Thanksgiving and the Zoo

Thanksgiving was a nice, quiet affair with just the four of us. We had a lot of good food. Here's a sample:

The rolls for dinner

The cinnamon rolls for breakfast



The hickory smoked turkey


Look at the smoke ring... yummmm... it was really good, will definitely try it again.


The pumpkin cheesecake


And the normal stuffing, potatoes, noodles, and Martinelli's .


Ezra was already eating before we got it on the table.

Dinner ended up being quite a bit earlier than expected, but that's what happens when you try a new way of cooking things.

It left us with most of the afternoon free, so we put up the Christmas tree.


We all really like it. Ezra had been talking about how much he wanted to decorate the tree since Tuesday.

We broke tradition and went shopping on Black Friday; I guess it counts as shopping if you go to the grocery store and hardware store in the afternoon for some necessities.

We spent most of today at the zoo. Ezra LOVED it. Emma liked it too.

Ezra has been constantly wearing his beanie ever since we bought it for him. Best dollar I ever spent.

This was Emma the whole time, when she wasn't asleep. We were surprised at how content she was all day long.


Ezra liked seeing all of the animals. He would point them out when he finally saw them. Some of them were hard to find.
The elephants were even hard to find. The first time by the enclosure, you could only see one of them, and it was laying down sound asleep. First time we've ever seen a sleeping elephant that any of us could remember.


The monkeys were a hit, of course. Ezra didn't care for the few snakes that we saw, so it wasn't a big deal that the reptile house was closed. His favorite by far were the tortoises. He got really excited when we saw the big turtles, which he called tortoises after we told him that's what they were. He even ended up with a stuffed tortoise which he has carried around ever since we got home.



He kept pointing at the frog statue, so this one required a few takes to get a picture with him actually looking at the camera.

We almost couldn't get him out of the giant clam shell.
There was a little park with "Little People" animals and characters and a little barn. Ezra thought that the little horse and cow were the best ever, since you could ride on them. It took a bit of coaxing to get him off of these to start heading towards home.

It was a really fun day, but by the end of it we all felt about like this sleeping rhino:

Teething, Folding, & Rug Burns...

It was nice to have everyone out last weekend. The weather was nice, and we all got to spend a decent amount of time together. The kids especially loved it.

Since it's been cooler, we've been able to keep windows open all the time, and go outside more.

Ezra loves to be outside. He really enjoys playing in the yard and at the park.

Emma has been teething the last little bit. She chews on anything and everything that she can get her hands/mouth on.


She has two teeth, and then a third that just barely popped through today. She's working on 3 more as well, so it has been interesting. She's a really happy baby in general though, so even when she's grumpy it's not too bad.


It's pretty easy to get Emma to laugh. Her and Ezra get each other laughing back and forth pretty often.

She's always going. Today she managed to loop herself through the diaper bag strap and carried it around for a bit.

The last few days, Susan has been doing origami with/for Ezra. He gets excited about it, and Susan has fun doing it with him.


So, funny story. Ezra has a pretty nasty rug burn on his forehead and nose.


Yesterday, Susan could hear Ezra moving around and laughing. She figured that he was just doing something funny and laughing. When he got into the family room, she saw that he was crawling with his face pushed onto the floor. So today, he's been rubbing it because it itches. Guess that's how you learn...

Nice long walks...

The weather has finally gotten to be nice, so we've been able to go out on some nice long walks. It's been good for all of us. The last couple of times we've gone, both of the kids have fallen asleep by the end. The double stroller was definitely a good investment.


The kids sure have grown, and enjoy playing with each other. Emma found Ezra's tunnel in the front room tonight, and had to go exploring. Of course he had to follow her in.


Ezra has a new favorite: Eggnog! He would drink eggnog all day long if you let him.

Happy Halloween

So we never did get around to carving the pumpkin; but how many people have a pumpkin that was written on with a quill pen?

We went to the ward's trunk-or-treat party last night and had a decent amount of fun. We all got to wear our pirate costumes.

Ezra didn't really get it at first, but it didn't take him long once we started taking him around to get treats. For the first four or five people that gave him candy he kept saying,"Thank you, thank you" instead of "Trick-or-Treat" but that's okay.

The weather has been nice, and we've been able to open windows and be outside quite a bit more. Susan and the kids have been able to take walks, which has been nice for everyone. Ezra has enjoyed being able to play at the park.

He's quite the climber. There is a little climbing wall on some of the playground equipment, and he goes up it like it is nothing.

He loves going to the park, and its a good way to get some of his energy out so that he's not quite so hyper and bouncing off the walls here at home.


Both Ezra and Emma are growing like crazy. It's amazing to see them both develop so quickly.

Still a bit too small for driving though!

Emma can sit up by herself now, though she only lasts a few minutes usually before she falls over. The time that she stays up keeps getting longer and longer.



Emma is now crawling. Her crawl looks a little more conventional than Ezra's did at first. Unlike Ezra though, she likes to stick anything and everything in her mouth, which keeps things interesting.

The kids get along great. It always puts smiles on our faces when they both start giggling, either in the car when we're driving somewhere or at home when they're just playing together. Ezra still forgets sometimes that he needs to be a bit more gentle with Emma, but he's learning.

Time flies when you're having fun OR I guess "fun" is the word for it.

It's been a busy few weeks, but since when is that new with us?


We got to spend the Saturday of conference at Kelly & Cameron's house. It was nice to see them, and have some help with watching the kids.

Ezra has hit another growth spurt in the last few weeks. We had to break down and buy him some new shoes the last couple of days.


We've moved a bunch of his toys into his room. It actually has been nice, it has kept the clutter down quite a bit in the family room. Just have to clean his room up most nights.

Ezra went through a little bout of being scared of all sorts of random things. We think the 6' animated skeletons at the hardware store and craft stores had something to do with that. Luckily he's starting to understand that such things aren't real and can't hurt him. But it really made for quite a few long nights.

Got the lawn re-seeded with rye grass for the winter. At least that only has to be done once a year...

We painted some more and replaced the dining room light fixture, neither of us really cared for the old one.
The new one is much better.

Emma is on the cusp of crawling still. To say that she isn't mobile would be a lie, but isn't quite all over the place yet.

When we went to try her on her water cup tonight after dinner, she just grabbed it right out of Shawn's hands and started chewing on it. She drank a bit of the water too. Now if we could just get her to hold her own bottles, we'd be in business.


Emma has also been teething. She's had her first tooth pop through the last couple of days.

Susan has been doing a decent amount of baking recently. The shortbread has been really good.

She made caramels today, and they turned out great. It just made a ton and took an hour and a half or so to wrap them all up.
The kids both got some new Halloween pajamas. Ezra found his in with his other clothes and wanted to wear them, so we put Emma's on her as well.


They keep us busy, but we love our two wonderful children.

Outside and Baking

The past three weeks have flown. We used to keep fairly regular with posts, but you get what you can get.

Emma is pushing up and on the cusp of being able to crawl. If there is something that she wants bad enough she manages to get to it. She spends a lot up time up on her hands and knees rocking back and forth. She loves playing in her blankets and will wrap herself up in them and just chatter away.

She's such a happy little girl, and we're so blessed to have such a wonderful daughter.

Ezra keeps learning. He's as rambunctious as ever. He likes to sing recently. He'll sing "Baa baa, black sheep", "Old McDonald had a farm", and "Wheels on the bus".

Ezra likes to try and help out with his little sister and everything else that is going on around him. He loves to go outside, and we've been able to go out a little bit more since it has started to cool down slightly. It's still not as cool as it would normally be, but that's what we get for having a late start to summer I guess. The lemon tree hasn't seemed to mind it though.


We finally went out and got some more house plants. It has made a big difference in how our room feels, which is nice. We replaced a shrub that had randomly died out in the front yard, and one of our hibiscus bloomed again this last week. Just one bloom, but hopefully we'll see more as the weather eases up again.

The pink hibiscus died finally. Its only been in it's death throes all summer long. Apparently the pink ones don't do so well in the heat without some extra shade. We replaced it with a much larger one with peach colored flowers.

Hopefully this one will stay. Susan planted some poppy and sunflower seeds around them, so hopefully everything will come up and look nice for us this fall.

Of course once we start doing things, we have a tendency to do more. Susan found a recipe for pretzels so we made pretzels this morning. They were really good! Needless to say they didn't last the day.


And since we'd started baking, Ezra got the choice of cookies or cake, and he picked cake. Susan made a beautiful pound cake this evening. Yum!