Ezekiel, my dear boy. YOU are 15 months old. Sometime last month, it dawned on me that you aren't a baby so much anymore. You are a total little boy. If I dare say, you are growing up even faster right now, than you did in your first few months of life.
15 Months
You LOVE your dad. You are constantly throwing up your hands in a quizzical way and asking "Dada?" Most often, my answer is that he is at school or studying. But sometimes, he's just in another room, and you ask where he is and then go off to find him.
You are still wearing your medium G diapers (barely) and your large ones. You wear size 4 disposables.
You are wearing mostly 18 month clothing.
You STILL HAVE NO TEETH. We have discussed baby dentures. You have 9 more months before we officially freak out.
You slept for 10 hours straight the other night in your crib. You have never done this - usually you are good for only about 5 hours at a time.
When I'm in the kitchen cooking a meal, you come and beg me to let you sit up on the counter. You LOVE to watch me cooking. Especially in the morning when I'm making you scrambled eggs with salsa, which is just about your favorite thing ever.
We take you to the Kroc Center 1-2 times a week. You have so much fun splashing around. You do not like the life-jackets though. You love to sit on the edge and I count to three and you scoot off the edge into my arms in the water. Everyone always tells you what a brave little boy you are.
You are really into just observing things. When I'm crafting something or sewing, you just want to sit at the table on a chair next to me and watch. You watch quietly for a very long time!
You have been walking for 2 months now and are very confidant! Even the last few times being in the water at the Kroc Center, you can tell how much more confidant you are in the water too.
When you walk, you either hold your arms out in front of you, making tight fists, to help balance you, or your swing your arms at your side (also tight fists). So cute.
You have mastered your goofy cheesy grin when I pull out my camera.
You no longer enjoy holding my hand as we walk. Rather, you dislike holding it, because you know you have to stick with mommy when you hold my hand. This breaks my heart a little bit.
As of 14 months, you have been in 8 states: Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Colorado, Texas, Arizona, Nevada and California. You little world traveler, you!
You love to sleep on your side. Whether sleeping in your crib or in our bed, you usually are curled up on your side with your knees bent... Just like how mama always sleeps. :)
You have started TALKING. Honest to goodness talking. Not just baby babble, but you are saying words. And learning them SO fast. Currently you are saying:
"Dada" - Dad
"Maum" - Mom
"Buh bye!" - You say bye bye SO clearly! It's shocking to hear actual words come out of you! Whenever we put shoes on or you hear the door open/close you say bye bye.
"Bayou" - Balloon. You always have spotted balloons when we've been out and about, but now you point at them and excitedly tell me "bayou!"
"Babao" - Ball. Obsessed with balls. Anything that is spherical and resembles a ball actually. We have to be careful when you want to lift grandma's big glass decor ball because you want to play with it!
"Peas" or "Plea" - Please. You haven't yet put the two together. Right when you turned one years old, we taught you to sign "more" when you wanted food, because at the time, you just hollered LOUDLY when you wanted food. This was a much quieter alternative. Now, you hardly ever sign - you just say "pea pea pea?!" It's quite possibly the most adorable thing ever.
"Da du" - Thank you. Every so often, we get a "da du" out of you, following your "pea" for food. :)
You also have got your animal noises down! So far you've mastered:
"pppppppht" - Elephant
"woof!" - Puppy
"weoah" - Kitty
"raah" - Lion
"baa!" - Sheep
"moooo" - Cow
You are obsessed with puppies. You always see them before I do - and you even recognize the most abstract cartoon puppies. Whenever you see one, you either point and "woof woof woof!" or lightly grab my chin, turn my face to look at you and "woof woof woof". It's SO adorable. I'm tempted to buy you a puppy. ;)
When we ask you where your nose and ears are, you KNOW! You point to them and grin at us.
You love to stand at a doorway, and with your body showing, you hid your face behind the wall and then pop out and say "boo!". SO cute.
I'm going to try to keep these monthly updates coming, little man. I want to remember when you did things and when you learned new things. Mama loves you and can't wait to see what more you'll learn and experience this next month. :)
I enjoyed my blogging break! I got more done than I thought I would - and I chose a good week to take a break from because, as it would be, Zeek was cranky pretty much the entire week. He had a fever for 3 days. I would say he's teething, but ... I'm not going to get my hopes up. But he woke up a few times this week in the middle of the night with screaming - pained screaming - until I was able to get teething gel on him. And he's been uber clingy. Which sometimes gets annoying when I can't do anything by myself around the house - but this week, it was especially sweet. He hasn't cuddled with his head on my shoulder since he was about 6 months old! Every time this week that I would pick him up, he would just lay his head down on my shoulder and relax completely in my arms. It was the sweetest thing.
Despite the overall unhappy, not-feeling-good baby, we had a really very enjoyable week.
Here's what we've been up to...
Friday, Saturday and Sunday (the week before), I was at a women's retreat with my lovely friends from my church (East Valley Vineyard Church). It was the first time I was away from Zeek all day.... Like ALL day long. On Saturday I was gone from 8:30 am till 12:30 am! Sky did great with Zeek all day long - he took him to the park at the riverfront to play and rode the carousal. They helped Zeek's uncle with his pottery class. They had a man-date. :)
On Monday, Zeek and I went to Bauman Farm. We haven't been there since we took Zeek back during all the harvest festivities. The sun was shining and the farm was beautiful!
We went into the barn and the roosters were all cock-a-doodling and walking around.
(Time for a haircut!)
We paid a quarter for a handful of food to feed the goats.
We saw goose eggs...
On Tuesday...
We went to the COLDPLAY concert! Boooyah.
Funny story: this hot date was all planned out by my husband. He found out about the concert (I hadn't even heard they were coming nearby!) and purchased the tickets as a surprise. Unfortunately, when he thought about having the tickets mailed instead of waiting for them at will call, he didn't think about the fact that I'm the one who checks the mail every day... and the envelope they came in looked like junk mail to me. And what do I do with junk mail? Rip it in half without opening it, and throw it in the recycle bin... Don't worry, I didn't do that with these tickets...but I was super close to it. I was ready to rip and then thought, well maybe I should open this one... So glad I did! I opened it up and:
Whoo hoo! With ticket price, fees and taxes, these seats were over $100 each...and we were THE nosebleed seats. Like you couldn't sit ANY higher than we were. We had the wall to our backs. But we loved it anyway. :)
These were the bracelets that they shoved at us as we walked through the doors and told us, "these are part of the show, put them on." As Coldplay was about to go on, signs flashed all around "Put on your bracelet. It's part of the show." And suddenly...I felt like I was about to watch Josie and the Pussycats and we were going to have a suddenly strong desire to go to Target after the show and buy a bunch of things we didn't need. :)
(Tell me you've seen that movie and know what I'm talking about!!)
Me and Sky. :) And a terribly blurry picture. Shame on you iphone.
The cool running man that ran with the beat!
After the show started and I saw what the bracelets were for, I felt a little better.
And not only better - but I felt a little bit in awe. How incredible to have all these different bracelets all going at different times to the music! How do you program that?!
The poor guy in front of us had his bracelet flashing the entire show (where mine only flashed some during a few songs). I felt bad for him because it seemed to really annoy him! :)
And, the song that Skyler said he paid the $100 for:
On Wednesday, my little eager beaver got all of his seeds in the mail. He's very excited to garden this year! He's taking an organic gardening class right now, on top of nursing school.
I always tell him not to open the garage up because I don't want the neighbors to see the light and think we're growing weed... *sigh*
On Friday, Zeek and I went to my parents house. Grandpa and grandma watched Zeek and his cousins while me and my sister joined my cousin and some friends in a birthday celebration! Happy Hour at Vault 244, dinner at Cappies and a couple games of pool at Riley's. Good evening with awesome friends. :)
Saturday, Zeek and I played in the sunshine on Grandpa's "farm" while Skyler was in his first 12 hour clinical at Salem Hospital. (It's a 1/2 acre, so not really a farm...but they have a barn, a riding lawn mower aka tractor and a big garden!) :)
Zeek doing his usual: digging in the dirt and "stirring" air in a cup (or bucket in this case!).
(Oh, and you might notice, Zeek DID get a haircut Wednesday!)
And while he played, I worked on this:
I made good headway. Hopefully I can find time to finish it in the next couple weeks and I'll show you all what it is, do not fear! ;)
Ezekiel had many wagon rides from his cousins.
Lots of doting on from cousin Kaily.
(Who also helped me with stripping the finish off of the cabinet!)
And had tractor rides with Grandpa!
Saturday night, Zeek got a sink bath. He has all out decided he hates his baby bath tub anymore. He screams and screams and won't sit down and...it's a mess. We've tried all sorts of things to make him enjoy his bath, but nothing has been successful. So, we tried the sink bath again. And it was clearly a winner, so I suppose we'll be doing this for a while now.
Anything to get the stinky boy to bathe!
And finally, yesterday (Sunday), we headed to our favorite breakfast buffet, Sweet Tomatoes, and enjoyed a delicious breakfast together. Since it's so close to Bridgeport Village, we decided to stop in to REI really quick. Really quick ended up being two hours.
And we ended up coming home with this:
Yes! A bike CAN fit in the back of a Prius!
1 bike for mama
3 bike helmets for all of us
1 bike lock
2 bike water bottle holders
1 bike water bottle
1 squishy seat cover for my bike
We had talked recently about using some of our tax refund money (why didn't anyone tell me it's super awesome to be able to claim a kid on taxes?!) to get us some sweet new bikes for some good free entertainment and exercise!
The long REI trip tuckered this poor guy out:
After we returned home, after a nap and after Skyler went to Santiam Bicycles downtown to buy his own bike that he had his eye on, we suited up and went for our first family bike ride!
The sun was shining and we decided to head from our home to downtown Salem to the Riverfront park. It was about 25 minutes to get there, but thankfully we were able to ride back neighborhood roads almost the entire way there. Zeek freaked out at first with his helmet on his head, but after just a few short minutes of riding, he was quite content. The way home, he actually was singing to himself almost the whole time. It was so precious.
Love my new blue bike!
Trying to pry his helmet off!
Unfortunately, the only toddler helmet that REI carried was a dorky comic book one...
oh well. At least I don't have to wear it! ;)
Also during the week, I worked on a few more projects for Zeek's room!
And that's what we've been up to since we last talked!
Just wanted to pop in and let you all know I'm taking a little blogging break this week. :)
It's a busy week and I'm trying to "reduce" the busy-ness however I can...and taking a blogging break is an easy thing for me cut out and gain more time from.
But I promise I'll be back next week, ready to tell you all of the adventures, struggles, and enjoyments of this week.
Here's a little sneak peak:
Understatement: EXCITED for tonight. Hot date. Ethiopian food. Coldplay. Yes, please!
My favorite music video of theirs:
Hope you're all having a great week - and hope you Oregonians have been enjoying this awesome sunny weather we've been having. I *almost* thought I needed to find my sunscreen, for a minute there. :)
I know, I know. I said I didn't have time for blogging today. But then I did my Esther Bible study last night and I needed to write. To share what just hit my heart like a wall of brick's. (In the best way possible.)
Growing up, and even recently, I've always quietly wished that I lived in another time period. Maybe 50 or 60 years ago. A simpler time. A time where farming, homeschooling, sewing, building things yourself, cooking family meals, and having big families were more commonplace. More normal. I always thought maybe, just maybe, we'd "fit in" a little easier in an earlier time period. My grandma was Amish. I often would wonder what my life would have been like, if she hadn't left the Amish community and my mother grew up Amish. And I grew up Amish.
Or if I grew up a 50's housewife. Cute dress, high heels, apron and all. There was always just something alluring about the 50's and 60's to me.
I've had more than one conversation with God that went something like this:
"God, why am I here, right now, in the 21st century? Why didn't I live earlier? I would've liked it better then. I liked this country's values better then. I liked the lifestyles better then. Why oh why did you think it would be better to have me here now, rather than earlier? I wish you would have brought me to earth in the 50's!"
How foolish of me to question why God has me here, now. I know He didn't make a mistake of when He wanted me here on Earth. Last night, I finally felt like I found my answer to "why now?"
The answer to "And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?" Esther 4:14. It's Him. He knows why I am here for such a time as this.
Let me back up a bit, and give you a little background on the book of Esther: Queen Esther has just learned of an edict from King Xerxes (her husband) that all Jews will be killed in a matter of months. Mordecai, Esther's beloved Uncle who raised her (both Jewish), urged Esther to go to the King to plead that he have mercy on their people. Esther, knowing full well that the penalty for anyone who approaches the King without being summoned is death, unless he has compassion on you, and taking into account that he hadn't summoned her for thirty days, she relays to Mordecai her worry for her life. Mordecai responds that if she doesn't do anything, she will not escape the edict just because she lives in the King's house; her and her family will also perish. If she does go to the King to plead for mercy, she may die, but she also may receive favor from the King. Mordecai tells her,
"Who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?"
Such a time as this. Beth Moore paints this picture in her study, of Mordecai and Esther's conversation (if you are unfamiliar with the story of Esther, bear with me):
"Esther, what if you were born for this very moment? Think of how unlikely your position is! What about all the events that led to your queenship! Why on earth did we stay here and not go to Jerusalem when we could? Why was Vashti (the Queen prior to Esther) disposed?Why were you the exact right age at the exact right time to be chosen for harem? Why, amid so many girls, were the eunuchs so partial to you? Why did they go out of their way to help you? More astonishingly, why did the king have such favor on you? Why didn't he just make you one of his concubines? What in the world made him marry you and set the crown on your head? Esther! Open your eyes! Why is a Jewish woman the Queen of Persia at such a time as this? Must it not be providence? Must it not be God?"
And that's where it hit me. Must it not be God.
Beth Moore went on to say:
"You have been placed in your sphere of influence, regardless of the size you perceive it to be, 'for such a time as this'. Ecclesiastes 3:2 tells us there is 'a time to be born and a time to die'. God cut out those exact perimeters for you and me on the kingdom calendar so that we would be positioned on earth right now."
I love that. God wants me here. Right here, right now. HE cut out the time-frame for me on the calendar. He didn't make a mistake. He has me here doing what I'm doing at this time in life, because He planned it that way. He wanted me born in 1986. And He wanted me still here and alive today in 2012.
I always wanted a testimony. One like you hear in high school youth group. Stories of drug addicts and alcoholics and prostitutes having an incredible encounter with God and then turning their life around and living radically for Him. Not that I wanted any of those things in my own life: drugs, alcoholism or prostitution. But I wanted something more exciting than, "Oh hey, I grew up Christian. And here I am today!" I wanted something that spoke to other people, that resonated with them. That they could see the power of God just dripping off of my life's testimony. That they would know that my life wouldn't have turned around by anything except the grace of God.
I remember as my ex-husband and I were beginning to take the path towards divorce. I remember pleading with him to not leave me. I remember excitedly telling him, out of desperation, that we could have a great testimony if we stayed together. That people would know it was only by the grace of God that we were still together.
I remember being devastated as we signed the divorce paperwork, the great-testimony fantasy being crushed right before me. And then, sometime in the year between my divorce and meeting Skyler, I remember realizing that my entire life is a testimony for God, no matter how "dull" or how many "lost opportunities" for testimony that I saw in my own life. God saw bigger. God saw better than I could ever have.
I didn't fall apart in a big old mess after my divorce. That was testimony to God's grace and compassion. I didn't commit suicide, as I had contemplated shortly before my divorce. That was testimony to God's goodness and love for me. I met Skyler, the man I know without doubt, was the man God designed to be my husband. That was testimony to God's perfect plan. I gave birth to an incredible, joyful son. That was testimony that God blesses those who seek Him.
Slowly, I'm realizing that I do have a testimony. I do have a purpose, a plan. And what better time to have my testimony unfold before my eyes, than right now. Right now, on God's calendar. Not mine. I think I like it better than way, anyways. :)
But, I'm going to leave you with a quick blog anyway. :)
'Cause that's how I roll.
It's Tuesday night.
10:00 pm.
I put the boy in bed an hour ago.
I just reheated a cup of coffee from the pot this morning and I'm about to settle in and finish up three more days worth of study's for the Esther study by Beth Moore that I am doing with a group of awesome ladies from my church.
We meet every other Wednesday.
Which is tomorrow.
We have 2 weeks to do 5 days of study's.
If you aren't too hot at math, that's 14 days to do 5 days of study's.
And I put them all off until today.
Why?
Because we've been busy bee's over here.
Working hard on a new online venture.
I'll give you the details soon.
I promise. :)
I wanted to at least quickly get on here and leave you with a little something cute to gaze at.
Because I know how each of you rolls out of bed every morning and goes straight to your computer to see if that Kayla Danelle girl has posted anything new...
Right?! ;)
So, here's your cuteness for today:
Ezekiel recently discovered how amazingly awesome peas are.
They are pretty much his favorite thing ever.
He carefully grabs a pea with his right hand.
Switches it to his left hand.
Puts it carefully and precisely between his thumb and pointer finger on his right hand.
And shoves it happily into his adorable little mouth.
Then shoves it in there a little further, just to make sure it stays put.
He does this over and over again.
Until, all of the sudden...
His chipmunk cheeks are mysteriously bulging...
But there's always room for one more. :)
Because he has no teeth, he doesn't eat the shell usually. Instead, all inside his mouth, he separates the inside of the pea from the shell, eats the pea, and moves the shell to the left side of his mouth first. Once the left cheek is full, he begins to fill the right side.
And eventually mom has to say enough is enough, force her finger inside his iron jaw, and pry his mouth open far enough to scoop out the pea shells.
And then he starts all over again. :)
I love his love for peas. And how careful he is with them. :)
Happy Wednesday, friends!
Hope you've all been having a great week so far.
I'm looking forward to a slightly busy, but very fun friend filled day today!
Wow. I feel the "blog love". Or the Pinterest love...I guess some of both!
On that note, after reading some stuff on legal issues with Pinterest (read here and here), I'm not sure what all to think...I've sort of lost interest in it and haven't been on it hardly at all for the last month or so. Sad. It is such a cool idea, but stinks when things get all legally icky.
As far as my blog is concerned, I'm totally flattered when people "pin" my stuff. Like, it adds an extra bounce in my step, kind of flattered. But I can understand why some people (photographers, shop owners, etc.) might not want their stuff to get pinned.
Anyway, all that to say - I cannot believe one of my projects has been "pinned" so much! I've even had random friends tell me they saw in on Pinterest before they knew it was mine. One friend saw it on the main DIY section. My sister-in-law's friend in Texas even saw it on Pinterest and thought it my SIL would like it, even before she went to her house and saw the exact one on her shelf! Too funny. :)
What do you guys think about Pinterest?? Anyone being cautious and deleting their accounts?
