A couple of random pics from December

Happy last day of 2010!

Staycation!

Since Ezra's daycare is closed for two weeks this month, we decided to have a nice relaxed, family stay-at-home vacation. Also, since this second pregnancy is kicking Rach's behind, we decided catching up on chores and doing some fun stuff around the bay would be a good way to sleep-bank and have a great time as a family.
So far, it's been a blast! We became members of the Lawrence Hall of Science museum. They have a fantastic roller coaster exhibit, and Ezra (and Noah!) loved putting the roller coaster pieces together to big roller coasters, then send the orange balls rolling down them. We also took Ezra swimming a few times at the Y, and he is a little fish in the water -- he loves jumping in the pool, and can't get enough!
A few nights ago, we went with some friends on a holiday lights cable car tour downtown -- we ate lots of candy canes and had fun singing holiday songs as we rolled up and down the SF hills on the cable car. Ezra loved it -- we even got to walk through a gingerbread house along the way. Last night, we went to the holiday carousel at Tilden park -- Ezra and Rach loved riding the zebra and horse on the carousel (Noah enjoyed standing).
We also went to the Children's "Zeum" with Ezra and some friends, and he loved recording himself on the slide, running around near the waterfall outside, and playing with the puppets with Noah.
We've also just generally had a nice time seeing friends, catching up on stuff that needs to be done around the house, and going for nice walks to the playground, and taking Ezra out on his tricycle.
Uncle Josh came to visit yesterday, and today we all went to the flower conservatory, which had a fabulous model train exhibit, in which the trains ran through flowered/landscaped model of GG park and other parts of the city. Followed by a romp at the fantastic GG park playground, and yummy dim sum. Mmmmm...Above are some pics from today's adventures in GG park!

A Lovely Fall

Oh boy, we've been delinquent with our blog! We had a great fall with Ezra -- above is a picture from the pumpkin harvest festival we went to -- we got to ride an old electric cable car to the pumpkin patch -- there was a giant hay fort, tractor ride, pumpkin chucking, and great country music. We had a great time w/ Ezra's friends Jamie and Gwen:)
We also celebrated Ezra's second birthday at home with lots of friends, and Bobby Susie and Aunt Nili were also able to come to the birthday party. The weather was crappy, but the kids had tons of fun playing with a bag of 150 balls we bought for the occasion. Also, the Elmo birthday cake was a big hit. (See picture -- Other bday picture above is Ezra on his new tricycle, a much loved second bday present from Grammy and Papa).
We also had a fabulous trip to Boston over Thanksgiving, and Ezra had a fantastic time with Grammy, Big Papa, Little Papa, Bobby Susie, Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Eli, Aunt Alison and Uncle Matt, and cousins Anthony and Virginia, and more! Unfortunately, I think all Thanksgiving pictures were taken on other folks' cameras, so nothing to post yet, but we'll try to get some soon.
Ezra, however, is having a great time watching Uncle Eli's Thanksgiving movie (which Ez calls the Ezra movie) -- it's great, because I think it helps him remember all of the loving family members he has back east.
Oh, we also had this week of insanely beautiful sunsets -- Ezra, mom, and dad enjoyed watching them from our back deck.

On a 100 degree hot day a few weeks ago

Playing with a water toy in the backyard...

Caught in an infinite loop

Ezra spent a week singing the ABC song with a modification -- he confused "S" and "X" so the song went "P-Q-R-SX-Y-Z"... This video shows how he sings it this week...

Daycare party and visit to the farm

The Symphony of No

Performed by almost-two-year-old Ez

EZ

Kite Festival and other Fun Times with Friends

We had a great time with Kate and Sonia when they came for a visit a couple of weeks ago. We spent a weekend afternoon hanging out by the pool with the kiddos and some friends, and Ezra had a blast following around and playing with the older girls! He had his first meal at the kiddie table too. He sure eats well when other kids are feeding him or encouraging him to eat!



Last week we went to the kite festival with Ezra and some friends of ours and their son, who is in Ezra's daycare (we met in New Zealand eight years ago -- small world!). Ezra LOVED watching the kits, and you can see in one of the above pics that he is holding the kite string for his first kite flying experience. Although I think the highlight for him was actually the shuttle bus ride from the parking lot to the kite festival. All Ezra could talk about was the bus on the way home!

A conversation with Ezra

Rach: Ezra, who was at school today?
Ezra: Dawn.
Rach: Teacher Dawn?
Ezra: Yeah.
Rach: Who else?
Ezra: Gina.
Rach: Teacher Eugenia?
Ezra: Yeah.
Rach: Who else was at school?
[pause]
Rach: Was Lee at school today?
Ezra: Yeah.
Rach: Was Isabella at school?
Ezra: Yeah.
Rach: Was Brent at school?
Ezra: Yeah.
Noah (suspicious): Ezra, was Barack Obama at school?
Ezra: Yeah.
Noah: Was Saddam Hussein at school today?
Ezra: Yeah.
Noah: Was Michael Jackson at school?
Ezra: Yeah.
Noah: Was the yak at school?
Ezra: Yeah.
Noah: Was Genghis Khan at school?
[pause]
Ezra: No.

County Fair!

Bobby Susie was in town for the last week and a half, and we had such fun! We went to the model train museum, playground, county fair, and had all sorts of fun. Ezra especially loved spending the week with Bobby while his daycare was closed for summer break. Above are two pictures from county fair, and one old picture from crazy hair day, that I just had to post because it's so cute. Ezra's really talking up a storm these days. He's making short sentences, animal noises (see videos below!), loves playing his CDs in his CD player, making funny faces from his new book that remind me very much of his Uncle Josh, and he enjoys bodyslamming, "bball", imitating baboons and gorillas, dancing, and lots of other fun things.

A few more videos (Ezra's "It's a Yak" interview and "Ezra as Lion"

Ezra makes faces like his Uncle Josh used to

Waterboy

Yes, it's been forever since our last post, but we've managed since then to close on a house, move, start a new job, buy a car, and move Ezra into a new daycare; so we've been a little busy, but still feeling guilty about not blogging enough. Anyway, here's a set of pics from this past weekend. It got unusually hot (it felt around 34-35C / 90-95F) and to cool off, we played on the back patio with the hose. Ez was in heaven.

Ezra loves "Mommy" and "Noah"

So, when Ezra first started babbling with consonants, he basically called everything "daddy" and "dada" except for Noah. It was his generic word for "oooh, this," and "oooh, that." Then, he started calling everything "nana" and stopped saying daddy altogether. Soon after, he started calling me "mommy" and "mama" (yay! ok, and enough of these quotation marks because i don't feel like typing them anymore). And then a few weeks ago, he started calling his dad Noah, or Nyoah. It is still cracking us up. Noah goes to pick him up at daycare, and he says Noah, Noah and then asks for Mommy, Mommy. Today, when we got home, Noah dropped us off at the apartment, and Ezra called after his Noah repeatedly. I can't believe he's on a first name basis w/ his dad! I'm sure he'll start calling him Daddy soon, but man is it cute and funny to hear a little one and a half year old cutie pie call his dad by his first name.
On another note, I went back to work full-time this week. It is really hard going from so much Ezra time to so little comparatively. I'm hoping we all adjust soon. I do like my job though so far, so that is good. I think when we move into our new house next week, things will get a lot easier, as less commute time for me = more mom/Ezra time:)
More pics from Hawaii once we move, get settled, get them off Becca and Jeff's computer.

Kauai!

We've been spending the week in Kauai with our friends Becca, Jeff and Lucy -- what bliss! It is so beautiful here, and Ezra and Lucy (about a year his junior) have been LOVING the ocean and the beach. It's been incredible to watch them interact and enjoy being on vacation. Ezra can't get enough of the ocean -- he keeps saying beach (bee) and waves (way) and we have a hard time dragging him out of the water. Some highlights from our trip so far -- snorkeling and playing with the kids in shallower water at Tunnels Beach (although current was too rough for the really good snorkeling there), snorkeling and playing with the kids at Lydgate State Park (great for kids -- has a protected shallow pool and a very creative and fun playground), Passover seder improvised with Hawaii style by using ginger for maror since we couldn't find horseradish (it is actually much more bitter and made me think even more of slavery in Egypt than horseradish -- may become a tradition on my seder plate), hiking from Ke'e beach along the Na Pali coast Kalalau trail to Hanakapiai Beach with Noah while Becca and Jeff played with Ezra and Lucy (thanks Becca and Jeff -- Noah and I had an amazing time getting to hike hard for a few hours and see some of the most amazing scenery we've ever seen!). Here are a few photos from our trip so far!

A few new words!

Yesterday, Ezra said thank you ("da doo") and echo! It was very exciting. He started playing around with his echo a lot in Florida on the handball court, and I guess I've been saying echo a lot:) I think the words are going to keep on coming -- his favorites right now are cracker (gah koh), echo, wheel (wheeyo wheeyo wheeyo), more (mo), mama, dada, hi, and uh-oh. What a cutie pie!

cute chewing faces

Florida!

We had a wonderful trip to Florida to see Ezra's great-grandmother. A couple of pictures capture how much fun Ezra had on our trip. Mom and Dad took a trip to the Keys while Grandma and Grandpa took care of Ez. Check out Mom with the dolphin!

Happy Birthday Bobby Susie! Philadelphia January 2010.

We had a great trip to Philadelphia with Ezra last month. We got to visit Ezra's grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins, etc! It was great fun.

Ezra with baby cow

A week ago, we took Ezra to the petting farm in the park, and he LOVED it. He especially loved this baby cow, and kept coming back to pet it. Right after this pic was taken, the cow covered Ezra's jacket in slobber and tried to eat his jacket sleeve. We were a little more cautious with Ezra and the cow after that. He also fed a turkey some lettuce, but was a little afraid by the turkey's vigorous pecking.

What Ezra's doing

Noah and I were just talking about how Ezra does all these funny little things everyday, and that if we don't write them down, we run the risk of forgetting them later in life. So I just wanted to share a few stories of what Ezra's been doing lately, as he nears the 15 month mark. At the playground, Ezra loves to push around the giant climbing structure/merry-go-round. Usually there are too many kids playing on it to let him (because they push it so fast that when he holds onto the edge he falls right down), but yesterday he had the whole structure to himself. He grabbed hold of it, and grunted like an olympic weight-lifter, and started turning the whole thing himself. It was hilarious to watch a 2-foot tall kid push a 15-foot tall, 10-foot diameter metal structure around, very determined and red-faced. He loves to study the patterns the sun makes on the ground as it passes through the holes. He also loves to stand underneath the big kid monkey bars and whine to be lifted up -- when I hold on to him, he can grab onto the monkey bars, and he'll actually hold on for a few seconds when I let go (still standing right there to catch him of course).
His other favorite activities these days are playing with buckles -- he is obsessed with trying to figure out how his high-chair buckle and stroller buckle unbuckles -- he's going to spring himself out of those contraptions soon, I fear. It is the only thing that can hold his attention for close to 20 minutes.
He also loves riding around on our backs. It's gotten to the point where he'll come up behind us and hold his arms up and try to jump on our backs. In music class this week, he actually kept coming behind me for a ride.
He's still doggy-obsessed. The other day, he ran across the whole little league field, spying the dogs across the way in the dog park. As he got within 30 feet of the dogs, he started laughing and running faster.

Speed-eating

I took this timelapse video of Ezra eating breakfast this morning, and thought it was worth sharing... The quality of the video isn't quite as good as the original, since I had to compress it for the web, but I think the basic idea comes across -- the entire time was about 30 min timelapsed down to 1.5 min.