No More Dog Days of Summer

Okay - so I know that lots of people are excited to have their kids go back to school, but frankly the Z parents are happy for summer.  No homework....no having to drag the kids out of bed every morning!!  Ugh.  Kaleb is now in kindergarten - can't believe the years have flown by and my baby boy is in kindergarten!  Anyway, he is our "sleeper-inner" - so every morning we have to wake him up in order to get him fed, dressed etc and out the door.  Not fun!  Oh well, he loves school and his new teacher and she told us that he is very focused (YAHOO!) and catches on very quickly!  He has also decided that he wants to learn to read, so that is a good sign as we have struggled trying to get him to sit down and do reading lessons over the summer.

Our boys - off to school!

Sitting in his classroom!

We had fun last weekend going to a birthday party for a little girl we met in Sabbath School - Kennedi.  Her parents are super friendly, so we have enjoyed getting to know them.  Kennedi and Addison are only 2 weeks apart in age, so we hope that they'll enjoy growing up together!

There was a puppet show at the party, the kids loved that!

Elin, Victoria and Addison were decorating their hats. 

 It is amazing - so many people have commented lately on how big Addison is.  When she went in for her 2 year old appointment, she was at the 95th percentile for height - she is tall for a little girl! It will be interesting to see if she stays tall as Amy was "tall" as a child too and then flamed out and ended up short! :)

Phrase of the week:  Bah-dull - this is how Addison says bottle....okay, you can judge me, she is still drinking her milk from a bottle. Yes, we need to get her off of a bottle, but it is only in the morning, before nap and before bedtime!

The other funniest conversation happened with Zachary this week - sorry, there is no way to keep this entirely 'clean' but it is too funny not to share.  We were in our master bathroom and he was remembering how Addison used to dig around in the drawers and pull things out to throw on the floor.  There is one drawer that has "monthly" supplies, and he demonstrated Addison's past habits and grabbed a Tampon (in its wrapper) out of the drawer and holding it up he said "What is this thing anyway?......I bet its a new toothbrush!"  Ha ha ha ha....no Zachary, it's not a toothbrush!

Winter Haven Beach

We decided to head on out to Winter Haven Park beach last weekend again - it has been such fun now that we have a canopy (so much cooler!!!)  We went out after Sabbath School and a quick lunch, and spent the afternoon before heading on back home.  Addison fell asleep in the van (like she did the first time we went to the beach) but Kaleb had to go pee halfway home so when we stopped on the side of the road (wow, being a boy is so easy when it comes to these things - just open the door, let him stand at the van door opening and voila - no-one can see you and there is tromping through the grass and squatting!!) - anyhow, she woke up and that was it for the rest of the drive home but thankfully bedtime wasn't too far away so she was able to go down for the night.

There ended up being a lot of families out there - Cochrans (who came separately with their extended family), and then Deiningers, Fulbrights, Reams, Ritterskamps, and Hodges.  It was fun to play and enjoy the water together.

There was a large crab that we found out at the beach while we were there, the kids were enamored!  Luke was a good caretaker and kept Addison from charging on in there to investigate too closely!

Victoria and Addison are the same age, and gravitated towards each other although there was a little difficulty at times sharing! :)

Amy headed out for the evening with other ladies for a night out (thanks Jenn for organizing), it was super fun to visit with the women and catch up on all kinds of topics.  That Sunday, Zachary took the plunge and got his hair cut much shorter - we took him to Sports Clips as we decided that it was better if someone other than Grandma did it (as we thought Zachary might be upset!).  There was a TV with football on the whole time, so Zachary was quite happy to sit still.  Hopefully the shorter hair will keep him cooler!

We also had the family over last weekend for the family celebration of Addison's birthday (okay, it is clear we like to celebrate birthdays - it is always a strung out affair!).  Jason came over again and Zachary is just in love with him.  Jason loves history, so sat down after supper and read a history book to Zachary and then recited all of the presidents from memory!  He is officially Zachary's current hero! :)  Jason also got Zachary to try zucchini, which was a new vegetable for Zachary - that was a miracle in itself!  Jason hopes to perhaps be a pediatrician when he's done with medical school (he's in the process of deciding) and you can tell as he's so great with kids.

About to eat the zucchini!

Grandma's masterpiece cake!

We had orientation this week at school as the boys officially start school this coming week.  We've got all of our gear and clothes, and hopefully we're all set!  Positive thoughts....it's hard to get back into gear for all of the homework, fieldtrips, projects, intramurals.....tiring! :)

Phrase:  Mommy....Mommy....MOM!!  Addison is hilarious - she'll call to you once or twice and if you don't respond appropriately, she'll then get a sharp tone to her voice, change what she calls you and belt out your name!  MOM!!!

Wearing Addison's PJ bottoms

Boxes make the best toys....

Addison takes off her car seat straps and sits up so she can look around - NOT GOOD - we try and strap her in as tight as possible to keep her from doing this, but this kid can figure out how to get out of anything!!

Officially Two Years Old!

Addison's now officially two years old - let the terrible twos begin (or PLEASE, how about we skip this stage? :).  Amy took her birthday off to spend the day with her and we headed over to Amaya Papaya (indoor playground) with the Johnson kids.  It was a great little place with tons of imaginative toys (no electronics thank you very much) and activities for the kids to do - including a sand box, play kitchen complete with fake food, a little "house," train table, mini trampolines etc.  The kids had a great time!

The best picture we could get - at least they're all looking up!!

A funny coincidence while we were there - there was a lovely lady with a very bright sequin top (sort of out of place at a play place for kids with small children), and halfway through our time, it was announced that she was Mrs. Florida and that she would be reading a story to the kids!  Here she is, complete with a 'fake' crown (pretty sure that wasn't her official crown!!)

We're pleased to announce that Addison can stack blocks!  Ha ha, by the third child you don't pay much attention to the "milestones" that kids are supposed to hit but Amy has this vague memory that you're supposed to be able to stack blocks and she was sitting down playing with Addison and she started to pile up the blocks - so she can do six at least! :)  Good job!

We had her birthday at Sabbath School - she's getting to be an old hat at blowing out the candles.  She wasn't entirely sure in the beginning about sitting in the chair but settled in with a little encouragement.

Jennifer sent us the funniest video of Addison saying her animal sounds.  Amy must have watched this video 10 times at work that time, it just tickles her funny bone - you'll notice that for almost every animal Addison says "woof woof" for the dog sound before finally saying the correct animal noise!  Ha ha ha!

A few weeks ago (forgot to include the pictures) we had the pleasure of visiting with our relatives from Tennessee - the Dodds and Jason Dedeker (he's Amy's cousin and is a medical student here for a month long internship rotation with FH).  We had such fun getting together and visiting with them!

These are the kids of the Syfert cousins - from the left hand side (Elizabeth and Brenden Dodd - kids of Amy's cousin Kathy, then the Z kids, then Jason Dedeker (RHS) who is the son of Amy's cousin Judy (sister to Kathy), and then Kelsey (son of Amy's cousin Rick who is Aunt Louise's son)

The Dodd family plus Jason

Amy's Mom, Aunt Louise, Kathy and Amy

 Random Pictures:

All three in the bath - may have been a first - hard to get their hair washed with that many limbs in the tub!

Isn't your diaper the correct spot for carrying your cell phone??

Phrase of the week:  "Uggie" (for Hug!) and Brucie!  Jennifer's husband is Bruce, and Addison is a big fan of Bruce.  She also tends now to put the "e" sound on the end of all names!  Uggie, Brucie, Blakey, Dachie (Zach), Guppy (for cup), Avie (Evan), Bobby (Kaleb).  The list goes on!

Highland Ninja Warrior

The boys have been enjoying watching American Nina Warrior - an all-out obstacle course with crazy hard stunts that the athletes have to do for folks who haven't seen this show before...... and they went through a phase where nightly they would create an obstacle course out of our living room and see if they could navigate their way through to the finish line!  In one video, it is Kaleb who takes a wild leap off of the couch into the great unknown - thankfully there were no injuries!

In the next video, Zachary is having his turn at it - blindfolded again of course (Amy is very worried about the ultimate state of her blanket!!), and then Kaleb catches the wildly thrown pillow at the end, so Zachary's dreams of being the Ninja Warrior were dashed! :)

Addison, Addison, Addison.  This week's adventure includes Addison deciding that she need to put on mascara (Amy usually gets ready before she gets up, so how she has figured out what this tube is for and where it goes is probably from seeing it only once or twice perhaps on the weekend!  She was pretty close, but thankfully she didn't jab herself in the eye with the wand!

Amy put her mascara away into a drawer (vs the little basket on top of the counter) and thought that would take care of the matter - only to discover that Addison a week later went through the drawers and found it again....now we have the "goth" look!

Last weekend we began a series of birthday celebrations (which will continue in next week's post) for all of the July and August birthdays.  Friday night we had a get-together at our friends where Addison received her very own pink construction hat!  She looked proud as a peacock!

We celebrated Erik and Kieran's birthdays as well - with a train theme and swimming (so nice during the hot August weather!).  Erik couldn't quite bet the hang of blowing out the candles, so his Mom (Auntie Kelli) helped him out!

 As a big grown-up 6 year old, Kieran had no problem blowing those candles out!

Addison is enjoying time in the pool this summer, and still remembers slightly how to float although she'd much rather be swimming - she reminds us a little bit of Zachary the way that she swims mostly with her arms but she is very determined and can hold her breath surprisingly well!  In the beginning of this video, Kaleb is informing Karis that he's in the "Canadian ocean" and then when Amy tells Addison to float until she counts to 5, Addison immediately shouts 5!!

Phrase of the week:  Burr-day!  We have been coaching Addison for her birthday and she has managed to add this to her verbiage repertoire.  We have been trying to get her to hold up two fingers as well - that isn't mastered yet as she just holds up all 5 fingers instead! :)  She was also digging in Grandma's purse and found a 10 dollar bill and informed us "money!"

A Brief Escape - Bahama Style

We had the opportunity (once again thanks to Amy's mom) to escape for a weekend get-away with just the Z-adults last weekend - it was to originally intended to be a "life-memorable" trip to Costa Rica for Amy's 40th and our 15th wedding anniversary, but sadly we just had too many logistical issues and the cost was inching up the longer that we waited, so we decided to take the more prudent route and just take a 3-day cruise to the Bahamas - not quite as life-memorable, but definitely a much needed relaxing trip!

We headed out on Friday on Royal Caribbean's Enchantment of the Seas from Port Canaveral - it was so easy to get to that we didn't leave until 1P on Friday and we arrived back home on Monday to our house at 10A!  It is so easy you could have worked both days (not that you'd want to work on vacation days, but it is possible!)  

The weather was fantastic and we truly enjoyed ourselves immensely.  We had an ocean view room (instead of an balcony room that we had on our last two trips).  Not sure if this is the case for all ocean view rooms, but we realized that first night that the window creaked and groaned off and on all night - so loudly that Amy had to sleep with ear plugs and the constant sound machine of course.....the next morning Karis announced that he hadn't slept much and we went off to buy another set of ear plugs!!  Perhaps that interior room may be even better......or it is back to the balcony! :)  Karis is convinced that the interior room would be just fine as we truly were hardly in the room except to sleep and change clothes etc.

The horrific window - looks lovely but oh so not!!

We decided that we really wanted this to be a relaxing weekend, so we headed to the spa when we first boarded the boat and decided to each have a massage.  Amy had the relaxing Swedish massage while Karis decided to go for the big guns and went for the deep tissue massage.  Ouch!  But, we were both much more relaxed when we were done.

 We tried to evaluate the whole weekend whether this is something that we could do with our kids in the future, and it looks like it would definitely be something that could be in the whole Z family future.  We would be selective about which boat to go on, as we did see other boats that had water slide parks on them!  The vegetarian food may be an issue, but if we're okay with our kids eating pizza, spaghetti, mac and cheese and grilled cheese, that is doable as well (other vegetarian options were available, but more to an adult taste palette than kids per se).

This particular boat had a kids splash park, but no water slide park.

We went snorkeling in Nassau (note to self, Karis must shave goatee before snorkeling again as there is no seal, so he was getting salt water up his nose - miserable!).  The water was very temperate, so it was fun to see the colored fish and coral - we even saw a very small sting ray from afar!)  We went snorkeling at the private island Coco Cay the next day as well, and that was REALLY cool!

When we got off the boat, we headed to walk around town when a lady vendor asked Amy if she wanted her hair braided.  Amy answered "No" and kept on walking.  The lady ran after her and said that she wanted to give Amy this necklace (which Amy doesn't wear necklaces...) because she wanted to welcome Amy to the Bahamas. Before we knew it, she had clasped the necklace around Amy's neck.  When we tried to politely decline she firmly insisted and then slapped one around Karis' neck.  As we were in the process of trying to undo them and give them back, she said "This is how I support my children, give me anything for them!"  Great - how do you refuse to give a lady money when you know that she probably is struggling to support her children?  So, we're now both 'proud' owners of necklaces that we didn't want, won't ever wear, but hopefully that lady's children will have something to eat!!

As we walked around, there was something akin to a beauty contest going on that we stopped to watch. The interesting thing was that the ladies all had on a costume!  You can see some were quite flamboyant, with the lady in the middle dressed up as a flower with the stamen sticking up probably 10 feet in the air!

The next day we just lazed around in Coco Cay - snorkeling, reading on the beach and napping.  How lovely.  We often thought it would be fun to have the kids with us, but let's face it - taking a nap on the beach without having to worry about whether your kids are safe or drowning was kinda nice!

Picture of the ship as we returned.  The rest of the time was spent around the pool, where we actually watched two movies (can't remember the last time that happened), ate ice cream cones, and then watched a live "Chubby Bunny" contest in which cruise guests attempted to see how many marshmallows they could stuff in their face and still say "chubby bunny" - ahh, gotta love how easily entertained we all are, as we laughed ourselves silly watching that!

When we returned, we hung out for the rest of the day with the kids, playing games etc.  That afternoon though we began a journey of a 24 hour fever starting with Addison.  After Addison, Kaleb got it Thursday and Zachary on Friday.  Bummer - we had great plans for this week, but at least it was only 24 hours long!  We had taken Tuesday off, so instead of going to Aquatica like we'd hoped (not knowing when Addison would feel better), we went to Wonder Works that day after her fever broke.  It was SUPER fun - well recommended - it's like the Science Center's coolest stuff all put together in once place!

Connect 4 in the bonus room

Zachary trying out the "how fast can you pitch" game

Kaleb lifting himself on the pulley machines - strong arms as Amy couldn't lift herself!!

Daddy trying out the bed of nails

Kaleb brave enough to try out a portion of the ropes course

While big brother Zachary took it all on with courage and balance!

Phrase of the week:  Addison's vocabulary continues to delight us - she's added "Blake (or sometimes Bake!") to call for Blake - her dearly beloved Blake - instead of calling "Key" that she's been doing the last few weeks.  Also, she can say elbow and five!  Also, when pointing to her belly button, she says "di da" for "ding-dong" (we pretend that her belly button is a door bell and press it and then say ding-dong!!).

Random Pictures:

On a date night, we went to Steak and Shake, and poor Zachary got a brain freeze from the milk shake! What mother takes a picture of her child as his brain freezes?? :)

Trying our hand at making cheesy eggs