that silly groundhog

For the first time I can ever remember, the groundhog was wrong. Spring is HERE, and has been since the beginning of February! This is fantastic and we sure are loving all the warmth and sunshine! Today my boys took advantage of the 80 degree mark on the thermometer by making their inaugural splash in my parents' pond. It's a right of passage every spring, which normally doesn't come until late April or early May. I'm astonished that this is early March and we're already seeing leaves on trees and playing in water outside! We've been going barefoot for a week now. :) My laundry also loves the fresh air when I hang it out to dry!

Oh yeah, and these boys... I love them more every second.

Daylight savings time started this weekend. One of the perks is that I get to enjoy sunrises again. This was my view as I went up my driveway in the fog this morning.

Picky Pants

Elijah is the a super picky eater... and not in the way you probably think. He will eat basically any raw veggie or fruit. But offer the kid mac & cheese or mashed potatoes and he freaks out. He eats absolutely nothing wet or mushy. Raw spinach - yes. Spaghetti - no. Hands full of cilantro picked from the garden - yes. applesauce - no. He's a strange bird.

Up to this point in his life (except his very early stages of trying table food) the only meats he will ingest are: grilled steak, grilled chicken breast, chicken fingers/nuggets, fried chicken leg, grilled pork chop, and kielbasa sausage - cut into round pieces and "blackened" in a skillet or grilled. The end. He won't try a single bite of other meats no matter what.

Oh my gosh and soup? Forget about it. Pasta? Are you crazy? Casserole? NEVER in a million years.

The part that makes this so difficult is that Elijah hardly ever feels hungry. I have to coerce him at each meal time to sit down and take one or two bites. He would be perfectly happy to just not eat. Then every 3 days or so he gets famished and eats all day. But that's very hit or miss. My mom says she was the same way so she understands how he feels.

I should also add that we've had MANY dinnertime battles over this very issue, but I'm tired of fighting. Most nights we eat regular meals and Elijah has PB&J. And he's happy like that. I joke that if it weren't for peanut butter he would have starved 3 years ago. He lived off spoons of peanut butter for about 12 months straight.

So tonight for supper I made what I call Hobos. I don't know what they really are. It's a meal my grandma used to make on her fire pit, but I do it on the grill. You put a hamburger patty in the center of a big piece of foil, top with sliced onion, thinly sliced carrots and potatoes, salt & pepper all of it, seal the foil shut and throw it on the fire until it's all tender and caramelized (and amazing!). It's like camping food.

Anyway, this afternoon I didn't let Elijah have any snacks at all. Then I made supper and filled plates and told him to sit at the table. I didn't offer him another option. He had told me he was hungry so I knew I had a fairly good chance of getting him to try a bite. Then something unbelievable happened {the heavens opened up and angels began to sing}. I offered him a bite of hamburger and he took it. He liked it and asked for more. Then more. Then seconds. He ate an entire hamburger patty! (not a single bite of anything else, but baby steps.) This is monumental in my book!

MONUMENTAL, I tell you.

I didn't want to jinx it by telling him what he was eating. I thought maybe he thought it was steak. But when he was done I told him I would let him in on my top secret recipe. When he heard what it was he didn't freak out. He said he wanted to call Grandma because she would be so proud of him. He was proud of himself too.

Oh and then, later I tricked him into eating yogurt for dessert. I found an idea on Pinterest to pipe yogurt into dollops on a cookie sheet using a zipper baggie w/the corner cut off, and freeze them. They turn into kind of little ice cream bites. I named them ice cream dots and told him it was his special treat for eating supper. He loved them! We made another batch for tomorrow night! Milestones, guys. This is big!

So, it appears that maybe Elijah's taste buds are maturing. If not that he is just growing up enough to try new things every once in a while. I'm so excited!!!

9:52 | Repetition

blowing up balloons is very repetitive

Sunday Conversations

I know I don't talk a lot about all the little things my boys do any more. But today is one of those days that I just have to write it down or I'll forget these precious times.

Driving home from church today this how my conversation went with Elijah...

- Mom, will I still be alive when God snatches me up to heaven?
- Well, it depends on if you die before Jesus comes back to get us and we meet Him in the air. If your body dies first, then God takes your spirit to be with him in Heaven.
- Yeah! Which part is my spirit?
- Its the part on the inside that makes you alive and makes you who you are.
- So its the part that wants to be an engineer when I grow up... and then a bulldozer operator.
- Sure!
- Mom, when we get home I'm going to pray and ask God about that.
- Okay honey, but you know you can pray anywhere. Even in the car.
- Oh yeah, that's right! {closes eyes, folds hands} "Dear God, do you want to be my friend? And when I grow up can I please be an engineer? And then a bulldozer operator? Amen."
- Amen. What did you talk about in your Sunday school class today.
- I can't remember. Hey Mom, When God created the heavens and the earth did He have helpers, and robots, and heavy equipment and stuff?
- No honey. God didn't need any of that stuff. He's so powerful that all he had to do is speak the word and they were created!
- You mean he didn't need any machines? Not even to build the buildings and roads?
- Well, in the beginning God made the earth, sky, waters, animals, birds, fish, and people. Then He gave the people good minds to figure out how to use the materials they found to make tools and build things.
- Oh, so God made people, and people made things! Now I get it! I'm pretty smart, Mom. But after He said 'Let there be light' did He say 'let there be bulldozers and diggers and stuff?'
- No baby. He just said it was good.
- Mom, I'm sorry that sometimes I hurt Zekie. It's just that I'm too good at wrestling.

Then later...
Mom, I'm going to pray and ask Jesus if its OK for me to live in that house next door to Grandma Debby. Because I love her and I want to be her neighbor.

Weekend Photos

Just a couple quick pictures from the couples' advance this weekend. We had gorgeous weather on Saturday and enjoyed a nice long walk down to the river through this quaint town after the sessions ended.

Yep, crocuses are blooming... Spring is just around the corner!

Manny and Me at the conference on Friday night.

Our whole group (minus Manny, me, and the Bachynskys, who had to leave early).

Advancing ?

This weekend Manny and I attended a wonderful couples' advance with our church at New Harmony Inn. (I had never been there and it's lovely.) We had a great time of fellowship and hearing some much-needed refreshing teaching on marriage! I am hopeful that he will receive (at least) some of what he heard and apply it to his heart. I'm pretty much ready to see some changes in a positive direction. Of course, I know we both need to learn and change. I'm just growing weary of the way things have been for the past... oh, 5 years. I'm tired. I'm out of ideas. And out of energy. I am ready to have a good, fruitful, enjoyable marriage in stead of this stale, tiresome, lonely one. We need the Grace of God to help us, that's for sure. But if there's one thing I learned this weekend its that ANY marriage can be improved. There is ALWAYS hope. I'm not giving up.

8:52 | Hands

These two sets of hands are always working hard together. Elijah and my mom love gardening and they don't mind getting a little dirt under their nails. I hope that when he grows up Elijah remembers all the many hours of hard work his Grandma's hands did.

7:52 | Detail

Detail beautiful newborn baby lips, face, nose belonging to the sweetest baby girl EVER! {Lilian Grace Cazee}

Meet Grey Bunny.

When Elijah was this age he was attached at the hip to his blue blanket he named BB. Now, Zeke is in LOVE with this furry friend. He can't talk yet to name him, so for right now we call him Grey Bunny. And these two are best friends! They go everywhere together. They can't even sleep without each other.

Bunny has been on lots of adventures... I have found him in the trash can, the dog's water, going down the slicky-slide, taking a ride in the dumptruck, shoved in the pantry, going for a trip in the toy shopping cart, peeking at himself in the mirror, putting strange objects onto his paws, and taking a dunk in the bathtub more than once.

The poor thing has been loved nearly to death. The ears stink from being sucked on and fur is matted down from so much petting and quite a few cycles through the washing machine. But Zeke's love for him is unconditional. If they spend any time apart, my little sweetheart squeals and runs to squeeze his chubby arms around his bunny when they are reunited. He is often seen toddling around the house with an ear (or two) in his mouth, taking bunny for a stroll. He also likes to point out his eyes and say "eye". They love to eat together - the bunny mostly acting as a catch-all for spills and crumbs. He does occasionally get a drink from the sippy cup or a bite, face-first, of pizza. Bunny loves to try on different accessories from time to time; such as blocks, cups, gloves, or socks on his ears and feet.

I love the way the love each other. And I just hope Zeke doesn't outgrow this friendship any time soon.

6:52 | Fresh

Manny's freshly baked birthday cake to celebrate a fresh new year... 34.
(yikes! we're getting OLD!)

5:52 | Old

This is St. Boniface Catholic church, est. 1881. It the place my mom attended grade school and where my parents were married in 1975.

4:52 | Close

These two boys. I'm so thankful they are starting to really love each other. I hope they are best friends for life!

3:52 | New

New Heart, New Spirit, New Life...
in the New Covenant because of Jesus.

Ezekiel 36:26 -Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Ezekiel | 18 months old

My adorable, energetic, baby is growing up way too fast. If you haven't seen the rest of his 18 month photo shoot pics, click here to see them on my photography blog. (If you wanna)

He's running, climbing, jumping, and in general keeping up with his big brother in most areas.

He has a ravenous appetite and LOVES to eat. (the polar opposite of Elijah) He wakes up in the morning and within 5 minutes he's standing at the gate crying to go downstairs to eat. Any time of day, open the fridge and he comes running! And he's not too picky... although he hates mashed potatoes.

He is crazy about his blue and brown soft blanket that my Grandma Theresa got him before he was born. He never sleeps without it.

His best stuffed friend is a fluffy grey bunny that Grandma Gloria sent last Easter. (The bunny gets his own post later.) Not only the bunny, but he really has an affinity for animals. Particularly my Mom's cat and our dog Annie. I think the animals know he loves them, because they normally tend to tolerate his "petting", which sometimes includes a gentle love pat or pull of the tail. And for Annie it usually means a good goosing in the rear end since she has no tail to shield herself. :)

At his 18 month check-up he weighed 24.4 pounds (57th percentile), and was 32 inches tall (33rd percentile).

He loves music and dances when he hears any sort of tune.

He can sit in his room near the book shelf and read books by himself for nearly an hour if uninterrupted.

Though he's not talking as much as I would have expected, I've been told this is normal for a second child. His brother does all his talking for him. He says... Mama, Dada, Elijah (Die-die-za), Moo, eye, eet (for tweet), bye-bye, hi, kee-kee (kitty).

He pretend counts by pointing his tiny index finger at the pages and making sounds that mimick my intonation when I count.

He consistently signs for more, milk, and bird.

He enjoys his Baby Einstein videos, but always always cries when they show a polar bear. Even it its just a puppet. He finds them frightening apparently. And he laughs hysterically when they show the scene of a basket of apples falling onto the monkey's head.



He is similar to Elijah in that while they watch TV together, they both stand inches from it with their hands behind their back, swaying back and forth in concentration.

Oh, and he LOVES Elijah so much... follows him around, cries when Elijah wants to be left alone, and asks about him when they aren't together. I so much want for them to be best friends as they grow up. Now, if only Elijah could learn to be more tolerant of his little brother.

2:52 | Circle

Just playing around with some sunlight.

Christmas 2011 (part 1)

I'm going to try to keep this short and to the point. For one thing I'm suffering from a tripple-whammy... migraine, inner ear infection, and cutting this dang wisdom tooth. I have a crazy case of vertigo all the time, which makes for some interesting walking up and down the stairs holding Zeke. Anyway, Christmas happened. It was awesome (Elijah's exact words). Here's how it went down, starting with Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve was a Saturday so Elijah went to play in the yard with my parents (it was a gorgeous day) and Manny was off work so he and I got last minute things done around the house. Later, when it got dark out, we took the boys over to Fantasy of Lights, a very pretty display thru a park. Santa was working at the entrance gate passing out candy canes. So Elijah took the opportunity to shout his questions out the window. 1) Where did you park your sleigh? 2) Where are the reindeer? To which Santa chuckled and replied "over there behind that building in the parking lot". Obviously. The boys really enjoyed the light display. Zeke sat back there "talking" the whole time in his little sing-song way. I wish I could describe what it sounds like. Kind of like "eeh-eh" I guess. Only he slides up at the end like a siren. I think we'll all be thrilled when he figures out how to put words together.

After that we drove around town looking at some of the neighborhoods with lots of lights. At home I got to work on the Christmas breakfast menu while the boys played and watched the Veggie Tales St. Nick movie. When that was done Zeke went to sleep and Elijah, Manny, and I watched Polar Express and drank hot chocolate. It was a cozy and perfect way to end Christmas Eve with our sweet Elijah. He fell asleep before the end of the movie.

Ugh, nevermind. I'll tell the rest of the story tomorrow or something. Too tired now. It's New Year's Eve and I'm calling lights out at 9:20. Which totally beats our NYE 2 years ago when Manny and I were both throwing up all night. No bueno.

So, Happy New Year everyone.

Nut Club Nuts

The West Side Nut Club is a group of Evansville businessmen who do philanthropic things around town (like the Fall Festival). Every December they all get dressed up in outlandish costumes and parade themselves with goodies and Christmas cheer to residents in a nearby nursing home. Since our office is 3 doors down from their headquarters, we have the good fortune of witnessing this parade every year. This time my boys happened to be around. One of the Nut-Clubbers was kind enough to provide us with a few snaps. Ezekiel wasn't a fan, however.

But Elijah saw this as his opportunity to ask Santa a few questions that had been weighing on his mind.... "How far is the North Pole from here? How do you get there? How did you decide on all the reindeer's names?"

December: catch-up

Ok, so I blinked and we've gone from Thanksgiving to now after Christmas. There has been a whirlwind of activity with our family and it seems I haven't made time to talk about it... what, with all the doing of it. I can't even begin to list all the happenings. Just the highlights, perhaps?

Earlier this month Elijah had several special events in his life...

1) He got to sing 3 Christmas songs with his Sunday School class in "big church". He was great! Especially the part where he spotted me in the crowd and shouted "Hey Mom! I just love John Deere tractors! Oh look... Grandma and Grandma! Hey Grandmas!" It was such a proud moment for me.

2) I was the party mom for his pre-K class Christmas party. Oh boy, what a time. We made picture frame crafts, ate Rudolph and frosty donuts, sang songs, and played a trivia game.
{here's Elijah in his classroom}

{and with some of his classmates}

3) He got to go to his very first concert. One of the big churches here in town does a huge Christmas production on a Friday night. We went on a "date" together - out to eat w/my parents and grandparents - he even opened the door for me, my little gentleman. The concert was beautiful. They had a full orchestra, children's choir, adult choir, soloists, duets, all sorts of other special music, and his favorite part - the organist. (why?) We really had a special time together that night.

4) His school Christmas program happened. It was a long ordeal for such young kids - over an hour. He was one of the shepherds in the nativity. His class did 5 or 6 songs I think. It was really cute. Again, he saw me in the crowd and shouted "Hey Mom, I love you! Are you going to take my picture or what!?"

5) He got a haircut.

6) He's been doing a lot of baking with my Mom, my Grandma and me. There must have been 50 dozen cookies - no joking. He's a wonderful helper too, very good in the kitchen.

I'm cutting a wisdom tooth. How stupid... and painful.

Zeke got a buzz haircut and now looks so grown up! He's really thinning out - tall and lean now in stead of my chubby round baby.

For most of December its been unseasonably warm here. So nice, in fact, that I haven't even gotten my heavy coat out yet. Elijah has been doing a lot of "putzing" around with my Dad at their house. You know, the usual. Firewood, feeding birds, raking stuff, fixing stuff, pushing wheelbarrows, burning brush piles, cleaning gutters and such.

Speaking of gutters... my 4-year-old normally very cautious son decided to climb a latter up to my parents' roof the other weekend. My dad was up there, but way on the other side of the house. When my mom discovered him he was straddling the ridge vent just hanging out by himself. It's a doggone good thing I wasn't there because a few words might have escaped my mouth that I would later have regretted.

I've taken these past few weeks off from photography (business-wise) and it's been so nice to focus more of my time on family. I had almost forgotten what it was like to have weekends free and not to edit until the wee hours of the night. But I'll be getting back into the swing of things soon. I have a newborn session this week - can't wait to get my hands on her!! I'm going to try to take off until late February with a few small exceptions.

Ragon (my foster-sister) got engaged to Chris last week. There aren't any plans for the wedding yet - I think they're saying sometime in 2013. He's a nice guy though and they are both over the moon, so that's the important thing.

I'll talk about Christmas Eve/Day later. That's a whole post in itself.

my boys

Sometimes a girl just needs to take pictures of her own family. I've been so neglectful of them lately. I'm trying to do better though!

"all done" + a black eye

Ezekiel is 16 months old now and he's really not talking very much. At least not compared to what Elijah was saying by this age. Zeke says your typical mama, dadda, Elijah, bye-bye, hi, and muh (for more - only sometimes). But tonight after dinner Manny asked him if he was ready to get down from the table and he both signed and said "all done". It sounded like "ahh-duuuh", in a little sing-song tone. So cute. Then of course we made over him and he repeated it several more times. I'm relieved to know that he's going to catch up eventually.

Also, a few days ago he fell into the coffee table at my mom's house and got a terrible black eye. It's healing now, but here's what it looks like tonight...


The very next day he and Elijah were playing on the bed and Elijah somehow bounced off the pillows and head-butted Zeke. So now Elijah has a shiner to match and Zeke has a big goose egg on his forehead. You should have heard the screaming and hysteria coming from the playroom when it happened. I thought for sure someone had lost a limb or something.

My boys... they better toughen up if they're going to play so rough with each other.