Beach Bums

We headed out to Bethune Beach last weekend with the Deininger and Cochran families for some fun in the sun.  The water was still pretty warm, so it was quite fun to dig around in the sand and enjoy the sun.  It was good for the Z-family to get some time in the sun in light of our sick saga from the last six weeks! Zachary discovered boogie-boarding, and even though he took some dunkings under the water, he loved it! Kaleb's rash guard shirt was a dark blue, and to our surprise, when we took it off of him to shower off the sand at the end of our stay, the color had bled all over his chest and he was BLUE!  It took the better part of that day to come off, even after a bath! :)

   

 Look at his blue chest and arms!

We've moved Zachary up to the next level of Sabbath School and we're enjoying it very much.  He seems to be much more well-behaved as well, and has been very attentive.  As always, he is a little unsure in new situations so the first week he didn't participate as much as his mother would have liked, but this week he was more into the swing of things.

Kaleb has been quite the mischief-maker this week, and has been starting food fights at Miss Jennifer's by flinging his spinach across the table at Zachary.  Is this a window into the future with this child!?  Yikes, we better be on our toes!

Phrase of the week:  Zachary and Amy went for a potty-break during Sabbath School and when we came out, we saw through the door of the classroom across the hall Auntie Lisa teaching.  Later at lunch, Zachary asked why she was there, and when Amy explained that she was teaching the class, he replied, "No, she's not a teacher - she's Auntie Lisa!!"  Not sure why being Auntie Lisa is not allowed to also be a teacher, but he was quite certain on this point!  Kaleb's word this week is "Kabob" and he points to himself with a proud smile on his face!  Precious.

Hide and Seek

Our friend, "Auntie Kelli," is like a rock star at our house with the kids - she generates much excitement whenever she comes over.  A few weeks ago when she was here, we started to play hide-and-seek with the kids which they thought was just a blast.  We were hiding in pairs, Zachary with Auntie Kelli and Mommy with Kaleb and then later we switched.  The hiding spots were not very "hidden" in most cases as the kids were choosing the hiding places. The funniest thing with Kaleb though was that when he would hear the other pair coming to find him, he would start SHRIEKING, he would get so excited that they were close by!  Of course that made for a very easy "find" and much laughter on the part of the adults! :)

In honor of our trip to Canada last weekend, Karis decided to make perogies this week with the boys.  It was quite successful, and we all enjoyed eating them up!

Yummy perogies!

Kaleb has mastered the art of getting out of the pack-and-play.  It was bound to happen sooner or later, but we're hoping that the crib takes a little longer to figure out.  He climbed out of the pack-and-play at Jennifer's during the Wednesday naptime, and she found him happily playing in the middle of her bed.  Thankfully her mommy skills did the trick and he did eventually stay put to take a nap!

Phrase of the week:  This week Karis was telling Zachary something, to which Zachary replied "I can't hear you, my ears aren't working!"  Sometimes our adult ears don't work too well either - by chance or choice, who knows! :)  Kaleb's word "Hand!"  This is the word that is said every night now when we leave his room - he lays down in the crib  with his body snuggled up against the top corner of the crib and hangs his arm out of the crib.  He wants you to hold his hand for a moment (thankfully not long) before you leave the room and he goes to sleep.  What a blessing this blog has been to capture these sweet memories!

Another one of Zachary's pictures (he took the picture) - not too bad this time!

Memories to Treasure

This weekend, we had the wonderful opportunity to fly up to Winnipeg, Manitoba for a too-short visit with Amy's Dad.  We left the kids at home with grandma (who is the BEST!) so that we could really enjoy our time with Gene.  His health is not the best and he has been diagnosed with cancer - with all this in mind, we wanted to spend some quality time with him.  It is kind of strange, when you're in your 20s, life seems like it will never end, but now that we're in our 30s, the whole "mid-life crisis" is making more sense as you realize that you and your loved ones are in fact aging and that life doesn't last forever.  Perhaps mid-life crisis is not the right moniker as it seems less a crisis and more of an assessment about one's life and its meaning, and what we want to accomplish in our short time here.

A family blog really isn't the place to wax eloquent on these thoughts, so the bright side of our trip is that we had such a wonderful time visiting with Dad.  We travelled down memory lane multiple times with many a chuckle and made new memories to treasure.  We were fortunate to be able to visit with Amy's step-brothers Cam and Brad along with Cam's significant other Tracy.  Extra icing on the proverbial cake was visiting with our dear friend Norma James.

We were happy to be safely back with our boys, but very thankful for the fact that we had a relatively stress free trip up and back to Canada sans children as well! :)  The boys had a fantastic time with Grandma, and kept calling Amy "Grandma" after she left!

Phrase of the week:  In honor of the pink-eye that the Z-household has had over the past three weeks and the accompanying eye drops, Zachary informed us as we drove along in the pelting rain that "Raindrops are like eye drops!"  Very clever, they are indeed! Kaleb's favorite phrase this weekend was "Mine!" as the typical sibling struggles occurred over whose toy it really was!  The last phrase is not a Zachary or Kaleb phrase but rather a Canadian phrase that we heard many times this weekend "For sure!" - of course, it sounds more like "Fur sure"!  It is funny how you forget common phrases until you got back and listen to people speaking around you!

Dad, Cam, Tracy, Brad and Amy

Dad and Amy

Norma and Amy (Karis was in fact in Canada as well, but he just ended up taking all of these pictures!)

Quarantined

The health issues of the Z-family continues.  At this point we've moved past the despair of the situation to just laughing about it - what else can you do?  We could tout all of the things that we do to keep our kids healthy, but those things don't really matter when the family is sick!  We're now entering into our second weekend of being quarantined.  Last Sabbath, Kaleb woke up with pink-eye.  This is the first experience where any of us have actually had pink-eye, so we'll count our blessings for that.

The same day, Amy came down with "something" again - twice in one month.  Sore throat, 102 fever, sneezing and coughing.  Later that day, Zachary came down with pink-eye...great, more good news! :)  We thought that surely we'd be in the clear when Kaleb decided to put the icing on the cake Sunday night by hurling everywhere.  At least he gave a warning by making the puking sound several times with nothing yet coming out, so we were able to get him over the toilet - he looked like a little adult with his head hanging into the toilet puking!  The boys managed to recover from the pink-eye and there seems to be no lasting effects of the puke thankfully.

Eating supper outside on the deck last weekend with Grandma during our quarantine phase (Grandma's don't care about us being sick! :))

Amy made it through the week (just barely on some days) but it appears that this may be turning into a bit of bronchitis.  Karis then began to get sick on Thursday, and we capped off our string of bad health by having both of the adult Z family members getting PINKEYE!  Just great.  So, this will be our second weekend of staying at home trying not to spread our germs.  Thankfully pinkeye is non-contagious after 24 hours of eye drops, so we'll be thankful for that!  Kaleb again decided to add the final touch to the weekend by developing an allergy to who knows what and getting hives all over his chest!  They're coming and going, so they don't seem all that serious but we haven't been able to figure out what is causing it quite yet.

The red patches on his chest are the hives - the dark green lumps on his legs are the "Juice Plus gummies" that are a bit sticky, and he's discovered that he can make them stick to his skin (even his cheek!)

On non-health related news, the boys started swimming lessons here at the house this week with Miss Amanda - a high school senior who was teaching our friends' kids how to swim.  Our boys are quite comfortable in the water, but we're hoping that they'll start to learn the actual strokes etc.  She's been teaching Zachary how to do the front crawl and the back crawl.

Zachary also started a gymnastics class last week that we forgot to mention.  It is a small, all boys class at a local recreation center called "Junglenastics."  The first day ended up being a private gymnastics lesson as the other boys who had signed up didn't attend, so Zachary had a FABULOUS time!

Phrase of the week:  Zachary's funny phrase this week happened this week after Amy told  Kaleb to inform her if his stomach was hurting again (this was the day after the throwing up incident).  Zachary looked at her and said "But Mommy, he doesn't have words!!?"  He was very concerned that Kaleb wouldn't know the right words to tell her that his stomach hurt!  Kaleb's word is "Jamas" which is the word that he's chosen for Miss Jennifer.  Zachary always called her "Je-fer" which was easier to identify that's who he meant.  Kaleb is QUITE adamant though that Jamas means Miss Jennifer! :)

Sucklez-Vous

The title of this week's post is very "snooty" as its French - in general it mean "this stinks" but in true translation means "You suck."  If you add "lez-vous" to anything, it sounds more snobbish than it really is.  Anyway, the title is very apropos this week for the experiences that Amy has had.

The first would be the annual trip to the Filutowski eye clinic.  For anyone who doesn't know, Amy fell to peer pressure about 5 years ago (peer pressure from her husband, Karis - does that make it spouse pressure? Husband pressure?  Who knows) and she got lasik.  At the time, Filutowski had a guarantee that if you came back every year for your annual check-up, if your eyes ever got worse, they would re-do them for free.  However, about 2-3 years ago, they changed this policy and said "so sorry, no more - if you have to get them re-done, you have to pay"  Huh?  Whoever heard of not grandfathering in the patients that you had under your old guarantee?  Very shady if you ask me.  Well, being too lazy to change doctors even though this was kind of shady, Amy keeps going there like a crazy fool.  This week, when she arrives she is informed that if the doctor has to perform the refraction test to prescribe eye glasses that there is an extra fee.  Eye test?  Isn't that why we go to the eye doctor in the first place???  So, she waits for 30 minutes, and then goes into the room where the eye tech spends about 4 minutes doing two tests (the glaucoma pressure test and the "what is the smallest line you can read" test).  Then the doctor walks in, looks at her eye flap from the lasik surgery and walks out.  The whole experience was over in 12 minutes!!  No mind that when Amy talked to another friend from work that goes to a different doctor that there are TONS of other eye tests that other places do.  This was the LAST time that Filutowski will be receiving any money from the  Z household!

The second "sucklez-vous" experience occurred as Amy headed home.  As it was much earlier than normal for heading home, she actually managed to do a couple of errands before heading the car home.  She took a shortcut down a back road (in between two roads with high speed limits) which apparently only had a 30 mph limit, and you guessed it....speed trap.  So even though she was super sweet and nice to the cop, she came away with a $166 ticket.   Yet, if you read our friend Corey's post, she's been stopped 9 times with no ticket!  Clearly there is a secret that Amy has yet to discover.

The third "sucklez-vous" experience made its appearance when Zachary came down with ANOTHER flipping fever this week.  So, Amy once again had the pleasure of staying at home - but she had 2.5 hours straight of conference calls that she had to attend, so she taught herself how to turn her phone on mute (and off) the night before.  The day of went pretty well until about the last 30 minutes of the second conference call when Zachary decided to throw his empty yogurt cups across the kitchen.  Amy firmly chastised him saying "Zachary, what's the situation!!??" - thankfully she wasn't yelling, but quickly realized that the phone was NOT ON MUTE as she thought when she heard the conference call moderator start to chuckle. How embarrassing!!!

Phrase of the week: Zachary's phrase this week was actually a conversation with Karis as he begged to mow the lawn.  Karis informed him that they couldn't because Mommy wasn't home to watch Kaleb while it was Zachary's turn on the lawnmower.  Zachary's response?  "Just lock Kaleb in the house, then he'll be safe and we can mow the lawn!!"  Kaleb's phrase this week was another conversation that occurred as Karis was driving home in the van with both boys. It should be noted that Amy was not with them at the time, so this was entirely a male conversation.  Apparently there was a "certain smell" in the van, and Karis inquired if Zachary 'tooted', to which Zachary replied "No, Kaleb tooted".  Karis: "Kaleb, did you toot?"  Kaleb: "No, Daddy tooted."  Karis: "Daddy didn't toot.  Did you toot?"  Kaleb: "No, MOMMY tooted!"   Thanks, that's just great - get blamed for tooting and you're not even in the car!!!

Playing dress-up in Mommy's new $15 dollar jeans! Gotta love a good deal!

The new style - off the shoulder for men - it is hard learning to dress oneself but we do love to be independent!

Do It Yourself Haircut

Being 4 has many adventures to explore, and this week the adventure included Zachary cutting a swath out of his hair in the front.  We couldn't be too upset about it as so many kids try this out, and we're thankful that he didn't yank his hair out by the roots like he did last year!!  That took forever to grow back!   When we asked him why he cut it, he said "Why not, grandma cuts my hair?"  Ha ha, of course Grandma used to be a hairdresser, so there is a little difference! :)

There have been some really funny 'adventures' that Kaleb has been on the last few weeks as well.  A few weeks ago, we bought some new Vitamin C jars (the white vitamins that are the size of quarters that taste like candy - yummy!  These were Amy's favorite as a little girl).  Karis had given Kaleb one or two to eat, when Kaleb disappeared into our room.  Karis after a few minutes went in to investigate and found Kaleb had crawled up onto our bathroom counter and had opened Amy's eye cream.  He was then using the eye cream as "chip dip" on his Vitamin Cs and happily eating both!  Luckily it was a tiny container, but he ate all of the eye cream before Karis managed to get in there!

The next adventure Kaleb went on was last weekend - the boys had gone to Grandma's house for the afternoon after our garage sale (which got rained out after only 2 hours, so was not very successful).  She brought them back in the evening as Amy was out in the garage sorting through the garage sale leftovers.  Kaleb ran inside while Grandma, Amy and Zachary remained out in the garage.  After a few minutes, Amy realized that it had been a while since Kaleb had showed his face, so she went inside to investigate.  She once again found him on top of her bathroom counter (clearly this is like mecca!) with a tube of open toothpaste in each hand, with the toothpaste smeared all over his face and into his hair!  Apparently the items on the bathroom counter equate to food sources for Kaleb! :)

After we'd ran to get all of the garage sale items into the garage - the boys were watching the rain, getting wet of course!

Enjoying some time with Grandma as we waited for the rain to stop

With the evidence all over his face, it wasn't hard to figure out what Kaleb had been doing!

A daily habit that has emerged when Karis goes to pick up the boys at Jennifer's is that Kaleb runs up to Karis, and then he grabs Karis by the leg and starts to run in circles around Karis' leg!  It won't be long before this game comes to an end as he'll soon be too tall to fit through the middle of  Karis' leg - or at least Karis may not be too keen on it continuing at that point! :)  What a welcome!

Phrase of the week:  One day this week, Zachary was in a bit of a 'mood' when Karis picked him up from Jennifer's. With this in mind, he grouchily exclaimed to everyone in the house "I'm NOT talking to anyone until my nap, and after my nap, I'm ONLY talking to Daddy!"  Karis did say that he relented once he got home and acquiesced to talking to Karis before his nap.  Kaleb's word is  "Ochay!" this week as he agrees to whatever you've asked him to do.

One day as we got ready to leave, Kaleb found a stray nylon knee-high and pulled it on and then put on his sandal

Garage Sale

The first ever garage sale has now been held at our home - it was a super muggy day, so there was sweat galore.  We had a fair amount of stuff between all of the families, but sadly we didn't as many people as we would have liked come through (probably because Sunday isn't a big garage sale day in Orlando).  We did end up selling about $200 dollars (or thereabouts), but there were several larger items that made up the most of the total.  We decided that we'll go ahead and have a garage sale again tomorrow seeing as all of the stuff was over here already - so here's hoping that we'll get rid of some more of that.

We had a third week of sickness (although not our kids) when our babysitter's son came down with pink-eye.  We were thankful that we were able to use the RDV Daycare for both days, but even though the kids had a great time, they forgot to check Kaleb's diaper on the second day (which was poopy) so he ended up with a horrific diaper rash - and they didn't ask Zachary if he needed to go to the bathroom and he was too absorbed in playing, so he ended up wetting his pants a little bit.  While we're thankful that we had the option of using the daycare so that we didn't have to miss work, but it did re-emphasize why we're so thankful to have the wonderful care of Miss Jennifer!

Phrase:  "Oh Crime-bidy" - apparently one of us uses the phrase criminy, so Zachary has picked it up and started to use it as part of his everyday language!  The one notable thing over the past weeks that we forgot to mention was that Kaleb has now officially graduated from the "bah" (aka bottle). The trip to New Mexico was where the parents came up with the scheme to not take along a bottle, therefore the change would be forced. Amazingly enough, on the trip he never asked for it once, but once we get back home that was the first thing that he asked for! But, he's managed to survive without it, so we are now a "bah"-free home.

Giving "kisses" to the camera while they insisted that the changing pad was big enough for both of them while Kaleb received a fresh diaper! (thankfully mommy is wise enough to know that it is NOT big enough, so Zachary had to vacate)

Enjoying (or fighting over, just depends on the moment) the giraffe together