Ezra-26 months

So, maybe slightly more interesting to most of you than pictures of ovens...

It's been a while since I've posted pictures of Ezra. He is still as goofy and funny as ever. He talks all the time these days and is pretty good at communicating most of the time. He gets easily frustrated as I am sure all two year olds do. Some of his favorite phrases are "I yike it," "Choke-it meeoke" (chocolate milk), and "Yuck! Yucky! Yuck! See?" (Look! Looky! Look!) when he wants us to look at something, mostly when we're passing it in the car. 

Silly kid...

 He likes to stack things. We've been working a lot on letters and numbers. One of my favorite things is his rendition of the alphabet. When he gets to the middle, he says "H I J I'm okay Q R S." I guess LMNOP sounds like I'm okay to him. As far as numbers goes, he'll count to twelve, then say "thirteen, seventeen" over and over again.

 He also loves to imitate Chad.

 Sweet boy.

Before & after

Attempts at craftiness

I have been having fun making some things for Ivy. The thing is, I don't really make things, I mostly buy things that other people make. My whole life I've gone through crafty "spurts," such as teaching myself to knit a few years ago, and the one Chad teases me the most about--mosaics. Yeah, that one was short-lived, but lasted long enough that I invested in tile nippers, glue, and lots of old ceramic plates from goodwill. Anyway, here is a little peek into the fabric I've chosen for Ivy's bedding which my much, much more talented friend Emily is sewing for her. I pulled out my sewing machine the other day and made a minkie blanket. Above that is a bow holder. Yes, an entire holder for bows. Apparently that is the kind of thing you need when you have a girl that isn't on your radar when you have a boy. I saw something similar to this at one of the many baby showers I attend. I bought an open-back frame at hobby lobby and a few different rolls of ribbon, cut a piece of foam board to fit inside the frame, and used a lot of packing tape and hot glue to attach it all. Then I bought some alligator clips and glued some grosgrain ribbon to those and made some little flower hair clips to test the sturdiness of my new bow holder. 

I am hoping that we can move Ezra into our guest room (which will be his room) soon, but we have to wait until our master bathroom is done with being remodeled because right now everything from our closet has taken over the guest room and we are sleeping in there most nights because of all the dust. The plan is to move him to a regular bed with plenty of time before Ivy gets here so we don't need to convert the crib or buy a second crib. Funny how with my first pregnancy, 4 months felt like FOREVER before the baby got here, and now I feel like we are SO CLOSE to her being here...this pregnancy is going by really fast. Anyway, I will be excited when we can move Ezra so I can start transforming his little boy nursery into one for a sweet little girl.

We have a name!

Just wanted to let y'all know that we decided on a name for our little girl. Her name will be Ivy Noelle. We love the name, and I'm excited that we were able to come to an agreement so quickly. When we named Ezra we had two names that we liked, and we waited until after he was born to officially name him. This time around we chose Ivy's name with 4 months to spare. Noelle is my middle name so that's where we got that. Ezra will just say "Baby Ivy" randomly throughout the day, which is pretty adorable. We can't wait to put a face with a name in four months!

September menu

It is already mid-September and I'm just getting around to planning my menu. That might tell you what September has been like so far for us...crazy, lots of traveling for Ezra and me, Ezra starting school, remodeling the house, Ezra being sick for a week, etc. etc. I also decided I'm going to try lots of new recipes this month, thanks to pinterest. I also pulled out some older ones that I haven't made in a while. It took me a long time to come up with what we're eating this month...I've just been in a planning and cooking rut.

Tuscan garlic chicken  (had this tonight and it was really good. Make sure you use shredded, not grated, parmesan, and it probably wouldn't be good as leftovers)
Crispy southwest chicken wraps
Cheesy potato soup & sandwiches
Creamy chicken enchiladas
Soft tacos & homemade flour tortillas
Coconut chicken
Ultimate beef stroganoff
Jalapeno popper chicken
Marlboro man sandwiches
Salmon cakes, couscous with dried dates
Creamy chicken taquitos
Chicken cordon bleu
Marinated flank steak
Pork & ginger potstickers
Cheddar baked chicken
Chick-fil-a knockoff nuggets
Chicken tortellini bake
Chicken Parmigiana

If you have never tried couscous before, PLEASE try it! It is an easy side dish that is just a tiny little pasta. I use chicken broth to make it and I love the recipe above. You can also get whole wheat couscous that offers a few more health benefits. I don't post most of my side dishes but I'm sure we'll be seeing some asparagus, green beans, sweet potato fries or baked sweet potatoes, fruit or fruit salad, green salad, and rice/beans/chips and salsa with the Mexican dishes. Let me know if you try any of these recipes and enjoy them!

Sugar, spice and everything nice...

That's what baby Montandon is made of! We are so excited to be having a baby GIRL! Ezra would be excited too...except that he has no clue what's going on. 

Here she is! Cutest little profile ever. I had a "feeling," and just so you know, my "feelings" are not very accurate, that I would be having another boy. We were at the ultrasound and Chad and I both glimpsed the girl parts before our sonographer even asked if we wanted to know what it was. So we had a couple minutes to let it sink in before she told us we were having a baby girl.

 Already doing her senior picture pose...(fist under the chin)

And I just had to go out and buy a couple cute things. The thing about my second child is that she'll probably wear mostly hand-me-downs...including a bunch of the stuff I bought at our local consignment store. Why would I pay full price for a brown dress with pink polka dots on it (brand new with original tags, by the way) when I could get it there for $4? 

I'm just not ready for all the pink yet. You can see by my choices of clothing that pink doesn't play a very big role. I like bright colors. And since she will be using Ezra's current nursery, her bedding has to have red in it because I already have a red rug.

Since people will ask probably, no, we do not have a name picked out (although I've been thinking about it all my life), and we haven't even discussed it. Soon enough I'm sure!

Ezra starts school

Yesterday was Ezra's first day of SuperKids, our church's Tuesday/Thursday school. He had a blast! This was the only picture he would let me take of him with his backpack on. He sensed that something was up and did not want to cooperate for the camera. He wouldn't eat anything for breakfast either.

Before heading in to his classroom

Ezra walked straight to the books when we got to his class. He did not acknowledge us. I think he liked it. 

 

This is how we found him when we went to pick him up. Still reading a veggie tales book and having a good time! His teacher said he slept on his nap mat for over an hour, which I was so relieved about since he has ONLY slept in a crib or pack n play and ONLY in a room by himself. He had a great time!

Me and my friends

A group of my friends decided a few months back to take a girl's trip during Labor Day weekend. A few of us are turning 30 in the next few months, so we thought that was a great excuse to stay in a hotel, shop, and eat good food for a few days. We stayed in the Allen area and hit up the outlet mall, Ikea, and a few other places that we don't have in our little city. We ate at In-n-out (which I hadn't been to since we lived in Prescott and forgot how yummy it is), La Madeleine, Chuy's, and Cheesecake Factory. We got to go see a movie, stay up late, kind of sleep in a little bit, and just have fun. How blessed I am to have such a close group of godly women to call my friends! I love each and every one of them. 

 Elena and I are solo shoppers and ended up finishing at the outlet mall way before everyone else...this is us sitting at the bench at Aldo.

 The damage we did at the outlet mall. This is pre-Ikea and Container store, but in our defense, there were eight of us in one car!

 I would go to Chuy's ALL THE TIME if we had one in Lubbock. Chuy's owners, take note.

 Back at the hotel after a long day of shopping.