Zack says...

I have lost the blogging zest lately but I had a small collection of things Zack has said lately so I thought I would post them.

Z: Dad, you know my black hoodie?
Dad: Yes?
Z: Emma said she was attracted to it.
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Mom: Zack have you washed your hair? (I have to remind him of every step in the shower or he just comes out wet, not clean and wet.)
Z: (yelling) I hate that new shampoo! It stinks! It smells like daddy when he's been working!
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Steve went out of town on business for one night. Zack was quite upset that he was gone and cried that he would miss him. Then at bedtime I tucked him in and he started crying again and said "he didn't leave me anything to remember him by!" So I asked if he would like to sleep with his dads pillow and he quite happily went to sleep after that.
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Zack struggles with things that are hard. He would rather not try to do something if it's at all difficult. We have been working on this and it is very frustrating for both of us. One day he was crying and said "why does life have to be so hard?" Good question buddy.
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Zack is always telling me about the girls at school. They like to chase him at recess and he told me one girl almost kissed him one day and he showed me how close she was to his face. On his birthday the whole class made cards for him. When he came home that day we read them together and it was all I could do not to laugh so hard. He told the class his favorite colors were red and blue, so everyone colored with red and blue. Then he told them his favorite animal was a manatee (who knew?) and a lot of them drew manatee's on their cards. One girl wrote: Emma likes you, Skyley likes you - te he. Another girl drew hearts all over and wrote: I love Zack. One boy wrote: Zack I like you. Pleeise be nise to me. We had a long talk about how we have to be nice to everyone, even if we think they are a little annoying. Zack loves school and his social interactions.
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Zack has been playing on a basketball team for the last few weeks. All I can say is I need to start taking Valium before I go to the games. I have never had so much anxiety! Only one boy on their team has ever played before so they basically get creamed every game. Zack starts out really into it and seems to enjoy playing but by the second half he has given up and is just running around the court not paying attention to where the ball is. These kids on his team twirl around a lot and so he started doing it too. After his game this week Steve and I told him if he wants to sign up for ballet we would be happy to. He was not amused. Hopefully that will take care of it. (Not that there's anything wrong with male ballerinas!)
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Zack had his 7th birthday a week ago. We do a big party every other year on the even years so this year I told him he could go to Classic with a friend or two and then we would have a family party. He invited his good friends Dresden and Logan and they spent a good 4 hours playing at classic and had a good time. The night before our family party he was saying his prayers and he prayed that he would get lots of good presents. I didn't say anything, when you're a kid it's OK to pray for that kind of stuff, right?
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Zack just lost his 3rd tooth. Loosing teeth around here is traumatic. Eating is difficult. Pulling it is out of the question and the mere mention of it sends waves of fear and tears. Bribery doesn't work. We offered large sums of money to be done with it, but no amount was tempting enough. For a week it would bleed several times a day, causing panic and tears. On Thursday it was bad. According to Zack it was "squirting" blood. I think seeping would be more accurate. I kept finding bloody tissues around the house. I worried that he wouldn't be able to play in his basketball game that night. When I took him to theater class he refused to get out of the car and wouldn't stop crying. I said a silent prayer, at wits end. (Why is it that I only think to pray when I'm at wits end?) That evening, the tooth just fell out. Right before the game. Excitedly he exclaimed "my tooth fell out and I didn't even cry!" He repeats this line to everyone he tells the story too. I kindly leave out the part about how he cried for a whole week over that blasted tooth. Isn't the anticipation always worse than the actual event?
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We love this little guy! Our lives would be so boring and meaningless without him. I have to remind myself to enjoy every minute because it is going by so fast and before we know it he's going to be all grown up.

What anniversary?

For the past few months our Relief Society presidency has been trying to plan a board meeting and it has been rescheduled at least once. Finally we settled on a date of Wednesday, November 18th to take place at our Presidents house. She called me last Friday to ask if we could change it to my house because she has to vacate her house sooner than she thought (she recently sold her house and is moving away, sniff). I agreed to be the host in 4 1/2 days despite the fact that I was going to be working almost non-stop up until then, and hosting parties gives me panic attacks.

Two days before the meeting I was saying something about it to Steve and he says, "you know that's our anniversary, right?"

Um....what!?

Yeah, I forgot my own 9th wedding anniversary. Ooops.

How could I forget to celebrate the day I married the best guy on earth? Yes, I said the best! Let me tell you why:

He cooks

He cleans

He gardens

He organizes

He builds

He remodels

He fixes

He works HARD

He plays hard

He is intelligent

He is funny

He is loving

He doesn't yell when I spend money

He takes me on dates

He is a great dad

He doesn't like to fight

and last...

He picked ME!

I love you Stevie! I hope you can put up with me for eternity!

Other October Occurrences

Lake Powell
The first weekend in October we went to Lake Powell again with two of our favorite families. We had a good time despite the chilly and windy weather. We have always had perfect weather in October, but this year was not to be.

Zack is such a dare-devil. If the tubing isn't fast enough he acts like he's bored stiff!


Zack did some beginner boogie-boarding this year, he looks mad but he really enjoyed it.


Shannon, Rick and Steve jumping off a major cliff. Do you like Steve's relaxed body?


Zack gets a little higher every year!


Rick got an old school jet ski right before this trip. The first time Mindy tried it out she fell off and the thing just kept going toward shore instead of circling her. Luckily Rick was able to jump off the houseboat and swim to it right before it hit the rocks!


Here he is pulling Zack and A on a tube!


Lagoon
This year we got a season pass to Lagoon. It was really fun to have and just take off for a few hours and not feel like you have to ride every ride. We just relaxed and had fun and if the lines were too long we came back another time. We liked October a lot because they have Frightmares. All of Lagoon is decorated for Halloween and there are haunted houses you can go through. Zack loved them! It was nice to be there during the cooler weather too!

These photo ops were all over the park, but this was my favorite one.







Random
Zack's school had Red Ribbon Week where they talk about not doing drugs, etc. There was a theme every day. The first day was pajama day and he was all excited to wear his. As he was literally walking out the door he panicked and insisted on changing into clothes. I helped him change quickly and off he went. It turns out every kid in the school was wearing PJ's but him. He just gets sooo embarrassed so easily! The next day was supposed to be crazy sock/slipper day. Well, you can't find crazy socks for boys at a moments notice so I got him some camo slippers. He wore them and was the ONLY kid in slippers. He was so embarrassed that I took him his shoes and he was very grateful. Poor kid, we just can't win.
Zack wanted black striped hair for crazy hair day. I was afraid it wouldn't come out of his white hair but it did.


Just a weird picture I found on the camera when I downloaded all of the pictures. The things those boys do while I am at work!

Halloween Fun

This year Zack got to dress up three times. He wanted to be a scary skeleton and we found this inexpensive "gatekeeper" costume at a not-to-be-mentioned-mart. I had a lot less stress this year not having to come up with a creative homemade costume. The costume came with a scary skeleton mask with horns on it. Since no masks are allowed and the mask would have only fit a small baby, I decided to cut it up and made the coolest helmet ever. I mean, what kind of gatekeeper would guard a gate with out head protection, right? I stayed up late the night before the school parade trying to get the horns to stick to the plastic helmet and finally found some glue that sort of worked. I held the horns in place for over an hour to keep them stuck.

The next morning I proudly presented it to Zack, sure that he would be beyond grateful.

Nope. He hated it! Wouldn't wear it.

Apparently it is quite unbelievable for horns to be coming out of a helmet, despite my protests that gatekeepers can buy helmets with holes cut for their devilish horns.

I did manage to get one picture of him wearing it before he tore it off and ran into the church party.

Note the essential key in his hand. Steve did his face for this event and Zack liked it the best. The third day in a row of putting on his make-up, he started screaming and crying because it was burning his skin. He made me keep going and he sucked it up because he had to have the full effect for his costume. He has a bit of a rash now, what can I say, he got my sensitive skin.



At the school parade, sans helmet. I am the room mother this year for Zack's class. I was all stressed about it when they asked me to do it but it turns out the other 1st grade teacher (not Zack's teacher) doesn't like parties. I am off the hook. All I had to do was get some moms to go help in the classroom the day before for some Halloween themed learning. But no festivities other than the parade the next day. I'm not sure how to feel about this.



Zack only has 5 cousins, and 4 of them are adults. This is his 12 year old cousin K and they are surprisingly close. They were very excited to go trick-or-treating together in Auntie L's neighborhood. They got some full size candy bars, which doesn't happen in our neighborhood.



Steve's family from right to left: Auntie L, Steve, Grandma, Niece B, Niece C and B's husband S.

Breakfast

This morning for breakfast Zack had:

2 bags of Skittles
2 boxes of Nerds
1 Kit Kat
1 Hershey's bar
1 small Tootsie roll
1 large Tootsie roll

He was smart enough to throw the wrappers in the garbage outside.

I'm smart enough to look in garbage's.

He doesn't usually smell so sweet in the morning!

Ah, Halloween!

Knock on Wood

The other day I was realizing that Zack is rarely sick. I even mentioned it to Steve saying: "I've only taken him to the Dr. once for a sickness and he has never been on an antibiotic in his whole life." Well, last night at 3 am I was awakened from a sleeping pill induced sleep by Zack's cries. He proceeded to throw up for the next 2 hours and has been awake ever since. Next time I will knock on wood after I make a statement like that!

I hope everyone else is staying healthy!

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Driven to distraction

I think Zack has ADD.

Bummer huh?

When I think of his inablility to focus in terms of ADD instead of in terms of him just trying to agravate me, it makes me a lot more patient. I really don't think he can help it when I tell him to go get his shoes on we are leaving, and I find him inside Simpsons kennel snuggling his dog, no shoes in sight.

Also, it makes me really angry when adults and children alike yell at him to pay attention during a boring baseball game when he has been standing in the sun for 20 minutes while the other teams sucky coach tries to pitch balls 20 feet into the air and expects his little players to hit them and everyone expects Zack to be riveted to the "action" waiting for one of those balls to maybe come to him. *breathe* I would have been playing in the dirt too. Bor-Ring.

I just had to get that off my chest. I will be off to the library tomorrow to get some books on dealing with ADD. If you have a good one to recommend, let me know. I am sure there are plenty of people out there who have experience with this, it's not like it's uncommon or anything. :)

My creative cousin

If you want to feel inspired today (and maybe cry a little) go to this post by my cousin and look up her video. It is really good.

(Becca, I pray for Stewart!)

Don't forget to pray for our troops!

Could you help?

My friend Chris author of this blog made the following post on her blog and I asked her if I could copy it into my blog since I am too lazy to reword it. This really is an easy way for our friends and family to help out those of us trying to adopt.

Hello everyone. As many of you know, we hope to grow our little family through adoption. We appreciate the services of the LDS Family Services. The website that aids so many of us adopting and helps birthmoms know that they can receive counseling and information about their options is ItsAboutLove.org It is not a well-known site and can be a difficult site to find unless you know the web address. Recently, LDS.org had a link to this website, helping adoptive couples and birthmothers alike feel love and support, as well as providing an easier way to find and contact LDS Family Services. It has since been removed, as it was a temporary link, much to my disappointment. So, I ask for your help.

Positive feedback is a strong way to show a need and support for something. I ask each of you to take just a few minutes and send feedback to LDS.org about how important it is for birthmoms and adoptive couples that a link to ItsAboutLove.org be added permanently to the main webpage. To do this, please visit www.lds.org and click on the feedback link on the top of the page. You will be directed to a comment page, where you can add your voice to this need.

I know this may not directly affect many of you, but for those of us who depend upon the sacrifice and love of others to build our eternal family, this would mean so much. Thanks everyone!

If you have 90 seconds, would you mind? Thanks so much!

My big day

Yesterday I turned 35. This is really sad. I seriously don't feel 35. (I just did a quick calculation on the calculator to make sure I really am now 35, it's true, I am.)

Anyway, I had a fun day shopping with my mom and sister, out to lunch at Sconecutter (yum) and then dinner with some friends and family at the Bonsai Tempanyaki Steak House. The fried rice is the best!

Earlier in the month I got some new diamond bands for my wedding ring as an early present and then Steve and Zack got me a cute shirt and some DVD's. My mom and I are going to go clothes shopping when I have slimmed down some. Overall it was a great day and I am thankful for the great life I have. Here's to another year!

(Left to Right) Ally, Mike, my mom, Zack, Me and our friend Larry

Next to Larry is L (one of his kids), his wife Shannon, D (his other kid) and Zack.

What we accomplished/learned this summer

In an earlier post I listed our summer goals/plans. Zack accomplished all of his and then some. I accomplished all but three. Oh well, there's always next summer, right? I didn't list any for Steve but his were to remodel the bathroom and finish our backyard deck and go to Lake Powell. He is close to being done with both his projects and because we didn't get a baby, he was able to go to Lake Powell too. I will post pictures in a later post, when his projects are done.

Zack also acquired a very valuable life skill this summer.

Laundry!

Yes, he now does his own laundry. One morning I walked into his room to see how he was coming along, putting his clean laundry away. I caught him throw a huge pile of clean PJ's into the dirty hamper.

Something snapped inside me.

That was the day he was introduced to Mr. Washer and Mrs. Dryer. They are now fast friends.




I too learned something about laundry this summer. It is this:

If you put 2 tampons in your pants pocket and don't use them, then you throw said pants into the washer, when the wash cycle is done, you have a fuzzy mess. Then, if you ignore said mess and put it into the dryer, when that cycle is done, you have a strange, somewhat permanent stench cooked into your clothes. The smell reminds me of fish. It makes me gag.

I also learned that you must clean out the remaining tampon particulate from the seams of the pocket where they were left, because simply washing those same clothes over and over (at least 5 times), yields the same fishy smell. Then you must soak the clothes in an odor remover (the kind you use to get rid of dog-pee smell in your carpet) and then you must wash them again, without ANY tampon particulate (because you used a lint roller to remove any trace of it). Then you must wash them again.

Then I learned that buying new scrubs for work is OK, because it is better than smelling like fish all night. I hope you never have to learn this lesson like I did.


What did Steve learn this summer? When the guy at the tire store tells your wife that the car needs new tires before you drive 1000 miles to California...you should listen.

I'm not ready!

Everyone keeps saying how ready they are for school to start. Not me! I am dreading summer being over. I LOVE summer!

I think I am also freaking out a little because Zack is going to be at school full time now. Not that I can't keep myself entertained but... it's just a new and different phase in our lives and I hate that he is growing up so fast.

Two more weeks to fit in all the fun stuff I can, all while trying to work and remodel the bathroom. Ugh!

We just got back from a totally fabulous trip to Lake Powell. Our friends have a houseboat and a ski boat and they are very generous to invite us down with them and their family. I didn't get very many pictures but here are a few we took.

Zack can't get enough of tubing and he always wanted a CRAZY ride! He is a total daredevil.


He also really loved the slide on the houseboat.


I can't believe I am posting this picture!


The kids loved fishing off the boat and actually caught some fish. Not my Zack though, he has my fishing handicap.


Most of the people who were on the trip. (Yes all the other moms were totally hot. I'm going on a diet.)


Steve tubing. They just kept crashing! I like a nice easy ride.

No time to blog

I have had alot on my mind lately and no time to blog. Here is what I have been doing so far this summer...

Trying to organize all the junk in my house (it's still not done)

Planning a garage sale (it MIGHT happen)

Remodeling our main bathroom (it's completely gutted)

Recovering from our failed adoption (he was due July 19th)

Working 24 hours a week

Church stuff

Picking zucchini (it's the only thing that has been successful so far in the garden)

Cooking zucchini, every night

Researching international adoption agencies

Eating snowcones at my brothers snow shack

Reminding myself how great my life is and all that I have to be thankful for

Zack Says...

Mom: You're such a good boy Zack!
Zack: Oh no! I'm better than just that!
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Zack saying his prayers: Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this grateful day.
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The other day I noticed that Zack had scribbled pen all over the white banister. I calmly told him that he would have to wash it off and gave him the miraculous Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. He was seriously not happy that he was being made to do this tedious chore. (The pen was ALL over our really long banister.) He whined and cried. Then he said in a really disgusted voice: "This isn't MAGIC, it's just a stupid SPONGE!"
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Zack was playing with my brothers dog Tucker tonight at my mom's house. He came inside and I asked him why he wasn't playing with him anymore and he said: "Because Tucker's a shrewd dog!" (I think he thought that meant extra RUDE!)
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Steve: Zack, for the 10th time, come and do your job!
Zack: (Very calmly) Dad, I would but I'm addicted to the TV.
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The other day we were having a really loud thunder storm. Simpson is SUPER scared of thunder and we found him hiding in Zack's closet. We couldn't stop laughing until Zack touched him and noticed he was trembling so hard! Then we felt kinda sad for him. Zack gave him lots of love to make him feel better.