Jonas is officially crawling. He's 7 1/2 months and Ezra will be 2 in just a couple of weeks. He's still pretty slow, but he can make his way all the way across the living room. The video shows Jonas crawling a little and Ezra trying to block the camera with a balloon.

ALS continues for Mike. Graduation is on Feb 10th. It's a nice dinner, so we have arranged for a babysitter (someone from our Bible study that we know well) and I, for one, am eagerly anticipating our night out. (Mike is not a fan of anything very formal--especially if it involves taking pictures that he has to participate in.)We're both kind of getting spiffed up and it's our first formal (dress up) date in I don't know how long. Probably the Christmas party right before Ezra was born. Anyway, you can be sure to count on some pictures from that. :)

Most of the other pics are just around the house. I was playing with my new camera (Mike too as you can tell from the random picture of me on the phone with my Mom).

Here's picture from when Ezra was sick. He had thrown up on his shirt, so I took it off and cleaned him up a bit, then he went and laid in the floor. Daddy joined him there.

The two other pictures are of Mike throwing Ezra into the air. I tried to get some "action" shots. :)

This week was so fun! Mike is still in ALS, but we had company, so at least we weren't sitting at home by ourselves all day. My friend Jen and her daughter Molly (10 months) came up from Aviano. They came up my other friend Elizabeth and her husband and son. They stayed on base, but Jen and Molly stayed with us. We had a few outings, although nothing too far. Mostly just here and there on base and Toys R Us. Here's a pic of the kiddos all loaded up.

Here's Jonas and Ezra riding on the toy Molly brought. I'm sure we'll get something like that for Jonas before too long and of course Ezra will think it's for him. Ezra is showing you how not to give Jonas a hug, even though we asked him to. I wouldn't really say that Molly and Jonas really played that much together. Jonas is still pretty contained and Molly is everywhere. I guess she wasn't content to just hang out in one spot with Jonas. :) Here they are playing together for a minute.

Ezra and Jonas were having so much fun in this pic. The would roll away from each other, then back and when they would find themselves face to face they would laugh. The pic is a little blurry because they were so rolly.

This was all the girls at dinner last night.

The boys...Jonas is strong enough to crawl and it looks like he'll take off every day. He lifts his whole body off the ground (demostrated below), but I guess he still lacks the coordination to crawl. Here's a video of Jonas almost crawling. It's 1 min. long.

Yesterday, Jonas was 7 months and today Ezra is 23 months. Here are a few pics in new outfits Nana and Grandpa sent them for Christmas. Jonas is in size 12 months, and you can see they aren't the slightest bit too big.Don't you love this hoodie that completes the dino outfit? Hopefully you can see the little spikes on it.
This is my 1/2 bath decked out in Texas decor--my Christmas presents from my parents and Meme. I can just walk in there and feel at home...kind of. I mean, it is still a bathroom after all. :)This is Ezra practicing a version of his frowny face. When I ask him smile, he says, "nun!" and frowns. "Nun", is how he's saying "no" right now. It just started. This was today in one of his new outfits. He's a little chapped under his nose from me wiping it incessantly the past few days. Poor guy.

So I finally figured out (took me all morning) how to get videos from my phone to my blog. I couldn't figure out how to rotate it, and I know that seriously inhibits the experience. I'll try to work on that. This was taken before Christmas. My Mom sent a motorized puppy singing Jingle Bells. The puppy has bells tied to its ears and tail and they all flop or shake when it sings. This video was the very first time Ezra had heard it. He was whining and apprehensive before it even started. I thought this video was funny, but Mike thought it was sad. So I hope no one steals it and makes me look like a parent torturing her son. As you can tell, I cut it off when he put his head down and went to comfort him. About the 5th time of listening/watching it, he loved it and wanted to listen to it over and over again.

Now that I know how to do this, and hopefully quicker next time, there will be more, happier ones to come. :)

We had our second really good snow all day on Monday. It is all still on the ground because it hasn't gotten above freezing since then to melt any of it. Burrr! On Monday, during the "blizzard" Ezra and I got out for a few minutes (him longer than me) to enjoy the snow in the back yard. I helped him experience the joy of eating snow. Of course he loved it! I didn't think it tasted all that great. Then, I wondered if we probably shouldn't be eating it as there is at least 2 nuclear power plants within an hour of our house. Yikes!

I love to see all the white every time I look out the window but I do wish I could be outside more with the boys with out having to put 5 layers of clothes on them. I'm totally cool with cold, semi-snowy winters for 3 years, but how do people live whole lifetimes where it's even colder than this? How do they ever get any outdoor exercise? Anyway, I'll be glad for warmer weather so we can be outside daily. Skyla enjoyed the snow, but only if we were outside playing with her. She wasn't content to be by herself in the cold.

The snow accumulation you can see on Ezra's car was 1/2 way through the day. It continued snowing after we played outside, and by the end of the day, you couldn't even tell we'd been outside running around. We actually had (very small) drifts in our yard.
Jonas will be 7 months on Monday and he's almost crawling. Every day he gets a little stronger on all fours. It won't be long. Time to invest in some baby gates! He's already in to things as you can see. No, he's not very happy in the one picture. Getting stronger is hard work.

Here's a good pic of Ezra. He was actually wanting to have his picture taken and willing to smile.

Poor kiddos. They're both sick. Jonas has had a runny nose and cough for almost a week (in addition to the ever-present eczema issue), and Ezra's just started yesterday. No fun, but slightly better than the stomach flu I suppose. It seems to have miraculously by-passed Jonas (knock on wood...). I just hope Ezra's cold doesn't turn into an ear infection as it has the habit of doing.

Mike was off most of this week, so we took a short trip back to Heidelberg. Our destination was the castle and this time we DID make it there early enough to see everything in the daylight. We were a little disappointed that we couldn't see more of the inside of the castle, which I guess you can only see with a guided tour. Our big, fat stroller wouldn't fit in many places, and we weren't comfortable leaving it anywhere, so we didn't do the guided tour. Too, with the kiddos, we are usually limited on how long they will "have fun". It was very cold. We started the day at 18 degrees, but by time we headed home it had warmed up to 32. Burr. Everyone was appropriately bundled with a trillion layers of clothes so at least that wasn't a huge issue. This barrel of wine was insane. I don't know if you can tell how huge it is, but there's a staircase built around it that you can walk on.

Here are a couple of views of Heidelburg from the castle. This was a rare, sunny day. The river is the Neckar. The city is mostly known for the university there and was one of the only major cities to avoid destruction during WWII.

The Apothecary musuem was in another part of the castle. It was pretty cool. My favorite part was the labratory room that reminded me of of the one in Robin Hood:Prince of Thieves. I would have taken a picture of it, but my batteries were dying. Boo!

And some other random pictures from our New Year's Day.