The fall in review

As I was going through pictures on my computer tonight I realized there were some from September/October that I never posted to the blog (well, there are a lot more than this, but I'll spare you). Here are a few of my favorites from the last few months...

 Ezra "playing" with Ivy by putting as many toys as possible on her walker tray

 Ezra's first day of Superkids, 2012

 His "statue" face

 Quit taking my pictures

 Learning to button his own clothes

 Ivy at about 8 months old

 Ezra and Chad's first outdoor camping experience

 Playing with play-doh

 Chilling outside (this is from the spring; just got put in the wrong folder)

This is what happens when you leave the bath water running for a minute and step out of the bathroom.

 Sibling love.

The cutest lion and strawberry that you ever saw

I know it's not Halloween yet but I already have pictures of both of the kids in their costumes so I thought I'd get ahead of the game. Backstory...I have been asking Ezra for a WHILE what he wanted to be for Halloween. He kind of does this thing where he says he wants to do something and then changes his mind and then doesn't take to the change very well. So I didn't want to buy something on a whim after the first time he said he wanted to be a ________. So he said he wanted to be a lion. Then I asked him a LOT more and the answer was still lion. So I felt safe buying a lion costume...only there aren't any lion costumes in his size at the stores in town. Baby lions but no toddler lions. So off to the internet I went. I found this costume on ebay and was one of those crazy bidder people as the auction ended. I was so anxious to win this costume for my baby! And apparently so was some other mom (or dad?) because we got into a bidding war. Not to worry, I won it for $10.50. We got the costume home and the first thing Ezra said was "It's too big. I want a small lion costume." I thought I was going to wring his neck. Chad reminded me that he doesn't know how to react to surprises or doesn't take to excitement well (kind of like his dad) so I just put the costume in his room and acted like it wasn't a big deal. Worked like a charm...this first picture is of him later that same day. He had gone into his room and put the costume on. Isn't it adorable? Plus, he was kind of right, it is a 4T which is a bit big on him. Maybe he'll want to be a lion two years in a row? Or I can put a bow on it in a few years and let Ivy wear it.

 Saturday night I met up with my kids and the Parrishes (I was doing a photo shoot) at the LCS fall festival. Ezra had a blast playing games and getting candy...

 While my sleepy little strawberry yawned away and took it all in. Funny story about this costume too. When I was at A&M I worked in the college of geosciences dean's office, and my co-worker had a daughter who was too big for this costume. So she gave it to me. At that time I had two nieces (Elle and Riley). Emily took the costume and I think she said that pretty much all her girls had worn it. Little did I know that I would have a little girl who would wear it someday! Chad and I were just barely married! Anyway, some people thought she was a watermelon, but she's cute either way. (sidenote: if I had tried to put anything like this on Ezra's head when he was younger, he would have FREAKED! Just one example of how different these two kids are).

Ivy pictures 9.5 months

Ezra 3.25 years...FINALLY potty trained!

Three years and three months is such a fun age for Ezra. He is growing by leaps and bounds both physically and mentally. Here is what he is up to lately in pictures...

 He is a WONDERFUL big brother. These photos were not staged. Ivy loves him and he loves her. He is always mimicking what I'm saying to her and comforting her when she is upset. It is so sweet. In the picture below she was upset because I put her down and he went over to comfort her and she put her hand on his face too. And I just happened to have my camera! I was so excited!

 He loves his daddy and LOVES spending time with him. Not as enamored with dinosaurs as he once was but still likes them. Mostly he'll do anything as long as it's with Chad. They are buddies.

 We went to the corn maize for small group a couple weeks ago and Ezra got to feed a pig!

 His new thing is being a "statue."

 He really likes to do puzzles and he's really good at him! This is one thing that we really enjoy doing together as well. But if I'm busy, Ezra will just sit in his playroom and do puzzles by himself.

 We were out in the front yard one evening just playing and I got a couple shots. It wasn't cold at all but Ezra loves wearing these gloves for no reason in particular.

 He loves building towers, but the best part is knocking them down. He can identify all his letters and also loves stamping letters on paper.

 Oh, how I love this little boy. It will be so awesome to watch him become a young man. He has a tender heart and a hilarious personality.

 The best thing about the last three months is that I can finally say that Ezra is POTTY TRAINED! We started this journey in April and it was very difficult. Basically the last 6 months have been very unpredictable as far as whether Ezra was going to decide to use the potty or not, and even a month or so ago when he stayed with my mom he had multiple "accidents." It was so up and down with Ezra. He did well at first but then we had the hardest time all summer at camp, throwing away and washing so many pairs of underwear. So frustrating. Then we got home and it got better, and then he started back to superkids and it got worse again. He was even having accidents during naptime, but he was awake! He just didn't want to tell his teacher. But he has gotten so consistent and hasn't had an accident in a while. What a relief. I am glad to be done with that challenging part of our journey through parenting (until we go through it with Ivy, but I have heard that some people don't take 6 months to potty train so fingers crossed with her).

Ezra also loves to choose his own clothes and is great about getting himself ready. He can put on his own underwear, pants, shirt, socks, shoes, and is pretty good about following directions (if I say he needs to get a long-sleeved shirt or pants because it's cold or whatever). He changes clothes multiple times a day and likes to put on pj's for naps. I think he got this idea from staying at granny's house. 

The other fun thing about this age is all the hilarious things that Ezra says. He mimics a lot, so if we are stern with him he say, "Excuse me? You don't get to talk to me that way." "Listen to me." "I'm getting hungry and I'm getting thirsty. I need somethin'." The cutest thing he says at this age is "ya" instead of "you." So he'll say "I got ya!" (he likes to "get" us) or "I see ya!". Sometimes he will say the sweetest things, but other times he just keeps it real. I thought he was being sweet the other night when I was putting him to bed and he said, "I like your kisses." What a sweet boy I have! No, he just can't say his L's. So he was really saying "I wipe your kisses." As in, wipes them off. Thanks kid. Speaking of loving to do things with his daddy, he said the sweetest thing when he and Chad had their first father/son backyard camping experience. They were laying in the tent with their heads hanging out, looking at the stars, and Ezra said something like, "See that star? That star is for you and me. It's our star." Just Chad telling me that made me cry!

I'm sure there are more funny things he says that I'll add later as I remember them, but I know they are more interesting to me than anyone else and I'll just be recording them so I can remember them later. But that's our little three-year-old in a nutshell.

Pumpkin carving

I am having some serious deja vu. I feel like I have already posted these to the blog but I don't see them, so I guess I didn't. Anyway, playing catch-up on the blog tonight. I got a new camera and lens and this was me testing it out...and getting lots of overexposed photos. I had an annoyed little boy and husband, because I wouldn't put the camera down, but how else am I supposed to learn?

Ezra requested a scary pumpkin, a nice pumpkin, and a mean pumpkin this year, and Chad obliged. Ezra was so excited to carve jack-o-"lanswers" with daddy. 

 See what I mean? Not impressed with the camera. Chad just ignored me.

 Love this picture of Ezra's hand on Chad's arm.

 The look of concentration...

 Goofy faces:

 I asked Ezra which pumpkin he liked the best, and he pointed to the mean one.

 Now he's making a sad face.

 This is his mean face.

 And his nice face.

Ivy is 9 months old!

This photo describes Ivy exactly as she is right now...happy and into everything. And she's not even crawling yet! Trouble is coming our way. :)

I can't believe Ivy is 9 months old. She is so fun! She will smile at anyone who wants to talk to her, especially at the grocery store. She can also be very testy if you leave her sight (object permanence, anyone?) and loves loves loves to be held. She is definitely a mama's girl.

This girl loves to eat. She still nurses 3 or 4 times a day. She prefers table food over baby food but she will pretty much eat anything. She likes to feed herself cheese, bananas, peas, green beans, puffs, and anything I put in front of her. She puts everything in her mouth, as you can see from the photo. She is getting pretty good at drinking out of a cup. Hopefully she will be a pro by the time she turns one.

Sleeping is pretty good. Her routine is 2 or 3 naps a day and she is in bed between 6 and 7 pm. She wakes early, usually around 6. The routine is that I nurse her but then put her back to bed, and she'll sleep another hour or two depending on how loud Ezra is when he wakes up.

Ivy says "mama" on a regular basis. The first time I heard it she had woken up one morning and was crying. She heard me open her door and said "mama, mama" very distinctly. So "Mama" is officially her first word. She babbles a lot and of course it's super cute.

I think the word thing is the main development this month...I just read the 8 month post and she is still doing a lot of the same stuff. So talking and eating are the big developments this month.

Stay tuned...working on a post for Ezra, who continues to change and grow up before our eyes as well. Crazy how kids do that. 

Ivy at 8 months

We just got home from being gone all week and I am way behind on everything, but I needed to sit down and post about Ivy at 8 months because I'm behind on blogging too and soon enough she'll be 9 months!

(Photo credits: Caroline Grace Photography)

Ivy just gets more fun all the time, as babies tend to do. She smiles so much, she has the cutest bottom teeth and she just smiles huge and squints her eyes and kind of arches her back when she smiles at you. She also has a rarely seen side that includes arching her back, and it's not quite as pleasant as the smiling thing, but I guess we are all entitled to be opinionated every once in a while and Ivy continues to be a very easy-going baby for the most part.

She sleeps pretty well unless there is a tiny noise and then she is awake. Fortunately she is flexible as far as her sleep times go, and if she wakes up early or is very tired she is usually still pretty happy. Ivy still likes to be held a lot and interacted with, but this month she has discovered how to move around in her walker. She can roll anywhere she wants from side to side and I imagine by the 9 month post I will be reporting that she is army crawling. She is putting everything in her mouth these days and is so grabby and curious about everything she sees. She is especially enamored with remotes, cell phones, or anything with buttons or that could possibly be breakable or valuable.

Her eating habits are pretty good. She wakes up around 7 (if earlier than 7, I nurse her and put her back to bed). She nurses in the morning and then has a fruit, nurses again around 11, 3, and before she goes to bed. She likes fruit a lot--prunes, bananas (both baby food and cut up so she can feed herself), apples, pears, and yogurt. She still likes the orange veggies pretty well but does not do well with green veggie baby food. She will eat green beans but only if they are cut up into pieces and she can feed herself, so I am going to try that with other green veggies as well. She LOVES puffs and that is my distraction technique when she is fussy and I am trying to get stuff done-I just put her in her high chair and give her puffs while I finish whatever I'm doing. She also likes mum mums, yogurt bites, and cheerios.

She takes two good naps a day and then usually a third little cat nap in the afternoon. I think we'll probably do three naps for a while unless she starts waking up later than 7 by some miracle. But like I said, her naps are pretty flexible. A few days a week I go to the gym during her nap time, and she rarely falls asleep there, she'll just fall asleep on the way home or when we get home. And today she and Ezra and I ran some errands and did a grocery trip and she just rode around in my beco carrier and looked around instead of falling asleep.

One thing I want to remember about Ivy is this cute little thing she does when I hold her where she buries her face in my neck if someone else comes up to talk to her. She acts all shy and smiles and nuzzles me. I love it and it is the sweetest thing ever.

We are on the downhill stretch to a year old! I can't believe it, but I am so grateful that she is growing and learning and changing every day. Ivy, you are so fun!