Birthday 2, Birthday 3, Birthday 4!!

Addison has had all the birthdays a girl could ever ask for - in fact this girl is now a champion candle blower!  And if she turned a year for every birthday, she'd be 5 or 6 now! :)

Amy's mom made a barbie doll cake for the family birthday - it was beautiful and amazing!  Addison loved it!  She also loved the gifts that she received, adopting the new doll immediately (needing to sleep with her), and the doctor outfit from Aunt Louise was immediately put to use on Zachary who was in fact feeling under the weather......  A little love makes it all better!

 This would be candle-blow-out #54 - the Z family believes in letting them blow them out many a time - prolonging the fun!  Of course we did eat the cake on the backside....no need to consume potential spit from her! :)

 Addison was most enamored with eating the frosting off of the Barbie's top....eventually making the poor doll naked! :)

That Sunday, we held the combined birthday party with Cochrans and Johnsons - the four birthday kids were Addison, Erik, Elin and Devin.  So cute in their matching "age" birthday shirts!  They had a GREAT time at My Gym - the lady was fantastic and was the same lady that we had for Zachary's 4th birthday (requested her specifically as she was so good!).

Loving the 3 shirt!

The birthday moms!

 Addison is a wild-child at home, but at the party was she reluctant to "be out there" and in fact took some urging to do a few of the group activities, but she did seem to enjoy the free play immensely. Eventually there were 25 kids there, so it was a full house!

Kennedi, Victoria ('tic-toria!") and Addison

The full crowd, although with this many kids it is impossible f

  Addison's cake was quite the masterpiece thanks to our own Jennifer from Sweet Expectations Bakery.....Addi was planning her cake with Jenn for the last two months, telling her every day what she wanted and designing all kinds of wonderful things.  This is the end result, which was just simply amazing!  Addison had her ladybugs, flowers, bow and blue icing!

The Birthday kids (Addi (3), Elin (2), Erik (4), and Devin (3)

At the beginning of the party while we waited for the other birthday kids.....the two 3 year olds!

 The last birthday shindig was the Friday get-together where we celebrated the August birthdays with Kieran (8) and Addison.  They had fun blowing their candles out once again!

In non-birthday news, the kids had a great time last weekend going ice skating with Amy's cousin Jeff - it was fun to be out there just having fun skating around with the group!

We had fun last weekend going to the beach with some friends - the weather was beautiful (albeit a bit hot in the morning) but the wind kicked up a little in the afternoon and actually blew all 3 canopies over!  Sadly two of them were broken although ours managed to make it.

The kids had fun being buried, and even Addison got in on the fun - Amy had been unsure as to whether she'd like to be buried, but she seemed to not be fearful once she saw the other bigger girls doing it! :)  It started off with just a few kids....and then more and more kept joining in on the fun

Deanna, Addi and Maddison

Then Kaleb decided to join in too

And soon it became John Mark, Deanna, Addison, Maddi and Kaleb....and then there were others but no picture was taken to provide proof! :)

A little sibling bonding in the morning...it was just the Zs and the J families at this point....

Of course while we're at the beach, there is no napping typically for Addison as she is too busy running around but about 5 minutes into a trip home she is dead to the world!

The kids went to the park this week with Jennifer, and had some fun in the sun...Kaleb was sweet to push his baby sister on the swing!  And of course Zachary has turned every element into part of an obstacle course! :)

Phrase of the week:  Mommy, is it my birthday today?  Every day is now Addison's birthday...we've created a birthday ground hog day.....now that it is all officially over it'll be interesting to see how long it takes to get us "grounded" again! :)

Un, Deux, Trois

Addison is now officially 3 years old!  Amy took the day off for her birthday (as she did for the boys birthdays) and we went with the Johnsons to Grammy's Indoor Playground.  We thought it was close, but we were oh so far!  It took about 30 minutes to get there, but it was fun once we did arrive and Addison has talked about going back since.  We had a fun time, and enjoyed playing (as well as visiting with Kelli! :))

 

Addison has started funny poses now when we take pictures of her!

She had a fun time going down the slide, and soon decided that her 'baby' needed to go down the slide with her!

Strong little lady!

Addison, Erik and Elin

Another goofy face! :)

Capturing a moment with Mommy - proof of our fun day!

 

That night we started the tradition of multiple birthday celebrations - Addison does love to blow her candles out!

Pretty in pink!

At Sabbath School, she blew the candles out with gusto and then RIPPED into the present - no waiting for this!

The boys had a fun week at the RDV Basketball camp.  Both boys learned a LOT of skills - hopefully it will help them learn to enjoy the game. Kaleb can now double-dribble with two basketballs!

 

Zachary was the recipient for his age category of the "Best Passes" award - making his parents very proud of his teamwork attitude!

There were even Magic cheerleaders there!

Kaleb and his coach

And Zachary with his....

Erik brought his bike over and the two kids had fun riding their bikes around.  At this point Addison doesn't mind riding her brothers' old blue bike, but we'll see how long it is before a pink one is requested! :)

Last Sabbath, we had fun when we joined a group over at Lake Louisa State Park - it is about 45 minutes away, has cabins, a lake, playground etc.  It was quite nice and the kids had fun playing in the water.

Kaleb and Maddie sharing a swing as they eat their chips and pretzels!

After the park, we jumped in the car and drove over to the church to participate in their "Scoops of Blessings" evening where we talked about what we were thankful for, and the ways in which God blesses us.  We'd say we have three MAJOR blessings with our little people!  Afterwards, they had games in which they bounced beach balls around the room and of course ate ice cream!



Doesn't get much better than hugs from our kids!



Standing on the chairs to get higher up!

 

Phrase of the week:  Addison loves to count but doesn't yet get all of the numbers...right now it is 14, 16, 19, 20!!!!!

Device Unreachable

Just a small rant - but it is super annoying when your devices don't work as they should.  But yet when you sit back and think - 5 years ago I didn't have Siri, and I didn't have a camera on my phone so I could just carry one device, so let's put things in perspective!  Yet outside of that little bit of logic, how annoying is it when you can't download pictures because your device is unreachable (where did it go???  it is right in my hand!???) and when Siri doesn't understand what you want her to do!! :)

We had a fun week starting off with a weekend full of visitors - we celebrated little Erik's birthday last Friday and then had the Hilliards and Ottatis over for Sabbath evening.  There were two contingents - the boys and the girls.  It was funny as the girls are older and they are at the stage now where playing nerf guns with the boys just isn't cutting it anymore, so they had a fun time playing each in their own 'camps' :)  Addison and Maddie had a fun time playing together making up all kinds of imaginative play.

A whopping 4 years old!

It's a stand-off!

While the older "boys" (aka men :) play pool

Amy finally decided that it was time to get Zachary evaluated for potential sensory issues, so she took him to the FH Pediatric Rehab clinic and sure enough, the OT believes that he may have some tactile sensory issues that she'll work on. Unfortunately it isn't covered by insurance, but she said normally she can find other things that they need to work on that are covered...she started to ask him questions about strength (this kid is SUPER strong) and whether he was clumsy (NO - can we say athletic?).  Amy was becoming despondent thinking that there was no way that there'd be something that could magically get insurance to pay but by the end of her evaluation, she did discover that he is a little delayed (about 7 to 7 1/2 in age compared to his 9 years old) in bilateral coordination (think jumping jacks) and fine motor movements/planning (think itsy bitsy spider movements with your thumb and forefinger).  Amy was happy that at least there was something to work on (strange we know, odd that you'd WANT there to be something for the child to work on!!) - so now hopefully we'll get both the sensory issues taken care of and the other two things.  Maybe we won't have tag issues, belt issues, sock issues, softness of shirt issues anymore!  Could we hope for that!?  Hope isn't a strategy but prayer certainly is! :)  We'll give updates as this goes along.

In OT evaluation for sensory issues....discovered also a bilateral coordination and fine motor planning delay.

In pictures that we uploaded before, we thought that we'd share some random ones that brought smiles to our faces....

Addison is 'nursing' her baby - I guess seeing baby London eating is waking up her mommy instincts! :)

At Jennifer's one day, the boys pushed their creativity to new heights (LOVE IT!!) and Jennifer said "Yes" and away they went...painting the canvases of each other's bodies! :)  Do they look happy or what? :)

Is this fun or what??!

Amy's week last week was a quiet one at work (it was amazing, she barely remembered what that could look like!) so she was able to go out on date night with the boys (separately of course).  Kaleb wanted to go to Denny's and take his wallet....Amy figured out and sure enough when we were leaving he wanted to get a "prize."  He of course did not, and Amy did talk about the life lesson of not wasting your money on things that are sure to lose.... He truly thought that he could win it poor guy!

Learning a life lesson that these things rarely win...

Phrase of the week:  Addison was getting dressed this week and was talking about putting on her "may-lons" (aka nylons!).  No lady, don't do it - they're not all that fun!!! :)