Happy Birthday, Ezekiel Luke!!!

Ezekiel,

Today is your first birthday! I sang Happy Birthday to you this morning right before I left for work. You just smiled at me as I sang. I know that you didn't understand, but I want you to know that I didn't forget in the midst of life and that I will love you forever. I'm planning to make or buy your favorite meal for dinner tonight---mashed potatoes! Daddy has to work, but we are planning on having fun tomorrow night and Saturday at our combined birthday party with Kyla.

As I was singing to you this morning, I realized that it was a little ironic. You were born at 11:54pm on this day one year ago. I am still a little amazed at how quickly and easily you came. I didn't have any clue that you would be here today until about 1pm (in about 5th or 6th period). I was at work, doing what I was hoping to be able to do for 2 more days, but you had a different plan. I was making sub plans for the next few days and weeks at this point in time exactly a year ago.

You have added so much joy to my life. It hasn't been easy, but you are sooo worth it. You may have been a "surprise," but you better never think that you were not wanted! You are a wonderful surprise gift from God. I can't imagine life without you. I love to cuddle with you and make you laugh. You love to hold onto my fingers to walk. You crawl so incredibly fast and can climb almost as well. You love to "Praise the Lord" by throwing your hands over your head and smiling that huge toothy grin. You'll keep doing it and knowing you are cute. The look on your face is priceless.

I love you, Ezekiel Luke. Happy Birthday!!!

Since I can finally get to a post page...

"Hep me, Momma! No ti-ul"

Daddy is a good tickler.

"Get Malachi, Z! Get him!"

The boys love to "wrestle" with each other, especially when Daddy helps.

"Playing together" - Malachi likes to set his toys up this way. I put Z up there (he loves the bike) and Malachi hopped on the block wagon. His imagination is really starting to bloom. Choo-Choo!

"Matching" jammies

How cute is this boy?

I've been having a huge issue of Blogger actually letting me get to a post page. This is the first time I've been able to finagle it to get there, and it took me forever! Oh, well.

This is a rather long post and may be the only one for a week or two, so if you feel the need, please pace yourself:)

We've been busy, as usual, lately. After Christmas, we had a few more "parties." One was with our friends J&L and Kyla and W&J (and first baby on the way). The children had a blast playing together (as they normally do), and the adults had a great time chatting. Ezekiel would not go to sleep until everyone was gone. It was a blast! Malachi wanted to help me make green beans for the dinner, so I snapped off the ends, and he would snap them into smaller pieces. None of the pieces were near the same size, but they tasted great, and Malachi had a great time helping.

Malachi now has eczema, too. He's had some bad rashes for a while. I thought switching the detergent would help, but it didn't. He's done very well at letting us put on the special "lotion." It has cleared up quickly. I think we just may have to apply it only after baths (which are still every other night [or more]). He's definitely not itching as bad as he was. His skin is soft again.

Ezekiel is cruising furniture and pulling up like a pro. He loves music, too. When something comes on that he likes, he'll just smile and bee-bop his little body and head around. It is soooo cute.

Malachi can count to ten and is beginning to say his ABC's. They are not very good, but he's getting there. He can recognize M for Malachi and K for Kyla. He's getting a few others, too. He typically listens to his personalized VeggieTales CD when going to sleep. He knows most of those songs (or at least portions of them) and a few other children's songs that I think they do at church. I asked him last Sunday (I think), if he knew that, "Jesus loves you." He starting singing, "Bible tells me SOOO." It was so precious. He has always, always loved music and to have him learn songs and be able to sing them with me is totally awesome and amazing!

Ezekiel is totally and completely weaned. Right around his 11 month birthday, I got tired of nursing, pumping and all that comes with it---plus another reason that I'll talk about later. So, we starting introducing bottles of soy milk. After about a week, he was totally on soy milk. I thought that he would be more difficult to wean, but it was very, very smooth. About a week of washing bottles, I decided that it was time to do the Nuby sippy cups full-time. For about 2 days, he acted like he missed the bottles, but he did just fine. He loves them now, and so do I---much fewer parts and dishwasher safe. Woo-hoo!

For my birthday, my sweet husband took me to one night at a bed and breakfast in Boone, NC, Lovill House Inn. It was just enough time to get away from the boys and have some time with my hubby. That was about the first "date" or time alone without the boys that Daniel and I have had since Ezekiel was born. Boy, was it great to not have to worry about a baby crying in the middle of the night! Daniel even got the little romance package. We had a great dinner and a wonderful breakfast at the house. We got a late lunch and headed back to Concord to pick up the boys from a very exhausted Grammy---Thanks sooo much!!!

Ezekiel had still been struggling to sleep through the night. Most of it was my fault of not letting him cry. I didn't want him to bother Malachi with his crying. Plus, in the middle of the night, when you are so tired, it is hard to let him cry. The past week we have really worked on him going back to sleep even if he's crying. He now goes to bed about 8:30pm and will sleep until Malachi wakes him up playing (around 7-8am). I know now (since he drinks tons of soy milk during the day) that he can't be too hungry. He's doing great, and Malachi did fine with the 2 nights of crying.

Malachi did wake up at 3am about 2 weeks ago (when we had snow) and turned on the light (and woke up his brother) to find his bop. It was not fun to try to get 2 boys back to sleep. I really didn't think that Malachi was that serious about finding his bop when I heard him talking through the monitor, "Bop is? Bop is, Momma? Bop is?"

Ok. I think I'm done with all my ramblings. Daniel did have a job interview at a church last week. We hope to hear something soon. Please pray. We are all happy and mostly healthy. God is good!