Good Ole' Dick and Jane

The big story for the week is that Jenn has been doing the "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" with Blake and Zachary, and as of Lesson 18, we have a child who can now read simple stories on his own.  He LOVES IT!  He is catching on so fast it is totally amazing.  We were a bit stumped because a lot of our "easy" books though still have big words in them, when Karis came to the rescue and remembered the old Dick and Jane books from when we were beginning to read.  We received them in the mail today and Zachary read through one already like the expert he is! :)  Good job Zachary!

We had a special treat today when Amy came home early (not feeling great, which wasn't the special treat) and Jeff and Niesha dropped by.  Jeff has been struggling with vertigo for several months, so we were delighted to see him up and looking a bit like his normal self!  We have been coaching the boys that he isn't feeling well (to ensure that they don't pounce on him the moment they were ever to see him), but Zachary was thrilled to have Jeff sit with him on the couch and read!  Amy enjoyed the chat with Niesha while Jeff entertained Zachary!

Reading Dick and Jane

Last weekend Amy's mom had a sleepover with the boys - which almost means freedom for the parents, great fun for the boys and TERRIBLE SLEEPS for Zachary.  This time was no exception, and he had an allergy attack after going to bed that didn't subside until about 11P and then he woke up around 4A not feeling very well (which ended up being nothing).  Anyway, with such little sleep they came home a little before lunch and he ended up crashing on the couch - he slept on the couch from 1P until 4:30P!

Unfortunately for Zachary, while he slept on the couch (even after Amy tried to wake him up), we had a birthday party that we attended for Leif that he missed.  He was very disappointed when he woke up, but at the point where a Mom can't wake up the child, you just have to concede that he is plumb exhausted!

Very cute train themed party - what a good little conductor! :)

Amy had a special treat of going to watch Kaleb in his gymnastics "Parent Watch Week" - the class is HUGE this year compared to when Zachary was in it (about 10-15 some days vs max of 4!).  He is having a fun time, and loves to repeat the rhymes that she makes up (such as "Teeter, Totter, Teeter, Totter, Stick your Face in Muddy Water!" - the rhymes are things that they say as they do stretches etc - so this particular one they split their legs in a straddle and go back and forth until at the end they put their faces down on the mats in front of them and come up "sputtering" from the muddy water!")  Too cute!

Phrase of the week:  Typically our phrases are things that the boys have said, but this week it is a story on Amy.  She has been suffering from allergies (springtime is never ending here this year!) for the last 3 weeks, and has been taking Benadryl (with doctor's blessing) at night to manage the congestion/itchy throat/sneezing etc.  About 11:00 Kaleb woke up sobbing his eyes out (very unusual) and came walking across the house.  She jumped up out of bed and picked him up in the kitchen - but was so out of it that she wasn't sure what was supposed to happen next.  Thankfully Karis got up with her, and she said to him "What should I do, should I give him Benadryl?" (Benadryl apparently has become a fix-all in her mind in the middle of the night!)  Karis wisely says "No, he probably just had a bad dream."  At 12:30, Kaleb again wakes up crying and she goes to his room to comfort him - and says in a mumbled voice "Kaleb, you're okay - don't wake up again (yeah, right Mom, as if that is going to work! but it did work!!).  However, by that time, Amy couldn't fall back asleep and it wasn't until 2:30 that she finally dozed off - only to wake up at 4:30 with the fire alarm beeping......dead battery.  She is so out of it, she asks Karis what it was and he says "fire alarm, but I'm not sure that I can fix it because it is so high on the wall, I don't think that I can reach it."  He leaves the room, and comes back in after fixing it.  Amy inquires "how did you fix it"  to which he replies "I climbed the wall."  Amy is so sleep-deprived at this point that she says in amazed wonder "Wow, I didn't know you had that talent - You're Spiderman!"  There was no more sleep to be had that night, so it was a rough day after very little sleep.  In the morning, she realized that while she was married to an amazing man, he in fact wasn't Spiderman - just very resourceful!  He had pulled out a small step ladder and had then hoisted himself up onto a cross beam in our kitchen where he could then reach the fire alarm.  Nice work, but VERY THANKFUL that he didn't fall off that cross-beam in the middle of the night!