Sweet Baby Breath

Ezra just cut his first tooth--Christmas Eve, Natalja discovered it. Any finger he can get a hold of goes straight to his mouth...and he has such a tight grip, see my finger turning reddish purple!

"Mine...get your own finger" I love this look he gets, furrowed eyebrows and all.

Holding Ben's hand..oh my, crazy difference, I do love how "manly" my kid's hands are!

I can't get enough of Ezra sucking his little fingers......so SO CUTE...yeah yeah, I know, it won't be so when he is older and still doing it...maybe we will be so fortunate to not have to break him of it! I just am so "in love" with this bebe....everything about him...his cute little fingers that are finally starting to look big like the other boys, his crazy long feet and toes, his skinny little (but very muscular) body, his "old man" balding head--seriously, he has this thick band of hair at the base of his head in the back, thinking about shaving it off!--and even his sweet baby breath! Am I just crazy or have other people thought that they're baby's breath was sweet smelling?

Adventures with new Lens!

Fast forward, I will get back to Christmas happenings later................
So Benjamin was my guinea pig the other day...Kenny got me a new lens for my camera! I'm so looking forward to achieving some awesome shots of my kiddos that are growing up way too fast but it's gonna take lots of practice since I really don't know what I am doing and it would be a shame to have a good camera wasted on me...so this will be a long journey, hope you will all hang on and enjoy the ride!

The day after I received my new zoom lens (Tamron AF18-200mm F/3.5-6.3), I looked up this site that my friend Olivia turned me on to: http://www.mamarazzischool.com/ Now I have a new appreciation for my other lens--50mm, now that I am learning FINALLY use it! I feel mostly complete with my "kit" now (except for an external flash--but that is the next goal) and super siked about bribing the kiddos into as many photo ops as possible and still manage our life!

So that's that, hope you like and any feed back would be so LOVED!

**Ben insisted on picking out his own outfit...what happened to that cute lil' guy that let me dress him and do his hair any way I wanted, why does he need to become opinionated as he grows up, yikes!

Merry Christmas!

I was late getting to my Christmas Card and then when I did get to it, I wasn't very happy with it! These were the two pics I chose from....tough choice, they were both cute. The first one truly shows Elijah in the norm. My friend Olivia sent the cutest card this year, check out her blog-

http://www.oliviawagnerphoto.blogspot.com/ I'm jealous...she used the cutest paper and the boys look like they are straight out of a Gap ad, love,love LOVE IT!!!

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas celebrating with family and friends far and near, remembering that our awesome God gave us the most wonderful gift of all, the birth of His only son Jesus.

This year we will be spending Christmas Eve at my Mom's house and then go to my Mother-in-Law's on New Years Eve for The Harrison Christmas. And as usual, spend Christmas Day at home just me Kenny and the kids, have brunch, play with gifts, snuggle up for a nap and try to see a movie at the theatre, then have dinner at the usual, China Buffet!

I miss going to my Grandparents in Branson , MO for Christmas--we use to try each year, all of us grandkids and fams but we have just gotten too large of a group. I love the overload of spending each holiday with as many family members as possible....my husband doesn't like that and although I'm sure kids would enjoy it, I would probably go insane dragging them everywhere....so I should just be thankful that at least we see small amounts of family through out the holiday season. And I am, really. I just miss the ones I don't see :(

Little Big Man

Oh my...I just could not decide which pics I liked best! He looked so cute in all of them...ah, sweet, sweet Ezra. He has gotten a bit more calm these past few weeks, I'm not sure why, perhaps it is because he is nearing that 4 month mark (the 27th). He is finally sleeping through the night in his bassinet (most nights anyway) and hopefully we will transition him to his crib soon! He is trying to sit up, it looks kinda like he is doing little abdominal crunches. He is also teething which isn't anything abnormal with my boys since Ben and Elijah cut their first teeth at 4 months. He is still kind of smallish but I have enjoyed that since we won't be having anymore babies...I can admire all of his little tiny features and embrace this stage that seems to disappear into thin air. When I hold Elijah, I'm saddened by how fast time flies and even more so when Ben runs up from behind me and throws his half adult sized arms around me! How did he grow up so suddenly? Boo hoo!

BLOG WITHDRAWLS!!!!!!

The past two weeks have been crazy busy. Elijah got sick--stomach flu--last wednesday and it lasted till this past tuesday! I'm so tired of puke and poop! Elijah has made me realize just how easy Benjamin has been these past 7 years! The only times we ever knew that Ben was sick was when we happened to find vomit in the sink or in the toilet...he was rarely sick and even then not really rocked by it! Elijah is a total different story! Whinny, clingy, energy drained (huge blessing---let me know if you are sick so I can bring him around--haha), no appetite and won't drink anything but water so he is very hard to keep hydrated and get his electrolytes up! He woke up most nights that week vomiting and screaming--sometimes 2-3x a night!

So because he was sick we were unable to witness Ben's latest Tae Kwan Do promotion test! Kenny took him and he earned his solid yellow belt! He is doing so well...he is so eager to excel that he has actually been practicing at home now---which also inspires Elijah to continue imitating Ben--too cute!

I absolutely love it when Ezra sucks on his fingers--probably will be eating those words when he is 2-3-4-5 and still doing it! None of my boys would take a pacifier and I tried to encourage the other two to suck their thumbs hoping they would learn to self-sooth but that never worked so it's nice to finally have one do so!

I LOVE my baby wrap....it's a must have for any new parent..wished I would have had one with the other two. I even got my mom to "wear" Ezra at her last visit (she came to play Trouble with Ben).

Another "Surprise" Pregnancy!

Ha..no, not me (cringe). My other sis, Christine, just announced that she is having #5....what is this some kind of contest? I'm competitive but this is not my kind of game! haha. Chrissy said they weren't trying to have another and actually felt like there were done with 4 but she is very excited nonetheless! She found out that her estimated due date is Aug 2nd (Elijah's bday). Well I'm glad they are happy, just a little shocked but I never believed her when she said she didn't want anymore because she is at her happiest when she is pregnant!