Yep, it's been almost a year.

I thought I gave up entirely on blogging because of all the time it was taking me, but then I kept thinking about how I need to do SOMETHING to record of how smart and cute and funny and all the other things Ezra is. And how adorable and sweet and smiley my baby Jane is. But I never seem to get around to journaling or anything else! So I'm back to blogging, and I think I hit on something good. Whenever they are really showing their little personalities, I'll just take a video (that takes, what, like 3 minutes?), which I can upload later if I have the time. Otherwise, I still have the video.

So here's a little movie of him last night about two hours after his bedtime. He was in his room by himself that whole time--he tries to stay up as late as he possibly can. He's always very conversational before bedtime because he likes to keep us in the room as long as possible. He had just been telling me about how the holes in the wall (electrical sockets) were "bad holes" because they hurt fingers. And how Jocelyn brings us bandaids. (Speaking from experience.)

 Ezra at bedtime

In a few days, he'll be two years, four months old. Isn't it amazing how much he can understand and communicate when he's so young?!

Disneyworld

For spring break this year, we splurged and went to Disneyworld with our friends Dan and Lyndsay Howell. It was soooo much fun! Ezra wasn't the only one who LOVED it--I am still trying to convince Tanner to upgrade our four-day passes to annual passes (only $80 more, for the two of us!)! But we'll see. Here is what we did:

Waiting for the shuttle that would take us to Animal Kingdom!
Ezra looks like he's awesome at waiting but about two seconds
after this picture, he climbed down to run around in the plants,
play in the dirt, and examine the trashcan.

Lyndsay and her cute baby Kyler on the safari ride. Oh this baby!
So cute he kills me.

Safari ride! Basically a ride through a zoo.

In Animal Kingdom, there walls with animals on them
everywhere. Ezra was a fan.

Too tired for pictures.

Getting all ready to watch the Bugs Life movie. He kept his 3D
glasses on the whole show!

Ezra's favorite place in Hollywood was the Honey, I Shrunk the
Kids! playground. 

He probably went down this leaf slide about 50 times. And he
didn't want to go anywhere else, even in the playground. While
he was playing, I looked around and found a couple other things
he would like, but I had to carry him kicking and screaming away
from the leaf slide to get there.

One of those things was this water wall.
Water trickled down from the top into these
holes. He loved it.

We were NOT experts at the cars. Ezra wanted to "drive," but
he doesn't quite know how yet, so we kept bumping against the
metal and jerking back and forth. Not his favorite ride, or mine.

We loved the elephant water area in the
Circus.

Ezra's all-time favorite ride: Small World!
There were so many caribou and yaks and
water buffalo and he found them all: "MOO!"
He loved all the birds and the hot-air balloons
and generally just everything. We went on
that ride twice.

He also loved the Dumbo ride. He actually liked watching it more than riding it,
not that he was scared, but he liked being able to see the elephants more than
being in the elephan

The Jungle Cruise was another huge success. Ezra loved the
lions, the elephants, and the hippos.

Tom Sawyer's island was the cutest! We ate lunch in a gazebo by
the water and then played at a couple of the forts. Ezra became a
master at checkers while we were there.

Last thing: Ezra found out about pockets.
He was pulling at his pants for a while and
I thought his diaper or shorts were bothering
him. And then, he finally got both hands in.
Cool little kid.

All You Need to Know about Our Lives from December to February: The Hugest Catch-Up Post Ever (Thus the Title)

So I'm super late in my blogging! I have been so busy these past few months that there just hasn't been any time for it. And I don't have a lot of time for it now, either! Which means, this post is mostly pictures of our Christmas break trips to North Carolina to see Jocelyn and Jason and to Texas to see Tanner's family, as well as my trip to Utah where I got to see both my mom and dad. And then some of being at home! It just overwhelms me to think about writing about it all so I will just skip that and put captions where necessary. 

North Carolina

Here is a more full account of our trip to NC. Jocelyn is always so thorough and I am obviously leaving out a lot in this post. So if you want to see more pictures and read more details, read Joc's blog! (I now excuse myself from writing anything about North Carolina. Except that it was lots of fun.) :)

Jocelyn and Jason watched Ezra so Tanner and I could go on a date. Somehow
we ended up at the government building in Raleigh. It was so . . . educational!
But also really fun. Because Tanner was with me.

Texas

Is Lily not the cutest ever? What a perfect little girl. She is well loved in the
Coleman family.

There is nothing more fun to do than the zoo! Ezra loves it, but Tanner and I
love it just as much. So it is always a good way to spend some family time.
It was especially fun with all the little cousins.

Ezra was fascinated by and scared of this elephant. It kept wrapping
its trunk around one of the bars in the door of its cage and shaking
it. It was so loud! Ezra clung to me like he has never clung to me
before. But he couldn't stop watching.

All the kiddies in the African leaf hut! And Grace!

The chimps came right up and were "talking" to the boys. It was
cool to see them so close and fun to have them interact directly
with us. I think that's why monkeys and apes have always been
my favorites at the zoo.

Did someone say, "birdie"?

Christmas! 

Ping Pong CHAMPION

Utah

We went to the aquarium for Julie's daughter Elise's birthday! (What a mouthful!)
It was great. Ezra loved seeing the fish, playing in the play area, and eating pizza
and cupcakes. What more could a one-and-a-half-year-old want?

So my best friend Sheri is a member of the Children's Museum in Salt Lake.
She can get guests in for free, so we went with her, and Ezra had the time of his life.

Sheri's daughter, Harper.

The first area had tons and tons of balls, and tons of things to do
with balls. We probably stayed in that area for over half an hour
while the kids just played. Ezra LOVED it.

The awesome stuff above us in the ball area. Those tubes take the balls from
places the kids can drop them and dump them back in a main ball tub.

Second place we went: the mini house. Again, Ezra loved it. There is nothing
he loves more than kitchens, so he loved opening and closing all the doors
and moving all the stuff around.

He "picked" all the flowers from the planter box and gave them to Sheri.

Baby kisses

Next area, also Ezra's favorite: the water area! He
wouldn't keep on a waterproof jacket like sweet little
Harper would, so he got soaked, but it was worth it.
He was so intense playing with everything. It was
just so entertaining for him.

And lastly, the little grocry store! He ran all over the
"store" throwing stuff in his cart. It was super cute
and so fun. If I lived in Salt Lake, I would definitely
buy a pass.

The Bean Museum with Grandma. All of the updates are SO cool. I would
totally recommend this as a fun free thing to do with your kids in Provo.

Florida

Ezra got his cast off soon after we got home from Christmas break, but before
that, he became a pro at running around in his cast. When he got it on, I was
worried that he wouldn't be able to move around in it at all. Was I ever wrong.

Here he is so proud of himself because he put
a shirt over his head by himself. He was already
wearing a shirt, but what does that really matter?

On the way to get his cast off!

Just after the cast came off

We hang out a lot with the other mommies and kiddies in our ward, which is great,
because it means that Ezra and I both get to see people our age duing the day.
We have started a scheduled playgroup once a week and this is one of them.
The kids played with paint Jeni made out pureed food! It was an awesome
idea. The kids loved making a mess and licking their fingers.

Playdate at the beach!

And playdate at the park

Ezra loves both of these little guys here, Kai and Brock.

Ezra learned how to climb out of his pack'n'play,
so we pulled out his mattress and tried training
him to sleep on it. This is about how well it worked.

We came in to check on him after we stopped hearing him, and the first thing
noticed is that all of the pillows on our bed were gone. Where were they? Ezra
had pulled them all off and moved them to his toddler bed before conking out
on them.

Tanner, Ezra, and I have been going to the beach a ton lately! Tanner and I found
that if we leave our house right when we wake up and walk to this one stretch in 
between lifeguard stations 8 and 9 on hallandale, there are a ton of cool seashells.
We have filled up some big jars in our kitchen of the coolest looking ones.

Our 3rd anniversary happened! The day of, Tanner was the best and made me
this super cute breakfast and an amazing steak dinner. Yum.

I surprised him that weekend with a big date! Star and Trent are the nicest people
in the world and took Ezra overnight. Tanner and I went on a riverboat cruise called
the Jungle Queen. It was basically a tour of the rich and famous people's houses
on the Intracoastal in Ft. Lauderdale. It ended at an island, served all-you-can-eat
BBQ ribs, chicken, and shrimp, and then showed a silly little variety show.
I definitely wouldn't recommend it since it was a lot goofier than I expected, but
it was a lot of fun out to get out and do something different for our anniversary.

Yay us! Our first selfie since probably l