monday at the madhouse // upswing

Things are getting a bit better! Ezra's fourth tooth broke through last week, and he instantly got sweeter and began sleeping better. Whew! We needed that!We had a fantastic weekend having our own holiday photos taken, posing with Santa (below), cooking a ton of delicious food, long walks outside in the unseasonably warm weather, a Saturday night dinner out along with time by the Christmas tree. Oh! And the Hanukkah candles.Obviously, Santa was terrifying. I was still thrilled to get the photo though :)I like this photo because you can see the new teeth (or nubs) as they are coming in. In this photo, I'm saying, "Hiiiii," and he's waving and saying "Hi!" back. It's my new favorite thing with him.Ezra also started a phase this week where he wants to do everything on his own. He wants to walk on his own and he wants to push the stroller and he wants to eat everything on his own etc etc etc. This means things are slower going for us, but we're just enjoying the the journey.Also, on Sunday we were leaving for another long walk and my camera fell off the strap I had carrying it. Oh, the noise it made when it hit the cement. I lifted it off the ground and I took this photo of Jamie to test if all was still working.Yup. Jamie was pretty stunned. (I love the expression on his face up there.)In answer, the camera is fine. The lens has lost its ability to auto focus, so I'll need to send that in for repair. But it still works as a manual focus, so not all is lost.And Sunday night, we lit the Menorah with Ez after dinner.Pretty rad week.