Champions!

Sorry - this post was all written and then Amy just forgot to hit the "post" button - so now it is a whole week late!  So it'll be a two post weekend (assuming we don't forget to hit the post button again!)

Zachary's football team, the Wolverines, have finished the season undefeated!  Congratulations guys!  It was super exciting to see them finish without losing - Zachary did a great job as quarterback!  He got several touchdowns himself, even though he was the QB as well - good job man!

We had a super fun weekend, deciding to go to the zoo in the morning on Sabbath to enjoy the perfect fall weather.  It was so awesome - not crowded, not hot (and thus the animals were very active!!), and perfect family time.



An unusual moment - cooperating with mom in taking a picture!

Riding the tire swing!  More cooperation with looking and nice smiles???  How can this be?!

Apparently it was a day to play the lottery, because this many picture with the kids looking and smiling nicely is amazing!

Riding high...  This is "no shave November" so check out Karis' full on beard!

No zoo trip would be complete without a train ride - and even better yet, we still had some leftover passes from their birthdays last year so the ride was free!!

After the zoo, we jumped into the van and headed out to Chapin Station park where we spent the afternoon in fellowship with friends - perfect day for a picnic lunch!  The dads played soccer with the kids as the afternoon wore on, which delighted all of them! 

Looking down as Addi takes on the big kids slide....the little slide is for babies!!

And then Bossy Bessy (aka Addison) demanded that her mother follow her down the slide! :)

After such a full day and no afternoon nap, it took about 2 seconds for Addison to fall asleep in the car!

Trying to get the soccer ball past Karis!

The Z-parents ended the evening with a concert with a work colleague at his church - Lewis.  We've been to their church one other time a few years ago to hear Meredith Andrews - it was so good, it is still a highlight in our memories!  This evening was a blessing as well - although it started off oddly with the first band being heavy rock....and while we've all had times in our life when we've listed to hard rock, it wasn't expected at this time in our lives AND at church!  But the lead singer did have a good message, and talked about having the boldness of Elijah that he could confidently proclaim without doubt that God would rain down fire from heaven....wouldn't it be awesome if we all were that bold?  The main singer though was Audrey Assad, and it was beautiful music, and a beautiful worship.  At the end, she had the audience singing a well-known worship song with her, and as the song drew to an end, she stopped playing the piano and it became a capella.....and then she took her mike off and she walked off the stage as the audience kept singing the rest of the song bringing glory to God.  It was amazing.....it felt truly like the whole point of her concert was to worship God...not to bring glory to herself.  Well done - so impactful!


Phrase of the week:  Mommy, pony!  This is Addison directing her mother that she must have a pony-tail of some sort!  :)   The other thing that she's started this week is to say "Frog....Mommy......Sing!"  This turns into the Old McDonald song, because what other song can you incorporate a frog and its sound into!?  So demanding this child - we've begun to call her Bossy Bessy! :)

One Tooth, Two Teeth, Three Teeth!

Kaleb has lost his first tooth!  His mouth is crazy with his adult teeth coming in BEHIND his baby teeth on the back (refer to the picture proof from a blog post a few weeks back), and Kaleb has been terrified of actually pulling the teeth out - so he's just been wiggling it but never actually giving it a good jerk.  The one tooth got wiggly to the point where it would practically lay down on his lip when he'd talk, and overnight (at the Adventurer Campout), it just fell out and when he woke up, he shouted "My TOOTH!" frantic that he'd lost it.  Thankfully he did not swallow it!

While Kaleb is afraid to pull it out, Zachary suffers from the opposite problem - at the very first sign of any wiggle-ny-ness, he just strong-arms that tooth right out of his mouth - so he's now lost two more teeth on the top.

The Z-men went to the Adventurer campout on Friday night, and had a blast.  Karis said that they actually slept from about 9 to 6:15, although they did get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and to find Kaleb's lost tooth, so all-in-all the sleeping wasn't too bad.  Amy stayed home with Addison (may Addison stay small forever so Amy has an excellent excuse not to sleep on the cold, hard ground! :), and the other benefit of staying home was avoiding the pollen that has given her such a horrible cough the last 6 weeks.  Johnsons took pity on us and invited us over to their house for lunch.  Addison and Erik got along swimmingly - although they piled all of the cushions up on the couch and jumped from the ottoman over to the cushions.  At one point the other child would stand behind the back of the other and give them a little "helpful push" to take the leap.  Neither one of them seemed both by the little extra push, but the parents decided that was perhaps not the wisest activity! :)

Kaleb likes to play goalie in soccer - and they played soccer the entire time that they were at the campout!

Great action shot!

It was a busy weekend last weekend, because before heading out to Adventurers, Karis joined the boys on a field trip to Legoland, and they had a beautiful day to enjoy the rides and fun.

A little wet....

Getting his "big boy" driver's license this time!

Wait - are these brothers holding hands??!  Let it be so!

More brotherly love....or choking - take your pick! :)

Sir Knight Kaleb

Followed by Sir Zachary (and Kaleb in the background)

 Kaleb's soccer skills camp ended last Sunday - he really did quite well.  One of the other kids' grandfather actually came up to Amy's mom one day and commented on what a good little defender he was!

Kaleb and his coaches

The two teams

All the parents trying to get a picture!

 Phrase of the week:  Addison was playing hide-and-seek with the boys, and they were having her "count" - so she'd hide her face, shout "3, 6, COME!" and then take off racing to look for them!  They had to be fast to get into a hiding space for that kind of counting! :)  She has mastered the word "turtle" as well recently, so loves to find the turtle that lives in our yard.

Bonfire!

Last weekend of course was the Halloween, which we typically do not participate in (frankly, what good can come from a holiday that is typically pretty 'dark' outside of the kids cute costumes and is it ever a good idea to fill up a kid with tons of sugar? :)) - but our church had an alternative event with a vesper bonfire to give families another option - so we headed on out.  It was super fun, with lots of church folks attending.  There was a bonfire for roasting hot dogs, smores, hot apple cider, and then at the end there was even a bag of candy.  There was a lovely vespers program complete with a sing-along and music.  It did get so dark of course over the evening that it was hard to see who was saying Hi to you as you'd walk from one area to the other - so that made it a bit tricky but we managed!



 

Addison was enamored with the Isidros camp 'bench' and she and Brady were having a fun time sitting on it together.

The boys out in the field playing soccer

Sitting on daddy's lap during the vespers part

We had a treat when Karis' uncle Elwin and his wife Maddy came to visit as well - they stayed overnight with us.  The boys were bitterly disappointed when they left the next day!  They even played floor hockey in the garage with the boys, and charades as they went to bed!  We actually had a lovely visit with Karis' cousin later this week as well - Richard and his wife Jennifer, but we sadly forgot to take a picture! :(  It was super fun to visit with all of them - it is always fun to share what is going on in each other's lives.


Family picture (Addi was already in bed)

Amy had a long week at work, with several very late nights, so Kaleb picked out some beautiful flowers to bring a smile at the end of the week - pink is one of her favorite colors - thanks to my Z-men!

We ended the weekend with tickets to the Magic game on Saturday night.  It was definitely past Addison's bedtime, so she stayed at home while the rest of us headed out.  The tickets included a free meal, so we all ate ourselves silly.   The section wasn't very full at all (although more people did come throughout the game), so we had lots of room to ourselves!  They played Toronto, so we got to hear the Canadian anthem - O Canada!!

 



There was a slogan about "get 'stached, get screened!" (trying to raise awareness about getting screened for prostrate cancer) - so the boys all played with their blue moustaches.

Phrase of the week:  Candy-pop!!!  This was Addison's chant as she chased after the bag of candy - desperate to have some candy-pops!

Random picture of Addison trying to ride the scooter....good thing Daddy was holding on as this is a bit advanced for her!

Showers of Blessings

We had the honor last weekend of showering soon-to-come Baby London Eliese with gifts - Jennifer has been such a friend to so many people, it was an honor to be able to give back to her.  The shower was at Heather Hilliard's house, with the creative genius of Heather and Ashley W at the helm.  Loretta, Corey and Amy helped with the logistics and gladly put our hands to work in preparation for the shower.  It was an absolutely beautiful shower, complete with a live pianist, fresh flowers, and enough decorative touches to amaze even though most design savvy person! :)  We can't wait to meet little London!

In other Z-news - the kids went to Green Meadows farm last weekend for a field trip - and it was Addison's first time there.  We wondered how she'd do as Kaleb was always terrified of the animals until he was about 5ish, but she had no fear (other than she was NOT going to be riding that pony!!) of the animals - reaching out to touch and explore!

Chickens!

And more chickens!

Zachary is holding a baby chick

Kaleb and Evan

We had Biris and Almodovars over last weekend for Sabbath dinner before Adventurers (we're all in Apopka Adventurers) - and as we gathered outside of church, Abel was playing with Addison lifting her in the air - she LOVED it, and would hold her hands up in the air - little daredevil!

Playing soccer after lunch in the bonus room

Amy took the kids to Adventurers, and so Addi came along - she jumped right in there and thought that she was one of the big kids!

The boys were lucky ducks (and Daddy too), and got to go to a Solar Bears game that night as well - in the Florida Hospital box!  We try and tell them how fortunate they are to be able to do these kinds of things...this is certainly not the kind of thing that every child or adult gets to do!  They loved the game, but Amy is suspicious that Kaleb's favorite memory will be the huge cup of soda (see in the cupholder beside him) of Sprite that he got at the game!

Amy has had a deep cough the last 3 weeks - almost gagging at times it can be so bad, and of course it is worse at night (good thing we have a guest room, Karis has voted himself off of the island - preferring to sleep in relative peace where Amy isn't hacking up a lung a 2A each morning!).  She finally went to the doctor yesterday and he thinks that it is just allergies - with a bit of asthma.  She doesn't have asthma (after verifying this with a pulmonologist a few years ago), but it is amazing - if she does one of the kids albuterol nebulizer treatments before she goes to bed (this was from Kaleb's old stash when he was about 2-3 and was having croup all of the time), it clears up the cough for all night!

Addison is starting to talk a lot more, and is putting more frequently 2-3 words together at a time.  "hurt bad" (after banging her check really hard), "Daddy-funny" (Yes, Daddy is funny!).