Things we have learned:

1) Ezra doesn't like his hands to be sticky. At the ward Christmas breakfast, he dipped his piece of pancake into some syrup, but got his finger too. He promptly dropped the pancake and tried to wipe the syrup off of his hand.

2) Ezra won't even try to eat things if he thinks the pieces are too big. Must be something about choking on stuff...

3) Santa Claus is okay as long as he's not holding you. Ezra laughed and pointed the whole time we waited in line to see "Santa Claus" at the ward Christmas party. The second we set him on Santa's lap, he gave the biggest sad face you have ever seen.

4) Walls are treacherous. We saw a woman run her cart full on into a column in the middle of the aisle at Costco. It dented the metal surrounding the column, and she just went around it. Funny how stuff like that jumps out at you.

Things have been good, but busy. We had a great Thanksgiving with everyone over. It was great to see everyone, and to have more people to help watch Ezra. He's constantly going.


He liked having everyone here to play with.



We set up Ezra's new room and put him into a little bed, making room in the crib for the new baby in the spring. The first night and day he went down with no problems, probably the novelty of it all. Its been a bit more of a struggle getting him down this weekend, but he'll get used to it. The painting went pretty quickly though, probably the easiest room we've done yet.

Susan has hit her 21 week mark. We found out the day before Thanksgiving that our new baby is a girl. We're both pretty excited to have a little girl around as well. It will be an adjustment for all of us, but for the better.


Just a few more weeks and it will be Christmas; where did all of the time go?

Busy days...

The last few weeks have shown themselves to be fairly busy, or at least it has seemed that way. Susan made us a cheesecake last week. It was really good!!!


Work for Shawn has been pretty busy, but it helps the days go by faster.

We're looking forward to family coming over for Thanksgiving. It will be nice to see everyone.

Ezra got some new pajamas, and before we could pull his hands through the sleeves he ran off and then started clapping.

It was pretty funny.



He's trying to start using a spoon at meals, like mommy and daddy, but hasn't really got a hold of it yet. He tried to share some ice cream tonight, but ended up kind of frustrated when it got taken away when he started trying to stick his hand in it.



We got one more room painted. It turned out well, though was a bit more work than the last room. Semi-gloss is a bit more difficult to paint with since it's so thick. It makes us think of the beach for whatever reason.

Happy Halloween!

So this was the extent of Ezra's 2nd Halloween. We started watching Nightmare Before Christmas, but he lost interest after about 10 minutes. Next year we'll probably do something a bit more though. We didn't even get any trick-or-treaters, so I guess we'll be eating the bowl of candy ourselves. At least it's good candy!


Smile, people will wonder what you've been up to!

Our project this weekend was painting the front room. You saw the before picture in the previous post. Here's the after picture:
It turned out really well. It went fairly quickly too. We spent probably 2 hours all together on it. We have paint for some of the other rooms as well, though we'll see when we get around to them.

Ezra loves his apples. We gave him one the other day and he just walked around taking little bites off of it for quite a while.

Play that funky music white boy ....

We broke down and bought Ezra the little keyboard that we had seen. He loves it! He was kind of grumpy the night when we got it, but when we got home and opened it, he spent about 20 minutes playing on it.


It is by far his favorite thing now. Of course, we saw a nicer one at a different store for cheaper after we already had this one, but oh well. Ezra likes it and that's what matters.


Singing along ...
In other news, we've all had a cold this weekend. Ezra is basically over it, and the two of us are on the last stages of it. It made this weekend seem more busy than it already was.

We figured now that we've got a lot of stuff unpacked that we could take some pictures of the house. Ezra has his own little corner for toys, though they generally end up all over the house.


The walls are a little bare still, but we'll get around to putting up pictures here eventually. Its been nice being in our own place. We walked down to the park late this afternoon and ran into some more of our neighbors on the way over. It was nice to see that we have such a friendly new neighborhood. Its pretty quiet, but we'll see how it all is after they finish building houses in the blank area across from us.

Ezra played a bunch with his toy tractor today. He kept running it over his shoes though and it would get stuck. With a little help from dad he was able to get free though.


Susan made a cake tonight, and we're waiting for it to cool. It looks really good.


The recipe was interesting because there's no dairy or eggs in it, but we thought we'd give it a try.

New Haircut

So we finally broke down and gave Ezra a hair-cut. The clippers freaked him out a bit, but he was pretty good for it.

Recently, Ezra has been copying us whenever either of us yawns. He just opens his mouth real big and then kind of sighs as he closes his mouth. It's really funny.


We went to our new ward today. Its kind of crazy. They are working on splitting it I guess, but it sounds like that has been in the works for quite a while. We meet at the stake center, and sacrament meeting fills up the first 2/3 of the gym. There are two elders quorums, and 7 sections of nursery with 11-13 kids in each, that's like 80 little kids!!! Craziness!!!

Moved In

So, no real pictures of the house yet. We've still got stuff just piled all over, so I'll spare you until we get everything somewhat situated. It has been nice though, just having our own place. Ezra loves it because he can just run around all over. Its been a busy month. I was looking at things and we've only taken about 5 pictures this month, whereas we usually have around 50 or more by the end of the month. Its a lot of a work moving into a new place, especially with a very active 16 month old. He likes to try and help out though.

Ezra loves music. He tries to sing along to whatever he hears. We're probably going to get him a little keyboard soon. We were at the store the other day and walked by one and his eyes just lit up.

He's not our baby anymore, but a little boy. It's so interesting to see him learn new things every day, and to see him become a little more independent. His own personality comes through more and more.

"I dropped my raisins!"

"DAD!"

Things have been busy the last couple of weeks, and they only look to get busier until after we get moved. We sign papers and do our final walk-through this week. We're so anxious to move. It will be nice to not have a staircase to have to go up and down. The funny thing is that the stairs didn't bother us so much until we found this house that doesn't have any.


Ezra hit another growth spurt again. He learns so much every day. His most recent thing is to say "DAD!" all the time. He can say mom, but seems to only say mom when he's hurt or sad.

Ezra has figured out how to climb up onto the couches by himself. I think he likes to see how close he can get to the edge, much to Susan's dismay. He likes to get a hold of the remote and push buttons on it. The other day it got real quiet, and when Susan looked over, Ezra was just sitting on the couch with the remote and a huge grin of triumph on his face.


He loves his books. Always books.


Its a good thing though. With the two of us as his parents, I guess its not too surprising.


Ezra likes to "sing" too. Whenever he hears people singing he makes noise too. He loves anything that makes music. We're going to have to get him something to play with, a little keyboard or something.

Boo!

A couple of days ago I ran and got the camera when I saw Ezra in the morning. He was sitting in his crib with the blanket wrapped up over his head and jabbering away. He had moved by the time I got back, but I said, "Say boo" and he said "Boo, boo, boo!" It was cute.

We've all three been passing a cold around for the past week or so, which has made things interesting.

We went out to the house today, and its getting so close to being done. We're really excited. Here's a picture of our new kitchen. Obviously not 100% done, though it will be soon. Just 3 1/2 more weeks and we'll be closing, and then another week and a half to two weeks and we'll be moved in.


Ezra has been bouncing around everywhere as of late. His latest escapade tonight involved running head-long into the side of the couch. He somehow managed to get a cut right by the side of his eye. He freaked, and we both kind of freaked until we got him to calm down enough for us to get a good look at it. He's a little trooper though. When we were cleaning it, he yelled louder for the fact that we were holding him down than for the peroxide. Hopefully it will heal fairly quickly.

New Toys

The last little while has been busy to say the least. Things have been going fairly smoothly with the house though. We got what I think are the last papers until we close in tonight, and our landlord is going to let us out of our lease for less than what paying for the whole lease would have been.

We went and saw the house this last Thursday, and they have the tile and countertops in. We're really anxious and excited to move in. Just a few more weeks!

Ezra has been everywhere, but he's a 1 year old, so that's to be expected. We got him some new toys this last week too. We got a little tunnel for him to crawl through. He loves playing with it.


We also got him one of those bead on wire toys. It keeps him pretty well entertained as well. When he first got it, he played with it about half an hour, which is pretty much forever for a 1 year old.


We also found out that Susan is pregnant again. We weren't really planning on it so soon, and both freaked out a bit at first. We're both happy and excited for the new baby now though. Susan is really tired recently, but that's to be expected. At least it shouldn't be so hot through most of the pregnancy and when the baby is born.

Everything new again. Hopefully the moving and such should settle down for quite a while after this. We looked at things and we've both moved 9 or 10 times in the last 10 years. Putting down roots for a while will be wonderful.

Excitement!!!

So, we found a house that we like and are deep in the throes of going through the paperwork and such. We're really excited. We got to pick out the flooring this weekend. It was a spec home, so when we saw it for the first time, it was basically already mostly built. It will be really nice to have our own place that we can say is ours. It will also be nice to stop moving so much. The other day we both decided that in the last 10 years we've each moved 9 or 10 times, and 4 times already since we've been married. We close the end of September or early October (they weren't sure exactly what day, said it depended on what we pick for the remaining options and how long it takes to order things if they have to).

Susan has been fighting a cold this week, and Ezra has been teething quite a bit, so things have been interesting to say the least. Ezra's teeth are really coming in well though.


He's got his two top teeth and then three on the bottom. He's got two more pushing on the top it looks like.

This week he's decided that screaming is fun, so he screams at everything. He screams when he's happy, when he's sad, when he's excited, when its light outside, when its dark outside, you get the picture.

We're trying to start teaching him animal sounds, and most times you can get him to say moo, and you can always get a growl out of him, which is for either a bear, or a lion, or a tiger, or a dragon. He has started making car noises with his toys sometimes too.

We made some brownies this afternoon and gave Ezra half of one. He tried to fit the whole thing in his mouth, but it wouldn't fit. He just kept gnawing on the end of it and pushing until it finally did. He liked it though.


In other news, Ezra generally ignores the TV except when Sid the Science Kid is on, and of course he'll drop everything to watch M.A.S.H. I'm not sure what it is about MASH, but he's enthralled by it.

Melon Season

One thing that is always great about Arizona is melon season. 30 cent melons were nice. They were really good too!!!

The last couple of weeks have been a bit busy, but that's how it goes. Ezra has been getting so big. He has 5 teeth now, and is constantly eating something. He's figured out how to start climbing onto all sorts of things, which has kept us on our toes.

Randomly, he likes his hats now. Or at least he did a few days ago. Like everything else with him, it all depends on the day.


We made pizza the other night and Ezra was quite excited.


Its interesting to watch him now, he's not our little baby any more. He's growing into a little boy, and seems to always be learning something new.

Some of his favorite toys are blankets and pillows, but especially blankets. He'll crawl all over in them and just laugh and laugh.

Phone Book & Lemons

We let Ezra just play with the phone book that we got the other day, since we don't really use it. It kept him entertained for quite a while.

We were making lemon chicken for dinner, and he kept reaching up and pointing like he wanted the lemons, so we gave him a slice.

He seemed to like it at first.

He liked it up until the point where he started chewing on the bit of the lemon peel, and then threw it down and started crying. We'll have to remember to take the peel off next time.

The lemon chicken turned out great though. It looked especially nice on the fine china platter that Susan found for $3 at Savers.

Picture Heavy Post

We had a really great time on an extended vacation out to California. It was nice to get away from the heat for a while. The first week was spent up in Morgan Hill at Susan's parents' house. Ezra got to play with his cousin Sadie a bit more. It was cute to see them together.


Ezra loved all the time that he got to spend outside, as we all did. We took a morning walk through grandma and grandpa's garden. He had to point and pick at everything.


Whenever we got him outside for very long, Ezra enjoyed collecting leaves. He'd pick up a bunch of them and then would proceed to tear them apart and throw the pieces over his shoulder.

We took a family trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Ezra loved seeing all of the fish. He has a fascination with anything that swims.

It was a lot for him to take in, and he just had this amazed look almost the whole day.

He kept pointing at everything and saying, "This!"


They had a kids area and he had fun playing with the toy starfish.

Grandpa even soaked his feet in one of the exhibits (that has things you can reach in and touch).

Overall, it was just a really fun day.

We all really enjoyed being able to spend a bunch of time outside.


The beginning of this week we went down to San Clemente State Beach for a family reunion for part of Shawn's side of the family. Here's the view from the front door of our tent.

We got to go play down on the beach for a good part of the day on Tuesday. We all had a lot of fun.

Ezra was a little apprehensive about the water at first, but after a while he really started to enjoy it. Whenever a wave would come up, he would kick his feet in the water and laugh.

We only got minor sun burns (though some of the relatives got it pretty bad). Ezra was completely wiped out after the couple of hours that we spent at the beach and passed out for a couple of hours when we got back to the tent.


Though it was fun to get away, it's nice to finally be home.