Lacrosse 101

Last week, we were the lucky recipients of free lacrosse tickets, so we along with six of our friends, trucked off to the game. This is the first Lacrosse game that any of us have ever been to, so we felt a bit "left behind" at times, but Karis started to catch on to the rules and gist of the game so at least he could tell Amy what was going on. What was readily apparent is the fact that lacrosse is incredibly aggressive - give a man a stick, and basically you can just wack the other players and check into them as much as you want. Hockey isn't even this aggressive!!! Wow!

Karis, Bud and Barb (Kelli's parents), Kent, Kelli, Rob and Adam

Amy's mom came over to watch the boys while we were at the lacrosse game, and prior to leaving we spent some time outside going for a bike ride and then playing in the warm sun with the stomp rocket. It is starting to warm up a bit here consistently, so it looks like our long sleeves may soon be a thing of the past.

With the warm weather arriving, Karis decided that it was time to give the garden another go - the first one met its demise when the cold freezing weather stuck around so long this winter, so we'll hope that this one has a better shot! The boys thought that it was great fun to play in the dirt - we'll likely end up with 50 places all coming up in one spot, but they had fun planting those seeds at least!!

Phrase of the week:  The beginnings of a conversation between Zachary and Kaleb started this week as we were driving to Miss Jennifer's house for the day - from the back seat, Amy heard the following:  Zachary:  "I don't have a car yet, I'm going t need to buy one."  Kaleb begins to chant: "Me, me, me!!  Zachary replies: "No, you can't have one until you're 16!!"  Ha ha, apparently Zachary is enamored with having a car himself, but Kaleb must wait the pre-requisite amount of time! It was cute to hear them interacting - it'll be fun as Kaleb's vocabulary really starts to expand and we can experience more interactions.

Kaleb was determined to try out another vantage point for this toy - who needs to get in feet first - head first works just as well!!

Where's the Bouncy House?!

Last weekend, we were privileged to join in the celebration of little Braelyn's birthday.  She had a bouncy house for the party, which was a total hit with all of the kids as you can imagine!  Allen had also created a putting green in his backyard and Zachary had his first "golfing" experience!

Zachary's lip is healing well, and his teeth are not yet turning gray, so our fingers are crossed that perhaps this might be behind us.  It is odd though that his two front teeth are no longer touching, and even Zachary himself noticed because he used to be able to hang the tooth flosser between his two front teeth with "no hands mom!" but now of course that won't work!

Amy has the annual AHS bowlathon tomorrow - so this is going to be a busy weekend as well. 

Phrase of the week:  Amy has a phrase that she uses with the boys when she's trying to hurry them up - "quick as a wink."  Zachary has now incorporated the phrase and one day as breakfast he informed Amy that he was going to eat "fast as a wink!"  Kaleb's animal vocabulary is continuing to increase and has added "pig" to his repertoire!

Kaleb was enjoying his frozen blueberries to the fullest!

Zachary loved the bounce house, and managed to only smash his mouth once on another kid.

Blake and Zachary in their birthday celebration outfits!

Kaleb got into the bouncing fun as well.

Playing with the putting green

Fat Lips & Teaching Moments

In the continual pursuit of avoiding the nap, this family has had several stories to tell - ranging from funny to painful.

Starting off with ingenious, we were firmly insisting that Zachary take a nap early on in the week much to his disappointment.  We had turned off his room light by pulling on the short chain from his ceiling fan, to avoid his getting up and playing again after we left.  But, he was determined to outwit us, so he managed to pull his red foam chair and the bunk bed ladder (which we never put up because we discourage playing on the top bunk, so it is behind the closet door) over to the bed.  He put the red chair up on the mattress and then somehow leaned the ladder up against the mattress/red chair. From this get-up, he managed to climb up and reach the tiny chain on the ceiling fan.  We had by chance look at the monitor and saw that the light was on in his room, so Karis went into the room to find out what in the dash was going on!  We're still not 100% sure how he managed to pull this shenanigan off, but he did.  At that moment, our hearts were filled with pride at his creativity, thankfulness that he didn't fall in the attempt and break a leg, and chagrin that once again, he was disobeying the directive to take a nap!!!

On Thursday, Zachary again issued the edict that he wasn't going to nap.  When Karis turned off the light in his room (the ladder has now been removed entirely from his room) and started to walk towards the door, Zachary jumped out of bed and began to cling to his legs.  Karis informed him that he needed to take a nap, and Zachary turned around, tripped, and fell face first into his bunk bed.  So, he is now sporting a cut lip that is the size of Florida.  Ha ha - not really perhaps that big but it is sizable.  The cut was bleeding like a bad boy, but luckily the cut was short enough, shallow enough and didn't go through the edge of his lip, so Amy's quick consultation with an Ex-Emergency room doctor at her office determined that he probably didn't need stitches.  This is the nap-event that we're hoping turned into a teachable moment - as he clearly wouldn't have fallen if he hadn't disobeyed and gotten out of bed! :)  We're not holding our breath, but it is worth a shot!

The other concerning result of this event is that it appears to have actually moved his front teeth - they used to be snug up against each other in a row, and now there are small spaces between his front teeth.  The spaces don't really bother us, but we're hoping that he didn't kill the nerve and that he won't lose the teeth or have them turn black.  We may be in for a trip to the dentist this week!

Most of the cut is on the inside of his lip, but it is very swollen.  Women would pay for these pouty lips!

 Karis has to go to continuing education classes this weekend, so Amy will be doing the single mom thing.  Hopefully the weather will be nice and we can spend a lot of time outdoors.

Phrase of the week:  Kaleb's new word this week was "Look" (although it sounds like "ook") - he was thrilled to his tiny toes when he managed to get on a bicycle helmet all by himself, so ran over to show off his accomplishment.  Zachary's comment this week was part of an overall conversation with Amy after she got off the phone with Auntie Kelli.  Zachary said "Was that Auntie Kelli?"  Amy: "Yes."  Zachary: "Is she coming over?"  Amy: "Not right now."  Zachary: "Why not, I need a little Auntie Kelli!!?"  Ha ha - apparently a little Auntie Kelli goes a long way! :)

The "radio flyer" turtle bit the dust this week (thanks to a little help from rambunctious boys) so now the boys have to share the remaining "inside" riding toy!

Kaleb has a tradition that when Amy puts him in his car seat now, he loves to be covered up with a blanket - and ALL of him must be covered - no portion of a toe can be exposed! 

Deer Valley

This week was the annual CFO Conference for Adventist Health System, which is the highlight of the year for Karis because it is always at a ski resort! :)

We were supposed to fly out on Sunday, but with Kaleb's croup scare and not being discharged from the hospital until Saturday night, we moved our tickets to Monday so that we'd have at least 24 hours at home with him to be sure that he was okay.  He didn't have any more breathing attacks - although Zachary came down with a fever and a cold - at which point Karis was overcome with despair that his ski trip was going to be "scrubbed" for sure!  But, we were fortunate that Zachary's fever did not cause him to have a fever seizure, and so the ski trip continued thanks to Amy's mom, who watches the boys while we head off to the ski mountains!

The boys had a fabulous time with Grandma this week, and went to a play as well as some other trips etc.  She took amazing care of them, so we were able to enjoy ourselves without worrying!  She played about 30 games of Trouble with Zachary, and chased Kaleb trying to be sure that he didn't fall off the "towers" that he kept managing to climb, such as the table and his high chair!

We flew out at the crack of dawn on Monday, and so were actually able to ski at Alta on Monday afternoon.  Amy took a lesson as she's not a fabulous skier, and ended up with a personal lesson as there was no-one else in her group by Neal.  This is the first time in all the years of skiing that an instructor was able to put it all together for Amy - it was the MOST fun and not exhausting at all!  She typically is so sore the next day in her quads that walking is a chore, but Neal was able to show her the proper techniques which made all the difference in the world!  She kept reminding herself of all of his tips the rest of the trip so that she could make them into a good habit!  Alta and Deer Valley were really fun mountains to ski, so we'll definitely be returning there in the future.

Karis had a great time doing what he loves - skiing as many runs as he possibly can get in during a day!  We didn't have a large group with us this year, it was just Kent and Kelli who attended the conference as well, so he skied by himself for Tuesday at Snowbird (which he later told us was a very advanced mountain, so it was good that we didn't go!).  The rest of the week, he skied in the morning with other family members/friends of conference participants and then would catch up with us in the afternoon. 

We actually had fresh snow two days, so the runs were not icy and there was lots of powder to ski in, which did of course make it wonderful in some ways and yet harder in others for the "novice" skiers among us!

Kelli in the "white-out" - it was snowing so hard we had to wipe our goggles as we were skiing just to be able to see! We ended up going in for a hot chocolate at the end of this run until the snow let up a bit, before enjoying our last run of the week.

Now that Amy has had such a wonderful time skiing that now she's excited about Zachary coming out next year (his first year) to join in the family adventure.  The boys were quite excited when we got back today, and we talked about the fact that Zachary would come next year.  There was also a sledding hill near Deer Valley that you had a huge tube that you could ride down, and then there was a tow rope that would drag you back up the hill which Zachary will LOVE next time we go!

A bit hard to see in the dark, but there are four long runs with "jumps" and then there are three or four smaller runs for the kids just off to the left of the picture.

Phrase of the week:  Zachary told us when we returned "I'm very, very, very proud of you that you came back!"