3 years old

I just tucked my 2 year old daughter in for the last time! Next time I see her (assuming she doesn't start yelling that she is thirsty, needs another kiss, her blankets are twisted...) she will be 3 years old!

Three years ago right now, I was pumped up for labor! It was my due date and she was ready to meet the world! Things were getting pretty intense, but I wanted to stay home as long as possible. Jose and I had just got home from getting foot massages and renting a movie (note: do not try to watch The Hangover while in labor. Like I tell my students, do NOT laugh during contractions, it causes unnecessary pain!). We knew we would be meeting Aubriella soon, and were excited and nervous. Looking back it would have been wise to try to sleep for a bit.

After a few more hours of laboring at home, we headed to the hospital and arrived at 1 am. She was born at 7:54 that morning. Giving birth to her was one of, if not the most amazing, exhausting, beautiful, empowering events of my life. It was such a gift to give birth to her naturally and unmedicated, and afterwards I remember thinking I had never felt closer to Jose. I couldn't have done it without him, and we were a perfect team.

I don't think I could have imagined the spunky little girl Aubriella is today. Just like her middle name, she is a Joy!  She is also the source of many laughs (you'd have to read her quote book!), and to be honest sometimes the source of my frustration! Jose always says Aubriella is just like me. I don't see it personality wise, but I will admit I've trained her well in matters of taste and style ;-). I can't believe at 3 years old how often her and I already "duke it out"! I love every ounce of her strong will, independence, and determined spirit, but oh.my.word. She does not back down. And I love her and admire her for it! Before her I avoided conflict at all costs, and don't think I had ever yelled at someone. Not sure if that is good or bad, but this little lady has stretched me. Aubri-girl, we are going to teach each other a lot!

I could tell you so much more about Aubri, but I would be writing all night! And tomorrow is a big day for us! She has already submitted her birthday requests. First a Panera bagel and has also asked, "Can you take me and Ella to the pink hotel for cake?' Maybe I'm being too indulgent, but when she requests something so cute and sweet, I'm happy to oblige. So tomorrow after our Panera breakfast, we are having a Madonna Inn lunch and cake, topped off with a pizza dinner. Birthdays only come once a year!

Testing,testing, 1-2-3

Ok....so picture showed up last post. Let's try it again!

At 6 months old I decided to start taking a monthly picture of Ezra. You now same spot, same pose. It lasted 3 months, but it was worth a shot! 

 Ezra on his 6 month b-day

Much smilier on his 7 month b-day!

8 months

And an extra just for fun!

Hope these post!

Life is full

Despite the fact that I get up twice a night to put Ezra back to sleep, or that I have started to break up "arguments" between my kids (mostly whines and cries about someone taking someone else's toy away), or that Ezra now knows how to open every drawer and cupboard (and take everything out in about 2 seconds), or that I lose my patience just about everyday (always gets misplaced)....life is great, and being a mom is the greatest adventure ever. 

Ezra is almost 10 months old. I can't believe how fast time flies! He is mimicking and "talking" lots more this past week. He says Dada, Ba (ball), Ha (hi), calls Aubri "Tah" consistently (no idea why! Maybe sis-tah??), says Nana a lot and seems to be in the right context, and copied Aubri and I when we said "uh-oh" after he dumped all the cards to a board game. He does the one sign I've taught him ("more')  He hums along when we sing, and you can't keep him from dancing! 

He is giving me a run for my money now that he has figured out all the cupboards and drawers open up. He is obsessed with our game trunk. Not. fun. Thankfully Aubri is a great tattle tale (really I appreciate it!), and she is a great little helper. She is such a helper at distracting him when I am trying to get something done.

Aubri is going to be 3 this month!! WOWSER! She is getting excited for her "Tinkerbell cabin party at the snow" where we will have "cake and donuts with sprinkles." We are looking forward to our trip to Big Bear next week! She got to move up in Sunday School classrooms and is SO excited! Her teachers have said she is doing great listening and participating, and it makes my heart swell when she tells us what she learned about in class. She always asks when she can go to real school, and remembers me saying (when she was 1!) that she would probably go when she is 3. 

Aubri got a new bike for Christmas and it has been fun to see her love riding it! She is becoming a better rider every day as she is learning how to watch where she is going!! She is quite the distracted driver. I've been so proud that every time she has fallen (even with training wheels) that she has gotten back up and said she wants to try again. 

I've been the worst blogger because I haven't figured out how to add pictures without purchasing more space, and lets face it what's a post without pics. When I figure it out, you can bet that I'll be updating much more about our crazy, busy, FUN, full life.]! 

8 months

As always, this post comes a little late! Ezra is now almost 8 1/2 months! I may have unconsciously postponed writing this update, because our sweet and mellow baby temporarily disappeared. Haha, only kidding. But not really.

Ezra is learning to communicate! He knows how to yell, grunt, or scream to get attention. It is kind of funny, but he can clench his hands and jaw and shake/yell and turn red when he is really upset. He did this a lot of few weeks back, but I haven't seen it much lately. Soon after realizing he could express his emotions he got hit with a cold. And it's been a doozy. We all got it so I can sympathize with him. It kicked my hiney so I can only imagine what it felt to his little body. And unlike only lasting less than a week for the rest of our family, his is still lingering. Poor baby! And I've got to get a little sympathy myself... We had some nights he woke every hour! He also wanted to be held all.the.time. And did not want to be put down in his crib, or sleep in mom's bed. He wanted to be upright, head on my shoulder.

Ezra is also babbling and "repeating". He will copy us say "papa" "dada", and other noises. He has on occasion said "mama" in the right context, but it hasn't been consistent enough to report he is saying it. He still "sings" along to music, and has now added some sweet dance moves.  He really seems to go with the beat (here's hoping he somehow got some musical genes!). It is the cutest thing to see him bobbing along!

He hasn't wanted to eat much lately, a few bites every meal is about it. UNLESS it is "big people food". He constantly wants what we have in our hand, but it is scary because like his sister he has such a strong gag reflex. He gags/chokes/ throws up soooo easy! Slowly he seems to be tolerating chunkier food.

Ezra is a speeding bullet. This kid crawls FAST. And climbs FAST. I don't remember this as much with Aubri because she always wanted to be up trying to take walk there. Ezra just wants to get from one place to another as fast as he can. We catch him standing unassisted playing sometimes.

He and Aubri are starting to play together. Normally it is grabbing a toy at the same time, but yesterday he was following her everywhere driving her crazy (which drove mom crazy).  She loves making a block tower for him to knock over.

Ezra is really good at waving high and bye, lifting his hands for "touchdown", clapping, giving kisses, and happy with anyone holding him (as long as I'm out of sight). He is a love bug!

He has one tooth very visible, and as of yesterday the second bottom tooth has popped through! He's got some surprising good bites on our cheek, noses, and while nursing! Sharp little things!

So far our Christmas decorations are faring well with him, but it is a constant chase. He understands to not touch the tree, but that means he stops right before grabbing it to look around and see if anyone is going to stop him!

Ezra got his third hair cut recently. He did great until she grabbed his head to do the precision trimming. He freaked. But I got to say he looks cuter than ever!

I have LOTS of great pictures to upload but blogger is telling me that I've used my max storage capacity! Anyone know how to fix that???

She said WHAT??

I have so many fun pictures to blog, but I have so many funny saying from Aubri piling up that I had to get them down. This girl is too much! And she is getting even funnier now that she knows she is funny.   Without further ado, the latest installment of Aubri sayings from the past month or so...

While playing with  Ezra: "When brother looks at me he thinks, "What is that crazy girl doing?!"

 "Mom let's play pretend Starbucks. Would you like plain regular coffee or a caramel pumpkin coffee?" (FYI I have never had a caramel pumpkin but I love that she listens to us and knows the difference from boring ol' coffee and the spruced up version.)

We were headed out, and I planned on grabbing her shoes from the garage on the way out. "MOM STOP! We forgot an important thing! MY SHOES!"

Ok warning this is kinda gross...
   While wiping her bottom, after an uncharacteristically eh---sticky, BM. "Wow, that was kind of like a baby!" HUH??? My first thought was she has seen one to many birth videos (poor childbirth educator kid), but I asked what she meant. "It was like a baby because moms have to wipe their bottom a lot to get all the poop off!" HAHA...whew!

Interrupting her dad's football viewing time. "Dad can I watch Calliou?" nope. "Can I watch Super Why?" nope. Resigning herself to the situation, "Dad can I watch the Chargers?"

One of the first days after the time change, "Oh no mom! It's going to rain, it's getting very dark!"

On a walk she was collecting all sorts of random small treasures. I didn't particularly want the flower buds in the house for Ezra to eat. She kept asking, "Mom can I please keep the acorns?" No.  You have acorns.  No. Aubri they aren't real acorns! "Mom, can I please keep my pretend acorns?"

While on time out I was talking to her and lecturing about her next consequences. I told her if she didn't start listening she was going to be in trouble. With the biggest, most innocent eyes, "But I already AM in trouble mom."

Learning to play rock, paper, scissors with Jose. After several explanations they give it a go. "Rock, paper, scissors. What do you got Aubri?"  "Uh....Crayons!"

She loves smashing snails. I usually don't mind but she was going after them in the mud. I asked her not to....and she did anyway. Time out. I told her she disobeyed and she wasn't supposed to do that.  With a big pout she said, "I was supposed to ask daddy. He lets me !" I said he sometimes does. "No he ALWAYS lets me smash snails."

Jose and Aubri bought me  flowers. The next day Jose asked, "Aubri do you like the tulips we bought mom?" "Two lips? Mom's? Everyone has two lips!"

I don't even remember what she told me, but I asked if she was making it up or pretending. "No! I'm real-ing!"

"F" words

As much as our little girl talks, she has had the hardest time with some pronunciation. Mainly "F's" . Almost every word that began with an F sound was changed to a "d" sound. Except for phone which has been "cone" since before she was a year old. No matter how much we practiced she couldn't get it. She can make an F sound but not to start a word. So practicing would sound something like, "FFFFFF- cone."

Last week I got her to start saying "FFF...own". Yesterday Jose told her to try really hard, take her time, and if she said PH-one she would get a piece of candy. And she did it! Now she is an "f-word" saying machine! All evening she was asking us to ask her to say another one, and even sent a text video to my dad showing him she can finally say "Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum" (he's been trying to get her to say it for months.)

You would think we are writing a Dr. Suess book the way we are talking around here....

"My friend Fiona farted four times..."

7 months

Time is flying faster than I can blog! Ezra is now 7 months (and 10 days, but who is counting??).  It seems like overnight--but really over the last week and a half--his crawling has taken off. He has sped up and is all.over.the.place. Last Friday he realized he could pull himself up (he's been standing when we help him) and did so in his crib when I left him almost asleep. I was seriously out of his room for 2 minutes (or however long it takes to wipe Aubri's bottom) and when I walked in and I nearly had a heart attack.  We hadn't lowered his mattress and the rail only came up slightly above his waist. Jose was home an hour later at lunch time and lowered that baby fast!

That same afternoon he discovered that he was a hot stuff. He starting pulling himself up on everything! In fact, crawling is for wimps. He crawls only as far as he needs to find the nearest place to stand up. It was funny because for a couple of days he didn't know what to do when he wanted to sit, but he has learned to bend his knees to kneel down.

My mommy brain probably forgot, but I don't remember having to watch Aubri this closely. Right now we have to be an arms length away from Ezra. He face plants all the time as he thinks he can walk and literally lets go and tries to reach for something else close by. We even saw him let go and stand unassisted for a few seconds yesterday. He puts everything in his mouth so I had to throw away a lot of Aubri's little toys (shhh, she has no idea.)

In the friendly race between siblings, Ezra has caught up to his sisters motor skills. Who knows, we may be on track to have another 8 1/2 month walker! His chatterbox sister set the bar pretty high saying a few words by the time she was 7 months, but this boy sure laughs so much more!

Ezra still does amazing trying new foods, but some days he only cares to eat a little. He tolerates being in his high chair well, and we've even had a few enjoyable restaurant trips.  Since he seems to like everything, it is hard to know what his favorite foods are.

Today his first tooth popped out! Bottom left has a tiny bit of white poking through! No sign of discomfort or fever either. Awesome!

Ok Ezra, I'm excited to see the boy you are becoming, but can you please not grow up so fast?? My "little baby" doesn't seem like a baby anymore!