This is a long posting.

Happy Easter! Here's Ezra proudly displaying the 14 Easter eggs he "found" at the Easter egg "hunt" we attended the day before we left Portland (Wednesday). I put the quotes because the eggs weren't really hidden. It was a small field with eggs every three feet. It was limited to only 2 and under year olds, so it was a real accomplishment if the kid could pick up the egg, much less find it. If they were hidden that would have been way too much work for us parents.

Here's a little video of Ezra scrambling for eggs...

Ah it feels good to have my computer, wireless internet, and a glass of train wine. What is train wine? Wine left over from our 30+ hour train ride. I didn't quite finish it last night when it was purchased for me by a man from Kenya who used my phone and payed me back with booze. He got Ezra a juice too. Unfortunately we had to abandon him mid sip due to Ezra's need to sleep.

Ezra made some friends on the train too. His favorite was Rory, a five year old who shared his tastes for football, shrieking, rough play, and drawing. I took the following short video of them deeply involved in creating their masterpieces during a lovely sunset. Ezra draws Mama, a balloon, and a boat as he is narrating:

Yes, the train ride was just fine, and has brought us to our current locale of Hackensack, MN. The ice on the lake went out today and we're talking about packing away Ezra's mittens. Did I really escape winter? At the beginning of April? I am really hoping this is not a cruel April Fool's joke. My recommendation is to just keep the spring ball rolling. No looking back!

We will sure miss our great Portland peeps. Here's a little assortment of recent shots of us in the land of Port...

Riding the worm at Peninsula Park!

Here's a little video of the "Car Park" indoor event at the park. I pulled those boys around in the wagon for at least a half an hour. I took over for Bat Boy and that was that.

Cruisin' round town. It's not sunny very often in Portland so we get confused.

At our March digs, Kristine's Killingsworth Spot. Ezra liked it there. Little chubby smile.



We went to see this matinee bluegrass band play a couple of times, and Ezra got his hands on a little guitar to play along. In the above video he thrashes it up.

Off to the Easter egg hunt in the tripler with the ladies. He likes it in the middle.
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Then of course that trip to Santa Barbara to visit Aunt and Uncle must be reported. Many of these pictures were taken by Uncle Jeff. I hardly took any pictures the whole week because Jeff has a pretty itchy, clicky, talented finger. I admit it was nice to be off the hook for capturing everything all the time. Here's a smattering:

We got a little sunburned in the California sun. Jeff sure captures some nice moments : )

Santa Barbara has some very impressive parks. They almost compared in awesomeness to Ezra's pants.

He rode the carousel three times. Twice in a row and then once a few days later with friend Jim, who you will see shortly. He maintained a very low key facial expression, never bursting out with joy or exhibiting any sort of inclination that he was experiencing happiness. But he asked for more, so I assume he was just overwhelmed with loving it.

Out for breakfast I try to keep Ezra entertained until his pancake shows up.

Grandma's technique: spoonfuls of jam.

At the skate park Ezra was cooler than everyone, even the roller blade guy.

Havin' some candies at the seaside.

Ezra really wanted to achieve something with this ball...

and he did. Mission accomplished.

It's hard to catch an Ezra smile, which is why I am particularly impressed with this one:

A wallet size of that one for everybody!

Clearly I took that one. There's Jeff. I had to get a full shot of that balloon! It lasted about 20 minutes. Ezra likes to pop balloons by biting them.

The fantastic Jimmy came to town from Los Angelos and even let Ezra share his super deluxe sundae. Actually Ezra swiped his spoon and good luck getting it back.

That cup is as big as Ezra's head!

I packed up all of our belongings for the move to Minnesota, and had forgotten to keep myself out a pair of socks, so I had to get a couple from the mis-matched bag. The stripey one with the individual toes is apparently from Japan. It was a little strange to have my toes separated from one another like that, but I got used to it about 20 hours later, somewhere in Montana.

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I wonder if anyone made it to the end of this one... sure was a doozy. In fact I started this posting yesterday but fell asleep before I could finish it. Hopefully you're awake.. and having a great Sunday! More from Minnesota soon...

We're Cute, They're Cute

Taken by Cayce at her house about a month ago. Ezra loves his shades.





Chips with Maya, what delight!

Two Cool Dudes

Ezra really, really likes skateboarding. Yesterday he and Theo were hanging out with their skateboards, and striking very similar poses. When we were about to leave Theo decided to lend the little skateboard to Ezra, a very nice gesture. Ezra has amazing balance, and can stand on the skateboard for a long time. He's even starting to flip the skateboard up by standing on the ends! I was known to skateboard for a bit in my day, and I might try to do a pop shove it for him if he ever let me try. He's in a bit of a stingy mood lately. Lots of "my turn" and "mine". Also, his new counting skills makes his treats double. As in, "Do you want a cookie?" and he responds, "One, two cookies!" Thanks, Grandma...

Ok, off to study for my LAST WEEK OF THIS QUARTER! Woot woot!

My Little Man is Two!

As promised, here are some photos from our lovely weekend on the Oregon coast. Sunshine on the coast is rare, so we really got lucky. Not quite warm enough to go swimming (or take off your coat), but warm enough to hang out for a couple of hours without your limbs getting numb. We'll take it! Our friends Cayce and Justin took these shots of me and my guy prancing around in the surf.

It's hard to get him to look at the camera. Why look away from the glorious ocean?

Now he's looking and I look freaky. O'well.

Here's a video of Ezra approaching the ocean:

The sand feels so nice between your fingers (and in your mouth, he's still into eating sand...).

Kate and Usiah brought a really nifty kite to fly on the beach.

Ezra took a turn, and I did a lot of running down the beach to catch the kite after he let it go. He found this game highly amusing.

This is Ezra and Maya at the breakfast joint where we ate that morning. It was called the Pig n' Pancake, and there were these little stuffed pigs that were holding frying pans with bacon in them. You could buy the pig frying pig while you ate pig. It was darling.

Gabe and Koali got Ezra this really cool dump truck! It's made from recycled milk jugs. Amazing. Here Ezra and Maya fill 'er up with rocks in front of our yurt. You can see the port o potty in the background. Ezra was a little scared of it. Understandably.


On Sunday morning it was a little gray so we went into town to the free science museum. There were little model tide pools that had sea creatures that you could touch. Ezra did not want to touch them, but the option was there. In the above picture he is looking at what is in the below picture (a really flat fish that likes to be pet, the say).

He liked the clown fish a lot. So do I.

Here's a video of Ezra and Maya checking out the interactive elements:



Yes, Ezra did get a turn:



On the car ride home he fell asleep with this bag of white cheddar popcorn on his lap. When I tried to remove it he would wake up and sleep eat a kernel or two before closing his eyes again. He ate almost that entire bag of popcorn. Yes, not the best thing, but for a 3 hour car ride I just want him to be content and if that means a bag of white cheddar popcorn, so be it.

I snuck this while he was sleeping. It's his super cool sea horse tattoo that I put on his leg upside down so that he could look at it right side up.

In all that fun and excitement we never got around to lighting candles, singing happy birthday or eating cake (much to the disappointment of Usiah who kept asking "Birthday cake?"). Fortunately our good friend Roberta had a potluck that night so we brought over Ezra's tiramisu birthday cake and they helped us complete the birthday necessities, even putting on party hats. In the above shot Ezra sits with Grace, who was the real reason for the potluck. She's Roberta's sister who is visiting from Atlanta. Grace and I used to work together at the Tin Shed oh so long ago... She's a great gal.

Ezra had A LOT of fun.

Here's the candles, the cake, and the singing:

Here's a video of him making short work of the candles:

What a success! I am so thankful to all of the people who could join us to celebrate Ezra's second birthday. Also, those who could not make it, we really appreciated the phone calls (he got to listen to 3 people sing him happy birthday on speaker phone while he was in the bathtub), and birthday cards (and cookies!). What ever will we do next year... Chuck-E-Cheese?

Woo hoo he is 2! But no pictures to prove it...

This past weekend was Ezra's second birthday extravaganza at the coast! We had absolutely gorgeous weather and so much fun with friends. I took pictures and videos and planned to post them here today, but the batteries in the camera are dead from all that capturing of fun! Argh. I will bring batteries tomorrow and post them here, I promise.

Just to tide you over, I am including some new shots of Ezra at his day care.

With Theo, one of his favorites, as well as a ball, one of his other favorites.

With "Baby K" (aka Cadence) who apparently wakes up in the night saying "Ezra! Ezra!" They're good friends.

Here's the whole lot, with Ezra pulling off a smile even! Theo has his hand on Ezra's shoulder. Pretty cute.

Tomorrow, really, there'll be scenes from the beach!