!

Amy's Mom came over last weekend to watch the boys while we spent the day taking care of errands and looking for a new bike.  Amy has decided that it is time to move up from the mountain bike that gives her back a "crick" every time she rides it to the "Driving Miss Daisy" kind of bike where you sit up so nice and straight!  So, we went and looked Giant bikes, which were very nice.  A final decision hasn't been made yet as it probably would be prudent to at least ride another kind of bike, but we're hopeful that we're nearing a decision.

We'll have more pictures next week, but this is a very special weekend - Amy's mom turns 65! Congratulations on 65 years of life!

There are very few things more precious than a sleeping child, and it has take us a while to get a good picture of Kaleb sleeping because he tends to wake up when we go in the room, but Amy finally prevailed.

The first picture is Kaleb sleeping, and the second is Zachary when he was about the same age.  They both had their favorite positions in the crib (although Zachary's cross-wise favorite position always looked a bit cramped!)

Zachary has really gotten into puzzles recently - so all of the puzzles that were given to him over Christmas have really been played with a lot!

This picture captures a fun moment with Grandma as the kids were chasing (or being chased) her around the house

Phrase of the week: Mommy, you need to go now please. Apparently Mommy is cramping Zachary's style at Miss Jennifer's place, so he now requests her to leave after only a few minutes of talking to Miss Jennifer! Ah well, he used to cry when Amy would leave which was very sad, so at least this is a step up from tears! Kaleb's mastered "Daddy" this week in a big way, so he now calls out "Daddy!!" from his crib, and as he runs through the house, and as he plays at Miss Jennifer's. It appears that Daddy will be another little boy's hero!

Mastering the Anatomy

This has blessedly been a quiet week as we've all come down with some form of a cold - although Amy seems to have it the worst - thanks for nothing!  Oh well, it doesn't seem to be one that hangs on forever, so we'll be thankful for small blessings!

As Kaleb continues to learn new things, he seems to have mastered if you ask him to point to certain body parts - such as eyes, nose, mouth, check, teeth and knee.  Although, you have to be careful because  sometimes he points to his body parts, and sometimes yours - so watch out when you ask him to point to his eye!!

Kaleb can also click his tongue, and likes to mimic you if you start to click/cluck your tongue.  It is quite fun to try new things and see if he can do them as well.

He has recently learned how to get off of our master bed, which is a fairly high bed so he has to very carefully slide off the edge while holding on to the bedspread otherwise it would be a serious crash landing!  He has also learned how to pull the chair out beside the bathroom counter, climb up onto it and then have full access to the counter-top - what joys!

He continues to be a very loving child, and gets SO excited when people that he knows well come to visit - he'll run from where he is in the house yelling his greeting as he comes - and throws himself at their legs hoping to be picked up.  You certainly know that he is excited to see you!  If he doesn't know you he is still very shy around strangers, which frankly his parents are not discouraging!

One of the Christmas presents that the kids received this year as a stomp rocket and Zachary and we parents have had a blast playing with this thing.  It provides lots of fun entertainment!  It goes about 70 feet in the air if you get it just right - so we've managed to have it fly into a tree (thankfully the wind brought it down the next day), and onto the roof of our house twice.  So we try and be judicious about the direction that we aim it as well as how hard the adults stomp on it! :)

Phrase of the week:  The Christmas tree has fallen down!  Zachary was aghast when he walked into the front room to find that the Christmas tree had been taken down and was on the floor - he didn't realize that we had deliberately dismantled it, so he felt sure that something had gone dramatically wrong!  Kaleb's new word is 'Blake' this week - which works out well for him when he's at Jennifer's! :)

Christmas Update - Christmas 4.0

As most everyone is aware, a crazy person tried to bomb a plane coming into the US - which is concerning on many levels but once we realized what it could potentially mean for us on our return to Orlando, we began to panic about our 5 hour flight from Winnipeg to Orlando. The rules at the time were NO carry-on bags were allowed on the flight - only a very small purse, medication, baby items etc. We had three stuffed backpacks with baby items, things to entertain the boys with, changes of clothes (after our first trip with Zachary in which he peed all over Amy, we've vowed to never fly without at least the kids having a complete change of clothes), so we were in serious trouble. How in the world were we going to handle 2 energetic, overtired, HUNGRY boys for 5 hours with nothing? But, God was good and answered our prayers - the flight and security agents allowed us to take 1 backpack on board with food, diapers etc and they allowed us to take on Zachary's Thomas the Train backpack that had all of our entertainment items (she was so gracious - she looked at us, then looked at the boys, and said "Well, we're allowed to use our discretion as to what is REALLY necessary, and I think that you're REALLY going to need something to entertain them on that flight, so I'll let you take the little toy backpack on" Thank you God!!) With that, the flights back weren't terrible and both of them even napped on the first flight.

We headed back to Orlando where we were anticipating lovely warm weather to unfreeze our frostbitten faces but alas we learned on the flight down that the weather was only 42 degrees Fahrenheit! What? That's not Orlando!!!? But yes, a cold front has been stuck over us all week, and each morning the temperature has been hovering around 32. In fact, they are predicting a hard freeze Friday night with a chance of snow flurries. Bizarre!

Why is it that unpacking and getting re-settled after a trip takes so long? We arrived back home safely on Sunday night late, and we had both taken off Monday to recover. By the end of Monday we had basically managed to put ourselves back to rights, but it took some heavy work all day long to try and get everything done.

The boys have a few more presents to open this weekend (hence the Christmas 4.0), so they should have some fun to look forward to.

Phrase of the week: Zachary likes to sing the song "This Old Man", but can't get the phrase "Give a dog a bone" right, and he insists that the phrase is really "Dicka-Docka-Bone" even though we've said it multiple times correctly! Of course once he figured out that it makes Amy laugh when he says it wrong, it'll probably stick around for a while! "Wa-wa" is Kaleb's new phrase for water.  Not quite right, but at least we recognize what he wants!

Christmas Update - Christmas 3.0

After finishing our visit in Prince Albert, we boarded a plane to fly to Winnipeg where we would visit Amy's Dad and stay with our long-time family friend/adopted Grandma, Norma. As you may remember reading from Christmas 2.0, the trip to Prince Albert had been fairly successful, so we were feeling fairly relaxed about our trip to Winnipeg - too relaxed it appears!

We were thrilled to see Amy's Dad, and visit with him in his new apartment at the lodge in Winnipeg. However, his apartment is only a 1 bedroom apartment and the boys had been used to running all over a 3 story house with their 3 cousins all week, so containing them in a small apartment that was not childproofed (think of a 52 inch flat panel TV that was at child level with no real protection around it), and with children who had no naps? Nightmare! Our angels in Prince Albert turned into little demons. Karis tried to sell Zachary off to the highest bidder at the local grocery store, but no-one would take him! :)

Aside from the frustrating way that our children behaved in Winnipeg, we had such a lovely time visiting with Amy's Dad, Norma (she was so gracious to open her home to us so that we could stay there with her and not all have to sleep in the same room), Amy's childhood friend Nicole, and several other friends from Amy's time in Manitoba. All of our visits were entirely too short but we're thankful that we had the time together. Norma taught Zachary how to play the game "Trouble," which was his first official game that he's ever played (although he calls it the Numbers game). Norma also had taught Zachary when he was a baby to climb down the stairs, so it was appropriate that he had another "first" at her home! :) Kaleb slept in our room with us, and reminiscent of Zachary when he was little, once he figured out that we were all together in the same room, he would wake up at night and start shouting "Up!, Up!, UP!" The weather was absolutely frigid in Winnipeg, -46 Celsius with wind chill, so we were not spending much time outside AT ALL!

The Rintoul Family - Thanks for Such a Fun Time!

Grandma Norma & Zachary

Amy and her Dad

Playing the Numbers Game (aka Trouble!)

Christmas Update - Christmas 2.0

Christmas 2.0 began with our trip to Canada in which we headed off to the teeming metropolis of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. We were scheduled to leave Thursday, Christmas Eve when we found out on Wednesday that there was a huge storm going through the Midwest beginning that night and continuing through Saturday which was expected to be as bad as the blizzard of 1991 (isn't it a bad sign when they have a specific storm that it is going to compare against that is all the way back in 1991???). Even worse than the upcoming storm was the realization that if we were stranded in Minneapolis (which was becoming more likely with the fact that there were already flights being delayed and cancelled) was that we would have NO chance of actually arriving in Saskatoon that Thursday as there was only one flight to Saskatoon that day. Thinking through the ramifications, we realized that we wouldn't actually make it to the farm until Saturday if we missed the Thursday's flight as there was only ONE flight on Friday to the farm, which was super late and we'd be forced to spend the night in Saskatoon before ending our trip.

This all culminated in our scramble to re-book our tickets and fly out Wednesday night with the thought that at least we'd be in Minneapolis when that single flight took off the next day. Our flight Wednesday ended up being delayed, so we didn't arrive to Minneapolis until midnight (thanks for nothing) but luckily we had reserved a hotel ahead of time once we knew the flight was going to be delayed. However, traipsing through the airport with 5 pieces of luggage and 2 screaming children at midnight was NOT our idea of a fun trip! Zachary had managed to sleep most of the flight as we were in the bulkhead so he could stretch out on the floor but poor Kaleb didn't fare as well trying to sleep in our arms (poor kid). We managed to arrive at the Hampton Inn where Amy begged for something to feed the ravenous child (aka Zachary, the bottomless pit) where they informed her that they had nothing except junk food for sale! (What is up with that??) but they were gracious enough to allow her a box of Cheerios from the complimentary breakfast bar which was very acceptable to the bottomless pit.

The sleep that night was low in quality, and low in quantity. All four of us in one room does not equal sleep. We turned on the fan when we went to bed so that we'd at least have some white noise to try and muffle the sound of all of us in the room, but didn't notice that the switch on the heat control was on "Off." This meant that as the blizzard raged on and the night passed, it got colder and colder in the room. Zachary woke up around 2:30A and began to fuss and count his numbers, so Amy crawled in bed with him to try and keep him quiet - which meant that he then slept with some part of his body slung over hers all night long (at one point, he was perpendicular to her, with his feet on her neck and chest!! Prayers were answered when he didn't actually kick her in the face!) With desperation to keep the child asleep and not wake up Kaleb, Amy lay there all night (awake mind you) praying "Please God, if I get up to turn on the heat, I'll wake up Zachary and then all of us will be awake - please let Karis wake up and go turn on the heat, I'm freezing here!!" No such luck. In the morning, Karis casually mentioned that he was freezing all night as well!!! Dude - GET UP! Ah well.

We arrived safe and sound in Prince Albert where we spent a really fun 6 days with Karis' parents, his brother Kent, wife Lorie and their kids Emily, Connor and Kaylie, and brother Korey and his wife Rachel. All five cousins had a blast running around the house - up and down the long hallway roaring like lions! Good thing the house is big! We had Christmas 2.0 up there - and part of the presents was a remote control train set that was a huge hit the rest of our time there.

Zachary and Kaleb both loved going outside each day - the weather was about -15 Celsius, which actually wasn't terrible once they were all bundled up. Karis would pull Zachary around on the sled doing power slides which made Zachary laugh uproariously. Kaleb isn't too steady on his feet yet, and bundled up like a marshmallow made it even worse, so he was carried a lot of the time. We actually went downhill sledding as well, which Zachary adored, and Kaleb would giggle after each run. So, all in all, the snow was a big hit!

  

Another really fun event during our trip was going to the 5 pin bowling alley. They had bumpers for the kids, so they had a grand time seeing how many pins they could knock down. Kaleb just wanted to throw his ball and then chase it down the lane, so we had to hold on to him tightly.  There were also kiddy rides and blow-up bounce houses there in the bowling alley to play on afterwards, so Zachary thought that he was in 7th heaven.

Kaleb manages to escape his parents and makes a run for it down the lane

All in all, Christmas 2.0 was a great success - we had so much fun visiting with everyone and letting the cousins play together. The kids were mostly well behaved (not entirely, but close enough), the weather was bearable, and Amy was able to read 3 books - what could be better? With that, we were off to Christmas 3.0!

Doing puzzles was one of the daily highlights

The Zbaraschuk clan