Messy

Saturday morning we made a last minute decision to run to Mattawa to get some wood from my dad which meant we left the house suddenly and it was a mess. Then, in a very rare moment, I ended up sleeping in this morning so I didn't have a chance to clean up once again. It stresses me out big time to have the house so messy for so long. So, Drew took Ezra for a drive at the end of sacrament meeting because Ezra was cranky and tired and needed to sleep. While he was sleeping in the pickup Drew came home and cleaned the house. Made beds, put away laundry, cleaned up toys, emptied and loaded the dishwasher, cleaned up the table, cleaned the kitchen, put away the ironing board and iron, etc., etc., etc. Oh my goodness I was so excited about this surprise when I got home!!

So I was going on and on about how awesome this all was, and Darcy walks over to the toy bins and states loudly and happily, "Now, I'm gonna make a mess!!!" She wasn't being spiteful or anything. She said it like we would be so excited about it and we couldn't help but laugh. Silly girl.

Mish Mash

I had a few random pictures on my camera I wanted to blog about. So here they are.

 

 I always put Darcy up on a stool to do her hair and Ezra had been anxious to have a turn up on the stool. So I put him up and brushed his hair. He loved it. Then he took the brush and brushed his own hair for a while. He tends to use the wrong side though.

 Another favorite lately. Both my kids have been into downward dog. :) Ezra loves to do this and have us look at him through his legs.

 I saw on their family blog that my nephew was making his own bed and he's just a little older than Darcy. I was shocked because I hadn't even thought of having Darcy make her own bet yet! Whoops! So the next day we started working on it, and she was so excited about it. When I tell her it's time to make her bed she runs upstairs, excited to do it. I had no idea she would be so happy to make her bed!

 I saw this idea for sidewalk paint on Pinterest and it was a hit! Darcy and Ezra both loved having freedom to paint all over without having to be careful. Ezra had never even gotten to try painting before this and he was a fan. I thought it was fun too!

 They got to clean up in the pool.

 It was a little chilly for getting wet so they were happy to get wrapped up in the towels.

This week I have been watching my cousin Cruz while my Aunt is working in the area. The first day he was here we blew up this air mattress in my room and these three had so much fun playing on it together.

 Yesterday I took a deep breath and let Darcy paint my toenails. I was worried she would get the polish all over everything, but she didn't get it anywhere besides my toes. Not exactly where it's supposed to go, but close. :) She was so happy to get to do this and it was definitely worth it! We were both laughing that it was all over my toes.

Tent Morning

Yesterday both kids woke up really early and we were all a little bit tired and cranky. Our day was heading South quickly, and I decided I needed to do something to change the course of our day. Darcy loves making tents, but we hadn't done it for a while so I made a nice, big, cozy tent for us in the living room and we hung out in our jammies for a while and read some books. Soon after our day took a turn for the worst, but at least we had this one really fun moment together, right?! :)

Tonka Man

 Drew grew up playing with Tonka trucks a lot and really loving them so he wanted to get one for Ezra for his birthday. Unfortunately, the two stores where we always shop kept being out of them until a couple weeks ago, so it was a late birthday present. He loves pushing it back and forth across our driveway, and Darcy actually thinks it's pretty cool. Oh, and I just happened to come across this Tonka shirt that I thought he needed to go with his truck. :)

Darcy's First Day of Dance!!

I was so excited for this day! I had been talking to Darcy about it for weeks hoping that she would just be excited and not nervous. She was fine for the first couple minutes we were there, but when her teachers started talking to her she burst into tears and it took a while for her to calm down. When she finally calmed down though, she was loving it and I loved watching her. She is doing tap and creative movement and both are so cute!

While we were watching Ezra kept trying to walk into her class so I put him on the bench behind me. That kind of thing is normally not a problem for him, but suddenly I heard this disgusting thump and turned around to see Ezra face down on the cement floor. When I picked him up he had this gigantic bruise and bump on his forehead. Although he has had this kind of thing before I'm pretty sure it's the biggest one yet. I wasn't totally sure what to do, but the ladies there convinced me to take him to the ER. I was so worried about leaving Darcy there, because I had told her I would be right there watching her, and then I discovered I didn't have my phone! I always have my phone! So the lady who owns the dance place gave me her phone and they ushered me out the door. I ran to the ER (luckily I found my way there on the first try). I walked up to the front desk and said to the guy sitting there, "So he has this bump on his head. Do I really need to be here?" He told me that he wasn't really supposed to tell me something like this but if it was his son he would put ice on it and watch him. He hadn't passed out or thrown up or gone to sleep or anything and swelling on the outside was a good sign. I was so relieved and grateful for that guy who was willing to give me that info! I ran back out the door, but unfortunately I wasn't as fortunate with my directions on the way back. I am really terrible at directions! But we eventually got there in time to watch the last half of Darcy's class. We bring a show everywhere we go!

When she was done Darcy was so happy and loved talking about all the things she had done. I think her teachers are so great. I hope next week the initial separation will be a little easier for her!

 In her dance outfit!

Releve!

Plie!

A leap! (Her focus is amazing already!) :)

This was not actually a dance move, she was just getting distracted. It makes for a good dance picture though.

Crown feet (1st position) and soft ballet arms. This is her teacher Miss Christy

With her cute little group of girls

Dancing with feather dusters to the Cinderella song. (She really seamed to love this part.)

The knot on Ezra's head. The pictures don't quite do it justice. It looked so nasty!

Side view

TRYING to be reverent.

Two Sundays ago the speakers in sacrament meeting all talked about reverence. That is a hard subject to listen to when you have two little kids who won't sit still or be quiet and you have no idea how to get them to do either of those things. I felt really silly the whole meeting. At the end the bishop suggested that we talk about being reverent in our family home evenings that week. (He did make the point that he wasn't worried about the little kids as much as the teenagers, but I was!)  So I started researching when I got home from church that evening and we had a family home evening focusing on reverence the next night.

We sang a few songs about reverence from the Children's Songbook and talked about why we need to sit still and be as quiet as we can during church. I got a book from the library called Holler Loudly. I had gotten the impression the moral of this story was that we can be loud sometimes, but there are times we need to be quiet. I hadn't read all the way through the book though, and it did say that very thing one time, but that wasn't really the main message of the book so that was a bust. Ha! Darcy still liked the story though.

Then we played a game I thought up that would give us all (but mainly Darcy) a chance to practice sitting still and being quiet. I set up a row of chairs in the living room and we all had to sit down. We started by sitting still and being quiet for 10 ten seconds. If we got through that successfully we each got two M&Ms. Then we tried 20 seconds. Then 40. 40 seconds took a few tries for Darcy to get through. It was so funny and kind of crazy to watch how hard it really was for her to be quiet and still. We tried 1 minute eventually and we told her she could have even more M&Ms if she could get through that. After a few tries I decided she wouldn't normally be sitting there just staring at the wall with nothing to look at so I gave her a book. That didn't really help. It is really close to impossible for her to be totally silent so she would eventually start humming or making some sort of little noise. The look on her face was heartbreaking when she realized she hadn't done it again. I hadn't known this would be SO hard for her and I did not want it to be a sad experience for her, so we eventually just went back down to a shorter time she could handle. I am determined to keep practicing with her though.

Then we practiced saying different sentences in a whisper voice and got some M&Ms for good whispering.

Wow this was a way longer post than I meant for it to be. I hope we can get better at this soon!

Reverence practice :)

Ezra's 1st Birthday

For Ezra's first birthday we had some family over for some cake and ice cream and let him dive into his own cake (which is my favorite tradition ever). It was a cake safe for his allergies, so in my opinion is was a little less than stellar, but he still dug in and loved it. He is seriously such an adorable boy, and we can't get enough of him.

Some things we want to remember about Ezra at 1:

- 20 lbs. 6 oz. So happy he broke the 20 lb. mark although he is still only in the 15th percentile. He went from 5% to 15% so we are happy with the jump, and so was the doctor. My memory is failing me right now, but he was either just over 28 inches or just over 29 inches. I think 29. Hmm. 25th percentile. His head is way off the charts. So I guess that's why he always has bruises on his forehead. His head is just kind of heavy for his little body. Haha.

- He sleeps from 7:30 at night to around 6:30 in the morning. Pretty good if you ask me. Then a 1 1/2 hour nap in the morning and a 1 1/2 hour nap in the afternoon. Sometimes one of those naps is a little longer.

- He is a walker! He took his first steps a few weeks before his birthday and has been really determined to become an expert. He would walk up and down the hall and around in circles over and over. It seemed like he just wanted to practice. I love it when babies learn to walk. Too cute! (except for all the bruises that come with it)

- He says mama and dada, but we still don't know if he's putting those names to the faces. The other day I thought he was trying to say Darcy. He was looking right at her and saying da-y over and over.

- He is such a friendly baby. He loves everyone that gives him a little attention and will really ham it up for people.

- He is a climber. Yikes.

- He loves to push things around. We got him a wagon for his birthday and I thought he would love to have rides in it. Instead he likes to just push it all around. He likes to push the stoller, or the shopping cart, or a stool, or little chair, or anything that isn't attached that will slide across the floor.


- He loves cars. He makes the noise and drives them all around the room. I guess that is just another thing he gets to push around. He also loves to throw balls around. He especially loves to have us throw them back and forth with him.


- He loves to play in water but does not like to have it get on his head. He starts rubbing his eyes like crazy until his eyes get really red.

 

In his new church duds he got for his birthday. Oh man he looks too cute for me to handle!

  

 The party spread. The theme was blue balloons. I got it from Pinterest. 

 

The blue balloon allergy-safe smash cake.

 Darcy was not very patient with Ezra's present opening pace. She almost couldn't help getting in there and helping him. :)

 Ezra preferred pushing the present boxes around the room.

 Haley got these Seahawks slippers for Ezra. Cute!

Now for lots of pictures of Ezra eating his cake.

 Matthew looking fly in his party hat.

 Cousins! (No one wanted to be too close to Ezra looking like that!) :)

 I just thought this picture of Darcy was so cute.

 Ezra and Darcy getting a ride in the birthday wagon.

Please excuse the saggy diaper, but this is the only documentation I have of Ezra pushing his wagon around.

 Ezra holding his bottle with his teeth and pushing his car around the room.