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:

The Finished Product

As many of you know I have been working on a quiet book for Ezra for a few months. I got it mostly done for his birthday, but did the finishing touches tonight. I want to give a special thanks to my Mom, Annie, and Bob for their help (and patience) and to the Bunker and Russ quiet books for some inspiration! I know my Mom especially wanted to see how it turned out, so here it is....

The Prophets have velcro so you can remove and try to replace.

The flowers are buttoned on and can be mixed and matched.

You weave Joseph's clothes and there are animals in the ark.

The apples are magnetic and can be moved around.

You can untie Ammon's bag to find the arms he has collected.

Obviously you can put the armor on the man.

You lace baby Moses into the basket and the basket moves up and down the river.

Jonah, a finger puppet, goes inside the whale and it's mouth zips shut.

You connect the string from the map to the person that matches with snaps.

Pioneer board game

You can pick various eyes, noses, and mouths to make faces.

If you pick the mustache nose, the frowny mouth, 

and the scary eyes it looks like Hitler.

Bob made me change it for the picture. 

You can also redo the hair. (It's pipe cleaners.)

The note page is fairly self explanatory!

Likes:

-I can take the rings apart and give a few pages to each kid. Hopefully this will lessen the fighting.

-I can add more pages down the road if I feel so inspired.

-That it should entertain kids of various ages.

-Bob REALLY likes the Ammon arm page. Thank you Sandy for the idea, and Tina for the arms!

-That it is done.

Dislikes:

-The world page was so awesome in my head, but it just didn't work like I wanted. Not to mention that I made the most stupid mistakes on that page. Oh well!

-How often I didn't pay attention to what was on the page before I ironed stuff on. Hopefully it's not too noticeable.

Bathtime mayhem!

Last night we had quite an adventure trying to get Ezra into the bathtub. We had just gotten home from the ward Christmas party and decided that although it was past Ezra's bedtime he really needed a bath. I drew a bath and undressed Ezra. I pulled off his diaper just as I was reaching the bathtub and to my surprise there was poop. A lot of it. I tried to get as much of it as I could with the diaper and handed it to Bob. Bob handed me some toilet paper and I tried to do a good wipe. Just as I was telling him not to, Ezra peed all over me, and as I was trying to throw the t.p. away I totally hit Bob with it. We were all laughing so hard that Ezra started to get really excited and started to squirm out of my one arm hold.  In my effort to catch him I stuck my hand right on his poopy bottom. Bob went running for some wipes, but I just gave up and threw the kid in the tub. It was definitely the most exciting bath time we have ever experienced, and I for one hope it is the last of its kind.

These pictures are actually from our trip to Richmond (western Mass) last weekend. Ezra bathed in a big tub for the first time, and he bathed with a girl. He was soooo excited to not only be in the bath, but to have a friend in there with him. We enjoyed playing games and relaxing. Thanks to the Lazenbys and Celeste for letting us come. Thanks to the Van Dusens for the pictures. (We forgot our camera.)

Ezra's First Birthday

I can't believe that Ezra is already one, but I'm sure all parents feel that way. He is such a great little boy and we are so lucky to have been blessed with him. We had prepared ourselves for a very rough first year, but were pleasantly surprised with an easy going and very funny little man! He has been such a trooper through it all. Not a day goes by that Bob and I don't mention how blessed we are, and how being parents is a thousand times better than we ever thought it would be (and we both thought it would be pretty great).

He pretty much just went at it with his finger. Not that messy, but not that bad.

I spent the day trying to get ready for his party, and trying to do all the things that he wanted to do. However most of the things that he wants to do are not allowed, birthday or not, and they are not conducive to having a clean house. That night we had a party with a few of our friends (more like our family away from family) on his birthday. Ezra is pretty lucky because he shares his birthday, not only with his Great Grandma, but also with the Russ twins across the street. I made them each their own little cake so they could all blow out candles together and a big one for the guests. I wanted the cakes to reflect things that Ezra really likes so his personal cake was supposed to look like a Signing Time DVD (it really is the only thing he will watch), and the big one had his favorite bird on top made out of Rice Krispies. I hope to get a video of him soon where he says "dee dee dee" in an attempt to tweet like the bird. Ezra was incredibly spoiled with some awesome presents and we had a good time. Thank you to everyone who sent cards, presents, and birthday wishes.

Abby and Zack turned three!

Zack's cake was my attempt at Spiderman.

Abby's cake had purple and red as requested and

I threw on some babies because I know she loves them.

Ezra opened his presents with a lot of help from the little guests!

After some modeling we opened the grand finale from

Grandma and Grandpa Bowling!

It was a big hit with all the kids and I think Ezra is going to love it.

A better picture to come later!

Thanksgiving and Bob's Birthday

I was a pretty slacker mom and didn't find him a "1st Thanksgiving" shirt

so this was my attempt to make up for it!

I'm pretty far behind in blogging, but I have to do these before I do Ezra's birthday. We had a great Thanksgiving. We went to the Chase's and Mindy had done an awesome job. The table looked great, the Turkey was amazing and I finally stuffed myself. (Last year I was too pregnant to make a big dent.) After dinner we headed to the Bowman's for dessert with some other families in the ward. It was really nice. I couldn't believe the mess Bob and I left at our house when all we did was make a few veggies.

Ezra didn't eat much on his own with the rest of us, 
so Bob helped him do a round two!

This picture is just to prove that Ezra does know how to make a mess when he eats.

This is his new favorite face to make. Especially when he is looking in the mirror.

Maybe he is trying to look like Grandpa Lundin with those squinty eyes.

Bob's birthday was the Saturday after Thanksgiving and he worked most of the day. I took some Key Lime Pie to his work for them to help him celebrate. He mostly wanted to enjoy his time with his family, so we just went out to dinner without Ezra so that they would still have time to play. We did get to catch the tail end of the BYU vs UofU game when we picked Ezra up. We won in overtime! It wasn't too exciting of a birthday for him I am sure, but we enjoyed just being together.

We were trying to prepare Ezra for his birthday by making him help Dad.

Apparently he hasn't learned how to fake excitement over lame presents. 

Hopefully Bob likes the new LDS Spanish Bible better than Ezra.