Camping

This last weekend we went camping with our friends and had such a great time. We camped at the boat launch in Desert Aire which Drew and I were kind of thinking was funny because we grew up right there, and we had really easy access to anything we needed with our families so close by. So it felt like we were cheating. It ended up being our favorite camping experience ever though.

We got there a little early and set up our tent (which was a little bit tricky because that first day/night it was pretty windy) and were just getting finished when our friends got there. They set up their stuff and started cooking dinner while I took the kids down to play in the water for a bit. I wish we would have had a chance to do that again because they had so much fun just in that short time. Dinner was hot dogs, grilled peppers, zucchini, and corn and it was delicious!

After some back and forth with their baby and ours we eventually got the kids to sleep for the night, and we spent a couple hours chatting by the "fire." (We couldn't actually have a camp fire so we had a little propane grill for a fire.) Parks woke up a couple times in the night for a second but I just had to pop his binky back in and he went back to sleep. At one point I woke up to Darcy kneeling right beside me saying, "Somehow I got over here." It took me a minute to figure out what she was saying and she seemed really disoriented and had a hard time finding her way back to her spot in the tent. That was a bit strange. Then Parks woke up at 5:20 to eat and it woke the other kids up, so although he would have gone back to sleep Ezra was awake and loud so he couldn't. So I ended up taking Ezra and Parks for a walk in the stroller on the walking path to get them away from the other campers who I'm sure weren't wanting to be up at 6. It was so beautiful that morning right there on the water and I was loving my walk, but Ezra was anxious to get back to our camp. When we got back the rest of our group was up for the day and we found out Melissa had driven the hour back home at midnight the night before and would be joining us again that morning. What a crazy night for her!

We had some yummy pancakes for breakfast and packed up our stuff and hit the river. It was my goal to be the first boat on the water in the morning, but some goal wreckers came and beat us to it by just a couple minutes. We ended up being second. :) The water was choppy by the boat launch, but we drove up river and the water was pure glass and it was soo beautiful the whole time we were out there! The river was low so at one point we ended up driving the boat up onto a little sand bar where we let the kids get out and play for a while. I loved that part.

If I could figure out a way to get a better night's sleep I could really get into this camping thing I think! Even with far too little sleep I thought it was such a great time!

Ezra's 3rd Birthday

 Ezra turned three! We kept this birthday more low key but Ezra still had a great day. He opened presents before Drew went to work, and then we met Alyssa and Haley and her boys at the splash pad and then came home for some cake. We love this wild three year old!

Some things we want to remember about Ezra at 3:

- 3 ft. 3/4 inch. (23%)

- He is our easiest to put to sleep at night. He has quit taking naps but will fall asleep is we are driving for a while in the afternoon. Every once in a while he will fall asleep watching a movie on the couch after lunch. If he takes a nap he stays up late.

- He has decided he loves nursery and goes happily. Yay!

- He has always been our bravest soul, but has developed a few fears lately. He is absolutely terrified of dogs and cats! Like shaking, crying, and screaming kind of terrified. We are working on that one.

- He still loves to have a ride on a motorcycle and he loves going boating and helping Drew drive the boat.

- He is getting to be such a good pretender, and I love catching him having his planes talk to each other.

- He loves planes, helicopters, boats, race cars, and the like. He especially loves to have any of those things to play with in water. He has spent a good portion of this summer outside in our little blow up pool playing with his cars, boats, and planes. As a result, his bum is about fifty shades lighter than his back and chest.

- He likes to play with Darcy for the most part, but he is also a tease sometimes. He loves Parks so much that we are always having to tell him to back off a little.

- Some of his favorite things to eat are rice krispies with honey, fruit, brownies, pancakes, and spaghetti.

We have started this pancake in the shape of your letter on your birthday morning tradition. Ezra requested that we make them blue. (You can hardly ever see that our pancakes are a different color.)

 



 Excited to open some presents!

 

 I told Ezra that Parks probably wanted to play airplanes with him and he thought that was the best thing ever!

 

 I got the kids what are probably the messiest popsicles in the world at the splash pad.

 

 Oh my

 

 Check out this beauty! I'm afraid I'm getting a bit of a reputation for making the ugliest cakes in the world. :) This one tasted really yummy but it completely fell apart. It was a white cake with raspberry filling and frosting. I am always excited when I make something yummy that is safe for Ezra. Some day I hope I can combine that with making it look pretty too.

 

Ezra was really excited about blowing out the candles this year!

4 Months!

 Parks is four months old. He is a healthy happy baby and we love him to pieces.

Some things we want to remember about Parks at 4 months:

- 16 lbs. (60th %), 25 1/2 inches (58th %), head circumference - 16.93 inches (59th %). People always comment about how chubby he is, but it's mostly just those kissable cheeks. :)

- He generally sleeps at least eight hours at night, sometimes a little more so I guess we're doing alright. I am ready to have it be a little longer though. :)

- He was wanting to take 45 minutes naps for a while there, but he seems to have gotten over that for the most part. Hallelujah!

- He rolled over once a couple Fridays ago, but hasn't done it again since.

- He smiles so big I think he is going to burst. I love it. He just loves having someone come talk to him and I am happy to oblige whenever I can. I am anxiously for that smile to break into a laugh!

- He is so loved by his big brother and sister. Thankfully Ezra seems to be getting better all the time at being careful and gentle.

- He is a screamer. He screams when he's happy and screams when he's sad. Really high pitched.

- He is constantly chewing on his hands.

- He has been scratching his face up a lot. I am excited for the day when he has a little better control of his hands, because I am spending way too much time manicuring his nails!

 I can't get enough of these smiling pictures. I have been trying to capture his smiles for weeks now, but haven't had any luck because right when I pull out my camera or phone he shuts that smile off instantly. I was so surprised today when he kept it going after I held up the camera.

 Anything Parks grabs go right to his mouth. Ezra thought it was so funny when Parks kept pulling his hand to his mouth for a taste.

Three little munchkins. My goal is to get a picture of them all looking at me some day.

Darcy's Family Party

 Right after we finished Darcy's party at our house we rushed to Mattawa to celebrate Darcy's birthday with our families at Drew's parents' house. Darcy was feeling on top of the world about all the celebrating we got to do. She loves a party!

Some things we want to remember about Darcy at 5:

- 3 ft. 9 1/2 inches tall. She is in the 93 percentile for height. She is one tall girl!

- She talks almost non-stop all day long. She always has something to say. She hates when she can't quite hear a conversation. She always needs to know what people are saying and she loves to add her to sense.

- She loves to sing. She can carry a tune really well for a five year old and she picks us the words to songs so fast.

- She loves playing with friends. A get together with a friend is so exciting for her.

- She is a passionate soul. Things are either really amazing and wonderful or really horrible. (A beautiful sunset? That can just about take her over the top! And no one was as excited about Ezra's potty training successes as she was.) Thankfully she tends to be on the happy side of things the majority of the time.

- She is starting to read small words which is really exciting for us all. She loves having us read to her.

- She loves to draw, and color, and write, and work on her little crafts.

- She is excited to start school at the end of this month. She is especially excited about riding the bus.

- She is just a great helper for me and she loves her brothers. It is a little bit a challenge for me to figure out how much to have her help because she starts to think she is in charge of the world.

- She LOVES family home evening! It cracks us up how excited she gets when she realizes it's Monday. It is the highlight of her week.

- She has grown leaps and bounds with some of her worries. She used to be so afraid of motorcycles and now she loves to go for rides and smiles and laughs and squeals the whole time. She also used to be worried on the boat. Now she requests that we go boating and even loves to tube. She used to be so freaked out about going to her class at church that she would cry until she threw up. Now she walks off to her class whether I'm paying attention or not. She loves her teacher and her friends there. She soaks up the lessons and loves singing time. She used to be too afraid to put her head underwater. After two weeks of swimming lessons she will go down and get the rings from the bottom of the pool, float on her back, so down a slide by herself, and is working on a couple different strokes. This girl amazes me and when I think of how far she's come I am so so proud of her!

 Ashley and my mom put together a scavenger hunt for Darcy to find her present from them.

 

Becky and Neil got Darcy this microphone for her birthday. I am pretty sure this toy was made for this girl!! She is using it as I type this. She talks and sings in it all day long. Right now she is pretending we are all at primary and I'm pretty sure she is the primary president from the sounds of things. :) This picture is her singing a frozen song at her party.

 



 Matthew was especially enjoying Darcy's song and had to break it down for a minute.

 

 I thought this picture of Darcy smiling at Ezra while he had his turn singing his favorite "Jingle Bells" was so cute.

 

  Blowing out her candles

 

The party ended with some fun in the water.

Darcy's 5th Birthday (Friend Party)

Darcy is 5! For some reason that number just feels unbelievable to me. Probably because starting kindergarten goes along with it. A few hours into the day she looked at me and said, "I kind of still feel the same as I did when I was 4." I had to laugh.

For her 5th birthday she got to have her first friend party. I read somewhere that a kid could handle to have the same number of friends for a party as the number of years they are turning. So we had five sweet and super fun little girls over to celebrate with us and Darcy was in heaven! I was kind of in heaven watching them play together too.

We decided on a fairly low key painting theme and I thought it was a great success. I took about a thousand pictures and it was really hard to decide which ones to use for this post.

Ashley showed me this idea for our invitations on Pinterest. I was excited about how they turned out.

 

 I love this happy five year old face. This was right before her friends showed up for the party. She was so excited and kept looking out the window to see if anyone was here yet.

 

Decorating cupcakes was first on the agenda.

 





About to blow out the candles. (That purple candle in the middle has a number five on the other side. A detail that was really exciting and important to her.)

 



 Next they painted bird houses. I just grabbed a bunch of my old t-shirts and turned them inside out to protect their clothes.

 

 Six adorable girls with their finished bird houses.

 

 Then I just sent them outside to play for a while and they were having a blast out there. They were being so good to take turns with the all-important goggles.

 

 There was lots of running from the trampoline to the pool to the sprinkler and back.

 



 Ashley came to party and to be my helper and I don't know how I could have managed it all without her! She was mostly in charge of taking care of the boys while I took care of the girls and she did an awesome job.

 

 This was one of those activities that I had dreamed would be really fun, but as the time got closer I wondered if it would end up being a flop. These girls ended up being so into it and they were so creative! I was relieved and I had so much fun watching their fun. The paint was washable and they all just cleaned up in the pool and sprinkler when they were done. It worked perfectly!

 

 Their finished product

 

  This was right after Darcy finished opening her presents. These girls were so sweet to Darcy, and happy to participate and play together. I finished this party wishing I could have them all over on a regular basis. I am so grateful that Darcy is surrounded by such great little friends here and that they helped make her day so awesome.