10 & 11 Month update!

10 Months - 27 Pounds

11 Months

So I missed our 10 month update due to life being crazy busy and the weather being nice! Ezekiel LOVES being outside so we spend most of our days outside doing something fun; hey we live in Minnesota we gotta live up the nice days that we have since they are few and far between (though we have been quite blessed this last year)! He loves going for walks, long or short or to the park to swing he just loves to see the everything that is going on! He also loves to zip around the patio in our backyard in the walker; he really got the hang of it last month!

We also got a swing in the backyard that hangs from the tree and we have yet to out swing him; I think he would stay in there all day!

Mike really wanted a wind chime for our backyard because it reminds him of being at his Grandpa and Grandma's house when he was a little boy, so I found the one that is the right sound and it has quickly become a favorite of Ezekiel's as well! When he hears it he stops to listen and then when he wants to ring it he points to it and says "eh!" so then we head outside to ring the wind chime; he just loves it!

Ezekiel hasn't been much for crawling; he has been much more interested in walking! But he does do a mountain climber / downward dog sort of crawl; which has you can imagine is way harder than normal crawling! He gets himself from sitting to his tummy, but it is pretty much just a flop! LOL! He is just so thick that its hard for him to get his legs under himself to right into a crawling position! He pulls himself up, but not very often because it requires A LOT of effort and at this point there are few things that he wants bad enough to put that much effort into getting! LOL! Once standing he does cruise around ALL over the place!

Crusin' towards me too fast for me to get a picture!

Here is a link to a video of him crusin' around his toy room: Click to watch video of Ezekiel Crusin'  Its a little long, but its fun to see how he has figured out how he can get around the house. That little activity table is his little walker, he can get everywhere with that thing 

    

and then he just holds on to the wall to get to where he wants to go!

 

He can also bend over and pick stuff up from a standing position,

sometimes he will just bend over and put his hand on the ground, we call that his football stance! Dada has been teaching him proper form already! A few months back Grandpa Bear taught him how to fall onto his bottom and have it be fun rather than scary, so now whenever we want him to sit down we just say "boop" and he will sit down!

Grandpa Bear has also taught him to do the satisfied sigh after he takes a drink of water out of his sippy cup, well now he makes that noise whenever he wants a drink! I have also been trying to teach him a bit of sign language, he started doing "more" and "eat", but then like most things he does he will do them for a week and then move on. So I am trying to get those back and keep them around, though he did start signing "more" again tonight. So I guess we will see if it sticks!
We always joked around that Ezekiel's first word would be "hi" because we say it to him ALL the time! Well low and behold it was! At first I thought it was a fluke but he says it at the right time, so I know he knows what he's saying. For example he will say "hi" or "heeeeey" when someone comes home, or when you open the back door to get him out of his carseat, or when he wakes up and you walk into his room to get him out of his crib! He also knows, "yay" and uses it in proper context as well! We have this book that Mike reads to him every day and it goes through different animals and says what noises they each make, well at the end it says "what noises do you make?" And every single time Ezekiel will make a little "eh" sound, and that is the only time he makes a noise during the book or any book for that matter. I love it!

As I mentioned, over the last couple of months we have been quite busy! My dad had knee surgery to clean up some junk in there and repair his minscus which has a tear in it, his surgery went great, Praise God! He has just finished up his rehab at the PT clinic that my sister in law works at, so of course we had to go along on a couple visits to see Aunty Steppy! And she put him right into a workout regemin! Such a stickler she is!

We had the pleasure of having Mike's oldest brother, Jeb, some stay with us for 2 weeks because he had to take a class down here for work! It was so fun to have him staying with us and for Ezekiel to get to see him every day and boy does he like his Uncle Jebo!

We also had our first "no spoons allowed" dinner! Meaning it was all finger food! He did great and is continuing to eat well; which has been the case all along!

He loves to feed himself veggie pasta, meatballs, chicken cubes, waffles, bananas, kiwi, chese, any cooked veggies, avacados, and so much more! He also got his first taste of Chipotle Guacamole! Is it any surprise that he loved it?! See...

The projects are underway at our house in preperation of Mike's family visiting and we mainly have Jer Bear to thank for that! He has been painting the guest bedroom and fixing up the guest bathroom as well! He has also been winning us the yard of the month club, which we are thankful for because it really looks great! There are so many other things that I am itching to do around our house now that we are in project mode, so we will see what we get to next! Which probably won't be for a while as our first set of visitors come THIS weekend! We are SO excited to have Mike's dad come to visit and for Ezekiel to meet his Grandpa John for the first time!

I know there are so many more things that I can share, but I feel like this is more than enough for now! You deserve a cookie or something for making it through the whole post! Since I don't have a cookie for you I will leave you with these pictures that were just too cute not to post!

I am one blessed mama!

Mother's Day weekend was so wonderful! As it being my first true Mother's Day I felt quite honored to be able to be celebrated on this day with all of the other wonderful mothers in the world! It was kinda crazy to have to sit back and allow someone else to plan the day and make time for just my family and not be planning just for our bigger family!


On Saturday we started the festivities by with a new traditon! We decided that every Mother's Day weekend Mike and Ezekiel (and our future children) will pick out a hanging flower basket in memory of Grandma Dianne (Mike's mom). So we found a beautiful purple flower hanging basket that we have proudly hanging in the front of our house! (I should of taken a picture, but forgot.) We thought this would be a wonderful opprotunity to remember Grandma Dianne and for Mike to talk to our kids about her!

Then for dinner we went out to eat at Olive Garden to celebrate Steph's 30th Birthday (which is this thursday)! We had a delish dinner and wonderful family time; both boys were great which always makes it so fun!
Then Saturday night we had our first fire in our new firepit that my dad and our friend Tim, helped Mike make! It was so much fun and so relaxing to have my family and a handful of friends over to just hang out around the fire! And not to mention super yummy too as we had our frist smores of the season! SO YUMMY! And it was the perfect night for it too, just chilly enough and it felt good to be huddled around the fire! And the boys did get the fire about as tall as our house a couple times, so the firepit is definetly broken in! Here is a link to a video that my sister in law took: http://youtu.be/jzRQ1A_d0fA Mike was being a good host and trying not to get the cops called on us since you could def see the flame over our fence! He's such a good responsible adult!

Our first fire!

Then Sunday morning my amazing boys let me sleep in and then went to the Original Pancake House to get breakfast! They came back with super yummy strawberry crepes; my fav! Yummo! And then we headed out to the patio to plant some flowers seeds that I have been wanting to plant and Ezekiel helped by playing in the dirt! Then while Z took a nap and I showered and got ready Mike got everything ready for the day which included a trip to Minnehaha Dog Park and picnic at the park! It was such a PERFECT day to be outside and we made the most of it! We walked around the dog park and let the puppies run, play and splash in the river; they had a blast!

Hanging out at the dog park!

My first born! Love him!

Having so much fun!

Then we headed to the picnic area and busted out our picnic basket and blankets and enjoyed a wonderful lunch!

Brodie at our picnic!

Mike sharing our guacamole with Ezekiel, he loves it!

Jaxon Bear eating his carrots during our picnic!

And then Mike, Ezekiel, and Jaxon Bear each gave me their own card and I loved each one of them and I also got a framed picture of Ezekiel for my desk at work! Then Mike took some pictures of me and my boys, which was so nice since I am usually the one taking the pictures!

Me & my boys!

As we were finishing up our picnic my parents called to ask if we wanted to grill out with them and Darek, Steph, & Toby for dinner; and of course we did! So we headed home to get cleaned up and let the puppies take a nap and head over to their house. We had a wonderful dinner outside on the patio and then hung out for a while afterwards until little Z man said it was time for bed!

All in all it was a pretty perfect day! And I am so blessed to have such wonderful sons, husband and family to celebrate the day with!