caves, canyons, cute towns...oh my!

While my nieces and mom were in town we went to Kartchner Caverns. I have been there before, and blogged about it too...but wow, that place is soo amazing! Ezra was really tired when we got there, and I knew he'd sleep the whole time we were in the cave, he just fought it a little for the first few minutes of the tour. I was wearing him, and helping him fall alseep, and even staying in the back so that he wouldn't disrupt the tour for others, when the oh-so-helpful tour guide says to me, "Did you bring a pacifier for him? That might help." Oh, I just love unsolicited advice. And, just for the record, he had a pacifier in his mouth already...and also slept the entire tour. :)

Our next stop for the day was Bisbee! Bisbee oh bisbee how I love you. Again, I know I've blogged about it before...but here are some photos from this trip there...
My oldest niece, Alyssa...


Haleigh pumping gas in the Prius. :)


And of course, what is a trip to Tucson without going to Sabino Canyon?


I think Ezra is showing off his ability to make fish lips in this photo...

Looking back...

Ryan is playing at Armitage tonight. I usually try to make these "solo nights" super productive in the crafting or cleaning department. However tonight after blogging, I decided to go back and re-read my blog from January 2010. I am not one to ever go back and read my blog, unless I'm looking for an entry to link to. I got a bit carried away reading and finally just made myself stop after I read from January-June of 2010. Next week I may just have to read July-December. I'm not saying that my blog is that fascinating and all should go back and read it, but for me, it was a fun trip down memory lane. So much has happened in less than a year...I was uber pregnant, we lived with Grammie, we had a memorable labor and delivery, discovered our new family member was a boy!, first mother's day, first father's day, picnics, family and friends visited, etc... I'm so glad to have this space to come back to and reflect on how good life is.

SNOW!

Look what we woke up to this morning!


It is a rare occasion indeed to get snow in Tucson, so a photo was necessary. At first I got all excited for Ezra to see the snow but then remembered he got a lot of snow play while we were in Michigan just a couple of months ago. :)

My running partner...

When I first started running with Ezra, he would fall right to sleep. Then came a (long) phase where he'd enjoy it for the first mile or so, but then insist on being carried the rest of the way (which was fine when I had my carrier...and a total arm workout when I forgot it).


These days, he almost gets excited about going in the stroller, and then talks for the first couple of miles...and snoozes the rest of the way home. In this particular photo he is holding his cell phone...some days he carries a tambourine and shakes it the whole time which is hilarious to all those driving by.


I usually let him stay sleeping in the stroller when we get home, but that has wound up causing a lot of 10pm baby bedtimes around these parts, and I'm not so sure how I feel about that. While I do love the little guy to pieces, I kind of look forward to having a few hours with just Ryan in the evening.

Reach for the stars...

I love these boys!

A Box Full of Fun!

Ezra has been enamored with this printer box for the past several weeks. It is truly the toy that never gets old around here. I think that is because there are so many fun things you can do with it!

Peek-a-boo through the handle...


King of the mountain...


Hide and go seek...


School bus...


Monster truck...


We also play a lot of "mailman" where mail is delivered to Ezra through this little slot...


Oh, and it makes a great garage for his trucks... The list goes on and on I tell you, hurry out to your recycling bin and pick up your own box today! :)

cholla ribs and cousins!

The weather has been GORGEOUS lately and perfect for playing at the park!

Limes, oh sour sour limes...

My family flew into town last night (YAY!!) and with that means a trip to the taco stand (we go to the one on the north side of 22nd just west of Wilmot in case anyone is wondering...it's a combo taco and sonoran hot dog stand).

Ezra had no interest in trying any of the rice, beans or meat. In fact, he has drastically stopped eating most foods and almost strictly nurses these days. However those limes were just too darn irresistible.

"Ummm...act tough, don't let them know I didn't know what I was biting into."


"Take another bite and pretend like I like it."


"Try to pawn the rest off on Grandma, yeah, good plan."


"Eww, these are really sour guys."


"Like oh-my-gosh-disgusting-I-can't-stop-spitting-sour!"


Haleigh and Alyssa feeling thankful they did not eat any limes. :)

Going greener...

I kind of want to act like a big time blogger right now and say, "You can find me over at Uncommon Childhood today." Which is actually totally true, I just feel a little pretentious in saying that.

So instead I will say, "I wrote an article on 10 (EASY and FREE) ways to make your home greener that was published at Uncommon Childhood today. I know I have told you about the site before, and if you haven't gone to it yet (and told all of your friends about it), you really should...I find the articles to be ultra inspiring!"

baking baking baking...

You may remember from my birth story (part one), Ryan wrote that prior to me going into labor, I did not bake. It is true, I think I probably could have counted the number of times I had baked cookies or anything since we had gotten married on one hand. That last urge of nesting though may have been foreshadowing who I'd be once I became a mother. These days I find myself baking cookies at least once a week, bread at least twice a week, as well as other random concoctions here and there. The other day, I just happened to do them all in one afternoon.

Honey Wheat Bread:



Hot dog buns (this was my first time making them, and I clearly did not cut/roll them properly, but they still tasted great...they would have been perfect had we had foot long hot dogs though. :)


And chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. Lately Ryan and I have been making the cookies together in the evening after Ezra goes to sleep. I love working in the kitchen together, although I don't feel like I can be quite as liberal with my raw cookie dough eating habits. :)

Hello Sunshine!

Last Saturday Ezra and I went hiking with the mamas and kiddos. I don't know the exact temp, but I'm going to guess it was in the mid-80's when we started at 4pm! It's too early in the year to be that warm, isn't it? I remembered to cover Ezra with sunscreen everywhere, except for the back of his neck...so he was a bit of a redneck that night, but fortunately better by the next morning.

Here we are. From left to right: Melissa with Calvin and Dominic, Blanca with Moses and Estrella, and Samantha with Josiah.


And me with Ezrito...


Look at Josiah...he is getting soo big, and has the most adorable smile!


Estrella and Dominic are so stinkin' cute together. Dominic loves to give Estrella kisses...she's not so sure about receiving them though. :)


The walk down was that perfect-cool-skin-temperature that I just love in the evenings in Tucson.

EC saves the day!

I have mentioned our use of EC (Elimination Communication) a few times here already. Here is one of my favorite times of using EC...

This past week Ezra had a fever and diarrhea most days. We went to the doctor on Friday to make sure it wasn't an ear infection or anything other than teething. Dr. Callie couldn't find anything, and said that the only other thing he would do is cath Ezra to see if he could have a UTI. Not really wanting to cath him if it wasn't totally necessary, we decided not to do it. That night I was telling Ryan the happenings of the day, and he said, "Why don't you just have Ezra pee in a cup at the doctor's office instead of having to cath him?" Brilliant! I hadn't even thought of that. So sure enough, we went in on Saturday, Ezra peed in a cup (much to our pediatrician's amazement) and it was determined that Ezra did not have a UTI. Yay! It appears as if these teeth are just a lot of work to push through for our lil' guy.

Teeth, are you in there?

I think I started to say that Ezra was teething when he was about 3 months old. The doctor said it sounded like it could be true with how much he was spitting up and how hard he wanted to bite down on everything we put in his mouth. But, here we are SEVEN months later and toothless. I am here to say though that I think Ezra is teething (for reals) this time. The dude has had a bad case of the runs and has been running a fever off and on for the past several days, not to mention wicked fussy. In some ways it's cute, the slightest little thing will just set him off, but in most ways it just breaks my heart because I truly don't know how to make it all better.

I am hoping that today is the day that a tooth pops through. Although, I must admit that I am going to miss the way he kisses me toothless...

Happy 55th Anniversary!

This post is about 3 weeks late, but my mom, dad and sister like daily updates, and I don't have much to report today...so here you go. :)

Ryan's grandparents celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary in January! Ryan and I have only been married for 5 years...I can't even imagine what life will be like when we are celebrating our 55th. By then I will have even more gray hair than I have now (and perhaps Ryan will have at least one gray hair?), Ezra will be able to talk, and he may even have a brother or sister. I will have sewn Ryan 20 more pajama bottoms, and maybe we'll be living back in Cambridge. Who knows for sure, but for now I'm loving this moment in time of loving our life together right here right now.

Okay, back to the anniversary party.

Here is the man of honor...


And his lovely wife (in the white blouse)...


Eleanor and Ezra learning all about life as a big kid from Isaih...


Eleanor giving Ezra an ear massage...


The fam!

Mama and Ezra...

A couple of weeks ago we went to a 1st birthday party for our friend Oliver! At the party, this photo was taken of Ezra and me...

...I just love it!

Hello, My Name is Abigail...

The evening of my 31st birthday, I announced to some friends that I wanted to start going by Abigail, but didn't know how to go about the change. In the end we decided that I would introduce myself as Abigail from here on out to people, so that new people would call me Abigail, while those that already know me as Abby can continue to just call me Abby.

There is no real reason for the change, other than I really like the name Abigail. And, a good friend of ours is also named Abby, so it can help alleviate confusion when we are hanging out in a group.

I won't lie, I still feel like an impostor when I introduce myself as Abigail, and kind of chuckle every time someone actually calls me Abigail...but perhaps overtime it will start to feel natural.

Dog Sitting

Among my growing random list of jobs I've had since moving to Tucson, one of the most consistent has been dog/house sitting. Last February I spent two weeks dog/tortoise/bird/chicken sitting for a friend's parents, and had the most relaxing/creative time.* And this year, they asked me to do the same for 5 days.

It has been a little more challenging this time because they have a 16-week old chocolate lab puppy that is recovering from a bladder infection and has to pee in the middle of the night (of course this has yet to coordinate with a time when Ezra is up nursing anyway), and all of the dogs (there are 3 in total) wake up at 6am for breakfast...again, while Ezra is sound asleep.

The nice thing though, is that the owners have 3 grandchildren, 2 of which are within two months of Ezra's age, so I didn't have to pack much besides clothes and diapers for him. And, a major plus of having dogs is that they clean up everything that Ezra drops while eating...and even Ezra post-eating. :)






Ezra would just squeal with delight as they tickled his fingers and toes. The only confusing part for Ezra is that he has recently started playing this game with us where he hands us something and then we hand it back to him. But when he handed the dogs his food, they didn't know to give it back...oh, sad news for Ezra. :(

This time of being here has once again been full of creativity. Here is a photo Ryan (sneakily) took on his phone of me cutting out bamboo to sew into diapers!


And, here are my guys working on their next big hit...


"Umm dad, that was out of tune...let me fix that for you..."


"Hmmm...something still seems off, let me look back here (and taste the guitar in the process)..."


"Perfect, now we are ready to jam..."


*It is crazy to look back at that post and see the things that I was making for Ezra before I even knew it was a "him". He is still wearing the diapers and bibs, but has long outgrown the outfit and use of the receiving blanket. Oh how I love seeing the lil' guy in handmade creations.

Ezra and Owen!

Among the many friends that Ezra has made at Birth Center play groups, I think Owen may be his bff. Owen's parents (Stephanie and Joel) were in the same pre-natal classes/appointments as Ryan and I...so I guess you could say they go way back.

We went over to their house the other day to play at the "tot lot" in their neighborhood, but Ezra was only interested in eating lots and lots of sand....so we decided to move the party inside.

Ezra takes no time in familiarizing himself with new places...


They were playing a duet on the keyboard, that was lovely, but the camera became a little distracting...so Ezra is instead singing into the mic, and Owen is singing harmonies...


Its so fun to see them tottin' around together...