Catching up!

As you may be realizing, life has been a little insane for Amy lately - just super busy at work, which is translating into working very long hours.  In addition, she hasn't been sleeping well - so this all adds up to one thing - severe exhaustion and apathy on the weekend!  With that in mind, there haven't been a lot of pictures taken lately, and the blog posts have been pretty short (which is okay, but just saying....) - so this week we realized that there have been several pictures that we had missed posting over the last several weeks.  So this is a bit of a catch-up blog! :)

A couple of weeks ago, we headed to Hilliards for a "make-your-own-banana-split night" - the kids just thought this was the best idea since sliced bread, and who can blame them! :)  In addition to ice cream, they spent some time playing in the pool.  Kaleb loves Maddie, their youngest child is a similar age, so they spent much of the night together (he also loves Loghann, the oldest child as well, so it just depends on the day as to who is going to be receiving Kaleb's attention!)  They spent most of the night playing together on the floating alligator

 

As we mentioned, Zachary is playing football with I9 (they're 3 and 3!), and afterwards he often begs for one of his friends to come over and play.  This particular weekend, it was Luke - and apparently with all of the football and all of the playing, they were just plumb tuckered out because they ended up sacked out on the couch watching a football game on TV!

 



 

Addison's adventurers never cease - literally (more on that another week!)  One weekend, she found a new night-time nursing bra that Amy had in the "donate" bin and decided that it would be a nice head-covering.....so was walking around the house with this thing on her head, even when we'd take it off, she'd put it back on!

 

 

The weather is so nice now that we're spending a lot of time outdoors at the park.  As we mentioned, Addison is not a huge fan of swings, but we did manage to catch a pleasant expression on her face for this one!

 

 

It is amazing, Kaleb at 5 has figured out how to pump his legs and keep his swing flying sky high.....older brother?  Not so much!  Oh well, we all have our talents! :)

 

 

Meaning, older brother doing what he always wants to do....play soccer!!  There were a few friends at the park, and then another few boys came over to play and a game of soccer ensued.

 

And a final picture - Addison loves to follow her brothers around, and they headed over to watch a baseball team in the final end-of-game huddle.   Like brother, like sister!

A last story - so last week we commented on the fact that our master bedroom AC had been broken for 4 weeks as the home warranty company attempted time after time to repair it.  So last Sunday, it FINALLY was repaired.  We were blissfully enjoying the AC free life until Wednesday, when the main house AC broke!  Give us a break! :)  The compressor is broken in that unit as well, so now we begin the saga for that as well.  The joys of old AC units.

Phrase of the week:  Yeah, when I get older, I'm going to buy a car.  I bet it is like a 1,000 dollars.....Oh Zachary, if ONLY!!!

And It Continues

Our A/C woes are continuing - they brought in the new compressor (after the first replacement failed) but then the A/C technician couldn't get the pipes to align in order to weld them together.....so today we have the manager out to see if he can actually get this taken care of!  It is so ridiculous that we've been without A/C for now a month!

But, we have to look on the bright side, at least the weather is starting to cool down!  We're trying to get outside to enjoy it as much as we can.  The parks are a lovely option on a Sabbath afternoon!  Oddly enough, Addison seems to be scared of swings, so that is never high on her list, but she's starting to enjoy the slides!  She of course is also always exploring and finding things to get herself into (and INTO HER MOUTH!)  Addison definitely has a propensity to put everything into her mouth - it is insane.  We never had this problem with the boys - so we welcome all prayers that this child doesn't choke!  We're hoping that this phase passes quickly.

With the fact that Zachary loves sports so much, they have also been heading out to the front yard in order to play - baseball is his current favorite sport, and Gram-Z and Papa-Z had given him a baseball bat for his birthday, so they have been giving that some use as well in the front yard!

Amy took the kids to the grocery store while Karis mowed the lawn last weekend.....and of course the two boys had to entertain themselves in some way, so under the cart they went!  That lasted for a little while, until Kaleb decided to lay his head down on the ground (which made pushing the cart very difficult!)

 

Blizzard Beach

Last Friday, we had a special treat when Zachary and Kaleb had a school field trip to Blizzard Beach, and Amy and Karis took the day off to go with them.  Amy ended up having to work in the morning, but managed to jet off to spend the afternoon with them.  The weather was perfect for the day in the water, and we all had a fun time on the many rides.  One of the favorites was the "family ride" where we all got into a huge tub that sailed down the slides.


The sun was bright, so the slides behind us were washed out in the picture, but we were all smiles!

Karis, Blake, Evan, Zachary and Kaleb

At school, Kaleb had "crazy hair" day - and of course, it is a little harder for his hair with the fact that it is long - it won't spike as easily - so Jennifer to the rescue and she made him have "hair dreads" - green and blue no less!  He was thrilled.

The other big news for us is that last weekend, Zachary's football team won their first game!  And Zachary caught an interception!  It was very exciting - in fact, we're not sure if the kids or the parents were more excited! :)

We have been plagued lately with air conditioning woes.  When we bought the house, we got a home warranty for unforeseen problems.  About 3-4 weeks ago, our air conditioning in the master bedroom stopped working. They said that it was the inside unit, so they replaced the coils in it, and lo and behold, it STILL wouldn't work.  So, then they decided that it was the outside unit and they replaced the compressor.  And you got it...it STILL won't work.  This is very frustrating - at night, the room gets very hot of course, so that is contributing to Amy's insomnia - waking up sweating in the middle of the night is not great!  The overhead fan has been a blessing, and it is starting to cool down so we'll be thankful.

Addison has popped another two teeth, so she has a total of 8 now.  It looks like one of her molars is starting to come in potentially as well.   She is starting to throw temper tantrums (GASP, this isn't supposed to be happening at 14 months!!!) - complete with throwing herself back on the floor.  We're in for it with this child!

Sitting still long enough to actually look at a book - this is a small miracle for our little tornado Addi!

Retirement Woes

Last Friday, Amy said good-bye to her work mother - Phyllis.  Phyllis has now officially retired after working part-time for the last year.  Phyllis is a very special person - she was the first person to befriend Amy when she started to work at the Corporate office 14 years ago!  She has been a confidant and friend over the years - a listening ear when venting was needed, and a guiding voice when Amy needed to be reminded of the important things in life, and how to look at life from a different angle.  She will be greatly missed!  It certainly is not the same to go to work now without her - actually, work has definitely changed a lot over the past months, as Kelli J also "hung up her work suit" to stay at home with her babies.  Every year, we have to do an employee survey where one of the questions asks "Do you have a best friend at work" - and both of these ladies qualified - now Amy has to find a new best friend quick! :)

Addison is growing like crazy - although still not talking other than a few times it has sounded like she has said "Up", "apple" and she says "mamamama" and "dadadada" a hundred times, but not sure that she is actually connecting the words with the people!  She is walking really well now, and has her favorite "haunts" in the house (a few cupboards in the kitchen that she can get into, and the linen closet and one of the drawers in the master bedroom....although finding the office door open and the computer accessible is a special delight for her!)

Every child's favorite - playing in the dishwasher!

One of the things that we're enjoying at the house is the fact that there is a fair amount of wildlife around.  Although one instance was a bit TOO MUCH - Karis was driving home with the boys a few weeks ago and Zachary shouts "There is a bear!" - it was climbing up a tree just a few houses down from ours.  Too close for comfort!

Touching a turtle that seems to have 'adopted' our yard as his home.

Phrase of the week:  Mommy and I went to "whine-mart" - ha ha ha, I'm not sure how kindly Walmart would look upon being called "whine-mart" by Kaleb, but this is apparently what he thought the name was!  We don't go there often as it is a little scary in terms of the clientele at times - but we were headed back from a field trip yesterday (Zachary had gone home with Karis separately), and we headed in to grab a few groceries.  We sadly matched the clientele too well yesterday - Kaleb was in swim trunks (no shirt....Amy was crossing her fingers that they wouldn't make her leave under the "No shirt, no shoes, no service" but apparently if it is a child that doesn't a shirt on, it is okay!?)....and Amy had on a beach towel wrapped around her waist......  Yes, we weren't at the top of the "classy" scale for sure!  Oh well, we grabbed our groceries and skedaddled!  It is definitely cheaper at "whine-mart" but it is hard to find organic items!