Yard Projects - Finito!

A few weeks ago, we began to work in earnest on some yard projects that were long over-due - the pool and the retaining wall. We have started to poke fun at ourselves, because we have both fallen into the habit of waiting to "fix" things until they are on their proverbial last legs as we save money in order to afford it. The first obvious instance of this was when we needed to replace both of our cars, and waited until Karis' car was literally stalling on his way to work. These last two projects are our latest reminders of how we're "living on the edge"! :)

Our pool was in bad shape - the lady who originally built our house had put it in, so the pool was about 11-12 years old at this point. The decorative tile was falling off the wall (literally) and the bottom of the pool looked like it had leprosy. Whenever we had a hard rain and the pool was really full, it would quickly drain so we were suspicious that a leak had sprung up somewhere. So, this was the summer that something had to be done. Although Amy tends to be the one who researches everything to death in this family to be sure that we do it "the right way," (which still isn't always a guarantee!) with the sleep exhaustion of a newborn in the house, she happily turned over the reins to Karis who did a fabulous job in figuring out what we were going to do with the pool. We ended up going with a pool surface called PebbleSheen, which are very tiny pebbles - mostly white and some flecks of blue - and this surface is supposed to last basically forever (or at least until we no longer live in this house (and no, that isn't a hint that we're moving - it is just conceivable over the next 20 years that we may move!)). We were quickly stymied on the tile as our house is pink, and our old pool tile was also pink - but we found out that the industry no longer makes pink tile, so what to do? We ended up making some custom pool tiles to bring in an accent of pink, and then went neutral on the rest of the pool - again thinking that if we, or a future owner, ever wanted to change the house color that the accent tiles could easily be popped out and replaced with another color. We're quite pleased with how it turned out, and have included pictures of the different stages.

This was a picture of the pool prior to the work beginning - the pink tile that is no longer manufactured was falling off, and the bottom looked like it had pockmarks.

Picture 1 - Sides have been eaten away by acid - tile is on

Picture 2 - Workers are putting on the new sides/bottom of pool

Picture 1 - Close-up of the tile that we had made - pinks and blues (blues to match the starfish and shells that we had inlaid on the steps to make them more visible for the kids)

Picture 2 - These are the starfish and shells that are on the steps

Completed pool - new tile, new pool bottom, pool deck has been painted

Karis enjoying the new pool - IN THE RAIN! :)

The retaining wall was made out of railroad ties, and had decayed to the point where the wall was literally collapsing. Karis had a British patient a while back who does retaining walls (thank goodness Karis is in the PT business, we have found more contacts through the years through his patients than I can count!), so we hired him to help us with the wall. We came to find out that he was 70 years old!! I told Karis to get out there to help him before he had a stroke :), but Karis assured me that this is what Bob's job is! He did a great job, and we are very pleased by how it turned out.

Picture 1 - Close-up of the wall where it was collapsing

Picture 2 - Picture of the wall in relation to the house

Picture of Bob working on the new concrete block/brick wall - it is a great improvement over the railroad ties!

On the kid front, this was Amy's first week back full time (last week was half days), so she had to get used to not seeing the kids as much - very sad! Karis has determined that with 2 kids, this paternity leave will not be as relaxing as his first one to be sure! Kaleb is 12 pounds 13 ounces, and has slept through until 5:30 - 6:30 every day this week! YIPPEE!!! As we are up at that time anyway, our sleep is greatly enhanced! As Kaleb is now 3 months, the doctor has released us from the "crowd quarantine" so we ventured to take him to church this week. It was great fun to see everyone - Karis has been taking Zachary each week, but Amy has not yet been back since having Kaleb.

Zachary as particularly uncooperative during this picture - later we discovered that he didn't want to sit on Karis' knee because he had a dirty diaper - guess we can't blame him for not wanting to sit on it! :)

Mr. Mischief

Now that a 2 year old has entered into our home, we are learning all about the kinds of mischief that Zachary can find - the possibilities seem to be endless! Our emotions as you may well imagine range from frustration to choking back laughter - hoping against all odds that he doesn't know that you're laughing! :) His language skills are exploding - we now have to be very careful about things that we might say as he repeats virtually everything! It will be sad when he perfects his vocabulary as it is so sweet when he doesn't say the words quite right! Some of the more interesting phrases that he's picked up are as follows:

-"Set, Go!!!!" This is shouted at the top of his lungs as he anticipates Karis throwing him up in the air in our pool.

-"Blue-lees" - this is code for blueberries...a favorite food in our home.

-"Ya ya" - this is apparently what the Spanish word for thank-you, "Gracias" sounds like to a 2 year old, so Zachary says this when prompted to say thank-you! It took us the longest time to figure out that was what he meant - we were beginning to think that we had the 'rude' child on our hands as we'd prompt him to say thank-you and he just wouldn't say it!! :)

-"Carress" - Zachary has now figured out that Mommy and Daddy have real names and this is what he calls Karis, and it cracks us up to hear him calling us by our real names - most of the time at the top of his lungs - although we do our best to inform him soberly that we are Mommy and Daddy to him!

-"Sa sa" - Zachary's friend Blake refers to Zachary as "Sa Sa" and now Zachary has started to refer to himself in the same manner! :)

- "Ba slam time" - this is for "body slam time!" - Mr. Bruce (Jennifer's husband - she watches Zachary in the mornings) wrestles with the two boys by picking them up high in the air and then dropping them onto the couch - the two boys LOVE it and beg him to do it all day long!

"Simming" - this is for "swimming" he now loves to do (sigh of relief on this one - we were worried that our Florida boy would hate water!)

"I lull-lu" - this is the best for I love you!

This week, Zachary's antics were of such a nature that I felt compelled to take pictures - realizing that as I took pictures I may in fact be encouraging these events to keep happening, but I couldn't resist!

Every child's delight - the dishwasher!

Zachary pushed his stool over to the side of the bathtub - climbed up onto the side of the bathtub and then got up into the sink! His ultimate goal - Mommy's make-up!

He's all boy - Zachary got into the dirt pile from the retaining wall project and covered himself!

Kaleb is great - he is such a wonderful baby. He smiles constantly now and seems to realize that by smiling he can get you to smile! He is doing so much better at nursing, and sleeps really well. We have been swaddling him since the beginning - we've now spent WAY TOO much money on swaddlers as he continues to get too big for some, and too strong for others as he kicks his way out. However, he sleeps so much better being in a swaddler that we've kept it up - now will be the trick of when to take him out of the swaddler! He is starting to consistently sleep through until 4-5A, which is a nice START (we won't consider it amazing until he sleeps until 6-7!!!). I am including a picture of Kaleb on the scale - this is what we do before and after he nurses so that we know exactly how much he eats. As he's doing so much better, I'm sure that the scale won't stay much longer - which is good as the rental fee sure adds up! He is tipping the scale at about 12 pounds 7 ounces this week.

Amy returned to work this week half days - and so the exhaustion begins! It is amazing how much rejuvenation you can get by even just laying down for 30 minutes - you don't realize it until you can't lay down anymore! It is kind of hard to get back into the swing of work after being out for 3 months, and it is sad to leave the kids. Karis' paternity leave starts on Monday, so Zachary will be in 7th heaven having Daddy around full-time.

A friend today was commenting on the fact that we've been doing this blog now for quite a while - it has been such a fun way to memorialize all of the things that our family and our children are doing! We love reading everyone's comments as well, and we have discovered that other friends have blogs that we enjoy reading as much as writing our own!

Picture People Photos & More

The intent for the title of our post was supposed to be supremely clever by having words that all start with P's, even if the spelling needed to be altered, but sadly our minds went blank when trying to come up with another word for "you" that started with a "P". The title was going to be "Picture People Photos Phor You" - so, we welcome any suggestions and we'll revise our title later! :) Do you know that we looked at two different on-line thesauruses for an alternative word for "you" and both indicated that they had nothing???

As promised, the pictures that we took last weekend at Picture People are posted below.

Zachary's 2 year picture and Kaleb's 3 month picture

Zachary and his soul-mate - Elmo - lovingly looking at each other. :). Our only professional picture of Zachary and Kaleb together, alone, in a picture!

Picture of Z family with Amy's mom, and then just the Z's alone.

This week was Kaleb's official three month birthday, and he has gifted us with sleeping twice 7 - 7.5 hours at night! He is 12 pounds 0 ounces and is 22 inches long. Sadly, he got the first of his vaccinations this week, and he did NOT appreciate that! Unlike Zachary, Kaleb did not stop crying as soon as Amy picked him up - he was mortally offended that he had been stuck - he must have inherited Amy's hatred of needles! :) From the pictures, you can see that it appears that he may just end up with strawberry blond hair - although Amy had reddish brown hair as a child, so who knows! He certainly does seem to be favoring the Zbaraschuk side of this family's gene pool but only time will tell!

With all of the debate raging in the media about vaccinations, Amy decided to further educate herself on the topic and found a book "The Vaccine Book" which has been very enlightening, and easy to read. We recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more about the vaccinations, how they are made, what they are for, how common is the disease etc. With that in mind, we are fully vaccinating both boys (we do believe in vaccinations) but the Vaccine book has provided an alternative schedule for the shots which may reduce potential risk of side effects, so that is what we will be doing for Kaleb's vaccinations. Zachary is so far along at this point that most of his are done.

Happy Fourth of July!

And, to be fair to our Canadian contingent, Happy Canada Day! We hope everyone had a wonderful day of celebration - lots of fireworks and good home cooking! We had a quiet evening, no fireworks for us with two kids in the house - however, Amy did listen to the neighbors' fireworks instead of being able to sleep last night..... The boys were dressed in their holiday gear in honor of the day.

Kaleb in his Fireworks shirt and Zachary in his American Flag shirt - notice the expression on Zachary's face - this is one of his classic 2-year old tantrums - I've now immortalized it to torture him with it when he's older!!!

We took the holiday yesterday as an opportunity to go and get some family pictures done with Amy's mom at the local Picture People (photo place in the mall). Once we get the pictures, we'll scan them in and post them next week. We got some really cute pictures of Zachary (this child is very photogenic if he'd just stop running around for a moment and smile - but alas, he is not interested in smiling most of the time as he just wants to be FREE!) The photographer did manage to snap a couple pictures though where he was focused and smiling, so we are very happy. We even got a good one of Kaleb smiling - that will be his official 3 month picture as he is 3 months on July 10th. Sad to say that I have his 3 month picture and still haven't sent out his birth announcements! We are in the process of designing the announcement with our photographer, so hopefully will it out this month - embarrassing!

Last week, Zachary's babysitter decided to try a new "outing" with the boys (her son Blake is the same age as Zachary) and they went to the Brown's Gymnastics Center. I dashed over there after feeding Kaleb, and it was quite fun to watch the boys in their little class trying out new things. Zachary loves to jump (anyone who remembers him around 7 months old can attest to that!), and his latest love is to be swung upside down. Perhaps he'll end up being a gymnast yet! :)

Zachary and Blake on the "balance beam"

Zachary's new favorite game for the unlucky adult who is suckered into starting it - your arms get exhausted fast!!

This week, we had work begin on re-doing our pool and the railroad tie retaining wall beside our house. They are both progressing, at a slow-ish rate, and once they're completed I'll post pictures of the whole process. Even in the midst of swimming lessons, Zachary has decided that now he loves to swim, and constantly asks to go "simming" - alas with no water, that is a little hard!

Well, the count-down has reached 5 working days until Amy returns to the office, with Karis having 10 working days until his leave begins. Kaleb is "teasing" us with sleeping longer some nights, and then only a short time the next night! He is 11 lbs 7 ounces today, it is amazing how much bigger he has gotten in the last 4 weeks - his face is a little chub! :) We still haven't been able to determine what color Kaleb's eyes are going to be - we are still wondering if they might be hazel like Karis' eyes. Zachary has started to add Kaleb to his night-time ritual of giving kisses to everyone in the house, which is very sweet.

Cute close-up of Kaleb

Kaleb looks a little unsure of this whole kissing business...