School Begins!

The first summer break of many has now concluded.  It is hard to believe, but BOTH boys have now started school at Champion.  Kaleb is in Pre-K on Mondays while Zachary is in Grade 1 on Tuesdays - Thursdays.

Zachary's teacher is Miss Terwilleger, and he seems to be enjoying so far his classes.  His reading as usual is very advanced, and the poor teacher actually has FOUR different reading levels in a class of 10 kids!  Bless her heart, she assigns different homework based on the reading level of the child - one of the advantages of having a small classroom is this type of flexibility!  There is a new student in Zachary's class named Leilani, and she appears to be this year's new "favorite friend."

Kaleb's teacher is Miss Rivera, and he is simply in love with all things school.  He wishes that he was going on more days than just Mondays, but is enjoying having the whole house to just himself and Evan when they're at home with Miss Jennifer on the other days.  Imagine - being able to do whatever you want without having the two big boys bossing you around! :)  Most of the kids in his class are actually Adventist, and he knows Evan and Madison very well - so he's just in seventh heaven!

 

With the start of school came the start of intramurals as well, and we decided to sign Kaleb up this year as well for some of the sports (the easier ones).  Kickball is first, and they're having a fun time working out their energy on the field!

Addison cares not what her brothers are doing of course and simply enjoy garnering as much attention as she can.  We have adopted two nicknames thus far for her (both coming from Karis!) - "Hurricane Addison" as she definitely seems to be a busier body than her two brothers (although perhaps her parents memories are just getting old with the boys!!) and "Pip-Pip" after the sound that she makes when she is indignant about some atrocity that has been committed against her! :)  She has also started to laugh in earnest, and will laugh at things that her brothers do to her (better than crying!) or when her parents are silly.  Of course we all do things now to try and get her to laugh!

Good-bye Jessica!

It is now official, we have now sold our very first home. Good-bye Jessica.  It is a bittersweet experience - we had such wonderful memories there as we welcomed all three of our children into our lives in that home, and experienced such awesome times there with family and friends. Our neighbors were fantastic, respectful and quiet. The home had such a cozy feeling with warm bright sunlight streaming in. Addison won't remember the home, but we hope that the boys will have good memories from their first years there. Both still talk about the fact that they love that home, but it is getting less frequent as they get used to being in their new home. While bittersweet, we are relieved to have the sale completed.

We are blessed that it happened so quickly after only being on the market for about 4-5 days and getting almost our asking price (which was more than what we asked for in the fall!!). We are blessed that it actually appraised - especially with all of the issues that we had with our current home appraising. We wanted to give the new owners a sense of history with the home as well, so drafted a communication to them where we tried to impart all of the house's history and information so that they would be feeling like they didn't have to figure things out the hard way. It is also a relief to have the sale completed so that we  (or let's be clear, KARIS!) no longer have to maintain the yard. The extreme nostalgia that we experienced when we first moved did abate after our middle-of-the-night experience (details not provided on blog to keep our young reader from getting nervous, so if you aren't aware of our adventure, you can contact us!).

Best wishes to the new owners - we wish for you as many wonderful moments in the home as we had! For posterity sake, we wanted to have pictures of our home, so that we could remember as the years pass as to what it looked like! We'll now remember the fact that we never painted the white walls (hey wait, white IS A COLOR! Ha!), that it was very minimally decorated, but we were happy!

We will miss you Jessica!

This was such a bright entryway, and we added the glass French doors a few years ago to make the front room into an office - and it just worked out great for our use.

The dining room where we held many dinners, and it was a cut-through to the nursery where we'd stumble through in the middle of the night as one of our kids would cry!

The fireplace where we made smores with the boys, but other than that used it maybe 4-5 times over the space of the 12 years we lived there.....and the white mantle where there was a nail sticking out halfway up from the original owner that we never took out.....and never hung anything from (uninspired minimalists, we are for sure!)

The extremely all white kitchen - that could definitely use a more modern touch, but we loved the GE microwave that could microwave, convection bake, and speed cook!  And the double stove was just awesome!

Great eat-in kitchen area

The rectangular master bedroom was really easy to fit our furniture in and have a cozy TV watching space - it was a very spacious master bedroom!

The jet tub where the boys would frolic and create so many bubbles that we could barely see their heads!

Kaleb's jungle room....

Addison's nursery

Zachary's bedroom - it was such a great room to sleep in as it would get so nice and dark!

The front room with the office furniture that was custom made for the space (we brought that furniture with us, as it was just too expensive to replace)

This pool really was a blessing, so many hours of fun out there, and the back deck where the boys would ride their cars back and forth all of the time.

The playset - Zachary loved to play in the sand right after Kaleb was born!

Month of Birthdays

We have just completed a month of birthdays! It was a marathon of fun, friends and cake! Who can complain about that!? We had a small birthday supper at Kobe's with Cochrans on the week of Addison and Kieran's (whose birthday is the day after Addison's) birthdays and of course they brought out little cupcakes for the kids and special birthday hats - Addison's didn't fit at all but they worked some magic and made it small enough for her! Super cute!

We had the family dinner for Addison's birthday last Friday night, and had Jeff and Niesha, Grandma, and Aunt Louise over. Addison has not seen Jeff and Niesha very often as Jeff hasn't been feeling the best over the past year, but it took all of about 0.5 seconds for her to decide "Hey, this guy is pretty cool!" and when her favorite Daddy came up to take her from Jeff, she wouldn't go to him! So she hung out with Jeff for a while until her big brothers demanded some play time with Jeff as well. The big bonus room is definitely a place of fun, just like we hoped it would be!

Addison enjoyed opening up her presents - mostly pulling out the tissue paper while her Mother enjoyed putting the bow on her head and making her the "present!" She was oblivious to the fact that she had been "fancied up" and just kept digging on in!

 

Grandma Bobbie made the most awesome butterfly cake for her, and it was delicious!  The Z parents enjoyed eating the rest of the cake throughout the week, stealing a bite here and there!  Shh! :)

Afterwards, the boys dominated Jeff's time by insisting on playing soccer in the bonus room.  Notice the white dots in the picture - it is the flash bouncing off all of the dust particles in the air that still remain from all of the construction - wild!  Hopefully we'll get that settled down soon enough.

Kaleb thought it was pretty cool that Jeff would play air hockey with him, and Jeff was sure to keep the score somewhat even - harder done than said!

 

The final pinnacle of birthday celebrations in the four weekend marathon was Audrey's - she was born at the same hospital on the same day as Addison - Audrey arrived at 8:08AM and Addison was 9:09AM - how fun is that? They had the birthday at My Gym, which is always a fun location.  The picture below is Devin C (Audrey's cousin), Audrey and Addison as they played at My Gym.

 

Phrase of the week: We had some friends over last weekend, and as Kaleb and Amy went out to say our good-byes, Kaleb began to inquire as to the Johnson's new Acura MDX. When he realized it was a new car, he contemplated and said "We need a new car too!" Amy asked him "Why?" and he waved his hand in the air and said "Our cars are too fat" Totally stumped Amy on THAT one - especially when the Volvo is quite a small car!

V is for Victory

We made it.  One Whole Year on 100% Breastmilk.  Blood, sweat and tears - the hardest nursing experience Amy has had, and that is saying something after Zachary the "Rip You Apart" and Kaleb "NICU Pumping Mom" experiences!  YEAH!!! No more worrying that you're not making enough each day, and no more being tied to the chair 8 times a day! What a sense of accomplishment, and now (shockingly still with some level of guilt), the nursing train is coming to a stop.  Amy has started the weaning process, and was super relieved when Addison took a bottle of breastmilk/whole milk and chugged it down with no problems!  She seems to not mind it at all, which is a major relief.

As we always report on the prior week's happenings for the blog updates, we'll share Addison's family one year birthday party pictures next weekend.  Last weekend, we were able to join in a birthday celebration for Kieran and Erik.  This was the third weekend in a row, so the boys have been in 7th heaven with the amount of cake that they've been allowed to consume!  It was a pool party at the Cochrans again (poor folks hosting two parties in a matter of a couple of weeks, they will be happy to be back to rights again!)  It was a construction themed party, which was awfully cute.


One of the few pictures we have of Auntie Heather holding Addison!

The Aqua Rocker was a bit hit!

Kieran, Kaleb and Zachary hanging out in the rocker together

About to sing Happy Birthday to Erik (orange shirt on the left) and Kieran (dark blue shirt on the right)

In other news, it looks like we'll be able to close on our house this week.  YEAH!  It'll be such a relief to only have our house to worry about from now on, instead of both homes.  Karis moved over the rest of the office furniture today and decided to leave the playset there, as it appeared to be aging and he felt like it would be a lot of work to move it and have to put it back together again. 

Phrase of the week:  One night this week, Kaleb got up in the middle of the night and came to Amy's bed after saying that he heard 'something' in his room.  As she walked him back to his room, he said "Can you sleep with me?"  and she answered, "No, you sleep by yourself" and he said "Why!?  YOU sleep with someone!"  Ha ha, there was no good retort for that one, because it's true!

Training Wheels, Be Gone!

Kaleb has graduated to the land of no training wheels! It was long overdue, and he was more than capable of doing it earlier in the year but when Karis broke his ankle we deferred the process. He had borrowed his friend Kieran's Strider bike last year, and had gotten the whole balancing act down with no problems, so the actual transition to no training wheels was kind of a non-event. There was no falling involved at all! Congratulations Kaleb!

In other news, we're in the flurry of still trying to slowly unpack and at the same time get ready for the new school year. Zachary will be in grade 1 and Kaleb will be in pre-K this year. Addison will be in Baby-Land! :)


Kaleb thought it was highly amusing to carry his baby elephant around in the Lillebaby carrier!

Dress up time!  Love the facial hair!

Addison has started to get very snuggly lately, and will lay her head down on your shoulder for some snuggle-time. It is very nice to have another snuggly child, as she was taking after Zachary for the longest time who was more independent. One very funny trait that we've noticed with her is that she is identical to Amy, when it comes to putting her feet up on things - she always wants to put her foot up on the car seat crossbar - it is so funny because Amy is always putting her feet up on things as well (so much more comfortable!)

Always has her foot up.....just like her Mommy!



Addison and Devin have some playtime

Last weekend, Amy had the pleasure of joining other ladies for a special treat - a spa baby party to celebrate the soon arrival of the Grodack baby boy.  We were treated to a lovely brunch at Jennifer's, which was resplendently decorated and delicious food by Tangie!  After the meal, we headed over for pedicures - what a treat!

In the afternoon, the boys headed off to birthday party (second weekend in a row in a four week long birthday marathon!) for a friend that they met at President's Council - Mateo.  It was at RDV and they had a blast.  The cool twist on the birthday cake was that it was a tower of donuts - yum! Sadly, Amy forgot her camera, so no pics!

Phrase of the week:  Last Sabbath, we couldn't find matching church socks so Amy told Zachary just to wear regular sport socks to church.  He was convinced that this was not appropriate attire for church and insisted that he would just wear the two non-matching church socks (one was a light tan and the other was a darker brown.  Amy then said "Zachary, You may get teased" to which he responded "No, true friends won't tease me!"  That is true enough Zachary!

Primo Pool Party For Two!

We celebrated Devin and Addison's first birthday last week - splitting the difference between Devin's birthday and Addison's.  It was a pool party held at Devin's place, as they have a fabulous primo large pool!  During the middle of the summer, it is so nice to be able to get out of the heat and cool off - built in entertainment for the kids!

We kept it very small so as to not overwhelm the parents and allow us to have a bit more time with the children - unlike Zachary's first birthday party in which we had 50 people and were so stressed out and busy that we didn't get to enjoy the celebration of the day with him!  Lesson learned.

Love the birthday girl shirt!

The weather had been raining every evening, so we were seriously praying that the weather cooperated and gave us some sun - otherwise taking the party inside was going to take some creativity for entertainment!

Look at that smile!

We had a lifeguard there as well, which was a relief to not have to worry about the kids' drowning etc, so that allowed us even more peace of mind - thanks Logan!

Addison and Erik

Sand bucket cakes - of course made by fabulous Miss Jennifer

Addison was interesting with her cake -a mixture of Zachary who didn't want anything to do with his cake and Kaleb, who smashed his cake to smithereens, and rubbed it all over his belly like he was a Buddha!  She dug into the icing on the cake, swirling it around with her hands like it was finger paints etc, but didn't actually try to eat any of the cake until about 15 minutes after she first started to play with the cake!  The feel of the icing was what most interested her!  At one point, it was so cute, Devin reached over and tried to grab Addison's cake! :)


Devin making a break for Addison's cake after his had been confiscated (Thanks to Allen for this picture!)

Good job Addie!

 A funny conversation happened with the boys after we moved into the new house, and couldn't find their church shoes on Sabbath (actually, couldn't find Zachary's church shoes until three weeks later!!) - both of them had variants of the same comments to say exclaiming "I can't go to church in regular socks, God won't be pleased!"  She assured them that God just was happy that they were THERE and that their socks didn't matter!

Toto, We're Not in Kansas Anymore

The Z's are whirling.  On July 4th, we took the plunge.  We moved.  After being embroiled in renovations for about 6 weeks, we decided it was now or never and we moved about 80% of our belongings from the Jessica Drive house over to our Highland Acres house - leaving common area furniture such as living room, kitchen, dining room etc in order to help the house "show" better when we put it on the market to sell.

We were blessed with friends who helped us move that day, which thankfully did not take very long as we had been gradually moving quite a bit over the prior six weeks, and the fact that we weren't moving everything.

With no kitchen table, we're enjoying the peaceful back deck as our eating place

That night, Amy was hit hard with sentimentality over our old house - it truly has been such a wonderful place to us - where we brought all three of our children home to!  She wondered "How would our friends react if we said 'Just kidding! Let's move back'?"  Ha ha, knowing of course what the answer would be!

We are still very slowly unpacking, with most of Karis' attention focused on painting all of the baseboards and the ancillary rooms and of course, three kids to keep track of!  The next morning, Amy wondered what to feed the kids as she had not thought to keep any food separated.  So, she started diving through boxes until she found one lonely box of cereal and then a box with two bowls and some cutlery.  So at least the boys ate out of a bowl, and she ate dry cereal out of the box!   Desperate times, desperate measures! :)

The boys too are feeling the effects of the move, vacillating between being excited about the new house and wishing that we still lived in the old digs.  Kaleb's reason for liking the old house better is the fridge - he says that it is the color that he liked better (????) but in truth it is most likely because it had a water dispenser and icemaker that was easily accessible by the kids.  Zachary loved the older home more because of the fact that Mom and Dad had more time to play back then!  All in good time....

The new house is a lot louder with all of the wood floors, so we will definitely be getting some rugs etc as we start to decorate and curtains. Hopefully this will help reduce the noise dramatically!

In terms of our old house, we put it on the market for the 4th of July weekend, and had 7 showings in one day!  We accepted an offer on Day 4, and are now in the inspection and appraisal period.  All prayers accepted that it will appraise please!  Our inspection uncovered several problems that we weren't anticipating - three major problems and then the rest was very clean (which we did expect that!).  Apparently the roots of the tree in front have grown into the septic tank drain field, which is causing it to not work properly.  We had no idea as we've never had a problem with the septic tank.  Problem number two were two leaks in common areas in the roof, which will be pretty easy to be fixed.  Problem number three is that our house was built with plumbing pipes that were later determined to be defective and taken off the market.  We've never had a plumbing failure, so had no idea that there was an issue with these kinds of pipes.  The new owners may decide to repipe the house (we'll give most likely money towards that end), but we'll see how this goes.  We'll be so thankful when it is done, even though we'll be so sad to see it gone.  We've gone over there many times since moving, and it truly has such a wonderful, light, bright feeling to it with many memories - but Karis is looking forward to not having to move the new house lawn AND the old house lawn!

Speaking of lawns, we have hired Adam D to help Karis with the lawns, so it is a win-win situation - Karis loves the ability to get the lawn done faster, and Adam loves having the job! :)

Once we are all settled, we will post pictures of the finished house, but right now, it is a disaster scene with boxes everywhere!

She loves nothing more than digging in the boxes and pulling things out!

In other news, we had a fun celebration last week for Blake and Evan's birthday.  It was the Lego Olympics pool party!  Fun times, and yummy food!

"Flying" mid-air at the party

A "game" created by our game director, Allen I, who never fails to entertain the kids!  Floating contest!  Zachary came in second, and probably could have kept going even longer but thankfully gave up the ghost.

Addison is now 11 months old, and we are celebrating her party in a combined bash with Devin this weekend, as their birthdays are only 5 weeks apart, so we'll post pictures of that next weekend.

Addison "helping" with laundry

Random Picture:

Kaleb and Daddy making biscuits