Sunday, July 27, 2014

Friday

 This past Friday we spent the day in Mattawa at Drew's parents' house. We had such a great time just spending the day together. Drew worked in the morning so during Parks' nap I took Darcy and Ezra to Drew's grandparents' house to swim for a while. Then when we got home Drew and his parents had set up their big blow up pool/slide thing (I'm sure this is the technical term). The kids spent the rest of the day in and out of it.

Justin and Misty came over with baby Raylee too and it was nice to chat and hang out. Misty is so great to let me pick her brain with all my photography questions. She helped me figure out how to shoot into the sun which has been my dream! I am soo excited about it! With some pleading on my part Darcy eventually  agreed to let me take a few shots of her to practice and I really love them.

I really wish we could have days like that more often. Spending time as a family, relaxing a little here and there, the kids play outside in the water as much as they want, snuggling babies, and taking pictures. It doesn't get much better than that in my mind.
Train


 Darcy was striking different poses as she came down the slide and cracking us up. I loved this one!
 Ezra was pretty freaked out about the dog being outside with them and Drew helped ease his worries by joining the kids in the pool. I love watching him play with the kids. I'm pretty sure nothing is better in their minds.
 Looks like a fun day huh? :) The kids had had WAY too little sleep the night before, and then they spent the day in the sun, and Ezra is REALLY freaked out by the dog, and he got knocked down and pushed under in the water and it just got to be more than his little two year old self could handle. He had a really rough moment and eventually asked to go take a nap which he needed desperately.
 I seriously think Mattawa is one of the most beautiful places in the summer. Every once in a while I have to go over whether or not it could ever work for us to live there. I love country living. The fields everywhere are so beautiful and I was really loving the corn field behind Neil and Becky's house. I had Darcy come out and jump around in front of it. (I would also love to use Ezra more in pictures but that would require some willingness on his part. Maybe some day.) :)
 Some back lighting. So fun!

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

4th of July

I just found pictures from the 4th of July and realized I forgot to post about it.

Our Independence Day was even busier this year than it usually is. There were lots of places we needed and wanted to be and packing it all into that one day was pretty intense.

We slept in Mattawa the night before, and then had to be to the park in Mattawa a little before 8 in the morning for the flag raising and pancake breakfast. My mom directed the church choir in the Star Spangled Banner at the flag raising and she was a little low in numbers so I joined their choir. I haven't sung in a choir for a long time, and I had forgotten how much I love it!

After breakfast we hurried to the church for some volleyball. This was the thing I was looking forward to the most in the day, but sadly I was so completely exhausted from lack of sleep the night before and my performance was sub-par. I keep thinking I was a re-do on that game. Drew was all over it though!! Haha.  

After volleyball we hurried back to Drew's parents' house for lunch and to pick up the boat. We headed to the river for some wakeboarding/skiing with our friends and some of my family. The water was SOO cold there was no way I was getting in there!

I had planned on running over to my parents' neighbors' house after boating because that is where we usually go for the 4th but we were all so completely exhausted we decided to stay at Drew's parents' house and rest until we headed over to his Aunt and Uncle's at 8 for a get-together and fireworks. My kids were not loving the fireworks so we watched them from inside the house, and then hurried home to get a few hours of sleep.






 The kids were braver than most of the adults. They were determined to take a little dip, but they didn't last long.
 
 The two littlest boaters took naps to celebrate.
 
 I'm sad this picture isn't clearer. These little friends are so cute.
 

 Ezra hadn't been on the boat since last year and for some reason he was really nervous about it this year. He stayed glued to Drew almost the whole time.
 
 Ezra had way less sleep the night before than he usually gets and he fell asleep for a minute riding on Drew's lap back to shore.
 
When we were done there just happened to be a 4th of July passing by in Dessert Aire which included fire trucks that the little boys especially loved.

Monday, July 7, 2014

3 Months!

Parks is three months old today. It really seems like it was just a couple days ago that I was writing about him being two months. Babies have a way of making time fly.

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

- 13.8 lbs. Which is 44th percentile according to the internet. This was just on my scale at home, but if it's right he has lost weight. I am trying not to be worried about that.

- He is almost entirely formula/bottle fed at this point. I never ended up adding in that third time nursing because it seemed like he had an upset stomach after he nursed. I really am not sure about any of it though.

- He is a pretty good sleeper. He usually goes to bed around 9 and wake up at 5 to eat and then goes back to sleep for a couple hours. One day he slept all the way through until 7:30. I am hoping we can get that going on a consistent basis soon.

- He takes a short nap or two in the morning, but then takes a 3-4 hour nap in the early afternoon with another short nap or two in the evening.

- We are starting to get lots of comments from people about his crazy eyelashes. I could really stare into his beautiful eyes for hours, especially when they are accompanied by a smile.

- He seems to really love light fixtures and nothing could be more exciting to him than a ceiling fan! He smiles us at light fixtures/fans and talks to them on and on. I love it.

- He sleeps really well in his car seat and is generally happy in the car which is new for us. I hope it lasts.

- He happily lays on the floor for quite a long time (maybe around 1/2 hour) after he eats unless he gets attacked by Ezra. He isn't really a fan of tummy time.

- For his three month birthday present he woke up sick for the first time in his life. Just a cold, but its sad to see him coughing and congested. Hopefully it passes quickly. I couldn't even get him to smile for his photo shoot and he is normally so quick to smile.

I love baby sneezes.

Those eyelashes. I have been trying all kinds of different angles to capture those babies.
This picture is really quite decieving. I spend most of the time Ezra is close to Parks playing defense. He has gotten more and more aggressive with Parks. He loves him and always wants to be close to him, but he isn't really careful at all. I am praying we can get this all figured out.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Park Day

I really love taking pictures of my favorite subjects these days. When Drew was gone we spent a couple days in Mattawa. One day we went to the park where the kids had fun playing and I had fun capturing their fun.
 Ezra could swing all day.
 





 Ahoy Matey's!!
 
 I thought this one was funny because they have the same expression on their faces.
 

Monday, June 16, 2014

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Drew was gone this past week (from Sunday to Sunday) for a certification course in San Diego. Not only was it hard to have him gone all week to begin with, but it felt like everything was going wrong the whole time he was gone. At the time I thought I was going to lose my mind, but looking back now it kind of makes me laugh. My crazy week really made me appreciate having my husband around!

It turns out Drew was having his own crazy week in California. He was in training every day from 8 am - 8 pm (the last day it was until 9 pm). He would wake up every morning to study flash cards at 5 am, go to training all day, and then go back to his room to study again until around midnight. They got a break for lunch, but didn't get dinner until after training. He was overwhelmed with information and wasn't feeling confident at all about passing the test. If he didn't pass he would have to pay the $600 and he would have to go back and try again some time. Thankfully, he did end up passing!! He was so relieved and I was too!

I had to write down my list of unfortunate events.

-Sunday I drove to Royal City to spend some time with Drew's family. Before I left I was trying to figure out how to get driving directions on my new phone but it was downloading so slow. I kept trying to call Drew was he was on his flight. (I really don't like not having access to his all-knowing brain!)

- I found some directions but not an app where someone would talk to me while I drove. When I ended up in Othello I was confused. I didn't remember going through there. Once again I tried to call Drew, but no answer. I called maybe four other people and couldn't get ahold of anyone. I was so confused and frustrated and about to turn around and go home when I got a call back.

- I wasn't clear about where exactly I was and I ended up driving over half an hour in the wrong direction. My 1 hour and 15 minute drive ended up being close to 2 and 1/2 hours.

- Ezra was eating a little snack on the way home that I had assumed would be safe for him but I was wrong. A few minutes on the road and I started noticing him coughing in the back seat. It was getting worse and worse and I stopped to try to find my benadryl, but couldn't find it anywhere. I got back in and put the pedal to the medal because I knew we were only about 10-15 minutes away from the Othello hospital. I kept feeling around in my bag as I drove and I found the benadryl. I stopped and gave it to him but he wasn't getting better as quickly as I would have liked so as we got into Othello I stopped at the first gas station I came to to give him more. Right when I stopped he threw up. That is never something I want to clean up but it really was a relief this time because his breathing immediately improved. 

- Parks had started sleeping through the night before Drew left. The first night he was gone and every night since he has been waking up in the middle of the night again, and often having a hard time going back to sleep.

- Tuesday, the day before Darcy's dress rehearsal for tap, Darcy drew all over her legs with a pen. Luckily it was only barely visible by Wednesday night.

- On the way to the Moses Lake aquatic center I got lost again. Parks was crying and ready to eat. Drew said I should never leave the house without him again. Haha! I agree!

-  When we got to the aquatic center I discovered, to my horror that Darcy had drawn all over herself once again. Legs and arms this time and covering a larger area. Her recital was the next day. We had to spend time scrubbing before swimming. (Under different circumstances I may have been able to laugh at this, but along with the frustration of getting lost, a crying baby, and trying to get everyone and everything out of the car to go swim it about did me in.)

- Darcy lost her temporary filling at the aquatic center and her tooth was hurting her.

- I called the dentist on the way home and they could only get me in at 7:30 the next morning, and I needed to go to the pharmacy to get her a prescription that night. I was to far away to get there in time. I wracked my brain and eventually called a very sweet friend who was willing to pick it up for me.

- We got to my parents' house and I fed Parks. He kept falling asleep so I would put him in his seat for us to go and he would wake up. I think this happened three different times.

- Parks slept particularly poorly that night. I was up for the day on Friday at 4:45.

- That miracle drug prescription that was trouble to get seemed to do nothing and Darcy screamed for her whole dental appointment.

- I was sooo tired from our rough night and early morning and tried over and over to get Parks to take a nap. I eventually would just let him cry. He would finally fall asleep, I would wait a little while to go lay down myself and he would wake up right when I was about to fall asleep.

- That night I got everything in the car to take Darcy to her recital, got in and turned the key and what do you know, dead. Apparently Darcy had gotten in the car when I was finally able to fall asleep for a few minutes to get something. She left the door open and Ezra went out and turned everything on in the car. Thankfully he didn't get as far as driving the car.

- My mom was on her way so we figured the two of us could jump it. I looked all over for our jumper cables and tried over and over to call Drew again. (I could never get ahold of him!) I sent him a text explaining my emergency and when he had a minute he called me back to tell me the jumper cables were in his car which was parked at the airport.

- My mom let me borrow her car so I raced off to the recital. As I pulled into the parking lot I realized I left Darcy's costume in my car. So we had to race home and back.

- Darcy ended up falling asleep about 30 seconds before we got to the school where her recital was, and she woke up really cranky. She screamed and cried when I went to leave her with her back stage babysitters. 

- I wanted to try to have the house at least a little bit in order when Drew got home so I was determined to do some wild cleaning on Saturday morning before Darcy's second performance. While I was cleaning Darcy got out her craft bin. I told her very specifically that this was not the time to play with the glitter. I left the room for two minutes. I came back. There was glitter everywhere! We spent a couple hours cleaning up glitter with Darcy crying that it was too hard the whole time.

- Right after the glitter fiasco Ezra got some gooey silly putty kind of stuff that Darcy got as her prize from the dentist (it is now in the garbage) in the carpet.

Tap Recital

 I love watching this little tapper perform! She did a great job at her recital.



2 Months!

Our baby is two months old and he is dreamy.

A few things we want to remember about Parks at two months:

- 13 lbs. 9 oz. I think the doctor said that was the 77th percentile. I don't know what his height was but I remember that it was the 90th percentile.

- He has started to sleep through the night. Not every night yet, but we're getting there. The more sleep I get at night, the more I want to squeeze him. :)

- He smiles so much and loves to talk back to me when I sit and talk to him. I could really do that all day. I think it is the sweetest thing ever.

-When he was first born I think he had two eyelashes on each eye. Now they have come out of nowhere and they are really dark and really long.

- He loves to be held facing me looking over my right shoulder.

- He loves having a bath.

- During his floor time Ezra likes to make airplanes out of blocks and fly them all around him for him to watch. He watches happily and follows the flight with his eyes all around.

- He is still mostly formula fed, but nursing seems to be improving so we are up to nursing twice a day and I'm about to try for three times a day.