The Better to Eat You With My Dear…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I thought the wolf was supposed to eat Little Red Riding Hood…

Halloween this year was a blast! We had a family from our ward with two young boys over and ate a yummy dinner, went trick-or-treating, decorated cookies and carved pumpkins.  This was Norah’s first experience trick-or-treating- took her a few times to get the hang of it.  She kept walking right into peoples houses! After a few lessons in trick-or-treating etiquette she was a pro and got extra candy at every door for being so cute! They have a tradition in St Louis where you have to tell a joke at the door or you don’t get your candy.  The joke for the group was:

“Why can’t a bike stand on its own?”

“Because it’s two tired!”

Joel and I had fun creating Ezra’s costume. There wasn’t a pre-made baby wolf costume to be found so we had to improvise. Sort of a “Where the Wild Things Are" version of the big bad wolf.

Norah LOVED dressing up in her costume and asked to do so on a daily basis.

We already can’t wait til next year!

Countdown

Halloween this year was so much fun with Norah. We started preparing her weeks in advance for the big day (the actual day will be in a post to follow).  I bought her a Halloween book all about trick-or-treating, she helped me decorate the house, we made cookies in the shapes of bats, pumpkins and cats, and, of course, we took her to the pumpkin patch to choose out her very own pumpkin.  She was in heaven...

Where to begin...

This one looks good!

This is Norah's "happy face"...classic.

This is what Ezra was doing.

Joel had to take this picture (several of them actually) because he knows stuff like this grosses me out... pumpkin tumors.

There were so many pre-Halloween festivities in St Louis that we couldn't possibly get to them all.  We decided on two: the Magic House trick-or-treat and the ward "fall festival".

The Magic house is our local children's museum and it is incredible.  Norah has really been in to Curious George lately and the museum has a Curious George exhibit going on. Norah loved the exhibit- lots of hands on stuff- but the best part of all was the life sized George or "Big George" as she calls him (guy dressed up in a Curious George suit).  The look of absolute awe and wonder on her face when she first saw him was something that Joel and I will never forget.  She spent the rest the night giving him hugs and kisses.  He even let her hold his hand and walk around with him.  I don't think she has ever been happier!  Too bad we forgot our camera...

The ward party was great too. Norah was Little Red Riding Hood and one of Norah's favorite people, Lily, and her friend Lindsay, dressed up as the same thing!  Norah loved marching along in the costume parade with two "older" girls!

 

The pre-festivities were a hit!

Butterflies!

Joel and I got up one Saturday morning a few weeks ago and decided we wanted an adventure.  The weather wasn't too pretty so we decided to make the 20 minute drive out to the Butterfly House and see what we could see.  It was pretty amazing.  Butterflies of all shapes and sizes flitting and floating around your head while you walk through a tropical rainforest. There were some other rather disturbing exhibits as well... a very large glass display of the biggest cockroaches I have ever seen, tarantulas, HUGE worms (these things could've been on King Kong!)... you get the picture.  All in all, it was a great adventure!

2 Months

He's a growing boy...over 14 lbs... and in the 94th percentile for weight!  We couldn't love the little chunk more.  Look at that sweet face!

 

 

We love you little boy!

Girls Day In.

Norah has been loving all things princess lately and so one afternoon, when her brother was in one of those deep newborn sleeps, Norah and I decided to play princess.  We fashioned crowns out of paper and dug around in my closet and jewelry box for our get-ups.  We paraded around the house and couldn't stop looking in the mirror at how pretty we were. We ended the event with a princess tea party! Oh to be a little girl again...

 

Growing

Here are some recent pics we have taken of Norah and Ezra.  It is amazing how fast they grow!  Norah is losing all of her "babyness" and Ezra is a chunk!  My six-week-old looks like he is 3 months! 

Norah is starting to say some of the funniest things! Her favorite movie right now is Toy Story 2.  Yesterday I was feeding Ezra and Norah was in the other room playing with play dough.  Out of nowhere I hear a voice from the kitchen shouting, "Yard sale, Woody, yard sale!"  I about peed my pants laughing.

Some other Norahisms:

She LOVES to sing and is constantly talking a tune (doesn't quite have the melody thing down yet).  The song she sings most: The Barney Song

In Norah:

Wuv you (I love you)

Wuv me (You love me)

a happy fam-ma-me (We're a happy family)

blanky hug (with a great big hug)

kiss me a you (and a kiss from me to you)

say you wuv me too (Won't you say you love me too)

 

She loves "cold doodles" (any type of pasta noodle with no sauce)

 

Any word that has the "eerie" sound it in she will take and repeat that sound before she finishes- just for fun: cereal is cerea-erea-ereal and ariel is arie-arie-arie-ariel - the number of times she does it varies and sometimes she won't do it at all- hilarious!

Ezra at one week

six weeks- our other bulldog!

Norah likes to share her toys... wonder how long it will last.

 

 

These are for Grandma Vicki... she's in her princess skirt and her "fairy godbrother" shirt!

Ezra Sanders Crockett

He's here!! The newest addition to the Crockett clan.

 

Ezra Sanders Crockett

8.18.09 - 4:50pm

8lbs 5oz

20 inches

 

We couldn't be happier!  I decided I couldn't wait any longer to get him here and went in to get induced about 4 days early... SO glad I did... he is a big boy!  Things went pretty smoothly. Checked into the hospital around 9, got my epidural at noon and delivered Ezra at 4:50.  He came out a little banged up and bruised but healed pretty quickly.  He is absolutely adorable but we're still trying to find out who's kid he is! All that dark hair...we don't know where it came from!

Norah took to him immediately and her face still lights up every time she sees him. Sometimes she "loves" him a little too much. Our new favorite word is "soft".

He is definitely one loved kid...

 

Story Time

Norah LOVES books right now. It is probably the thing she requests the most throughout the day.  She loves looking at pictures, being read to, "reading" them herself and reading them to others- that includes dogs.  The other morning she plopped down next to Higgins and said, "Read a book?"  She proceeded to put one arm around his neck, open up the book and "read".  It was one of the cutest things I have seen...

Goats!

Joel and I took Norah to Grant's Farm the other day and she can't stop talking about how she got to feed the baby goats a bottle. Every time she sees a picture of a goat, hears the word "goat" (which is more often than you would think) or sometimes just at random, she will say "goats! Noh-noh's (what she calls her self) feed a bottle?" Then she wants to see the pictures once again. It is actually adorable.  Here are the famous pictures...

She even got to ride the carousel. She couldn't have had a better day!

4th of July

For the first time in three years we were able to celebrate the Fourth in St. Louis. Our city holds an annual carnival that is literally in our backyard and does fireworks from the same place.  We were excited to be able to take Norah to the festivities this year- although we took her around 6:30 and she was extremely tired so she looks like she is in a daze in every picture.  We tried!

Watching Higgins during the fireworks was a sight to see.  He was so scared he didn't know what to do.  He came outside with us before they stared and a few random ones went off.  He scrambled under my chair and couldn't stop shaking.  When the real thing started he couldn't take it.  He did his fastest low-to-the-ground run (would have been an army crawl if he was human!) and darted inside.  Joel went in to check on him and found him downstairs, under the bed in the guest bedroom trying to get in as deep as he could. Okay, so it was kind of sad and maybe we are bad people because we were laughing so hard... you would have laughed too.  We spoke soothing words to him and gave him lots of extra love that night.  He calmed right down. Needless to say the next night (they did fireworks Fri and Sat nights) he stayed inside and did much better.

Riding the choo-choo with daddy

Riding the carousel with daddy

The balloon ride with daddy and a random girl- daddy was so scared he couldn't keep his eyes open!

Mommy was very pregnant and couldn't go on the rides but had fun watching and taking the pictures but not being in them!