Holiday Memories

We got back to Ohio on Sunday after spending the holidays with my family in Tulsa. It was Ezra's first trip to Tulsa and he did very well. He adjusted quickly and we were able to keep him on basically the same sleeping and eating schedule as if we were home. Ezra seemed very comfortable in Oklahoma! If you live far away from family members then I highly recommend taking advantage of Skype or Google Video. We Skype with my parents a few times a week and I think it has made a huge difference. Ezra clearly recognizes them and I am guessing he must also be familiar with their voices. He even fell asleep on my dad's lap one morning, which is very unusual for him these days since he is Mr. Squirmy. So sweet. There are so many other wonderful memories from his first Christmas that I don't want to forget.

On Christmas Eve morning we visited Santa at the same place where my parents took my sister and me when we were little. My mom has many a picture of us at the Santa House so it was fun to do the same thing with Ezra. That night we went to the early Christmas Eve service that seems to be the popular time for families with young children. Ezra loves music and singing so once the carols started he really enjoyed it. He also got to meet the minister, who also has an adopted child, that married Damon and me. It was a special moment. He told my mom at church on Sunday that Ezra "is shining." I thought that was so kind. Ezra is obviously a bit young to get into the whole present thing on Christmas morning but he got a lot of great gifts that he definitely enjoys. At one point I told Ezra to say thank you after we opened a gift and he did the sign for it for the very first time. I couldn't believe it and thought his timing was impeccable. I had been showing him that one for a while now and didn't realize he was picking up on it. Damon caught it on video. He did it several times that morning which made me so happy.

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Here he is in his Christmas outfit from my mom after all the presents were opened. I couldn't get him to smile. Perhaps he was experiencing the post holiday blues.

On the 26th my aunt, uncle and cousins from Kansas City came to visit. Ezra warmed up to all of them very quickly and I think they were pretty smitten with him too. Here is my cousin, Ali, reading his new Curious George book to him.

It was not shocking that one of their presents to him was a KU shirt. I actually think he looks pretty good in KU blue.

Ezra also got to meet several family friends and friends of mine from childhood. I didn't get all of these meetings on camera but here he is flirting with my friend, Valerie.

Another highlight was having some professional photos done of Ezra OUTSIDE at the park near my parents' house. One of our family friends recently started her own photography business and I have had visions for a while of having photos done at that particular park. Tulsa can really go either way in terms of weather in December. There could be an ice storm or the temperatures could be in the 50s and sunny. If you can believe it we had one day when it was 70 degrees. As soon as I saw the weather forecast, I emailed Maggie and luckily she was available that day. I have already seen the proofs and they are so good they brought me to tears. I can't wait to share them with you. I was grateful the weather cooperated and these are definitely the photos I dreamed of.

Ezra's vocabulary expanded while we were in Tulsa. He has started saying cat and duck. He also made big strides in standing on his own while holding on to something. He is definitely eager to be on the move. Ezra looks like such a little man in this photo.

One of the funniest things that he did while we were there was yell at our family dog, Phoebe. She was clearly jealous of Ezra and every time my mom held him she would bark. So for the first couple of days we were there Ezra observed all of us yell at her to stop barking. In his typical copy-cat style he started yelling too and even pointed his finger at her the way we did. It was my goal to get this on video and luckily we did.

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I hope your holidays were filled with laughter and love.

Cheers to 2011!