Zachary 3 1/2

I thought about how I wanted to do an update on the kids and it was perfect that they both are hitting their half year marks!

Zachary's half birhtday was on Febrary 5th. He is now 3 1/2...growing up too fast!

-He is still an early riser. He wakes up at 6 o'clock everyday. We always try to put him back him bed, or sometimes (if we are nice) he gets to be on our floor. :) But he is always wide awake (making little noises) and insisting that it is "morning time"! 
-He is my shadow ALL. DAY. LONG. He will rarely leave my sight. He always wants to know what I'm doing, if I can play, or what we are going to do. He likes to be up close and may times is squeezing between me and what I am doing. If I'm upstairs he is there or close behind me-even if I have to just run and get something.
-If he does leave my sight he is with Jane. This can be a good or bad thing. She likes to do her own thing, so many times he is not happy with how she is playing. He also likes to push her buttons.  But they have lots of cute times of playing together that make up for the bad.
-He says, "I sure love you mom," many times a day. It makes me feel good.
-Other things he says, "that is totally awesome!" "you're my budder/buddiest" (adding er or est to buddy- we like to be buddies at our house.) "that's amazing," "what are we doing to do today? Let's make a list." "this is the best day ever." "what you doing you sweety gril?/ "you're ok sweety girl" (talking to Jane. I love that he calls her "sweety girl"-it's so cute!)
-I love watching him run around with other kids. He is usually saying something like "emergency" or "ka chow" or something to do with cars, while the other kids are being super heroes and shooting things. I like keeping him little for as long as possible! I'm not ready for all the guns, bad guys and shooting yet.
-He still really likes cars and trains. He has built a few impressive tracks all by himself. He has been pretty good with Jane playing with him with both.
-He is getting too big for his balance bike, trike, and firetruck. I think when the summer comes he is going to need something new. He loves to ride and play outside. He gets quite the imagination with things. But gets really frustrated when things don't work out as planned. Mainly when he is trying to tow things with string attached and trying to built bridges and such. 
-He is always good as saying "thanks for making this yummy dinner mom," and "this is just what I was talking about," when I make something he likes.
-He has started to say prayers better on his own, not just "thank you for this day 20x's fast." He still has a hard time sitting still and folding his arms.
-He loves to sing Rudolph the red nose reindeer. It's cute because he does not want me to sing it with him, so I get to just listen. Jane usually is joining in (it's super cute when they sing together).
-He was in love with Caillou (PBS) for awhile and now loves Curious George.
-Yesterday he told me "I can wait" for something he really wanted. We have been working on paticence something he does not have a lot of. I was excited.
-He loves church and being a Sunbeam.
-When he makes lists of things to do it usually includes: running and casing him, dancing, going to the library (on the list everyday), or playing cars. All things that are only so fun for so long. :)
-Because he is up so early he will usually take a nap for me. The only times he has not is when he has "slept in" until 6:45. So either I get him really early with a nap or a half hour later with out a nap...I'll take the nap.
-He loves school. I have loved it too. We both like a break from each other, but it has also been nice to help some because I can see better at what we need to work on at home together. Writing has been a little more challenging for me to teach him because he is left handed. We made some valentines for his friends and it really is harder for him to see what he is writing. Practice will help and hopefully I get a little better at taking the time to do it.
-He has been doing so much better at going to bed at night. We used to have to tell him to go back to bed or stop yelling for us a million times. He might not even or maybe once come to tell us something, other then that he does pretty good.
-The middle of the night is a different story. He grinds his teeth a lot and it wakes him or partway wakes him, so he takes/yells in his sleep. He sometimes will have night terrors that you just have to calm him down. He also sometimes comes into our room at night and has turned off his fan and turned on his lights....lets just say he wakes us up a lot. (Thankfully Jane sleeps through it all.)
-He is super fun when we are on outings. He remembers lots that we have done. He is always asking to do vacations again.
-He gets shy with lots of kids, but when he opens up he is running everywhere.
-He has a short temper sometimes.
-He is not quiet. :)
-He is getting bossy and more competitive (I'm sure help from school). 
-His favorite shoes are his crocs and rain boots because he can do both by himself. He is not very independent when it comes to putting on clothes. Today I did catch him trying to snap his pants up after going to the bathroom. Yay! The other night we did have him put on his own pj shirt. That was fun to watch.
-He is cute with Jane and will watch out for her when other kids are around.

We sure love him. He is my "best buddy", but also my biggest challenge many days. He is a lot of my energy and makes us have most of our fun. We always say it is a good thing he is so cute because he can really drive us crazy. :) We sure love our Zacy boy.

Some cute pictures of him the past month:

Jane taking note of her bigger brother and the joy of a cereal box.

My first flower from Zac! He came running in with it from helping Lee in the yard. He put it in a vase and all. Love him.

First day of Sunbeams wearing his "I am a Child of God" crown. He said it kept him dry from the rain.

Showing off his skills playing at the mall. "Take a picture and send it to Dad."

Baby one-six and teddy bears first time making cookies.

He sat like this the entire time (yes, that close).

He was nice and shared his chocolate chips with them. :)

Shopping on a Saturday.

Next door to the craft store is a pet store. If they are good we get to go see the animals. Thankfully they are both a little scared of all the animals, so they never want to take one home. :) Zac got close enough to this kitty to show it his truck.

Preschool field trip to a farm in San Ramon. Typical "smile" face.

Toy store downtown. He could play for hours. I love it because we own one.

"Jane I am going to tow you." Ha.

  Waiting for the time to meet up with friends at the park.
They both were being pretty cute this day.

He does not get to ride his trike much these days...Jane has taken it over. So he was excited to ride it to the park one day.

One morning he woke up determined we were going to the cabin that day. 

He got everything packed and even got cereal for us to eat.

Even after telling him we could not go, he would not let Jane or I touch 

the pile. It was there for a few days. And even some of the cereal still can not be eaten because we need

to take it to the cabin. Cute kid.

 Primary talent show.

He did pretty good for the first song with the entire primary.

But his talent of "Popcorn" with his preschool class 

he mostly just sat there with his hand up his nose (when has he ever done that?). 

Lee and I were laughing the entire time. He was cute anyways. :)