Another Grandpa's Birthday!

Yep! This time we celebrated Grandpa Z's birthday!

Do you see a common thread between the Grandpas' birthdays? Do you?

How about in the second picture? Anything? Or rather... anyone? I'll give you a hint... pink overalls.

Avery seems to be hoarding in on the birthdays in this family lately.

I think I might have figured out why. She's got her eye on something similiar this time around also...

I guess she really is Daddy's little girl... we share similiar interests I see. Hmmm... I wonder if Grandpa Z is as much of a push over as Grandpa L?

Well, first signs point to the answer being no...

After a second look, I'm not so sure though.

Everyone has been commenting lately on how quickly Avery is growing... do you think it's the mustache and soul patch that prompt the comments?

Grandpa L's Birthday

Monday was Grandpa L's birthday! Getting to be quite an old man! I kid. Quite honestly, this last year he has seemed younger than I personally ever remember him to be. Not bad for someone in the 50's to be seemingly growing younger, eh? There were a few key photo moments that I gotta share and thanks to Grandma L. willing to comply to my requests for email pics, I can!

First Kathleen has been been desiring to do some cake decorating for quite some time. She has always wanted to try her hand at it. She regularily watches "Cake Boss", "Ace of Cakes", and "The Challenge" on the food network and is envious of the cake decorating skills those professionals make look so easy. So when the idea of a cribbage board cake came up, she couldn't resist taking a crack at it. Not to shabby! There's a game I could get in to! What!?! I lost!?! Oh well! Time to eat the board!

As you can see by the little hand sneaking in the above picture... someone else was interested in the cake also. In fact, she couldn't keep her hands off of it... and Grandpa didn't exactly fight it anyhow.

She DID get her hands on it. Then she decided to give it a try... not a successful try however. I wish I had a photo of the face we all caught a glimpse off. It was priceless... " Yuck! Too Sweet!!!"

After dinner and dessert... what's missing? Oh, yeah. A little music and entertainment of course! Luckily Uncle Jeff just restrung Grandpa L's guitar and decided to try it out. Avery's seat was pretty good for the show and then...

Someone bumped her right up to front row! Then it seemed like the solo act sang right to her! Who's birthday was it anyway!?! It seemed that Avery was the one receiving the royal treatment! Oh well, Grandpa has had soooooo many birthdays already, right?

To Spend or Not to Spend...

Lately Kathleen and I have had a lot of talk about money which I know is not completely uncommon between couples or anyone for that matter. It serves a purpose in our lives and depending on your own personal situation on any given day, the conversations can vary in many different ways. Of course the most common topic has seemed to be the shortness of green everywhere you turn lately. People talk about the economy, their jobs, people they know without jobs, benefits, health care costs, low pay, expensive needs, and on and on and on. Ultimately, while some of us may be experiencing tougher times and bigger challenges or maybe they only seem bigger and tougher, we are still very blessed individuals. No joke. If you are reading this right now, I don't care how tough you have it... you are pretty blessed. The Lord is looking out for you. If you disagree, you need to reflect a little bit more. So, with all the seriousness that has been occuring with money discussions at this household and the seriousness that I experience in any discussions about money outside of this household, I found it pretty amusing to laugh at a Weird Al Yankovic Parody about money. "Whatever You Like" is a song by T.I. and is basically about the lavish things rappers often rap about. Weird Al gives it a funnier twist and few lines in the song hit my funny bone pretty good. If you ever stress about money... give a listen... and laugh.

A Good Reason to Gather

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts this week, Sunday was a pretty happy day. Good friends of the Z's, the Radliffs, had three little souls baptized! Three! Attending the baptism of 3 people at one time is a first for me and certainly is unlikely to be beat since I knew all 3 pretty well also! Unless I have any friends expecting triplets in the future? Anybody?

While Kathleen and I are glad to be able to encourage spiritual growth for all 3 of the little stinkers... we were specifically asked to be godparents to the little guy you see above. That bald little booger is Davin... the bald one on the left. (I'm sorry. :) I just couldn't resist, Jay.) Here he is held by proud daddy Jason. Jason is a good friend of mine and a family man in pretty much every sense of the word. Good company for a new daddy like me to keep, eh?

Here is the whole family with (from the left) Patty, Davin, Lilly, Jason, & Kastan. Certainly a squirrely bunch when it comes to picture taking! I snapped about 9 pics and this is the closest I got to everyone looking forward and smiling! LOL! Man, I can't wait for those upcoming days...

One little guy seemed to be able to smile, or laugh, on demand. Kathleen mentioned that it was great that he was so willing to be tickled into photographic compliance.

Although, to be honest, smiles weren't too hard to come by that day... Here are two beautiful smiles that I am particularily fond of!

Neighbors Wanted

Do you enjoy a nice view once in a while? Like fresh country air? How about the best neighbors a person could have?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions and a scene like the one below is something you could get used to, check out the link below the picture and consider becoming neighbors to a family that I personally love and adore a lot.

http://public6.superlativestudio.com/IDXDetail.aspx?sp=y&segmentid=218156&mlstableid=METROMLSRES&mlsnum=1106378&uid=25168&htmlfile=67678.html&bpgb=&revisable=&origurl=&showaddress=

Happy Valentine's Day!

Yesterday I gave my darling bride a little gift of jewerly and a small message. The message was a quote that I found off of an app on my phone (again with the apps, I know). When I found the quote almost a week ago I immediately thought of my wonderful wife. Hopefully it inspires you to think of someone in particular also...

"To the world you might be one person, but to one person you might be the world."

                                                                                                           -Unknown

She is the world to me and even though I am not a fan of holidays with no biblical meaning... it is a good time to remind yourself of the people who mean a lot to you and show them some appreciation.

Today Kathleen, Avery, and I also get to witness the baptism of 3 young souls! Good day, hey? Kasten, Lilly, & Davin are children of good friends Jason and Patty and we were priveleged to be asked to witness and be godparents to Davin. We are happy for the whole family and will enjoy every part of it! Here is a picture of our two youngest in each family shortly after Davin was born... both have already grown so much since then! New pictures today I'm guessing?

Will Ferrell Makes Me Laugh

An application on my phone got me thinking about past work that Will Ferrell had done that I enjoyed quite a bit. His time on Saturday Night Live came to mind and caused me to do some surfin for videos from that time. That led me to his character Robert Goulet. His trademark "Gooooulet!" is something I still enjoy spouting out once in a while. Check out this video of an interview he with "Johnny" and revisit Bobby Goulet!

"2009 is the Beginning of Fatherhood"

I am pretty sure that I started the craze we now know as Facebook in the beginning of 2009. I remember being well behind a lot of people and signing on just to check it out. When Facebook wanted me to put in a lot of personal information that told people a little about me... there was one thing that immediately popped in my mind. That thought was about my future child that I knew nothing of and the little person that consumed so much in Kathleen and my heart and mind everyday at that time. The feelings we had at that time are utterly and truly indescribable (at least if you want to do them justice). So, when Facebook told me to type a sentence or paragraph and suggested it be about myself or whatever my motto was, I typed "2009 is the beginning of fatherhood".

I glanced at my Facebook account today and noticed it once again. For a split moment, my only thought was, "Hey, it's 2010 now. Maybe I need to change that.". I didn't change it. Today happened to be a day with Avery that tried my patience a little. Reflecting on how I felt about becoming a father and how I felt after I realized I was a father, makes the irritation I felt today seem pretty foolish and down right sinful. For those moments of weakness, I apologize, little Avery. I thank the Lord for the father I had in my life... the second father I now have in my life... and for the Father we've all had, even before our lives began, during our current lives, and into our life eternal.

The Dad's with my beautiful bride...

Baby Avery at peace in the Grandpa's arms...

She knows why they call them GRANDpa's...

I hope to be grand to you also Avery... as these men were grand far before you were even born...

Wild Child

Avery is becoming more and more a blurr every day. Not the kind of blurr you have when trying to remember something. I'm talking about the kind of blurr the roadrunner makes when he flies by the coyote. Wait, that may be a cloud of dust. You get the point. She is NEVER sitting still. It becomes a full time job at times to keep a handle on a little girl that is constantly twisting, turning, lunging, jumping, & rolling in every possible direction at any possible time. Tonight we spent some time with Mom, Pops, & brother Nathan. Nathan's birthday is coming up on Tuesday and sometimes open occasions are hard to come by for any group of the Zastrows... so the stars aligned and it worked out tonight. Here is Nathan holding Avery... see if you notice any blurr.

Oops! She spotted us!

Then, suddenly... after a few mittens and a hat... the animated, crazy girl will turn into a stone faced statue out of nowhere. It's too bad it happened as Grandma was saying goodbye. I've been there. I speculate that she will be a decent poker player one day because when she decides it, nothing, and I mean nothing, will snap the poker face off of this girl! This kid confuses me at times... :) or maybe its because she a girl...

Caption Time!

"Yeah... Yeah... Right... the economy is on the upswing. I'm sure. Don't blame me for being a little skeptical about the opinions of the so-called "experts". I don't think the economy was really hurt in the first place. I'm not even really sure what the economy is to be honest. All I know is that it didn't effect me and probably won't anytime in the near future."

"WHAT!?! The economy can effect birthday presents!?! Are you kidding me!?! But... but... But I haven't even had one birthday yet! IT'S NOT FAIR! Well, this economy, whatever it is, better get things straight by July 3rd. So help me... Economy... I'll hunt you down and find you..."

Okay, give it a shot! Let's see how many creative people check out this blog! Hit the comment section with a one two punch of a caption. One for the first picture and one for the second picture! Let's see what you got folks!