10 Months

I am getting worse and worse at doing these monthly posts on time. So now Ezra is really 10 1/2 months old. He is so much fun these days and keeping us very busy. He is stealing our hearts more and more every day. We love our little guy!

Some things we want to remember about Ezra at ten months:

- 17 lbs. 13 oz. Still not 18 lbs.!!! I can't believe it! He better be 18 lbs. at 11 months or I think I will cry. I feel like I am constantly working on finding something for him to eat. I don't know what his height is again.

- He is a pretty good sleeper. He goes to bed around 7-7:30 and wakes up around 6. I keep wishing he would sleep in until 7 instead, but so far my wish has not been granted. He is awake for a couple hours in the morning then takes a 1 1/2 hour nap. He takes another nap around 1:00 for about 2 1/2 hours. It is so nice that his schedule is pretty consistent.

- He has started his baby talking and we really love it. His first sound was "ba, ba, ba" then "da da da" then "ma ma ma" but mainly now he just says "da da".

- I think he loves us all, but he really loves Drew and I think it is so sweet! He seems to know that Drew is "dada."

- He claps, waves, gives high-fives, and dances to music.

- He pulls himself up to everything and walks around holding onto furniture. He loves to go up the stairs a million times a day. When you follow him he laughs and squeals and thinks we're having a party on the stairs.

- He does NOT cooperate when he is getting his diaper changed. It's kind of like wrestling.

 - He loves to be outside and loves the water.

 

Don't mind the scab on his cute little face. He is always bonking and scraping his head.

 

 I love this face. "Really Mom??"

 

 Walking around on furniture.

 

 The other day I was vacuuming and Ezra kept crawling right in front of the vacuum so I couldn't get anywhere. So, Drew just picked him up and put him on the vacuum. He never cracked a smile so we took him off, but he crawled over and wanted on again. He continued to want to have rides, but never smiled the whole time. I could hardly keep vacuuming I was laughing so hard. Becky has a picture of Drew riding the vacuum when he was a baby too. Maybe I can get them side-by-side some day.

7th Anniversary

We were traveling back from the family reunion on Father's Day so we did nothing except say Happy Father's Day. I am still feeling bad about it. Our anniversary was the next day and we had not planned ahead at all. Drew brought me home some really beautiful flowers after work, and at the last minute we decided we would try leaving our kids with someone and go out to dinner. We took them over to my visiting teacher's house (who was so sweet to take them!) and went to Outback. The kids both had moments of sadness but did alright. I have kind of been dying for a date lately so it was so nice to be able to go out just the two of us. We have had a great seven years together!

While I was wandering through Walmart earlier in the day I found this little ping-pong set and decided to get it for Drew for his anniversary present. I thought he might think it was lame, but he ended up being more excited about it than I anticipated. Darcy was excited about it too.

Jensen Family Reunion

This year the Jensen family reunion was in Utah. The 11-12 hour drive (with all our stops) was not my friend and I have decided I am never traveling again! (I'm sure that will wear off when I want to go somewhere again.) The reunion part was fun though!

Our home base was my mom's brother's house where we had some delicious meals, chatted, and played some volleyball. The kids got to play in the sand box and jump on the trampoline which Darcy loved. We went to an aquatic center where Darcy and Ezra both loved playing in the water.

We went to a little park up in the mountains where we had a barbeque, spent more time chatting, the guys and some girls played ladder ball and bocce ball, and we had races. This was all my brother Luke's idea because he has always been a speed demon and he was sure he could still beat everyone, but somewhere close to the start of the race he pulled a hammy. So I guess we'll never know if he is still the fastest one in the group. Drew was in the lead for the guys race but tripped and rolled right before the finish line. :) Lots of mishaps. I won the girls race. I decided to use a period instead of exclamation mark so that I would seem more humble. Did it work?

Drew went golfing a couple times but got a cold (It seems like he always gets sick when we're traveling.) so he didn't play racquetball with the guys which he usually loves. We went swimming another time. Some people went to Jump On It the trampoline place. We went to a little splash pad for the kids, and Drew and I got to play tennis with Luke and Natalie. We went shopping. We had family pictures taken. We got to do lots of fun things, but best of all we got to spend time with our family that we love so much! I was so excited for Darcy to get to play with her cousins and I think she had a great time with them.

 I can't believe it, but I forgot to take my camera so all these pictures were taken with Drew's phone.

 Luke, Michael, my mom, Darcy, Ashley, and Whitney at the aquatic center.

 It felt like we were constantly trying to get Ezra to sleep. His eyes were red and swollen the whole trip. While I was swimming with Darcy at my parents' hotel Drew took Ezra for a walk to get him to sleep and they happened upon this duck family.

 Ezra loved this toy at my uncle's house. While he was playing on it Darcy came over and got into this pose and asked me to take a picture. Ha.

 Too much of this in the car.

   Not enough this.

Drew & Darcy

I am playing catch up.

A few weeks ago Drew and Darcy went on their first daddy daughter date. I suggested he take her to this frozen yogurt place close to our house since they hardly ever have anything with milk in it because of Ezra's allergies.

 

This is a big deal people!! Darcy is terrified of motorcycles (and anything that makes a similar noise) and doesn't even like to go near them. Haley and Brian are house-sitting for our family friends who happen to have a couple scooters. We had this idea that since they are quiet maybe we could show Darcy how fun it is to have a ride on that kind of thing. Drew just walked into the house, picked Darcy up without saying anything, took her outside, and they got on the scooter together. She immediately started crying but nothing too serious. After a couple times up and down the road she had calmed down. My family and I were standing by the road cheering for her which helped it be a little less scary for her I think. She didn't want to go for another ride, but maybe someday.

This one doesn't involve Drew except that he was the audience. A couple weeks ago Darcy dreamed up this hilarious little magic show. She came up with her costume, pulled her little table into my room, and got all her props. She did the same routine every time.

 Squirt some water into her mouth and touch the globe a few times (I didn't get a picture of that part)

 

Take her hat off

 Reach into her hat and say "I'm going to pull a rabbit out of my hat."

Pull her "rabbit" out of her hat and yell "TA DA!" (Just look at that face! I can't get enough of it.)

She did this very same routine over and over again and we LOVED it!

Family Pictures

I have been dreaming of having great family pictures taken for a long time now, and last weekend that dream came true! Sounds dramatic, but I'm pretty serious here. I don't know why pictures are such a big deal to me, but these are now one of my most prized possessions. The pictures of my kids about make me cry. My good friend/Drew's cousin's wife Sarah took them for us and did the most amazing job! I honestly can't say enough how much fun it was to have her do this and how much I love how they turned out. Check out her awesome blog http://www.mattawamum.com/.

I was really pretty stressed about the whole thing for the week leading up to this. I was worried about what we should wear, whether the weather would cooperate or not, and whether or not my kids (and Drew and I) would cooperate and be happy. I kept wondering if it was a silly thing to pray about, but I still prayed my heart out that everything would come together and I honestly felt like my prayers were answered. We were going to get together at 6:30, and all day before that it was really windy and cloudy, but right around six the wind died down and the sun came out and the weather was so perfect. It felt like such a tender mercy to me. Then on top of that, both of my kids cooperated wonderfully. YAY! Thanks a million Sarah!

Get ready for picture overload! (Everyone has probably already seen these on facebook, but I had to post them on the blog!)

Oh! And if anyone out there has an opinion about which is the best group shot I would love to hear it, because so far, this is as far as I could narrow it down. It's impossible to choose! I need a big one for my wall.