Comedian

In Ezra's eyes, Darcy is the funniest person in the world. She is really the only one who has ever gotten him to laugh like this. We love it.

Drew's 28th Birthday

For Drew's birthday this year I was so brave and had my mom come babysit. I don't know why I am such a wimp, but I really am not good at leaving my kids, even though it was with someone I trust completely. We got a gift card to Outback for Christmas so we went out to eat just the two of us for his birthday. It was really supposed to be for Drew, but it really was exciting and good for me too. It has been so long since we have had a date, and it was so great to get to sit down and really talk and just be together. When we got home we had cake and Drew opened his presents. I got him a skateboard. It was kind of meant to be a gag gift, but he actually seemed pretty into it.

Drew eating his free birthday ice cream at Outback. (Taken with my phone.)

Drew blowing out his candles. (Somebody get me a cake plate when my birthday comes around! I had to use a spring form pan. haha) I found a recipe on Pinterest for lemonade cake. It was good but it wasn't really as exciting as I had hoped it would be.

We told Darcy a few days before that it was almost Drew's birthday and she was so excited about it. She loves the "blowing-out-the-candles" part of birthdays.

Ashley got a chance too.

Drew opening his present from my mom. A new trash can! I suggested this present to my mom, because Drew kept mentioning how unsatisfied he was with our plastic one. :) It is stainless steel and automatic! Awesome!

5 Months!

I just realized I didn't do a four month post for Ezra. I really don't know how I missed that!

Some things we want to remember about Ezra's fifth month:

- 17 lbs. 27 inches. Everyone always guesses he is older than he is because he's a big boy.

- We cheated and started feeding him rice cereal a few days ago. So far so good.

- He goes to bed around 8 o'clock, eats around five, then goes back to sleep until around 7:30.

- He loves Darcy. When she comes around he watches her intently and smiles so big at her. She loves him back.

- He is such a smiley little guy and we love that of course.

- We realized around three months that he wasn't turning his head to the right. So we have been taking him to physical therapy for torticollis and he is almost completely better. He made huge improvements really quickly. We also found out he has cradle cap and exzema. We had some rough moments with those things but after about a million doctors appointments for all these things, I think we are getting it all under control.

- He is ALWAYS scratching himself. I do not like that at all. He always has cuts on his face from scratching himself at night. I try to keep his nails clipped and always put mittens on his hands when he sleeps but he manages to get them off and clipped nails or not, he still cuts himself.

- One day around four months I decided to try giving him a binky again and he decided to take it. He had been crying it out every time I put him to bed, so it has been so great that suddenly he is taking the binky and going to sleep without crying.

- He loves to chew and suck on his own hands and on our hands too.

We love our boy!

He is the sweetest little guy!

Hanging out on the couch.

This is from when he first started taking a binky. If you look close you can see some of the good scratches on his forehead too.

While I was writing this post Darcy was playing with Ezra. He started gnawing on her hand and she was laughing so hard about it, which made him smile so big. It was pretty cute!

Christmas with the Christensen's

We went to Grandpa Bill and G.G.'s for dinner on Christmas Eve. It is always so fun to see that part of Drew's family. All the great-grandkids got cute new jammies and some new toys too!

Drew and his Rexius cousins have had a picture taken like this mostly all their lives at Christmas.

We opened presents at Drew's parents' house after church. Here are Drew and Darcy opening a present.

This was probably Darcy's favorite present. She jumped on the bubble wrap while Case tried out her new bike.

After we opened presents we threw ourselves together and drove four hours up to this cabin at Priest Lake for the nest week.

This was the back of the cabin. So pretty!

I had to force Darcy to put her snow clothes on. She was kind of freaked out at first, but I'm glad I made her do it, because she ended up loving it outside in the snow. She was freaked out about riding the shovel at first too, but she eventually warmed up to it.

I was so amazed at how brave Case was. Nothing scared him!

Another example of how brave he was. Bryce slid him right off the porch on his shovel and he was happy to do it over and over.

He was also willing to ride down the hill on Bryce's back. Darcy didn't want to do any of that.

Case showed Darcy how to make a snow angel. I loved watching Darcy play with her cousins. I didn't manage to get any pictures of Miles somehow, but Darcy loved him too! She called them "my Case" and "my Miles."

Darcy got a taste of what it's like to have boys bigger than Ezra around. :)

Drew spent one day making a snow cave for the kiddos. There was a cave in the front and steps up to a slide on the back. I love this cute picture of Darcy and Case posing in the cave.

Darcy going up the stairs.

The slide.

We took Ezra out for a little while so we would use his snow clothes at least once.

Neil took a family picture for us out by the fort.

We went to the cabin to go snowmobiling. We managed to do a little, but unfortunately there wasn't very much snow, so we didn't get to do as much as we hoped we would. This was another thing I had to force Darcy to do. The noise of the snowmobiles scared her. She didn't end up loving it, but she did get through it alright. :)

Bryce, Kevin, and Drew went out for the first ride and Kevin ran into a fallen tree while he was looking down. He thinks he pulled his pec muscle. He had a good bruise to show for it.

Case and Darcy watching TV in our bed.

We played lots of UNO and the Dominos Mexican Train game.

Darcy struggled with nap time while we were there. She ended up falling asleep in the corner of the couch watching TV a couple days in a row.

We went for a drive to go see the lake one day and it was really beautiful.

Christmas with the Jenne's

We spent late Christmas Eve and early Christmas morning with my family this year. It was delightful!

Santa brought Darcy a new bike this year (You can tell Santa is a boy based on his bike choice for the little girl.) :) He also brought her a backpack like Dora's. When Darcy walked into the living room and saw that backpack she clapped her hands together and did this crazy fist pump thing that cracked me right up!

Ezra got this little play mat and he was kicking like crazy and loving it and then we realized that he was falling asleep. I guess going to bed around midnight and getting up at six to open presents was too much for him. :)

Ashley "the organizer" set all her loot out in this display for her picture.

My Grandma Jensen sent these hats she made for Darcy and Ezra.

Brian's parents were here for Christmas all the way from Florida and they really came out on top with all these adorable pictures of baby Matthew.

I just thought this was such a cute picture of Haley with all her goods.

Darcy sitting in her pile playing her harmonica she found in her stocking.

Not your average Christmas picture. Nick came away from this Christmas armed and dangerous. Ready for the gangs of Mattawa.

Brian, Haley, and Matthew got some diapers and Scattergories. (The diapers were really just for Matthew.)

If you're a Pinterest-er you probably know about the big measuring stick for marking your kids heights over the years. My mom looked at my Pinterest account and Ashley, my dad, my mom, and Haley put it all together for us. I love it! (Darcy doesn't look quite as pleased, but at least now we know she is 3 ft 1 in)

Where does she get these crazy expressions?? (With our new nativity Ashley and my mom made us.)

Emily with her new IPod Nano (or something like that).

My Grandma and Grandpa Jenne opening their presents. My Grandpa is still wearing part of his shepherd's costume from the Nativity performance that we missed this year. If you look closely you will see that my Grandpa is using a knife to open his. It is his trademark to open presents carefully to preserve the wrapping paper.