The Paperbag Princess

Sometimes life has these little coincidences that just make a person smile, and we recently had one occur for us.  We recently received a children's book collection from Auntie Lorie by an author named Robert Munsch.  The very first story was about The Paperbag Princess - a story about a princess rescuing the prince in a paper bag - with the moral being that it doesn't matter what is on the outside, but rather on the inside of the person that matters.  After receiving the book and reading it from cover to cover for all of the stories, we then realized that one of the field trips for the school that Zachary attends - Champion Prep Academy was to the Paperbag Princess play!  We had a great time at the play, with even baby Addison attending.

Last weekend, we headed out to the park for a picnic supper with a group of friends.  The kids had a great time playing with the adults had a lovely visit.  During our time there, Amy ended up getting a precious picture of Kaleb and Kieran walking through the playground holding hands (so cute!) and then of their fathers having a bonding moment over sandwiches in the pavilion.

Such great little friends!

The great BIG friends! :)

It was an eventful weekend, because it was also the first weekend that baby Addison went to church.  We took the opportunity to take a group picture - it was the first one that we've done with all of the adults and kids.  Notice - if you count, there are SEVEN boys and only ONE little girl in this group!  She'll think that she is a little boy as she grows up! :)

Capturing her precious smile and the cute little citrus dress!

Another first for Addison was going out to a restaurant - Sweet Tomatoes, a family favorite.  We had our carpets cleaned, so with the carpets wet we decided it was probably wise to get everyone out of the house so that we didn't slip walking from wet carpet to tile.  She fell asleep halfway through, and with enough hands to hold her (not so happy just sitting in the carseat), we'd say it was quite successful.  Although, at one point, Zachary got a hold of the camera and his parents degraded into making ridiculous faces for amusement....

Yikes - what a face!



Hopefully not a face that we see very often!



Phrase of the week:  Amy had a funny conversation with Kaleb this week while putting him to bed that made her laugh out loud:

Kaleb:  When I'm big, I'm going to have a big house, and I am going to feed my baby a bottle.  I'm also going to have an oven and bake!  Will you be the grandma? 
Amy:  Yes. 
Kaleb:  Who will grandma be? 
Amy:  The great-grandma.  
Kaleb:  Who will the mommy be? 
Amy:  Ugh - do you mean who you will marry someday? 
Kaleb: Yes.
Amy:  I'm not sure - we'll have to see who God picks for you. 
Kaleb:  Well....maybe it will be Braelyn.......or maybe Calleigh.......we'll just have to see! 
(These are two of the few girls in our extended group of friends.  Kaleb has been very enamored lately with Braelyn, and of course Calleigh was the girl who he bestowed his very first kiss to as the entire group of kids played "marriage"!  The Z parents would be happy with either pairing - perhaps we should contact their parents and begin the process of an arranged marriage?!  Ha ha!
By now, Amy is laughing so hard she can't even come up with a reply - I guess we'll just have to see Kaleb!

Canada's Overlooked Gem

Imagine our surprise when we looked at the newspaper and saw an article about Canada!  Then, our jaws dropped when we realized that they were not talking about British Columbia, Ontario etc but rather.....wait for it.....Saskatchewan!!  Karis' chest puffed up with pride when he read the article, talking about all of the beauty in the province and reasons why folks should visit!  It puts his home province in a whole new light!

Zachary continues to amaze us with his reading ability - he is able to read just about anything, and has improved his rhythm and cadence of reading - so that is sounds smooth instead of halting etc.  He is really enjoying reading books, and Kaleb is benefiting by having big brother read to him! :)  Blake is also reading, and one day after school they were both here, and it was so cute - they were sitting in a chair together reading and when Blake would come to a word that he wasn't entirely sure on, he would ask Zachary what the word was.  Zachary would look, tell him the word, and they'd both move on with their respective books.  What teamwork between good friends!

Addison has now graced her tired parents with going 7 hours at night between feedings for two nights in a row!  Yahoo!  Fingers crossed that it continues.  She is a little fussy in the evenings, so we're waiting for that to subside as we remember this being a passing phase with the boys around this same time.  We had her newborn pictures taken last Sunday, and we're anxiously now awaiting to get the pictures back.  Hopefully they turned out well,  as she was a bit crabby during the session.



Sleeping with Grandma

Phrase of the week:  This is actually the daily phrase now for months - but to capture a "favorite" during this time, Zachary LOVES to listen to bible stories on CD.  We had the Our Bible Story Hour, but a friend of ours told us about another larger set of stories.  Zachary is starting to know his stories better than his parents!  We put a CD player in his room, so he lays on the floor every day listening to the stories.

Daddy poured in some bubbles....perhaps a bit too many, but much to the boys delight!

Angel Baby

Knowing that these days fly by in a blur of sleep deprivation, headaches and general desperation, we wanted to record a bit of Addison's easy-going nature.

She is still sleeping much of the day, and often goes to sleep independently without a lot of fuss.  So easily in fact that we have started sleep training early - focusing on transitioning to the ability to just put her down when she's drowsy and have her go to sleep on her own.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't!   The crazy thing, is that she'll stop crying so you think "Great, she's asleep" but when you look on the monitor you realize that she's just in there hanging out in her crib!

She continues to love her bath, and chills out in the water without nary a cry.  A bigger "REALLY?" moment is when we put her down on her stomach on the floor for tummy time, and she lays there very happy and contented!  Neither of our boys did that, that's for sure! 

In terms of eating, she has made progress!  She was able this week to actually nurse enough to get a full feeding - only twice, but we'll take it.  This is a major victory for Amy, because the idea of being 100% connected to the pump for the next 11 months was not ideal.  Even though she may still primarily pump (lesson learned from our experiences with Kaleb), it is such a relief to know that we have the option of going out and not having to take a pump with us.  When she eats, she still has trouble keeping all of the milk in her mouth, so she's still a bit 'leaky.'  On the upside though, she almost never spits up - and doesn't seem to mind if she doesn't get properly burped after drinking a bottle!  She inherited Amy's swallowing challenges and often chokes and sputters on her bottle as she's drinking - in a similar manner to Zachary.

She has started to consistently grace us with 4.5 to 6 hour stretches at night, and goes back to sleep immediately after eating without having to be rocked for an eternity like Zachary did (Kaleb was also a champion sleeper, so she seems to be taking after him!)  She has also reached a 'whooping' 9 pounds this week! She's starting to fill out a bit of chub on her face and body - so precious!

The life of Riley - eating, and dead asleep with arms flung wide open!

In our announcement email, we had shared that she had brown hair and brown eyes.  She still has loads of brown hair, but we're no longer sure what color her eyes will be!  They're kind of a really dark blue right now - and we stare into them trying to figure out what color they will ultimately be to no avail!  Sadly, right now she has short eyelashes but we have fingers crossed that they'll grow longer - that would be so unfair if the boys had long eyelashes and the girl in the family did not!  Kaleb started off with shorter eyelashes as well, so we aren't panicking yet! :)

In other news, we head off on Sunday to do her "newborn" - aka 6 week pictures.  We are praying that everyone cooperates and we can get some great pictures! 

The informal 1 month picture!

Zachary had an 'incident' at school this week - when according to his story, he was VERY close to a very pretty little girl - smiling at her.  Someone watching thought that he was attempting to KISS the little girl, so he was pulled aside to have a discussion about what is appropriate etc.  He adamantly insisted on his innocence - both to his teachers and to his parents when he arrived home!

Phrase of the week:  Charismatic Kaleb again hits a home run for laughter when he very soberly looks at Grandma and says 'Grandma, you're a rooster!'  "What, Kaleb?"  "You have that hangy-down thing on your neck like a rooster!"  Amy of course was aghast, but Grandma just started to laugh - the joys of growing old and having your face and neck become a little "looser!"  Thank goodness for such a good-natured Grandma - we are lucky! :)

Out and About

Now that life is settling into some kind of routine, we're starting to venture with Addison for errands out of the house.  In fact, she had her very first trip to the mall! Of course we had to document this trip as it'll certainly be one of many such trips to the mall in her life! :)  It was the swanky mall in town - why start off with the ho-hum mall when you can go to the fancy one!? :)

The boys accompanied Amy on an errand to a baby store as well, and were big helpers carrying the boxes of diapers out to the car! Unfortunately, Addison is now growing so quickly (8 lbs 13 ounces today!) that we may just outgrow those diapers before we can use them all - Amy is praying that doesn't happen, because that would be a sad waste of money as she opened the boxes and threw them away, so no cannot return the unused diapers (not smart!)!

Even though we are in the middle of summer, the evenings have been nice enough that the boys have been asking to eat supper outside.  When not much exciting is going on, anything can seem like a special occasion! :)

As always, Karis wins the Daddy of the Year award, but this was once again confirmed when Amy walked into the living one day with the boys uproariously laughing and jumping in and out of a huge box that the rocker for the baby's room had arrived in.  Hearing Karis' voice, she realized after a minute that in fact Karis was playing with them, and he was INSIDE the box!  Amazing - hope these boys realize how lucky they are!



Karis is underneath Kaleb in this picture, on the left hand side.

Addison continues to be a super easy baby - how did we get so fortunate!  She is starting to sleep 4-5 hour stretches at night on a more regular basis, and is a very contented baby.  We're thankful that she's gaining weight quickly now, even though she still doesn't nurse enough and Amy has to pump and feed a bottle.  Oh well, it's the breast milk that is the important part of the equation!


Addison enjoying some tummy time with her brother (amazingly, there was no crying with tummy time!)

Phrase of the week:  This actually was something that Zachary's kindergarten teacher shared with us - "He is a very energetic little boy (yes, we know!) and is a natural born leader."  She also went on to say that he was very well behaved and worked independently in class.  We had never thought of him as a leader, so this was bringing out a new aspect of our son's personality!  We are proud of him as he starts his school journey!  He is the best reader in the kindergarten class, so she's challenging him with reading more advanced books, which we're very pleased with!

Normalcy?

Life is settling into a routine now in the Z-household.  Addison actually had a couple of nights this week when she slept for 6 hours straight between feedings!  This is just amazing at 3.5 weeks!  Amy has been feeling "not too bad' (at the risk of jinxing ourselves) as she's been able to get 3-4 blocks of sleep in between late evening and during the night - we're hoping that this trend continues!

We had a special treat this week when our friends, Allen and Tangie Isidro came over with Braelyn (the twins were with the grandparents) to bring us supper.  It was delicious of course, as Allen is a super cook!  We've been gobbling up the leftovers ever since.  It was such a nice evening to visit with friends over good food.  The kids had a grand time playing, even spending some time out in the pool during a downpour - most likely a rain band from Hurricane Isaac!  Oh well, if you're already wet, what difference does it make?



What a blessing to have such friends - the Mexican food was DELICIOUS!


We finally received the last piece of the baby's room - the rocking chair.  We decided to get a new rocking chair - one that could recline and was higher in the back so that we could more easily rest our heads on the back.  Unfortunately, the chair is a bit smaller than we anticipated, but as it was a custom ordered chair - there's no looking back now.  But, it is fun to have the room completely finished!  It is a butterfly theme, along with flowers etc to have a bit of a garden feel to it.

Now that Addison's umbilical cord has fallen off, she has experienced her first bath.  She was as calm as could be, enjoying every moment of it!  This seems to be her personality in general - she's very calm and peaceful thus far!  Fingers crossed that it continues!



Bath-time, a family affair



Warm and dry!



As always, we like to take pictures of the Z-babies each month with the same bear, so that we can see how much they've grown and changed over the year.  This is Addison's "zero" month picture! :)  Our friend Jennifer put us onto a site where we could get stickers for her outfit, so that it would be easy to see how old she was each month - what a great idea!

Phrase:  The phrase of the week came during Addison's bathtime, when Kaleb leaned close to her while she sat lounging in the water, and whispered "Be brave, baby, be very brave!"  Apparently he thought she'd be scared!  So precious!

Sleeping like a baby :) ....so peaceful