Monday, January 11, 2010

This Happens WAY too often~

I honestly walk into a mess like this at least once a day...


You may be asking yourself why I haven't taken precautions against such messes?..  Well, that is a fine question.  This kid is a smarty.  He knows exactly what he wants and looks for an opening.  If a door is left open by anyone for a few seconds -- he makes his move.


This is actually the day I personally installed 5 locks on various drawers in the kitchen.  He stayed one step ahead of me...  Thanks to the people at Safety First I don't have to clean up plastic bags anymore!  The worst is that Ez ropes Mason into his crimes.  Mase is fine playing doors until Ezra comes in and makes a discovery.  He takes things to Mason to throw and rip.  They are a dangerous pair these two!


Friday, January 8, 2010

Violin Recital (Orchestra Concert) 2009

At Ethan's school they have some after school activities that you can choose to participate in for a very low cost.  One of these activities is Orchestra.  The first graders all play the violin.  Ethan has LOVED it.


He'll come home and practice occasionally and he really enjoys it.  He would love for me to put him in lessons.  He's pretty good for a kid who just started!


They held a concert for Christmas this year and it was fantastic.  These kids really are amazing.


He's been on a little break for Christmas and he is so excited for Orchestra to start back up! 
I'm just a proud parent...



Thursday, January 7, 2010

1st words~

He did it.. Ezra finally has said a word that he is using correctly and consistantly.  (I should count "Da-ddy" but that's just how it goes...)  

I have been trying to get Ezra to use sign language for a long time now and finally we got him signing 'please' for things he was asking for.  Don't ask me why I just couldn't tolerate that scream for everything any longer!  He finally got the hang of it but would only use it when we told him, "Ezra, say please" and showed him what to do.

The other day in the car we stopped to get a delicious orange drink from McDonald's.  I had Spen get me fries.  Well, Ez was in the back all strapped in and I guess he'd been signing 'please' for me to share with him.  I obviously didn't see his efforts so he started to say, 'peaz' over and over!  I was so proud.  After he got his delicious fry he seemed to notice that saying that paid out big!  He's been saying it ever since.  If he can get our attention he still signs, but I just love when he says it!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Ezra's 1st Haircut~

This is Ezra before the haircut....


I have to go on record saying that I did NOT want to cut his hair, but Spen threatened the clippers... 


Ez did not really enjoy his time getting his haircut if I'm being truthful.  We got through it though and that's what is really important I think!  This is an image of just how done he was at this point!!!


Still handsome!

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Merry Christmas 2009

This year Christmas came and went much too fast for me.  I was ready and excited and everything, but I just feel like it passed us by too quickly.  Christmas Eve was a great day.  It was more relaxed than normal for some reason.  We had family over for breakfast like we do every year and I made our homemade marshmallows myself this year.  Ethan spent a lot of time outside playing.  This year both Ethan and Ezra had colds.  That meant that we had to get to bed earlier and also that we didn't spend a lot of time with too many other people.


My parents came over for Christmas Eve.  It seemed to just fly by!  After we had soup at thier house we tried to drive around to see Christmas lights, but we had to stop and find an open store to get cold medicine for Ethan.  Ez and Mase were tired so we cut it short and got them to bed before any of the fun even started.  Ethan was once again surrounded by grown-ups!  He doesn't mind.  We had our hot chocolate and marshmallows and whip cream and played some serious Uno before he set out his present and cookies for Santa.  He really was excited this year.  He struggled getting to sleep.  It's fun though!


In the morning we had Santa traps all set out so that Ethan or Ezra couldn't escape and go peek without everyone.  Ethan broke through once, but then we trapped them all in our room.  Did I mention that Christmas at our house starts around 8:30 or 9?!  We had all of the kids line up to walk into the family room together.  Ethan is holding Ez back!


I love this picture!  Ethan is trying to find his present and Ez just looks like he hit the jack-pot!


Ethan got his sweet new bike with hand-brakes.  It even came with a new helmet that has an autobot on the back!  Lucky kid.


Ezra got a shake-n-go car that he LOVES!  He gets so excited to shake it up and watch it drive away.  He likes to show everything he gets to Ethan.


Mase got his super dooper stroller.  (mom got a super dooper stroller!)  It's really nice and he actually seems to like it.  It's really hard to collapse though...  lame.


Ez got a trike from mom and dad.  He was really anxious to get on it and try it out.  The only problem was that he likes to lean forward and for some reason that tips the bike over!


The boys get new PJ's every year from both grandparents.  They opened the PJ's from my parents on Christmas Eve and wore them all morning and these PJ's from Spen's parents on Christmas night.  It worked out for us because we never finish opening our gifts on Christmas.  We really take our time!  We still had a bunch to open the day after Christmas.  So really it was like a 2nd Christmas morning!


Ethan gave Ezra some slippers.  Ethan actually bought all of his presents for his brothers and contributed to the cost of the gifts he gave to me and Spen.  He's 6!  He was pretty insistant on getting something for everyone and wanted to use his money so it was from him.  So sweet.


Mase was the real winner.  He really just wants the paper.  His aunt and uncle (Karie and Mikey) acutally gave him 4 rolls of wrapping paper as his gift to just rip apart!


Ezra really got into the presents thing.  He wanted to open every single one of them.  He got really good at it too.  We had an amazing Christmas.  Hope you all did too!

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Christmas Nativity

One of the things we do every year with my family is we dress up and read the nativity together.  I should say we act it out, but mostly we dress up and play then we read from Luke 2.


Our family looked a bit more like pirates I think than people from biblical times, but we had a good time!  Ez actually was the funniest.  He wore his suit all night and never tried to take it off once!

Seeing Santa

This year our kids got to see Santa 4 times.  I only have pictures of 2 of those times...  Spencer's new work had Santa come and visit the kids one day after work and we took our kids to go to see him.  Ethan was so excited about it.  Mason actually was the most interactive with Santa.  Ez freaked out and wouldn't go near him unless he pretended that he wasn't there.  It was pretty chaotic and crazy, so Ethan kind of got lost in all the picture taking part.  He didn't really get to talk to Santa as much as he had hoped.  Luckily we saw him a few more times so that he could say all that he wanted to say!


All of the kids with Santa.  Ez isn't really into it.  Ethan didn't get to really talk to Santa like he had planned.  He took that sack puppet to show him.  It has Santa on it.  He wanted to tell Santa all about it but was pretty rushed to be done with his turn.  sad....


Me and Michelle are the 'stand-ins' for Santa while my dad sets his camera just how he wants it for the big moment.


Since I was a baby we have gone to see Santa Claus every year of my life.  After my sister and I had our own kids we tried to get the kids to the mall to visit Santa.  We hated it.  She is lucky enough to know Santa!!  Thank heavens for that.  He has been nice enough to come to her house every year to visit our kids without the confusion of the mall, and we get to have good pictures with Santa!


Ethan saw Santa several times this year and he was very suspicious of which one of them was the real Santa.  He understood that Santa had to have a lot of helpers to get out to see all of the kids of the world but which one was the REAL one...  well, this was the real Santa.  He wasn't wearing a watch like a different Santa was and he had the right gloves that another Santa didn't have.  There were quite a few things that Ethan was paying attention to to decipher if this was the right Santa... and he was.


Mase was super happy to sit with Santa.  He liked to feel his coat and his beard.  He even gave it a few hard tugs!  Must be the real Santa.


Ez was excited right up until it was his turn.  He kept trying to sneak over and see Santa out of turn, but once it was his chance he wasn't so sure anymore!


One of my favorite Christmas decorations I have in my house is a framed picture from every year of my kids visiting Santa.  They are getting so big.


We all got to see Santa this year...


Can you believe these are all of the cousins together from my side!  Fun for Christmas!