Scary Goblins

Ever since Zack was three months old, he has been an excellent sleeper. We rarely have a problem with him in the middle of the night, and he always prefers to sleep in his own bed.
Last night was the first time he has climbed into bed with Aaron and I, for any reason. He came tearing into our room a little before 2 a.m. He shook me awake and asked if he could sleep in our bed, there were goblins! I sleepily pulled him up into bed, told him he was more than welcome to join us, and he curled right into Aaron's arms. About a half-hour later I decided to see if he was ready to go back to his bed. I picked him up and he asked if they were gone. I told him, of course they were gone. I got him back in bed, reassured him that the goblins were gone, and I didn't hear another peep from him all night.
Before leaving for work this morning I asked Aaron if he woke up at all for this little adventure, and I'm not surprised, he slept right through it. Aaron did hear about the goblins from Zack on the way to the babysitter. Zack casually mentioned that there were goblins last night, and he was scared. Aaron was quick to let him know that goblins don't stay at our house because, as scary as goblins may be, they're more scared of Dad. Zack accepted this as an obvious truth, saying, "Oh yeah!" Hopefully this will help his little active imagination handle the scary dreams that are bound to happen.

Shoe Shopping

So last night we went out to get a few things, new play shoes for Zack and a birthday present for Landon's birthday party. On our first stop we saw, yet again, how indeppendent Zack has become. We also saw just how much Zack had grown. He is now in the Kids section, no longer a Toddler.
Anyways, we were looking for shoes that would go with his everyday wear. We decided that we were going to go with laces this time because now would be a good time to show him how to tie his own laces. While searching for those shoes, Zack fond a pair the HE wanted. Mom didn't care for them too much and tried to show him 2 other pairs. He decided he was not going to have any part of that! It is at this point that he started to thow a fit, and when Daddy stepped in. Amanda then took Lexi off to entertain her while dad dealt with the situation. This is how the following is recounted:

Dad calmly: "Zack, who's shoes are these?"
Zack yelling: "ME!"
Dad again calmly: "Ok, so you do have a say in the matter, but who is going to pay for the shoes?"
Zack trailing off: "Mommy...."
Dad calmly: "Ok, so who do you think get's the final say as to which shoes to buy?"
Zack pointing: "YOU!!!"

While Amanda was off entertaining the little princess, Lexi found some pink shoes and asked Amanda to put them on, afterwords stating: "Cute shoes, cute shoes". Lexi was disappointed when Amanda had to take them off so that we could go. She even tried to grab them again before leaving and was quite upset when Amanda put them back. What a little girl she is becoming! We have plenty of shoes thanks to several people sharing their hand-me-downs. Maybe next time Lexi. Shortly after, Zack decided that the shoes he really liked and had to have where the ones the mom really want to get for him. Ah, the power of persuasion. So we put both shoes on him and he ran to take the box up to the cashier.

We then walked, Zack ran in his new shoes, to the train store (Target) to get a birthday present for Landon and to look and see if there were any new trains that Zack could get with his good boy tokens. While we were there we found Kevin, a new crane truck that works in the Sodor Steamworks. Zack had to have him. Then we found a present for Landon which we had to explain to Zack that the train was for him but the new present was for his cousin. As we walked back to the car, Aaron put Lexi down and had her walk while holding his hand. Aaron had to lean to one side a bit, very cute to see. At the car we opened Zacks train and were very happy to see that the makers of the toy had not included a ton of packaging but simply advised that if we wanted to find out more about Thomas and his friends then we could go to www.thomasandfriends.com/engines . So after getting home, feeding the kids and getting them into their jammies, Aaron hooked up the laptop to the TV and played on the website for a while until it was time to go to bed. Zack had a blast watching Aaron go through the website with games and video's. One that he is very excited to see is Thomas and Friends: Hero of the Rails, a new CG animated movie coming to theaters. He hasn't stopped talking about it.

All and all, a great time spent as a family!!!

A Love Letter to My Wife

My Dearest Amanda,
I know that it has been some time that you have heard from me so I thought that I would drop you a line. Amanda, I want you to know that as time goes on, I find myself able to love on a much greater and deeper level and I believe that is because of you. Amanda over the years you have shown me what kind of a friend, husband, father and man I really can be. I say that you have shown me because with you in my life I strive to a better person. 
From the fist time I saw you I knew that my life had changed forever. It's like in the movies, with the slow motion and with the lighting just right. You looked up and smiled at me. I was not in the best place in my life, in fact I was in the worst place I had ever found myself. It is because of you that I found a greater appreciation for God, and the love that He has for each and everyone of us. I feel He wanted to personally show me that love by introducing you into my life. And I had to act the fool and try to show off how to push a stupid button! Man what was I thinking? 
I guess we are all given a little liberty when we see an angel for the fist time. Because of you, I knew at that moment that I wanted to be a better person no matter what. I wanted to be someone that you wanted to be with because I wanted to be with you as much as I possibly could. Yeah I fumbled a few dozen times but you found the good in what I was trying to accomplish. Amanda you had such a positive outlook on life. So fresh and vibrant. You worked so hard on what you were passionate about. I loved to see your passion. It made me want to work harder to meet your enthusiasm. 
I want to thank you for supporting me through the years. You have been such a great support for me to build my hopes and dream on when I had nothing to even build with. You helped me so much by supporting me in my life even when others wouldn't. You made it worth it, and coming home was a blessing because then I knew that I would be able to start to build something for the both of us. You know, I've planned the most amazing things and when they wouldn't work out you still thought the best of me and my intentions.  
If I could say what the best quality is about you it would be a tie between how you find the good in what I do and your smile. But who could stop there. You have an infectious laugh. You could make anyone laugh. But mostly I just like making you laugh. Even when I can't seem to find the laughter in my life I always want find it in yours. It brings so many things to life. 
Amanda, you are an amazing mother. Few things in your life bring you to life like being a mother and you do it so well. When I see you with the children it's that whole movie thing again. Slow motion,perfect lighting and instead of just one angel I see many. It's hard to believe that I was a part of making such wonderful children and in making you so happy too. If it seem that I have been neglectful as of late I do apologize. I spread myself a little thin in trying to make so many people happy. But that is something that I learned from you. Seeing the light in Zack and Lexi's eyes remind me so much of the light in your eyes. Guess it easy seeing as how they both have your eyes.
Amanda just remember that in this life we are to have joy. I know this better then most because I get the chance to make both you and our children happy. There is nothing greater in this whole wide world that I would rather be doing then to be doing what I am doing right here and right now. You make life wonderful. You are my life. I wouldn't know what would've happened to me if you had not been there that day. I thank God every day for showing me his love through you and the children. My only hope is that I can learn from your wonderful examples and show you just how wonderful you really are.

Just remember I'll love you !!!!!!!!.... AFAL 


~Aaron

Good Boy Jar

Zack keeps outgrowing our discipline techniques. He's just too smart! My sister, Britta, gave me the idea of earning tokens for good behavior. He also loses these tokens for misbehavior. So, we went to the craft store and bought wooden tokens and wrote amounts on the tokens. We have 1's, 5's and 10's so we can teach him how to get change as well. He gets to use his tokens to "buy" things he wants, like movies, toys and treats.

Then we let Zack decorate a jar for him to use as his Good Boy Jar. He had a blast! Letting him do this helped him take this to heart. He loves earning his tokens, and gets very upset when he loses some. It's working great so far!

Happy Birthday Zack!

Last weekend we had a party for Zack's 4th birthday. This was our first party that wasn't just family invited. We had a pretty good turnout of friends from preschool. CRAZY! I know my little guy is full of energy and is all over the place, but to add some of his little friends into the mix and they all just feed off of eachother. Bless their teacher!

Anywho! So, I asked Zack what kind of party he wanted and he told me he wanted a Wall-E cake. This kinda scared me. This was my first year making the cakes instead of buying them, so to throw a pretty complicated one at me on my learning year, I was pretty intimidated. I found a Wilton cake pan, that has a helpful paint-by-numbers instruction on the insert that I figured I could do. I learned last week after doing Lexi's cake, that I would need to make all the frosting along with the cake the night before if I wanted to frost it by the time the party started.

His birthday weekend started Friday afternoon. Grandma and Grandpa Bates decided to take him out for his birthday. They picked him up from school on Friday and took him to lunch and to the bookstore to pick his present (All he asked for this year for his birthday was books!). Then he got to go to their house and spend the night. What fun! This made it a little easier for me to get started on the cake too. We put Lexi to bed at her normal time and I got goin'! Aaron greased the pan for me so well, that it just slid right out. Whew! What a relief, because I needed to used this as a guide for frosting, I am not an artist, so this was important. I made the frosting and seperated it into the colors I would need and got to bed around 11. Not bad!

I got up and got started on the cake by 6 Saturday morning and it took me 3 hours to finish. But look how cool!

The party was a success. I found a few fun robot-themed games to play and we opened presents. I say "we" because I don't think Zack got to open a single one by himself. Overall, the kids had fun, and that was the most important part. And I realized how small my house feels with that many people crowding in for a seat!

Thank you to everyone who came and helped Zack feel special for his day!

We love you, Zack!

Alexis' Birthday

Today our beautiful little girl turned one. It's hard to believe that it's already been a year. It is truly amazing to watch a child grow, and it has been an adventure as well.

We had a small party for her with family. I made a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cake. She LOVES Mickey. One of the things that I remember the most from growing up is the cakes my mom made us for our birthdays. Aaron has the same kind of memories. It's fun to carry the tradition on with our kids.

She loved eating her cake. At first she wasn't sure what we had put in front of her, but after Aaron gave her a taste of it, she dug right in. This just happens to be my favorite part of their first birthday!She had fun opening presents for the first time. It took her a while to understand that it was ok to rip the paper, but once she got into it, she really got into it! It will be fun to let her do it again next month for Christmas. Thank you everyone for the wonderful gifts, she's been playing with all of them this afternoon.

We love you, Alexis and we are so glad to have you as a part of our family!

Halloween

Ok, I know I'm almost a month late in posting this, but I'm posting it anyway.

So, as many of you know, we had kind of a rough lead-in to Halloween. Shortly after my last post on the blog, we all got the swine flu. YUCK! It knocked us back for a good week. The coughs are only now just fading away. So, we didn't get to picking our pumpkins for carving until 2 days before Halloween, and didn't get them carved until the morning of. But we had fun doing it anyway! The night we went to pick our pumpkins was one of our first ventures out of the house after getting sick.

Fortunately, we were all feeling MUCH better by Halloween night and it was a beautiful night for Trick-or-Treating! It was only chilly, so we were fine putting jackets under the kids costumes. We were very excited to try out the treating in our own neighborhood for a change. Zack had a blast running up to the doors. He didn't want to keep his mask on for long though, as it got dark he really had a hard time seeing, so I was glad he took it off. By about half-way through he started telling us to stay on the sidewalk and he would go to the front door all by himself. Little Mister Independent! Lexi was glad to be out of the house. She had fun just watching the chaos and getting passed between Mom, Dad and Autie. Aren't they adorable in their costumes?!?!