Darcy is 2!

Darcy had her second birthday yesterday. Up until this point it hasn't really been sad for me to have her get older. I still mostly love to watch her grow up and change and progress, but this second birthday has given me a twinge of sadness that she isn't so much a baby anymore (even though I might call her that for a couple more years). I keep trying to think of a way to say how we feel about our sweet girl without sounding too cheesy or cliche, but I just can't come up with anything, so cheese it is. We love Darcy more than we knew it was possible to love someone. I read this quote today, "A baby fills a place in your heart you never knew was empty", and I totally relate to that. She has really changed our world and our way of thinking. She definitely challenges us now and then, but then we catch glimpses of how we have changed and grown from being her parents (especially in the patience department). She has lots of energy and a personality we can't get enough of, and she fills our days with JOY. We love her to pieces.

Some things we want to remember about Darcy at two:

- 35 inches tall! They used to say that if you measure your little girl on her second birthday (and your boy when he's 2 1/2) and double that you will get their adult height. That would mean Darcy will be 5'10"! That would be really shocking coming from a mom as short as me, and she would only be 1 1/2 inches shorted than Drew. :) HA. I heard that theory on my family website and it was proven wrong many times in my family, but it's fun to try. She really is tall though. She's one of the younger ones in nursery, but quite a bit taller than mostly everyone in there.

- 33.2 lbs. Still loves to eat!

- She loves to sing and have songs sung to her. She sings Twinkle Twinkle, and knows some of the words of the Eensy Weensy Spider and Popcorn Popping along with all the motions. She also can fill in some letters here and there in the ABC song. She loves Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam (Sun Beep according to her). She has her own version of the Wheels on the Bus with made up verses with actions about different family members. She sings her own made up songs off and on during the day too.

- She talks all the time! She is putting together sentences and saying new words every day. She loves animals and making all the animal sounds.

- She loves play-doh! She asks to play with it about 100 times a day. She loves books. She is willing to watch short videos of songs she knows on youtube, but really still no TV. She loves going on walks to the park. She loves playing in the water.

- She sleeps in a big girl bed.

- She loves to see and point out airplanes. She likes to point out motorcycles but she is still scared of them.

- She still hates nursery, much to our dismay.


We had a birthday party for her yesterday at her Grandma and Grandpa Christensen's house. It was so hard to know who to invite because we have so much family around. I think there were around 20 adults there to watch Darcy open presents, blow out candles, and play in the water. She had quite the audience! :) We're so happy she has so many people around her that love her and that were so generous on her birthday.

I have to apologize before I start the pictures because all three of her sets of Great-Grandparents that were there and Haley and Brian and Emily all got her great presents but I failed to get pictures somehow! I promise we love them!! :)

Haley called me one day and asked me if I had any crafts I wanted her to make for the party because she was bored. I hadn't really planned any crafts, but I said if she really wanted it would be fun to have a banner. Man she came up with a doozy! She made the most adorable banner!

Justin and Misty got her this cute cash register that she loves!

My mom got her the craziest pop-up book I've ever seen. I didn't really look through it until this morning when I read it to her and I was amazed. It's the story of The Old Woman that Swallowed the Fly.

Ashley got her this piggy bank with three dollars in pennies and she has spend a lot of time putting those pennies in the hole. It was a hit!

Neil and Becky got her this easel with a bunch of art supplies. She has also spent some time today writing on the dry erase board wearing her cute art smock. I think this will get lots of use! (This picture cracks me up because if you make it big you can see Drew and Ashley are making the same face as Darcy in the background.)

This was what Drew and I got her. I think it might take a while for her to really get the hang of pedaling. Right now she can do it if she's on a slight hill. Neil, Justin, and Darcy's "G.G." are the spectators in this picture.

I had this vision in my head of taking a picture of Darcy riding her trike down the big open road. This wasn't quite what I had in mind, but it was too hot outside to really work on getting it right.

Another attempt.

Darcy and Ashley playing in the water. Darcy could do this all day!

Some of the fan club. :) From farthest to closest. G.G. Donna, Great-Grandma Jo, Grandpa Neil, Grandma Becky, Great-Grandma Beth, Great-Grandpa Dave, Aunt Haley, Grandma Lorraine, Grandpa Tim, Great-Grandpa Bob, and Uncle Brian.

Cake time! This was my attempt at a tricycle. It was kind of abstract I guess.

Once Darcy figured out how to blow out the candles she wanted to do it over and over again. I think she did it about five times before we decided that was enough.

Darcy with Drew and me. (Grandma Jo and Grandpa Bob in the background)

I just thought this picture was so cute. Darcy and my dad playing with her new piggy bank in front of the birthday banner.

Happy Birthday Darcy! We love you so much!!

Pictures

I just took a few pictures this week that I thought were cute enough to make it on the blog. So here they are.

Emily had a date with a guy here in Tri-Cities on Saturday night so she just spent the night at our house that night and came to church with us the next day. She used a triple-barrel curling iron to do her hair for church and I decided to use it on Darcy too. I thought it was so cute!

This picture is so funny. Darcy seems really concerned that Drew is taking some of her photo glory.

More cuteness.

Darcy loves bubble baths! She really has a bubble bath every time she takes a bath. I thought her little bum sticking up out of the bubbles was just too cute not to capture. :) I think I will put this picture on the bathroom wall upstairs.

36 Weeks

I thought from the beginning they said my due date was August 11 but the past few appointments they have been saying I'm due the 10th. So I'm either 36 weeks or 36 weeks and 1 day. Who knows?

My upper back really started hurting me a couple weekends ago and hasn't stopped. I think I have decided that my belly dropped, so that might have something to do with it. They offered to write a prescription for massage at my last Dr.'s appointment and for some reason I said no. If the offer still stands at my appointment tomorrow I think I'll go for it.

Other than a little back pain now and then and having a hard time moving I really am doing well. The weirdest thing I have going on is "the mask of pregnancy". Has anyone else heard of that? I hadn't heard of it until I asked the Dr. what in the world was going on with my face when I was pregnant with Darcy. I have to say I think it is the weirdest pregnancy symptom ever. I mostly have a really blotchy tan all over my face and over the last month or two I have developed a brown line right above my upper lip. It looks like I am trying to bring back the lip liner trend from the 90's. I went and bought some lipstick the other day, which I don't normally wear, to try and improve the situation a little. :) Seriously, weirdest symptom!!

Everyone always comments on here that I look so tiny which actually makes me feel awesome (even though I don't really have anything to do with it, I think it is just genetics). But I really think these pictures are deceiving. I really am pretty particular about the angle Drew takes the pictures from. If you saw me in real life you wouldn't think I was that small. Just so you know. :)

I also think I am bigger this time around. At this point when I was pregnant with Darcy I would tell people how far along I was and they would be surprised and tell me I was small. This time people are saying things like "Wow when are you due?" with inflection hinting that it has to be soon.

My lip liner. Hmm...this picture makes it look like I have it on the bottom too which I hadn't noticed before. Craziness.

4th of July and other Misc.

We are proud to be AMERICANS!

Once again we spent this holiday in Mattawa. The morning of the 4th we went to a flag raising and breakfast at the park in Mattawa. The scouts did the flag raising. It was such a beautiful morning!

My dad is the Young Men's president in their ward so he did the organizing of the flag raising. He also built this wheel the day before to make raising the flag a little easier for the scouts. We get our posing skills from him obviously.

Ashley and Darcy at the flag raising (with Brian in the background). The fire department handed these hats out to the little kids.

My parents' neighbors/friends the Gallaccis invited us all over for a barbeque and fireworks. The food was so delicious and we had lots of fun with everyone there.

Darcy LOVES watermelon and she definitely had her fill that day. If there's watermelon around it's hard to get her to eat anything else.

My dad always did this with us when we were little and it was fun to watch Darcy get to try it. She loved it as much as we always did. He holds onto her hands and feet at the same time and swings her down between his legs and then back up onto his head or either one of his shoulders. What a rush!

The Gallaccis had a bunch of tannerite (some type of explosive). They drove about a half mile away to blow it up but it was still so loud back at the house and the explosion was huge!

Drew and Brian went golfing earlier in the day and they pulled their clubs out again for a minute at the party and Darcy had to go get in on the action. (I think this area is so beautiful!)

They had quite the fireworks show! It really was great. I was worried about how Darcy would handle the noise, but she did really well. I covered her ears the whole time and if I took my hands off she would fuss a little but that was it. She didn't really care to watch the fireworks, but she sat there and took it at least. :)

Darcy has discovered the trampoline! She loves it and we love to watch her jump.

Another jumping pose.

Again.

My parents have this little pool in their backyard that we have been able to spend a little time in lately. The water is still pretty chilly so Darcy prefers to spend most of her time hanging out in her boat.

We have some dry patches in our yard where out sprinkler system hasn't been getting well enough. So we went and got a sprinkler to attach to the hose the other day to fix that problem and Darcy loves playing in the water. Here she is getting a drink from the sprinkler.

We also went and got some patio chairs and we got this little chair for Darcy from Walmart for $5. She loves it and I think it is so cute.

Did You HEAR??

I am SO excited to post this news! I have talked to lots of my friends who are my blogging friends about my sister Haley's situation. For the past nine years she and her husband Brian have been hoping and praying for a baby. Just when they had decided to set things up to adopt this past February they found out they were expecting a baby!! It is just about the most exciting thing ever. She is twenty weeks along today. In an early ultrasound they told them they were having a girl, but found out later it's actually a boy. Of course a girl would have been great too, but I'm so excited that we're both going to have boys just a few months apart.

I just had to share this news with everyone. We are so excited for you Haley and Brian!! You will be great parents! I have a hard time believing anyone else could be as excited as I am (except for maybe you guys). :)

I stole this picture of Brian and Haley from facebook. I love it.

First Boating Adventure

Last weekend we got to go out on Drew's parents' new boat. It was the first time in a long time for us, and besides the fact that it was a little chilly out it was a lot of fun. Darcy was kind of in a daze the whole time, partly because she needed a nap and partly because she seemed unsure about the whole thing. She was happy to sit on our laps the whole time which she generally doesn't do. It was a really nice day outside, but not really hot and the water was FRIGID! Only Drew and our sister-in-law Misty were willing to get in. I could barely stand to touch my toe in the water. Darcy eventually fell asleep in my arms and I almost had Drew take a picture, but I was in a swimming suit and no one wants to see that! Trust me! :)

Drew and Darcy on the boat. I posted some of these pictures on facebook and Haley said this was the best picture ever and she convinced me. I am really in love with it.

Justin driving the boat and Becky doing her duty as the flag holder.

Darcy and me.

Misty's reaction to the cold water. Yikes!

Misty jumping. She's got skills!

Misty carving.

A family picture on the boat.

Posing.

Cheese!

Drew's reaction to the water. This picture makes me shudder at the thought of that ice cold water!

Drew got hurt last time he was on a wakeboard so he decided to take it a little easier his first time out this year. Maybe only the pros would know that this was taking it easy.

Drew carving.

Drew jumping.

Drew happy to be done and still alive. :)

And since I don't want to forget these tidbits and I don't have a full post on the subject I just wanted to jot down a few things going on with Darcy these days.

- She says "watch" when she wants you to look at her and what she's doing. I hear "mom watch" a hundred times during the day.

- She is talking up a storm, but I usually have to act as her interpreter when she's talking to other people.

- She answers "yeah" to every question she's asked. She doesn't know "no" yet and we think that's ok for now.

- She continues to be obsessed with my sister "Ash" and she talks about her all day every day.

- She is really into books.