Topping Off Ceremony

Last week, there was a topping off ceremony for Amy's new office building that is being built.  The very last beam was put onto the top of the building, so all of the employees had the opportunity to sign the beam before it was hoisted by the crane up.  It was a fun event, and Amy is definitely looking forward to next November when we should be moving in - her commute will be all of 2 miles long!  Yippee!

We also took the boys to the Pinocchio's theater to see the Nativity play, which was very good.  The boys seemed to enjoy it, and it was a nice diversion on a Sunday.

The big deal of the week was when Papa-Z and Gram-Z arrived on Monday. Very fun!  The kids were out of their minds with excitement on Monday night - so hyper we weren't sure that we'd ever get them to bed!  They've had a great time and we hope that the grandparents have as well (when they're not exhausted!).  Papa-Z has been playing Frisbee, basketball, and wrestling with Zachary non-stop!

Zachary had his Christmas program for gymnastics this week and it was so awesome!  She dressed all of the little boys up in "toy soldier-like" costumes with little red dots on their checks.  They then showed off their skills!  It is pretty impressive how much he has learned since joining gymnastics - his skills are definitely improving.  He can walk on a balance beam unassisted with nary a bobble, front and backwards somersaults, hanging on the bars, jumping on trampolines and the list goes on.  It makes a Mommy proud!  There are only six little boys in the group, so it is a perfect size.

We braved the cold to go to the Gaylord Palms "Ice" show on Friday.  It is all of 9 degrees in there, and we were bundled up like Eskimos.  It was quite amazing as always to see the ice sculptures.  The ice slides were the highlight, but unfortunately Zachary wasn't heavy enough to really get going fast on the slides, so there were tears - which only makes a person colder!  Gram-Z and Papa-Z were laughing that they didn't come all of the way from Canada to just go into the cold! :)

Merry Christmas!  And, for those wondering whether we've fallen off the bus - our Christmas letter will clearly be late this year.  If anyone wants to write it for us, we're accepting applications! :)

Phrase of the week:  You 'kay?  Kaleb is always very concerned about folks around him, and if he perceives that they might be hurt or something might be amiss, he very quickly will pose this question to be sure that you're okay!  Zachary's phrase is "Can I have another present?" - we wondered when the kids would really get the fact that there are presents at Christmas, and it appears that 4.5 is that magical age.  He definitely is excited about the presents aspect.  He also has blown one of the presents that Amy bought for Karis by "innocently" asking about the present in front of Daddy (there was a stern lecture for that one!)

David & Goliath

Zachary has thus far been one that hasn't engaged in a lot of creative role-playing, and is much happier reading books or doing tasks (cooking, mowing etc) or playing sports (latest obsession is Frisbee!).  However, his favorite Bible story seems to be shaping up at the moment (ever changing by the moment!) to be David & Goliath.  He loves to pretend that he's Goliath, and has confiscated two wrapping paper center rolls (wrapping paper all gone of course) to become "swords" for he and Kaleb.  He runs around the house shouting "I am Goliath!" and then laughs a maniacal laugh that is on the David & Goliath DVD that we have.  We parents are now realizing that we have perhaps gone astray with David & Goliath as he seems to becoming more aggressive with it - so we've instituted a week-long "Goliath-free" week to hopefully fix our ails.  But we are pleased to see the creative role-playing going on, so there is a bright side!

Last week we had a real treat when Amy's Aunt Marge and Uncle Melvin came to town.  They are some of our favorites, so we were thrilled to visit with them for a bit.  Uncle Melvin won Zachary over by the end of the visit by wrestling with him - what more could a boy ask for!

Aunt Marge & Kaleb looking at colors & letters - he's much better with the letters than the colors! :)

After the wrestling match

We had the AHS Christmas party last Sunday night at Mickey's Very Merry Christmas.  Against our better judgement we ended up going even though it would be a horribly late night.  The lines were very short, and the kids had a fantastic time as you'd imagine.  We road Dumbo, the carousel, the "It's a Small World," Winnie-the-Pooh, and the Car ride (there is surely a name but we can't remember it!).  The Car ride was the favorite as the kids got to "drive" the cars - Zachary has been talking about it all week.  We ended the night with the parade, free hot chocolate & cookies, and then the fireworks before scrambling to leave before the masses all had the same idea.  We spent the evening with the Hilliards and we really had a wonderful time even though the kids were up too late.  Thankfully, they haven't gotten sick from the experience, so perhaps we dodged a bullet there!  Zachary was so enamored that he refuses to take off the Disney pass bracelet, so we've negotiated that he'll take it off when Gram-Z and Papa-Z arrive this week!

Getting ready to drive his very first car - so proud!

 The Disney castle is in the background, all lit up with Christmas lights!

It is hard to believe that it is Christmas in one short week with SO MUCH to get done!  Sadly, we haven't even started the annual Christmas letter, but there is still a chance that we'll get it out on time now that we've gone "green" with the e-letters! :)  Whew!  Karis' parents come on Monday, so the kids are very excited about Gram-Z and Papa-Z coming!  Auntie Kelli gave the boys some presents last night, so now they're definitely in the 'spirit' of Christmas and are now asking whether they will have any more presents (never fear kiddos, there will surely be one or two more....)

Phrase of the week:  "I am Goliath" really has to be the phrase of the week, with Daddy's response of  "Zachary, you're 'betting' on the wrong guy in the story!" as the other funny phrase!  All the adults in the room laugh when Karis says this of course, but it doesn't seem to phase Zachary yet.  Kaleb's phrase is "LIGHTS, Mommy, LOOK LIGHTS!!!"  We drive around each evening before supper to see all of the Christmas lights, and Kaleb is non-stop shouting the whole time with excitement over the lights.  Karis actually bought one sorry string of lights for our front bushes as well to please the Z-children, so after Christmas is over and the sales are on, we'll have to beef up our lights-display!

Time of Worship

We received an unexpected invitation this week from a coworker of Amy's to join his family for a special dinner and Christian concert on Friday night at his church to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their church's organization and of the Christmas season.  This is not an Adventist church, and we had never been before, but we were honored to be invited so accepted the invitation.  It turned out to be a very touching, special evening.  It was wonderful to join in a church's celebration of their years of worship - and the church was incredibly friendly and warm with folks greeting us and initiating conversations.  The grand finale of the evening was the Christian artists of Meredith Andrews and Josh Wilson. They were both amazing, but in very different ways.  Meredith had a great mix of Christmas and general Christian songs, and this fantastic voice.  She could make the song itself an expression of intense worship, and it was very moving.  Josh Wilson was more light-hearted, but incredibly talented musically.  He was alone (aka no band members) but he with his acoustical guitar he became a one man band with a "foot loop".   This machine sat on the floor and he could push buttons with his foot as he was playing music, and anything that he had just been playing would then repeat itself and he could in essence build "layers" to his music.  So as he would play his song he could add "drums," background melodies, harmonica etc etc.  Totally amazing.  It was a wonderful way to really begin the Christmas season. 

Just to wrap up last week's blog - Heather came over and listened to Kaleb's lungs on Saturday (during which he had spiked another fever that afternoon) and felt that "something" was going on his right lung.  This coupled with the fact that he was coughing so hard that he was making himself throw up, Amy then bundled him up and took him to Night Lite Pediatrics.  They were fantastic, and took a chest x-ray of him as well.  They confirmed that in fact something was going on in his lungs, although they weren't sure if it was pneumonia or just inflammation from the virus that he'd had.  The big shocker was that he had TWO ear infections, one of which was quite bad.  Thanks for nothing - that just makes a parent feel fantastic to know that your child has been in pain and you've done nothing.  He doesn't pull at his ears, so you just have no idea that something is going on unfortunately.  Thankfully after some breathing treatments and antibiotics to tackle the lungs and ears, we're all back to somewhat health!

The poor patient

 Listening to himself with Auntie Heather's 'toy'

Phrase of the week:  Karis says to Zachary - "what do you think that we should get for Mommy for Christmas"  Zachary:  "How about let's buy her a (baby) monitor to put in MY room so that I can see when SHE is sleeping."  Karis - well, what else would want to get her?  Zachary:  "How about let's buy her a frog humidifier for her room when she's sick."  Karis: "Do you think that we should buy her a book?"  Zachary:  "No, she has one".  Ha ha ha - just too funny on many levels, these conversations are hilarious!  Kaleb's word this week is "Ta" which is the shortened version of "ta-da" that we mentioned a while back, but apparently he's decided that the "da" portion is just unnecessary!  He loves this word though and will use it throughout the day to bring your attention to anything that he thinks is particular special.

The "Unhappy" Ending to Thanksgiving

Yikes, we ended a Happy Thanksgiving with a packed weekend of fun as we mentioned...but it quickly went downhill from there. We had a great time Saturday night with the Johnsons and Cochrans putting up the Christmas tree. With the three little boys - Zachary, Kaleb and Kieran - it was really fun to see their excitement. Zachary has been obsessed with the tree ever since - and loves to sit looking at it.

However, that Saturday night, Zachary started to act a bit sick and his temperature had a low-grade fever.  We put him to bed early (which we KNEW that he was sick when he agreed to go to bed before everyone had left!), but he was definitely sick the next day with a fever, hurting head, and hurting stomach.  Apparently Amy has brainwashed him very well, because when someone asked him why he was sick, he answered by saying "Because I didn't take my afternoon nap on Thanksgiving day!" Ha ha ha ha (although you'd think that would mean he wouldn't fight the nap, but he still does!"

 Anyway, by the end of Sunday, we had two sick boys on our hands.  It has been an entire week of madness - fevers every day off and on (nights being the worst), hurting heads, nausea, stuffy noses, NO appetite (in fact the kids are visibly losing weight, although still drinking a lot of liquids thankfully), and even....puking.  Kaleb has puked three times, but the true trophy has to go to Zachary.  On Thursday night, Zachary was laying on the couch in pure misery, so Amy put a blanket underneath "just in case" he had to be sick.  Karis (who was now sick himself) felt cold and took the blanket to cover up with.....just in time for Zachary to puke all over the light yellow couch, and blasts of puke all over the carpet.  Amy wasn't upset with Zachary for puking, but the same can't be said for her sentiments towards Karis at that moment! :)  We had a carpet cleaner come the next day, and thankfully it looks like we won't have to be getting a brand new couch.

The kids are very slowly getting better, although Kaleb has quite a bad cough.  Daddy Karis is still suffering a bit, but thankfully Amy is keeping it together so far (mind over matter as this was an incredibly busy week and next week is her Corporate meeting week, which is a marathon from beginning to end).  We do wish that we'd be healthy again as this has been pretty miserable.

In other happy news, we wanted to take a moment in our blog to congratulate our dear friend, Kent Johnson, who has just accepted the CFO position at our nursing home division - Adventist Care Centers!  Very exciting, and well deserved!  Congrats Kent!

Jennifer's little boy Evan had surgery this week to remove a portion of an over-developed thyroid.  Thus, Amy had to find alternate childcare this week, which it ended up being a blessing with the kids being sick because they could stay at home, and in the mornings they didn't feel too bad. We've now discovered two lovely ladies to watch the kids for days when Jennifer cannot - Jessica and Morgan.  We're very thankful!

One weekend when Kaleb was over playing with Kieran, William took some fantastic pictures of him, which we wanted to include here below.

Phrase of the week:  Mama, I hurting!  AHH, give us anything to help fix the problem when a child says that to you!  Poor Kaleb was truly miserable and was following Amy around saying "Mama, I hurting!"  He has always been a snuggle-bug, this week he's been extra cuddly as he just wants to be held and comforted.  Zachary's phrase this week: I am sick because I didn't take my nap - why didn't everyone leave that day, I wanted to go to sleep - then I wouldn't be sick!  (ah, how quickly memories fade, Zachary NEVER wants anyone to leave, and certainly doesn't want to sleep!