Showers of Blessings

We are super excited, Jeff and Niesha are expecting a baby girl in February, so Amy hosted a baby shower (with Jennifer's help) in early December.  It was a lovely experience, and lots of her church family and friends were able to come.  It is always so fun to see the baby things as they are so cute, and it has been a while since Addison was that young, so lots has changed!

Apparently this beanie-boo was very important for Addison to have in the picture!  Can't wait to meet Baby Girl Steinke!

Sharing a few words with the group

The night before the shower, we had the opportunity to go to a Tampa Bay hockey game and sit in the box, but as Amy was doing last minute prep for the baby shower she and Addison stayed at home and Karis and the boys headed on over.  Not wanting to totally miss out on the fun, Amy and Addison went to the Crane's Roost "lighting of the Christmas tree" where they have fireworks etc.  We grabbed a Subway sandwich and ate our supper while watching the fireworks.  Always a fun evening!

Photobombers!

The fountain was lit up so pretty!

We were joined by the Js and Cs this year

These kids have no idea how spoiled they are sitting in the box!!

Last weekend, we had the delight of hosting our friends the Vohwinkels from Texas.  Their son Sammy had Leukemia last year, so they have been in our prayers much over the past year - and thank you God he is still in remission a year later!  We had a bunch of people over, but forgot to get a picture of everyone until it was just the Biris, us and the Vohwinkels left - so imagine the Touchards, Johnsons and Hilliards also in the picture - sorry guys!

We had a picture of these two as babies in this chair, so we recreated the picture!

Super fun time - thanks to AHS for the chance to go!

Kaleb had his Christmas play in which he had a speaking part again this time.  He did so nicely with his voice inflexion and facial expressions!  Good job kiddo!

We ran across these pictures from the Hurricane Irma in September - the kids were outside before the storm really hit driving around in their car, notice the grocery bags on their heads to keep their faces slightly dry!  Good creative problem solving - although who cares when the rest of you is so wet, right!?

Other Random Pictures:

What a great picture of the geese migrating south - a perfect V!

Hanging out with his football teammates.  Such a great group of boys.

Strong enough to hold his baby sister now!

This and That

Well, in our sporadic posting for the blog, we have gotten ourselves seriously behind, so this will be part 1 of a catch-up post, so here are some highlights of what we've been doing over the last few weeks!

A few weeks ago, Aunt Louise came down to celebrate a friend's 90th birthday, which we were delighted to be able to see her.  She is doing fairly well recovering from her heart attack, and is now fully off the supplemental oxygen. She is living up in Chattanooga near her son at an independent living center, which is a fairly amazing place!  We miss her dearly though!

No family get together is complete without a game of Upjinks!

Addison had an outing to a Paddington Bear Concert.  We thought that it would be a play with music, but it was actually an orchestra with just a reading of a story.  While disappointing for the adults, the kids still had fun and had the chance to play several of the instruments out afterwards, which was fun to expose them to that.

Maddison, Addi and Devin

At one of the last Adventurer meetings of this year, Addison was chosen as Adventurer of the Day.  it had been a class on learning about their bodies.  She drew an outline of her body and then could color it.  Notice her drawing of her body.....and what particular part she decided to draw on herself!!  She held that up in front of everyone and another mom leaned over to Amy and said 'Is that a vagina that she has drawn on there?"  AHHHHHHH.  Well, in truth it likely wasn't a vagina as growing up with two older brothers Addison insists that she has a penis, and well at random times shout at "don't look at my penis!"  No matter how many times all of us tell her that she does not have a penis, she just laughs and says it again.  Just great!

We had the annual Gala again right before Thanksgiving.  The featured artist was Josh Groban, which was just awesome - he was entertaining and how can you beat that voice!?

the annual picture to capture what Amy wore, so that she can recycle her dresses again in the future without worrying that someone will remember it if she wore it too quickly again!:)

Found our dear friends Kent and Kelli for a picture

Amazing voice, although Amy could do without the beard! :)  But it isn't her face, so she doesn't get to choose!  

In a very funny twist of events, we were talking to one of Amy's best work friends - Christine and her husband Derek and someone came and took our picture.  Well, little did we know that it was a reporter for a small hometown newspaper and it ended up being published!  That was our 15 seconds of fame! :)

Yes, we were having fun talking to them.  What an odd caption to put in the paper!

The same day as the gala - we foolishly decided to pack in our annual family pictures as well.  Not sure what we were thinking but it all ended up fine.  No matter how pre-planned we are for the pictures, it is always stressful that morning getting out of the house.  Last year Addison wrecked her boots using her toes (on both sides) as a brake on her scooter in the last 10 minutes before we left and this year she managed to wipe her fingers all over the dirty car and then rub them on her white shirt - of course leaving black marks.   Then, when we got there, Zachary's nose started to bleed all over his white shirt out of the blue!  Goodness gracious - Good thing for photoshop! 

With the arrival of December comes all kinds of school programs, which are always fun to see.  Kaleb had a Medieval Faire at school first-off (with a play later that we'll post about next time) and then Zachary had a Christmas concert in which he sang as a part of the band.  He is taking voice lessons this year, to try and beat his parents' terrible singing DNA - fingers crossed he'll be able to have a "on-tune" singing voice! :)

Dressed up as King Arthur

The rest of his class

Zahcary is in the back row, 5th from the left standing beside a taller African American girl

We sat with the Touchards, and pretty soon Addison made herself comfortable on John's lap!

In December also comes the annual field trip to SeaWorld.  We decided this year to renew our annual passes as the boys are both old enough to ride the big roller coasters and they both appear to love it, so we decided to take the dive again.  Thankfully you only have to go a few times to make it pay for itself.

With a bit of help from Mr. Karis and shoe inserts, Evan was also big enough to go on the roller coaster, he was so excited and loved it!

Great family picture with Grandma at the end of a fun day!

Aww - sweet picture!  Notice the blush on Miss Addi-cakes' checks - what fun there is to play in grandma's make-up!

Interesting way of sitting in one's stroller!

Other Random Pictures

Addison didn't want to be left out of the Medieval Faire fun, so she is a "lady" - but driving a very modern car!

A croupy cough went around a few weeks ago and poor Addi got it, so she was wiped out for a few days

Addison totally can throw a Frisbee, although left-handed!  She had fun playing with Zachary one day at Jennifer's

These two have such a special relationship together

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of our favorite times of year - and this year was no different.  Amy took Wednesday off this year for the first time in order to catch up on some house projects (the list was like 40 items long....she did not accomplish everything but at least we made progress!).  On Thursday, we went over to Grodack's for the feast which has become one of our family's favorite events of the year - always fun to see the folks there!  Grodacks are in their new house, so it was fun to get the grand tour and to hear of their house projects to come.

The group - these kids are just getting bigger and bigger!

the kids had a blast playing in the backyard!

Before heading over to Grodacks, Thursday morning Karis had his once-a-year golf game in very unusual attire (see for yourself) while Grandma and the kids (and Amy as she cooked) enjoyed Anne of Green Gables (one of Amy's all time favorite books and movie!)

Umm.....those are some mighty bright pants Mr. K - wonder if it helped his annual golf game!? :)

Snuggled in to watch together!

Another tradition for Thanksgiving weekend is to put on some cheerful Christmas music and to decorate our tree!  Our ornaments have come from primarily Amy and Karis' annual tradition of giving one to each other each year so they all come with a memory or a story - and the kids enjoy us talking about each one as we decorate the tree.  Good times!  They also have favorite ornaments that they like to put up

Addison's favorite as she made this one last year!

On Thursday night, Amy and her mom always go shopping but this year with Grodack's new house being further form the outlet mall, they decided to try the mall - big bust - half the stores were closed so it was not worth it!  On Friday, we tried again but now the outlet mall was so packed that we drove around for an HOUR and couldn't find a parking space (even after stalking people!) so we finally gave up and left.  Boo!

Grandma gave us a memory for this year's Christmas gift, and we went to ICE! at the Gaylord Palms - it was really fun - Christmas around the world!  The stories were really neat, and Addison loved the ice slides (boys decided they were too cold and booked it out of there!).  Afterwards, we did the snow slides several times as well - it was really fun!

Zachary

Addison

Karis

Kaleb

In other big news, Addison has now graduated out of her crib to a twin mattress on the floor.  Her true built-in bed is just too high off the ground for Amy's comfort - at least until she proves that she won't fall out of bed!  Not only did she graduate out of her crib (which caused her mother a moment of sadness!!!) but we are also night-time potty training her.  We took away the sippy cup of water and got the waterproof cloth underwear (no more diapers).  So far, out of 8 days she has only wet the bed 3 times and once was at Grandma's where the routine was different, so not too bad!

Where did our baby go?!

Cochrans went on a cruise for a week over Thanksgiving and so we had the pleasure (Addison's delight!) of watching Draco for the week - their pet lizard.  Every day we gave him water, food and treats.  He didn't eat a lot some days, which panicked Amy thinking "Please don't die before your parents get back!!"  Addison had so much fun taking care of this lizard!

Random picture:

Zachary and his science project on the Great White Shark - he made a powerpoint and a 3D model out of clay, and then made a diorama out of it.