Upcoming Excitement

We are anxiously awaiting a lot of upcoming excitement - this week we'll have the Zbaraschuk (Canadian ones at least) coming down for a visit! Kent and Lorie with their three kids arrive late Wednesday and then Connie & Dennis arrive on Thursday night. It should be lots of fun - we're hoping that the cousins have a really good time together - we've been practicing saying Emily, Connor and Kaylie's name with Zachary, so we'll see if he gets stage fright when they actually arrive! We hope to do lots of fun things while they're here - we need to be sure to be good hosts so that they'll come back again! :) The weather has been a bit chilly (for Floridians whose blood is thin!), so hopefully it'll warm up just a bit before they all arrive.

Speaking of stage fright, we are also having Kaleb dedicated next weekend during 2nd service - not sure how Zachary will do going up on stage with us. Now instead of just worrying about one child, there will be two to try and maintain a semblance of order! Zachary's dedication was one of our very first blog posts, so it brings back sweet memories - although the fact that Zachary stuck his finger up his nose during the dedication multiple times brings about prayers that Kaleb will behave himself! :)

Phrase of the week: "Don't crush it, mom" - okay, this blog is PG, so we'll keep the explanation of this phrase very high level! Amy was changing Zachary's diaper this week when he noticed that certain of his body parts were "elevated" - as Amy went on to put his new diaper on, he was very concerned and instructed her "Don't crush it, mom!" Never fear Zachary - you'll be just fine....ha ha!

Kaleb reading with Daddy!

Cute antennae!

Zachary taking it easy on our bed - blending in with his blanket!

Shower Complete

We've been on a journey the last 5 weeks with our master bathroom shower. It has been slowly degrading over time (the shower frame has been corroding, and the tiles on the floor have been deteriorating etc) so we decided that it was time to replace it. So, we found a place "Granite Transformations" that puts a thin granite composite over your existing shower - it is all one piece except for the edges, so there is less grout to clean/lines etc.

We also replaced the glass with a frameless shower enclosure, which we were looking forward to in an effort to get away from the corroding frame on our old shower. The glass however took FOREVER to come in, so we've been without our shower for the last 5 weeks. We've been showering over in the spare bathroom, which has been an interesting experience! It has a handheld shower head over there that likes to rotate in its holder, so you have to be VERY careful when you turn the shower on so that you don't get a face full of water! Amy is anxious now to re-do that shower so that we can replace the shower head!

Photo 1 - Old shower (less the framed enclosure as it was already down)

Photo 2 - New shower complete!

We've been loving the new shower so far and are thankful to have our bathroom fully functioning again. All in all, it was a good experience, so we're thinking of using the same company again to do our pool bathroom shower.

Kaleb did in fact get the flu last weekend, but thankfully did not have the chicken pox. Even more of a blessing is that he recovered quickly to his good-nature - although for two days he was one sick little boy. He would wake up frequently and need to be rocked back to sleep - over the 2 days, he must have decided that he liked to be held and rocked the whole time that he slept because once he had recovered and Amy put him down as normal to go to sleep on his own, he protested loudly for a while at the grave injustice of that! :)

Kaleb's 9 month picture

We finally broke down and bought a double stroller - we were hoping to go without one, but Zachary doesn't seem quite old enough to want to walk for any distance. So, when we go for walks, we end up carrying him (let's be clear, he's too heavy for Amy to carry for very far, so Karis ends up carrying him), so we decided to bite the bullet. Our friends had recommended the Zooper Twist, but we ended up going with the Combi Savvy - time will only tell if we regret our decision or love it! The decision basically came down to simply a maximum weight issue - the Combi could take up to 45 pounds in each seat whereas the Zooper could only take 40 and with Zachary nearing 40 pounds already, it just didn't seem to make sense to limit our time usage that much on a large purchase.

Our 36 pound "baby" - sitting in Kaleb's infant carseat!

Friday was Grandma B's birthday - so many happy birthday wishes to her!

The celebration group!

Phrase of the week: "Can I list the kids on Craigs-List? Hmm, maybe Ebay, it has a wider audience" - ha ha, obviously this was not a Zachary phrase this week, but Karis came out with this one and it just cracked us all up, so that has to be the phrase of the week! :) No, our kids are really not for sale.....yet! :)

Calgon, Take Me Away!

Okay - Amy can never resist using that phrase - for anyone who is "old" like Amy, may remember the old commercial with a lady soaking in a wonderfully relaxing bubble bath (Calgon Bubble Bath) with the tag line of "Calgon, Take Me Away" - read on, and you'll soon see why we wish to be transported!

Kaleb is officially 9 months old now, and to celebrate, he took his first foray into the world of food! We started him off on millet last week, and are going to move to avocados next. We started Zachary at 7.5 months, so we waited just a little longer for Kaleb. Kaleb seems to be more sensitive (at least his skin sure is), so we're hoping to avoid allergies by holding off as long as we have. He seems to be enjoying the taste and texture of food, and doesn't have much of the tongue thrust issue happening, which is nice.

We're getting closer and closer to potty-training for Zachary. We've been "talking it up" to him for several weeks now, and he is now showing interest in going to the bathroom - in fact tonight he actually told us that he needed to go, and DID! :) We should have done it a long time ago, but right after Kaleb was born didn't seem like the right time, and then we had the "summer of illness", so that definitely didn't work....and now life has taken us away until it has become long over-due!

Now - for the crazy twist of the Z-life - Amy's been having discomfort on her left side right around the bottom of her rib cage now for about 1 month or so - being a self-proclaimed hypochondriac, she's come up with all sorts of things that could be wrong with her - but of course there'll be no doctor confirmation as she doesn't go to the doctor unless forced to! Well, Monday morning, she wakes up and has "bug bites" in a patch on her back - she is very allergic to ants and we were in fact out at the tennis courts the afternoon before with the kids playing on their plasma cars. While there, she was sitting on the tennis court concrete feeding Kaleb a bottle, so the chances of an errant ant crawling up on her back was pretty high.
Anyway, the "bug bites" swelled (as they normally do for her skin) and of course were pretty painful - but the strange thing is that she got another small patch (maybe 2-3 bumps) showed up on her stomach (basically on other side from the back patch, which was much bigger) on Tuesday. Strange - at one point, we were thinking that we had bed bugs but it was weird that Karis wasn't getting bit....so she decided between the odd rib pain and the bites to head off to the doctor for some relief.

Well, I'm sure you guessed from the "quotes" that in fact these were not bug bites at all. No, after describing the rib pain and then as an after-thought at the end telling the doctor "oh yeah, and I have these bug bites that I want something to help with the pain for", the doctor took one look at them and said "Those aren't bug bites, you have Shingles". WHAT? Isn't that an old person's thing? Apparently once a person has had chicken pox, the virus never leaves your body, it just becomes dormant and for whatever reason (such as stress, low immune system, exposure to other viruses etc) it can "re-activate" and causes Shingles. Between being tired from getting up in the middle of the night to pump, being stressed with work, and being exposed to Zachary's herpangina, it appears that it has culminated in this.

Kind of makes a person shake their head - we need to take a break from our own life! :) Just teasing. Apparently there is very little risk of passing this on, and Zachary's had the chicken pox vaccine, so Kaleb is the only one at risk right now of getting Chicken Pox (I guess if you've never had it to begin with, you get Chicken Pox rather than Shingles). Today, Kaleb had an upset stomach and was crying more than normal (this is a child who rarely cries unless he's hungry or tired!), so now Amy's super nervous that he could be sick.....why, oh why - Calgon, Take Me Away!!!!

Amy's feeling very fortunate in the grand scheme of things as Shingles can be extremely painful - it has been painful but manageable so she'll count her blessings.

Phrase of the Week: Mommy, you need fream? Ah, if only a little cream would fix Shingles! :)

The boys on their plasma cars - Adam has just gone out of the picture, so it is just Luke and Zachary pictured here.

The Big Boy on his plasmacar!

Thankful Quiet

This was a quiet week, which we are thankful for, as the household wasn't feeling "tip-top" - Zachary started off the week getting over his herpangina, and then Karis came down with a slight fever (although no herpangina!) on Wednesday afternoon. Thankfully it was short-lived and he was back to feeling like his old self on Friday.
Zachary is spending the night with Grandma B, which will allow us a lovely respite as he decided to wake up three times in the middle of the night last night - leaving the whole family (sans Kaleb) pretty tired today!
Phrase of the week: "I not seeping berry long" - you're not kidding Zachary - neither are we apparently!

Kaleb enjoys his first ever "swing" at the park!

The Z-men hit the slides...

Herpangina Anyone?

If you're thinking "Herpa Who???" - you're in close company because that was exactly the thoughts that ran through our heads, and as one friend said today "that sounds like 2 very bad things put together that nobody wants!" Too true, nobody wants this, but our son Zachary has managed to catch it. Perhaps we should change his name to an Indian name - something like "Him Who Catches Everything!" Good grief - for a child who doesn't eat sugar, doesn't drink sugary drinks, gets proper amounts of rest, tons of vegetables, doesn't go to a daycare, you'd think that he'd have the immune system that would be as strong as a tank, but oh no, if there is something strange to be caught, he'll catch it! :)

New Year's Day after Zachary got up from his nap, Amy sat down and was snuggling a bit with him and noticed that his head was really hot. After the seizure from this summer, she is one finger away from hitting the panic button at all times, so off to get the thermometer she went! Sure enough, his temperature was 102, and over the next hour it went up to 103 range even after giving him Tylenol. Of course with it being New Year's Day, there wasn't any regular pediatricians open, so we went to Night Lite Pediatrics, which is a walk-in urgent care clinic that is run by Florida Hospital Pediatric Specialists. We love that place - no-one was there (good for us, bad for them!), so we got right in and the doctor gave Zachary a good check-up to figure out what was going on. Basically herpangina is a fairly common childhood illness that is similar to Hand, Foot and Mouth disease, just without the foot and hand part. He has a few blisters at the back of his throat, so the Doctor said that he may not be wanting to eat very much as it is VERY painful and lasts about a week. But, we've been fortunate in that department as he has been eating well so far (keep the prayers coming! :)) - but his fever stayed high through Friday (it seems to be holding in a normal range today).

Amy kept him home Friday with the fever and it went back up to 103 again - fearing a seizure (which thankfully did not occur), she took him into a lukewarm shower which did manage to bring it down into the 101-102 range. God answers prayers to be sure as Kaleb slept for 2 hours and 45 minutes Friday morning - this from a child who wasn't sleeping longer than 30 minutes in the morning all week. This made it much easier to try and focus on Zachary's temperature and keep the boys separated as much as possible to help reduce the chances of Kaleb getting it.

We're all praying that we don't get it in fact - this is not a fun thing to have!

We are the proud new owners of 2 additional Britax carseats - "proud" we say loosely, but "poor" is a definite. Those Britax car seats are not cheap, but they are supposed to be the best so at the end of the day, we become stalkers on Ebay trying to find good deals! Kaleb is getting close to outgrowing his infant car seat carrier (which is a blessing and a curse - it is easy to just take the car seat everywhere but he is so heavy now that it is hard to actually carry without your arm breaking off!). These are actually bigger seats, so we'll move Zachary over to the new seats and move Kaleb over into the old ones at the appropriate time. Luckily our existing seats are in prime condition, so Kaleb should never guess that he has hand-me-downs! :)

This week, the backyard fence project began. This project involved replacing the existing fence and taking the Jasmine down to the ground. The Jasmine was planted by the original house owner, and over the years had gotten so tall and thick/heavy that it made the existing lattice collapse. The fence is completed, and Karis is about half-way through removing the Jasmine. We're fairly confident that the Jasmine will grow back, so we hope to keep it in check better this time around.

We want to wish everyone a Happy New Year! We stayed at home and had a quiet evening (good thing with the next day fever!) - didn't want to be out on the road with the other "crazies". Who are we kidding - we go to bed at 9:30 to try and keep up with our kids! :)

Daddy & Zachary playing on the new "Plasmacars" - these are super fun little "cars" - you sit on them, and move the steering wheel back and forth in your hands, and they move on their own with the friction of the wheels on the ground. They hold an adult's weight, so although these were Christmas presents for the boys, we'll admit to the parents playing on them just as much as Zachary!

While Zachary wasn't looking (very possessive of "his car" we put Kaleb in the car to give it a "sit" (he's too little to do anything else yet). As you can see, he loved it!

Phrase of the Week: "I didn't seep berry well" - Zachary announced this one morning this week - not sure if he really knows what that means, but he's clearly heard Mom and Dad say it!