Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Cleaning out my photo cache

Here's some pretty random pictures of they boy from the past few weeks...

Ezra, chillin at his buddy Sonny's birthday party.

Ezra and I spent some time down at Mission Bay last weekend.  He enjoyed some pears & quinoa while I enjoyed the view.  Here he is, doing his best Blue Steel.

We met up with some friends at the zoo a couple weekends ago.  Here's Ezra checking out the giraffes with his Pops.

Ezra got a package from his Grammy.  Here he is, taking charge and opening it...

...and digging through it...

 And finally, one of Jordan & Ez.  They were laying down, tossing the soccer ball into the air -- which makes Ez squeal with delight :)

Monday, August 22, 2011

11 Months!

Hey guys!  Being 11 months old is super fun.  I mean, I'm totally not laughing at Steve as he's making faces at me.  I'm just laughing and having a great time because I'm SO EXCITED to be 11 months old!


While I'm chewing on my baby, aka, Glowworm, check out this magical head of hair I've got...

Wait, you're saying I'm getting another haircut soon?  

That's it.  No more smiles.  I'm not pleased about this haircut situation.  



And finally, here's Mister Man after we went for his bike ride.  He got so excited whenever we'd push him really fast...great big smiles, laughs, arms waving...the works :)

So what is Little Man up to these days?  

Everything.  He's up to everything.  He's into everything.  He's all over everything.  Everything.

Seriously though...
-He's pulling up on everything.  Standing is SUPER fun.
-We've been taking swimming lessons - where he's learning to kick, paddle, hang onto the wall, climb out, and go under water.  
-He's been saying MaMaMaMaMaMa a lot.  Still not really saying Mama, but I'll take it for now ;-)
-When he gets mad, he makes fists, scrunches up his face and GRRRR's.  It's probably the cutest thing ever.
-He loves to clap.  
-Some foods that Ez has been trying lately include plum, sweet potato, blueberry, banana, quinoa, and steel-cut oats.
-He's an accomplished "sleep-eater" and has been perfecting his "sleep-crawling" in bed recently.
-Speaking of crawling, he's insanely fast when he's army-crawling.  He has been getting up on his knees to crawl a couple times a day, but prefers the speed of full-on-army-crawling.  
-He's also been sitting up on his knees a lot to play with his toys.  
-He gives great "Ezra kisses."
-Favorite toys these days include glowworm, his bike, trucks, maracas, Elmo, and his wooden barnyard animals.  
-He LOVES when we sing the Elmo's Ducks song.  Of course, when we sing it, it's Ezra's Ducks :)
-DJ Lance Rock from Yo Gabba Gabba is able to make him smile in .004 seconds, flat.
-He's the most amazing little boy, ever.  And I tell him every single day.  


A Little Bit of Everything

So, I suck.  This was supposed to have been published back on the 15th.  Oh well...

Mini-Man has been pulling up on ev-ery-thing.  Everything.  I can't turn my head for a moment without him pulling himself up on something.  Apparently, standing is his new favorite thing to do ;-)  He's also been cruising along the couch and his baby-jail gate and has figured out how to safely back himself down the couch.  He's so damn smart.  I'm still not ruling out a nose-dive off the couch, though.  I'm pretty sure that's a rite of passage, right?

Ezra started swim lessons today.  He had fun kicking, then paddling...with plenty of splashing in between.  Then, it was time to go underwater.  While he didn't get any water in his mouth, he did come up pretty pissed and cried for a few seconds afterward :(  I think he was just shocked.  We'll try again tomorrow.  Here's me & Ez at our lesson...

Doors are also a new favorite toy these days.  Here's a picture I snapped of Little Man as he was playing with the bedroom door.  He's getting SO big.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Conversations with Ezra: A pictorial essay

Here's a bunch of pictures I took of the boy.  I was trying like hell to get a good, head-on shot of his face for his birthday party invitations.  None of these will do, but they are seriously cracking me up, so I've got to share them...


Me:  Ezra, smile if you think Mom is funny...


Laugh uncontrollably if you think Mom is crazy...

Wait, do you really think Mom is crazy?

Ezra, are you trying to divert my attention away from your previous answer by showing me your amazing teeth?

Oh, okay...so that whole time, you were just trying to show me your toothy grin?  And you don't really think Mom is crazy?

Ezra!  

Alright, I forgive you.  Just flash me another grin...just for funsies.  Please?



Friday, August 12, 2011

Yay Turtles!

On Tuesday, we headed down to the Chula Vista Nature Center.  I'd heard some good things about it and found out that they feed the sea turtles at 1:45 everyday...done.

Ezra LOVES turtles.

It's a great little place - set in the middle of a marsh (did you know San Diego even had a marsh??)  Right up front, before you even walk in, was Turtle Lagoon...and this made Ezra a happy kid.  Seriously, we spent almost 10 minutes there before walking in and actually paying admission ;-)

Here's Ez and his new best friends.  They were ridiculously friendly and stayed up at the glass to play.





A bunch of the tanks had some pretty rad, super-colorful, handmade blown glass in them.  It made for some really nice contrast and Ezra seemed to really like all the different colors everywhere.




 Here's Jordan & Ez, through the tank, inside the viewing bubble.  Ezra didn't want to get out of it.

 Checking out some snakes with Dad.  Thats right, Ez.  Tap that glass.  They like it.

He got really excited again when we went outside to the leopard sharks and rays.  Squeals and everything :)

 Here's one of the benches around the shark tank.  Pretty cool.

 And I finally got him to take his eyes off the fish for a second...

 But only for a second...

We made our way up to the observation deck while we waited for the turtle-feeding time.  Here's a little up-close-Ezra...

And this would be a typical way to see Mini-Man these days - finger in the mouth, happily chewing away.  This would also be the last photo I got before my battery crapped out.

So, Ezra had a great time.  He even got a giant turtle puppet from the gift shop to commemorate his first trip there :)  




Monday, August 8, 2011

Ezra Loves Elmo!

A couple days ago, a package arrived, addressed to Ezra.

Inside, was a Hokey Pokey Elmo.  From Ezra's Uncle Avner.

Here's a video of Ez with his new friend...


Monday, August 1, 2011

A trip to the Safari Park!

Last Saturday, we drove a bit up the road to the Safari Park (formerly the Wild Animal Park).  We've been zoo members for over 2 years now and had never been there...so it was about time.  

Upon entering the park, we both agreed that we needed to spend more time there.  It was so pretty and surprisingly different from the zoo.  The water features were pretty great, Ezra got to feed the ducks, and it was even more spread out and huge than the zoo - which I didn't think was possble.  

When we first saw the line of people for the African Tram (200+ folks queued up, including some really pissed off little kids) we thought - Oh, hell no.  Then we realized how much closer you get to the animals when you're on the tram...and we both agreed we'd battle the line and hop on it next time.

We did have a great time exploring.  Ezra really liked touching all the new flowers and plants.  


Here's me and Ez.

We took a little break to feed Ezra -- and this was our view.  Pretty cool.

Dude.  The elephants.  There's so many elephants.  And babies!  Holy crap, they were adorable.  Here's a shot of two of the cutest little elephant babies you've ever seen...and they're playing :)

As we were making our way down to those amazing elephants, we came a few feet from some roaming wildlife!  These guys just crossed the road...like the owned the place.  Here's Jordan giving Easy-E an up close view.

And here's your up close view ;-)