April Showers

April showers bring May flowers.....let's hope so because April showers totally made a bust last Sunday of the Z-family's attempt to get family pictures done to commemorate Addison's 9 month achievement and the boys turning 7 and 5.  Family pictures are one of those marathon events where frozen smiles, uncooperative children, and the environment all conspire to thwart the desperate attempt to capture everyone at their finest.....but it is a necessary evil because we would dearly miss the coffee table books that we make for each year's professional pictures! :)

Last weekend with the raining thwarting our pictures, we did have the unexpected pleasure though of being able to go and celebrate Madelyn and Kohlden Isidro's birthday parties - it was a tea party complete with a bounce house!  How fun!

After having our computer restored from the virus, we finally were able to retrieve the funny video of Kaleb skiing down the bunny hill to where Kieran was waiting for him at the bottom of the slopes.  Kieran decided to run out to meet Kaleb with open arms, and you can see what happens next as Kaleb doesn't even apply the brakes...talk about watching a train wreck in slow motion!  Click here to go to the video and it is the last video in the post.

Last weekend we spent doing some odd jobs around the house, and the weather was fairly cool with all of the clouds and rain that we were having.  The boys were big helpers while Addison supervised from afar.

Addison is sprouting teeth galore, she has another 3 teeth coming in this week!  She has been such an easy baby though with teething as she hasn't even uttered a peep of complaint!  One of her new tricks though is to take her fist, and she moves it up and down, as if is a nodding head on the end of her wrist.....almost like she's waving to us, but it is a fist instead! :)  We realize that we did not post her 8 month pictures, so we are posting that now, because in 10 days she'll be 9 months and then we'll really be behind! :)

Phrase of the week:

Kaleb - Amy said something to Kaleb that he must not have really liked,  because he gives a sigh and he then looks UP and then DOWN in an exasperated manner. 
Amy replies: "Kaleb, don't roll your eyes at me, it isn't respectful. 
Kaleb:  "Mom, I didn't roll my eyes at you, I don't know HOW!"
Should we tell him now or later that he in fact does know how to roll his eyes?

Another conversation this morning happened with Zachary, the topic was something mundane but the interchange was cute:

Karis:  "That is irrelevant."
Zachary:  "What is irr-elephant?"
Too cute!

Karis of course is known for his "Stinky Pajama Gang" stories, in which the kids and all of their friends go off on wild adventures, and now even little Addison is getting in on the action!

Listening to Dad tell stories

Campout Adventures

The ultimate incentive for going to Adventurers - the CAMPOUT - finally arrived last weekend.  Zachary has been resisting going to Adventurers, even though all of his friends are there - why you ask?  Because he hates to do crafts apparently, and Adventurers has too many crafts!  It has become such a struggle that we're considering whether only Kaleb will participate in the Adventurers next year, and just leave Zachary at home (maybe he'll rethink his likes and dislikes then!)  We are telling him though that he has to finish this year, because if you make a commitment, you need to follow through!

But, to the campout itself - Amy stayed home with Addison and Karis headed out with the boys.  There was little sleep to be had that night because there was a tent full of teenagers beside their tent that talked until quite late, so it was midnight before Zachary went to sleep and 1A before Karis finally managed to drift off.  But, other than a little lack of sleep, the day was super fun with lots of activities and then free time to play soccer (Zachary) and a whole plethora of fun activities for Kaleb.  Kaleb is so social that he ended up playing with many different kids throughout the day, which is fun to see.

Playing with Obed



Ring around the ..... firepit....

Much to the boys' chagrin, they did come home Saturday night to sleep as the next day, Daddy was taking them to a soccer game! The soccer game ended up being a "washout" as it rained (aka POURED) but they were able to see about 30 minutes of play before throwing in the towel and coming on home.  But, it is Zachary's favorite sport right now, so he was thrilled to be able to go and watch.

Rob, Lisa, Luke, Adam, Kaleb, Zachary and Grandma - trying to stay dry!

In other exciting news, Kaleb has achieved the ability to go all night with no pull-up!  Yahoo!  He is diaper-free now!  He is quite proud of himself, and it is certainly nice not to have to worry about that anymore.  He's been diaper-free now for about 3-4 weeks, and has only had maybe 2 accidents in that whole time!  Good job Kaleb!

Pulling down his PJs to show off the fact that he has underwear on instead of a diaper (just a peek, wanted to keep this blog PG! :))

Addison now has a 2nd tooth!  It is the bottom central one, and it just popped through.  This now has introduced a very expected, but frightening effect - the BITING when nursing.  It is enough to make a grown woman cry.  OUCH.  Amy did the standard face flick when Addison did it, and Addison has been such a good baby, she's never had any discipline before, so she was crying and screaming as if Amy had cut off her hand!  Poor kid!  Poor mommy!  Let's hope that it stops, otherwise nursing will cease and desist and it will just be pumping from now on.......


We love Valentine's Day shirts, and didn't post the one that Addison was wearing....l'amour!

Phrase of the week:  Kaleb – "Mommy, where are your nose hairs?" Amy answers "Mine are small, you can't see them."  To which Kaleb then retorts: "Oh – Daddy has lots!"  Poor Daddy!

Zoo Bash

Last week, we had the official birthday party for Zachary, Kaleb and Luke at the local zoo.  It started off with a train ride around the zoo, and then we headed into the birthday room in which they began to play games with the party hosts.  The one party host was about to become a youth pastor at his church, and he was GREAT with the kids, we were very fortunate.  After eating, they then played some more games and then dove into the fabulous cakes, created by of course the talented Miss Jennifer!, that were designed as a snake, a lion, and a jaguar.  After eating ourselves silly, the kids then headed out to the outer courtyard where they were entertained by a python (and Moms everywhere kept our distance!).  The kids had a fun time after the party walking around the zoo and enjoying all of the animals.

The birthday boys

Kaleb's cake, thanks for Miss Jennifer!

Amazing jaguar for Zachary

Playing games with the party host

The party participants - Kieran, Esi, Jonathan, Blake, Evan, Luke, Kaleb, Zachary, Madelyn, Kohlden, Braelyn, Maddie, Adam, David, Loghann and Obed

The kids looking at the snake (on the lady's arm but she's slightly behind the tree (thankfully! :))

We celebrated Kaleb's true birthday this week, and he was delighted to tell his Mom that "Mom, you can't tell me to stop growing, I have to get bigger, that's just life!"  Mom played along and began insisting that he  NOT get any bigger, it was just not acceptable!  Ah, if we could only capture these fleeting moments and put them in a bottle to keep forever.

The weather has been beautiful here, but with the lovely weather comes allergy season, and we are suffering - at least Zachary and Mommy are, that's for sure.  It is hard to see how wonderful the weather is, and know that you'll pay for being outside later on!  Oh well, as Kaleb says "that's life!"

Addison's big news is that she has started to pop a new tooth on the top!  Strangely enough, it is not the center tooth, but the one on the other side of that, or possibly even her canine tooth - we'll have to wait and see to know for sure as it is just now peeking through.  This is about two months earlier than the boys, so this was a bit surprising!  It is too little yet to get a picture, so perhaps in the next few weeks.

Addison continues to get better and better at sitting up, and likes to do the yoga move "plank in air" (Ha! that's not a yoga move of course!) by holding herself up on her hands and feet with a perfectly straight body.  If she'd figure out how to drop her knees, she'd be crawling before long - so we aren't showing her how to drop her knees, that is for sure!  She is eating pretty well now, although green vegetables are not her favorite.  We haven't started her on any grains yet, so once we start her on millet then we'll really introduce the green vegetables much more when it can be mixed to dilute the strong flavor a little.  The boys are still in love with her, and now even Blake is delighted when he gets to feed her, and hopes that Fridays aren't field trip days because then he doesn't get to spend it with Addison at his house in the mornings! :)  Too cute.

Karis always ends up meeting the most interesting people as patients, and this week was no exception.  He came home with a monarch butterfly cocoon - so now we're waiting patiently for the butterfly to emerge.  How cool!  It is the light green pod hanging down at the top of this cup....

Phrase of the week:  Things you never expect to have to deal with when your kid is reading the Bible......."Mom, what does it mean when it says that David did not have sex with her?"  Uhh......hurts when you wish that your child wasn't reading the Bible so much!  Amy danced around an explanation of that, and then told him that when he was a little older she'd give him a full explanation.  If anyone wants to give us an expert way of discussing this with a then 6 year old, we would appreciate it!

Celebrations!

This last week continued with the round of celebrations as we started off the week going to the Easter celebration hosted by the Hilliad and Bergherm families.  It was complete with face-painting and the requisite easter egg hunt.  It was great fun and the entire family enjoyed it.

A dangerous lion and a snappy alligator!



Addison and Tangie in matching green outfits!



Kaleb found his alloted number of eggs in about 5 seconds flat!



An unusual sighting, a picture of the entire family!



Hanging out with Uncle Rob

The week continued and soon we were on Zachary's 7th birthday.  We celebrated by having a mini-family celebration that night with a present and a cake for him to blow out the candles for.  He is quite proud to be 7!

No problem to blow out the 7 candles!

We ended off the week heading over to Cochrans where we enjoyed some good food, even better fellowship, and the boys delighted in opening more presents!

The birthday boys, Luke, Zachary, Kaleb and a precious Kieran for good measure.

On the Addison front, we have been remiss in posting that she has mastered sitting!  She started a few weeks ago, but was not entirely steady - but she has improved to the point where she can sit for long periods of time before she falls over.  Now with that being 'mastered', she's starting to raise herself up on her hands and feet (like a flat plank though) when laying on her tummy, so she may just beat the boys to crawling (who were about 10'ish months if memory serves).  Stay down little girly, no rush! :)

Sitting with Devin at the park

The lounging man wonders "who's that pretty lady?"



Ha ha, doesn't it look like two little lovebirds with their eyes closed?

While all of the "luvin'" was going on at the blanket, the small boys were thrilled to have Uncle Rob chasing them around the field to see who he could catch! 

 Phrase of the week:  Mommy, I'm not a big boy yet, I'm a MEDIUM boy! I'm not a big boy until I'm 10!  Sizes according to Zachary....  love it! :)

Addison's Dedication

Last weekend, we had Addison dedicated at the Forest Lake Church.  They changed the format about two years ago, in which they instituted a "group" dedication so that they could have more camaraderie amongst the parents with children of similar ages, as well as having a formal pre-meeting with the pastors so that they can meet and become familiar with the child and family. In some ways, it was a nice experience, but in others we missed the specialness of being the only family on the stage.  However, we were blessed to have Pastor Barb be the one to hold Addison (as we know her probably the best of all of our pastors) and we did in fact meet another family with a young child who lives in our neighborhood!  What are the odds!?  The boys were well behaved up on the stage for the most part, and Addison did not cry.  She was fussy before we went up there, and afterwards Amy realized that in the rush to get ready for church, we had fed her breakfast but had NOT fed her the morning bottle, so the poor sweet thing was probably starving!

We attempted to get a picture with some of the people who came, but Mom was still in the church, Jeff was taking the pictures, and the Cochrans were still also in the church.  So we piecemealed some of those folks into some of the pictures to follow below.

At the special lunch afterwards

Pastor Barb

As a late entry to this blog, we realized that we never posted Addison's 7 month picture with the bear!  Egads - that must be what happens when the parents get old - we get forgetful!  Thankfully we did take it, so are adding it now:

In other news, we have begun the birthday celebrations for the boys with Gram-Z and Papa-Z leaving this week.  The boys thoroughly enjoyed their time with their grandparents as always.  Papa-Z spent some quality time teaching the boys how to play baseball.  Kaleb loves to bat!  They also had the pleasure of their FIRST hockey game, when our realtor (thank you Nick!) gave us tickets to the Solar Bears game.  Mom and Addison stayed at home while Dad and the rest of the family headed off for some fun.

 

Daddy helping to teach Kaleb how to hold the bat while Papa-Z pitched and Zachary catching.

Playing Sorry, one of Kaleb's gifts

How lucky are these boys to have a grandpa who will let them walk all over him!?  Too kind!

Playing with another of Kaleb's gifts, a Little People roller coaster, a recent fad for Kaleb.