Happy Birthday Zachary!

Today, we celebrated Zachary's birthday by going to the zoo! The day was PERFECT!



Zachary loved the primates!

Dimitri and Matri watched the elephants eat dinner.

The boys loved the train ride and all the animals along the way!

After telling Zachary all day that he arrived a year ago today, we believe he took some time to ponder how he got here. Lets just hope that his brother is not giving him the wrong information (with all the laughter you never know)!

Before we left the zoo everyone decided to get a little adventurous in honor of Zachary's birthday. Zachary and Mommy wrestled an alligator and Dimitri sat in a cobra's mouth.


Dimitri and Mommy played in a turtle shell and of course Dimitri loved the slides.

We decided to go home and continue the birthday celebration. What is a birthday without cake, ice cream and balloons?


We count our blessings everyday! Happy Birthday Zachary, thank you for a spectacular year. We love you with all our hearts!

Zachary's Birthday Party!

Zachary turns 1 on Monday and today we celebrated his birthday. Like every one year old, Zachary struggled to open his presents (Mada and many others helped). Zachary was a PRO when it came to his cake. It was adorable to see him scoop handfuls of cake in his mouth (he must have remembered the taste of cake from when he was in the womb. Grandma Patty, you will know what we are talking about).

Now, for all of you critics who think that we are "mean" for pushing Zachary's face in his cake, let us just say that it is A FAMILY TRADITION! It was out of pure love!

We would like to thank all of our friends and family for all the well wishes, gifts and of course LOVE! To our dear family that could not attend today, we would like to say that you were in our thoughts and we wish you were!

Thank you to EVERYONE for all the LOVE and SUPPORT over the last year. We are BLESSED to have you in ALL of OUR LIVES!

MMMMMMMMMM cake anyone?

Fall family pictures

It is a beautiful time of year and we decided to get our fall family pictures done especially for Zachary's 1st birthday!

Our littlest boy is growing up!





It has almost been a year now and the boys are finally starting to sit a little bit closer together now that they are both getting older. We still have to coax them into the idea but it is nice to be able to get one or two pictures of them together.


It is a bittersweet feeling to know that our little boys are growing into young men!


Now, we are not sure how many parents have this issue but we do! Our boys seem to never smile when we are paying to have our pictures done but we have countless photo albums filled with pictures of the our boys smiling but again, hardly ever when we are paying for them.





"Every happy home has a foundation of love and a framework of support."

-Wes Fessler

Pumpkin Carving or is it Pumpkin Decorating?

This year we are on top of pumpkin carving! Last year, we waited until the last weekend before Halloween and Zachary decided to make his grand entrance three weeks early, so we never got around to the pumpkins.

Dimitri did not seem very happy that his hands got dirty but in the end, Dimitri gave his pumpkin high five and seemed happy with the results.

Zachary seemed happy with his own vampire creation! He seemed a little more interested in the ears and loved looking at all the pumpkins when they were complete!

The SCARY and SPOOKY night is just 10 days away!

More fall fun

Today, I thought I would take the boys outside to play in the leaves. Dimitri had a good time trying to throw the leaves into the air. Zachary was interested in tasting the leaves and trying to roll the pumpkin like a ball!

Watching them play together is always a favorite!

And you can't forget...

Zachary has one of the cutest smiles!

Hopefully, we can go to the park later this afternoon before the weather changes!

Gardner Village- Petting Zoo & Wee Witches

Last Thursday we decided to go to the 2008 debut of Wee Witches Weekend at Gardner Village! We started out the evening at the petting zoo. Zachary was able to pet a goat for the first time. Mommy made him feel safe every step of the way! Zachary seemed to be in awe of all the animals around him while Dimitri was an old pro of the petting zoo!

(Zachary's favorite goat)

Dimitri liked the goose and would try to talk to it!

Now, as parents you worry about those around you setting bad examples for your children. Sure enough the petting zoo was NO EXCEPTION! Here we are telling our two precious boys not to fight with each other and BOOM along comes two goat siblings that start fighting in front of us. Thank goodness an elder goat broke up the fighting!


Off to the festivities...
Not knowing which direction to go Mommy & Zachary led the way!


While there we visited a "witch" and "bribed" her with chocolate to make sure that Zachary has a fantastic birthday next week!


and of course Zachary loved all the pumpkins!


Dimitri would yell out "pumpkin where are you" when he would see one (one of MANY) and then say "there it is". Let's just say that if you have been to Gardner Village you would realize just how many pumpkins there were!

We had a great time and it was the PERFECT activity to get us in the holiday spirit!