Welcome to 2017!

Um, where did 2016 go?  It is hard to fathom that we're welcoming in another year.  The years are flying by - how do we capture these moments in time and slow them down?

We had a fun time on New Year's Eve going over to Isidros to visit with friends and blow off some fireworks.  It was also a cookie exchange, which was very fun - we decided to do some Christmas baking and try some recipes that we hadn't done in years, so it was a bit experimental for the Zs! :)  Apparently the kids didn't mind because they have been gobbling up the leftovers!

Before the cookie exchange began...

So pretty!

3 Cookies for each platter

Cooking the hot dog by the fire

Umm....a little marshmallow....and a little on your face buddy!

After dinner and cookies, we set up to watch some fireworks thanks to William and Richard - they were lovely and we ended in time to be able to go home at a decent time (no watching the ball drop for the Zs)...although the local neighbors fireworks at midnight did keep us from sleeping properly....Oh well - apparently we're old!! :)

Watching the fireworks

Chatting with a few moms - thanks Tangie for the invite!

The rest of the weekend, we had lots of fun things going on - but first the kids decided that they needed to build the biggest fort of all time in our living room.....great fun!!

On Sunday afternoon, Jeff and Niesha came over for the afternoon, which is always fun to catch up.  Being from Canada, Jeff agreed to get into the pool with the kids (even while the other Canadian Mr. Karis refused to get in other than the hot tub!!).  They were so funny jumping into the frigid water (BRR!!!) and then they would come up gasping and start running in place to try and get  their blood moving again.  Thankfully they could warm up in the hot tub afterwards!

They're already gasping before they even hit the water!!

Kaleb eventually got brave enough to do it too!

GASPING FOR AIR!!!

The beauty of a warm hot tub afterwards!

That Monday Amy took the kids to the pediatric dentist - to have them give her the news that Kaleb's teeth are very crowded and that in order to give them the best chance of coming in we needed to pull two baby teeth on the top.   We wanted to give his teeth the best chance so we went ahead with it that afternoon.  However, in the intervening timeframe we went over to a friend's house to get some snow gear for our upcoming ski trips and while there, poor Kaleb was riding bikes with their little girl (impromptu) and managed to get their tires tangled and both bit it pretty hard (without helmets sadly, much to their mother's dismay) - he was pretty banged up from stem to stern. And then to have to go get his teeth pulled.....poor guy! Thankfully he is fine, we are very fortunate with how hard they fell.

Addison had a follow-up appointment with Amy's OB that diagnosed her initially with the lichen sclerosis - he is very pleased with her progress and said that she is doing very well with healing so we are thankful for that as well!

We were going through some pictures from the recent weeks and realized that we had missed putting some of our events on (must have been one of those weeks that Amy was delinquent in getting the blog written!) - so including a few of those now with only a brief recap:

Apopka Carnival:

She loves these jumping harnesses!

Trying out the big slide

Just swinging around...

The boys finished their first season of flag football together.  They really enjoyed playing together and the team / coach they have is just tremendous.  We had a great experience!

With Coach Darren

Giving her brother a hug to say well done!

Afterwards Zachary and Jordan had a race to see who was faster....Addison insisted on racing as well so you can imagine who did NOT win! :)

While they were on Christmas break, Miss Jennifer did some fun cookie decorating classes with them - they really enjoyed trying their hand at making some magical cookies....keep trying kiddos and we'll keep eating! :)  They also had some fun days out at the local park enjoying the cool weather!

Random pictures:

Addison loves to pose...where does she get this stuff from??

Kaleb's class doing a presentation at Adventurers

And now she knows how to take a selfie....

Addison phrase:  Mommy, my tummy hurts....I think that there may be a baby in there trying to get out!   Zachary then begins to laugh and says "Mom, you should put that on the blog!"  Gotta love it when the other family members start telling what should go on the blog! :)

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Doesn't that sentence just immediately make you want to start singing the song? It is a wonderful time of the year - we love thinking about gifts for others, the birth of Christ, and in general everyone is in a wonderful mood!  

We started off the holidays with a birthday for Jonny - it was at Rebounderz which was of course a hit with all of the kids!  They jumped until they were exhausted - always good for sleep! :)

Even little Addison was invited to come and jump - she was thrilled!  Happy birthday Jonny!

Amy's mom found out in the paper about a few houses in Orlando that had put out a TON of lights, so we headed out there on Thursday and Friday nights.  They were on the other side of town, so it was a longer trip but well worth it.  At the first house, "Santa" drove by and handed out gifts for the kids - specific to girls vs boys much to Addison's delight as you'll see later in the pictures.

a relatively small house but you could walk through the yard and literally every square inch was covered!

The other side of the house

So the gift that Santa handed out for little girls included some make-up.....much to Addison's delight and Amy's dismay.  Look at our little "warrior" all dolled up!!  Thankfully the make-up ran out fairly quickly

On Friday, the boys had a special treat when one of their friends invited them over to their grandparents house where they had built an American Ninja Warrior training obstacles - very fun - the kids had a blast - thank you Ty!

Kaleb making his way along the swinging rings

Zach doing the warped wall

and a zipline!

That night, we headed out to the second house - which was a larger yard and very interesting as well.  It was pretty - the kids loved it!

An Eiffel Tower!

On Christmas-Eve we had the fun time of going over to join our friends the Biris for a dinner and evening of fun.  They had a reading about Jesus' birth, and then later on we had wonderful food and hilarious games!

Jonny reading the Christmas Story of Christ's birth

Let the games begin!

For Christmas this year, we did a few things differently - the first is that we purchase stockings for each other and instead of physical gifts we put in "gifts of time" for each person.  We had fun sitting down and writing notes to each other - coloring them, writing a thought, and then writing out what we'd do with the other person for special "together" time.  It was a way of focusing on making relationships with each person in the family.

Making our gifts of time...

When Christmas dawned, we decided that some fun was to be had....or at least Karis did, and he surprised us all by doing face-paint all over himself to look like Santa!!  Whoa dude!

 Then the gift opening began...and with how many gifts there were, we decided to slow things down, keep the anticipation up, and allow the kids to play with each gift for a while by opening only 1-2 presents each hour instead of all of them at once.  The kids were excited all day long, and were able to appreciate the gifts that they did receive without getting overwhelmed.  It was a good experience, and likely a do-over!

I'd say she got a few presents....

Love these little dress-up outfits!

And finally, she has a girl bike vs a blue boy bike! 

No Christmas is complete without Christmas cookies - so Grandma and the kids had fun baking, decorating and spreading sugar from here to there!

Random pictures:

Apparently Karis' legs weren't feeling it that Saturday morning as he went for his weekly bike-ride! 

Here is our little sweet-heart!

Karis starting a tradition of going for a run with Kaleb while Addison rides her bike

Love these two!

where is our little boy going - he's growing too quickly!

Phrase of the week:  Amy was talking to Addison about going to bed one night while Addison of course wanted to stay up later....and Addison turned around to Amy, and calmly waved her hand in the air like a queen and said "Mommy, Slow on down, Slow on down..."  Ha ha -where did she learn that from!?  Hilarious and perfectly timed!