Single Dad Weekend - Episode 1 (Breakfast and Soccer)

For the first time since Zack was born Shawn has fled Colorado for a weekend of grown up conversation and uninterrupted warm meals. She's leaving just us boys at home (Zack, Shadow, Storm and I) and I think she's a little worried. However I'm not sure if she's more worried about Zack or what state the house will be in when she gets back :)

On the bright side Saturday is usually a busy morning with Soccer practice and I figured why cook when Z and I could go get yummy french toast and pancakes.

On our way to breakfast, Zack with a couple of cars of course.


Zack mowing a pretty big plate of french toast. "Tasty Good!"


Zack "hiding" on the way to soccer practice

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of soccer practice because I spend the entire time chasing and corralling my bundle of energy. One thing they do at soccer is play red light, green light. However today Zack didn't really care that much about whether the light was red or green, but he did find a yellow spot on the ground and tell me, "yellow, slow down, slow down".


The best part of soccer according to some is the happy face stamps at the end.


Apparently the stamps had to "HUG"

Now hopefully we can both manage a nap!

CARS!

When you ask any of the parents or kids, for that matter, the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Zack, they all say is, "CARS!" Even LT says, "Cars, Zack's house".
Zack is infamous for always having a car in hand. We try a lot of different activities with Zack each day but he always seems to some how involve cars, or trains or planes. Here are just a few examples just from the past few months...

Some of the more obvious places to play with cars, like at home on living room coffee table...which seems to be a favorite,

Even though he has perfectly good train table downstairs in his play room. Here, he appears to be showing Sofi the proper way to push Spencer through tunnels...though I think she has other ideas.

When I got out some play doh for the first time, he made "bumps" and ran it over them with his favorite yellow hummer...again, not all the different than most kids, probably.

He also likes to involve everyone in the car playing...Ofelia was his chosen playmate the last time she was over...

And of course, I would expect him to bring dune "buggy's" to the park, but here is where Zack's love of cars differs...

Zack slides with his cars and trains, mostly because he always has one in his hand.

And has quite moments with them while enjoying view of Platte river and hoping a train comes by. He considers them one of his friends and is always hugging them and making sure the are happy!

He enjoys running down hills with his favorite orange race car and hummer, yelling "racing, racing".

We bring countless cars when we go to Zoo, so Zack can drive across every flat surface available.

Now some less traditional places...laughing it up in his toddler bed with LT, with two cars...


Driving through his giant box tent,






or making Pizza...

While enjoying his first IN-N-OUT cheese burger (mom's favorite) in California,

Driving at LAX airport gate waiting for our plane...

On the famous 3rd street promenade in Santa Monica, California.

Relaxing at Embassy suites, Los Angeles, California before bath with new, fast California yellow Lamborghini'.

Even during the intermission at recent Elmo's "green thumb" musical...

Chilling before bed...

And finally cars go to bed with Zack. To say that Zack loves his cars is an understatement!

Baby sitting Ofelia

Zack and I had a babysitting / play date with Sofi and Ofelia on Wednesday. Sofi and Zack played great together this time but Ofelia was a little tired and cranky. Zack has always liked babies but usually just goes about his business of play with the bigger kids.


This time he was really focused on Ofelia. He played with her on his old exersaucer for at least 30 minutes.

He showed her all the buttons, sang along with her and even showed her how he used to chew on it when he was teething.














Soon after they began to play Ofelia really began to fuss (scream), he said "sad, baby sad", and found her paci for her. He even gently, mostly, put it in for her...Guess Zack is ready to be a sibling!

Easter party at Zack's pad

Easter Sunday we decided to have a little get together with Zack's friends and their parents. WARNING: With this amount of kids and activities, there are lots of pictures. Originally an outdoor Easter egg hunt and egg coloring was on the agenda. It turned out to be a cold, rainy day so we ended up having the egg hunt in the living room.

So, while the kids were preoccupied in the basement play room, I hid plastic eggs full of stickers, tattoos and little plastic animals. Then the caravan headed up the stairs, with baskets in hand.
Some of the kids had "hunted" earlier, but some where new to the game but everyone found plenty of eggs.

Zack looking for eggs with cars...he thinks they all have cars in them, since that is what the Easter bunny did earlier that morning.

Dylan putting his first found egg in to his super cool bag. Click the Dylan to see more pics.

Landon found a few eggs and a few stickers left behind by Seth.

Joe was running around collecting eggs at lighting speed.

Riley was very pretty in her Easter dress along with basket.

After collecting comes the excitement of seeing their treasures. Sofia and Jason checked out flower stickers...

While LT was checking out Riley's stash...

Zack and Nixie among the carnage left by the egg hunt!

Ben and Dylan laughing it up after collecting impressive amount of eggs for a rookie!

After a play break (so I could set up egg dyes) we moved on to coloring eggs.

Zack showing off one of his many yellow eggs (yellow is his favorite color)

Nixie was very serious about her favorite, turquoise, just like her dad's bikes.
Rob and Seth went for stickers and crayons on his eggs, impressive for the rookie!

Landon was very perplexed about which sticker went with his green egg, but was good with his tattoo decision.

Jason and Sofia made several eggs...she is pro since making them at french class earlier in the week.

Dylan was also on a roll until dad cut him off at some where around 6, I think.

Isaac woke up from his nap in time to head over and join the fun!

At one point all the kids were in Zack's play room with Seth and his mom, Chi. We half joked that she was in charge and we were all heading to local pub...should have, the kids love playing with Chi.

Sofia brought a bubble gun that was a hit with all the kids, although it caused a lot of sharing challenges. As you can see Zack was a little impatient for his turn.

After all the kids left, during our brief clean up, Zack decided his hummer basket doubled as a hat! Finally he was off for much needed de-staining.