Happy Birthday!

This was officially our birthday celebration weekend!

Yesterday, we celebrated Amy's A. Louise and cousin Kathy's birthdays - Kathy's family had gone on a short cruise (how fun!) and on their way back to Tennessee stopped in to celebrate as both Kathy and A. Louise share the same birthday! It was quite fun to see everyone and visit even though it is always too short! We have discovered that Zachary definitely has a love for cake - when the cake came out, he jumped onto Grandma B's lap and grabbed her spoon away from her to dig in! So, it will definitely be up to us parents to keep the sugar consumption to a minimum as he definitely has found a liking (again, not hard to imagine with a mother who has a sweet tooth!)

A.Louise & Kathy about to blow the "2" candle out - sadly, this was the only candle in our house (clearly from Zachary's 2nd birthday) but we figured that it could represent 2 lovely ladies' birthdays! :)

Today, we zoomed over to a lovely park on this lovely day (read: 72 degrees Fahrenheit!!) to celebrate Cole H's third birthday. There were lots of folks at his party - both familiar faces and some new, so it was fun to have brief chats with people that we don't see very often. The one thing that we've learned with parenting is that there are no more in-depth conversations anymore - only brief ones with half-sentences as you try and keep up with the kids!

Picture of Zachary watching Cole blowing out his candles - the kids all had firemen hats on, so it was quite precious!

Karis' first week back at work went well - he is getting back into the swing of things. Amy has managed so far with the two boys by herself in the morning, and Kaleb is adjusting with no problems to being with Jennifer (babysitter) - Blake and Zachary have had a great time playing together again. Zachary however is exhibiting a hard case of separation anxiety as when he senses that Amy is about to leave, he gets up from whatever he's playing and runs over ---sobbing and grabbing her legs. It is very sad, but Jennifer says that it lasts for about 2 seconds once Amy's out the door, so that is a blessing.

Daddy with the two boys...

Playing horsey...

Phrase of the week: "It's delicious!" as Zachary dug into the cake with gusto! :)

We think that Zachary has a fascination with underwear - Mommy's, Daddy's, and his future Elmo underwear for potty training day to come - of course the underwear are never on his body in the right place - but hey, who says that underwear shouldn't be on your head!!?

Visit with the Gruias

As mentioned in our last post, we had the Gruias come to visit from Oct 2 - Oct 10th. Carmen and Amy became best friends way back in high school (and some days it really feels like WAY BACK! :)) and have kept in touch since. Carmen was accompanied by her husband, Ervin, and their two daughters - Anique (5 years old) and Ava (almost 3 years old - so just about 6 months older than Zachary).

We had a great time, it was such a wonderful visit to re-connect old friendships and and to get to know each other's families. The kids all did really well together - we weren't sure how Zachary would do as he not only would have to share his toys, but he had to give up his room (Anique and Ava slept in the bunk bed that is in his room, and Zachary slept in a pack and play in our master closet! :)) He did really well though - we were quite pleased for the most part. All of the kids loved the sand box and the riding toys out on the back porch - the little red car was the favorite. One morning, Zachary was out in his car 'driving' it around when Ava got up and joined him outside - where she pronounced "Get out of MY car!" Zachary calmly got out of the car and gave her the keys! :) Ha ha, the signs of a gentleman already! Ava was very precocious - she at one point was in her little dress and came out from the room, stopped in front of Zachary and asked "How do I look?" - poor Zachary, he just looked at her, shouted "BYE!" and turned and high-tailed it out of there! I guess that he doesn't know how to compliment the ladies yet! We laughingly discussed having an arranged marriage between Zachary and Ava - maybe not such a bad idea in today's society! :) Just teasing! The only point in the week when we thought that Zachary might be ready to have his space back was when he walked into his room one night, tried to climb into the crib and when Karis said "No, we're going to bed in mommy and daddy's room again tonight," Zachary responded by saying "No, go nigh-nigh here, close the door!!!"

Hey - that's my hat! :)

Having bedtime worship together - 'Uncle' Ervin is very entertaining as you can see from these pictures!

Carmen and Ervin were such easy guests to have, we told them that we could all try out communal living someday! Amy is always depressed when company leaves, but was especially sad yesterday when the house was empty again.

Zachary thought that the top bunk was great fun - the ceiling fan is going to be a problem we can see...

Zachary playing his first game of air hockey with Dad - a true Canadian at heart!

The week flew by with 2 trips to Seaworld, 1 trip to Magic Kingdom (the Zbaraschuks actually stayed home that day to give the kids a bit of a recovery day) and then 1 trip to Animal Kingdom. One trip to Monkey Joe's, 1 trip to the park, and 1 trip shopping for the ladies rounded out the rest of the time. The weather cooperated for the most part - the day at Animal Kingdom was quite humid but it could have been much worse than it was, so we were not going to complain!

Photo 1 - Seaworld had the Sesame Street characters - Zoey was a particular hit with Zachary and Ava although Zachary had his pictures taken with all of the characters!
Photo 2 - Anique and Ava enjoying the red car together.

Photos 1 -Like Father, Like Son! Isn't this picture too cute with Zachary sitting watching the water play with his Daddy!

Photo 2 - apparently the fun was too tiring for Zachary, he had to lay down and take a rest!

Re-energized, Zachary could start running around again!

On another note, Kaleb has hit a major milestone - he has started to sit on his own! Yippee for Kaleb! He had his six month doctor's visit this week in which was 16.5 pounds and 25.5 inches long. He continues to be about 2 inches shorter than Zachary at the same time period, so it'll be interesting to see if he is just starting off slow or if he'll remain shorter than Zachary over time.

This is the first time Kaleb has sat up on his own entirely - albeit a bit like the leaning tower of Pisa! :)

One of our favorite onesie's - it has a sheep face on the front with the words "Here a baa, There a baa, Everywhere a baa,baa.." and on the back it has a sheep's tail! Too cute!

It was just a wonderful time to catch up on memories, and there were both many lighthearted and conversely serious spiritual conversations that we had over the 7 days. It was also great to swap ideas on family-life, raising kids, and recipes. We were very blessed to have them here.

Next week we return to real life - which we are not looking forward to at all. Monday is Karis' first day back at work, so Amy will be all on her own in the mornings to get the boys up and out the door. She reminds herself that there are many single parents who do this on a regular basis, so it is just a matter of getting a routine! Life has been pretty easy over the last 3 months with not having to worry about morning routines, packing diaper bags and lunches and leaving on time. We were so very fortunate to be able to have Karis take off the three months, so we count that as a major blessing.

Phrase of the week: "You're all right, Kaleb" - Zachary said in all seriousness yesterday as we were driving around and Kaleb was crying. Clearly he listens to what his parents say because that was an exact parody of what we've said in the van to try and calm Kaleb down! Zachary is a little 'mini-parent!'

The Transition Begins...

This week has been a week of transition for little Kaleb. As we've described before, Amy has become addicted to the scale that allows her to know exactly how much he eats each time that he nurses (the lactation consultants at the hospital warned her that this would happen if she wasn't careful, and sure enough, it happened). This week after being particularly frustrated with Kaleb's lack of eating one night (frustration caused by the fact that the amount that he ate was not high enough according to the number) we have finally made the decision to stop weighing him (at least most of the time) and let the chips fall where they may. If he doesn't want to eat, then he doesn't eat. Thankfully this has not resulted in 2AM wake-up calls, which was the worry previously. So, with this worry now passed, life is a little less stressful - the phrase "ignorance is bliss" is very true (ignorance in the case of not having any real idea of how much he is eating while nursing now).

The scale was not the only "institution" to begin to topple over this week in Kaleb's life. The second was the swaddler blanket. He has slept so amazingly well all of this time with it that we've been loathe to give it up. However, realizing that Karis is about to go back to work and that he'll be at Jennifer's for his morning nap, we decided to start weaning him off of the swaddler blanket and see how things went. He has been taking all of his naps in a sleep sack now, and much to our delight he is still sleeping very well. The next hurdle will be taking off the swaddler at night, but we'll take it one step at a time.

The big excitement in our life is that Amy's dear friend from highschool (that she has remained close friends with all this time) - Carmen and her husband Ervin and their two girls - Anique and Ava - are coming to Orlando on Thursday for a week-long visit. We are so excited to see them as Amy hasn't seen Carmen for over 2 years so it will be wonderful to catch up and enjoy each other's company. The weather is cooling down nicely at this point, so we're praying that it remains lovely (in the mid 80s with fairly low humidity) while they're here.

As we'll have so much excitement going on next weekend, we'll try and make our weekly post but it may not happen - so if not we'll have an extra interesting (hopefully!) post the week after.

Phrase of the Week: Zachary's bedtime each night is 7:30P, and typically he falls asleep within 30 minutes just depending on how long his nap was etc - so during that time you can hear him rolling around and sometimes talking to himself. One night this week, we heard him start to yell about 10-15 minutes after he'd gone to bed so we stopped to listen only to hear him shout "I'M AWAKE!!! I'M AWAKE!!!" It gave us quite the chuckle - it was as if Zachary was thinking - "why am I in bed when I'm still awake!??!! Don't think that I'm sleeping in here mommy and daddy!!!"

Photo 1 - Zachary playing in Daddy's underwear - at one point he had three of them on!

Photo 2 - Zachary very intent on sweeping the floor in our bathroom - good little helper!

Zachary engaged in one of his favorite activities - being "body slammed" (aka being dropped) onto the bed

Kaleb beside a clay molding of his newborn foot - how he has grown in such a short amount of time! We took this picture because when we did the clay mold first place, we did not get a picture of his actual face - see original picture below.

We can see his little feet, but not his face....

Karis and Kaleb trekking around in the back yard with Kaleb in the sling

This and That

This week's posting doesn't have any main theme to it - just a bit of this and that!

Kaleb seems to be finding his own personality and although he is a very easy baby, he is definitely finding his "voice" - when he is displeased with his life in general he starts to cry in this shrill, high-pitched voice that could just about break an eardrum - it is so high-pitched that we have joked that perhaps its true volume may only be discerned by animals!!!! His nickname may become "Shrieker." We were playing with our camera taking pictures of Kaleb, so we'll post some below.

Zachary has discovered the joys of Eskimo kisses and butterfly kisses - he is becoming more affectionate which thrills his parents to our toes!

Long ago we posted a picture of Zachary playing in the Tupperware cupboard - well last week his friend Blake was over, and they discovered the joys of being in there together! They had a bit of a hard time both fitting in there, so Amy had to re-arrange the Tupperware to fit them in so that they could have the doors fully closed.

Zachary is starting to show some interest in the potty - mind you, it is all on his terms and on his time, but he has started to indicate that he needs to use the potty at times. We haven't really been pushing it as we thought that it would be best to wait until after Kaleb's arrival and things were settled down. Karis goes back to work on October 13th (yikes, where did the three months go!) so perhaps after we get life back to normal we can begin in earnest. Once Karis is back to work, it is a little scary to think about having to get both boys up in the morning and out the door by one's self, but it seems like the thought of something is always scarier than the reality so Amy is telling herself to keep calm!

Speaking of keeping calm, this week's financial market insanity has been tough to watch calmly. Anyone who has ever seen the Staples commercial with the "easy" button - Amy has talked about where is the "panic" button! - it is a little nerve-wracking to think that our retirement funds are plunging into the financial abyss with each passing day - it would have been nice of course if we could have foreseen such a financial downturn and put all of the money into a capital preservation account, but no such luck. It is a little scary to watch the economy and wonder what will happen next, but that's where prayer and faith come in. On a more philosophical note, this does allow us to re-think our priorities and remind ourselves that our focus should be on making it to heaven rather than this life.

Phrase of the week: "Huuuge one!" Zachary declares everything these days to be HUGE - huge splashes into the pool, huge kisses, huge bah slams (translated as body slams - Zachary loves to be lifted off and dropped onto the bed) and sadly even huge poops (if only there was no such thing)!

The Z-Z-Z-Zoo!

Last Sunday we had the fun experience of checking out the Central Florida Zoo. Let's be clear, this is no San Diego Zoo (which we have had the pleasure of going to) but it was a nice little zoo that will make a perfect afternoon outing over the coming years with the two boys. We were there for a birthday party and it was a day packed with fun - animals, CAKE (yes, you read that right - Amy lifted the sugar ban and let Zachary eat cake - Karis said "He won't eat very much of that cake" and then Zachary proceeded to EAT IT ALL! :)) Ah well, he comes by a sweet tooth honestly so it doesn't hurt once in a while). Besides the animals and the cake, there was also a water splash park at the entrance of the zoo which was a great way to cool down after the hot afternoon sun.

Love the party hat and the fact that Zachary holds his pizza upside down to eat it! Oh well - tastes the same!

This cake is the best...

Exuberation over the elephants - Loghann, Adam and Luke in the background

We are discovering that Zachary is very much a "do it on my own time" - when he's around a lot of kids that are not familiar to him, he tends to stand and just watch what is going on. We're not sure where his personality is coming from as both Amy and Karis tend to be more outgoing. However, we also tend to do things on our own timetable as well. Last week at the Zachary just stood at the edge of the splash park watching the other kids playing in the water (even though he LOVES to swim in the pool he wasn't too sure about joining the chaos of the other kids running around and getting splashed). Amy is wondering if he'll be our little wallflower...

Kaleb could care less about the zoo...

Kaleb hit the 5 month mark this week - he's 15.5 pounds now so he's a solid little kid. Kaleb has a funny characteristic that happens EVERY time that we walk into the room and turn on the light after he's been sleeping - without fail he will sneeze twice (sometimes a third time) when the light comes on. It is quite funny because now we've noticed that we'll automatically wait a second to pick him up out of the crib because we don't want to get sneezed all over! For those who are around Zachary know how much he sweats - it appears that baby brother is going to outdo Zachary in the sweating department though - we've never seen a baby that sweats that much! When Zachary was little and we went out to Korey and Rachel's wedding, we were told to be sure and keep him out of the sun because babies don't have the ability to sweat until they're six months old - we BEG TO DIFFER now with the advent of Kaleb. :) Karis feels sure that this means that both of the Z-kids will end up moving north when they're adults which suits Karis just fine - he'd love to retire north somewhere! Kaleb does continues to be our angel baby, so no complaints here!

Zachary got into a bit of mischief yesterday - he was very whiny and crying a lot so Karis sent him to his room to get himself calmed down and then he could return....well, the bedroom became suspiciously quiet and after a few minutes so Karis went to investigate. Sure enough, mischief was going on! Zachary had climbed up onto his little chair and reached onto the top of the dresser where a tube of Desitin (diaper rash cream) was laying and proceeded to squeeze the ENTIRE tube all over himself and the red chair. Karis was appalled and said that it took quite a bit of scrubbing in the tub to have Zachary's legs emerge Desitin-free! :) We still aren't sure that the red chair cover will survive - we'll see how it does in the wash.

Phrase of the Week: "I luv-you Mommy - have a doo-day!" How can a mom not have a great day when that is the last sentence she hears as she leaves in the morning (and how can she not wish that she was staying at home too!)

As always, Kaleb's looking a little concerned about this sitting together in a chair business!

In the Pursuit of Sleep

This week's post is going to be dedicated to the ever relentless pursuit of quality sleep in the Z-household - which means of course dedication to getting our children to sleep through the night so that we're not so exhausted!! Aside from our own exhaustion, our focus on good sleep quality came from reading a book which has been our "sleep guide" - 'Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child' - which has been an amazing resource and one that we would highly recommend - although if you read it, beware that the book is split in two halves - the first half being more of the "research-y" type writing and the second half being comprised of chapters that are age-specific.

Since Kaleb's arrival to the Z-home, Zachary's sleeping habits have taken a turn for the worse. Recently, Zachary has started to wake up during the middle of the night crying his little eyes out - we haven't figured it out but we're beginning to suspect that they might be nightmares because once Amy stumbles over to his room in her sleep-walking state, he is easily consoled and then immediately goes back to sleep without any further ado. It is very strange and we're hoping that these don't increase in number. We have video monitors (dueling monitors - one for each boy) so although we sleep with a fan in our room, we can know when the boys are awake.

Not only have nightmares seemed to make an appearance, but he has been consistently waking up anywhere from 4:45A to 6:00A - WAY TOO EARLY. Karis finally stumbled upon a solution this last weekend (thanks to our Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child book) that if he puts Zachary to bed for a nap really early - about 12:45-1:00P - and then if we wake him up at 4P (yes, we're having to still wake the child up after a 3 hour nap!), that he'll sleep in! It has been luxurious to not have Zachary wake up until 7A for several days in a row - although we will admit that it's not foolproof as two days this week he did wake up early! Because he is still in a crib, he was in the habit of just screaming his head off when he wakes up - regardless of what time of day (or frankly night!) it was. So, with the 7A wake up time, this thankfully is after the adults are already up and about for the day. The next trick that we'll try if he starts to wake up early again is to get a night-light that turns on at a certain time in the morning and tell him that when the light comes on that he's allowed to get up because it's morning - otherwise it's still night-time. The internet is an amazing place of ideas - it seems that you can find suggestions on how to fix almost any problem!

Misc. picture of Zachary resting on poor Daddy after a wrestling match - Zachary seems to be the winner! :)

One thing that we did not count on with two kids is the conspiracy to never let the adults in the house have a good night's rest! It seems like the kids have a secret conference before going to bed and decide which one will take the first shift of waking up and crying and which one will take the last shift (aka crack of dawn!!!) to wake up and need attention. Amy is convinced that she may never have a good night's rest again! Both of them individually are very good sleepers for the most part, but together it's a mess!

Kaleb has become a very good sleeper, and typically is done by 8P and doesn't eat again until 6A - although last night his "wake-up call" came at 4:40A - just to be sure that we don't get too comfortable with assuming that he'll sleep in all of the time! However, we do have to swaddle Kaleb for each nap and during the night in order for him to sleep - we've tried to unswaddle him, but he doesn't sleep well. At this point, we're beginning to wonder if he'll go to Kindergarten still swaddled! :) Just teasing. He is quite the little Houdini though and manages to get out of the swaddler blankets - which has resulted in multiple purchases of different type of swaddle blankets (we are quite the experts on the different brands out there, so if you're ever in the market, give us a call!). We've finally seemed to settle on one that works (the Snug 'n' Tug) except that during the night he'll wake up and manage to get his arms out and then he's awake for sure.......so, Amy put all of her energy into coming up with a solution - and came up with a modified strait jacket! :) She put in two socks into the inside of the swaddle blanket, and at night (not for naps) we put Kaleb's arms into the socks into the swaddle blanket and then he sleeps the entire night through! All of this for the pursuit of a good night's sleep...... Anyway, it works like a charm and we've actually passed this tip on to other moms and it works for them too! :)

Getting ready to drift off to sleep at night....

Just about to be "released" from his strait jacket in the morning!

In other news, Kaleb began to roll over yesterday - from his stomach to his back (not yet the other way) so we're excited about his new achievement. Our kids take a while to do the physical achievements, so we're always ready to cheer them on .

Kaleb is becoming very steady sitting up

Phrase of the week (related to sleeping of course!) - "Mommy, no 'creamin' an' no cryin'!" - Zachary reminds me each night and each morning of the rule that he is not supposed to scream his head off when he wakes up.

Summer's End Celebration

Happy Labor Day! or Labour Day for our beloved Canadians! :) Luckily here in Florida (or not so lucky depending on how you look at it) summer NEVER ends - in fact, we only have two seasons here - hot and hotter!!!

Yesterday Zachary and his beloved Daddy went on an adventure to SeaWorld with fellow friends while Amy and Kaleb stayed behind - Kaleb didn't think that he'd enjoy it very much! :) Actually, Amy took Kaleb on a "show and tell" trip to her work (it was a holiday off of work for the office, but there were still a fair number of people there working) as most had never seen Kaleb before. He was an angel baby the entire time, and even fell asleep in his 'Aunt' Kelli's arms - she has the charm! He is getting so big that it is getting harder to hold him for long in your arms!

Zachary had a great time at SeaWorld - mostly because there is the new "Elmo" show. He has not been there since that show joined the SeaWorld productions and had no idea what he was waiting for. But, apparently when the characters came out, he was overcome with excitement and immediately began to scream their names, "Elmo!!!, Cookieeeeee, Abby!!!!!" . He then would look back at Karis and yell their names at Karis again to be sure that Daddy was in fact paying attention!

Hanging out in the climbing gym at Happy Land at SeaWorld

Kaleb has discovered his hands in a big way and loves to chew on them. He is becoming more verbal all of the time and now has earned the nickname "Bubble Boy" as he loves to blow bubbles with his mouth! Ah, the simple enjoyments of life!

Tummy Time

Our friends Jennifer and Bruce have welcomed their second son into the world - Evan Brady - what a cutie! It is the craziest thing that all of the friends that we hang out are having boys - in fact out of about 24 kids there are only 6 girls! I sure hope that elsewhere there are only girls being born because our boys are going to need wives someday!

Now that Florida has returned to being "sunny Florida" rather than "rainy Florida" the re-screening project on our pool has been completed. It is quite nice to no longer have any holes in the screen - now we should be able to enjoy that area without any bugs/gnats etc bothering us! It had never been fixed after the hawk flew through it (see old post from 2007), so it was a long time coming! That is one thing that is awesome about Florida is these screen rooms - it really does allow you to flow in and out of your home without worrying about pests bothering you!

Today in Sabbath School Zachary was sitting on Amy's lap as the program progressed when all of a sudden he got up and ran across the room to the other side and grabbed some poor little girl's seat away from her (she was standing beside it). As you can imagine, this almost started a "altercation" in Sabbath School as she quickly announced that chair was "MINE!" Zachary doesn't know this little girl so we have no idea what got into his little mind - I guess gentlemen training needs to begin already! :)
Zachary's language skills are expanding so fast and are so precious that we've decided to try and add a cute phrase/word each week that he's said - this will help us pay more attention throughout the week, and it will help ensure that we don't forget!

Phrase of the Week - Zachary chanting "That's funny.....too funny!" accompanied by belly laughs as Karis was carrying him across a climbing net at SeaWorld because Karis was having a hard time staying upright....apparently Zachary's funny bone was tickled to have Dad struggling to keep on his feet!

Misc. picture of Zachary screaming with delight to be sitting in a pile of clean laundry - now if only we could get him to fold it and put it away....