Today was Zac's first Christmas program of any kind. The program at our church is written by the same woman each year, and she writes both the musical score and the script, which I find pretty impressive. The kids all did a great job, and some, as expected, sing a little louder than others, which adds to the fun. :)
Zac's group of kids were asked to join in on the last two songs of the program, and I've linked those videos here as well as posted links to them on Facebook and on my YouTube account. When it came time before church for Zac to sit with the other kids to wait for their time, he was not so excited about the prospect.
A bit later, right before it started but before he'd have to be a part of the production, I had him sit on my lap and asked him if he was scared. Sure enough, he had the stage fright. :) Luckily, a little bit of bribery with promise of cookies after the service nudged him in the right direction and he performed well. Though he didn't always pay attention and didn't stand up for the ending number, he did sing and at least he didn't mill about! :)
Well today was our planned outing to the Bellevue Berry and Pumpkin Ranch. It used to have a shorter name, but perhaps they realized they needed the pumpkin income, so now it's longer and includes pumpkins.
I don't know for sure on that, but I do know you can have quite a bit of fun for about $8 per person on the weekends and that includes the hayride to the fields where you can pick out a pumpkin (you do pay for the pumpkins, of course).
I managed to grab a few pics along the way and got a few videos, which you'll be able to see on my YouTube channel, linked on the right. The video I'm including in this post is Zac getting to ride a Shetland pony, which is his first ride on a horse. He was excited to get to do this, and that's saying something, since right before he was letting pigs sniff his hand.
I had the opportunity today to accompany Zac's class on a field trip for a tour of Memorial Stadium in Lincoln. If you're a fan of your team, getting to visit where they play is cool enough, but the stadium also houses all the coaches offices, strength complex, national championship trophies, Heisman and other award trophies and winners' jerseys, not to mention the indoor practice field and countless other very cool things.
My favorite part of the entire visit was the video of the gameday experience from almost a player perspective, with cameras showing you what it's like to be right in amongst the players. The video room has a partial wraparound screen and mostly lets the video itself tell the story. As a big fan of the Huskers, it gave me goose bumps.
We did see a couple of football players, including Jared Crick, the ridiculously large defensive tackle destined for a great year and future first round NFL draft choice, I think. When he walked past me, I felt like a twig. I mean, I know someone 6'6" and about 300 pounds is a pretty big person, but he's so muscular that he doesn't look that heavy. I seriously felt very, very small as he passed by. It was pretty cool, actually. :)
Zac had a good time on the trip, though I suspect it'll mean more to him after he gets a little bit older and has a chance to go to a game, which we intend to treat him to next year when he's 4. I think he'll be able to handle the noise level a bit better at that time and will have the patience to sit through the game. He certainly enjoyed running around on the field, which is what this video is from, and then of course I have pictures here of us in front of the five national championship trophies and of the indoor practice facility. Look for more pics in the slideshow to the right and a second video on my YouTube channel.
Katy and I took Zac to the Henry Doorly Zoo here in Omaha yesterday on a planned day off. My friend Jeremy and his family couldn't make it from Des Moines as planned, but their suggestion for the trip gave us a welcomed day away from work and we always enjoy the zoo.
Zac decided yesterday he was going to walk as little as possible. We brought his baby stroller, which of course is quite large, so we could pack a lunch in the cooler. The fact the zoo even allows this is beyond incredible. It saves families so much money when they could very easily force everyone to buy water and food inside their walls. And though yesterday turned out to be overcast thanks to some morning rains, it was extremely humid and in the 80s and we were losing plenty of fluids. Having the extra water and the chance to stop and eat lunch there at the zoo was quite a bit of fun. I have a few pics here, but not as many as I'd hoped. I was going to take video of the Lemur Island exhibit, of which I posted a pic or two of the last time we went, but it was closed yesterday. We don't know why, but that was a huge disappointment. We'll have to pick a weekday in the Fall to go back (never a Saturday in the Fall, of course; I am a Husker fan, after all) and see them. I'll try to catch a video then. Zac did enjoy getting to pet the goats, who were all quite friendly yesterday. He even got to pet some sort of chicken. At least I think it was a chicken. You tell me what that thing is.
So, back to lunch. We brought sandwiches and chips and pudding for everyone, and when I was done I needed to clean my hands from the cheese puffs I'd eaten. I headed out from the protective canopy where we'd eaten, to walk the 7 or 8 steps to the restroom, only to immediately become a bird's litter box. Now, I didn't have to tell anyone, let alone Katy. When I returned from the men's room I could have explained away the wet spot on my left shoulder by saying something about the water getting away, perhaps. But I'm an honest fellow, who likes a good laugh as much as the next person, and so I shared. Katy found GREAT joy in this...maybe too much. But, the reason she loved it was the best part. She said that now she wasn't alone in experiencing bird poo up close and personal.
Ummm, what? I mean, this is the second time in my life it's happened to me. The first was when I was riding my dirt bike back when I was 10 or 11 out in the open and somehow a bird spotted me and sent a little poo bomb my way. Katy, apparently, has been hit three times. Let me make it very clear that THIS IS NOT A COMPETITION. I am not intending to win this particular battle. I'll save that for the games we play against each other because, as any good husband, I try to win every one of those. :)
OK, so we're not sure where this little dance came from, but Zac introduced it to Katy the other morning. When she went to get him up, she found him already awake and wearing his hat. He then started the music on his Winnie the Pooh car and began dancing.
Tonight, I asked him to do his Pooh dance, so he obliged. I'm not really sure where the pose at the end came from, though. But that's funny!
Katy, Claire, Zac and I took a little trip to the Henry Doorly Zoo here in Omaha today. You'd think, it being mid-May and all, that the weather would be very pleasant. You would be WRONG. :) Temps in Omaha were in the upper 40s to around 50 today, and combined with a nice northwesterly wind...you get the picture. Or, here's one:
The zoo has a nice little area for the kids to pet animals, and the goats were the most interested in being a part of this process. The chickens, while wandering about, seemed to have no interest in having children pet them.
There were also rabbits and guinea pigs and a baby goat around, but all behind gates. It might have been fun to see the pot-bellied pigs, too, but they were snoozing while we were there. The Henry Doorly Zoo is one of the top zoos in the U.S. (look it up!) and it has much to offer. Given the cold temps, we were happy to spend our first 30 minutes or so inside the Lied Jungle, which helped warm us up for the rest of the three hours we were there. Fortunately, many exhibits offer indoor viewing areas, such as those for the big cats, the gorillas, bears and even giraffes. Wow those things are tall when you get to be up close to them.
I think the favorite part of the zoo visit for all of us today was a newer exhibit called Lemur Island. In this short, suspended walk-through area, they have black and white ruffed lemurs, as well as red ones. They are allowed to roam free, which makes for some interesting interaction, such as the one that considered getting up into Zac's umbrella stroller.
Then, as we were watching a few of the lemurs playing in a tree, as you see here, something unexpected happened and none of us caught it on camera. A black and white lemur decided to jump back from the tree to the walkway railing and the jump was right at us! THAT was exciting!
Last night I had the opportunity to see Claire perform in her year-ending choir concert for school. I've included a few videos I tried to grab of her group here.
The quality isn't that great and for some reason my phone hesitated a few times, but you get the gist. It's hard to see, but Claire is right in the middle of all the people singing.
And you can't see it here, but she smiles whenever she sings, while most of the kids seem to think smiling while singing is the worst thing they could do. :)
It was a long day driving down to Independence after work and then driving home, but well worth it to get to spend that time with her and spend this weekend with her up here in Omaha.
Happy Easter everyone! I thought I'd do a little extra in this space today because I had some pics I wanted to share of Zac dyeing eggs for the first time and of getting his Easter basket this morning. I'm also sharing a video within this space. So, less text and more pics today. :) First up, we need to see how we dressed Zac to protect him from becoming blue, yellow or red himself.
Now that we had him ready, it was time to begin working on the eggs. Let's see what that process looked like:
So here is the end result from that process:
Not too bad for a first effort, we think. I think we probably were great at this 30 years ago...well, 21 for Katy. :) OK, so then this morning we had Zac's basket ready and we hid six plastic eggs around the house, filled with candy for him to search for as well. One egg we placed in his shoe, and surprisingly, that's the one he saw even before his Easter basket, walking right past it. :)
So there you have it. We're not super elaborate because, well, he's three. How much chocolate could one little guy need? :) What he's holding there is his first battery-powered toothbrush, Cars edition. Very excited! So Happy Easter everyone!
Today's picture is of Zac's birthday dinner this evening at Red Robin (yummmmm...to quote the jingle), which we were able to share with my mom and dad, who drove down from Custer, SD just for Zac's birthday. Woohoo! Red Robin was choice number three, which is perfect considering Zac is exactly that many years old today. The first two choices were closed due to bad weather here in Omaha. Closed! That's just crazy! Where do we live? Are we not hearty people? But I digress.
It was three years and one day ago today that I was shopping for parts for a networking job I was going to do to make some extra money. Three years and one day ago today that, while searching for those parts at an Ace Hardware store, Katy called to tell me the doctors had decided to deliver Zac the next day, February 1st, 2008, by emergency C-section due to Katy's preecclampsia. So Katy calls to share this news with me, which should not have been unexpected since she'd been in the hospital several days already, but I was in the middle of asking a clerk at the store where to find something. Distracted, I suppose, by that effort and by the situation we were in that week, my response to learning I was going to be a dad again was, "OK. Thanks for letting me know!"
Yes, that is what I said when finding out the delivery date of my son. Now that we've put that on the table, let me tell you a little bit about my son. Zac has a joy I constantly crave. I love it when he sits in my lap and cuddles while watching TV on Saturday morning or in the evenings perhaps before bed. I love playing cars with him on the living room floor and watching him be "all boy" as he rams things into one another. I love playing with his stuffed animals in his room while he lays on his bed, acting surprised every time I have the dinosaur come up over the edge and roar at him. I love that when I look at him, all I want to do is hold him, and hug him, and kiss him and tell him that I love him. I love the beautiful innocence in his eyes and the way he uses excellent manners when people say something nice, or provide him something to eat or drink, or do something for him. I love how he turns almost anything into a song, and how he can't go to sleep at night without asking Katy and me to sing to him, but especially Katy. I love how he wants to pray before he eats and how he calls macaroni and cheese, "mac cheese".
Zac is our miracle. The chances of Katy even getting pregnant were slim and we knew it, but chose to try anyway, realizing adoption might be our only chance eventually. Then, as Katy's health deteriorated, we had great doctors who knew what to do so Zac would best be prepared to enter this world early. Nine weeks is certainly early enough, and having to spend over five weeks in the NICU was hard, but his care was so great, the prayers he received so strong, and God's love so immense that he came through it all with flying colors. He's fully caught up to other kids his age in size and is showing the great intelligence we expect of him. My miracle son, Zac, is my favorite little boy in the whole world. I love him more than life, enough to know I'd give up my life for him if it was ever required. I love him unconditionally, just as God loves me and loves him. Thank you, Jesus, for this amazing gift, this amazing bundle of joy and energy and funny jokes and songs!
Well, we are finally getting our first big snow of the season, enough so that Interstate travel is not recommended and we couldn't make it to Lincoln today for work. Zac's daycare had already closed anyway, so here we are, watching a beautiful snowfall, though I have to say I literally hate snow and winter. I don't mind watching it fall, just so long as it doesn't accumulate. :)
Thanks to my snow blower deciding NOT to work again this year, I had to shovel our long driveway. As I finished that, Katy brought Zac out to enjoy the snow. Now, last year we brought him out and he was not crazy about it at all. But this year, he's already had some opportunity at daycare to play in the little bit we've had, and he was definitely into it this morning. He went right in, even helping me shovel for a bit! I've posted the pics in the album to the right, and also on Facebook, but here is a video to enjoy. A higher-quality version exists on the YouTube account. Just click the link to the right or go to YouTube and look for my channel, jewfrat1. :)
Well, I wish I'd caught this when he was really singing loudly, but at least I got a little something to share. :) Zac LOVES to sing. His latest TV show favorite is a show on Nick, I believe, called "Jack's Big Music Show". It's from a few years ago, but the entire show is based on music of all different styles. These puppets do it from a clubhouse they have, and the main character, Jack, has a dog named Mel who plays the drums. Zac often calls this the "Doggy Music Show". We DVR it every day for him now. :) Anyway, here's the little bit of singing and playing on his xylophone that I was able to catch.
