Leaves, Raspberries, and Dirt

 My parents have this tree in their back yard that is so beautiful in the fall. Darcy noticed the pile of leaves under it and wanted to go out and rake leaves and jump in them. We never actually ended up with a big pile because the kids were busy playing in the leaves as they were raked.

 While we were out there my grandma came over with a bowl full of raspberries from her garden. I think one of my grandma's greatest joys is making people happy with food. She loves to feed us, and everyone loves that about her (and a long list of other things of course)! :) Both of my kids, but especially Ezra at the moment, get really excited when they see her coming.

 My 91 year old grandma handed the bowl over to Ezra and said she better go pick some more, because they were loving them so much. She cracks me up. I don't believe she has ever had the thought that someone younger should go do something like that for her instead. She has no idea how to be even a little bit selfish or lazy. She is my hero.

 Ashley should be in a parade with her baton twirling skills!

 Sick of pictures.

 I love the background of just dirt and his raspberry smeared face in this picture. So boyish.

Fall Walk to the Water

 We have had the most amazingly beautiful fall weather for the last couple weeks. We are trying to be outside as much as possible. In Mattawa they recently put in a new walking path down by the river. I told my mom I'm pretty sure there is no better place to go for a walk in the world. It is gorgeous! We started at one point and stopped by the dock to let the kids play in the water, then turned around and went back. We thought we were stopping at the water just to throw rocks, but the kids ended up getting in the water. We had to drag them away when it was time to go.

 Ezra couldn't get enough of the rock throwing.

 Ashley and Heidi wading in the water.

 My cousin Heidi is leaving for her mission to Pocatello, ID in December. I'm pretty sure she is going to be the best missionary ever. She is so sweet and smart and easy to talk to. She just went back home, but has been staying with my grandparents for the past couple months and working for my parents. It was so fun to have her around!

 Wading in the water eventually resulted in this cool outfit.

 Along the walking path there was this little place with tiny seashells everywhere. Darcy collected as many as she could in the front of her skirt, and now has her collection sitting on her headboard.

 Ashley rode her bike while the rest of us walked. Darcy tried her best to keep up with her.

At the end up our walk there was this nice big rock for the kids to climb on.

Darcy's Perspective

Yesterday Darcy and I were watching a show together while Ezra was sleeping. In the show there was a lady who had just had her first baby. The look on Darcy's face while that women got to experience being a mom for the first time was so magical. She was sitting up on the edge of her seat, she had this little smile on her face, and her eyes were so bright. I wish I could describe it better. Then she turned to me and said, "Oh wow! I bet she is going to be a great mama!" I'm not sure why, but this sweet perspective choked me up suddenly. She didn't know that woman, and had only seen a couple minutes of her on the show, and yet she was automatically assuming the very best about her.

As Darcy gets older and better at communicating all the time, she is becoming my sweetest little friend. Her perspective and insight knocks me off my feet sometimes. She is so quick to love, and I am learning so much from her.

Ezra's Medical Excitement

I'm afraid there will be lots of posts like this considering how accident prone Ezra seems to be. His last couple episodes have felt pretty significant and were close together, and I wanted to document them.

Two Monday's ago we had oatmeal for breakfast. We always put rice milk in Ezra's oatmeal and the rest of us use regular milk. We had all finished our breakfast and I cleaned up breakfast except for Darcy's bowl. She had barely touched her food and I thought she might decide she was hungry a couple minutes later. So I left it sitting on the table. A little while later I was getting ready in my bathroom and Darcy came in alarmed,  telling me Ezra was eating her oatmeal. I rushed into the kitchen and sure enough, there he was chowing down. He immediately started having a reaction. I could hear his breathing getting bad, so I quickly gave him some benadryl, which he quickly threw up. He threw up over and over and over again. His breathing was getting worse and worse and I was trying to give him some more benadryl, but he was fighting it and he started running crazy through the house. He finally stopped running, but he was crying so hard until he tried to scream/cry and nothing really came out. He started grabbing at his throat which was freaking me out so bad. I was crying and Darcy was crying too. I decided I just had to use the epi pen. I had said many times before that I would never be able to use that, but I knew I really had to right then. I grabbed it from my bag and proceeded to do my best to pin Ezra down with my body while getting the epi pen ready. I swung once, but just couldn't quite do it. I pumped myself up for a second more and swung and connected. You have to hold it in for ten seconds which is difficult in a wrestling match, but I managed. Almost immediately I could hear Ezra getting more air. I had taken Ezra's clothes off of him during the throwing up so I just wrapped him in his blanket, got a couple things ready and we headed to the ER. I called Drew on the way and he met us there. Really by the time we got to the hospital his breathing was so significantly better. They monitored him and gave him a combination of epinephrine and saline to breath in for a while. He was a pretty happy boy the whole time we were there. Darcy was pretty sad and worried when we first got there and the nurse was so great to encourage Darcy to be a helper. She had Darcy try to distract Ezra and talk to him while they hooked him up. Giving her a job helped her feel better.

 This milk allergy is a real doosie!

The Sunday after the first episode Ezra was playing outside on his roller coaster right when we got home from church. The roller coaster is on our back patio and the back door was opened. I was right inside so I heard the intense crying immediately. I was scared to go out and see what had happened based on his history. I found him on his knees in the grass holding his head. He was facing me so I didn't notice anything at first. I picked him up and realized he wasn't letting go of his head, so I peaked around and saw the wound. It was a pretty good gash and I could see the meaty stuff under the skin. Yuck. There was some blood, but I was really surprised there wasn't a lot more. I called Drew and we all started getting ready to go again. Darcy started crying again too so I decided to call a friend to drop her off with. She was so excited to go play with her friend, and to not have to go to the doctor for another traumatic event. I was so grateful for my friend's willingness to have her over so last minute. We dropped Darcy off and Ezra cried for her, "Daaarcy, Daaarcy..." We decided to go to urgent care this time. We were the only ones there so we got in quickly. The nurse and doctor were so sweet and great with our little man. The doctor was the mom of a few little boys and she got her IPad and played her boys' favorite shows to distract Ezra. She numbed the area as much as she could and then quickly put the three staples in. We were in and out really quickly. 

On our way to our friend's house we told Ezra we were going to get Darcy and he cheered about it. "Yay! Yay! Yay!" (With some fist pumping.) At one point we had to stop at a stop light and he started crying for Darcy again. I guess he didn't understand why we would be stopping when we hadn't gotten her yet. We thought it was so cute. 

Basically a minute after the staples were in Ezra forgot the whole thing and has never worried about it since. Tomorrow I will go get the staples out and hopefully we can avoid another serious medical problem for a while. 

Baby #3!

We are so excited to meet baby number three in April! April 5th is the due date. I have been taking Zofran religiously with this pregnancy and have never really felt the terrible sickness that I did with my first two pregnancies, which I am so very grateful for! I took Zofran with Darcy and still threw up all the time, so it was actually making me nervous that there was something wrong this time, because I have felt soo much better than I did with her. I am a little over 13 weeks now though, and things seem to be going well.

It was soo hard for me to wait to tell Darcy, and it was so fun when we finally did. She is really excited. Of course she keeps telling me she hopes it's a girl. I told her if it's a boy we will name him Parks, and she seemed to be ok with that. Then I told her if it's a girl we will name her Wren, to which she replied, "Why?! Let's think of something else!" Haha. Drew and I still like the name so she will be out-voted, and hopefully she can get used to it. I really am guessing this one will be a boy though so maybe we don't have to worry about it this time around. We'll see. I also told her that at some point she will be able to hold her hand on my belly and feel the baby move. She keeps resting her hand on my belly to check if she can feel anything yet. I am anxious to start feeling movement too! As far as I'm concerned, that is the only good part of being pregnant (besides the fact that it means a baby is coming). I will never understand the women who love being pregnant!

Just like with my other pregnancies I have already had to take an early glucose test. Once again though, luckily, I passed. The awesome part was that this time I asked the doctor about eating jelly beans instead of drinking that awful drink. That was SOO much better! I feel like I need to shout this little secret from the rooftops for pregnant ladies everywhere. :)

Of course we are feeling a little nervous about the transition to three kids, but mostly we are just really excited for this new adventure!