David & Goliath

Zachary has thus far been one that hasn't engaged in a lot of creative role-playing, and is much happier reading books or doing tasks (cooking, mowing etc) or playing sports (latest obsession is Frisbee!).  However, his favorite Bible story seems to be shaping up at the moment (ever changing by the moment!) to be David & Goliath.  He loves to pretend that he's Goliath, and has confiscated two wrapping paper center rolls (wrapping paper all gone of course) to become "swords" for he and Kaleb.  He runs around the house shouting "I am Goliath!" and then laughs a maniacal laugh that is on the David & Goliath DVD that we have.  We parents are now realizing that we have perhaps gone astray with David & Goliath as he seems to becoming more aggressive with it - so we've instituted a week-long "Goliath-free" week to hopefully fix our ails.  But we are pleased to see the creative role-playing going on, so there is a bright side!

Last week we had a real treat when Amy's Aunt Marge and Uncle Melvin came to town.  They are some of our favorites, so we were thrilled to visit with them for a bit.  Uncle Melvin won Zachary over by the end of the visit by wrestling with him - what more could a boy ask for!

Aunt Marge & Kaleb looking at colors & letters - he's much better with the letters than the colors! :)

After the wrestling match

We had the AHS Christmas party last Sunday night at Mickey's Very Merry Christmas.  Against our better judgement we ended up going even though it would be a horribly late night.  The lines were very short, and the kids had a fantastic time as you'd imagine.  We road Dumbo, the carousel, the "It's a Small World," Winnie-the-Pooh, and the Car ride (there is surely a name but we can't remember it!).  The Car ride was the favorite as the kids got to "drive" the cars - Zachary has been talking about it all week.  We ended the night with the parade, free hot chocolate & cookies, and then the fireworks before scrambling to leave before the masses all had the same idea.  We spent the evening with the Hilliards and we really had a wonderful time even though the kids were up too late.  Thankfully, they haven't gotten sick from the experience, so perhaps we dodged a bullet there!  Zachary was so enamored that he refuses to take off the Disney pass bracelet, so we've negotiated that he'll take it off when Gram-Z and Papa-Z arrive this week!

Getting ready to drive his very first car - so proud!

 The Disney castle is in the background, all lit up with Christmas lights!

It is hard to believe that it is Christmas in one short week with SO MUCH to get done!  Sadly, we haven't even started the annual Christmas letter, but there is still a chance that we'll get it out on time now that we've gone "green" with the e-letters! :)  Whew!  Karis' parents come on Monday, so the kids are very excited about Gram-Z and Papa-Z coming!  Auntie Kelli gave the boys some presents last night, so now they're definitely in the 'spirit' of Christmas and are now asking whether they will have any more presents (never fear kiddos, there will surely be one or two more....)

Phrase of the week:  "I am Goliath" really has to be the phrase of the week, with Daddy's response of  "Zachary, you're 'betting' on the wrong guy in the story!" as the other funny phrase!  All the adults in the room laugh when Karis says this of course, but it doesn't seem to phase Zachary yet.  Kaleb's phrase is "LIGHTS, Mommy, LOOK LIGHTS!!!"  We drive around each evening before supper to see all of the Christmas lights, and Kaleb is non-stop shouting the whole time with excitement over the lights.  Karis actually bought one sorry string of lights for our front bushes as well to please the Z-children, so after Christmas is over and the sales are on, we'll have to beef up our lights-display!

Time of Worship

We received an unexpected invitation this week from a coworker of Amy's to join his family for a special dinner and Christian concert on Friday night at his church to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their church's organization and of the Christmas season.  This is not an Adventist church, and we had never been before, but we were honored to be invited so accepted the invitation.  It turned out to be a very touching, special evening.  It was wonderful to join in a church's celebration of their years of worship - and the church was incredibly friendly and warm with folks greeting us and initiating conversations.  The grand finale of the evening was the Christian artists of Meredith Andrews and Josh Wilson. They were both amazing, but in very different ways.  Meredith had a great mix of Christmas and general Christian songs, and this fantastic voice.  She could make the song itself an expression of intense worship, and it was very moving.  Josh Wilson was more light-hearted, but incredibly talented musically.  He was alone (aka no band members) but he with his acoustical guitar he became a one man band with a "foot loop".   This machine sat on the floor and he could push buttons with his foot as he was playing music, and anything that he had just been playing would then repeat itself and he could in essence build "layers" to his music.  So as he would play his song he could add "drums," background melodies, harmonica etc etc.  Totally amazing.  It was a wonderful way to really begin the Christmas season. 

Just to wrap up last week's blog - Heather came over and listened to Kaleb's lungs on Saturday (during which he had spiked another fever that afternoon) and felt that "something" was going on his right lung.  This coupled with the fact that he was coughing so hard that he was making himself throw up, Amy then bundled him up and took him to Night Lite Pediatrics.  They were fantastic, and took a chest x-ray of him as well.  They confirmed that in fact something was going on in his lungs, although they weren't sure if it was pneumonia or just inflammation from the virus that he'd had.  The big shocker was that he had TWO ear infections, one of which was quite bad.  Thanks for nothing - that just makes a parent feel fantastic to know that your child has been in pain and you've done nothing.  He doesn't pull at his ears, so you just have no idea that something is going on unfortunately.  Thankfully after some breathing treatments and antibiotics to tackle the lungs and ears, we're all back to somewhat health!

The poor patient

 Listening to himself with Auntie Heather's 'toy'

Phrase of the week:  Karis says to Zachary - "what do you think that we should get for Mommy for Christmas"  Zachary:  "How about let's buy her a (baby) monitor to put in MY room so that I can see when SHE is sleeping."  Karis - well, what else would want to get her?  Zachary:  "How about let's buy her a frog humidifier for her room when she's sick."  Karis: "Do you think that we should buy her a book?"  Zachary:  "No, she has one".  Ha ha ha - just too funny on many levels, these conversations are hilarious!  Kaleb's word this week is "Ta" which is the shortened version of "ta-da" that we mentioned a while back, but apparently he's decided that the "da" portion is just unnecessary!  He loves this word though and will use it throughout the day to bring your attention to anything that he thinks is particular special.

The "Unhappy" Ending to Thanksgiving

Yikes, we ended a Happy Thanksgiving with a packed weekend of fun as we mentioned...but it quickly went downhill from there. We had a great time Saturday night with the Johnsons and Cochrans putting up the Christmas tree. With the three little boys - Zachary, Kaleb and Kieran - it was really fun to see their excitement. Zachary has been obsessed with the tree ever since - and loves to sit looking at it.

However, that Saturday night, Zachary started to act a bit sick and his temperature had a low-grade fever.  We put him to bed early (which we KNEW that he was sick when he agreed to go to bed before everyone had left!), but he was definitely sick the next day with a fever, hurting head, and hurting stomach.  Apparently Amy has brainwashed him very well, because when someone asked him why he was sick, he answered by saying "Because I didn't take my afternoon nap on Thanksgiving day!" Ha ha ha ha (although you'd think that would mean he wouldn't fight the nap, but he still does!"

 Anyway, by the end of Sunday, we had two sick boys on our hands.  It has been an entire week of madness - fevers every day off and on (nights being the worst), hurting heads, nausea, stuffy noses, NO appetite (in fact the kids are visibly losing weight, although still drinking a lot of liquids thankfully), and even....puking.  Kaleb has puked three times, but the true trophy has to go to Zachary.  On Thursday night, Zachary was laying on the couch in pure misery, so Amy put a blanket underneath "just in case" he had to be sick.  Karis (who was now sick himself) felt cold and took the blanket to cover up with.....just in time for Zachary to puke all over the light yellow couch, and blasts of puke all over the carpet.  Amy wasn't upset with Zachary for puking, but the same can't be said for her sentiments towards Karis at that moment! :)  We had a carpet cleaner come the next day, and thankfully it looks like we won't have to be getting a brand new couch.

The kids are very slowly getting better, although Kaleb has quite a bad cough.  Daddy Karis is still suffering a bit, but thankfully Amy is keeping it together so far (mind over matter as this was an incredibly busy week and next week is her Corporate meeting week, which is a marathon from beginning to end).  We do wish that we'd be healthy again as this has been pretty miserable.

In other happy news, we wanted to take a moment in our blog to congratulate our dear friend, Kent Johnson, who has just accepted the CFO position at our nursing home division - Adventist Care Centers!  Very exciting, and well deserved!  Congrats Kent!

Jennifer's little boy Evan had surgery this week to remove a portion of an over-developed thyroid.  Thus, Amy had to find alternate childcare this week, which it ended up being a blessing with the kids being sick because they could stay at home, and in the mornings they didn't feel too bad. We've now discovered two lovely ladies to watch the kids for days when Jennifer cannot - Jessica and Morgan.  We're very thankful!

One weekend when Kaleb was over playing with Kieran, William took some fantastic pictures of him, which we wanted to include here below.

Phrase of the week:  Mama, I hurting!  AHH, give us anything to help fix the problem when a child says that to you!  Poor Kaleb was truly miserable and was following Amy around saying "Mama, I hurting!"  He has always been a snuggle-bug, this week he's been extra cuddly as he just wants to be held and comforted.  Zachary's phrase this week: I am sick because I didn't take my nap - why didn't everyone leave that day, I wanted to go to sleep - then I wouldn't be sick!  (ah, how quickly memories fade, Zachary NEVER wants anyone to leave, and certainly doesn't want to sleep!

Happy Thanksgiving

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving day with family and friends!  We had Amy's mom, the Johnson family, and the Isidros over for our Thanksgiving day.  It was quite fun - we had lunch at 12:30 and then kids then played all afternoon together.  We slightly miscalculated the time that it would take the turkey to cook (by an HOUR), so it was a bit stressful for a while.   Amy kept watching the meat thermometer, to which her mom aptly reminded her that "A watched pot never boils!"  All in all, it worked out so we ate about 1:30.

Kaleb was very enamored with the Isidro twins, and kept wanting to hold them.  Inevitably this leads to the Johnson adults egging him to tell Amy that he wants another Z-sibling! :)  Zachary had a fantastic time with Braelyn, and wanted to go to her house the very next day.

Black Friday usually is a non-event in our house, but Amy found a couple of deals that she wanted to take advantage of, so when Zachary came into the room at 5:50A, she just got up and headed out.  Can you imagine that at 6:30 when she got to the mall that the parking lot was FULL!  There were a couple of stores that she went into that had long lines, so she promptly left - she might be shopping on Black Friday, but nothing is worth that long of a line!  She did get a couple of things that she had gone for, so it was successful.

After the morning stint of shopping, we headed off to a local corn maze - the Long and Scott farms.  We've never been, but it was super fun!  Amy scored the tickets off of Groupon for 1/2 price, which was awesome.  We'll definitely go again next year.  There is a big corn maze, a mini corn maze (for the kiddos who have shorter attention spans), a tree maze, and then a whole adventure area for the kids to play in.  There was a putting green, play sets, a 60 foot slide, and........a zip line.  The zip line was a HIT, and Kaleb insisted on going as well - although Mommy was not too thrilled about this, Daddy insisted that he would be fine.  Karis ran alongside the swing as Kaleb was in it, so that just in case he fell that Karis could catch him, but Kaleb was a champ and never had a problem - but he had a HUGE smile on his face.  Zachary must have done it 5-6 times before we headed home.  The Cochrans came with us, so the kids all had fun playing together.

Amy actually went out shopping again after we got home down to Stride Rite in order to take advantage of their buy one, get one 50% off.  When you have to buy wide size's (Zachary), the only ones that we can count on are Stride Rite.  At the mall, they're about $45-50 dollars a PIECE (AHH, for shoes that they only wear for a few months!) - Amy just can't do it, so she braves the traffic periodically to go to the outlet mall.  Traffic was insane as you'd imagine with Black Friday, but she scored a parking spot pretty easily which was amazing - people were parked alongside the road for a mile from the outlet mall on a grassy shoulder!  Anyway, she did manage to get six pairs of sneakers/church shoes, so the trip was worth it because it was on average less than $20 per pair!  Yahoo!

Phrase of the week:  Kaleb was quite excited when he found out that Kieran was coming to the corn maze with us, and informed us "Kieran - REALLY fun!"  When we were headed back from the corn maze, we asked Zachary what his favorite thing was about the corn maze.  He clearly took that literally and thought only about the corn maze (instead of the adventure area with the zip line) and he said "Getting OUT!" Ha ha, apparently walking around amidst corn got a bit tiring for him!

Coming out of the bumpy slide on the burlap sack to make him go faster!

Going into the wind tunnel - this was appreciated after we were a bit hot from the corn maze to cool off!

Looking at one of the puzzle stations scattered throughout the corn maze

Posing in the corn

Trying out a teeter-totter

The zipline

Karis running with Kaleb on the zipline

This made Karis' heart happy - a tractor made out of hay bales!

Not a Moment to Spare

Every holiday season, it just seems like it is insanely busy - but every year we wonder how can it get so busy, did we imagine it last year?  Well, last weekend began the craziness once again of our holiday season - so hence no post because we didn't have time to sit down and write it!  Apologies!

We started off the weekend with Zachary (and many other little kids) participating in the church service at church.  The little kids were the "king's courtiers" bringing money to the church (we're fundraising to build a new parking lot at the church) - they all had costumes on, and then picked up the offering.  It was quite precious - and at one point Zachary and his friend Blake were standing right beside the pastor, and he had his hands on their heads - as if it was rehearsed, it was perfect for the "scene" at the king's court!

Immediately after that, we hurried over to the Bergherm home for their "Give Thanks" potluck - everyone brought over items for the Harbor House, which is a home for women and children. It was great fun to see everyone and visit. Jennifer is very crafty, and made a turkey cut-out for the kids.

That night, we began the "Celebrate William's 40th Birthday" extravaganza weekend. A group of of us went mini-golfing in the dark - which we haven't done in years, and it was quite fun. The glow in the dark venue was also something unique! We ended the evening with dinner at Cheesecake - how can that ever go wrong! :)

The next morning, Karis and I (thanks to Grandma) headed solo out for breakfast with a long-time friend, Tim Martin, who we haven't seen in years - he was in town for continuing education, so we had a lovely breakfast catching up with him. Not to waste a single moment, we then rushed from breakfast over to Zachary's final soccer game. They gave out little trophies to the kids after the game, so Zachary was pleased as punch! We'll sign him up again in after Christmas for the next season of soccer.

The kids were all lined up to receive their trophy, and Kaleb didn't want to be left out, so he ran over and sat beside Blake!

 The boys with their trophies

After the conclusion of soccer, we went over to the park for cake and ice cream for Will's birthday - this celebration was fun as the kids were able to participate. The gag gifts for Will were "princess" dress-up items. He was a very good sport and managed to put on all of the gifts that folks had brought for him!

 As soon as the cake festivities were over, we headed on home and began preparations for this year's Florida Hospital gala that night. This is always a fun event to get dressed up for a fancy night out. It was fun to see the folks who we sit with (they are lawyers from Chicago) - we've been blessed to sit with them now for three or four years, so it's great fun to sit with people that you know, because the evening is full of fun conversation and laughing. The food and the entertainment was not the best that we've ever had, but it was still a great evening out.

Whew - so last weekend was kind of crazy!  The week has been equally crazy with Amy having to work very long hours at work in order to prepare for a big meeting on Monday even in light of the short Thanksgiving week.

With that in mind - Happy Thanksgiving, and we'll try and do a faster job of posting this weekend!

Phrase of the week:  "My cah!"  Kaleb has always been much more interested in cars than Zachary has, and he has taken to going to bed with a little car.  When you go in the morning he's usually quite distressed if he doesn't know where his car is!  Zachary's question was "How did the angel get into the lion's den with Daniel if the door wasn't open!"  Auntie Kelli fielded that question as she was putting him down to bed - it sure makes you think about how to explain things that we've just taken for granted, and explain them in a way that a four year-old can understand!

Growing Up Too Fast

We've been told that the second child grows up much faster than the first one does (even when as parents we try and baby the second one...) and we can definitely attest to this in some ways with Kaleb.  Zachary for the first time started to go up at church for the story-time and would sit by himself listening to the story a few weeks ago.  After about two weeks of this, Kaleb decided that he was not to be left out of this, and so now at 2 1/2 he's also going up to the story-time!  Mommy goes with them, but she sits on the front pew while they sit up on the stairs - ready just in case Kaleb decides that he wants to wander around up on stage! :)  Thankfully this hasn't happened yet, although Kaleb does decide that he thinks other stairs look more interesting, so sometimes will move around during the children's story.  Harmless enough we tell ourselves!  He is also drinking out of a "big boy" cup at meals now as well (although he still perhaps isn't quite ready for this entirely as he tends to "dip" his utensils in the water instead of drinking it, and then invariably it spills everywhere if he's too vigorous!)

Kaleb is sitting on the left looking who knows where, and Zachary is sitting three kids to the right of Kaleb in the stripped sweater.

Zachary continues with his soccer league, and seems to be really enjoying it after a bit of a rocky start. The weather has cooled off, which helps him not to over-heat so much. It is amazing how much better the kids have gotten in only 4 games!  Zachary does still have a habit though of just kicking the ball in the direction that he's running - regardless of whether that's out of bounds or towards the OTHER goal! :)

Last weekend, the Adventist church school here, FLEC - had their Fall festival.  We took the kids after soccer and they had a blast with the firetrucks, ambulances, petting zoo, bounce houses etc.

Zachary on the fire truck looking at all of the levers

 Zachary inside the ambulance - we've seen enough of these to last a lifetime!

 Kaleb running through one of the bounce obstacle courses

 Zachary getting up close and personal with a duck

 Zachary and a baby goat having a little conversation (Kaleb was not interested in getting close to the animals or touching them, but he was intrigued from afar!)

Phrase of the week:  Ok - we all know that conversations like these will happen, but at FOUR???  So, Daddy was telling Zachary what he looked like when he was born and how bright-eyed and bushy-tailed he was.  Well, Zachary then looks at Mommy and says "Mommy, how did I get out of your tummy?"  Hmm, how to answer this......so Mommy says "I pushed you out" to which he says "What, do you mean like you pooped me out?"  AHHH - get us out of this conversation please!!!!!  Kaleb's phrase thankfully is benign and demonstrates how much he takes after his mother's love of peanut butter.  He has become obsessed with peanut butter, and asks for "appoes" so that he can have peanut butter, and he has figured out that he can just use the apple to get peanut butter up to his mouth to eat the peanut butter, forget the apple!  Well, he pointed to the peanut butter jar tonight and clear as a bell says "Pea-butter, I LOVE it!"  He then jams his whole hand into the peanut butter on his plate and shoves a huge glob into his mouth.  Yum - and his Mommy looked on wishing that she too was eating that peanut butter if it wouldn't all end up on her hips!!!! :)

Kaleb "flying" like a helicopter through the air with Daddy - oh what fun!

Drunk as a Skunk

This week, Amy quite possibly had her first "drunk" experience.  Never having imbibed a drop of alcohol in her life, this was of course a virgin experience and it happened through.....drinking too much water!  The caveat to this story is that we're not medical professionals, so it could all be made up, but the situation seemed to fit the explanation that we read on the internet later, so why not!? Never having heard of water intoxication before, this was a new term and while it can't be confirmed that is what she has, it makes for a nice title of this week's post! :)  Confession is good for the soul, so last Sunday Amy weighed herself to discover that she had gained a fairly big amount of weight in the last week'ish or so.  Horrified, she decided that it must be water weight, so decided to focus on drinking what used to be a normal amount of water when she was nursing (yet not nursing anymore, so perhaps a bit much...).  Amy loves to drink water, so this really is not a big deal. So as Monday went by, she drank about 5-6 large water bottles at work, along with a few other cups of water at home.  Sure enough, by the end of that day, she had lost 6 pounds!!!  CRAZY.

The next day, she just continued to drink the same 5-6 bottles of water, but noticed that as the day went by, she was not excreting the water and her head started to hurt, feel a bit lightheaded or "fuzzy," her stomach started to hurt and feel a bit nauseous, had hiccups at least 5-6 times in the span of a few hours, and her skin started to have a tight, "pulsy" feeling.  She got a wicked headache, so was pretty wiped out by that night. Odd.  By the end of the day, she had gained the same 6 pounds BACK!  The next day, looking at a glass of water made her slightly ill so she tempered her water intake, taking only about 3 water bottles throughout the day.  Her body seemed to recover from the wild swings of water that day and started to try and normalize itself out.  She's religiously been drinking the 3 bottles of water at work to try and keep a 'norm' for her body, and hasn't had a repeat of the experience - whew!

Last week we enjoyed having some friends over with their kids.  The children are all girls with the exception of baby Kohlden who is still a bit young to really play yet.  So, the whole "girls and boys" differences was very interesting to watch.  Our boys are quite rough and tumble, very rowdy, and very loud.  At one point, they were all on the back deck pushing each other back and forth in the cars, when Zachary bumped his car into the other little girl's car.  Now, just as an aside, this is quite normal for our boys - they'll often bash their cars into each other and then laugh uproariously.  However, this is not normal for this little girl, and she very seriously informed Zachary, "Zachary, that's BAD BEHAVIOR!"  Ha ha ha ha - too funny, we all cracked up.  We'll have to remind him of that in the future.  When they left, the same little girl walked up to him though and gave him a hug and a big kiss on the lips! So it looks like all was forgiven.  The kids seemed to have a fun time playing together, and of course much of this was due to Auntie Kelli who kept them entertained the whole time!

Yikes!!  Kaleb is playing with the barbies that Calleigh brought over!

Playing with the Thomas the Train book that makes sounds

 Duncan showing Karis the constellation app on his new smartphone, so they were figuring out what constellations were above our house (it has a GPS so shows you which ones are above your sky - very neat)

  This Elefun game rarely makes it out of the box, so it was nice that it was getting some use!

The weather has definitely turned winter-ish here in Florida with a high today of only 65 degrees. It was downright chilly going to church - brr!!

Phrase:  Kaleb's word this week to questions has become "cause" - as in "because" - so, it has started already with this one, so if you ask him why, he'll answer "cause."  AHH - even Zachary will say to him, "Kaleb, that's not an answer!" :) At least we've trained the older child well by this point! :)  Zachary's this week is actually just noting that he can count to 100, and he can also now count by 2s.  He LOVES numbers (counting, the time on clocks etc) so perhaps he'll be an accountant like Mommy or an engineer like Papa-Z!

Reading with Grandma a new story