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!