Smimming lessons

This February the kids have been doing swimming lessons at the Y and have really been enjoying it. They have been in the water most of their lives wearing floaty suits, but this is the first time they have moved in to the world of actual swimming. Both of them love it. Isabella is in a class with 2 other girls, and Zach's class includes a parent (Liza does the swimming.) They are both ready to move on already, so they are going to jump a couple of levels for March and both be in the same class. The kids say "Thankyou!" to Grandma Carla and Grandpa Roger for the Christmas present of swimming lessons!

Isabella practicing kicking with her classmates.

Zach and Liza practicing floating on his back. He can swim everywhere with the dumbbell, and can go about 5 feet without one before he starts looking for someone to grab on to.

Cute Things He Says

There are several very cute things that Zach says that I don't want to forget. I thought it would be a good idea to record them here...

"Berry" as in "I love you berry much"
"Toolet" as in "I need to go potty in the toolet."
"Neverna" as in "Jonah didn't want to go to Neverna"
"Wine" as in "I drawed a wine."
"Prane" as in "Look at that prane wine." (Look at that Plane Line= the white line left by an airplane in the sky)
"Cool" as in "Let's go swim in the cool."
"Narbles" as in "Let's play with our narbels."
"Toddewer" as in "I'm not a baby, I'm a toddewer."
"Trembow" as in "Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Sometimes it causes me to trembow, trembow, trembow."

Code

Last night we took the kids to Chuck E Cheese to celebrate the start of a new potty training week for Zach, and the fact that we'll be home for the next 5 weeks. We talked about it for a couple of days before hand, but didn't want the kids to know that we were going there... so we refer to it a "Mousey Queso." It's a code they somehow have not figured out yet. We also use "The Scottish Restaurant" when speaking of McDonald's (that one came from when Liza was in Kaz with a toddler who missed fries with a great passion.)

So, I'm wondering what other codes are out there that parents of young ones use or used to use. Use the comment link to share yours.

Lots of bubbles

I wrote before about Zach getting the bubble machine for Christmas. When we got back to Austin, found another one on the 50% off shelf at Target and picked one up for Isabella as well. They love to stand on the play scape and send bubbles through out the yard and floating down the street. It's really funny when people are walking by and notice the air filled with bubbles. I took this quick video of them at work last week...

Making up songs

Zach has been in to making up songs lately and tonight he was working on one of his favorites, "The Friend Song." He often sings it and wants us to sing along with him. Tonight, knowing he was on camera, he improvised and came up with a new ending. We all got a good laugh.

Another Haircut... and post haircut ice cream

In an abundance of caution and a great desire to see no more lice, we decided to give Zach another haircut this week. We hadn't really seen anything the last few days, but really, we want to make sure. So, we set him up on the back porch and I cut his hair again. Since it had only been a week, this time I had to go with a 1 on the back and sides and a 2 on top. It is really short now, but looks very cute. He was not enjoying himself at all, so about halfway through, Liza and I suggested that we could get ice cream (before supper) once we were done. That helped to perk him up and he was able to get through the rest of the haircut.


Here he is enjoying his own cup of ice cream with sprinkles on top. It was quite tasty.


Isabella got a cup as well.The Amy's Ice Cream is located in the Arboretum close to the cows in the park, so of course, we had to go over an play on them for a while. It gave us a great opportunity to take some great pictures...


Liza and Zach both got on this cow. By this time, he was no longer interested in smiling for the camera...
They like to ride every cow, so Zach and Isabella got on this one together.

This was the last picture before we had to go. It was getting dark and I love the way the light plays in the trees behind Zach and the colors. This is one of my favorite pictures from that day...


We keep checking, but haven't found anything else on him at all since the last haircut. Hopefully we won't have to give this haircut to Isabella... :-) We haven't seen anything on her at all in the last week, so hopefully we have vanquished them.

The word "Nitpicking" has a new meaning for us...

Liza wrote before about finding Indiana lice in the hair of our kids. Now we've been trying to get RID of them. :-) Isabella has done well sitting still to look through her hair, but Zach just couldn't hold still for very long. Liza tried tying his hair up in sections to look through it, but it was about impossible.

So today he got the radical hair cut. It turns out that a shop won't cut it if there are any signs of lice at all, so I went and got some clippers and had a grand ole time. :-) Zach was not enjoying it much, but in the end it looks OK. Next week we will probably cut it again and then have a pro fix up the rough edges.


Both Zach and Isabella got a new treatment tonight that is all organic. It is a combination of lots of different types of oils that people swear by for killing the little critters off. They had to have it put on then leave it on inside a shower cap for an hour. Zach got the treatment after the haircut and Isabella got it tonight (with no haircut.) We are praying that this will get them out of the hair and we are spraying, washing, and cleaning everything else. Oh what fun!

Bubbles!

Zach received a bubble machine for Christmas from his Aunt Kim. Once we got the batteries for it, we got it going and the kids really love it. Here are a few pictures of them playing with it in my mom's driveway in Houston.




It really puts out a lot of bubbles! In the picture below you can see Indiana sporting her new haircut and watching the fun through the glass. She was out with them, but she kept chasing them (the kids, not the bubbles) and Isabella didn't like it.

one other thing...

Isabella is spending the night at another house, so when Zach asked me to lay with him for a little while as he was going to sleep, I was happy to oblige. Especially after his patience with everything we had to do to him today. He even gets to listen to his favorite music this bedtime--usually he chooses at nap, and Isabella chooses at bed.

So precious to lay next to him, and hear him sing himself to sleep with "Amazing Grace." How I hope and pray that he understands how truly amazing that grace is at an early age. Thanks, Lord, for that precious moment.

What a day!

I didn't realize how behind we are on blogging until I looked at the previous post.

We have been in Houston this past week working on support. We have been so encouraged by the people we have met, and the potential for raising new monthly support.

However, the last few days we have noticed that Zach has been scratching his head alot. Now, when we were in Indiana before Christmas, a couple of nieces came down with lice. But we never detected any in our kids, even after checking for several days in a row.

Finally today, we found them in Zach's head. Zach and Isabella have slept at almost every relatives' house in Houston in the past week while Chris and I were in Ft. Worth for our winter conference. So I made the dreaded phone calls to the other two houses, and at Chris' mom's house we began the process of washing all of the bedding, and scrubbing the heads. Non-washable blankets and beloved dolls have gone into a month of quarantine, and I spent two and a half hours going through Zach and Isabella's heads this afternoon. Hopefully tomorrow's check will not uncover more...

I am thankful that cousins on both sides of the family have gotten lice, so I could put the call into the mothers to ask them what to do. And thankful that everyone here is able to not take this too seriously. Thanks Kelli, Kim, and Mom!