Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Ezra and his Tricks

A one year old wouldn't be a one year old at our house without a variety of "tricks". Over the past year Ezra has been perfecting his animal sounds, car and truck noises, hand movements to songs, and body part  identification.  As always, when the second year approaches, some of the excitement wears off and our little performer moves on to another precious phase of childhood. Before Ezra is too grown up to pound his chest like a gorilla, meow like a kitten or cock-a-doodle-do like a rooster, we decided we better get him in front of the camera! 
Ezra loves to line up and re-line up his cars, imitating truck and car sounds as he goes. Only Ezra knows why the ATV must go at the end of the line, the blue car goes next to the yellow car and the white and black car must go in back of the spider mobile. Any reorganization  on our part is always detected and never accepted!
At around the age of 12 months, Ezra began entertaining us with his dog sounds, then his cow imitations and soon his duck quacks.  His diverse collection of wild life noises became quite impressive, keeping his audiences coming back for more. It wasn't long before Ezra added songs to his repertoire. One day I heard him humming the tune to the "Wheels on the Bus" and making "beep,beep" noises. I wasn't sure where he learned this new skill, but being the enthusiastic mother that I still try to be, I immediately taught him the rest of the song, the actions and then worked on expanding his performance pieces to include "The Itsy Bitsy Spider". Ezra is definitely moving on to another stage of childhood, so we had to capture him on film before his chubby fingers would no longer be spiders and his tongue wagging dog sounds became bad behavior!

* Due to technical difficulties, winter break, sick kids, sacrament talks and more technical difficulties, this blog has been sitting at different stages of completion, waiting to be finished. When I saw the movie clips actually publish after consistant failure I was ecstatic, knowing that now I can move onto other events of the winter!  

Monday, February 9, 2009

Old News But Good News

Steve began studying for his Series 7 and 24 tests last July.  For six months he lugged his two inch thick study guides back and forth from work, across the country and across the world, to the beach, on road trips and into bed. He stayed at work until 11 and 12 at night and snuck in on weekends. In November he passed the 7 with flying colors and in January he returned home with the good news that he passed the  24, officially ending this studying rampage.

Congratulations!

Our celebration? A night out at The Cheesecake Factory!

   

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Are you 1, are you 2, are you 3, are you 4!?!


"What Happens in December?" I ask Sophia.
"It's my birthday!" she exclaims.
"Anything else?"
"Ummmm... oh Christmas!" she responds, as an afterthought.

In Sophia's mind, nothing is as monumental as turning four! And she couldn't have been more excited when the day finally arrived! On December 26th, Sophia snuggled in our bed until her traditional birthday breakfast arrived, accompanied by a matre'd, four serenaders, and a photographer.      

Steve took the day off work and planned to take Sophia somewhere special. Her request:  Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers! So over a kids meal and Frostys, Steve and Sophia discussed the world from the eyes of a four year old.
 
Later in the day, Steve loaded Emilie, Jonathan, Annelise and Sophia in the car, picked up a few neighbor girls and headed to the movie, The Tale of Despereux. While the crowd was away, I sewed a table cloth and napkins to go with Sophia's new tea set and table and made Sophia's requested birthday dinner, Spaghetti with meat sauce and green peas.

We spent the remainder of the evening in party hats, slurping up spaghetti, opening presents and eating cake. 


Thank you for the date to American Girl Grandma Gretta!

Thank you for the Leapster and games Grandma Ebert!

Thank you for the play food sets Grandma Rose!

Thank you for the homemade card and spending money Grandma Carol!

And thank you for the book, bath robe and birthday money, cousins, aunts and uncles!