Some pictures

In case you can't tell what this is, he likes to chew the front of the swing (and shopping carts, and laundry, and anything else he can lean into)

Pictures from the week

Ezra got his first playing in the dirt experience when he went outside with Chad in the garden yesterday...needless to say, he liked it.Ezra has 4 teeth now...two on top and two on the bottom. In fact, since those two top teeth have come through, we have had our happy baby back until the next tooth decides to make its appearance I guess. We went ahead and got him a toothbrush because he HATED having his teeth/gums cleaned with a wet rag. He loves his new Elmo toothbrush.
I think I mentioned before that Ezra is now able to maneuver himself around the house in his walker...we have all hard floors so it's pretty easy to do. Lately, he has discovered cabinets, the kitchen trash can (and how to pull it so it will dump over), the dishwasher, plugs, his bookcase in his room (and how to pull the stuff off of it), etc. etc. The walker is my best friend (because it keeps him happy the longest) and my worst enemy (because he gets into so much mischief in it). This newfound freedom of his has given us a little taste of what he is going to be like when he is truly mobile...and we are scared. This is the same child that will contort his body as much as he possibly can to get to anything within reach when he is in a shopping cart, including the stuff in the cart behind him. He is so curious about everything around him.

Paul and Carolyn came to visit last weekend and brought Ezra this toy that sings the chicken dance and flaps its wings. He really likes it as you can see. At the last minute I decided to take it with us for our family pictures on Thursday in case Ezra needed a little extra coaxing to smile...and I am so glad I did because it worked. Although now, I am having nightmares about the chicken dance.Stay tuned...soon I will be able to point y'all in the direction of our photographer's blog for a sneak peek at our photo session. I am excited to see how our first "real" family pictures turned out.

The weekend, making baby food, teeth

This weekend Ezra and I drove to my mom's house and Ezra stayed with Granny while I spent the weekend with some friends to celebrate my friend Sara's upcoming wedding. Ezra had a great time, and I don't think he tired my mom out too much. I didn't get any pictures of the two of them together, but Erin & the kids came over and I got this picture of Kellen, Ezra and Bonnie. They love posing for pictures:
Ezra has become a pro at moving around in his walker. He can walk forward, backward, turn, etc. to get to where he wants to go. Here he is after realizing that he can open the cabinets in my mom's kitchen:
Changing subjects...I have started making my own baby food, for the sole reason that I just don't want to spend the money for store-bought food. I thought it would be complicated, or take a lot of time, so in case any of my friends out there are interested in making food for their babies, here's what I do.

1. Cook the food. I research how to cook whatever it is to preserve the most nutrients. Here, I've baked a couple of sweet potatoes. I also use frozen veggies and fruits if they're not in season (edited to add: it is really important that you cook produce to kill e.coli. In the case of the blueberries below, I boiled them to get them soft before I pureed them).
2. Blend the food (with a little added water) to desired consistency. Here, I've pureed some blueberries. Obviously I didn't hold the lid down tightly enough. Usually I don't make this big of a mess--I just happened to do it with blueberries on my white countertops.3. Pour purees into ice cube trays, freeze, and store in freezer bags. Below I've got peas and corn, ready to be heated up and eaten.
4. Feed baby. (We're back to blueberries now. This kid has liked every food I have offered him, except bananas.). It is so easy and hardly takes any time at all, unless you have to bleach your counters after blowing up blueberries in your blender. :) I calculated that I'll be saving about 2/3 the cost of what we were spending on commercial baby food, so about $30-40 a month.

This last picture was taken this afternoon during a tough time for Ezra. He cried off and on all afternoon and never took more than a 30-minute nap until he finally went to sleep tonight. He would stick his entire fist in his mouth and just chew. I think he'll be getting more teeth soon. One just broke through on the top, so I imagine the one next to it is close behind.

Eight months

Ezra won't be eight months old for another few days, but we will be out of town so I thought I'd blog about it before we leave.

At eight months, Ezra...
-is sleeping through the night (7 p.m.-7 a.m.) and takes 3 naps a day
-hates having his diaper changed because he wants to be flipping over, turning around and grabbing whatever is behind him on the changing table
-loves smiling at anyone who talks to him
-has learned how to walk around the house in his walker
-is sitting up on his own and loves just sitting and playing with his toys. Sometimes he still topples over, but he doesn't cry about it and just continues to play while he's on his belly. Also, the sitting up thing is great because now he can sit in a high chair and in a grocery cart on his own.
-eats about 4 times a day--milk, oatmeal/rice cereal, and baby food and a few cracker/snack type things
-has started making lots of consonant noises (d, b, m, etc...in case you forgot what a consonant was)
-acts like he wants to crawl when he's on his belly, but still hasn't figured out how to get up on all fours
-has officially moved up to the "big" carseat...no more infant carrier (Chad and I were about to get hernias carrying that thing around)
-still has just the two bottom teeth, but I can see a tooth on the top that is about to break through (maybe this explains the drool in the last picture)

I think that's about it...I'm sure there's more stuff, but when I actually sit down to record it, I can't think of it all. These past few weeks seem to have really been big milestones as far as Ezra realizing that he wants to be able to "do" stuff, so I don't think it will be long before he is crawling and just being more curious about everything. Next month we'll go back for his 9 month check-up, but my guess is they will say he is long and skinny. Happy 8 months!

Fun with the Parrishes

Ezra LOVES spending time with the Parrishes. Toni, Charlie, and Anna Beth sit next to us in church every Sunday, and from the time he was born, Ezra has loved being held by Miss Toni on Sunday mornings--he would even fall asleep in her arms when he wouldn't let anyone else rock him to sleep. Toni gave me some pictures of the last couple times they have watched him at their house, and it's pretty obvious that he loves them. Here he is sitting on Charlie's lap while Charlie plays the piano:
Toni, this was the only picture I could find of you on this CD and it is of the back of your head. Anyway, here's Toni and Anna Beth introducing Ezra to their cat, Pansy. I think that's her name anyway. Pansy's getting a closer look, and Ezra's going in for the kiss. I love that Ezra gets to spend time with other people's pets--that means we don't have to get one for a long time. Here are a few shots of Anna Beth and Ezra that I thought were really cute:

Thank you, Parrishes, for loving our son as if he were your own! We are blessed to have you in our lives.

3/16/10

This is going to be a post with a lot of miscellaneous stuff, but let's start with the real reason most of you read the blog...to see pictures of Ez. Can you believe he is almost 8 months old? (Check out those blue eyes...we think they are going to stay this color but I guess they can still change.)I just love this face and those cheeks.I walked in one day after I heard Ezra wake up from his nap and this is how he had his legs. He wasn't bothered, just laying there chillin'. Ezra recently saw his first episode of "Sesame Street." He loved it, of course.
Know what else this kid loves? Pulling hair. And his mom. And his many A&M t-shirts.
He also gets excited these days when he spends time in his bouncer that dad & Ginny gave him for Christmas. No, I mean SUPER excited.Ezra gets almost as excited about jumping as I get when I get behind the wheel of my new ride...Thats right, ladies and gentlemen. Chad and I are the proud owners of a brand new 2010 Toyota Sienna. This is actually a picture of a 2011 model, but I didn't want to spend 20 years googling a picture with a high enough resolution to not be pixelated, and I wanted to show the color to those who care, so this is what you get. Yes, go ahead, call me a soccer mom, that's fine. Frankly, I don't care what you call me, as long as I can open the sliding doors with the push of a button, fit all our stuff when we go to camp for the summer, be able to fit 3 people (or children) in the second seat and still be able to fold down the third seat for cargo space...you get the idea. We've had it for a couple days and I already love it. I'm sure Chad loves it too, but he probably wouldn't admit it in public.

And finally, I realize I haven't updated a while on my weigh-in situation, although I have been keeping up with it on the side of the blog. I am one pound away from my goal weight, so at this point I'm 4 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight. Suh-weet!

The weekend

Ezra and Gramme at Emma and Levi's baby shower
Ava and Ezra-cousins

We had a great weekend! Ezra and I flew into Austin to go to my sister-in-law Emma's baby shower. Levi will make his presence known in a little over a month, and I am so excited that Ezra will have a cousin who is fairly close to him in age. We flew in on Thursday, and the flight went without a hitch. Going through security was quite a production because of all the stuff (stroller, carseat, carry-on, taking shoes off, testing the bottles to make sure I hadn't put explosives in them), but it went fairly smoothly. We flew out at 6:30 in the morning and Ezra was asleep before we even took off and slept the whole way. PLUS, the flights both there and back weren't full, so they let me take the carseat on the plane and that gave Ezra a place to sleep, because he is awful at falling asleep in my arms. Anyway, we landed in Austin, got our rental car, and were on our way! The first stop was breakfast at Magnolia Cafe with dad and Ginny. Then, I had a couple places to stop and shop while I was in the south Austin area, and then we were on our way to Georgetown to Shawn and Emma's house. Thursday night I got to have dinner at Chuy's with my friend Sara, and then Friday I went shopping pretty much all day. Ezra made it with me to REI and Target, but then I thought it would be good if he spent some quality time with his gramme while I went to the outlet mall. :) Saturday was Emma's shower, and the hostesses did a wonderful job. We flew back Saturday afternoon. The two pictures above are ones that Emma sent me because I did not bring my camera. I had to pack light, and packing light means not being able to take a large SLR with you. I might need to invest in a small camera to carry in my purse and take on trips. Anyway, I love that picture of Ezra and Ava. Ava adores Ezra and she is so sweet with him. She will make a wonderful big sister.

7 months (almost)

Gooooood morning!Sitting up all by himself and playing...He knows how to tell time now.
Hanging out in the papasan before naptime.

Ezra isn't 7 months old for another few days, but I had some time so I thought I'd go ahead and blog about it.

At 7 months, Ezra is...
-Sitting up on his own, mostly. After a couple minutes (or less), he topples over to either side, but he can keep up his balance if he tips forward or backward. We still always sit behind him and spot him when he's sitting up. He is not at all interested in trying to crawl yet.
-Eating all the "first food" purees, and some mashed up avocado, puffs, yogurt melts, crackers, etc. We have moved on to the second foods. He doesn't like banana mashed up or pureed, but he will eat little bits pinched off from a real banana. He will eat any of this stuff even after he has stopped drinking his bottle.
-Sleeping great most of the time. He wakes up around 7:30 in the morning, takes around 3 naps a day, and is in bed by 7 p.m. He still wakes up every few nights hungry if he hasn't eaten enough that day. He is a lot better about being flexible during the day if he needs to be awake for longer than usual (Sunday mornings at church, for example). We still put him to bed awake and he falls asleep on his own. His favorite sleeping position is on his side, and when he is really tired, we will lay him in his crib and he'll roll right over to his side and go to sleep. It is soooo cute.
-Getting much better at his fine motor skills. Just a month and a half ago, at night, he would pull his pacifier out when he was going to sleep and just cry and cry and not be able to put it back in his mouth (and wasn't even aware he had been the one to pull it out). Now, he can find his pacifier in his carseat/crib/wherever it is within reach, turn it around and place it in his mouth.
-Still just has two teeth. We think he might be getting more soon, judging from his whininess lately, all the drool, and his desire to stick his entire hand in his mouth. All that might just be because he's a 7 month old baby, though.
-An easy baby. He really is so good. When I take him out to the grocery store or shopping, he will smile at anyone who stops to talk to him. Our friends the Parrishes watched him for a few hours when I ran my last race and afterwards so I could run some errands and when I picked him up, Toni said, "You are so lucky." And it's true. He is a very sweet, smiley, easy-going baby. I hope that this personality trait will continue through his life.

It's been 7 months now, and it has gone so fast. I know that his first birthday is just around the corner. I think since we've hit the "over-six-months" mark, it seems to be flying by. We love our little boy and the joy he brings to us every day.

Growing up...

Baby boys in ball caps=cutest thing ever. Also, when I put Ezra's hat on him today, he looked like he was about 2 years old. Made me sad. Ezra has gotten better and better at sitting up on his own over the past few days. We still have to sit behind him and spot him because he topples over after about 15-20 seconds, which is why this picture is taken from behind.
He has also started to read on his own. Here he is reading the valentine's card that gramme sent him.

Weekly weigh-in...bye-bye baby weight!

I lost 4.4 pounds this week. And guess what? I am 1.2 pounds below what I weighed pre-pregnancy. That's a great feeling! Since I went into the hospital to have Ezra I have shed exactly 50 pounds. (Some of that was a 6 pound, 14 ounce baby of course :) It's true what "they" say, though: even if you lose all of your baby weight, your clothes still don't fit properly. So I am going to continue with my goal until all my pants fit well again. I will be so glad when I don't have to weigh in every week anymore.

So, this week I realized I was so close to my pre-pregnancy weight that I focused big-time on watching what I ate, and I worked out a lot. Obviously it paid off. Now if I can just keep it up for a few more weeks, I can lose the rest of the weight, and then it's on to the lifelong journey of maintaining that weight.

No recipes to report. I'm thinking about not posting recipes anymore. It takes a long time and I get the impression that nobody really cares that much, and that's fine. I might just start listing our weekly menu and y'all can type it into google if you're interested. So here's what we're having this week:
Southwest steak tacos (WW cookbook)
Chicken & herb dumplings (WW cookbook)
Chicken spaghetti, rosemary rolls (pioneer woman recipe), key lime pie (company coming over for dinner)
Cayenne oven-fried chicken and onion rings (WW cookbook)
Kung pao chicken & brown rice (WW cookbook)

Have a good week everyone!

What Ezra's been up to lately

Oh, you know, the usual...writing his dissertation,Getting really excited about avocado (especially the squishing it in between his fingers part),

Getting prunes all over his face,
Swinging,
and watching mom give dad a haircut outside.
No big deal...but I knew the grandparents might be getting antsy for more pictures.