Ezra's 2nd birthday, Mexico team photo

Sunday May 31st marked two years since Ezra joined our family. As is tradition, we got him out of bed with the birthday song. He was totally confused.

He's so big anymore. I still feel like he's my baby but gosh darn it, he's really not. And he hasn't skipped the whole toddlerhood punkiness like I was hoping last year. I now find it hard to believe, that he was, as I stated last year, "pretty relaxed." Isn't that why we made him to Yoda on the back of my van? Yeah, he's so not relaxed. He's a punk. He does a lot of screaming. He sounds pretty much exactly like a Velociraptor screaming (from Jurassic Park) or the Black Riders from The Lord of the Rings. It's a toss up. But at least he is cute.

Notice the arms grabbing him...?

Noah likes to kiss Ezra as much as I do.

After eating breakfast (donuts - Ez likes them now, unlike last year) and getting ready, we headed off to church. Terry's Mexico / L.A. team was finally all assembled in one place so they could take a team photo. 

Unfortunately we picked a blindingly bright area. The people sitting on the ground simply could not keep their eyes open anymore! David was crying out in pain. Natasha's blinking, Mia is covering her entire face, Prae's laughing and Terry's giving it a good try. Ha!

Everyone kinda hung out for a while afterward. This was a difficult day for me. You know how sometimes the expectation of something exciting happening in the future is almost better than the event itself? Like Christmas. You took forward to Christmas all month long and then all of the sudden, it's just over. And winter goes being terrible and long for months and months with nothing fun to break it up. I've found that the expectation of Christmas is almost better than the event. Well, I had a similar experience with this trip, except backwards. Since I couldn't go along and had to be alone with four wacky/crazy/irritating kids without Terry for two solid weeks, I was dreading the trip instead of looking forward to it. And this feeling of dread was the strongest the day before they left. The day they actually left wasn't as bad as the day before when I had been looking "forward" to it. I don't know if that makes sense. The event wasn't as bad as the expectation. So it was backwards of Christmas.

Everyone getting their ducks in a row with their fearless leader. 

I can't even remember what we did that afternoon. Rested I think. Laundry. Oh, and moved dressers around. But at about 4pm both families came over to celebrate Ezra and my brother (since they share a birthday). I love holding little chunky Theo. Ezzie wasn't too happy about that. He wormed his way into my lap. And how cute is little Sarah?!

Noah took some family photos while Terry and I got the cake ready. Nathan turned 30 that day! Sad, we are getting old.

My mom. 

Terry's folks. 

My dad and Jesse. 

We didn't have a 3 to make 30 for Nathan so we went for the next closest number; a 4! HA! And of course the 2 was for Ezra. 

He successfully blew out the candles. I was surprised. 

Waiting for their cake or rhubarb dessert. 

We've been trying to get him to feed himself. He was more than willing with something as yummy as cake. He's come a long way since last year when he wouldn't eat any of the cake and freaked out because his hands got dirty. 

Nom nom nom.

Noah took this accidental photo of an escaping piece of Nathan's cake. So funny! 

Present time. This was a little car from Shari and Jesse to go with the track he would be getting. 

He doesn't need much so I told my mom to just get Mary Poppins. The kids loved it when we rented it during the May blizzard. 

Terry's folks got him this sand scooper. What an original idea! 

And there's the track. I wanted a smaller one but since it was on sale for really cheap and Terry loved it, we got it. We knew Ezra would love it and he certainly does. 

The boys couldn't keep their hands off it while Terry and Noah assembled it. 

Everyone loved it. For several days afterwards, Ezra would go downstairs quietly, first thing in the morning and roll cars down his track.  

Samuel likes Ezra's sand scooper. 

And so does Ezra :) Happy birthday Ezzie! 

Ez and the pinata

A couple days before Terry's mission trip, two of our friends and leaders (and fellow mission trippers), David and Steven, had a little birthday BBQ. One of their mothers brought out a surprise pinata (filled with toiletries and some candy) and they were gracious enough to let our kids, who were the only little ones there, to have a go at the thing. Noah whacked the head off right away so they had to string it up from a different place and let Evie, Samuel and Ezra try. There were lots of photos but this one was just so cute.

Watiki with Ez

For Christmas last year, Terry's folks again got us a family swim pass to Watiki. We've been so busy though that we haven't been able to go. Finally, before Terry's trip, when the summer hours began, we spent a Friday morning there. We even took Ezra. It was his first visit since he was six months old. It's always just been so much simpler and enjoyable to let him nap at my folks, who live very nearby.

Here is his first time seeing the water. Very contemplative...

"What?! Why do you keep looking at me? What am I supposed to do?"

He loves bath time so we thought perhaps he'd run right in. Not so much. He was very careful. No funny business for him. 

We found during this trip that Samuel had relaxed somewhat. He's always been pretty afraid of the whole place. Well, there was an isolated incident of fun last fall when he went down the kids slides and had a blast, but usually, he does a lot of whining.

I tried to stay awake while Terry went with the kids down the slides. But look, Ezra sat in the water! 

Note the Samuel independence. This was unheard of previously. Also, I hope you recognize the Zoolander look. Evie had it as a baby and I was proud to see Samuel bringing it out again. 

Silly girl. Oh wait, it gets sillier. 

"Ho hum. How bored I am in this gigantic room." 

"Uh oh. He saw me. Better flirt." 

Starting to get a little bored. And hungry. 

Yep, there's the silliness right there. She gets it from her daddy. 

growing Ezra

A couple weeks ago Ezra came to me in the kitchen, while the others were still downstairs, and wanted to go play outside. He loves playing out there. I had just set up a chair to get onto the trampoline and he climbed right up there. 

He'd never been able to get up there all by himself before, or jump by himself. He really enjoyed it. He's so big!

While he has come a ways from only eating pureed foods, he's still pretty picky. Annoyingly so. It's so irritating and frustrating. He wants me to feed him and not do it himself. And he doesn't want to eat much. It feels like he will never get this eating thing figured out. I know that's not true, but it sure doesn't take away the difficulty in the moment. 

So that same day I decided to try to get him to feed himself. We had some delicious chicken and rice...

He actually did it! He ate quite a bit by himself. It was a small victory. We're still working on small steps every day, but this one felt particularly good.  

first Storybook

I already posted these photos on facebook, but I love them so much I think it's okay to double up. The whole point of this blog is for posterity anyway.

We visited Storybook Island the day after Memorial Day, shortly after it had opened for the summer. While we were walking around, halfway through the park, I remembered this shot I had taken back in December 2014. I really liked it.

So as we were passing by that area, I climbed the bench I had been on before and I called to the kids (except Samuel had already run ahead) to wait and let me take their picture. What a difference six months makes! I much prefer summer to all other seasons. I hate being cold! I love the sunshine. I love the green. Welcome summer!

rainy Memorial day grilling

After we got done planting our garden on Memorial Day, Shari, Jesse and the girls came over for a BBQ. It had been raining in earnest ever since we were finishing up my hydrangea and it continued to do so throughout dinner. Terry borrowed Evie's umbrella to grill the hotdogs and burgers. 

I wonder where our kids get the wackiness from...

gardening!

We have never planted a garden before and now that our kids are getting a little older, we wanted them to be able to have that experience. My folks used to have a large garden, as did Terry's. I have very unpleasant memories of weeding said garden for what seemed like hours and hours under the hot sun. I'm sure it was good for me (I was a punk), but it gave me no love for gardening. I think I've finally come to terms with it though and with Terry's help, I'm going to overcome.

Memorial Day weekend we went shopping at Menards for seeds and plants. I don't know which seeds are good so we just bought what they had and what sounded good to us. We bought twice as much as we had room for. Live and learn. I am learning a lot because I know nothing.

So when we returned from Menards on Memorial Day, we got right to work. We had to. Otherwise it would never happen. We decided where things would go and Terry started with the two tomato plants. And then it started raining. It has been raining like non-stop these last few weeks! No precipitation January through April and then bam, at the end of May and now June, we've been hammered. Lots of flooding around here!

The rain quit after just a little bit and we resumed. Terry is nothing if not a perfectionist. So all his rows are evenly measured out.  

The kids were in charge of dropping seeds in. They kept remarking how fun it was. They loved it. Yay!

So here is the raised bed that's behind the garage. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that we had even build these things. It was back at the end of March when we made the brick path. Then Terry brought two trailer's full of yummy old corral dirt/manure from the ranch to fill the beds with. 

The tweeny plant on the left is a strawberry plant. I'd like to add to it, obviously. Ha! In the middle are two kinds of peppers. And on the right are the tomato plants.

This is the second bed, which is on the other side of the deck, outside Noah's room and the laundry room. Planted there are carrots, peas and beans. 

While Terry and the kids were planting vegetables, I got to work on my flowers. Like I mentioned when we completed the path, I wanted to put Cosmos flowers on the back side of the deck. So here are my Cosmos seeds!

This is where they are planted.

In this empty dirt area I planted the other flower seeds, the Columbine and Poppies. I'm not sure if they're going to make it. The Cosmos have started to come up, but not the others. Hopefully there's still time. It'll have been two weeks in a couple days since I planted... 

To the left of the second bed I planted more Cosmos and some Columbines. 

The hydrangeas were on sale for a steal of a deal and they looked a ton better than the ones Terry got me before I bought my pinks ones. So I scooped one up and planted it while Terry was still busy. 

It's on the other side of the window well from the pink hydrangeas. These are supposed to be blue, but because it really depends on the acidity of the soil, we will just see. Also, in between the pink hydrangeas I planted some Poppies. They haven't sprouted yet, so again, I'm in doubt. In the next couple of years our front bed should look really nice though! 

4H fishing

This last school year Noah and Evie joined 4H and though we've not been too diligent with their projects (geocaching for Evie), they've enjoyed it - mostly because they get to hang out with their friends once a month. For our May meeting, Amanda set up a fishing class at Outdoor Campus West.

Everyone had to wear sunglasses to protect their eyes from flying fish hooks. Ezra did a lot better than I thought he would. I was worried he would go straight for the water.

Samuel tried to cast his line a few times but couldn't get the hang of it so I did it for him. I must have picked a good spot because he caught one right away and then two more later.

Evie casted herself and caught a couple after not too long.

Noah spent a lot of time in the beginning trying to catch a snapping turtle so he was the last one to catch a fish. He was starting to get worried and teary that he would never catch one. Finally he did. So happy :)

Fish lips!

We went for a walk through the park after we finished fishing. Evie fell on a thorn or something. I couldn't even see where it poked her, but because it was bleeding, she freaked out. Oh the drama! Abigail and Kaleah were very doting. They were trying to bandage her owie with leaves and use lilac blossoms as medicine.