I got a phone call from my sister E tonight that her husband J was having her check our blog throughout the day to see what Eze was for Halloween. I laughed and apologized for not posting sooner. I didn’t realize these pics were in such high demand 
Eze the Giraffe (the morning costume)
Eze and Daddy before the fun run on Saturday morning
Sprinter Dave
Happy to be finished! 27:47 - he kicked my time's patootie from last year
Sleepy giraffe
Eze the Duck (the evening costume)
Jazz hands!
Wit-o-weet!!!!
Whatchoo lookin' at, cat?
Mmmmmm... mold (we carved our pumpkins way too early this year, and they were black inside by the time Halloween rolled around)
Happy Halloween!!
We have a fun weekend ahead of us. Tonight we are staying down at my parents’ house (even though they are down in AZ seeing my grandparents). I feel like I’m back in high school again with the house to myself, except instead of a raging party, we’re having my sister and a couple of friends over and we’re playing Rock.Band Beatles edition. Wow. Hard core, right? And who am I really kidding? The biggest party I had growing up while my parents were out of town was like 12 people, half of who I kicked out when they started chewing tobacco partway through the night and spitting into my drinking glasses. Gross.
The reason we’re staying down there is because Dave is running the Halloween 5K that I was supposed to run tomorrow. I’m out of commission with this darn left hip. So instead, Eze and I will be on the sidelines cheering him on. This man makes me jealous because he never runs, and was never a runner in high school. But I know that he’ll go out tomorrow and kick my time’s patootie. He’s got the perfect body for running. Yep, jealous.
Then tomorrow afternoon/evening we plan on going trick-or-treating with Eze, and then hitting up the pizza place in town with Nik, Aaron and Sam to see our very good friends who have been living and working in a faraway country. I’m excited to see them, and for them to meet Ezekiel.
Then next Wednesday we head down to AZ for a week of sunshine and grandparents. We’ll be there for six days and I’m really looking forward to seeing my grandparents, and making some sweet memories with my grandma. I don’t remember what the last thing is that I updated about my grandma’s situation, but her brain tumor is inoperable. She is at home now, after spending some time in the hospital and in a skilled-nursing facility. The doctors tell us that we have just months left with her, so we are anxious to get down and see her and love on her. We had originally bought tickets to AZ for February, and luckily we got flight change protection on the tickets when we bought them so that we were able to change them to next week for only the difference in the price of the tickets. We are planning on being down there at the same time as my sister E and her hubby J, who live in Portland, OR. I miss them very much, so I’m excited to spend some time with them while we are down there as well. The things I’m most excited about? Playing a few card games with my grandparents, swimming every day, eating ice cream every night before bed (it’s a ritual that my grandparents have been doing forever and ever), and watching Ezekiel put a big grin on my grandparents’ faces.
I COO!!
Tonight Dave and I got to go on a date night. Ahhhh, bliss!!!! Neighbor friends Nik and Aaron watched Eze for us (thanks again, guys!!!!), so Eze got to play with Sam all night and they had a great time. Nik was looking cute as ever tonight with a paisley sweatshirt on that framed her baby belly (she’s due in January). Ezekiel must have talked with her about it because here is the conversation we had after we got home tonight:
Eze: Mommy baby. (points in my direction)
Dave: Show us where there is a baby.
Eze: Der. (points at my boobs)
Me: Mommy has a baby in her boobs?
Eze: Yah.
We guessed that Ezekiel must assume that any woman who has a part of their body sticking out (i.e. pregnant bellies or boobages) must have a baby in there. I nearly peed my pants laughing. He is such a funny boy. We talked more about Nik’s baby, and how Sam will have a little brother. Ezekiel insists that he is also having a “wittoh bwodah”, and that he will be a “boor bwodah”. It was kind of fun tonight because when we were talking about it, we got to tell him about how Sam grew in Nikki’s belly, but Ezekiel grew in his birth mom’s tummy and we adopted him. Any chance we get to talk about his story is so important, and I love when it just comes up naturally like that.
Oh, and no there are no babies growing in my jumblies or in my belly. Just to clear that up.
Eze and Sam, the soon-to-be big brother
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been going to yoga (goga, according to Eze) classes. I had been going back and forth about joining a gym. I cancelled my membership to a different gym when we got the referral for Ezekiel so that we could save some money, and just ran outside and did exercise videos in my house. As fall and winter started creeping up on us this year, I started asking around about ideas for things to do when it’s frigid outside. People kept telling me to get a membership to the community center/gym in town. It has a lap pool as well as a kids’ area in the pool, a play area with tunnels (similar to a Mc.Donald’s playplace), a running track, etc. And then there is also a cardio/weight-lifting room and other adult places to work out. I kept hemming and hawing b/c you have to sign up for a whole year. Finally my friend A convinced me by telling me that she goes to the yoga classes there and aboslutely loves them.
I signed up and went to my first yoga class that weekend. It was love at first pose. I had only done yoga with videos before that, but being in an actual class with other yogis (LOVE that term), and the teacher ensuring that you’re doing the pose right and giving lots of encouragement makes a huge difference. I love trying to push my body to hold the different poses, and concentrating on what muscles are working, and which ones I need to relax. One of the teachers has us try new poses at each Tuesday night class (classes are two days per week), and I love that too. Plus, when I’m finished I feel refreshed and relaxed, but I also feel like my muscles got a great workout.
I’m glad I’m into this yoga class because last week I was running on the treadmill, and decided I was going to try and break a 30 minute 5K. I have never run that fast in any of my 5K races, so really pushed myself hard that night. I got home and felt worse pain in that naggy old left hip than I’d ever felt before (but I made the 5K in 30:02 – yay!). So once again I’m off of running or biking, or doing any excessive repetition like that with my hips for a few weeks. For the most part, I can still do yoga. There are a couple of poses that I need to modify so that I don’t hurt my hip more, but I’m so grateful for yoga to keep up my workouts.
This week I also started swimming again. I swam in high school, and was glad that I’d joined this gym so that I could start swimming laps again. I use a pull buoy (a flotation device that goes between your thighs to keep your legs buoyant) so that I’m not putting too much strain on my hip by kicking. It’s been years since I swam laps, so I was glad I didn’t drown my first night back. I forgot how tired swimming makes me, though. Something about the chlorine makes my lungs feel a little heavy, even days after I swam. I also forgot how much I love the smell of chlorine on my skin. Call me crazy but it’s one of my favorite smells.
Oh, and back to the yoga, Dave got Ezekiel a book at the library last week called My Daddy Is A Pretzel. It’s a book about yoga poses, and it’s super cute. Ezekiel is now in love with this book and every time we read it, he and I do the poses together. He is SO good at yoga, it’s amazing. I am quite envious of his downward dog pose. And his tree pose is just about the cutest thing you’ll ever see.
Eze playing with J (his mama is the one who goes to yoga too). I love that in this pic, Charlie the dog is keeping a close eye on Eze b/c he's messing his dog toys.
On Word.press I can see how many people visit my bloggy each day. Not as cool as Google.Analytics, which shows where they’re visiting from (it won’t work with my blog (boo.)), but still fun to see. Anyway, this morning I logged on and already my stats for visitors has doubled its normal number. I wonder what that’s all about? Well, to any of you new peeps, thanks for stopping by! We love knowing that people are reading our stories.
This morning Ezekiel woke up at 5:45 and wouldn’t go back to sleep. Awesome. I’m brought back to the days when I used to party late into the night and then have to work the next day. Except there was no partying going on last night, unless you count watching Biggest.Loser while eating egg rolls a party. And instead of being in an office working, I get to be in my cozy house cleaning and playing with my crazy two-year old today.
It’s official, Eze has a crush on Abbie. Background: Abbie is the oldest daughter of Katie, who watches Eze every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday morning. It wouldn’t actually be his first crush, remember the librarian?? So anyway, yesterday when Dave picked Eze up from Katie’s house, she told him that Eze and Abbie were sitting at the piano and he put his arm around her. Today when I picked him up, he had to give everyone a hug before we left, you could feel the love oozing from him for all those girls. So sweet. Then at lunch today, I asked him what he did at Katie’s house. He told me, “Ee-ee a Abbie ugg, and Ee-ee a Abbie, and Ee-ee and Abbie. Abbie tute”. (Translation: Eze and Abbie hugged, Eze and Abbie, Eze and Abbie. Abbie is cute). He had the sweetest, glazed look in his eyes while he was saying it. AHHHH!!!! Love it. Oh, and he has the cutest little two-year old stutter going on when he’s telling us things lately.
Today when I picked him up from Katie’s house, he came to the door with a swim diaper over his pants. It made me giggle, and when Katie told me the randomness of the day, I giggled even more. Apparently he had found this swim diaper, and put it on over his pants. When Katie changed his diaper later, he insisted on having the swim diaper put back on over his pants. He didn’t take off that swim diaper until bathtime tonight. It was hilarious. Also throughout the morning at Katie’s, he put on a headband and a barrette and called himself, “cowboy”. Then he put on a pink baby sock over his sock and carried around a Minnie Mouse purse. I love this boy.
This was before we left for Katie's house today, he was in such a great mood from the moment he woke up this morning. He filled up this bag and carried it around like a handbag to Katie's house.
Goofball Diaper Boy
Hy-yah!
No idea what this pose was all about
He was convinced he was going to wait right there until the banana bread we made today was finished baking. A whole hour.
Peeeeez?? (If you can believe it, I didn't even ask him to pose. This boy is gonna win some Academy Awards)
Yesterday when we were hanging with E and D, and Baby Keira, we found ourselves doing lots of translating for our friends listening to Ezekielese. It made me laugh because we understand most of what he is saying these days, but every once in a while he’ll throw in a word or phrase that we have no idea what it is. But here are some that we do know:
Goga = yoga
Go-go = scarecrow
Puckoor or puckin = pumpkin
Airpoor = airplane
Ee-ee = Eze (even though Dave and I pronounce it like “Ezzie”, every kid who knows Eze says it the same way that he says his name – Eee-eee)
Keery = scary
Kee kee = monkey or Curious George (one of his favorite shows)
Mommy (or Daddy) back? = he says this every day that we drop him off at Katie’s house, and we assure him each time that yes, Mommy or Daddy will always come back. Katie told us that he tells her “Mommy (or Daddy) back” as a statement throughout the morning when he’s at her house.
Guggy = Gus (we sometimes call him Gussy)
Goggy = doggy
Hoggy = hungry
Booby a Yak = Brodie and Zack (two of our neighbor boys)
Kakie ow = Katie’s house
Book a ree = book to read
Aggy eye = angry eyes (he told me the other morning that I had angry eyes when I was exasperated with him taking so long to get his shoes on. Yikes)
Appy eye = happy eyes
Of Fortoo = Wheel of Fortune (one of our fave shows to watch together – he loves to say how many letters came up, just like Pat. And he calls Vanna “Nana”)
At = hat
Wuhtuh = mittens
Eat bah = eat bell (at Katie’s house, the sirens in town go off at noon every day. The girls say that it’s the “lunch bell”. Eze asks for it multiple times per day when he’s not at Katie’s house)
Ogee = orange
Tee tee = cookie
Tonight we carved “puckins”. We had a lot of fun together, despite the awesomely fun tantrums and selective hearing displayed by Eze. (does anyone else love that crossing out words is almost like saying “NOT” at the end of your sentence. Oh how I miss 1991.) We tried making the pumpkins as un-scary as possible, with Ezekiel being afraid of absolutely everything these days. So I carved a kitty cat and a nice jack-o-lantern, while Dave carved a silly face. Eze kept himself busy scooping out pumpkin guts (or baby pumpkins, as he was calling them) and moving them from the pumpkin to the dump bucket. Then he started moving them from the dump bucket to the pumpkins so we had to start over again with cleaning out the pumpkins. Thanks buddy.
Puckins!
Closed-eye shot. Cracks me up.
Clearing out the guts
Hello?
Ewww
The Artiste
Family pic
Boo!
This morning we got to go down to our friends’ house to meet Baby Keira. She was absolutely adorable, and I got to snuggle her for a little while. I’m not used to tiny babies, so was a little nervous I’d drop her or something! Eze got a little jealous when I held her. Silly boy. We ate breakfast together, and then played at a nearby park. Eze has been doing a fairly good job keeping himself entertained these days when Dave and I are talking with each other or other people, so that is nice. Dave and I had a wonderful time catching up with E and D. I love friends who, even though we don’t see them often, it’s easy to just pick right up where we left off. I (of course) forgot my camera in my purse. They also have a dog who is eerily similar to Gus. They have similar coloring and stature but Gus is a little more gray and a little heftier in the chest. They had a great time playing together and Gus is currently passed out, barking quietly in his sleep. hee hee
This morning in the car there was something that I thought, “OH, I have to blog that”, and I (of course) forgot what it was. I’m debating getting a data plan for my phone so that I can blog from anywhere. That would be so fun. And addicting. You may just get inundated with bloggy posts if that happens.
Yesterday on my way to drop Ezekiel off at Katie’s house, I had a conversation with Ezekiel that went like this:
Eze: Mommy, car!!
Me: Yes, there are lots of cars on the road today. When you grow up are you going to have a car too? What color is it going to be?
E: Lellow. No, White.
M: Is it going to be a big car or a little car?
E: A boooor (big) car.
M: So you are going to have a big white car. Does Mommy get to ride in your car?
E: Yah.
M: Oh I am so glad I’ll get to ride in your car. Hey Eze, when you grow up are you going to have a girlfriend?
E: Yah.
M: Does she get to ride in your car?
E: No.
M: Good! Let’s remember that one when you’re a teenager. What’s your girlfriend’s name going to be?
E: Abby. (I think Eze has a little crush on Abby, Katie’s almost-8-year old daughter )
Here is a video that I put together for my grandparents’ anniversary, which is October 14. I am so glad that they are able to celebrate another year of their love. I recorded this video back on Sept 19, just a couple of weeks before everything started happening with Grandma Lu. You can tell from the video that Ezekiel has loved the Bampa Lu duo deeply for a while now.
