Happy Birthday to my BIG 4 year old!

Geez, it just seems like I was doing Zachary's 3 year old birthday blog post. Where are the days going? I can't believe that four years ago today I looked like this.

I can remember how nervous Kevin & I were on our way to the hospital.  We had no idea that the little mover & shaker inside my body was going to be a charming, hilarious, fun-loving, smart, creative little boy.  In the past four years my heart has grown 100 times its size because of the love I have for Zachary.  Of course, there are times when he frustrates me with his determined spirit mainly because it is in the way of MY determined spirit.  I'm so proud of the little man he is becoming.

Here is what Zachary is doing at 4 years old:

What he likes to be called:  Zachary..it used to be Zachy.
Favorite Color:  Green (he has loved Green since he was one)
Favorite Food: McDonald's Cheeseburger & Apple Dippers
Favorite toys:  Anything that involves Super Heroes (Spiderman, Batman, Ironman), Dinosaurs, Animals, Laser Guns, and Cars.
His lovey: Pig Pig the Pink Pig
Birthday Plans: We are having a family & friends birthday party at Incredible Pizza (tonight) to celebrate his special day. The funniest thing about the party is the theme.  Zachary insisted that we have a Go! Diego Party.  He likes Diego but it's not really his favorite thing like super heroes, Toy Story, Dinos, etc.  When I talked to the cake lady about making his cake she said lets do a pizza cake since it is a pizza place.  When I told Z he cried. He insisted the cake have a huge Diego on it.  So the cake will have a Diego on it.  I want him to be happy but I'm still surprised we are doing a Diego party. 
My mom and I think he picked it because they had Deigo masks at the party store. 

Other Facts about Z:

*When he grows up he wants to be either a Veterinarian or a Dentist (it depends on the day).

*Zachary LOVES to do projects whether it is painting, using glue, sissors, glitter, stickers, etc. He LOVES them. 

*He pretends that he is on a football team.  Daily he tells me that I have to take him to football practice after school and that I have to wash his stinky uniform. I think he got this from my cousins Austin & Wade. What is funny is that he absolutely believes 100% that he plays high school football.

* Zachary also pretends he is in a "VAND" aka a BAND.  He is the vocalist and the guitarist. 

*He LOVES to be read too. His favorite books right now are anything Bernenstein Bears, Pout Pout Fish, If you give a Pig a Pancake, and a Super Hero I Spy book.

*Zachary gets scared really easy.  He does not like to go into any room by himself.  He is afraid someone is in there. So we always have to go in the bathroom to turn on the lights first.  Very annoying but it is something we are working on. I don't like to see my little boy scared or fearful. 

*Zachary also gets his feelings hurt very easy.  He does not like to be teased or made fun of.  I don't blame him.

*Zachary still thinks he is a comedian. He laughs at his own jokes and continues to have the most contagious belly laugh I have ever heard. 

*He is really good with his manners....most of the time.  When leaving the table he asks to be "excused". I love that he is learning to be polite.

It's hard for me to believe that he is growing up. I feel so blessed to be his mommy. May God grant me 60 more years with him. 

3 boys at 3 stores with 2 dino books

The other day I had the priviledge of having three boys for the afternoon.  I had my son, Zachary and my two wonderful nephews, Elliott & Jerrytt.  I had some errands that I needed to run so I just took them with me.  Boy, was I blessed. I really think they were on their very best behavior because they wanted me to see how "easy" it was with more than one child so that I will have another one. HA! No just kidding. They really did great in the stores.  We went to three places....Kinkos where we pretended they worked for me at the copy machine. Both Elliott & Zachary had a blast making the copies and runing them to me to cut them. Meanwhile Jerrytt slept in his carseat. I thought well..that went good lets go to store #2. SONIC...not really a store but it was 1/2 price drinks and I knew Jerrytt's hunger time bomb was about to go off.  So we got sonic slushes and fed Jerrytt at the same time.  Again the boys were EXCELLENT! Next stop store #3....  Gordmans...yes I took two 4 year olds and a 5 month old to a store that has a ton of home furnishings and breakables. Needless to say a very little bitty cart to place a baby carseat on.  We survived!! The boys were so good that I told them they could pick out a pair of new pjs & book for each of them.  They found these dinosaur bone books that I thought was a great steal.  Zachary & Elliott could not wait to return to my house to put them together. The only problem was that I needed to fix dinner because my sister was coming to pick them up and to be honest.... I DID NOT WANT TO BE THE ONE HELPING THEM PUT TOGETHER A MILLION DINO BONES. No thank you. 

I felt bad for not doing the books but I thought it was definitely a task for a son & father.  So after dinner and after my nephews went home, Kevin & Z put together Mr. Dinosaur.  Kevin said it was easier than he thought it was going to be.  

Here is the final product: 

Z loves him and talks to him like he is alive.

After the dino was completed it had to do everything Zachary did. It watched Z take a bath. It watched Z have a snack. It watched Kevin read to Z and finally it watched Z go to sleep. Until Zachary called me into his room to remove him because he was scared.  Crack me up!  Kevin and I are still shocked that the dino is still in one piece.  I think it was well worth the $1.50 I spent.  I hope Elliott likes his as much as Zachary does.  :)

Fishing with my boys

I know I post a lot of pictures of my family fishing, but in our family you can never have enough fishing pictures. Right?  A couple Sundays ago, Kevin & Zachary were icthin' to go fishing.  After making a few phone calls to our local friends with a fishing pond and no one was home. We decided to try a local trout farm that is within 10 minutes of our home. It was a unique experience and a wonderful afternoon. 

Basically how it worked was you could catch & release for an hourly fee OR you could pay for your fish by the pound.  It was the EASIEST fishing I have ever done. It was amazing to be able to see the fish under the water going straight to your bait.  You could see them fighting for it. 

We caught over 20 fish but decided to only keep 3 of them for our healthy dinner.

These next two pictures are of Kevin's hands bringing in our fish.  I love pictures of hands. I know it's kinda weird but I cherish pictures of my loved ones and their hands that do so much for me.

My two boys enjoying a beautiful afternoon

Our catch!

Back at home grilling our catch. It doesn't get much fresher than this. Hello Omega-3 Fatty Acids, right? I love the look on Zachary's face. He is so proud of himself for catching and cooking our dinner.

Where have I been?

Well, the main question is where HAVEN'T I been?  The past three weeks have been an absolutely ZOO around my house, my husbands work, and in my life.  I have been running...not physically running, but running around from 5 a.m. until around 11 p.m. when I am absolutely delirious.  I have always classified myself as a "busy" person but the past three weeks was BUSY!  The past three weeks have been filled with our normal daily activities, added activities/errands that helped my husband out tremediously, stress from some mild melt-downs from me...not my soon-to-be four year old, but  I SURVIVED and I am back to my blogging.  

You probably didn't even notice or miss me but I sure did miss my daily blog reads and doing my own blog.  Is it fair to say that typing my family blog is a hobby?  Well it is to me. I love tracking our daily life and capturing our memories on this blog.  One of the main reasons I do it is so that I can submit it to a book printing website to print an entire year in our blog.  To be honest...a lot of what I have done in September of 2010 will not be documented in our family blog book because it deals with my husbands work and I do not like to publicize it for the whole wide world to view. In fact I have thought about going private so that I could include this aspect of my life in my blog however I think that sounds too confusing.  Any of my blog readers have a private blog? How do you do it? Who do you invite, etc?  I love meeting people though my blog so I really do not want to close it down to private because I would never get to meet new blog friends?  This is where suggestions or comments are welcome.

Well, that was a long way to say I am back. But I AM BACK.  I am going to do my best to blog more. I think my life is starting to return to our normal.  Come back for some new updates!