Michigan!

We are in Michigan visiting my family for a late Christmas celebration. The weather has been wonderful, though I'd be very excited if we got a fresh snowfall (or even a blizzard!) any day now. :)

Ezra was quite eager to go...


The flight went well. In fact, if it hadn't been for our oh-so-hospitable-flight-attendant who (ahem) loudly offered, "coffee?", Ezra probably would have slept the entire time through both flights. But instead, we got to have fun looking out the window...




...reading books...


...and then sleeping soundly for the entire second flight.

I must admit that I much prefer flying over driving with Ezra. It is so nice to be able to hold him and nurse him without having to worry about taking him out of the car seat to do so.

great GREAT grandma...

Ezra has a lot of grandparents.
2 great great grandparents. (one lives in Tucson, the other in Indiana)
4 great grandparents
4 grandparents
...and several other pseudo grandparents!

Here is a photo of Ezra with his great great grandma on her 93rd birthday (or 94th?..she told us it was 100th, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't right either)....


Afterwards Ezra got to crawl around in the grass, which I am convinced he loves!

Christmas with friends...

The week before Christmas we had a wonderful Christmas dinner with friends over at Matt and Abby's house. According to Abby's count, there were 10 adults, 4 babies, and 2 toddlers...and (surprisingly) no pregnant mamas (only because Eileen wasn't able to make it that is).



poor ezra was not soo into the kids photo shoot, but here they are lined up in birth order.


What a lovely evening...oh, and it even ended with my favorite game, Celebrity! :)
Thanks Matt and Abby!

Merry Christmas!

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas celebration!
Here are some photos from our time with family and friends over the past couple of days...

cousins!

Ezra and Eleanor together last weekend... :)

Laundry Helper!

Ezra is quite into helping me "put away" the laundry these days...

7th Annual Ryanhood Christmas Concert

Saturday night our friends Blanca and Joel offered to babysit Ezra so that I could go to the Ryanhood concert! It was their 7th Annual Christmas Concert, and the only two I have missed were those before we were married. It was a wonderful show! Truly magical... and I promise I am not just saying that because Ryan is my husband and I work for the band. :)

It was a seated show at the Rialto Theatre....the stage was decorated all Christmas-y....and the guys were all dressed up!


To the right of Cameron where you see mic stands, there were 3 female vocalists that sang on a handful songs. ...lovely!

And then for another handful of songs, they sang unplugged around one mic...


As well as several NEW songs!! :)

Baby Calvin!

Baby Calvin Russell Giambelluca was born on 12/5/10 to Chris, Melissa and Dominic! A healthy 6lbs. 13oz and 20(?) inches.





The "older boys" receiving some TLC from Papa Russ...

2nd Annual Gingerbread House (ahem) "competition"

I don't really think it was a competition...and if it was, Samantha was sure to have won (again) this year. But, I didn't get a photo of her cute little gingerbread house, complete with shrubbery, so instead...we'll just showcase mine. Shall we?



And for the cookie exchange, I brought these guys...


You can find the tutorial on how to make them here.

Aren't they adorable?? I didn't come up with the idea, so I'm allowed to toot the horn of the clever person who did. Melted snowmen. The only type you see in Tucson.

Scared of the Dark Part 2

You may remember that about 16 months ago, we got broken into. If not, you can read about it here. We were home sleeping, and it totally shook us up, until approximately last month when we felt like we were finally over it. And then this past Friday, it happened again. Only this time we were not home, thankfully. The person broke our back fence to get in to our backyard from the wash (a wash is a dry riverbed for those not from the desert). Then they cut the window screen to our bedroom window, but the window was locked and they still couldn't open it, so they broke the window to unscrew the lock. Once the window was unlocked they opened it...and the alarm went off...and they ran off without stealing anything. I hate the fact that we feel like we need to have an alarm system. But, after having been home when they broke in last time, we really wanted it to sleep well at night, and truthfully, it does help us sleep better. And, it did its job this time, although we had hoped that the "ADT Alarm System" sticker that was on the window that they broke would have done the job... Ryan was joking that we should post our tax returns on our window to deter anyone from finding our house worthy of breaking in to...

Our friends Joel and Jacob came over that night to help us board up the window and vacuum up the glass...




And Mary, Ray, and Rachel came over the next day to help us repair the fence. They had just put in a new fence at the townhouse they own, and happened to have the exact amount leftover that we needed. A God thing indeed.


For the past couple of nights we have slept over at friend's houses...why don't grown-ups have sleepover parties? They are so much fun. I think we are going to bring them back.

Tonight we are home...and tomorrow morning friends are coming over to help install the new window. Baby steps.

why i don't own a dog...

...okay, so this blog post isn't really about we don't have a dog, but I just found out something rather embarrassing today.

But first, the back story....

In 5th or 6th grade we were reading aloud in class, the style where one student reads a paragraph, and then the next...and on and on. Well, I just so happened to have to read the word "Chihuahua" which I pronounced "cha-who-a-who-a" and got totally laughed at. (Don't worry, I can laugh about it now. :)

Well, today (and several times since living here) I saw a sign for Dachshund puppies. Which in my head I pronounced "Dah-shewned" and always wondered what kind of dog that was. Only today to have the "a-ha" moment of "oh my goodness, that is how you spell 'Doxin'"!!... Oh la la la...if I only I could say this doesn't happen too often, but the truth is, this is my every single day life...and it makes me laugh almost as hard as it makes Ryan laugh.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

...all throughout our home...

We put up our tree and decorated the house the day after Thanksgiving. I love having the house feeling all Christmas-y for as long as possible!




Ezra loves to stare at the lights, and thus we had to create a safety feature...


Last week Rachel was over and we baked (and have since eaten) our first batch of Christmas cookies!!


And today Mary, Ray, and Rachel came over with a huge load of wood for us to use in our fire place!!

A full load...

It used to be that I could wash all of Ezra's clothes plus all of our clothes in one load of laundry, but lately Ezra takes up his own load! At first I thought it was because it's colder out and therefore Ezra tends to wear clothes a little more frequently. But then, I looked at the line today and realized it's that his clothes are starting to get soo big that they take up more room! Our sweet lil' boy is not so little anymore. I weighed him today while at the Birth Center for mom and baby group and he weighed 19lbs. 9oz!

cheese...

With Ezra now being eight months old, I decided to give cheese a try again. It wasn't much. Just a little shredded cheese (Tillamook Extra Sharp Cheddar...no messing around here) on my burrito yesterday for dinner. Ezra then woke up SIX times throughout the night. Aye aye aye. Coincidence? I really do hope so.

Starting my 32nd year...

I have officially entered into my early-30's. Yes that is right, I turned 31 over the weekend. When I was 30, it was just that, 30. But 31, is definitely "early 30's". It means that I have experienced 365 more sunrises than when I was 30, the birth of our son which has brought at least 365 more tears of joy, well-over 365 kisses with my husband, many more than 365 emails I have not responded to, 365 more dreams, 365 meals shared with friends, ... I am quite happy to be in my 30's. Ryan and I were talking with some friends that we think the 30's are going to be a pretty rockin' time in our lives. Then we decided so would the 40's and the 50's...then it was determined that life in general is pretty rockin' and will continue on that way...though hip replacements might slow us down a bit. :)

Ryan, Ezra and I spent the afternoon hiking and picnicking at Sabino Canyon (my birthdays in MI and MA never consisted of 70 degree weather, so I have to take advantage of it!)...




That night we went to a friend's house where I was surprised with a tiara, apple pie...and new-to-us-kitchen-sink!! :)


Then Saturday (we believe in full-weekend birthday celebrations here!) we got together with friends and had a kickball game!!


(Ezra and I up to kick...)


In case you were hoping for a close up of my crown that Melissa made...here you go!


Followed by a picnic...




Playing kickball when 9 months pregnant...


...meant that about 12 hours later Dominic became a big brother!


Welcome Calvin Russell Giambelluca...we can't wait to celebrate your birthday weekend next year! (I'll post a photo as soon as I get one...he's a cutie!)

And on Sunday evening we had a lovely dinner with Ryan's mom, sister, and grammie...a wonderful way to end a birthday weekend!