Old Year

First, a brief year-in-review of 2012: In January Justin finished his Master's degree, and the O'Shay family celebrated by taking a road trip to Florida to see Mari, Chris and Isaac in their new house. The boys got to spend some quality time together.

In February Justin started working full time at Apache, where he continues to enjoy his work! Ezekiel enjoyed some time outside on the deck on one of those cold February days.

In March we got to see some lovely Texas bluebonnets!

In April the Alaskans came back for an Easter visit, and Ezekiel got to participate in his first Easter egg hunt!

In May we got to really start enjoying the warm weather by going to the pool.

In June we went out to East Texas for a crawfish boil.

We also went out to Colorado for a family reunion to celebrate Grandfather's 90th birthday! Zeki got to see his cousin Isaac again.

In July we all enjoyed a trip to the Blue Bell Factory, as Ezekiel continued to develop his flirtatious charm.

In August our dear little guy turned one! He also took his first steps!

In September Ezekiel's love for climbing into things continued to grow. Here we see he has climbed into a drawer and shut it on himself.

We also got to enjoy some nice outside time as the weather got cooler.

And we got some big news about something to happen in 2013.

In October we went to Alaska to visit those eskimoes (see previous post). The scenery was nice too, but my favorite part was spending time with our loved ones.

And Ezekiel got to go trick-or-treating, dressed as the world's cutest zebra, or, "Ezebrakiel".

In November our family in Dallas came down for Thanksgiving and we had a super fun time seeing them. Zeki got to enjoy a wagon ride with his cousin who is just a few months older than him.

We also got a play set at a neighbor's garage sale. Little guy was so excited to play on it, he couldn't even wait for his daddy to finish setting it up.

He also continued to work on using a spoon to feed himself. Breakfast time is when he really likes to joke around with his mommy.

In December he demonstrated the he has inherited his grandma's love of stacking things precariously- he did this all on his own.

He also improved in his ability to stand on top of things, with a posture that says, "look at me!"

He shares his parents' interest in books.

We ended our year the same way we began it- with a trip to Florida! This time the boys were much more interested in interacting.

It was tons of fun having Ezekiel able to really enjoy Christmas for the first time. I even knitted stockings to him and Justin to match the one my grandma made for us years ago!

Looks like I'll save the 2013 year-in-preview for another time.

Back From Alaska!

Last week we took a 10-day trip to Alaska! It was a lot of fun, but the flight with a 1-year-old riding in lap was NOT fun. Overall Ezekiel did pretty well, though. I think he had a lot of fun seeing his cousins.

Some of the things we did: Visit Potter's Marsh, where we saw a few bald eagles! (not pictured)

We drove up to Matanuska Glacier, where it was a chilly 20 degrees, plus strong wind. The babies did not have much fun at the glacier, but it was awesome to see. Thankfully, Luke and Amber had lots of warmies for us to borrow!

We participated in a family-oriented race, in which the littlest of our party shared the jog stroller.

We got snowed on in Girdwood! Ezekiel followed his cousins' lead to learn that snow can be fun!

And of course we spent some time around the house, so that Ezekiel could help his cousins explore the place.

Constantine says, "I know you're new to this whole '1-yr-old' thing, but I'm a pro. Let me show you some tricks."

Crawfish Boil

Every year Justin's parents in Cushing, Texas, host a good-old-fashioned crawfish boil. It seemed a good opportunity for Ezekiel's first trip out to Cushing, so we loaded him up for the three-hour car ride out there and hit the road. He is not a big fan of riding in cars.

I can't say I blame him. Still, Justin and I didn't let his grouchiness spoil the trip for us.

Despite his refusal to nap for more than 3o minutes of the drive out there, he was a very good sport for a big day of fun in the East-Texas sun. He enjoyed getting to see some of the beautiful scenery as we approached the Crawfish boil.

We got to meet some of Justin's friends from long ago. One such friend greeted Ezekiel by holding out a live crawfish for him to examine. After staring at it for a few minutes he decided it was safe, and reached out to touch it.

Justin's parents have a very fruitful garden. My favorite garden produce was the tomatoes! Ezekiel helped me pick a cherry tomato, which he couldn't quite figure out how to eat. I bit into it for him, and then he dropped it on the ground.

He enjoyed the opportunity to play in the dirt.

And although he was clearly very tired, he maintained a mostly cheerful demeanor- he was just so excited about all the new sights, sounds and people.

The O'Shay family home is also home to a bunch of cats, several of whom just had kittens. This shows three of about 13 kittens that were lingering around the porch.

By the time we left, we were all feeling rather tired and worn out by our long but fun day. But then again, with only one baby it could have been a lot harder; I'm imagining how I'll feel when I have a whole brood of little O'Shays to take care of.

O'Shay Visit

Last weekend Justin's parents came in for a visit. They got to "ooooh" and "aaaaah" about Ezekiel's cuteness. They also brought us some fresh, home-grown green beans and potatoes! Awesome! And although we hadn't planned this ahead of time, Kipp was able to help Justin get rid of the stinky old hot tub that came with the house!

They cut it up with a sawz-all and loaded it into Kipp's truck. Then they used a small jack-hammer to break up the concrete block underneath.

Ezekiel enjoyed playing on the porch and watching.

He is risen!

We got to celebrate Easter with our family from Alaska and Dallas. We had a great time seeing everyone! At one point while I was upstairs with Ezekiel, Titus, Apollos and Constantine, I went to go play nintendo with Titus. Apollos was playing with some K'nex, and I saw Ezekiel crawl over towards him, so I said, "Hey Apollos, can you make sure Ezekiel doesn't try to eat any of those tiny pieces?" Apollos said, "Sure! [in a super high squeaky voice:] Ezekiel, don't try to eat any of those tiny pieces." Then he went back to playing... I guess he thought I needed him to translate that into baby speak for me. He's learned that from his big sister.

Here's Ezekiel having fun with some of his Alaskan cousins:


Simon and Katrina were in town too, and they got to stay at our house with us! It was fun having them, and getting to spend some time with their kiddos.


We had a picnic at the train park. Joy helped feed Ezekiel. I think he really enjoyed that.


We did our family Easter egg hunt on Saturday. I said I wanted to put some eggs in the grass for Ezekiel to crawl around and find. The other adults laughed at me but agreed to humor me, saying, "Hannah thinks Ezekiel will crawl around and look for eggs, so we're going to leave that one in the grass." After having to call off several eager egg-hunters from picking up "Ezekiel's egg", it caught his eye and he excitedly crawled over to hit. After picking up his treasure he proceeded to play with it for quite a while. I was not disappointed!


For Easter morning we dressed Ezekiel in his nicest clothes. He did remarkably well in them! We wanted to get a picture of the three of us, but Ezekiel's patience was not sufficient.