Primo Pool Party For Two!

We celebrated Devin and Addison's first birthday last week - splitting the difference between Devin's birthday and Addison's.  It was a pool party held at Devin's place, as they have a fabulous primo large pool!  During the middle of the summer, it is so nice to be able to get out of the heat and cool off - built in entertainment for the kids!

We kept it very small so as to not overwhelm the parents and allow us to have a bit more time with the children - unlike Zachary's first birthday party in which we had 50 people and were so stressed out and busy that we didn't get to enjoy the celebration of the day with him!  Lesson learned.

Love the birthday girl shirt!

The weather had been raining every evening, so we were seriously praying that the weather cooperated and gave us some sun - otherwise taking the party inside was going to take some creativity for entertainment!

Look at that smile!

We had a lifeguard there as well, which was a relief to not have to worry about the kids' drowning etc, so that allowed us even more peace of mind - thanks Logan!

Addison and Erik

Sand bucket cakes - of course made by fabulous Miss Jennifer

Addison was interesting with her cake -a mixture of Zachary who didn't want anything to do with his cake and Kaleb, who smashed his cake to smithereens, and rubbed it all over his belly like he was a Buddha!  She dug into the icing on the cake, swirling it around with her hands like it was finger paints etc, but didn't actually try to eat any of the cake until about 15 minutes after she first started to play with the cake!  The feel of the icing was what most interested her!  At one point, it was so cute, Devin reached over and tried to grab Addison's cake! :)


Devin making a break for Addison's cake after his had been confiscated (Thanks to Allen for this picture!)

Good job Addie!

 A funny conversation happened with the boys after we moved into the new house, and couldn't find their church shoes on Sabbath (actually, couldn't find Zachary's church shoes until three weeks later!!) - both of them had variants of the same comments to say exclaiming "I can't go to church in regular socks, God won't be pleased!"  She assured them that God just was happy that they were THERE and that their socks didn't matter!

Toto, We're Not in Kansas Anymore

The Z's are whirling.  On July 4th, we took the plunge.  We moved.  After being embroiled in renovations for about 6 weeks, we decided it was now or never and we moved about 80% of our belongings from the Jessica Drive house over to our Highland Acres house - leaving common area furniture such as living room, kitchen, dining room etc in order to help the house "show" better when we put it on the market to sell.

We were blessed with friends who helped us move that day, which thankfully did not take very long as we had been gradually moving quite a bit over the prior six weeks, and the fact that we weren't moving everything.

With no kitchen table, we're enjoying the peaceful back deck as our eating place

That night, Amy was hit hard with sentimentality over our old house - it truly has been such a wonderful place to us - where we brought all three of our children home to!  She wondered "How would our friends react if we said 'Just kidding! Let's move back'?"  Ha ha, knowing of course what the answer would be!

We are still very slowly unpacking, with most of Karis' attention focused on painting all of the baseboards and the ancillary rooms and of course, three kids to keep track of!  The next morning, Amy wondered what to feed the kids as she had not thought to keep any food separated.  So, she started diving through boxes until she found one lonely box of cereal and then a box with two bowls and some cutlery.  So at least the boys ate out of a bowl, and she ate dry cereal out of the box!   Desperate times, desperate measures! :)

The boys too are feeling the effects of the move, vacillating between being excited about the new house and wishing that we still lived in the old digs.  Kaleb's reason for liking the old house better is the fridge - he says that it is the color that he liked better (????) but in truth it is most likely because it had a water dispenser and icemaker that was easily accessible by the kids.  Zachary loved the older home more because of the fact that Mom and Dad had more time to play back then!  All in good time....

The new house is a lot louder with all of the wood floors, so we will definitely be getting some rugs etc as we start to decorate and curtains. Hopefully this will help reduce the noise dramatically!

In terms of our old house, we put it on the market for the 4th of July weekend, and had 7 showings in one day!  We accepted an offer on Day 4, and are now in the inspection and appraisal period.  All prayers accepted that it will appraise please!  Our inspection uncovered several problems that we weren't anticipating - three major problems and then the rest was very clean (which we did expect that!).  Apparently the roots of the tree in front have grown into the septic tank drain field, which is causing it to not work properly.  We had no idea as we've never had a problem with the septic tank.  Problem number two were two leaks in common areas in the roof, which will be pretty easy to be fixed.  Problem number three is that our house was built with plumbing pipes that were later determined to be defective and taken off the market.  We've never had a plumbing failure, so had no idea that there was an issue with these kinds of pipes.  The new owners may decide to repipe the house (we'll give most likely money towards that end), but we'll see how this goes.  We'll be so thankful when it is done, even though we'll be so sad to see it gone.  We've gone over there many times since moving, and it truly has such a wonderful, light, bright feeling to it with many memories - but Karis is looking forward to not having to move the new house lawn AND the old house lawn!

Speaking of lawns, we have hired Adam D to help Karis with the lawns, so it is a win-win situation - Karis loves the ability to get the lawn done faster, and Adam loves having the job! :)

Once we are all settled, we will post pictures of the finished house, but right now, it is a disaster scene with boxes everywhere!

She loves nothing more than digging in the boxes and pulling things out!

In other news, we had a fun celebration last week for Blake and Evan's birthday.  It was the Lego Olympics pool party!  Fun times, and yummy food!

"Flying" mid-air at the party

A "game" created by our game director, Allen I, who never fails to entertain the kids!  Floating contest!  Zachary came in second, and probably could have kept going even longer but thankfully gave up the ghost.

Addison is now 11 months old, and we are celebrating her party in a combined bash with Devin this weekend, as their birthdays are only 5 weeks apart, so we'll post pictures of that next weekend.

Addison "helping" with laundry

Random Picture:

Kaleb and Daddy making biscuits



Make Way for the Zs

We are finally resurfacing after a few crazy weeks! We headed up to Boston a few weeks ago for the AHS annual conference and spent the week enjoying the sites and sounds of Boston. We had been there two years ago for the same conference, as we journeyed up to Bar Harbor, Maine, so we weren't sure how exciting this trip would be in light of the fact that we had so recently done many of the activities in Boston. However, we were so pleasantly surprised when our expectations were well exceeded with the fun excursions that we were able to find ourselves on! We stayed at the Fairmont, which is of course is very posh, so it was quite a treat.


The lion in front of the Fairmont reminded us of the lions in London

One of the highlights was swinging by to see the bronze statues of the ducklings from the story "Make Way for the Ducklings" in the Boston Common park. We had tried to do that last time, but never found an opportunity. It was fun to go see them as the kids have enjoyed that book over the last several years.

Speaking of books, we availed ourselves of a book about Paul Revere's wild midnight ride as well in advance of the trip, so when we spent an afternoon walking the Freedom Trail, it was quite relevant and interesting to Zachary. He really enjoyed actually walking around the old cemetery where Paul Revere is buried, as well as looking at all of the artifacts in his home.

We were able to spend some time as well at the Boston Science Museum, where they had the Dead Sea Scrolls. The boys did really well as we spent a fair amount of time there reading the information cards etc. They of course did enjoy the rest of the day at the museum a little more, and the parents enjoyed the one exhibit where it timed how fast they could run - which they did time and time again (burning up excess energy and surely sleeping better that night!)

One really fun day was spent at Old Sturbridge Village outside of Boston. We would highly recommend anyone taking time to head over there. It is a recreation of an 1800s village, with a lot of buildings from a typical town all collected together. There are people in period costumes going about their "normal" 1800s life, and showing you how things were done. There were a lot of things set up for the kids to partake in, so they really had a blast playing the old fashioned ring toss, a form of badminton, watching a man's doll "dance" (he would play an instrument like a recorder, and had his wooden doll attached to a string that was then tied to a post and the man's knee - whenever the man would move his knee, the wooden doll would "dance" - super entertaining!). Zachary's favorite memory at Sturbridge Village is yanking out his fourth tooth!

No more tooth!

Watching the little man "dance"

Part of the Z family in front of one street in the village

Old fashioned Zachary, Loghann, Maddie and Cole

A completely new experience for the boys, was the trip to see the Boston Red Sox game! We sat behind the center fielder, as they played the Colorado Rockies. Zachary feels it is important to share the score - it was 5 to 3 in favor of the Red Sox (his memory is much better than his mother's, who spent her time entertaining Kaleb and feeding him food to stave off his 5 year old boredom!). The game was a definite do-over, so we'll try to perhaps catch a Tampa game at some point.


Riding a rickshaw - aka "Pedicab" to the game

Before it begins....

Addison spent the week with Grandma, so that Karis would have the flexibility of going out with the boys and not having to worry about the two naps a day. When we returned, she had really mastered the ability to pull up on the couch and walk along it. She is as very determined little girl - perhaps more tenacious than the two boys even were. She also seems to be hitting her milestones a little faster - although we'll see how quickly she actually walks. We all missed her very much, so were happy to return safe and sound.

Phrase of the week: After Zachary pulled out his tooth, Kaleb looked at him and said "It looks like you're growing up." and Zachary's response was a very matter-of-fact, "I am only seven, I am not that grownup!" (Oh but doesn't he act like he is 7 going on 17 already!). Kaleb's other constant mantra on the trip was "Can we go see our friends!" - we spent the fun-filled week with the Hilliards, and he wanted to be with them constantly! In fact, he developed a 5-year-old "crush" on Loghann, and insisted on holding her hand at all times! She was extremely patient with him, so good-natured!


Never far from Loghann

Zachary's phrase was while in the cemetery - there was a wishing well with coins thrown in there, and Zachary looked at the money and uttered "Wow, Paul Revere lost all of his money!"

Addison's phrase is "Up!" - although this isn't a completely reproducible word, it does seem like she's saying "up" when she wants to be picked up. That is all that she's ventured on though at this point for words.

Random Pictures

Watching a wacky routine in Faneuil Hall after eating delicious mac and cheese!

Riding the famous swan boat in Boston Common

On Saturday afternoon, Zachary (red shorts) and Kaleb (red shirt) splashed in the water feature in Copley Square.  They both ended up quite wet!