As The Pages Turn...

Snow, A Tale of A Toddler

This weekend was really busy, yet really awesome at the sametime… The real highlight of the weekend, was in fact that our dear dear friend Nate Snyder was in town, on leave from Iraq. The Cruickshank’s held a party in celebration of his holiday (he returns to fight for your freedom, in a little over a week, you’re welcome).

This was Nate’s first time meeting Ezekiel.

This was a pretty awesome moment, perhaps more so selfishly, for me. Ever since the Lord took Anthony home, before I had the chance to introduce him to Ezekiel, I’ve had a running check list of who I want my son to physically meet, be held by, etc. Nate is one of those guys who has been at the top of the list… Well, for almost nine months now.

He’s a natural. It wasn’t long before Nate was lugging the Ezekiel around. The pictures speak for themselves… Zeke was pretty happy studying Nate’s face, before showing him how to make peace signs mixed with some potential gang signs. We’re still trying to clear those up.

Keep Nate in your prayers. He recently became engaged to the girl of his dreams, and for this we are all happy as can be, and incredibly proud of our freedom fighter.

Nate, Thank You for keeping us safe… My family is incredibly grateful and indebted to your service, and are counting down the days til your return.

My two favorite pictures from the day today… The first one is from about 6:40 this morning. My routine in the morning includes going in and checking on Zeke, and giving him a kiss. I was pleasantly surprised to see that he had been tossing and turning, and apparently found this position to be more comfortable… To quote Jenelle “He is his father’s son.” This I cannot deny.

And the second… Since Zeke was born we’ve always given him a bath in the tub with this sweet little bath chair, and he absolutely loved it… But tonight Jenelle decided to give him a ‘big boy’ bath. This was a great success and he had a blast slapping the water, playing with his toys, and saying “Da-Da” repeatedly…

Again, just like his dad.

Baby Crawl-iel

So this last Saturday after I got back from class at Team Quest, I was sitting on the couch, eating some lunch, and I looked down and Ezekiel was trying to pull himself around the carpet. He was failing miserably, but it was awesome to watch him problem solve and get frustrated.

And just as quickly as he started ‘trying’ to crawl, Ezekiel is now crawling around! Now it might not look like much, but two days ago he couldn’t just push himself up onto his hands and knees whenever he wanted. I was talking to Jenelle on the phone today and I could hear Zeke in the background chatting away, and she told me he had crawled over to his toy basket, tipped it over, and was going through it like he was looking for something important. Tonight was the best display so far.

His thing is, he gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth. For whatever reason that’s how Ezekiel’s little brain has figured out how to get his knees underneath him better. As far as walking out his hands, well, that’s not as graceful, but as you can see… If he sees something he wants, he’s going for it! In this clip he crawled a little over six feet to the shiny light up keyboard. Funny thing is, he hit the button perfectly to shut off the video.

It definitely hit me, and really sunk in for the first time tonight… My once little, helpless, eating/sleeping/pooping/crying baby boy, is now laughing/ticklish/smiling/chatty/ raspberry-blowing/excited-to-see-you-when-you-come-home/playful/jonny-jump-up-using/teeth-sprouting/crawling/growing boy who is seven and a half months old already.

-Ian

Ezekiel and Jenelle were playing some Peek-a-boo the other day, and it was quite comical.

There isn’t much better than a baby laughing…