swimming in michigan in december...

...indoors that is...

Christmas in Michigan...

Christmas in Michigan looks a lot like this...

Puzzles...

(me, Emma, and my dad)


Family...

(Lydia, Roger, and Nik)


(Barb and my Grandpa Echelbarger)


And, games!

(Ezra and Lizzy)


...we also added to Catch Phrase to the gaming mix this year...I highly recommend it for diverse age game playing (we had 7 year olds to 60 year olds playing).

I'm still dreaming of a white michigan...

The morning after we arrived in Michigan, I woke before both of my boys and ducked out for a run. Little did I know at the time that it would be a run in the snow!! I was one happy runner out there with white stuff in my hair.

I returned home to see this...

...they too were quite excited about the snow!

We warmed up by the fire with tea and the often requested as of late "cocoa" in hand...


That afternoon my sister's family came over and the ladies made sugary treats, while the gentlemen went to the movies...


It's been a nice Christmas with family here...though I'm still praying for more snow! :)

Merry Christmas to all....

After totally writing off the idea of making Ezra a stocking this year, I remembered that if I don't make it this year, then I will have two that I need to make next year! So I sat down, picked out my best "boyish" fabric from my stash and sewed away.

I'm happy with the simple results, although I was commenting to Ryan that seeing the three together makes ours (the outside ones) look so dated! Really, after just 6 Christmases together are our stockings already dated? Oh well, they are here to stay...that is the beauty of a stocking I suppose, it's kind of like a time capsule.





We had many a celebrations this year...

Christmas Eve morning we had brunch at Papa David's (Ryan's maternal grandfather). Quickly his calm grandfatherly bachelor home became over run by these two very fun toddlers (Ezra and his second-cousin, Miri)...




That afternoon, friends of Ryan's (and now mine :) from high school came over to hang out. This is the closest thing I got to a group shot...Katie with Ezra and Emily...


We went to church that evening and Ezra had fun playing with Miss Erika in the nursery. It is so heart-warming that he now loves going to the nursery. He talks about Miss Erika (and Phoebe, his friend who is often in the nursery with him) when we tell him that we are going to church.

Christmas morning...

Ezra slept in until 9am (score!). I love that he doesn't know yet that children all over America usually wake up anywhere from 1-4 hours "earlier than usual" on Christmas morning, but rather Ezra decides to sleep in an extra 30 minutes or so...

GG and Sara came over for cinnamon rolls and tea. And we passed out a few gifts. Ezra loved handing the gifts out...


Ezra was very quick at learning how fun it is to tear paper off of things...


...especially once he realized that underneath the shiny paper was his very own guitar from GG...


Our neighbors, Roger and Marlena, stopped by. It was nice to get to spend part of our morning with them since they have no family in town, and recently experienced the death of a daughter to cancer...


Then it was onto Aunt Terri's (Ryan's maternal aunt) for another Christmas celebration. Ezra loves to play in the kitchen, and early on, I gave in to letting him play with a butter knife when he is helping me... But now he has his own cutting kit, and is totally enamored by it and it's ability to "really cut" through hard things.




We stopped at Mary and Ray's on the way home and had a nice visit.

It was a wonderful and full weekend of celebrating and spending time with family.

We are now in Michigan. I'm sitting by the fireside as I type... I will post more on the happenings here in the next few days...

The Escape Artist Strikes Again...

...this time he succeeds!

We arrived at my parent's house in Michigan on Monday evening.

On Tuesday afternoon we put Ezra down for a nap, and about 2 hours after we put him down (though I'm sure that he had not fallen asleep since I could hear him reading/talking away the entire time), he showed up in the living room. He managed to climb out of his pack 'n play, open the difficult-to-open bedroom door, and climbed down the stairs. When I went to investigate his tactics, I discovered that our boy is smarter than I often realize. He folded up the pack 'n play mattress, leaving the covers over the mattress though so that when folded it would stand higher than normal. Used that as a step to fling his body over the side of the pack 'n play and then landed onto our bed which was nearby.

Deciding that I could out-smart him, I moved his pack 'n play to the other side of the bedroom wall so that he would not be able to use our bed as help to sneak out.

Wednesday afternoon we put Ezra down for a nap, and about 45 minutes after laying him down (he still hadn't fall asleep, because again we could hear him talking and singing away), he came downstairs, this time in Papa's arms. My dad thought that Ezra was waking up (vs. never having fallen asleep) so he "rescued him".

Thursday afternoon we put Ezra down for a nap, and about an hour or so later (I don't think we ever realized how long he talks for before falling asleep because at home we don't use a monitor)...he was still carrying on conversations with his book and giraffe. My mom stayed home with Ezra to babysit while he was napping, and Ryan and I snuck away to go out for lunch. We came home to Ezra eating lunch with Gram at the table. Apparently, he had once again folded up his mattress and climbed out of his bed (even without the help of our bed to land on) and was running up and down the hallway.

Luckily after each breakaway, he would settle down for a much needed nap, but man he is tricky...does this mean the beginning of a big boy bed is in sight??

Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to share a little about who we lended to for Kiva this year.

Meet Bonny:

Bonny is a 39-year-old married man with five children living in Kyenjojo, Uganda. He is responsible for taking care of the family, and his dream is to build a permanent house as he currently lives in a semi-permanent house. He has been growing tea for eight months, and he has two acres of land so far. He has challenges of weeds which affect the output of his tea plantation and his dream is to eliminate these weeds and to have a ten-acre tea plantation. Bonny intends to buy herbicides for controlling weeds with the loan.

We chose Uganda because of our connection to people there from when we visited (I was really hoping that we would know someone on the Kiva list, but I suppose that thinking is like when people say to me, "I know someone from Michigan, maybe you know each other...". Regardless, we loved our time there, and wanted to support someone from there.

We chose agriculture because I am growing my first garden this year, and we thought that would be a fun connection.

And, Bonny is growing tea...and we love to drink tea!

We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

lots of love,
The Greens

Winter Wonderlands!

The other night we went on a family date to Winterhaven, a neighborhood in Tucson that is known for their creative and ultra decorated homes for Christmas.

With Ezra bundled under a blanket in his stroller, and hot cocoa in hand, we walked the streets of the neighborhood along with hundreds of others. This is a tradition I'd like to hold on to.




It is quite impressive to walk through and see all of the lights. There was a house that even had a light and water show timed to music. I tried getting video of it, but of course the "performance" ended just as I thought to do it. Oops...next year!

Yesterday, Ezra and I headed up to Mt. Lemmon with some friends to play in the snow! I love that we can go just 25 miles straight up a mountain and be surrounded by pine trees and snow! Please remind me (often) to go there more!

Last year we took Ezra sledding when we were in Michigan (he was only 8 months old), and he really seemed to love it! This year however, the entire way down the hill he just kept saying, "no no no no no"...and then once at the bottom he said, "more!" However, once back at the top he really didn't want to go down again. So, instead we played in the snow, ate snow, played catch with snowballs, and rode around on our friend's kiddie snowmobile.








The snowman we admired...

escape artist...

Yesterday Ezra and I went park hopping with Jessica and Eleanor through their neighborhood.

Although there was a lot of great (and new to him) playground equipment...


...all he really wanted was to make it under the fence and into the pool.

Random December Fun

Here are a few other photos I managed to take over the past few weeks...

Me, Ezra, and Aunt Sara...


My birthday celebration at Lori's...


Ezra loving the gluten-free carrot cake from Gourmet Girls Gluten-Free Restaurant in Tucson...


Ezra and GG...


Ryan and Ezra using a toy wooden hammer to break up candy canes for peppermint bark...


The Green Family Christmas Tea at our house. (I only was able to take this one photo before my camera battery died. For more photos, check out Jess' blog.)

in his element...in the elements...

Ezra loves being outside. Rain, shine, cold, windy, hot...it doesn't matter. He literally wakes up and says "side" (outside) before he even nurses. He knows he has to wear shoes in order to go outside (too much cactus to go without) and so he will sometimes bring me his shoes to put on him, and attempt to go outside while totally naked, yet with shoes on. These days it's a little chilly for that...so pants and a shirt are also required, which is helping us a lot with motivating him to get dressed (the boy prefers his birthday suit at all times, so getting dressed can sometimes be a bit of a challenge).

Here he is playing out in the rain the other day. He is collecting rain to use to water the garden. A clever boy he is. So 'green'.


And, I think he decided he would try to see if he could stay dry for a few minutes by hiding under the bank roses.


Last week we went over to Owen's house to play in the tot lot in their neighborhood. It was a little chilly...so we made the boys hot cocoa to bring along.

Here they are in the "cocoa house"...


Seeing them play together always makes me smile!

Bloggdiddily...

I feel like I haven't posted in 'forever', however it has technically only been 4 days. Truthfully, I feel like I haven't done a lot of things in 'forever'. Clean the house, cook a good dinner, read a book, sew for fun, etc. But, there is a very good reason: I've been napping (A LOT!)...and growing a baby!

Yup, this is my official blog announcement...I'm pregnant!! :) I am 10 weeks along and this growing babe inside of me is the size of a kumquat.

Would you like to see some photos of the sweet little babe?
I knew you'd say yes.
Here you go...

(the head is on the left, feet to the right)

My due date is July 18th. I have been back at the birth center for my first appointment already, and it feels so so good to be there again.

Memorable Gifts

Here's a link to the most recent article I wrote for Uncommon Childhood. It's titled, "Memorable Gifts". ENJOY!

Cali Tour...

Ventura...

On Sunday morning, Ryan, Cameron, and Owen played as part of a benefit concert at Zoey's Cafe, the same venue they played at the night before. It was the perfect setting for Ezra to watch a show. He stood right at the foot of the stage (hands on stage, eyes glued on Ryan) for a bit (sadly I didn't take any photos because I was on guard in case he tried to climb on the stage...). And, once he tired of the show, we were able to go outside and play where it was warm and sunny. And if we are going to play outside where it's warm and sunny, we might as well get wet, right??








Santa Barbara...

Ezra helping Ryan make sure Cameron's guitar strings will last through the show...


Chowing down at a Vietnamese Restaurant before the show (well, a show for the guys, and bedtime for me and Ezra)...


San Luis Obispo!

Rated as the "Happiest City in North America". A friend of ours from Tucson now lives there, so we were able to meet up and spend the day together before the show.

The gum wall...yes, all that you see is ABC gum...


And yes, I added to it...



Avila Beach. I had it my head this whole tour that I wanted Ezra to get to play in the Pacific, since earlier this fall he got to play in the Atlantic. Check! The water was freezing (big surprise, right?), but he LOVED it...so did I. There is something that feels so great about playing on the beach, even when it's cold out, and especially when the sun is starting to set.

"Brrr...the water is soo cold!"


"Oh, but it's so fun...I can't resist playing in it with Uncle Cameron!"








The show in San Luis Obispo was a "house" concert...house is in quotes because the place was literally a mansion. Ryan, Ezra and I had our own guest house to stay in, while Owen and Cameron had a separate guest house of their own. The whole property is run on solar-power, which unfortunately for us meant that we were "asked not to turn on the (gas) heat"...as if they couldn't afford one night of gas heat so that we wouldn't freeze our booties off. Although it would have been the ideal concert for me to attend after putting Ezra to bed, we got the vibe that we were the entertainment, and not the guests. So, after I put Ezra to bed, I snuck into the gym which was in the building next to where we were staying. I worked-out with the lights off (didn't want to attract any attention to the fact that I was in the gym without permission). After lifting some weights, I was walking on the treadmill when I noticed one of the owner's outside of the window showing someone around the property. I literally dropped to the ground and hid...then called a friend. He he he...it was kind of fun being sneaky. The house concert turned out to be one of the most fun shows on the whole tour. It was a room of about 100 50+ year olds all dancing!

Our final stop on the tour was San Francisco!! This was definitely the stop I was looking forward to the most since 3 of my dearest friends were all going to be there!

From L-R, me, Natalie, Lori Moore (friend from San Luis Obispo who joined us in SF), Analisa, and Kerry.


Well, this turned out to be a super long post, so I'll save my "tour reflections" for another day... All in all, it was a great trip! So glad we went...we will definitely do it again, now with the knowledge of learning experiences we had from this trip.