Trying to Fill Those Shoes?

The month of February was a full one in the Z household. Most of it was occupied by a little guy who arrived on the first day of that month. Amongst many welcomed and appreciated guests that month was one Uncle in particular that goes by the name Uncle Effery. Of course you wouldn't know it if you asked Avery. Do to the order of arrival in February... Avery believes she has three different "Uncle Naffan" 's. I can't really blame her as I'd be confused by everyone being called Uncle as well at that age! As we corrected her about a zillion times while "Badley" and "Effery" were here, she was probably thinking that the Grandma's could have helped out a little when they were born and maybe, just maybe, named one of the Dave... or maybe hoos foos... or Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face. (Dr. Suess... name that poem/story)

Anyway! Several have commented due to Levi's weight and height difference to Avery, that there could be a strong possibility that the narrow and tall and large footed gene of the L's made it little Levi. Maybe? Who knows?

Right now, it's kind of hard to tell...

We're going to have to pay attention and keep track.

Maybe someday the guy who isn't as tall as his Uncle Effery's knee will catch up to Ole Uncle Effery. :-) There's a thought, eh, Eff?

Yeah... I can tell.

It's pretty obvious.

He's coming for, ya!



Goodbye and Go Get 'em!

Yesterday was a celebratory dinner for the guy on the left. Uncle Effery has gone and hit the road and now resides in Syracuse New York! There were quite a few people that came to dine with Jeff before he left. Too many people for this blogger's lame camera phone.

"Wait... wait! What did you just say!?!"

"Uncle Effery is leaving!?!"

"I don't like that."

I know Avery. Listen though, you are going to get dinner in a nice restaurant and you get to see family we don't see that often...

Like Mommy's cousin Alison and Uncle Ken!

If you're lucky... they may share their credit card! Really! It's her credit card!

I thought you might feel differently!

Besides, Uncle Effery will be fine and you will see him again soon enough! He gave strict orders to slow down the growing just like your other aunts and uncles out of state. Are you gonna listen?

A Day Of Oddities

Tell me. When was the last time or rather, have you ever, seen a game of chess being played next to a pliers, zip ties, work gloves, or a cup of ice water?

I didn't win. : (

How about witnessing someone puke a gray, soft, insulating  matter?

Good idea Grandpa! LOL! You are unique.

Or maybe a wild baby in a flamingo pink outfit with a t-shirt sleeve head band?

If you see J.P. in a sleeveless T-shirt... you know why.

A day of oddities indeed... or just another day at Grandma and Grandpa's house?

To be fair and offer full disclosure... the previous photos and observations were actually a day at Grandma and Grandpa's house under the watch of all the males in the family... enough said? I think so.

Not everything is all that odd however... quality time with uncle Jeff playing cards is probably more "normal".

Avery can shuffle now...

Then again... who wants to be normal?

Not this little girl. :-)

How could she be normal... have you met her mother? : )

Thanks Effery!

The Z's were gifted with a webcam not to long ago by Uncle Effery... I spent some time trying to figure it out...

I gotta admit, I started with quite a bit of skeptism...

I installed it and then began to try to figure out how to use it properly... it wasn't working quite right...

It just would not work for me! I needed a break and a beverage...

Shoot. Still nothing. Plus my mouth seemed glued shut... maybe my skeptism was not undeserved you difficult webcam!

Wait. Hold on a sec...

Lets not jump the gun just because the operator is having some problems...

Give it chance, Adam....

Ahhhhhh!!! There it is!

Totally worth it! :-)

Aunts and Uncs!

Avery has seen a lot of her Aunt's and Uncle's the last week... Foolishly, I didn't catch enough of it on camera and don't have pictures! Ooops! (Help me out here Steph) However, before all the 'seasonal' aunt and uncles came home for the summer, she got a special visit from Uncle "Effery" and pictures were taken!

Here's Unc Jeff with Avery outside by a makeshift campfire...

...and here is Uncle Effery putting a wet one on little Avery...

...and here is little Avery repulsed and trying to shake the willies off from Unc's kiss...

... Just kidding! Avery loves kisses! She knows because she gets a lot of them!

"Keep 'em coming! I can take it!" -Avery

Whoopin the Brother-in-law

It had to be done.

Yesterday was my first night off of work after my last rotation at work. Since I often find it difficult to go to sleep at the "normal" time after just sleeping part of the morning and afternoon, it is a wonderful thing to be able to visit a friend or relative that can stay up past 10pm with me. Yesterday, brother Jeff was willing to stay up past his bedtime. So, I made the trek down and had some quality time. It wouldn't be a complete visit if there wasn't some cribbage and darts played. It also wouldn't be complete if I didn't point out that I had a pretty respectable night in those areas also! Right, Jeff?

As you can see... occasionally we like to play a few mind games during our game. In this case, I was pushing the intimidation button early. If you know the game of Cricket, you can tell I was trying to make my presence felt.

Those are my marks for bullseye. The result of the game is not very important, but you can probably draw your own conclusions based on the beginning!

Keep practicing Jeff. You'll need it.

Thanks for a good time brother.

Easter Sunday Disc Golfing!

Easter Sunday turned out to be beautiful day! So, when I suggested the possibility of going out disc golfing to my brother in law Jeff, his ever ready response was, "Let's go!". Hartford has a nice little 9 hole course in a local park and it was perfect for a quick ride and some quality time with myself and the male in-laws. (There will be no comments on actual score as I do not want to embarrass certain party's... (Jeff) ).

Here is Jeff getting ready to miss a putt...

One odd occurrance on hole 17 was a drive I had and the ending result was pretty cool! No, not a hole in one...

See anything weird about that pic?

How about this one?

Yep, I stuck it. My disc remained upright... It was funny, it brought smiles, it'll never happen again.

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?

Feeding Time!

Today I was looking as some pictures that were taken in the last couple months and I found myself wondering why we had so many pictures of Avery being fed by different relatives... Here are uncles Jeff and Nathan giving it a shot...

I just don't get it... Why did we feel so inclined to snap pictures of Avery being fed when we do that very thing with baby food about twice a day?

Who would mind feeding this little pumpkin?

Ooooohhhhhh... yeah... that's right!

Now I seem to be able to remember why it was a point of interest! It wasn't our brothers abilities with feeding a baby... it was our Avery's ability to be fed!

She's much better at it now. Hence the reason I had lapse in memory. I might have a similiar picture of myself eating BBQ ribs somewhere. Just kidding, I'm not foolish enough to allow evidence of that.