Christmas Cookies

Tis the season to be jolly, and that of course means cookies are a must. We decided to frost sugar cookies with Zeke, and he loved it. When Trustin asked him if he wanted to decorate cookies he started jumping up and down he was so excited! We think he probably thought that question was "do you want to eat cookies?" but his reaction was cute nonetheless.
He did much better than I had expected. I showed him how to frost them and he tried to copy it; however, instead of spreading the frosting he usually just shook the spoon back and forth across the cookies so eventually some frosting drizzled on.

This is completely Zeke's work, minus a tiny bit by mom at the beginning. He's practically professional.

He soon took over all four frosting bowls and also discovered a shortcut to frosting the cookies: Just stick them in the bowls of frosting!

In other Christmas news, we have been loving Christmas this year. I think because we are trying to teach Zeke the real meaning of Christmas it has become more real for me too. Zeke loves our little wood nativity and loves to kiss the baby jesus and the angel. Everyday he walks me over to the entertainment center and asks me to pick him up so he can see all of his favorite decorations. He also likes the Christmas tree ornaments, and we can't seem to clarify the difference between them and balls...so they are usually being removed and tossed around.

Zeke also met Santa this month. He was doing some secret shopping with Daddy (so I missed it, tragedy) and Santa Claus showed up at the store. Trustin has more of the cute details, but Zeke actually liked Santa. And ever since he's been so excited when he sees anything Santa Claus. We watched "A Miracle on 34th Street" last night and Zeke literally ran to the TV dancing and bouncing with excitement when Santa first appeared, and anytime he wasn't on the screen he started making his "I don't know" actions and babbling earnestly (clearly wanting Santa to come back). We can't wait for Christmas morning and are actually excited to do our own little family Christmas this year.

A few random ones

This was just a cute one of Syri, Me and Zeke. Zeke would love to just play with Syri all day!

One day about a week ago I heard water running which is always suspicious when only Zeke and I are home. So I walk down to the bathroom expecting to see Zeke standing on the flour bucket washing his hands in the sink. But instead he had chosen as his climbing facilitator his short and not so stable bouncer chair and had somehow managed to climb all the way up and into the sink. He was just sitting under the running water fully clothed and extremely proud of himself. ...then comes the moment that you know I'm a blogger...instead of removing my soggy child or some such action I run for the camera. But when I come back and try to get Zeke to smile for a picture he refuses and is trying desperately to get out of the sink. A-hah moment: Only the hot faucet is turned on and as camera-mom is taking pictures poor little Zeke's legs are slowly cooking! Luckily for Zeke (and may I add, luckily for my guilty conscience) after quickly removing his pants and plopping him back into the sink under the cold faucet Zeke was completely fine. No burns and he went back to smiles and pride in his Zeke-Sink adventure.

The next delimma...how to keep this from happening all the time, especially since my first reaction was laughter and delight at my crazy kid, rather than "no sinks Zeke"

And the day has come: Zeke finally likes movies. Or Movie. I've tried on a couple crazy days to let Zeke watch a bit of a movie so I can get things done and he's never been interested for more than a minute. But a while back he saw a snippet of Toy Story and he found his dream movie. He has a Woody toy and one of his good buddies has the Buzz so he already loved the toys and we think that is why he was suddenly interested in the movie. Whatever the reason, it caught on fast. Tonight Trustin said "Zeke do you want to watch Woody and Buzz" and Zeke's face seriously lit up like it was the greatest thing since they put the pocket in pita. He ran to the t.v. saying what sounded remarkably like "Buzz, Buzz!" So the day has come.

The Magical Forest

We got free tickets to The Magical Forest this last week and made an adventure of it. It is a big decorated "forest"(pine trees on a college campus) where they have a bunch of beautiful displays and lights and rides. Zeke was the perfect age for it.He was young enough that he wasn't begging to go on all of the rides (which were pricey) but old enough that he was completely entranced by the lights and decorations.

One of the displays was a firehouse and Zeke got to help Daddy ring the bell. Truth be told I think he was quite frustrated that we were trying to pull on some random rope while these unknown women smiled at him. Life must be pretty confusing when you are 1-1/2!

He wasn't confused by the boxcar display and quickly insisted on hopping inside. Here we are popping up saying "Boo!" to scare Daddy.

This is what Zeke looked like pretty much the whole night. He was constantly pointing at something new he'd seen.

We rode a train around the display area. Zeke really loved that and didn't want to get off. Trustin and I however, were excited to get off; we'd decided to all ride in one seat, and it was TINY.

Perhaps the hightlight of the night for Zeke was that everybody kept giving him candycanes.

Finally, we rode the Carousel. Zeke wasn't as excited as I'd expected. He seemed to enjoy it, but he never gave a bigger smile than this one.

So we had a rather "magical" night. Merry Christmas!

Whoa Christmas Tree! Whoa Christmas Tree!

This is not a big(or is it) or an important post, but whoa baby! So do you remember our scrawny 3 foot Christmas Tree? Well today somebody in the ward offered their old Christmas tree because a few of the lights don't work anymore and they are upgrading. I can handle replacing a few strings of lights if it means a new tree, so naturally I jumped at the offer.

This new tree is not the seven foot tree I'd been hoping for...It is TWELVE feet tall and feels even taller. So I just had to post a picture of the tree that I am not even capable of decorating (a ladder is on the shopping list this week).

Zeke standing on a chair is still tiny next to this monster.

I have other stories to share, but maybe after the bedtime of this crazy nut.

The Secrets of a Mischievious Munchkin

Step One: Wearing a proper disguise. The best disguises must hide one's face.

Step Two: Some mischief may require ingenuity. For example, one may need to drag a flour bin across the kitchen and climb on in order to achieve success.

Step Three: If caught in the act, look innocent (and being cute can help)

Step Four: When questioned feign innocence (This is Zeke's new way of saying "I don't know.")

Step Five: All mischief makers need a hideout.

Finally: Snuggles are a sure way to soften the hearts of any mischief catchers.

The Grand Tour

Well I'm sure you've all been awaiting a tour, so here it is, our home sweet home!



Well, half of our hedges are dead...but we have three rose bushes and a gardenia, so I think those make up for the dead stuff. I wish I'd gotten a picture one week earlier; the roses were incredible!

Here is our lovely kitchen with our ghetto fridge and to the right a pantry that is bigger than any we've ever had but still can't contain our mass quantities of cereal.

Here is looking at our "breakfast nook" with the patio door and our dining room to the left.

Dining room.

View #1 of our living room and the front door. We can't decide what to do with our coffee table. Sometimes it is really nice to have a table in there, but it is pretty crammed with it in there full time. So for the moment we hide it in the corner.

Another view.

Our "office." It's a disaster...obviously. Also, my friend told me the other day that with such tall ceilings we'll need at least an 8 or 9 foot Christmas tree...she's probably right...for the moment we're settling for a 3 footer on a 6 foot trunk, we're fancy like that!

looking upstairs

Master bedroom (I made the bed after I took the picture...strange order to do things)

Our game/linen closet

looking down the hall towards the three smaller bedrooms

Zeke's room. I didn't take pictures of the other two rooms because they are basically the same as this minus the cute bed and the cuter resident.

Our tree. This is after Trustin did quite a bit of pruning. It originally looked like a giant ugly bush. We plan to prune it some more and eventually hang a swing off the branch that crosses down low. Also, you can see a bit of where we are planting grass. The green is actually only the fertilizer/mulch, but hopefully soon it will be sprouting grass too. We only planted about half of what we hope to have back there eventually.

Viewing the yard from the "patio" (which is currently dirt but with dreams of becoming paved...perhaps by March...it's a big patio)

The yard from another angle. Also, I forgot to take before pictures, but you can see some of the leftover weeds that Zeke and I spent days and days pulling. Zeke was an awesome helper!

Fish and Lions

When Gramma and Paca came down to visit for the weekend we decided to head out to Lake Mead and feed the fish and ducks. There is a ridiculous amount of smelly ugly wide mouthed carp down and the marina and when you start throwing in food they swarm so thick that I think you could plausibly walk across them. Zeke of course loved them, but I think Paca may have had the most fun.

Zeke kept trying to run and "jump" to Gramma. He jumps a bit like his Grandma Brockbank! In this video you can see his jumps when he sort of stomps/squats and stands up straight.

Our next important event was Halloween. Here in Vegas they still celebrate on Sunday, so we didn't actually take Zeke trick-or-treating. Instead we dressed him up and walked around the dollar store until it was time for dinner and then ate pizza buffet. We almost didn't dress Zeke up since there was no "real" reason too, but we were so glad we did because he makes one very adorable lion. We decided to make him a lion because he loves to roar, but in the last little while he's stopped roaring as much, although we did get a few good roars while in his costume.

Check out his cute puffy bum!

I just can't get enough of that face!

ROAR!