Ezra's new tricks!

Be leery of a dry diaper!

Because Ezra has been sick this week (see previous post) he has really lost his appetite. I feel like we bribe him with his favorites (yogurt, cheese sticks, banana's, etc.) and he still has pretty much no interest in any of it. He also was drinking a lot less. We even gave him milk in his bottle twice just to get fluids in him. (He has been bottle free for almost two weeks now!) I even made him some Carnation Instant Breakfast (chocolate milk) to encourage some liquid and nutrient intake to no avail. Anyways this all leads up to tonight.... Bob is undressing Ezra for his bath and shows me Ezra's diaper. He says: This diaper isn't very wet. In the mean time I hear some tinkling and look over to see Ezra peeing while he stands naked just outside the bathtub! We both just cracked up. Earlier today he peed all over during a particularly long diaper change...needless to say I think he is doing just fine. Enjoy the sweet hair pics!

Be careful what you wish for!

Last week I was going CRAZY! I felt like I finally knew why everyone always asked me if I was bored at home. Ezra and I were doing the same thing all day everyday and both of us were becoming quite bored. There just isn't much to do when it is freezing cold, yucky floors everywhere, and your child is one and still crawling. I tried to do some crafts with Ezra, but lets face it he would still rather eat all things involved than make anything. We did manage to get Valentines made and sent out to the Grandparents. Bob had been working and had the Yankee Dental Convention which kept him away for the last three Saturdays, and we had the coldest days of the winter (how does a high of 15, with the wind chill from 50 mph winds the news said it felt like 1 degree, sound to you?) so I was really starting to feel stuck in the house.

The Valentine aftermath. (It's hard to see but that water has a nice red tinge.)

I finally reserved library passes for the Children's Museum, we picked up Bob from class and enjoyed a couple of hours letting Ezra do whatever he felt like. It was wonderful. I think we all felt a lot better and it only set us back $6 (we found street parking). I think we will hit it up a lot more over the next couple of months.

Fast forward to 11:20pm...Bob and I are just saying our prayers and we hear this horrible sound coming from Ezra's room. Bob runs in there and Ezra is screaming in between gasps for air and trying to gag himself. I took him from Bob and pounded on his back while holding him face down and encouraged coughing thinking that he just had a lot of phlegm in his throat. Bob threw on clothes and then took Ezra while I got dressed. We flew (despite my order for Bob to drive calmly) to the ER and by the time we got there he was doing a little better, but still struggling. By the time we got a room and the doctor came in Ezra was breathing normally and had calmed down. As soon as they heard him cough they diagnosed him with croup (which is what we suspected), gave him a steroid to help open his airway, and kept us for a little bit for observation. They told us what to do if it happened again (turn the shower on as hot as it will go and stick him in the closed off bathroom, or take him out in the cold) and sent us on our way. It was a little frustrating because had we known what to do we would not have taken him to the ER, but breathing issues are not something to mess with so I don't regret our decision. We took him for a follow up the next day with Dr. Potee and he already did not have the "barky" cough anymore. So for better or for worse this week has not been as uneventful as the weeks previous!

Here he is smiling despite being in the hospital (as usual)!

Our funny little kid!

I know most of you don't get to see Ezra very often, but he is such a funny kid. Sometimes after we have put him to bed we will hear noises and go in his room to check on him, and he will hurry and lay down and close his eyes. He is trying so hard to trick us into thinking that he is sleeping, but he can never wipe the grin off his face. If you look at him long enough (which isn't long) he will start giggling but still be doing all he can to keep his eyes squinted shut. He is just so funny!

Some of the things he is enjoying right now are:

-Pounding on his chest like a gorilla.

-Holding a cell phone up to his ear (more like the back of his neck) and saying "hello" which sounds more like hola!

-He has started to help me blow on his food when it is hot. He has even improved and I think his food gets blown on more than spit on these days.
-He likes to bounce on his knees. (See video below) The physical therapist said that this is a very hard skill for kids, and most don't do it until after they have been walking for a while. She said he is very strong and has scattered skills. Basically he is still not walking, but can still do things that are above his age range.

-Whenever I get out of the car he just grins and waves at me until I pull him out.
-He points the remote at the TV and pushes buttons. He also likes to stand at the TV and push the power button and all the buttons on the DVD player.
-He pulls all the shoes off the shoe rack any time he notices they have been picked up, as well as all the DVDs.

-We moved his fish into his room and he is obsessed with the thing. I can even get him to sign fish now!
-He loves to help unload the dishwasher but we limit him to the silverware.

-He loves to do our Mario Mix DDR. He always fails, but never tires of "dancing" around on the pad. He even gets a few perfects every now and again!

-He loves to wrestle his daddy! I can never decide who enjoys it more, Bob or Ezra?

-He loves to eat lemons, even though they make him make crazy faces. (I think that is the real reason he likes them, because we all laugh at him!)

It's a bad picture but it is the best one I got of his face.

Unfortunately Ezra is not one to perform so it is hard to get videos or pictures of him doing all of these wonderful things. All in due time I guess!

Ezra comes from the land of the ice and the snow....

...but he sure doesn't act like it.

I could convince you he liked it based on this picture...

but then you would just see this picture and know I was lying.

We took Ezra sledding shortly upon returning to Boston. It was cold and snowing and he obviously didn't enjoy himself. I'm not sure if it was because he was already in a bad mood, or if he is just too much of a California boy at heart. I thought we could let Bob have a little fun at least, but Ezra cried when Bob went by himself too. So sledding adventure #1: ten minutes. Hopefully we can expect more out of him this winter considering he got an awesome snow suit for G&G Bowling for his birthday.

Christmas in California

As most of you know we went to California for Christmas this year. Believe it or not, it was actually our first time going home for Christmas since we got married. It was really nice to be with family, and to share in their testimonies of the Savior. Ezra did well on all the flights and we are really glad that we went. We just wish we could have spent more time with all of the family!

Ezra spent most of the first day exploring Grandma and Grandpa's.

He really enjoyed the balls on the tree, or should I say off the tree!

Modeling Grandma's glasses; not a bad fit.

Hanging with Lily. (He even enjoyed a bath with Lily.)

This is the only picture of the two of us so eat your hearts out!

The first thing Ezra did Christmas morning was brush his teeth.

He just wanted to make his daddy and Grandpa proud.

Santa brought Ezra some cool bouncy balls in his stocking.

He also enjoyed a tangerine from Santa.

Ezra was obsessed with Parker and followed her around like a lost puppy. Even if she made him cry, he still wanted to hang out with her. He and Ava did enjoy a little time together, and they play really well together, but if Parker was around, he was usually more interested in torturing her. Ezra also enjoyed Luca A LOT. He wouldn't even sit down for Christmas dinner with us because he wanted to chase the dog around. The rest of the day was spent with people feeding Luca to try to keep him in one place so that Ezra could have his fun. I don't know where he got such a love for dogs, but I would prefer this over him being terrified of them.

Parker was kind enough to make sure Ezra knew how his toys worked.

He also wanted to know how her toys worked.

Bolt stood by to do any necessary rescuing.

This Princess piano book was one hot comodity, even for the only little boy around.

Enjoying some alone time with Ava! They were so cute together.

By the end of the day they were doing bottle swaps.

I think Ava's milk consumption went down while Ezra's went way up.

We really want to thank Grandma and Grandpa Bowling for letting us share a wonderful Christmas with them.   Thanks to the McDowell's for spoiling us (I love the adjustable waist pants for Ezra) and for not getting sick of playing with us. Thank you Keian for the awesome farm, and Grandma and Grandpa Lundin for spoiling us even though you had to ship it all. Thank you's also go out to Cory and Natalia, GG&GG Denos, and Ron, Brooke, Trey and Tate for the great gifts. This post is getting long so thank you to all the people I am not mentioning. We had a great Christmas, and the best part was we didn't think about Santa much at all!

Unposted Random Happenings

I feel like there have been a lot of pictures/things that I wanted to post this month and haven't so enjoy them all now!

Ezra has been attending a music class the last couple of months, and although he was a little young he loved it. The last class was the day before his birthday. We were a bit sad to see them end because he was just starting to get really into it!

We put up our Christmas tree and Ezra has been so good with it. I was worried that he would pull it over, but since the ornaments are out of reach he usually leaves it alone.

Ezra got for real sick for the first time in his life this week. He had fevers for a few days, runny nose and a cough. The nice part was that he wanted to be held all the time, and he would just lay on me while we watched signing time. (That is very much not him, he is not a snuggler, so I really enjoyed it.)

One of the down sides was that his appetite went from leaving him looking like he does below to basically only bottles for a few days. (So much for weaning from the bottle, I guess we will save it until after the flights we have coming up.)

I got my haircut this week and it is more stylish than I usually cut my hair. The plus side is that it is short and thinned enough that doing my hair with its natural curl has become soooo easy. Now you will all see me with my hair done a lot more, no more ponytails and braids.

Ezra and I started packing early for our trip to California. We didn't want to forget anything, but mostly we are just really excited.

Ezra had couple of doctor appointments this month. The most exciting one being that he is done with his helmet. His head is not perfect, but definitely better and we are happy with the result. (They said that we could keep it on longer, but that it would take a while for us to see more results.)

His other doctor appointment was his one year check up. He weighed 20 lbs. 7 oz. and was 31.2 inches long. Which is the 25th and 90th percentiles respectively. He got four shots given by 2 nurses in rapid succession, which he did not like. We were all excited to get to see Dr. Potee again. She is the BEST DOCTOR EVER. I really want to talk her into moving to Gridley with us.

Here are a few things Ezra can do at 12 months:
-He crawls a lot, climbs and cruises on furniture a little, and enjoys walking if you hold his hands.
-He likes to help unload the dishwasher (whether the dishes are clean or not) and "fold" laundry.
-He likes to wave. He signs "more" and "all done" regularly. He has even said "all done" a few times (not what we expected his first words to be).
-He still loves to watch Signing Time and basically nothing else.
-Can point to the eyes and nose of his stuffed animals when requested.
-He has a great sense of humor and loves to make us laugh.
-Still loves anything that plays music and lights up.
-Still does not call us Mom or Dad or any variation of those names.
-He loves to hand you things so that you will say "Thank you" and sometimes he will even kind of say it himself.
-He loves to sing along to songs, especially the intro's to songs when no one else is singing.

Bob likes to help Ezra relax and calm down for bed time, so after his bath this is what they usually do: