He's here

Today we welcomed  our second son Damon Michael.  He surprised us by coming early just like his brother.  I was getting ready for work and my water broke.  I was 37 weeks so I wasn't totally surprised since older brother came at 36 weeks and I had a loooong time before I was even contracting. Planned on the same thing.  Joel and taken Ezra to his Spanish class and since it was parent/child one I didn't want to bother them right then because I knew I had some time.  I gave work a call and told them the situation and then  I hopped in the shower to get ready for the day one last time before the days of no shower, hair, make up would come to be again.  After I was ready I still wasn't even contracting even the tiniest bit and was considering driving myself to the hospital but thought nah, I'll wait and decided to call my mom.  She ended up picking me and taking me in.  After I was all checked in my plan was to have a repeat C-section.  I did not want to repeat what happened last time and Damon was alrady measuring bigger so the odds of a successful VBAC were not in my favor.  BUt since I had eaten breakfast, before my water broke, I needed to wait 6 hours for my food to digest, before I had the c-section.  Of course, Damon had other plans and decided he was ready now.  After 2 hours from when my water broke I was in the OR being prepped for the C-section.  Joel barely even made it.  And we welcomed Damon Michael at 1:03pm.  He weighed 8lbs. 3oz .
He are so in love with him.

Hawaii

Our little family was in some need of some sun so we packed our bags and headed to the Hawaiian Islands. We spent a few day on Oahu visiting with our friend Katie, Tim and Blakely and then we spent the rest of the week on the Big Island. Hanging out in one the lagoons by Ewa Beach Our view from our balacony

In the lava tubes. Ezra loved to splash in the puddles

Hiking in the rainforest

At the volcano

Rainbow falls near Hilo

Hanging out at the black sand beach near our condo on the Big Island

This is hard to see but it's a picture of sea turtle

Ahh...paradise

Cancun

Oh beautiful sunshine we've missed you! Gotta love 80 degree weather, beachfront stay to look at crystal blue ocean, and beautiful sunrises...so we heard, we never did get up that early. Joel and I took a little vacation sans Ezra which was nice to not have any responsibility. We missed him of course but we knew he was in the good hands with of our parents for the week. Although when we got back he has had some anxiety everytime one of us has left the house or when we put him to bed. We feel a little bad now that he had some separation anxiety. At least we know he loves us!

Our plan was to sleep in, relax either by the pool or ocean and not have any plans. But that lasted for about half a day. Besides bumming around on beach trying to body surf, we enjoyed driving a speed boat through the lagoon to the ocean so we could snorkel by the reef. And of course how can you say you went to Mexico and not go to the flea markets and bargain for good deals. We also did a day trip out to one of the Mayan temples Chichen Itza which was pretty cool. We also stopped on our way at this ranch that had and underground water hole and you could swim in.Our view from where we stayed. Needless to say, we could have gotten use to seeing that everyday.

Christmas

Better late than never...
We had a fabulous Christmas especially since I didn't have to work :) We enjoyed having family in town and being able to spend time with them. We started the Christmas season with the annual Fitz Family Christmas dinner followed by a Backer Family party. Ezra really enjoyed everything that involved Christmas, especially all the lights. After I had strung the Christmas tree with lights and plugged them in, Ezra exclaimed "Oh, Wow!" It was so cute cute how awestruck he was with such a simple thing. Our family enjoyed spending Christmas with both sides of the family and going to my grandma's house for dinner. It's funny how different you view things when you have kids and see the world from their tiny perspective. All in all we enjoyed celebrating the birth of our Savior.

Papa and cousins Selah and Eli

Christmas Outfit

Playing with my new cars

My new Slide

New TrainChristmas Morning

Fall

Ezra love the pumpkin patch this year. This was the first time we took him and he enjoyed all the "bumkins" We also enjoyed a stroll through the corn maze. I think he just enjoyed being outside on this gorgeous fall day and be able to be a boy and play with dirt, bugs and sticks.

This year I tried carving something different beside my typical triangle eyes and nose and toothed mouth. My friend Missy and I relieved our childhood and carved these 2 beauties! Hopefully you can tell what they are. We were pretty proud of ourselves.

What's new?

Glad you asked!
Ezra... has a vocab about 8 words now but car and cracker are ones we hear all the time.
loves playing with cars and legos and loves being read to and backs his little hiney into your lap when it's storytime.
has started brushing his 8 teeth, which we almost lost one to an injury.
has been doing well eating with a fork which is so great and not nearly as messy!
likes to give group hugs...so sweet
Joel...continues to be consistently busy with our flooring business...yeah!
Emily...decided to be certified in her area of nursing and so is studying to take the exam..uggh!

So with all that stuff going on we are ready for our next vacation and after having fun and a relaxing time on our last one we are going to be making it a priority. Whohoo!

I think I'll go to Boston...

And we did, Ezra in tow and all. Ezra was such a good sport on the plane and during all our travel adventures. We all had a great time back east. We spent most of our time in downtown Boston sightseeing, going to a Red Sox game which felt like you were going back in time. That park has such an antique feel and we (Ezra and I) enjoyed watching the Sox's beat the Orioles. Joel was not too happy as an Oriole fan. Boston has a good mixture of old and new stuff and we enjoyed it all. We walked the freedom trail which is about a 2 1/2 mile walk around the city that Paul Revere rode to warn that the "British are coming" It had a lot of different historical sites one of which was Paul Revere's house that's pictured as well as Bunker hill, the Boston Massacre, the state house were they read the Declaration of Independce. It was pretty cool seeing all the old sites. Ezra also got to experience his first bar experience as we went to the original Cheer's Bar in downtown Boston. We also enjoyed the oldest park in the nation, Boston common which is right next to Cheers

We took a day trip down to Cape Cod and caught a ferry over to Martha's Vineyard. That felt like it was a vacation from a vacation. We hung out at the beach mainly and just walked around. We made sure we were wearing collared shirts so we would fit in better.Here we are down by the harbor with all the yachts...ours never seem to come and pick us up...bummer