Ponderings

I've been thinking about Ezekiel lately...the other one. Mostly about when he turned all those bones to flesh. (which inevitably gets this song stuck in my head...the leg bone connected to the foot bone...dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones) Anyways, God asks him "Son of Man, can these bones live?" And good old Zeke, he answers, "Oh Lord God, only You know."

I love that.

Smart man, that Ezekiel. Were I as smart as him. "Our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished." indeed.

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I sat in the living room with my boys folding towels the other day. How I imagined it going- me folding bath towels, Zeke folding the hand towels, and Malachi playing quietly beside us. How it really was-me folding bath towels, Zeke folding one hand towel and then galloping around in circles whipping the rest of them in the air like crazy, and Malachi angrily trying to climb into the laundry basket until it tipped over and trapped him (which somehow satisfied him).

Reality hardly ever turns out the way I imagine it. But once you get over the shock and disappointment of life ignoring your plans, it also hardly ever turns out worse either.

I think that knowledge is one of the biggest things that I want to impart upon my children.

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Zeke, for the first time, has been making friends, and playing with other children. It's a big step for us, and one that I honestly wasn't sure was ever going to happen.

There is a very fine line between accepting a persons limitations and personality faults, and underestimating their ability to grow and I don't think I've been walking it very well with Zeke.

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Fall has arrived, and with it the yarn has come out. The first hat of the season (the one Zeke is wearing, Mal's is from another year).

I say this every year, but this year I am seriously making something for myself. I even have the pattern all picked out. I even have some yarn, a gorgeous green bamboo, purchased.

We took a lot of Easter pictures

We will start from the beginning. Friday Zeke and I bought a hat that neither of us could resist. For Easter. Or at least that's what we told Daddy. Upon coming home Zeke took off his pants, served himself some dried cranberries, and told me "cheese".
When I offered him a slice of cheddar he looked at me like he thought maybe I was an idiot. "cheese" he insisted pointing to his hat. He wanted his picture taken.
When I offered to put his pants back on for the picture he looked at me like now he KNEW I was an idiot.
He also thought the baby would like a picture with the hat.
But I convinced him he looked better without it.

Saturday Josh inadvertently dressed himself and Zeke in matching clothes.I took it as an excuse to get a good picture of the two of them.
But neither one would take me quite seriously.
We also got around to dying eggs on Saturday. I had at first planned to skip it this year. Well no, at FIRST I was going to use natural dyes. But I guess you have to boil the eggs in the dye forever, and patience is not a virtue my child has. THEN I decided to skip it. Because an obsessive compulsive neat freak, a 1 year old, and cups of vinegar dye that you are SUPPOSED to be dropping things into do not go well together.
But then I found a dying method that might work for us.
You just pour the dye into baggies.
And squish away.


And voila!
Zeke was impressed, although he wanted to make them ALL yellow. I probably should have let him...but I didnt.
Malachi didnt dye eggs.
But I still took photos.
Then the boys went to bed and I stayed up past my bedtime "hiding" eggs in various obvious locations around the house in the name of the Easter bunny.
And finishing up the last touches on these guys.
And setting up their baskets. The eggs were the Easter Bunnie's offering in trade of baskets full of peeps, raisins, crayons, the hidden eggs, and a new binkie, but no plastic grass (remember the OC neat freak?). Oh and also the toy that they'd seen me making all week... Ok, maybe there were some loopholes in the story.

It was worth it in the morning, though. Zeke was so excited to find his eggs!At first he gave all the eggs he found to "brudda".

But then he realized that they had candy in them.
And he opened each one, took a single candy, put it on the couch, and jumped around in circles.
.


Then we went to church. It was only about as bad as it always is. Mal cried so I missed the first 20 minutes. Zeke played with matchbox cars really really loudly under our pew, making everyone around us laugh. "bvvvvv bvvvvv beep beep, bye!" Josh and I swore that next week we would really really put him in the nursery...maybe both of them. About 100 old ladies called our family beautiful and Zeke got his cheeks pinched 2 times. Mal faked sleep to avoid a similar fate.
Then we came home to take really cute pictures.
This is sadly the best one I got of the two of them, I thought maybe it was the cold that was making Mal so crabby looking so we moved inside.

But by then, Zeke wasnt into it any longer. So I decided, you know, since this whole picture taking thing was working out so well for me, I might as well get a few of Mal to photoshop all nice for his "3 month" pictures.
Yeah...he remained fairly stony faces.
But I did like these two.


And then I forced Zeke to take one more...

Bribery

I wanted to get a picture of Zeke in his new hat. Because, let me tell you, this hat caused me endless trouble. Mostly because I thought, hey, I will spice things up and crochet it from the bottom up. This is not the logical way to make a hat but I guess after 2 successes already this season I was getting vain. It ended up way too short for my son's apparently bulbous head. And as I explained to Josh in my frustration that I was going to do thus and thus and thus to fix my mistake he said, very innocently, "Wouldn't it be faster to just start over?"

I am very ashamed to admit that I let my pregnancy show a little bit at that moment, folks, because judging from the speed at which my husband back peddled THAT comment, the look I gave him must have taught him to remember his mortality. I am even more ashamed to admit that he was right. Yes, it would have been a lot faster to just start over, not to mention less frustrating and more productive, with the added bonus that the stripe would have ended up in the correct place, and not slightly too high. But I was in no mood to admit my mistakes so far as to actually START OVER. And I was justly punished by 2 days worth of frustration and pulling out stitches.

So, when I finished the hat today, I was pretty excited to be done with it and show off my handi-work. Zeke was less excited to be a model.

He was more interested in playing.

I am not very ashamed to admit that I ended up bribing him with my Crystal Light. A sip for a smile.
Uhhh...you gotta do better than THAT buddy.

There's my cheesy boy.
Sometimes I wonder if its just me, or if he really IS the cutest kid ever.

Still snowing

This:
if you can believe it, is what my front yard STILL looks like. In APRIL. I have been buying groceries at every Cadberry Egg run buying Cadberry Eggs at every grocery run for weeks. It's spring!
(come on, you know you do it too...)

I even found artichokes that didn't look dead. I HAS to be spring! Someone, please, inform the weather.

After all, I dont think Ezekiel can take anymore of this...
(Ok, ok, this isnt Zeke's reaction to another 2 inches of snow this morning. I think this is his reaction to being told "no, he couldnt eat tape." if I'm remembering right...the tantrums tend to all run together... But I thought about doing the same thing when I looked out the window.)

Anyways, we subsequently had a stay-at-home day today. A fall-asleep-in-your-highchair-eating-avacado-and-mozzerella kind of day.

But the good news is I spent the time FINALLY finishing Molly's doll.
Because yes, this rather ugly little Amigurumi doll took me about 3 months to finish.

My excuses run thus:
I didnt have a pattern so I was making it up as I went along.
I dont have a lot of time for my crafts these days, you know, having a son and a blog.
I'm burnt out on crocheting anyways after the beginning of the winter and all the stuff I made for Christmas gifts and Zeke's winter gear.
And the hair took me at LEAST a month of that time. Sewing doll hair is tedious and time consuming work.

Zeke's doll...
which is a rather perfected version of Molly's that I am about half finished with (although I realized too late that I should have made Molly's the perfected version of Zeke's since Z probably wont care if its ugly and M will) is definitely wearing a hat.

PS when I finish my doll pattern (because I'm still a little lost on the legs) I will be sure to offer it up to anyone that crochets.

So many new things

This is going to be a loooong post. Because I have SO MUCH to say. First we need to discuss today. Then all the new things Ezekiel has been doing, and there are A LOT. Then I wanted to talk about my newest hobby. And my new carseat. So brace yourself people. Also, there are a few pictures, although Monday I will update EVEN MORE. Because tomorrow Zeke is going go wear his SUPER CUTE Christmas outfit from Josh and Jen to church, and we will take pics when we get home, in front of a decorated tree of course! Another warning before we begin, there will be A LOT OF THIS because I am all caffeinated up! Apparently the 2 or 3 cups of Joe I had in Boise over the holiday weekend got me re-addicted...

Soooooo. Today Zeke really showed his Christmas spirit! He was happy and content in not only 1, not only 2, not even only in 3, but 4 WHOLE STORES of Christmas shopping in a ROW! Seriously. Then we even went to lunch at Tomato Street. And he was STILL HAPPY. He sat in the high chair the whole time playing with a soup spoon! Daddy tried to give him a crayon to play with. I almost stopped him, what a silly daddy trying to teach his 5 month old to color right? But I decided not to. I don't want to be "that" mom, if you know what I mean. Daddy also let him drink some water out of a straw, and I thought that was silly too, but then guess what? He drank out of it! So I guess mommies dont always know best do they? Psss, dont let Josh know! But I am getting ahead of myself, into the "new things" section and I'm not done talking about today! After lunch it was almost 3 o clock. Way past nap time. So we went home for a while so Zeke could rest. He went right to sleep, woke up 2 hours later, and then off we went again to buy a Christmas tree. And he was STILL HAPPY. And let me tell you, it was COLD. That coat Grandma Kim bought him sure came in handy! OF course by the time we got home, had dinner, had our bath, bla bla bla, it was too late to decorate it. So we will do so after church tomorrow.
Now, on to NEW THINGS. Zeke finally has started what I will admit is crawling. At least he took 3 consecutive "steps" in a row. Which was the definition of crawling that Josh and I decided on for our bet. In fact, the other day when I put him on our bedroom floor to play while I showered, he followed me into the bathroom and almost got stepped on when I got out! Then yesterday he followed Josh and I into the kitchen to see what we where doing in there! Its a whole new world, let me tell you. And very exciting.

Another new thing is Zeke is finally sitting up sometimes of his own will. This is something he has refused to do until now. He is still really unsteady but at least he is willing to work on it now right? He especially likes to sit up in the bath, he gets some really good splashes in let me tell you! Here is a picture of him with his favorite bath toy, its a ducky. We could NEVER get him to do this before. Like I said, still very wobbly, and especially in the bath. Who ever heard of a baby that crawled before he sat? But I am hopeful that he will be sitting soon. And we're going to buy one of those sticky bath mats I think...

My last new thing was drinking out of a straw. We discovered this today and were fairly amazed. We started just dropping the water into his mouth with the straw. But then he got mad whenever we werent doing this so we tried letting him suck it up. I really didnt think it woudl work but he must of understood there was good stuff in there because he sucked some right up. Maybe I should try that sippy cup again?

Now, my latest new hobby has been crocheting Amigurumi, because lets admit it, one small boy needs only so many hats. And I haven't been able to post any because they are going to various small cousins as Christmas gifts and I dont want to spoil the surprise cuteness. But in some recent frustration with trying to figure out how to make a lambs head I decided to start a simple project until I figured it out. Hence the creation of Zeke's new pet octopus! Obviously he is Japanese. And yet to be named. Any ideas?

What was last? Oy vey. Oh yes. The car seat. After much unnecessary stress over such a relatively easy decision I decided that I wanted the Radian65. I know that many of you were on the edge of your proverbial seat about this. I like how tall it goes compared to most car seats, the fact that it allows a 5 point harness until 65 pounds, and the fact that it will FIT INTO MY CAR. It is suppose to arrive between the 11th and 17th. So that is exciting. I know Zeke will be pleased to fit into a car seat with his coat in, which currently he cannot.

Anywhos I am out. PS Do you like the linkies? Its going to be my new thing. ;)