Christmas Fun

What else could this week's post be about other than Christmas!?  This was the first year that both boys were super excited about Christmas presents, and spent the days leading up to Christmas looking at the presents under the tree, figuring out which one was for which child etc.  They did very well though - no shaking, no trying to peek etc.  On Christmas day, they impressed us even further by waiting very patiently for Grandma to come over and Addison to wake up before diving into their presents!  There was much shouting with excitement as they opened their presents.  Addison of course just watched the goings-on with interest, but not much else! :)

Zachary's two favorite gifts were the Bible that his Grandma got him and the wallet that his Gram-Z and Papa-Z got for him.  God and money.  :)  He has been reading his Bible a lot over the past few months, so this is great as it has more color pictures/maps as well as bigger font.  He went this week to the store in order to make his very first purchase - he was so excited and the store clerk was very patient.  He was so proud of himself!

Kaleb's favorite gift thus far is the much requested "playhouse" which is really a kitchen.  He apparently fell in love with the one over at Calleigh and Aubree's home, and had begged for one here.  He has been "cooking" with it ever since, and talking on the cell phone that came with it - great imaginative play!

Kaleb has made progress with wearing his patch - he at least now is keeping it on for the entire 2 hours - even though there is usually at least one time during the duration where he begs to take it off.  We've made the rule that only Mommy or Daddy can actually take off the patch, so that is helping at least a little bit.

Phrase of the week:  "What in the hoots!?" - this is now a common phrase that Zachary uses.  We have no idea where he came up with this phrase though!  What is funny is that about 10 years ago, Amy used to say "What in the hootenanny" - but hasn't used it ever in front of Zachary.  But, apparently Mommy and Zachary's minds must work alike to come up with a very similar exclamatory phrase! :)

Family portrait - complete with Addison's "My First Christmas" pjs!

I'm a Pirate!

Those were the words Kaleb uttered while arriving back from the eye doctor appt that he and Zachary had gone to that afternoon.  Reality translation - Kaleb has a lazy eye that his brain has basically turned off because its vision is so much worse than the other eye (0.75 in the right eye, and 2.50 in the left eye).  With turning off that eye, he has very little depth perception and the very real possibility of going legally blind in that eye if the situation isn't turned around.  We are clearly not going to let that happen if we have anything to say about the matter - and thankfully as parents we do!  The doctor has prescribed wearing an eye patch for 2 hours a day for a month, as well as eye glasses, and then he'll go back to the doctor to see what progress has been made.  We are praying that this works quickly and thoroughly, and from our online research, it does appear that if the lazy eye is identified before the child turns 5, that the chances of a full recovery is highly probable.  Thank God.

This rocked our world a little bit this week - both Amy and Karis grew up with glasses but neither of us had a lazy eye nor did we get glasses until we were about 11 or so.  Kaleb is excited about the glasses (he wanted blue ones!) but is definitely not thrilled about the eye patch.  Enter bribery (hey, don't judge us, we'll do whatever it takes! :)) - so if he wears his patch, he gets a piece of gum.  We've just finished Day 2, and it does appear to be getting slightly easier to get him to wear it.   The first day was heartbreaking as he cried saying "Throw it in the garbage, I can't see!"  So as you read this, if you'd offer up a prayer that this will quickly resolve itself, we would be very grateful!

Having company seems to make it a little easier, and Zachary oddly WANTS to wear a patch too!

In another story of medical miracles, our friends Will and Heather took their five-month-old son Devin down to Tampa on Tuesday for open-heart surgery.  He was born with a heart defect that typically requires two corrective surgeries - the other one thankfully though won't be until he's probably an adult (update: surgeon is saying that Devin may NEVER need the second surgery!).  He had his surgery on Tuesday morning, and has made miraculous progress - so much so that after only 5 days, he's been discharged home today!  We serve a mighty God, don't we?

Devin from a few weeks ago

Last Friday, the boys had a field trip to SeaWorld so spent the day cavorting around the park - having a grand time.  They went through an educational session in the beginning but the rest of the day was devoted to sheer fun!

It's been a busy week, because both Kaleb and Zachary had Christmas programs (gymnastics and school, respectively).  Zachary's school had Colonial day - he was a super cute Colonial boy!  There was a lunch and then afterwards a little market where they could buy/sell items.  Karis was able to attend both events, and Amy was able to slip over for the lunch. 

Phrase of the week:  Tell us a "Stinky Pajama Gang" story!  The stinky pajama gang is comprised of Zachary, Kaleb, Adam, Luke, Blake, Evan, Cole, Kieran, Devin, and Eric.  The adventures are all captured within Karis' brain, and the boys love to hear what grand fun they'll come up with next!  Even Mom gets a chuckle now and then from the tales!

Look at the smile!  Look at the dimples! :)

One of Amy's favorite gifts each year come from Jenn - this year is no different - how cute are these MistleTOES!?

Backpack Bear

Last week, Zachary had the good fortunate of being responsible for his class' "Backpack Bear."  Backpack Bear was to accompany Zachary on his many adventures over the weekend, much to his delight, and then Zachary would document in Backpack Bear's diary all of the fun that they had.  Zachary took him to look at Christmas lights, Legoland (wow!), singing at the nursing home with Adventurers and showed him his room.  He had quite a lot of fun with it, and Kaleb was eagerly awaiting when he'd go to school and have his chance!

Daddy took the boys on a field trip with the school to Legoland, which was a whole day of fun.  They rode most of the rides, thanks to very little lines, and enjoyed being with their friends and classmates.

Addison is beginning to reach for things very actively now, and has been tugging on her car seat toys - one of them will pull out and then it retracts again making a buzzing sound, and this seems to be fascinating her lately.  She also has been rolling overy frequently from her back to her front, and Daddy was witness to even the harder accomplishment of turning from her tummy to her back!  This has not been repeated, but it would pretty impressive anyway!  She is four months old now - the time is flying by, which is both sad and joyous.  We want to savor each moment, but it will be so nice not to have to breastfeed anymore!  Amy counted the other day and has 300 ounces in the freezer, thus giving her a little comfort that even if the continual struggle to keep her milk supply up does at some point decrease, that we should be able to get her to somewhere between 6-8 months on solid breastmilk before introducing food to add in extra calories.   Yippee!

 One thing that we forgot to mention (thanks for the reminder Aunt Ev!) is that we found our little camera!  It was found at the last of Connie and Dennis' visit (it has been left in their room when Amy had gone in there the first night to make sure that all of Kaleb's toys were picked up etc).  We were very thankful for that!  The picture below is one of the pictures that we took with it immediately after it was found - it is a beautiful bear quilt that Gram-Z made for Addison as a baby gift. The back is a super soft pale pink (used in the 4 month picture above).

 Apparently last week Amy was feeling particularly lazy with the blog because there were many activities that we did not record!  We had gone two weeks ago over to Hilliards to participate in their community's annual Christmas parade, complete with the community horses!  The kids were all on decorated bikes (thanks to Heather H's creativity!) so it was quite cute.  They came back to the house afterwards and decorated sugar cookies.

Addison hanging out with Daddy while the rest of the kids got their bikes all ready for the festivities

We also took the opportunity the last weekend that Gram-Z and Papa-Z were here to have Cochrans over, as they've all known each other since we were all in college.  During the evening, we realized that we had never taken a picture of Devin and Addison together - they're only 5 weeks apart!  Poor Addison is not as strong yet as Devin in keeping her body upright, so she is a little slumped over in this picture!    We're hoping that these two will have as much fun together as their older siblings Kaleb and Kieran!

Phrase of the week:  Suck it up buttercup!  This is actually a Daddy phrase - when he's tired of listening to the whining and complaining from two certain boys.....  Another memorable moment this week was when Zachary shared "I got a goal!!"  This was a very proud moment indeed when Zachary announced to Mommy when she got home that he had scored his very first goal (in the very last game!) of soccer at the FLEEC intramurals.  He was proud as punch, that's for sure!  How exciting!

Three Month Photo Session

This week is dedicated to Addison's 3 month photo shoot - we ended up getting a Groupon for Pwnage Studios where we could get the CD of all of the pictures (LOVE Groupon! :)).  Two photographers came to the house, and we were able to get some cute pictures.  She is growing so quickly, so we are thankful to be able to capture these moments!  She still has blue eyes (not yet showing signs of changing!), and her hair is brown with some lighter glints in there, so who knows what her hair will end up.  In her list of accomplishments this week, she has learned to roll over from her back to her tummy (only going to the left side though!).  She still loves to blow bubbles with her lips, and is beginning to reach for the things above her when she's on the activity mat.

Miss Gianna Mae

We are excited to announce the arrival of our niece Gianna Mae Zbaraschuk to proud parents Korey and Rachel.  She arrived on December 8 at 4:05AM - the interesting to note is that is Gram-Z's birthday AND the oldest Zbaraschuk grandchild Miss Emily!  What are the odds that in the group of 7 cousins that two of them would share a birthday with their grandma!  Wow!  She was 7 lbs 14 ounces and 21 inches long.

Thankfulness

It was truly a Happy Thanksgiving in the Z-household.  We have been very blessed this year with the birth of Addison, happy healthy kids (did we just jinx ourselves by saying that?), and a visit from the Z-grandparents!

Some serious soccer action with Papa Z!

We started off last Thanksgiving holiday with a yummy-to-the-tummy meal over at Johnsons, along with Deiningers, and our whole clan.  There were 15 in all, as Kent's parents were there, Karis' parents and Amy's mom.  It was their inaugural time using the dining room table, so that was exciting.

Kaleb holding Eric in a pretend "side-car" as Luke pushed them both around!

The next day, Karis and the fam, sans Amy and Addison, headed off to meet the Cochrans and Johnsons at the corn maze.  It's our third year of attending and the corn was so short this year that it only was about 5 feet tall - not too hard to do the maze in those conditions! :)  Faithful readers of this blog may remember that last year at the maze, Kaleb was doing the zipline and slammed the end - after which he lost a line of hair.  This year when he talked about going to the maze, he very soberly informed Amy that he was "not going on the zipline, because I don't want to lose my hair!"  Apparently he too was traumatized by the experience as much as Mommy was, because he remembered it all on his own!

Zachary flying along on the zipline - and Kaleb came next even with the trauma of losing his hair last year (although of course Mommy had given Daddy STRICT instructions that he would stand at the end of the zipline and catch each child before they could hit the end of the zipline - to save the hair at all costs!!!)

A Papa-Z's delight - Kaleb on a tractor!

How do we say PROUD - Kaleb catching his first fish!

Sabbath we put our on party hats again to celebrate William's birthday out at the park .  Jenn made a yummy cake - mmm, mouth is still remembering how delicious it was.  The kids had fun playing and we were off in a separate isolated section of the park, so it was quite private which was fun.

Addison and the birthday boy!

Hanging out with our daytime Mommy!

In true Karis "Mr Productive Man" fashion, he decided that with his Dad here, he would tackle painting our house.  We kept it the same color - who are we kidding, the Z's take forever to make decorating choices (or not at all) and who wants to have to get permission from the HOA board?  It was just easy to paint it the same.  He got a paint sprayer, and between his Dad taping and his spraying, they finished the majority of the house (except for the trim) in one day.  Major difference from the last time that we did it where it took 8 people working all day, plus Karis working on other days to tape and prepare the house.  So, the sprayer seems to be a winner!

The boys needed to clean up some paint off the driveway, so were getting water for their bucket one tiny glassfull at a time!  Ha ha - it took forever before Mommy took pity on them and got a hose! :)

Last weekend, we also put up our Christmas tree - which is wild excitement for the kids.  They were really excited about putting up the Christmas ornaments.  It marks the beginning as well of the nightly "Christmas Light Pageant" as Daddy and the boys drive around looking at various Christmas lights on the homes.

Phrase of the week: Mommy, I just LOVE pulling out my teeth!  Please Zachary, don't pull them out before they're ready - how will you eat!!? :) Zachary has now lost his third tooth - top right one - he yanked it out all on his own! Kaleb's constant phrase this week has been "I am going to bake with Gram-Z!  What fun!


Zachary has now lost three teeth - looks like a hockey player! :)

Notice that Kaleb has on his protective eyewear for the serious business of baking butter horns with Gram-Z!