Running the Corporate 5K

Wanna run in the Corporate 5K?  Ugh...Not in shape enough to do that.....  Want to get double credit for your work's annual community service AND wellness program.  Uhh YEAH!  So apparently you can WALK in the Corporate 5K and not have to run it, so Amy signed up this year to participate with fellow coworkers.  One special treat was the fact that Stephanie V made a special work-trip that week and was able to participate as well!  We had fun walking together!  Although it was kind of funny, the "walkers" didn't even get over the starting line until 18 1/2 minutes and the fastest runner finished it in 15 minutes - so before we even got to cross the start line!  The humiliation of it all!  Next year it may make sense to sign up as a runner even if you don't run the whole way - it'd be a lot faster!! :)  It was not the best Corporate 5K ever as it did actually rain for the beginning - not much fun standing out in the rain with water sliding down your face! :)

Stephanie, Amy, Laura and Gren

Amy and Stephanie - good to see you Steph!

Last Friday was our monthly get-together with the Cs, Ds and Js, and we did the gift exchange for the boys.  Kelli gave Zachary books, and before everyone even left he had sequestered himself into his room and started to read it.....by the next morning he had already whizzed through this book!

Diary of a Wimpy Kid....

After reading Grodack's blog (see, there are such good things that come out of writing a blog, you can give others ideas of things to do!!), we decided to try our hand at geocaching.  We headed out to the park with several families and started our treasure hunt.  We found two of the three hidden items, which wasn't too bad!  The boys though thought that we'd actually find "treasure" in there, so when it was just a list that you'd write your name on, they were a little disappointed (at least Kaleb was) in the beginning.  The next Saturday we did a couple more, and there WAS treasure in that one - although we hadn't brought anything to exchange so Kaleb insisted that we got back on Sunday and take something to leave so that he could get his rock "gem" out of the container! :)  How exciting can silly little junk toys be?  Apparently a LOT! :)

Finding the very first geocache

Kaleb can't take his eyes off the treasure in the bottle to smile for this picture....

Kaleb has started hockey skating lessons on Sundays (Zachary is in flag football again, so he's not in the lessons).  He is doing very well and has fun with the games that they play - the child of course thinks it is just a game of avoiding the mitt/puck being sent your way, but of course as they shift, lift their skates, turn etc, they're learning agility on their skates!  So cute to watch!

Kaleb's in the middle of the picture coming our way in the white jersey....

Addison has spent a week being sick - we thought that she had croup last Sunday night with the way that she was coughing and breathing, so we gave her a nebulizer treatment and had her sleep with us as we couldn't get her fever down (read:  Adult Z-s got NO sleep with her rolling between us!).  It has been a strange viral thing, as she keeps getting fevers one day, none the next, and then the fever comes back the day after, then no fever, then fever.  You get the drill.  Amy's mom has saved our bacon and watched her every day - we are so THANKFUL and GRATEFUL!

Last Saturday, Addison decided to dress herself for church (tired of waiting on Mom) - the dress is on backwards and the bow needs a little work in the hair, but other than that she did a pretty good job! :)

Addison never would take a pacifier as an infant, but she found one last week in the van and decided that she had to suck on it!

In other news, Kaleb lost his first top tooth!  He was wrestling with Zachary last week (it was loose already) and there was a collision and it began to bleed and was very loose... He got up the nerve to pull it out and now is just a one toothed man!

Last Saturday was kind of an odd day - the morning started off with the men going on their usual bike ride.  There was a technical snafu on one of the bikes, and the rider Rob (not Rob D) went down.  Unfortunately William was not able to avoid him, and thus he went down hard as well.  Both ended up needing medical attention although thankfully there ended up being no broken bones.  William had a very bad arm bone bruise and both had some serious road rash, but we were thankful that it was not worse.  That night, we headed over to William's to take his mangled bike back to him (Karis had the bike in his van as he took William to the ER for treatment and X-rays) and visited a while with them before heading on home.  As we drove home, we made a turn near our house only to see a dune buggy in the middle of the road with a man clearly injured beside it and another man on the cell phone.  Karis immediately got out to provide assistance, and determined that the two men had been out on a ride and took the corner too fast....resulting in rolling the dune buggy.  The one man had his seat belt on but the other did not (good life lesson here).  The man hit the windshield, and the dune buggy ended up on top of him as it rolled (as he was not strapped in) - thankfully the friend was able to roll the buggy off of him.  He very clearly broke his arm in two places and the ambulance was on its way.  Thankfully it seemed to be okay other than the arm - so it could have been worse.  But two road accidents in one day - enough already!

Random pictures:

Talk about a dog-pile....Karis is under there somewhere under these children! :)


 

Amy took Kaleb out one weekend to play catch with a soft ball - he has a tendency to hold his mitt flat instead of "up" and Amy is afraid that when she throws a hard ball at him that it will fly up and hit him in the face - the soft nerf ball worked pretty well for this session!  Kaleb doesn't love to play catch, so "mixed it up" a little bit by alternating between throwing with his right and left hands (he's a righty).  He didn't do too bad! :)

Let's hope Amy caught that ball....

While Amy and Kelly were skiing together at Big Sky, they did their very first "tree run" ever as they tried to follow Karis and the boys.  You'll notice that you can't even see Karis and the boys, so we clearly did not catch up to them.  Thankfully this run was very wide in terms of trees, so it wasn't hard to avoid them! :)

Phrase of the week:

Addison:  Mommy, I got the hic-sups!

Another Addison phrase:  Mommy, it's fie (five) o'clock!  That is her phrase to mean, it's time to get up mom!

Kaleb:  Mom, how much do you make?  Mom:  Enough for us to live.  Kaleb:  Well, if you ever need me to help pay for something, I can because I have money! :) 
Zachary:   Amy asked Zachary what he was looking forward to at family camp next weekend, and he said "I love family camp, I'm going to just play my heart out!"  Gotta love it when you know that your child is in the height of fun, playing his very heart out! :)

Kaleb's Big Day At the Tampa Aquarium!

Last Friday was Kaleb's 7th birthday (we can still remember when he was born 4 weeks early, so tiny he didn't even have a little bottom, and how can he be 7 years old now!)?.  Amy took cupcakes in to her class on Thursday, which he was excited to share with his classmates.  His teacher, Mrs. Monk, is SO AWESOME, we just love her so Amy enjoyed being able to catch up a little more with her.

Standing at the front while they sang to Happy Birthday to him.

Capturing the proof that Amy was there!

Vanilla cupcake with blue sparkly icing...

Playing chalk at school during recess

The next day, Amy took the day off for his actual birthday and we headed over to the Tampa Aquarium.  It is quite well-done and they have some nice exhibits there.  Of course the splash pad at the end was however the highlight of the whole experience....so the kids played there for well over an hour while the Moms visited!

The students that attended.

The alligator looks like it is eyeing Zachary....yummy to the tummy!

This one is more our size!

Not sure about touching him really...

Addi just LOOKS like she is going to touch the sting ray

But they did have fun touching these sea urchins!

A major fight broke out as they begged for the "dipping dots" - with the fact that there was going to be cake for supper, Amy said that they could get ONE and share it (yes, mean mother)....but of course the kids can't agree on a flavor to save themselves.  Finally Kaleb was allowed to decide, as it was in fact his birthday....so he chose the rainbow flavor.  When they sat down to eat it, Zachary had to concede that it was yummy and that maybe it was his SECOND favorite flavor (second only to vanilla! :))  Addison of course will eat anything!

Outside in the splash pad, Addison only wanted to play in the sand.  We bought a swim diaper in the gift shop and let her play to her heart's content with the boys splashed around in the water

Once again, proof that Amy was there! :)

We had an ice cream cake for supper that night for Kaleb...first time ever....the adults enjoyed it very much but he was only so-so on it .....go figure, he loves ice cream but apparently not when it is the cake itself!  We always let the kids blow the candles out as many times as they want, so once again they were almost half burned out by the time that we called it a day! :)

Zachary and Blake have been in a soccer league at FLEC (Karis is Zachary's team coach...yikes, the pressure!) so after the game one night we headed over to Tijuana Flats to grab a quick bite to eat.  The weather was beautiful so we enjoyed the outdoors!

Last week we forgot to include pictures of our dear friend Kelli's 40th birthday!  Amy and Kelli went out for 'coffee' (although no coffee was consumed) and then for manis/pedis.  It was fun to catch up! The next day we went with friends out to eat to celebrate her birthday at a Mexican restaurant. The funny part was that there were two pictures taken....Amy assumed that everyone would scrunch towards the middle so she leaned towards Rob....then she realized that it looked like she was WITH Rob, so she quickly learned towards Karis in the second picture so that she'd be paired with the right person! :)

Looking like she's with Rob....

Now leaning more towards Karis! :)

No Z-child's childhood would be complete without memories of riding around on Daddy's lap on the lawnmower.   It is now Addison's rite of passage.

A short ride....the lawn is just too big to ride around for the whole thing! :)

Phrase of the week:

Addison has started to respond very vehemently when her brothers are bossing her around...holding up her index finger straight in the air, shaking it at them, and sternly telling them off!  This week Kaleb was whining that she turned on the light too bright (he hates to get up in the morning, so she turns on the light in his room to 'help' wake him up) and she looked at him fiercely, put up that finger and growled "Addi no turn off the light!!"

Her manners are excellent these days, with many "thank you's and "pleases" without being prompted! Now if we can just keep the good string going! :)

Another Year Goes By

The Zs have been falling down on the job - the lack of consistent postings has been terrible lately!  We still remain committed to our blog though - life has just been really busy in the last few months and Amy's work schedule means that she's exhausted by Friday and hasn't had the "oomph" to get it all done! :)  

 

Two weeks ago, we had the boys birthday party - it was a rather low-key affair this year with a soccer and kick-ball game out at the park.  The fun benefit was that it did allow us to invite a ton of kids (that is the one downfall of having it at a 'place' - you are limited in the number of kids that you can invite!).  For the cake, the boys actually decorated their own cupcakes this year for the party, which they enjoyed (especially Kaleb, our sugar hound who spent a great deal of time licking his fingers!!)

 

Decorating the cupcakes

While the boys decorated cupcakes, Addison enjoyed getting to know the Ds cat "Patchy" from Uncle Rob's lap.

Safe in Uncle Rob's arms - she gets brave!

The day of the party was fantastic, slightly cool which was perfect for the outdoor games.  The boys had their traditional birthday shirts, which were athletic soccer shirts this year - perfect for running around.   Each chose their color etc, and their names/ages were on the back.

Can you believe they are 9 and 7!?

Birthday boys.

The younger kids started off with kickball while the older boys did soccer, and then halfway through the party we switched games.  Fun was had by all!

Kaleb about the wallop the ball

The big kids hard at a soccer game.

Later on, Kaleb took a leisurely turn in the net.

Soccer themed cakes.

The whole group, except Addison who was sitting on Amy's lap as the picture was taken.

Zachary's birthday is first, and last Thursday Amy took in cupcakes to his classroom which he seemed very pleased by.  There is a dancing bunny that sings Happy Birthday in his classroom, so that was quite a treat!  Friday Amy took the day off to spend with the kids to celebrate, and we took the opportunity to go to Congo River for mini-golfing with his chosen friends, which was really fun as Grandma was also able to join us. 



Birthday boy and the dancing bunny!

Peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes....

At his table - wearing the birthday crown!

The two birthday boys at Congo River

Addi does love her Grandma!

The entourage - Blake, Zach, Kaleb, Luke and Evan

That Friday evening we had the family birthday dinner, which is always a highlight as we enjoy getting together to catch up.  Kaleb enjoyed having some "snuggle-time" with Jeff!

Another cake....made by Grandma this time!

Kaleb received a "shaving kit" for his birthday, so he had to run and take a bath immediately!

Last weekend of course was also the Easter weekend (see how busy it can be???).  We took our annual family pictures in the morning (how much can we pack into one weekend!!) and then in the afternoon went to the Hilliard/Bergherm Easter party.  It was so fun to see folks that we see that often, and the kids just had a blast with the face painters, playing, and of course the Easter egg hunt.

 

So pretty!

Kaleb getting a blue butterfly....at least it was blue!!

The group about to start looking for eggs.

The Easter Bunny strikes terror in the hearts of all children under 3.  Addison just hadn't noticed it yet, and when she did, she came tearing over to Amy!!! :)  At least she wasn't wailing like the other small children! :)

Taking a moment to capture the memory

The family picture....starting to be a tradition! :)

We did manage to get a picture with the bunny, as long as it was Amy beside the bunny.  This year the honor of being the bunny went to Heather H, the host! :)

Next week we'll try and do another catch-up post to attempt to keep ourselves on track as this one is getting to be pretty long! :)

Phrase of the week:  Manna.  Addison's using a biblical term now to ask for a banana :)  She doesn't know how to say banana, but she does love them so she calls out for manna! :)