It's the Little Things: Nature Hike

Today I'm linking up with Ashley and Jess's lovely Little Things linkup. 

Yesterday, when it became apparent that there was no morning nap in the cards for Ezzy, I decided to go on a walk before the temperature got too crazy. (It was in the 90s yesterday afternoon.) Instead of our normal walk to our neighborhood Starbucks, I decided to drive us over to a nice hilly path that I like to walk every now and then so I could get a little workout in and kill two birds with one stone. #sweatingforthewedding. I'm so glad I did because we wound up seeing a deer chilling just a few feet away from us, as well as a bunch of roosters, which reminded me of Kauai. It took me about twenty minutes to walk to the top of the hill, where there was a sign warning about bears and rattle snakes. I decided that was my cue to turn around. We got some great views while we were up there, and it was a nice change of pace from our usual scenery. I think Ezzy liked the slight bumpiness from being on a dirt path. He was nice and relaxed by the time we got back down to the bottom of the hill. Plus my booty is pretty sore today - pushing his stroller uphill is no joke!

Can you spot the deer?

It seems like not a day goes by that Joe and I don't ask each other where our baby went and when this big boy got here. Tomorrow is the first day of May, aka Ezzy's birth month! Ezzy has gotten so fast at crawling and he chases us around the house now. If you happen to stand still for too long you'll have a baby clinging to your leg (see below pics). Not only does he pull himself up to standing (often using our legs for balance), but he'll grab our hands and try to pull us in whatever direction he wants to go, which is usually whatever direction his ball is in. He gets the biggest kick out of pulling us along, he always lets out a little squeal of delight if we comply and actually follow along. He can even walk only holding on with one hand now. He still needs some work on getting back down on the floor once he's standing though. He often gets himself "stuck" and whines to be put back down on the floor so he can crawl after his toys.

You may remember from last week that I impulsively decided to organize our photos on dropbox. Well, that project is still going strong (and only about halfway completed), but when I go back to the photos from when Ezzy was three months old and see how we had to prop him in a sitting position using pillows, and how tiny he looked next to those pillows, it makes me all the more amazed that he's such an active little boy now, cruising around the ottoman as I type this.

Weekend Recap: House Hunting

Ezzy at 4 months, 9 months, 11 months

We really crammed a lot of stuff into this weekend. We ate out a ton. Ezzy had his first experience with crayons (the first three pictures). It was a short-lived experience. After we stopped him from eating the crayon, he decided it would be more fun to throw it than color with it. We were at the mall and they have these balloon animal punching bags and every single kid that we saw walk by them would stop what they were doing and run over to punch or kick it. We decided to let Ezzy give it a try. I don't think he really understood the concept of a punching bag, but he was pretty mesmerized by that giant pink tiger. 

On Friday afternoon I took Ezzy to the park, and he was super impressed by the swings, as you can clearly see in the photos. Not. From the time he was little, I have periodically taken him to the park to play on the swings and he always gets the same serious expression. He doesn't hate it or love it. It just seems like he's humoring me. 

Saturday is when our schedule got a little hectic. House hunting in the morning, followed by a brief stop at a friend's birthday party (just long enough to drop off a present), then on to a possible venue for our wedding, and then, since we were in the area, we stopped by my aunt's house to visit and have dinner. Of all the houses we've seen in the past week, we have a couple that we really like. We also really like the wedding venue. It was huge, tons of great photo op settings, inexpensive, tons of parking, and basically everything we were looking for. 

While we were hanging out at my aunt's house, Ezzy stood up on his own for what felt like a long time (several seconds), and he actually did that a few times. I think this boy will be walking any day now. We also got the adorable video of him dragging Joe around the house after his ball. 

Sunday was more laid back, but we did look at more houses, and then capped the day off by spending way too much money at Target. 

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Coffee Date Friday

Happy Friday!! I thought it'd be nice for a quick coffee date Friday since I skipped last week. Joe wound up having a surprise half day for good Friday, so we decided to go check out a wedding venue. It was nice, but we're still looking. We're also in the process of house-hunting, and that takes precedence over wedding planning.

For some reason today I got an urge to organize all 17,000 photos we've taken since Ezzy was born. (That probably sounds like an exaggeration, but I don't think I'm that far off.) That involves uploading all the photos on my phone (about 3,000) to dropbox, and then organizing all the photos on dropbox into separate folders. Exciting stuff. I'm pretty sure I could be doing better stuff with my time, like cleaning sticky finger prints off of the table everything, or working out, but for some reason I feel like the photo thing has to be done...I'm already in too deep.

So far today Ezzy has taken a 15 minute nap. I'm really hoping that's not his only nap of the day. I was hoping to do a little yoga. My neck has been bothering me for the last few weeks, which I'm pretty sure has to do with lugging around a 20+ pound wriggly baby.

This weekend our plan is to do some more house hunting, scout out another wedding venue, and stop by a friend's son's birthday party. So other than that exciting stuff, things have been pretty boring around here. Right now Ezzy is sitting in his high chair screaming and "blah, blahing" at his empty food pouch. That has been going on for about ten minutes. Nope. Scratch that. Food pouch is on the ground and I now have a yawning, whiny baby on my hands. Time for round two of nap time! (Fingers crossed!)

How's your week been and what fun stuff do you have planned for the weekend?

Finish this

I came across a fun link up series called Finish This over at Three 31, where bloggers share random details about their lives based on different prompts each week, and I decided to join in this week.

1. My favorite makeup item is... I'm not really a huge makeup person, and a lot of days I don't wear it at all, but when I do I prefer a natural look. The two constant things I've used for the past few years are benefit erase paste and benefit high beam. I've had dark circles under my eyes since elementary school, and a tiny bit of the erase paste covers those up. With the high beam I put a tiny dot at the corners of my cheek bones and under my eyebrows and it makes my skin look nice and dewy. Both these products last me a looong time. Are there any great can't-live-without, east-to-apply items that you'd recommend?

2. The best book I ever read was... This is really hard because a lot of books are my favorite as I'm reading them, but I guess to qualify as the best book I ever read, it would have to be something I want to read more than once. I'm going with Gone With the Wind. I just bought a copy and plan to re-read it this year. It's really long, but it's a fast read. I've also been in the mood to re-watch the movie, but it's hard to carve out three uninterrupted hours now with Ezzy. I'm always on the lookout for new books to read, what are some of your faves?

 3. My favorite TV show is... Ahhh, another hard question! Right now I'm obsessed with House of Cards. But of all time I'd pick Sex and the City or Friends.

4. The most spontaneous thing I've ever done... Getting together with my now-fiance was pretty spontaneous, since the whole relationship progressed really quickly. Much more quickly than I had been used to with past relationships. But when it's right you just know.

5. I prefer Dogs/Cats because... I'm a cat person. I've only been without a cat for about three years of my life. Two of those years were when I lived on campus, and then since last August when James went missing. James cracked me up, he was so entertaining to me. And he was not at all needy, I could leave him alone and go on vacation for a week and just leave a bunch of food and water around the house and he'd be fine. Also, he suited my nomadic lifestyle (we moved 9 times in 9 years together!) much better than I think a dog would have. Obviously, I still miss him. When we are settled with a house of our own we'll get both a dog and a cat, and I'm sure I'll love them both.

6. I met my fiance at... work. He actually interviewed me and hired me. Definitely the best career move I ever made :)

It's the little things

Look at that big boy!

Playing catch...

...is serious business.

I'm the luckiest mom in the world..

...to wake up to this face every day.

Rare photo of all three of us.

Nom nom, baby fingers!

Silly boy.

Pancakes + cars = one happy Ezzy

Cinnamon roll + french toast = most genius breakfast combo ever

Linking up with Ashley and Jess this week to share some of our favorite little things. 

First, I'd like to point out that I can't believe Easter came and went so fast. Our living room still looks like a colorful explosion of Easter eggs. I've seen a lot of mom's talk about how much their kids' loved collecting Easter eggs in their baskets, but Ezzy only likes dumping the eggs out of his basket, then picking them up and trying to eat them, and then throwing the slobbery eggs across the room. Not sure if that's a boy thing, or an 11 month old thing, or just an Ezzy thing. 

The weather has been pretty warm lately, but thankfully we have lots of trees in our yard, so Ezzy and I have been spending time outdoors in the shade playing catch and kicking his ball around. That never gets old (for him). 

All three of us have been sick at one point or another in the past two weeks, which sucks. Ezzy had his first fever, poor baby. The bright side is that we've had plenty of snuggles in bed. Also we've been binge-watching Game of Thrones and House of Cards. No spoilers though, we're not that far into either. We actually just discovered House of Cards this week, and it is by far one of my favorite shows. Kevin Spacey is perfect.

Lately Ezzy has decided he likes having his fingers "bitten." So when he's sitting on my lap I'll catch him staring at my mouth, and then all of a sudden he's shoving his little fingers in between my teeth and cracking up when I pretend to bite them. Where does he come up with these things?

I was craving french toast earlier this week, so Ezzy and I had a little Mommy son pajama breakfast date at a nearby diner. They had cinnamon roll french toast, so of course I had to try that, and it was amazing. Ezzy had pancakes for the first time, and he devoured them.

On our neighborhood walks, Joe and I often pass by a sushi restaurant that smells soooo good, so we finally decided to try it out. Joe's mom and husband came too and we ordered a bunch of appetizers. Everything was delicious. There are actually several restaurants within walking distance that we've never tried in the year that we've lived here, so I think it's time to start crossing a few more off our list. 

Spring Photo Shoot (the first batch)

Here's the first batch of Spring photos! Our photographer, Amber, got sooo many great ones that I can't fit them all in one post, so expect one or two more in the near future. As I mentioned in the behind the scenes post, Ezzy was a champ for an hour, but as soon as his sixty minutes was up, he turned into a fussy, cranky, crying baby. I understand. Hunger does that to me too. Thankfully an hour was all we needed. Ezzy looks like such a big boy with his hat and bow tie. 

Before we move on to the photos though, I do have one question for the moms out there. How the heck do you de-snot a baby's nose? I swear it requires at least six hands. Two to hold down his arms, two to hold his face in place, and two to do the actual de-snotting. Even with that little snot-sucker bulb thingy. Ezzy flails, and throws his head around, and screams, and tries to eat the bulb when it gets near his face... Is there some magical technique besides putting him in a straight jacket that I'm missing? This is the kind of stuff they really should have gone over in our child care classes. I'm sure we could have figured out swaddling and diaper changes on our own, but I could've used some tips on nose-blowing, fingernail clipping (I'm still scared of that!), and baby-proofing (I swear 80% of the stuff Ezzy finds on the ground is invisible to the naked eye).

Weekend Recap: Happy Easter!

"What the heck is this?"

"How long do I have to sit here?"

"I guess maybe this isn't so bad..."

"...mostly I'm just humoring you though."

"Wait, ALL this stuff is for me??"

"Even that stuff back there??"

"Now you're talking!"

I hope you all had a good Easter weekend! The Easter bunny left Ez a ton of goodies. If it looks like his Easter basket grew from this post, that's because Gangy and Grampa sent some books and toys in the mail. And then our landlady left a little surprise on our doorstep. And then Grandma and Grandpa Brett came by with some more goodies from the Easter bunny. Ezzy is one very-loved little boy. If you scroll all the way down to the last photo you can get an idea of just a small fraction of the Easter wreckage that was strewn across the living room by the end of the day.

As you may have already noticed from these photos, Ezzy got off to a slow start with his Easter basket. He didn't grasp that he could take all the stuff out and play with it. Once he figured that out, he had a blast playing with his new toys and the plastic Easter eggs. He wore himself out around 10:00 am, took a nap, and then woke up and dove right back in. All in all, I think he had a fun 1st Easter. 

So that's it, the final "1st holiday" before his birthday which is less than three weeks away!!