Easter Fun

With Easter being last week, we had the great fun of going to the Hilliard Easter party again.  It was beautiful as always, and there were lots of fun Easter games for the kids to play (complete with an Easter 'toss', bunny sack races, and of course the live Easter bunny and Easter egg hunt.  Heather always outdoes herself, and it was very fun to visit with folks that we don't see all that often.

Kaleb was a master bunny sack racer - he could totally jump and hold onto the sack - it was amazing!  He did three races - while Zachary did 0 because he was more intent waiting on his turn for the swing! :)

Beloved Miss Morgan - the boys followed her and her sister Miss Madison around the entire party!

This week had a sad note with the passing of Fred Lysiuk - who has been a long-time friend of the Babiuk family (going back to when Amy's Babiuk grandparents were just starting off as farmers in Canada) and of course is Lisa's grandfather.  We were so sad to hear the news, but appreciate that we could know this very special person - what a fun person with deep faith, always a twinkle in his eye and a funny story, and a way of making you feel loved and cared about.   On a lighter note, Lisa flew up to Canada for the funeral on Friday, as Rob was flying back from a business trip in California - so we ended up added two boys to our crew.  We took them out to supper at Sweet Tomatoes (the BEST restaurant for families!), and it went very well - the four boys were amazingly well behaved, but it did give you a sense of the logistics of having more than two kids!  It makes only two kids seem easy! :)

Phrase of the week:  Kaleb's word this week is really a sound - the sound of slurping - whenever he sits down to eat something that he thinks is yummy, he now makes a slurping sound in anticipation!  This would NOT include "broccolis" however as he has been stating firmly lately that "I no like broccolis, yucky!"  What kid doesn't like broccoli!?  Zachary's phrase this week was hilarious - when Amy was out of town last week, we had to have backup childcare as Miss Jennifer's little boy Evan had an outpatient procedure done.  One of the high school girls that watched him was Miss Madison - she is VERY blond and fair-skinned.  The other girl that watched them was Miss Morgan (pictured in our of our Easter pictures).  Miss Morgan has a younger sister that the boys have never met also named Miss Madison - who is very dark like her sister Morgan.  After hanging out with Morgan and Madison at the Hilliard birthday party (they were the official babysitters for the party, helping to ensure that the kids were all taken care of), Zachary asked Amy the next day "How did Miss Madison get black?"  Amy was stumped for a moment before she realized that Zachary thought that Miss Madison #1 with her blond hair and light skin had turned into Miss Madison #2 (Morgan's younger sister) with her dark brown hair and very dark tan skin!  Ha ha - so funny!

Festivities Abound

 We apologize for the lack of a post last week - Amy was travelling to N. Carolina and Tennessee and just didn't have enough hours in the weekend to get everything done before she then packed up again and flew to Texas for this week - all in the pursuit of training executives on an expense report software that the company is implementing.  Anyway, it was a busy, tiring two weeks but hopefully life will be relatively quiet again for a while.  It had been a pretty exhausting several weeks prior to the trips, so even though Amy was in a hotel bed (which is never as comfortable as your own!), she actually slept in one day until almost 9A Orlando time (it was 8A where she was) - which that hasn't happened since the "pre-children" era! :)  It was heavenly, but the fact that she had to get up at 4A on her last day to catch the flight home pretty much negated any feeling of being rested.

So onto this week's post - with Kaleb's birthday being only 6 days after Zachary's, the Z-household is basically in party mode for a LONG time!  :) We celebrated this year with a Curious George party at the Orlando Science Center, and it was really fun.  They did several little experiments at the beginning of the party, including shooting 'rockets' up into the ceiling with the help of Alka-Seltzer.  The kids all thought that it was a blast, so all-in-all, it seemed to be a successful party.

Kaleb's Sabbath School singing Happy Birthday to him

Zachary participated in the Adventurers Little Lamb program this year, and while the family was all here he had the Investiture program (aka graduation) - which was entirely too long but was fun to see him walk in with his little outfit on and receive his little trophy.  He had a good time in it this year, and so it was a success.

Blake, Luke and Zachary looking very handsome

Gram-Z and Papa-Z then headed home which always leaves us feeling sad, but we were fortunate that we had something to look forward to - Amy's cousin Scott and his wife Patricia were passing through Orlando after enjoying a cruise, so we had the opportunity for a too-short visit, but a visit nonetheless!  It was really fun to be able to catch up for a bit.

Phrase of the week:  Mommy, I don't think that you should say "maybe" - I think that you should say YES!  How well we remember as kids thinking the same thing - Mom should say Yes, not maybe!! :)  Kaleb's phrase is not so much a phrase, as trying to capture how precisely his speaking patterns are.  When you ask him something, such as "did you see that duck, Kaleb?" His reply is always a very crisp "Yes I did" - if only we were more literate with how to make movie clips, it would be precious to get his little voice!

The boys each had a Curious George shirt with the words "Look Who's" and then the age that they were turning.  It was cute to see them in their matching shirts, and they weren't hard to make (thank goodness for PhotoShop!)

Making slime....ooey, gooey fun!

About to make a volcano - little scientists with their lab coats and goggles on!

Birthday Extravaganza

The week of birthday activities began last weekend as we began to celebrate Zachary's 5th birthday and Kaleb's 3rd birthday.  We like to spread our partying out, so we've had a present every day, and Gram-Z and Papa-Z arrived on Thursday.  The festivities began Friday night when we went out to Kobe Steakhouse with Auntie Kelli and Uncle Kent to celebrate her birthday (the same day as Zachary's) and Kent's which is in 2 weeks.  We continued continued through Friday night when we had our traditional family birthday dinner. 

The big shindig is tomorrow at the Science Center where we'll have the party that celebrates Luke Deininger, Zachary and Kaleb's birthdays.  It is a Curious George themed party, so the boys should love it hopefully!

Phrase of the week:  Happy Birthday Zachary!  Zachary responds:  Mommy, I thought that I would be taller today!  Ha ha - we had no idea that he thought that he would suddenly be big the day of his birthday!  That evening, Amy said "So how does it feel to be 5?"  Response "Pretty boring."  What!  Why is it boring - what was your favorite age.  "My favorite age was 18 months, because that is when I went to see the bison at Uncle Murray's!"  Now let's be clear, Zachary has no memory of this trip, but he dearly loves bison right now, so we showed him pictures of his trip to the farm where Uncle Murray does indeed have bison - so that has become his most favorite time in his life! :)  Aunt Elaine and Uncle Murray - you may wake up one day to find Zachary there to see the bison again - he keeps begging to go! :)  Kaleb's phrase this week: "Super-hewhoa"  Kaleb loves to run around the house pretending to be a superhero, and we especially love his pronunciation!  We don't have anything in the house relating to the popular superhero characters, so we're not sure with this came from, but they both love it!

The Birthday chair in Miss Deanna's class

Superhero capes for our superhewhoas!

Reading with Gram-Z

Playing with our new marble run - thanks Auntie Lorie and Uncle Kent!  We love it!

Fancy birthday hat from Miss Jennifer

The big-deal birthday gift - a new BIKE for Kaleb!  It is the same colors as Zachary's but is a 12 inch bike so is his size.  He loves it.

Baby Joey

Last week, we had the pleasure of a visit with Amy's cousin Judy and her long-time friend Joelle.  Joelle has three boys of her own, and soon Zachary became VERY attached to her.  Before we knew it, he was giving her a tour of our house - even behind closed doors (thanks for nothing, we had not cleaned up our master bedroom and bathroom, but there were no 'private' areas during this tour!!!)  He wanted her to regale him with stories about her three boys.  Upon the end of her visit, he pronounced that he wanted to go home with her!  It is very clear to us that Zachary attaches himself very quickly and deeply to women - which has its pros and cons of course! :)   While Joelle was entertaining Zachary, we had a really nice visit with Judy and it was fun to catch up with her.

The boys reading with Cousin Judy and Grandma

The obsession with Joelle has now begun in this picture....

Today, the big embarrassing story at church occurred at the end when we were having communion.  The tray with the tiny glasses of grape juice and the bread wafers were being handed out.  We were in the very last row.  Amy was sitting beside Kaleb, and then it went Zachary and Auntie Kelli.  Amy took the grape juice and bread wafer and then reached to hand the tray to Kelli.  As she did so, she raised the tray in the air so that it wouldn't pass right in front of Kaleb and Zachary (avoid all temptation)......but apparently she did not raise it quite high enough.  Kaleb was curious, and definitely wanted whatever was on that tray, and his hand shot like a rocket up in the air and grabbed the tray.  Grape juice then proceeded to splash out of all the cups onto the tray and onto Zachary's lap.  The best laid plans......  Thankfully there weren't many people left in our row, and almost all of the grape juice landed on Zachary's 'stain-resistant pants' (thank you Children's Place!) so when Amy brought out the wipes, there was hardly even a mark left on his pants.  So all in all, other than being very embarrassed, it wasn't a terrible disaster.  Next time, she'll raise the tray VERY HIGH.

 Phrase of the week:  The title of this week's post is really the phrase.   We headed out to eat with Auntie Kelli and Uncle Kent at Kobe Steakhouse this week, and we all climbed into the van together.  On the way there, Amy asked Zachary what he thought that the coming baby's name should be.  He answered "Jason" and then when asked for a middle name he said "Joey" - so the baby's name would be Jason Joey Johnson.  We all thought that was amusing, so started to laugh, and then Kaleb says "Baby Joey!! - Auntie Kelli Ka-roo"  Ka-roo of course is Kangaroo, and Kaleb was putting together the fact that Baby Joey's are with Kangaroos so with the baby being in Auntie Kelli's tummy, she must be a Kangaroo!  Clever child :)  Ha ha ha - it was really cute, so then we started to call the baby "Baby Joey" as the new nickname.  It's quite cute, so we'll see if it sticks as a nickname until the baby arrives and the real name is unveiled!

At this point, Mommy can still manage to wrestle both of them to the ground, but it won't be long until they easily overtake her!