HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZEKE!

I can't even believe that it's been a whole year since I had this little angel. He's the SWEETEST baby anyone could imagine. Currently, he's cruising along furniture, has 8 teeth and eats just about anything (including an entire bratwurst last night), and he usually sleeps 14 hours at night straight through. Plus a 2 hour nap at some point during the day. Sometimes 2.

This is his 1 year old picture from after church yesterday. I tried without the binky, but he wasn't focusing! He had just woken up from his nap, and friends were there!

For father's day, as well as Zeke and Kurt's birthday that is today, we had the Waller's over. Kurt, Lindsey, and Chase came over to play and BBQ. After dinner, the dads were enthralled in some XBOX, so we took the boys out back to play in our kiddie pool. They did have fun, this is just the only picture of both of their faces.

Then we got cleaned up and opened presents. Zeke got a busy ball popper, duplo legos, and cars from us, books and clothes from Nana and Papa, and a baseball and glove from the Wallers.

Here he's a little scared of his cake. In all fairness, it is on fire.

But once it's extinguished (with some help from daddy) he seems to cozy right up to it.

You can tell he's really enjoying it, because we're getting the "cheesy" smile.

It's all fun and games until someone rubs their eyes with red frosting all over their hands.

Then we stripped him down, and gave him a bath in the sink.

We LOVE our sweet baby, and we can't imagine our life without him. He's such a blessing, and he teaches us so much every day. I'm so excited about his little brother (or sister) that's coming this winter, and watching them grow and play and learn together.

Zeke LOVES strawberries!

One evening last week I picked all of the strawberries out of my garden. They're smaller than store ones, but I got 2-3 cups full. I sat with Zeke on the sidewalk out back, and he dug right in. After about 3/4 of the container was empty, I thought, "This is sure cute. I should probably get my camera." So you're catching the tail end of our strawberry extravaganza. He clearly loved them.

"This is delicious!"

"NO!!! They're almost gone!"

I think Reggie wanted a bite, but no luck!

Viva la familia!

Last week, I took a trip to Oregon, and then Washington to see some family.

Jacqui, Dan and Levi came down to see some friends in Reno. Then we caravaned back up to Oregon all together. Levi is the CUTEST uncle. He took such good care of Zeke and Paolo the whole time! This is us at Black Bear Diner in Mt Shasta City, with Mt Shasta in the background. It's a really pretty drive.

When we got there we just had to go see Nana and Papa, and they suprised us with Heather and Isabel coming down! We went to lunch and had a pretty good day. Zeke showed off his straw skills by sucking down literally half of my chocolate milkshake.

He's also taken a liking to sunglasses. It's pretty cute. Here he stole Isabels. He just started doing it on the way to Oregon with Jacqui's. They were pink too. Uh-oh.

Zeke loved playing with his cousins. Here he is with Paolo.

This is at the family reunion in Washington with Jared. He is my cousin Zynna's 9 month old.


I'm sure he was tired, but mostly it was warm in there. I think he liked the nice cool floor.


All the hot ladies. And their babies. Jacqui and Paolo, Zynna and Jared, Aunt Coca, and Zeke and Me.



Finding his new love. Strawberries. I never bring him food because he can eat basically anything, but here it was limited, so he ate about a dozen that day. I had strawberry juice all over my nice white pants.



Here is a lot of the family that was there. I could even tell you most of their names now! YAY!

Silly BABY!

Zeke has been quite the handful lately. And since I'm pregnant, I've been lazier than ever. I had a little bleeding episode on Sunday night, so Monday, I was taking it easy. Whilst laying on the couch, I dozed off, and Zeke found my extra strength Tylenol in my diaper bag, got it open, and proceeded to try some. I woke up when josiah got home and discovered them all over the place. I called poison control, and the guy said at his weight, 4-5 are toxic. Since we didn't know how many he had, we took him straight to the emergency room. They had to give him a little IV, and they tested his blood for the drug. Whilst we were waiting, I asked the nice doctor if I could be admitted because I thought I may be miscarrying at 12 weeks. There were no doctor's offices open since it was Memorial Day, but since we were already at the ER, I figured, why not? So while we were waiting for Zeke's results, they set me up for an ultrasound. Jo and I said a little prayer while we were waiting for the doctor, and when he came in to do the US, everything was fine. He said I had a "marginal placenta" which tends to bleed when overexerted, so I REALLY have to take it easy. And Zeke had no tylenol in his system. One of my ward friends called to have her hair done, and I politely declined due to my situation. She called me back 15 min later, and told me she had called the primary president, and told her I needed to be released from Nursery. HAHA. Whatever it takes. But it really is a legitimate request.


New Story:

Every single day Zeke and I take a shower. Every day I get out and fill the bath with 3 inches of clean baby soapy water. He plays while I get dressed, and then I get him out and get him dressed. Well, today he must have been a little tired/impatient, because before I could get my unders on, he did a face plant on my bathroom floor. It looked like when seals flop on the ice. He just slid out face first. He got a tiny fat lip, and he cried for a long time. He hates getting out of the bath as it is, and he was REALLY tired. He's fine now. It was hilarious though. A mental picture I'll cherish forever.

Last weekend we went camping with the Turners. It was a blast! I can't wait to go more this summer!

Josiah's bringing us all our tin-foil dinners. Yum YUM!

This is where we wanted Zeke to play all day:


This is where he preferred to be:

This is also his 11 month shot! How HANDSOME!

Here's my sexy hubby cooking us dinner!

And here's the boys playing horseshoes. Mike brought the games. He also brought a beanbag toss called CORNHOLE. That's really the name kids. I thought they were just being funny, but when I got home, I wanted to buy a set so bad I googled it and there's an ACA. American Cornhole Association!!! We had a really good time!

Zeke got into pen the other morning.

And Lastly, my gardening update.

What a carrot should look like:

What happens when a small carrot hits a rock, or something else hard.


And this baby just came out of the blue. I check my plants at least every other day when I water, and this was there today! HOW FUN!

Sacramento Rivercats and Teenie Potatoes

I'm really excited about my garden! It's starting to get really big. I planted potatoes about a month ago, and they are out of control huge on top. It's cool, all you have to do is cut up a disease free potato and stick it in dirt, and a few weeks later, the plant is ginormous! One of my weaknesses however is digging up what I plant too early, just to see how it's coming along. But then you can't exactly put it back. I've done this with carrots and onions also. They're cute! I can't wait until they're full grown! So yesterday I dug my hand under the potato plant, and this is what I found:

I put it next to an egg so you could see how tiny it is. But it's a potato!

Last night we went to a Sacramento Rivercats baseball game. They're our triple a team, and they were the champs last year. I guess they then got recruited pretty heavily, because they're not as great this year. We played the Albuquerque Isotopes. Jo was pretty excited about playing the Isotopes. Like on "The Simpsons" Silly boys! Oh, and we won!


What's baseball without the snacks! It was clearly a packed house. I was trying to give Josiah a bite of my red rope and Zeke grabbed it and started gnawing away. Whatev.


These are my cute boys leaving the park. Night time and still warm outside!


And here's my very bad baby. I was waiting for my little friend Easton to come over so I could take him to preschool for his mom. I decided to put on Dora so E could watch whilst I showered. I watch a LOT of TV and Zeke never seems to care what's on. Top Model, The Hills, he's oblivious. This time however, 30 seconds, and he was HOOKED! I guess the makers of Dora know what they're doing!

Plus one makes 4!

So I've been trying to decide when to post this. I was going to wait a few more weeks, but I couldn't hold it in any more! We're having another baby!!! I'm 9 weeks, 4 days, and I'm due December 8th.

I know I know, we already have a baby and he's only 10 months old! Yeah, we were pretty much freaking out at first, but now we're really excited. We're hoping for another boy to keep Zekey company. They'll be 17 1/2 months apart.

I couldn't figure out how to rotate this picture, but you can tell which way was up. It looks like a perfect picture of a baby with a face and little hands and everything. Little did I know, the baby is upside down, and his face is actually his body. Whatever. I was still right about the hands.

If anybody knew me during my first pregnancy, I WAS SICK. Every other day I was throwing up, and if I wasn't throwing up, I was laying on the couch. This time, I'm SO MUCH BETTER!!! It's so exciting. I'm still feeling exhausted, but I only threw up once, whilst cleaning up dog poo. (Please refer to two posts ago.) Anyway, i'll keep everyone updated on the progress.

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

There's a commercial for the boardwalk that has a fun jingle that I was singing all day. Anyhoo, today we spent our Saturday mostly in the car. We woke up this morning and went to the Black Bear Diner in Suisun City, CA. It's the closest to us, and they have some KILLER pancakes. They're made with sweet cream. I thought Zeke was going to share with me, but he wasn't hungry, so I had to do most of the damage by myself. (And I could only get about halfway through.)

Since we were already halfway to Santa Cruz, we decided to make a day of it. I have been wanting to go. It was really fun. Josiah was super impressed (Which is VERY difficult) with the "real California beach." They were having a beach volleyball tournament. It's funny because all beach volleyball players wear skimpy bikinis whether they should or not. There was one hot guy while we were watching, but he was the only player who refused to take his shirt off. I was sad. JKLOL. Anyhoo, this is me after playing one round of "knock over the milk bottles." There were six bottles stacked and I had to throw three baseballs and knock them all down. I did it in two! And then Josiah and I played a rifle game, and he got 14/15, and I got all 15! I wasn't trying to emasculate him, but needless to say, he wasn't trying any more contests after my winning streak. He did tear it up on skeeball though. After a churro, a pretzel, a virgin strawberry margarita, and way too much licorice, we decided to head home. I did get a crab cocktail on the way. I LOVE CRAB!
This is Zeke just loving being out.


This is me and my prize. Zeke lost it halfway through the day.


Here's us in front of the beach. Pretty fun!