VPK Graduation

Well - for some reason our post from last week didn't actually post, so now we're catching up on multiple weeks' worth!

Kaleb finished up his first year of school with his VPK graduation.  He absolutely loved school this year and would be upset when there was a holiday and he couldn't go to school that particular Monday.  He in particular loved the Friday field trips and has been disappointed now that we're into the summer session that he doesn't have weekly field trips.  Fingers crossed that he continues loving school when he actually goes to school more days next year in Kindergarten!

Standing in front with his class - he's the one at the far right hand side

Kaleb's hat didn't fit properly, so it kept sliding down in front of his eyes (behind his glasses) - see the picture above.  So when it was his turn to pose for his solo picture, his teacher attempted to quick "right the ship", but she ended up being in the picture too!

Not the best family picture, but the only one that we got!

In other news, Amy finally had "THE DAY" - yep, she's now 40.  Thankfully she wasn't too down about the whole experience - it is an uplifting experience to pause and just think of all of the blessings in one's life!  She started off the day with finding the Andes chocolate minks on the kitchen island, spelling the words "Love U" from Karis (major points given for that sweetness!), and then she received very happy daisy flowers from Addison (with Grandma's help!) and then had the pleasure of lunch with a close friend Kelli and then a spa day together (hopefully a new birthday tradition for both of them!).  When she returned (Amy took the day off of work - no need to be at work on such a momentous occasion!), she found the boys hard at work making her a cake (a confetti cake with blue icing...hmm a kid's favorite).  The day couldn't have been any more special!

So proud of their masterpiece!

Okay - 40 candles on a cake can almost make the whole place go up in flames!

Aside from Amy's birthday, we also had the fun of celebrating Calleigh and Aubree's birthdays as well with a bike scavanger hunt.  The girls' team won (which was only apropos as it was the girls' birthdays!).

Both teams listening to the instructions...

Addi went with the boys' team!

We're still behind on posting, but we went to Tampa for Memorial Day, so that is going to be such a HUGE post, it'll have to wait until next week! Stay tuned!

Phrase of the week:  "Dacky" - Addison has started to call for Zachary, but can't manage the Z so it is Dacky!

A few random pictures:

Addison, like her oldest brother before her, loves to drag a chair over to the kitchen sink and play in the water.  At this moment, she was drinking water out of a tiny medicine cup dispenser.

Kaleb decided that the trunk was just his size! (His mother however gave him a stern talking to that we don't hide in trunks as we could get trapped in there!!)

Honoring Mothers & Adventurers!

We had a lovely weekend that was chock full of activities - we started off with the year-end ceremony for Adventurers in which the boys moved up to the next level.  It was a super cute program in which Kaleb's class sang the Lord's Prayer, and it was so precious with their little hand motions! 

In true confession time, Amy must admit that she has been sucked into a word game on her phone (thanks to sister-in-law Lorie) that has her addicted.  So much so that when the boys were done with their parts in the program, she started to play again while they waited for the other classes to do their part in the ceremony....this game has periods where you have to think fast on your feet, and when that would happen she would say to Karis "Help  me!"  thinking that with two brains, there would be no way that she'd lose the game.  He quickly however decided that Amy wasn't following his directions well enough so he become a mute.....and she kept saying "Help me!" until poor Heather Cochran had to turn around and ask what in the world was going on....Oops.  Not the best example there!

We then went out for Mother's Day breakfast the next day to Keke's with Aunt Louise, Amy's Mom, and Shari - a cousin of Aunt Louise and Amy's Mom.  It was super fun and we ended up seeing the Johnsons and Cochrans there as well (although they had their own tables).  It was a treat to be able to spend time with our family and honor all of the mothers in the group!

The kids there, although Erik and Elin weren't in the picture taking moods! :)

Phrase of the week:  This conversation happened at Miss Jennifer's...and no joke, this is the kind of conversations that we have all the time with Kaleb....no wonder we say that his head is in the clouds!!! 

  Miss Jennifer:  Kaleb, Daddy is going to be here soon so go and find your shoes, they aren't by the front door where they are supposed to be:

  Kaleb:  Oh, whoops, I better go look outside.

  Kaleb comes back inside and announces "Ok, I found it."  Emphasis on IT.

  Miss Jennifer:  "Wait, you found IT?  You should have two shoes Kaleb"

  Kaleb:  Now that I think about it, I only wore one shoe today.

  Miss Jennifer:  No Kaleb, you have two feet, so you wore two shoes here today.

  Kaleb:  Oh! (in a surprised, slightly amazed tone of voice).  He then of course had to go on the search to find the missing shoe, because he can never actually take off both shoes in the same place!!!  Can we say that we can't count how many times he has lost his shoes!!!!

Addison's words are starting to really expand lately, so here are a few of her new ones:
--Mine
--Evie (for Evan)
--Go!
--Poopy
--Ucky
--Bobbi (oddly, no one calls Amy's Mom Bobbi around the kids, but she runs around calling Bobbi, so not sure if she is connecting that is Grandma's name or if this is coincidence!)
--Apple
--will repeat most of her ABC letters, except for a few in the middle of the alphabet


The boys trying out their snorkeling gear!

Miss Smartie-Pants - figured out that she wanted to get ON the cupboard so devised a plan to drag the kitchen chair over to the counter and was tall enough at that point to get all the way up onto the counter when Mom was out of the room and grab Mom's phone!  This child - too smart for her parent's sanity! :)

In other news, our bathroom has turned into a workout room now that Karis has purchased a bike trainer......best place to work out as there is a fan overhead and tile to let the sweat drip down on! :)

Camp Nirvana

Finally - 365 long days and longer nights have passed until FINALLY the Z-boys were able to return to Camp Kaluqua.  This is basically the equivalent of nirvana for these children -they just love it there and Kaleb wasn't able to go last year because he got strep throat, so he was especially excited.  The weather was less than stellar with it raining on both Friday and Saturday morning, but thankfully it stopped raining fairly early on Saturday and while it was wet and mucky, it was at least not raining!

We went up on Friday and were able to leave early enough to actually get there in time for a group supper at a 50s style diner.  Thankfully we were able to eat outside as that many kids created a LOT of noise and mayhem.  The food was great and the company even better!

The gang all outside of the diner

The kids, including Addi, all lined up in order to order their ice cream - she thinks that she's a big girl!

We took Addison after much back-and-forth, finally deciding that even though she may not sleep well and may not eat well that she wouldn't starve and she'd have a lot of fun!  She slept like a champ though, so we were quite fortunate.  We had a chalet (aka tiny 2 bedroom) so we put the boys in the loft together, Addison in the back bedroom and we slept in the bedroom underneath the loft.  She did not eat very well for the weekend, but oh well, she didn't die! :)

The expression on her face says it all!

Saturday was a blast - we always have three group meals, so we started off the day with breakfast by Cochrans and Isidros and then the church events (thankfully inside while it rained).  Zachary loved having all of the kids there that he could play with, and it seemed that he was always playing soccer or some other group sport.  We then went to the zoo before Amy took Addison back for a nap.  The kids thought that they were in the big leagues when they were allowed to take their bikes and just ride around the campground on their own all the time - we were never quite sure where they were!  Sort of scary for an overprotective parent, but they were always in a group and it was a contained campground, so bygones!

Breakfast delights

Zachary out on the soccer field

The Sabbath School for Addison's age

Karis - the peacock whisperer! :)

Amy and Addison with the peacock behind us

Making smores in the afternoon

Yum!  It tasted especially good after they had gone on their canoe ride and worked up an appetite!

One of Kaleb's favorite girls - Miss Lindsay, he has even hinted that she needs to marry him someday! :)

On Sunday, we had the morning to enjoy pony rides and go-cart rides before heading back on home.  The weather was lovely, so we were thrilled to be outside.

All of the kids from our group - minus Luke who went home early with another friend.  Poor Addison is in the front but is in the sun, so it is hard to see her face! :)

Zachary and Karis in the go-carts

Zachary, David and Blake

And the little boys.....Jonathan, Kieran, Evan and Kaleb

  Addison and Uncle Rob have a little love affair going on - she just lights up whenever she sees him and runs over to him to grab onto him.  So whenever Uncle Rob is around, she is not too far away.

Sitting with him at church, and indulgent Uncle Rob has let her play with his phone!

Not to be left out, Addison gave some snuggle time to Aunt Lisa as well!

Phrase of the week:  Why do we have to leave?  Why can't we just live here at Camp Kalaqua!  Oh, it is a rough life to have to come back to the real world!  They didn't seem to care that they were tired, living in a tiny trailer, dirty all the time - they were just as happy as could be!

Forty (Almost) and Fabulous!

This was the theme of last week's birthday (surprise!) party celebration for Amy's upcoming 40th birthday.  She isn't QUITE 40 yet, but Karis decided that he needed to get the party early otherwise there was no chance that it would be a surprise!

It was a real treat - Karis, Jennifer and Allen (our very talented/creative friends who love to throw parties!) put their creative juices to work and got our close friends together for an evening of memories.  The party ended up being at Tavern Opa, which is a Greek restaurant with "flair."  We've never been to this restaurant before, and when we arrive outside the restaurant, one close friend Abel was already chuckling as he told Amy that this would be an experience that she wouldn't forget!

No birthday is complete without an embarrassing hat to wear!

The restaurant's "flair" is that there is extremely loud (interpretation YELL TO BE HEARD) Greek music playing with ladies dressed in Mediterranean garb belly-dancing on the tables as the waiters throw paper napkins in the air yelling "Opa!"  It was something else.  For anyone who knows Amy, she DOES NOT DANCE, so she immediately started to get nervous as we took our seats.  Thankfully, Allen (bless you Allen!) informed her that if the belly dancers wanted her to get up and dance, that he would take her place. The food was great and the company of course the prime highlight of the evening.  When it came time to blow out the candles, the belly dancer of course came to our table, so Amy conceded and got up onto the table long enough to blow out the candles but then scrambled down with the bellydancer saying "No, no you're supposed to dance with me up here!"  Amy's retort "ALLEN!!"

Love Allen's face - oh my!

Allen was a super sport and got up there and danced his heart out with her - bringing all kinds of funny moves from famous movies over the years.  It was hilarious!  It was a great evening, and we are truly blessed with awesome friends - that is the best part of getting old - the chance to make deep friendships over the years!

Isidros, Bergherms, Deiningers, Grodacks, Hilliards (back row); Biris, Cochrans (minus William who was studying, Johnsons, and Amy's mom (front row) - picture taken standing on the table (back row) and on the chairs (front row)!!

To top the evening off, Allen had put his movie-making magic creativity to making a movie of my life over the years - it was so awesome - and horrifying - to have all of your close friends see THOSE HAIR-DOS that everyone has in their past that you wish would just cease to exist and that all pictures would be burned!!! :)  Ha ha ha, good times.  THANK YOU to all Karis, Jennifer and Allen for taking the time and care to put on a celebration - it was a great evening! :)

In "normal" news, Zachary's varsity soccer league wrapped up last weekend with an all-Sunday tournament. His team took 3rd place, although it could have easily been 2nd place if it hadn't been for a last second "measly" (to use Karis' term) goal from the other team.

The green team - Zachary scored 7 goals over the 8 weeks (about 50% of the team's goals!!)

Hanging out with grandma on the soccer field

Giving Grandma a little love

Phrase of the week:  Bye!  Addison loves to say good-bye now and wave vigorously!  She has now mastered her facial body parts and will say "eyes" as she points to her eyes now. Her love affair with ears continues, but she won't actually say ears yet!

As we downloaded some pictures from Amy's mom's camera, we came across a few that she had from Kaleb as a baby as he practiced scrunching his nose - and we couldn't resist posting them - how cute is he!??

Celebrations

We had a great time of celebrations last weekend - starting off on Friday night getting together with the usual group to celebrate Kent J's 40th birthday and to give the boys their gifts from the friends (we always have a friend gift exchange as we don't have gifts at the actual birthday party).  It was a lovely time to celebrate another year of life!

Chauffeuring Erik around

Addison has a fascination with Elin, but we have to protect poor Elin as Addi gets a little physical at times!

Adam is so good with the kids!

Posing with the birthday boy!

Zachary received a biography on Walt Disney, and he was so engrossed in the book and devoured it...sitting in the van when we got home and then reading as he walked into the house...sitting down in the entryway....until he closed the book emphatically and said "All done, I like that guy!"

We continued the theme the next evening and headed over to the Isidros to celebrate Maddie and Kohlden's 4th birthday - how could the time have gone by this quickly???  It was an Easter egg decorating party - complete with fake eggs that you could dye and decorate - how cool is that?  Zachary and Braelyn had a great time playing soccer in the backyard - it is a sport that they both love.  The boys were especially GIDDY that we took two cars, so Amy took Addison home for bedtime and they got to stay.  "Mommy!!  We weren't the first ones to leave!!"  It is the little pleasures in life I guess (and thank you to Heather C for leaving before Karis did, so that they could have that little moment of joy! :))  With the fact that Amy was only there a short time, photos are sadly lacking as she is usually the one behind the lens :(

Braelyn, Blake and Zachary playing soccer in the yard

We had the crowning jewel of celebrations on Sunday with the Easter party co-hosted by Hilliards and Bergherms.  It is always an amazing event - how could it not be when these two creative geniuses put their combined power behind it!??  It was Addison's first time of being mobile, and she QUICKLY discovered that those eggs had something in them - so after that point she wanted only to sit on the ground and open the eggs, forget about actually looking for anymore!  We had to grab the candy as fast as we could, otherwise she would have been one big sugar-coated bunny by the end!

Showing off his penguin on an iceberg face painting!

Loving the trampoline

Watching the pony rides....

....but definitely not getting on that pony!!

Look at that smirk!!

Collecting her goodies

Elin and Addi

The Z-family

Addison has a particular adoration for Uncle Rob....I wonder why?  She does love to be physical!

Quality time with Devin and  Auntie Lisa, while digging for the treasure inside of that egg!

Phrase of the week:  Shoes "dis" - Addison is starting to explore a few more words, so it is fun to try and get her to speak - although normally she's a non-performer and won't actually say any words when you ask her to.