First Day of 1st Grade!!

I'll be honest..  I was not ready for this day to come!  We had to come home from Lake Powell the night before school started to get all ready and I was still enjoying summer with my kids around!.  Weird I know.  Ethan was pretty excited though.  He got up and got himself all ready.  He picked out his nice 'pen shirt' and was thrilled that he got to take a lunch and everything.  He was not however thrilled about me following him around with a camera.  He was a good sport.

It was such a nice day.  I am so proud of him for being so brave about it all.  When we got to school there were several kids clinging to their moms.  His teacher had asked us to send snacks and things to help him adjust to the long day, but he was just fine!  When I picked him up there were sad 1st graders all around but Ethan loved it.  He loved his teacher and had such a great time.

I'm still a bit resistant to letting him grow up and do things on his own.  I still don't feel like he's old enough!  He had a great day.  First grade is going to be a great year!

Lake Powell August 2009

I know, I know....  I'm really behind.  I do have good reason, but still. 

Every summer my entire life we have made at least one trip to Lake Powell.  It is easily in my top 2 favorite places I have been.  After Mason was born and had so many heat regulation problems among everything else we decided that Lake Powell was a bad idea for him.  Ever since then Lake Powell has mostly been Ethan and My thing.  We got with my family while Spen stays home with Mase.  This year he had Ez too.  Hopefully Ez will join me and Ethan on our trip soon.

Ethan loved to drive the boat with my dad.  I think Lake Powell is Ethan's #1 place to visit.  He talks about going there all year long.

Something my dad taught Ethan to do is to collect rocks.  Buckets and boxes of rocks...  Love it.  They spent hours scouring this awesome play spot for the perfect rocks.  Throwing rocks into the Lake is also a favorite..

What a sweet angel.  I love having this one thing that is just ours.  It makes it so special for him and for me!

We found this huge tree on the shore and Ethan had to climb it.  I had to get a picture! 

Ethan and his cousin Riley flexing and showing off their muscles for the camera.

Always flexing!  Me and my baby in our favorite place.

Ethan is the fish of the group when we are at Lake Powell.  I cannot get that boy out of the water!  He is usually the first one in and the last one out.  He loves the huge noodle flooties to play on.  He actually has named a few of his favorites.

Every once in a while we make the journey to Davis Gulch.  A favorite canyon of everyone's.  The water levels flucuate so much that there is always a new place to play and explore.  We stayed here and hiked and played in the sand and swam for hours.  It was awesome.

Sometimes I can convince Ethan to be in a picture with me!

Throwing rocks.  Big splashes are important.  He tried to skip rocks this year like his aunt Michelle.  She taught him a few tips, he'll get it eventually!  For now splashes are OK.

Even though I love having my time with my sweet Ethan angel I still miss Spen and wish he could come.  Maybe our lives will get to that point someday! 

Ezra's 1st Birthday

Ezra's 1st Birthday Party!  Even though this post is late we had his party on his exact 1st birthday.  October 1st.  I know that Ethan and I were more excited about it all than Ez was.  He had fun though.

He wasn't really into opening presents too much.  We helped him out, but once he got the books my mom gave him he was done being interested.  We'd let Ethan open something for him and he'd just go right back to the books.

He'd go from one person to the next to have everyone read it to him.  He loves books.

He took a couple of steps just to show off, but nothing too big.

I made him 2 cakes.  One for everyone to eat up...

and one for Ez to eat from!

Me and Ez with his cakes..

He loved when people would sing him the 'Happy Birthday' song.  He was fascinated with the candle we put on his cake.  He's not a great candle blower yet.

But if you plug his tiny little nose, he'll blow.  He got to blow out his own candle!  How many 1 year olds can say that?

We sat looking at the cake for a while.  He wasn't really too sure what to do about it.  I tried to help him put some frosting on his finger but he still didn't really understand.

Then I realized that he didn't want to put his hand in it.  That didn't mean that he didn't want any though!  This approach worked the best for Ez.

Don't worry though. . . he got into it eventually!

After he decided he really liked it, then getting his hands messy wasn't such a big deal.

He still liked the original way best!~

It was so much fun watching him just enjoy his cake.  I was a captive audience and cake holder.

He liked to share and I liked getting my own bite rather than one off of his hand!

This is what his cake looked like as we got close to the end. He really enjoyed it!

Getting daddy to eat too...

He was exhausted after all the fun.  He's such a great kid. 

Happy Birthday my big Ezra!

1 YEAR OLD~!

This past year has gone by so fast.  I remeber as a kid that a year seemed like forever and now I feel like it just screams by!  Ez is getting so big and is so much fun. 

He is starting to walk. He's taken 18 steps for his record so far.  He still prefers to speed crawl everywhere.

This face may look innocent, but he is definately NOT!  He is into everything and likes to make a mess.  He's getting better at not eating every leaf and rock he finds, but not completely over that phase.

He Loves books and his toys.  He really loves his cars right now and makes a cute 'vroom vroom' noise while he pushes it across the floor.  Spen's favorite is the 'ching ching' sound he uses to play light sabers.

I had to put up so many pictures because I really am surprised I got him to hold still for his big year old photo shoot!.

I just love going in to see this face every morning.  He is so much fun.

One year ago today was a very happy exciting day for us and a very hard emotional day for Ez's birth mother.  She is an amazing person and mother.  I'm so grateful to her everyday.  Ezra is lucky to have someone like her in his life.  She loves him so much too and I'm glad we know that. 

Happy Birthday my sweet angel Ezz!!

Summer Visitors

This summer we had a lot of visitors!  We love visitors anytime!  Our situation makes traveling a bit precarious so when people come here we LOVE it!  Spen's parents came and spent a few weeks and overlapping with them his sister, Karrie, and her kids came for a week.  Our kids were in heaven.  As you can see, a campout sleepover in the basement was a must!!!

The kids all cuddled into the tent and watched Swiss Family Robinson and had a fun sleepover.

One of the days everyone was here we made a drive to the Olympic Park.  The kids enjoyed it, but it was FREEZING!  No idea why it was so cold in the summer, but we spent a lot of time in the museum to make the drive worth it.

All the kids who made the trip!

Mase was the one who HATED the fun of the crowd.  He usually does.  I took him on a walk for a while just the 2 of us to calm him down.  He enjoyed the sights and the exhibits of the Winter Olympics.  Here he is carrying the Olympic torch! 

He also had to see the medal case.  This is just a taste of the photo shoot that poor Mason had to endure while spending his time alone with me and my camera in a museum!!

Sleep Over with Mase..

It's no secret that I'm not a camper.  I kind of feel bad that I don't push it - at all - but I still help the kids have campouts at home!  That's something, right?  Ethan is so great to always want to include his brothers.  Ez was definately not invited to this sleepover, (suffocation risk and him climbing out too much) but Ethan didn't want to camp in his tent without Mase!  We set his tent up in his room and he slept there for a few nights.  Mase was too excited to stay in the tent.  He would just yell and giggle and roll around to stroke the sides of the tent to make a funny scratchy sound.  Fun play buddy, but not so good for sleeping!

Ethan is always thinking of fun ideas to do at home..

Here's trouble!

So this is actually a common sighting at our house...  Ez is into and eating everything he can find on the floor!  Not something that I love, but still isn't this adorable?

He was SOO proud of himself!  He was the happiest kid to have an entire floor full of treats to himself.  This was taken in the summer, but just too cute not to put up still!