Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow?

One downside of living on the East Coast is that everyone has to pay to ship you your Christmas presents. Ezra loves the ups that come with the downs. Ezra loved these packaging peanuts. He made quite the mess, but we used them to snow, and to make an avalanche (just like in one of his Thomas videos). With a little help from Static Guard and the vacuum clean up wasn't too bad.

We have had a great Christmas season so far, with the exception of a bad stomach bug that went through our family. I have never been so sick before. Luckily it was one of those 24 hour kinds. I was literally wanting to go to the hospital so that they could put me in a coma until it was over. Fortunately for me, I got it last, and therefore got the most empathy. We didn't get to do one of our service projects because of it, but luckily the project still happened.

Ezra helped us decorate the "Christmas treat" this year. Whenever I try to correct him, he just corrects me right back, so Christmas treat it is. Ezra has done really well with leaving the Christmas tree alone, and only seems to bother the presents after Bob reminds him how many days until we can open them. I am glad that he is completely unaware of Santa, but seems to love baby Jesus. I really need to get a Little People Nativity so that he can play with one without breaking it. Next year we will have income, so maybe then.

Speaking of Nativities, I have been thinking a lot about the people who came to see the baby Jesus in the manger. I am sure that they sensed the wonderful things that Christ would do for all of us. What a special and reverent moment to see the most important man to ever walk the Earth as a newborn. Just imagining the love and potential I saw in Ezra as a newborn leaves me in awe of how it must have been to see the baby Jesus. I truly love that we have this holiday to reflect on such things, and to give thanks through good deeds. We are truly blessed.

Bonus Pictures:

 These are from Ezra's actual birthday. I had already made a fancy cake for the other party, so he got a store bought chocolate cream pie for this go round. He did much better at blowing out his candles and really enjoyed the pie.

Thanksgiving and Birthdays!

We went to Utah for two weeks over Thanksgiving. Mostly because it was cheaper to fly that way, but it is also nice to get to enjoy some time with the family for all the money that we spent. The week of Thanksgiving was super busy, but it was nice to see all my siblings. It has been a long time since we all got together. We did some family pictures with everyone, but they will definitely need some photoshopping to look the greatest. We also had a family party which I posted about earlier which let us see a lot of extended family too. All in all we had a great time. Ezra especially loved all the time with cousins. He still asks for at least one of them every day.

Sadly this is the best one for people looking at the camera, smiling, with eyes open.

 We should have known from this attempt to give up on a grandchild picture.

It snowed three times while we were in Utah and we were really unprepared.

Andy got Ezra to start doing this. 

Now if you stick out your finger he will run up and touch it with his and say "Elliot".

Ezra insisted that Grandpa dance with them, and it quickly turned into a chasing game.

 Isn't this just a great picture of Keian?

Grandkid attempt #2 (actually #3)

 We helped Grandma decorate for Christmas. 

I used to love to lay under the tree and look at the lights. 

Turns out Ezra likes it too.

The Nutcracker

In a surprise move, Bob took me to the ballet. For those of you who know Bob it is a big surprise, he does not do this kind of stuff. We went to see the Nutcracker, seeing as neither of us had ever seen it. We were going to eat at a nice place before the ballet, but we got out a bit late, and our train kept stopping. I was worried we would be late for our show if we ate at a nice restaurant, so we unfortunately ate at McDonalds. We enjoyed the show despite not having the best seats, especially the first act. Bob said that the whole second act was pointless dancing. I actually enjoyed watching the orchestra a lot of the time. I do think my one suggestion would be for the men to wear tutus also. The less we see the better. We both were glad for the experience, but I am sure this will not become something we do often.
*As a side note, I have been struggling to get pictures to download which is why our last post was a late post about Halloween. Hopefully I will get Thanksgiving done before Christmas, one can hope.

Better late than never...Halloween 2010

Several factors combined this year to make Halloween not so spooky.  We definitely participated in several fall/Halloween activities, but the actual big weekend was mostly spent doing other things with Ron's Family.  Because Halloween was on Sunday and the ward trunk or treat was on the day that they got here, we didn't even go trick or treating.  But since Ezra is little we had to dress up still!

Our "costumes" we all made from things we already have.

Ezra got the hospital gown when he broke his arm.

We just took this one because we forgot the chart prop.

Look Who's Two!

Today is Ezra's second birthday! It is crazy how time flies! He is such a joy in our lives, and we feel so blessed to have him with us everyday. We look forward to many more great years to come!

 1 Hour

 1 Month

 6 Months

 1 Year

 18 Months

Just shy of 2 years!

We had a birthday party while we were in Utah for the Nov. and Dec. Birthdays.

I made Thomas and Percy train cakes for Ezra and Jett!

 While still not a pro, he did manage to blow out at 
least one of his candles all by himself!

He was much better at opening presents this year! 

Thanks to everyone for their wonderful gifts!

At age two he can count to 11 (if he's focused - sometimes he counts 1, 2, 3, Teddy Bear, etc), and knows all of his letters.  He's working on recognizing numbers and only struggles with a few.  He uses sentences sometimes and enjoys games where we ask him yes or no questions.  He loves to sing and knows lots of songs, even though he likes to also make up his own words/gibberish.  Ezra still pretends to sleep sometimes when we check on him and is pretty good at mimicking and pretending.  He is currently in love with Thomas & Friends and still into Cars and other cars, trucks and tractors.  He loves to run around, but is not the world's best jumper.  He's a really good kid and loves to laugh!

Music Videos III

I am a Child of God

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

The boys are back in town!

Over Halloween weekend my cousins Trey and Tate, along with their parents, came to visit. We have been looking forward to their visit ever since we moved here. Trey and Tate are 12 and 10 respectively, but have been some of my best little pals since they were born. I babysat them a lot (often at my own insistence) and we had lots of sleepovers. Tate couldn't even hardly talk when I went college, and it is crazy to think how old they are now! We were super busy while they were here, but it was really nice to have them here for my birthday.

On Saturday we went to Plymouth and saw the rock, the Mayflower II, and Plimouth Plantation. We also went to Newport, RI to see a mansion. Ezra and I stayed outside while they toured it, because once was enough with a one year old. That night the Denos' headed up to Salem to check out the Halloween spirit, but Ezra was beyond exhausted so we stayed home. Sunday they kept Ezra while we went to stake conference, and we met them on the Freedom Trail when we were done. We also went to the Temple and the Mt. Auburn Cemetery. Monday was my birthday and we went out to the Basketball Hall of Fame. It was actually better than I thought it was going to be. That night we went to Cheesecake Factory and had some yummy food.

He loved throwing the leaves above his head.

We tried to get some great fall leaf pictures of Ezra. 
He loved playing in the leaves but his face looked like this in most of the shots.

Unfortunately there wasn't much at the hall of fame about the Kings, I guess they need to play better.

Here is Bob by a little of what we did see of the Kings.

Here I am by my favorite b-ball player of all time. He was inducted in 2009.

 No not Micheal Jordan, but John Stockton at the very top.

Bob didn't really like him, but I wouldn't either if my team had to play against him.

I just think he was a great player, and he has very admirable qualities both on and off the court.

I thought Ezra was just messing around, 

but this is apparently his skill at taming a loose ball.

This boy LOVES basketball. He tries to dribble, 

and just loves to be in the action when others are playing.

It is pretty adorable to watch.

Shaq's shoe was crazy big. That is next to Trey's shoe. They just seem big and fake.

I grew up with two brothers with size 14 feet, and these shoes were monstrous.

I couldn't get over how big Shaq's feet were. 

My foot didn't look that small compared to the other footprints on the floor.

Despite all the adventures my favorite part of them coming was playing games at home. We had a blast playing games every night. I even lost REALLY bad at Ticket to Ride with a final score of -20. For those of you who don't know 100 is a fairly average score, and people usually never score in the negative. It was pretty awesome. Anyways we had a blast and look forward to seeing them again. I need a rematch.

One of the games occasionally had people doing crazy things like drink like a cat for 30 seconds.

Or dance while humming your own tune.

 Can you believe he was more worried about his humming.

Just so you know, I didn't marry him for his dancing skills.

Tate had to shake his booty in the air. Keep in mind he is 10!

My favorite parts are Brooke's laugh. Isn't she great!

Music Videos II

Chrome users...Our videos quit working in chrome but still work in Internet Explorer.  You can try that if they don't work for you either.

The Wheels on the Bus (Sorry it got long.)

Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam

Music Videos

Bob and I wanted to showcase Ezra's singing. He loves to sing and is really good at a lot of songs. In these videos he was more excited about jumping around than singing, but he can sing most of the words to all these songs. There are like 8 videos or so, so we will post them in spurts so as to not completely overwhelm you
.

I Love to See the Temple

Ezra really does love to see the Temple. Whenever we drive by he yells "Temple of God" over and over again. Of course it happens a lot more than just by the temple here. There are a lot of old churches that he also thinks are the temple of God. Basically if it is tall and has a steeple of some sort it is the temple of God to Ezra.

ABC's

Ezra can sing most of the alphabet on his own, but he gets really in to it about the time that he hits W. I love hearing him sing it by himself in the back seat sometimes. 

Fall Activities

Conference weekend was pretty uneventful for us. Bob had to work on Saturday, but Ezra was really good and I got to enjoy conference. He wasn't quite as good the next day, but Dad is more fun than Mommy, and we had events like this happen.

He dumped out most of a box of Cheerios, and this is him attempting to clean it up.

 I had on warm fuzzy sock and Ezra wanted some too.

 I though my knee high Christmas ones had the best chance of staying on. He loved them.

Sunday was freezing. We bundled up to keep warm, and Ezra had to wear his big

 coat because it was the only warm thing that would fit over his cast.

We bought him some slippers the next day.

The next weekend we went to the Cranberry Harvest Festival. We went with a bunch of friends from the ward, and it was a lot of fun. We got there a bit late, so we didn't get to do a lot of the kids activities, but we enjoyed it.

 Ezra did not want to take this picture.

He wanted to sit on the shore and throw rocks in the water.

 This year he was old enough to play on the giant sand pile, but he wasn't that crazy about it.

 These are the kids we went with. Luckily Ezra doesn't mind being the only boy.

 Sadie was there too, but she was too little to enjoy the mini bog.

After the Cranberry Festival we headed to a Zoo in R.I. for a Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular. We got there before it opened, and still had to wait in line forever. It was worth it though. They had somewhere between 5,000-10,000 pumpkins all professionally carved. It was cool.

This picture is after we have been waiting in line for a while. 

It is not so bad when you are with friends.

Some of the professionally carved pumpkins. It was hard to get good pictures, but hopefully you can tell what some of them are. The theme was something to do with time, so besides some classics, they had things from the time of the dinosaurs to major historical events.

I believe this one is of the revolutionary war.

This one if for you Dad.

That is a super huge pumpkin with other pumpkins in it's mouth.

It looks like they strung lights up the tree, but those are all pumpkins.

The thing I found most interesting were that most of them (all the non pumpkin face ones) were actually not cut all the way through. They just thin out the pumpkin enough for the light to shine through. It was cool.