Zach's 6 Year Old Birthday Today!

Happy Birthday to Zach! He is sure excited. He woke up first at 4:30 asking, "Is it my birthday yet?" I gave him a birthday kiss and said not for a couple more hours. He came in again when I was getting ready at 5:30, "Is it my birthday yet?" Yes, but you need to sleep a little longer. 6:00, "I just can't sleep, I am just so excited for my birthday." Wow! I can hardly remember being so excited about a birthday.
A little blog tribute to Zach. . .
Zach’s not the easiest kid to get to know, but if you are lucky enough to; you will see an amazing kid. My wish is that more people could see how wonderful he truly is. When you first meet him you may think he is impatient, defiant, strong willed and just not happy. However, underneath there is a child that makes us so proud and thankful he is ours.

Here are a few of the things that make Zach special:
His smile and laugh: the other night we were playing kid charades – he loves that game and he gets so excited when we guess what he is acting out and when he guesses what we were acting out. When a smile comes across his face, his eyes light up and it makes my heart smile. As my dad says, "a twinkle in your eye and muscles in your cheek"
His passion: he had a preschool teacher that really cared about the environment (I do, but don’t do all things I should be doing) anyway she really impressed him- he will not throw any thing on the ground outside and will make sure he finds a garbage, he will look on boxes and tells me it needs to be recycled. That is one of the many things he is passionate about and another thing is not spreading germs. He won’t share any type of food or drink because he doesn't want to get your germs, he is an excellent hand washer and it is evidenced by the fact that he is rarely sick.
His memory: for a few years he has been able to beat me at the Memory Game, but his memory has expanded in the fact they he remembers details in things that I completely miss. He will be the first to notice someone’s new haircut, if the house is clean and if I have a new shirt to name a few.
His perfectionism: I will have to admit that as much as I like it, it does drive me a little crazy at times. Zach likes things perfect- his writing, his clothes, his coloring, playing sports and the list goes on. I can tell he is learning to handle things better when things are not perfect, in the past there would be a huge meltdown and now we may have some minor ones, but not near as often.

Okay, I have went on enough and as you can tell, we are in love with Zach and feel very blessed to have him in our life!

Our little Geologist

The inside of a geode.
After we hammered.

Before we hammered.

Zach is quite interested in rocks, crystals and minerals. A coworker of mine had some geodes from when her son was small and gave them to us. Zach and I hammered and pounded away on what looked like a dirty old rock, but inside each of them was some type of crystal looking thing. By Zach's expression you would have thought they were valuable diamonds (I wish they were). I will have to admit, I knew zero about rocks, mineral and crystals, but I am learning fast as I read all about them to him. For his birthday next week he asked for a rock collection start up kit (among many other things), I am anxious to give it to him, because looking at that stuff brings him so much joy. I have a little hard time relating, as a child I knew all about accessorizing a Barbie doll, but rocks, I missed out on that! However, I will have to admit, it is a little interesting and I will look and learn about rocks any day over playing Power Rangers and Transformers.

Happy Birthday to Eric

Eric turns 35 years old today. What a great man! I know I am biased, but I got really lucky in the husband department.

Celebrating Fall Birthdays

After band days, Sherri was gracious enough to let us celebrate fall birthdays at her house. (thanks- Sherri) It was a beautiful day and the boys had so much fun. What's not to love- playing with cousins, receiving presents and eating delicious birthday cake.

I have tried several times to upload a very amateur video of all of us singing Happy Birthday to the boys, but after 2 tries, each time waiting for over an hour I gave up, maybe I will let it run over night and see what happens.

Fisher for Sheriff

I think he could be a politician, first sherriff, then mayor and who knows?

http://fisher4sheriff.com/Revamped%20Website/Endorsements.htm

My brother-in-law Roger Fisher is running for Sheriff in Kossuth County. We wish him the best of luck and know that he will do a great job!

Vote Fisher For Sheriff, Nov 6!

Algona Band Festival

Alexis marching in the Algona Band Day Parade
Part of our crew watching the parade.
The Algona Middle School Marching Band. Alexis is playing the flute, the front row and in the middle.

Zach's Kindergarten Picture

(This is a picture of a picture)

Zach's first school picture came home yesterday. In my biased opinion, a little goofy, but adorable. He has come such a long way in the first month and half of Kindergarten. It started out a little rough and tears were shed while thinking this is going to be a long 13 years. But, after a lot of prayers, working with Zach's very nice, but very strict teacher and of course, hard work on Zach's part, he is doing wonderfully. This week he received a character counts note from a teacher. He also earned a "golden ticket". The golden tickets are given out at the end of each week, when the child has kept all their behavior crayons. (Each day a child starts with 3 crayons and one is removed for not following the rules, speaking out of turn, talking, not listening, etc). He was so proud of his golden ticket, he was running home from the bus stop with his ticket in his hand, with the biggest, brightest smile. Here's hoping to more golden tickets.