Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

The excuses to get out of bed are universal to all kids, but I thought that it would be fun to capture just a few of Zachary's recent excuses so that we won't forget them when he is 15 and wants to sleep all of the time! Zachary has always been a good sleeper until he finally figured out how to get out of the crib, and now that he's in his own bed. Now, we often have a night-time wake-up trip from Zachary - usually about 1-2A in the morning. We've made it a practice that he doesn't sleep with us (unless you want a kick or "punch" as he flings arms and legs about in his sleep!), so Amy always just walks back with him to his room and off he goes back to slumber-land. In addition to the middle of the night wake-up calls, there are also the times that he just doesn't want to go to bed, so he gets up several times after his bedtime for one reason or another. So, knowing that our memories fade very quickly, we wanted to memorialize some of those excuses!
**I need two hugs
**I am not tired
**I need another hug - the first one wasn't your best (we had to chuckle - this was particularly clever!)
**I need to go poop (he seems to realize that this is a foolproof excuse because he is never sent directly back to bed, so this gets used a lot)
**I want to sleep in your closet (this was the first night after our visitors went home, and he wanted to come back to mom and dad's room to sleep in our closet)
**The skeeters are biting me under my bed! (After playing outside in the evening and getting bitten by the mosquitoes)
**My blankets aren't right! (Such a good excuse to be re-tucked back into bed)
**I need another drink (we have a sippy cup by his bed, but it conveniently is empty in the middle of the night!)
**My toes aren't growing (this was an interesting one - Amy finally figured out that he meant that his toes WERE growing and that his footy pajamas were in fact getting too small and putting pressure on his toes! Now the journey of trying to convince him that he doesn't need to wear the footy pjs anymore!)
**The monitor is talking to me, and it bites me (this is the baby monitor camera that we have so that we can see/hear Zachary during the night)
**You didn't brush and floss my teeth.
**You didn't tell me that you loved me bunches and bunches
**I didn't tell YOU that I loved you.

In other news, Amy's Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Louis were here last week, so we had a lovely chance to catch up with them. It was great fun to see them as we haven't had that opportunity now for several years. In addition, Amy's mom's cousin and her husband have now re-located to Hudson, Florida (Mary and Harry Rimer) so we're hoping to enjoy seeing them more often now! It was fun to catch up with everyone last weekend, and we were doubly thankful that Kaleb did not manage to break anything while we were there! Whew!

It is hard to believe, but we're leaving on Thursday for Canada. Our friends William and Heather, along with their son Kieran, arrive on Monday as they join William's family here in Orlando for the holidays. They will be house-sitting for us (win-win situations are fabulous!) while we're gone, so that will give us peace of mind. Canada was beastly cold last week (we're talking minus 46 degrees in Edmonton, and with wind chill it was minus 69 degrees!!!), but it seems to have "warmed up" to only minus 10 degrees Celsius - thank you!!! So, we most likely won't have any posts (unless we luck out with time and computer availability) until January 8th'ish. We wish everyone a very merry Christmas as we celebrate the birth of Christ (yes, we realize that this isn't the real day, but it is still a joyous occasion to celebrate!)

Phrase of the week: "I'm going to leave and live somewhere else." Zachary is pulling the age-old trick of saying that he's going to go live somewhere else. It doesn't seem connected though to any great disappointment/anger that he's going through - he always says it very nonchalantly, such as when he's eating breakfast or running errands. When Amy asked where he was going, he said that he was going to live at Auntie Kelli's house! On the Kaleb front, we believe that two days in a row he has now said "Daddy" much to Karis' delight!

Aunt Bonnie, Aunt Louise & Amy's Mom (the three sisters)

Kaleb hasn't had a true haircut yet, but when we get back from Canada it will most likely be time to at least shorten it a LITTLE BIT. Mommy is having a hard time cutting it! :) So, before the haircut, we wanted to capture what it looked like from the back with all of the cute curls!

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

Last weekend, we had lots of fun Christmas-y events. Saturday night, we joined friends at Celebration for a "nightly snowing" event where they produce soap bubbles from machines up on the light posts to make it "snow" - it was a bit chilly last weekend, so it was actually quite fun. They pre-"snow" the road so that it really has a snowy feel to it. Both Kaleb and Zachary were enthralled by the snow falling, and then they went on a little train ride around the town.

The next day, we headed off to the AHS Christmas party which was held at Universal Studios. We took the obligatory picture with Santa, which is never a hit with the Z-boys, but they had a nativity scene complete with a live donkey and sheep that was a HIT in a big way for them. Afterwards, we went to Islands of Adventure to take in the kids area which is all focused on Dr. Seuss. It was quite fun as Zachary has read a lot of those books. When we read "The Cat in the Hat" this week, Zachary commented that "he'd been in that book" because one of the rides is "through" the book in a "couch" seat that spins and moves as the story is narrated and all of the parts of the story have been set up along the ride. Quite fun!

Not interested at all in the Santa experience (oh well, it's no wonder as we've never told them that Santa exists/is real etc, so it should come as no surprise that they're aren't too wild about it!)

Zachary riding the carousel while Kaleb caught some "shut-eye" snuggled in with Auntie Kelli

Kaleb wasn't big enough to go on one of the rides, so he found amusement in looking at all of the Christmas decorations.

We're down to less than 2 weeks before going to Canada, which we're very excited about. We were supposed to fly out on the 25th, and Karis ended up getting the 24th off but we'd never changed our flights as we didn't want to pay the change fees etc. Well, God was watching out for us, and Delta ended up changing their flights on Christmas day to very late in the day, so they let us switch fee-free to the 24th on our original times! Very exciting. Amy purchased the last snowsuit for Zachary, so both boys will at least have something in Canada to protect them as it is SUPER cold right now - something like 30 below! Brr! There is not a lot of snow, so we're really hoping that it starts to snow a LOT soon!

Kaleb is now getting in on the teeth-brushing routine on a nightly basis. He is actually cutting his cuspids right now, so he's got a runny nose and diaper rash. Doesn't really make sense why that happens, but oh well!

Phrase of the week: Kaleb's new word this week is "baby" - very clear and out of the blue, so that was kind of fun. Zachary is VERY good with his days of the week, and knows what happens on particular days of the week. He has a bit of trouble though, so when he recites his days of the week, he'll say "Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Fursday, Friday, Sabbath, and Saturday." We've tried to explain that Sabbath and Saturday are the same day, but it doesn't seem to be quite connecting yet. His favorite day is Sunday when he gets to do "sprink-a-lurs" (lawn sprinklers) with Daddy to make sure that they're all working properly (such a fun excuse to get all wet and dirty!)

Visit with the Hicks

We had a grand time with the Hicks last week during the Thanksgiving vacation. The kids all had a really fun time playing together. In fact, now that they've left, Zachary has taken to asking for "Erick, Kayley, Leah, Sophia and Lucas!" and telling Amy that she needs to call their moms to come back. Sophia and Lucas were here in September. It's a good thing that we don't have any more visitors with kids his age coming for a while otherwise the list of people that Amy needs to call to come back would be quite long! :)

Thursday was as you'd expect - full of just catching up and eating yummy Thanksgiving food! On Friday, we headed over to Busch Gardens. It was the first time that we'd been there in probably 5 years, so it was fun to see what changes had been made. There are quite a lot of kids rides - much more than we were expecting, so the kids REALLY had a good time. We left Kaleb home with Grandma so that he'd be able to get his naps in without being drug around in a stroller all day watching the others have all the fun.

Leah & Zachary in the bounce area - they had SO MUCH fun!

Leah & Zachary on the glider ride

On Sabbath, we headed over to the beach to join the Deiningers with their holiday visitors to enjoy the sand. We flew kites, buried kids in sand mounds, swam in their heated pool, and generally had a fabulous time. Grandpa Deininger was a terrific "monster" for Luke, Leah and Zachary - who had a ball hiding in the closet every time that he'd growl at them and then immediately coming out to find the monster again! :)

Leah & Luke - the "alligator" sand mounds!

Kaleb enjoying the sand and breeze

Sunday we headed back to the Petting Zoo - that place is just cool for kids - if it was any closer we'd be there a LOT. We saw even more animals than the first time that we went. The chicks were a repeat hit.

All 5 kids - Kaleb, Kayley, Erick, Leah & Zachary

Monday was a quieter day with a trip to Monkey Joe's and then putting up our Christmas tree. The boys love the Christmas tree - very fascinated with the lights . Zachary has taken to laying underneath it and trying to walk behind it (it is up against the window) so of course Kaleb follows him.

We're sad that the Hicks have left us - it was so wonderful to catch up with them, playing games and playing with the kids! We're already looking forward to the next time that we'll see them!

It is hard to believe that we leave for Canada in three weeks! We have so much left to do between now and then - we haven't bought any presents nor have we done the Christmas letter! The pressure is on!! December is always crazy in our home - not sure about everyone else's holiday season but how can so much be crammed into one month?!

Phrase of the week: Daddy freaked me out this morning! Kaleb's new word this week is "Up" - his favorite word because he ALWAYS wants to be carried around. He's quite picky about his position when being carried as well - if you pick him up and have him stomach to stomach with you - he'll push with his hands against you until he maneuvers himself onto your hip! :)

Kayley enjoying the slide at the park

Erick riding the tractor like a bull-rider!