Zoo Bash

Last week, we had the official birthday party for Zachary, Kaleb and Luke at the local zoo.  It started off with a train ride around the zoo, and then we headed into the birthday room in which they began to play games with the party hosts.  The one party host was about to become a youth pastor at his church, and he was GREAT with the kids, we were very fortunate.  After eating, they then played some more games and then dove into the fabulous cakes, created by of course the talented Miss Jennifer!, that were designed as a snake, a lion, and a jaguar.  After eating ourselves silly, the kids then headed out to the outer courtyard where they were entertained by a python (and Moms everywhere kept our distance!).  The kids had a fun time after the party walking around the zoo and enjoying all of the animals.

The birthday boys

Kaleb's cake, thanks for Miss Jennifer!

Amazing jaguar for Zachary

Playing games with the party host

The party participants - Kieran, Esi, Jonathan, Blake, Evan, Luke, Kaleb, Zachary, Madelyn, Kohlden, Braelyn, Maddie, Adam, David, Loghann and Obed

The kids looking at the snake (on the lady's arm but she's slightly behind the tree (thankfully! :))

We celebrated Kaleb's true birthday this week, and he was delighted to tell his Mom that "Mom, you can't tell me to stop growing, I have to get bigger, that's just life!"  Mom played along and began insisting that he  NOT get any bigger, it was just not acceptable!  Ah, if we could only capture these fleeting moments and put them in a bottle to keep forever.

The weather has been beautiful here, but with the lovely weather comes allergy season, and we are suffering - at least Zachary and Mommy are, that's for sure.  It is hard to see how wonderful the weather is, and know that you'll pay for being outside later on!  Oh well, as Kaleb says "that's life!"

Addison's big news is that she has started to pop a new tooth on the top!  Strangely enough, it is not the center tooth, but the one on the other side of that, or possibly even her canine tooth - we'll have to wait and see to know for sure as it is just now peeking through.  This is about two months earlier than the boys, so this was a bit surprising!  It is too little yet to get a picture, so perhaps in the next few weeks.

Addison continues to get better and better at sitting up, and likes to do the yoga move "plank in air" (Ha! that's not a yoga move of course!) by holding herself up on her hands and feet with a perfectly straight body.  If she'd figure out how to drop her knees, she'd be crawling before long - so we aren't showing her how to drop her knees, that is for sure!  She is eating pretty well now, although green vegetables are not her favorite.  We haven't started her on any grains yet, so once we start her on millet then we'll really introduce the green vegetables much more when it can be mixed to dilute the strong flavor a little.  The boys are still in love with her, and now even Blake is delighted when he gets to feed her, and hopes that Fridays aren't field trip days because then he doesn't get to spend it with Addison at his house in the mornings! :)  Too cute.

Karis always ends up meeting the most interesting people as patients, and this week was no exception.  He came home with a monarch butterfly cocoon - so now we're waiting patiently for the butterfly to emerge.  How cool!  It is the light green pod hanging down at the top of this cup....

Phrase of the week:  Things you never expect to have to deal with when your kid is reading the Bible......."Mom, what does it mean when it says that David did not have sex with her?"  Uhh......hurts when you wish that your child wasn't reading the Bible so much!  Amy danced around an explanation of that, and then told him that when he was a little older she'd give him a full explanation.  If anyone wants to give us an expert way of discussing this with a then 6 year old, we would appreciate it!

Celebrations!

This last week continued with the round of celebrations as we started off the week going to the Easter celebration hosted by the Hilliad and Bergherm families.  It was complete with face-painting and the requisite easter egg hunt.  It was great fun and the entire family enjoyed it.

A dangerous lion and a snappy alligator!



Addison and Tangie in matching green outfits!



Kaleb found his alloted number of eggs in about 5 seconds flat!



An unusual sighting, a picture of the entire family!



Hanging out with Uncle Rob

The week continued and soon we were on Zachary's 7th birthday.  We celebrated by having a mini-family celebration that night with a present and a cake for him to blow out the candles for.  He is quite proud to be 7!

No problem to blow out the 7 candles!

We ended off the week heading over to Cochrans where we enjoyed some good food, even better fellowship, and the boys delighted in opening more presents!

The birthday boys, Luke, Zachary, Kaleb and a precious Kieran for good measure.

On the Addison front, we have been remiss in posting that she has mastered sitting!  She started a few weeks ago, but was not entirely steady - but she has improved to the point where she can sit for long periods of time before she falls over.  Now with that being 'mastered', she's starting to raise herself up on her hands and feet (like a flat plank though) when laying on her tummy, so she may just beat the boys to crawling (who were about 10'ish months if memory serves).  Stay down little girly, no rush! :)

Sitting with Devin at the park

The lounging man wonders "who's that pretty lady?"



Ha ha, doesn't it look like two little lovebirds with their eyes closed?

While all of the "luvin'" was going on at the blanket, the small boys were thrilled to have Uncle Rob chasing them around the field to see who he could catch! 

 Phrase of the week:  Mommy, I'm not a big boy yet, I'm a MEDIUM boy! I'm not a big boy until I'm 10!  Sizes according to Zachary....  love it! :)

Addison's Dedication

Last weekend, we had Addison dedicated at the Forest Lake Church.  They changed the format about two years ago, in which they instituted a "group" dedication so that they could have more camaraderie amongst the parents with children of similar ages, as well as having a formal pre-meeting with the pastors so that they can meet and become familiar with the child and family. In some ways, it was a nice experience, but in others we missed the specialness of being the only family on the stage.  However, we were blessed to have Pastor Barb be the one to hold Addison (as we know her probably the best of all of our pastors) and we did in fact meet another family with a young child who lives in our neighborhood!  What are the odds!?  The boys were well behaved up on the stage for the most part, and Addison did not cry.  She was fussy before we went up there, and afterwards Amy realized that in the rush to get ready for church, we had fed her breakfast but had NOT fed her the morning bottle, so the poor sweet thing was probably starving!

We attempted to get a picture with some of the people who came, but Mom was still in the church, Jeff was taking the pictures, and the Cochrans were still also in the church.  So we piecemealed some of those folks into some of the pictures to follow below.

At the special lunch afterwards

Pastor Barb

As a late entry to this blog, we realized that we never posted Addison's 7 month picture with the bear!  Egads - that must be what happens when the parents get old - we get forgetful!  Thankfully we did take it, so are adding it now:

In other news, we have begun the birthday celebrations for the boys with Gram-Z and Papa-Z leaving this week.  The boys thoroughly enjoyed their time with their grandparents as always.  Papa-Z spent some quality time teaching the boys how to play baseball.  Kaleb loves to bat!  They also had the pleasure of their FIRST hockey game, when our realtor (thank you Nick!) gave us tickets to the Solar Bears game.  Mom and Addison stayed at home while Dad and the rest of the family headed off for some fun.

 

Daddy helping to teach Kaleb how to hold the bat while Papa-Z pitched and Zachary catching.

Playing Sorry, one of Kaleb's gifts

How lucky are these boys to have a grandpa who will let them walk all over him!?  Too kind!

Playing with another of Kaleb's gifts, a Little People roller coaster, a recent fad for Kaleb.
 

Hangin' with the Grands...

Gram-Z and Papa-Z arrived a little over a week ago, and we've been enjoying their visit with Gram-Z baking up a storm and Papa-Z playing up a storm! :)  Kaleb absolutely loves to beg his grandma to cook, so there have been buns and tarts, with the potential for butter horns (or maybe we'll save those for Christmas!)

Kaleb has all of a sudden proved to us that he IS paying attention, even when we think he's off in his creative little side-world, when he busted out printing last week!  He knows many of his letters and how to form them, although he is still struggling with some of the common letters, and some letters that his brother Zachary struggled with as well.  He also does not yet have the concept that you print a word in a line, so he'll just write the next letter anywhere on the page, they don't have to be beside each other! :)

Zachary and Kaleb writing words with Gram-Z and Papa-Z's help

The boys headed off last Sunday to Braelyn's Pirate party.  Zachary did not want to get dressed up, while Kaleb insisted that he couldn't go unless he was appropriately attired!  Thankfully we were able to throw together a costume of sorts in order to pacify him and off they went.  It was great fun with lots of games and a beautiful day to celebrate a special little girl!  Happy Birthday Braelyn!

Last Sunday Amy and Karis attended the required baby dedication pre-meeting at church.  When we walked in, we walked near another young couple who said "Hello Neighbors!" (so friendly!).  Sadly, we were heretofore completely unaware that this young couple, the Hoatsons, lived in our neighborhood!  Jeff, Kaitlyn (spelling may be wrong) and their little girl Avery live just down the street from us!  Hopefully we'll get to see them more often now that we have made the connection.  We'll have a complete update on the baby dedication in next week's post!

Addison has been hilarious this week, with giving these unexpected WIDE-OPEN mouth kisses.  You end up feeling completely bathed in saliva but it is too sweet to refuse!  She has also started this very funny habit of pulling her leg up to her mouth while you're changing her diaper and sucking on her big toe - as if it is a thumb!  Crazy girly!  We have had to switch from Pampers sensitive diapers to Huggies Pure and Natural.   We had a diaper rash that we just could not get rid of.  We had to use Huggies with the boys, but earlier on we had tried a different line of the Huggies diapers for Addison and didn't like them, but it does appear that these Pure and Natural ones seem to be doing the trick, so we're very thankful.

WHAT is you kiss is entirely up for grabs....even the floor may get some love from Addi! :)

Kaleb giving his sister some hugs!  She loves the little piano that she can stand in and play

There hasn't been an update on Karis in a while - he went back to work when we got back from ski trip and thankfully it has gone very well.  He wasn't nearly as debilitated by it as Amy feared, although he is definitely tired and sore.  His limp continues to get better (in part thanks to compression socks that he's now wearing, which help keep the swelling down). 

Two different views of his ankle - you can see the pins, rod and the cable. ICK.

Good news!  Even though we accidentally wrote over our computer, the data recovery experts were able to get most of it back!  Yeah!  It cost us $350, which is much less than the company over in California as well and it was local, so we didn't have to ship anything across the country.  Karis is now in the process of trying to go through and see what was fully recovered vs what may be corrupted etc.  There is so much on one's computer that is hard to recreate - pictures, videos, Christmas letters from years past, bank rec files, tax records etc etc.

Ski Trip!

Two weeks ago, we headed off for Amy's annual work ski conference (we are truly blessed to have a ski conference every year, it delights Karis' spirit!).  This was the first year that Kaleb joined us, as he's now old enough to take ski lessons (and have them be productive!).  He was quite excited.  We were lucky to have Amy's Mom of course watch Addison back at the 'farm'!

Our hope every time that we take one of our children for the very first time is that they will 1) do their best, 2) listen to the instructor and 3) have FUN!  No other expectations beyond that.  But, we were stunned, shocked, floored....when we received the report card after Kaleb's first day of skiing lessons.....Kaleb is a little skiing prodigy!  The teacher described the lesson as "mind-blowing - I've never seen a four year-old first timer pick up skiing this fast and master so many things on the first day!"  He continued to excel, and was already on a green run by the 2nd day of lessons, and a blue run on the 3rd day!  There's no way to tell for sure, but we believe that the skating lessons certainly helped!

Happy as a clam, riding on the chairlift! 

We had a hilarious video of Kaleb skiing down Bucky's Bumps (some rolling bumps on Wide West, a bunny hill easy run!) with Kieran at the bottom running to greet him with arms wide open....and it was like watching a train wreck....as Kaleb flew towards Kieran as if to run and give him a hug too....except Kaleb is flying and completely crashed into him and they were a flying mess of hands and feet!  Thankfully neither boy was hurt, but it was sure funny on the video!  But, read on below to the end of the blog where we discuss our computer.....as the video is not available.....

Kaleb following Loghann 

Zachary continues to be a skiing machine as well - already going on moguls and learning how to confidently ski and worked on hockey stops and parallel turns.  He actually already has skied a black diamond, although his mother was none too happy about him skiing a black diamond!

Luke and Zachary posing by a run

Zachary is in the red, white and black jacket, right behind Rob (so second in the line)

Kaleb had a blast at the tubing hill, laughing and giggling all the way down the hill.  Zachary insisted on continuing to ski, and would not go on the tubing hill.  Kieran and Kaleb were thrilled to have Uncle William pull them along on the tubes, and asked him to do "the whoa!" which means that they wanted him to swing them in circles on the tubes as they screamed "Whoa", sometimes ending up tumbling out of the tubes.

Addison was a little bewildered when she awoke after our departure, wondering it seemed "where are all my peeps who entertain me all the time"  She learned a  few new tricks while we were gone - including sticking her tongue out and making all kinds of shapes with it AND doing a few belly laughs for Grandma in response to zerberts on her tummy!  We can't wait to experience these new tricks for ourselves!

The usual group was back together this year with Johnsons, Cochrans and Deiningers along with us, which was very fun.  Karis didn't ski obviously with his leg, and Amy didn't ski with the fact that she is still pumping, so the adult Zbaraschuks enjoyed some quiet time in the lodge in between running kids back and forth to ski lessons.

We were thankful for Johnsons when we landed, finding out van with no battery!  Thank you Kent!

The stinky news this week is that our computer become possessed this week, and wouldn't let us get past the password in the beginning......and as Karis attempted to fix it, he mistakenly hit the "restore" command, which then wiped out the computer.  CRUMB!  We're attempting to get it recovered (thanks for nothing, it costs almost as much as the computer itself!!!).  Thankfully, we still have our old computer in storage, which has all of our old files and pictures.  Therefore, if it all goes south and isn't recoverable, then at least we'll only have lost our pictures from December forward.  That is a bummer though because Addison of course has grown a lot in the last 3 months, so would hate to have lost all of those pictures, but our fingers are crossed.

Phrase of the week:  My legs are still fresh, I can keep skiing!  Zachary, as always, was intense about his skiing and was insistent that he was NOT TIRED and that he could definitely keep skiing!  That's our Zachary for ya!  And where did he get the phrase "my legs are fresh!?"

PS - we mentioned above that we had our computer crash, and couldn't post a funny video of Kaleb and Kieran crashing - but modern miracles have restored our computer and we were able to retrieve our information for the most part (thank God!), so we are posting the video belatedly.  Karis is sitting talking on the phone to Heather telling her where he is sitting so that we can join him to watch the boys ski...if the volume is up, you'll notice that Karis does not even react to the impending doom of what is about to happen! :)  Thankfully both boys were just fine, but it was hilarious to watch - Kieran just completely and deliberately ran out to the front of Kaleb's path, and Kaleb did not even attempt it appears to put on the ski brakes!!!

Official Six Month Photo Shoot

Two weekends ago, we had Addison's official six month photographs taken by Heather Rice.  Jennifer has partnered with her, and is doing mini stylized shoots where they create "sets".  It was very beautiful, and was out at our friend the Hilliards home.  It was freezing cold, so we were able to go inside for the pictures in which she has less clothing on! :)  The pictures turned out beautifully, as you can see below.

This could be a magazine cover!  Amazing!

I love her expression in this picture with the boys kissing her!

 

The boys' smiles are beautiful in this picture!



Phrase of the week:  As we discussed going out to take pictures in the cold (this was the evening before), Zachary informed Amy "It'll be cold, I'll get sick for sure!"  Amy informed him that he'd be fine (especially as he'd be in long pants, vs poor Addison in a dress!), and that cold didn't mean that you'd get sick either.  On Monday, would you believe it, but he came down with a fever!?  It surely didn't have anything to do with the cold temperature from the day before, but it didn't help Amy's cause too much!  Of all the luck!

The other words that brought us a laugh plus astonishment, was when Cole Hilliard came down the stairs after Karis called Zachary and Kaleb to come downstairs to take pictures with Addison, and he informed Karis that Maddie (the youngest Hilliard child) and Kaleb were in the bathroom upstairs and didn't have their clothes on.  Karis gulped (first for the reason that there were no clothes on, and the second that he had to traverse climbing the stairs with his sore ankle), and then headed up.  Sure enough, Kaleb and Maddie had (in Kaleb's words) had been jumping on her bed (GROAN, not allowed!), then he had to go potty, and then Maddie had to go potty, and then well, we just had our clothes all off! Kaleb was just sitting on the floor naked as a jaybird while Maddie was going to the bathroom, so nothing untoward was happening (although at the age of 4, not sure how much could actually go awry other than just plain curiosity!).  We had a long conversation about keeping our clothes on at all times when we're not at home!