We are letting Jensen eat more by himself. Its entertaining all the funny faces he makes as he reacts to the new tastes. It is also pretty cute how messy he gets.

Eating Asparagus
All cleaned up ready for church.

Playing games with dad.

New Baby McDonald!

We have news. If you couldn't tell from the gigantic Ultra Sound-I am pregnant. We are very excited. I went to the doctor yesterday knowing I was pregnant but having no idea how far along I was. Surprise- I'm in the 2nd trimester. It is always nice to hear your pregnancy will be shorter than you thought. This time it was by a whole month! So I am 14 weeks along and am due September 20th. I am excited for my 1st trimester sickness to end soon.

We like our new doctor. He has a "Dwight" bobble head and a "WORLD"S BEST BOSS" mug. Oh, and he seemed very competent in the whole doctoring business. He also provided us with a 4 and a half minute DVD of the whole Ultra Sound process, but we figured a picture would probably suffice.

Messes!

We are learning how quickly a roaming baby can turn into a messy room. Notice the dresser emptied, then unceremoniously tipped over, and the other drawers ripped out and emptied. Jensen got a hold of his diced carrots and took a carrot bath. He must have heard Vitamin A was good for his skin.


Jensen the Acrobat



As Jensen gets closer every day to walking he is getting braver and braver. He has discovered there is a whole new world above his eye level that he can't see or play with. He saw the baby monitor up on the counter and decided he wanted it. So he sized it up-


And made a grab for the counter. He ended up pulling himself completely off the ground and swinging for a couple of seconds.
He also dives head first in to anything he can. Good thing this basket hadn't been folded yet.

Reconnect to the World

Two weeks ago Dave's hard drive went haywire. But we are a two computer home so we fell back on my laptop. Jensen being the smart kid that he is, saw our vulnerability and hit us where it hurt. He made a grab for our our only life line, the power cord for my laptop. With the few remaining minutes of power in the cell I hastily ordered a new cord. And we have been waiting in darkness.

I think I forgot how important the computer and the Internet is to me. I suddenly am lost without my connection to the information super highway. I didn't realize how I need to double check online if the actor we are watching in a movie is the same one I'm thinking of. I need to be able to look up the words to Baby Beluga, or Down by the Banks. I need to do all the silly things like pay bills and transfer money. I need to see if the temperature will be warm on Wednesday. I need to watch the next "Office" episode. I need to find a new recipe for a dessert for enrichment. I need to find talks and look up refrences for my lesson on Sunday.

I got the power cord in the mail yesterday. Now I am sitting in front of the computer knowing I really needed it while it wasn't working, but now I can't really think of anything to do on it. Oh well I think I'll shut it down and let the battery recharge.

Better pictures of Jensen with his teeth.

Jensen finally had two little bottom teeth poke through. They make him even cuter- if that is possible.
Jensen is a very determined little man. He will see a toy he wants in his bin and he will dig and dig until he gets it.
And he is very proud of himself once he does.

Jensen encountered stairs for the first time and without blinking twice he started climbing. He did amazingly well. He made it about halfway up before he lost his balance and I caught him. We are so proud of our little wall crawler.

HERE COMES TROUBLE!


I was sewing today to find two little eyes peeking up at me. Jensen is so curious he has to be in the middle of everything, watching everything , touching everything, and sticking as much in his mouth as possible.

See I can help mom!

Austin went into the MTC! Yeah! It was fun to see Austin off to go to the Toronto West Mission. I'm proud of him. He will do a good job.
The classic MTC pic with mom and dad.
Little Sammy with his super smile.
It is a little blurry but Jensen has started his own super smile. Evidently it involves a huge gummy grin and closed eyes. He is so adorable.

Bryce has a Wii. It was pretty fun. Some games required a little more coordination than I am capable of but I think I held my own. This is mom and dad boxing. Mom approaches Wii playing the same way she jumps on the tramp lots of giggles and screams. It was fun to play.

I left my camera in Colorado over Christmas break so it is nice to finally get it back, so here are some delayed Christmas pictures.

I made pajamas for the whole little family. Dave really wanted big green buttons. He really enjoys showing off his pajama shirt.
In Colorado with the fam.

Jensen with - big suprise- something in his mouth.

Jensen has learned to stand up and boy is it trouble. He pulls himself up on everything, passers-by, chairs, pant legs boxes and THE RADIATOR! It is only hot half the time so it is hard for him to remember this is not the best object to stand up on. He will learn- eventually. Dave LOVES it when Jensen gets a nice firm grip on Dave's leg/ arm hair and twists as he pulls himself up. Jensen loves his dad:)

Our whole family lucked out when our next door neighbors moved in. I get to hang out with Mandy and have adult conversations during the day. Dave gets to play video games with Ty, and Jensen gets to play with Ivan. Ivan is two months younger so Jensen ends up unintentionally being the bully. He just likes touching his friends face so much he doesnt realize he is gouging Ivan's eyes. Ivan seems to still like Jensen despite the eye mutilation.

Jensen stuck under the laundry basket.

Final Barrand Family Photo

So for the last Barrand Family group picture we had two missionaries so we did cannibals roasting the missionaries. With the help of photo shop and moms sewing skills it turned out pretty fun. Next year mom and dad will be all alone as birds in a large empty nest. Everybody breath a sigh- for it is the end of an era. Thanks mom and dad it was fun. I don't think anybody will soon be forgetting the Barrand's Christmas pictures.

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday break. I feel feel so blessed. I got to spend a fantastic Christmas with our little family. Dave got me a bookcase. I was so excited I made Dave rearrange our whole apartment. And the poor man was just recovering from a whole week of being sick. I am so grateful for a patient husband who loves me enough to do that.

The day after Christmas we jumped in the car for a marathon trip to Colorado for the Barrand Christmas. We just barely squeezed in the middle of two storms that dumped over six feet of snow on Colorado.

Everybody was there except Don, who graduated from Marines training camp this week, and
Tiana, who is serving her mission in Virgina. The week was filled with gift giving and TONS of food and the "Train Game" ( Excellent game the real name is Empire Builder). We played it so much last year dad got the European version this year. A couple of times we had both games going at once. Its a fun game and the Barrands highly recommend it!

Dave and I both asked for nothing but clothes, because neither of us had actually purchased clothes since we got home from our missions almost three years ago. We got a pretty good haul, and probably won't buy clothes for another three years.

The best part of the week was going to the temple with Austin. He will be leaving on his mission at the end of January to Toronto. He got to get his endowments while we were all there. It was so special and wonderful to sit in the temple with all of the family and be reminded of the eternities.

Some of our New Years goals are-
1. Get rid of Dave's ulcer - we have to eat low fat, low spice, low taste food for it to heal:)
2. Improve Scripture Study
3. I'm going to write a Church magazine article about my sickness experience.
4. Prepare our Sunday School lesson earlier in the week
5. Pay off debt and save more
6. Make some good sales for IXG.

I just wanted to let everyone know how much I love my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. We are so blessed. I know the atonement is real and we can all be healed from any hurt or pain. I know The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is truly God's church. He is at the head and is always aware of us. I know I will be with my family forever. I am so thankful for those blessings.

Love you all
Danica

We went into Jensen's room this morning to find him standing up! Needless to say we will be adjusting his crib.
He was rather pleased with himself :)

CHRISTMAS LETTER!

Merry Christmas!

Happy Holidays from the Three Stooges aka (the McDonalds).

We had a busy year. We stared the year out in Colorado doing internships and hard labor. We added a miracle baby boy to our little group. We moved back to Idaho and couldn’t be having more fun.

Curly (Dave) Dave had a lot of fun in Colorado living in the in-laws basement. He spent his time working hard for a custom closet company installing over-priced closets in over-priced homes. He worked hard but was glad to get back to school. Dave is in his Junior year studying Geology. Sediments, depositions and structures fill his time. He plans on graduating next December.

Moe (Danica) Danica got to finish her degree in finance by doing an internship for IXG, a 1031 exchange company. She had fun and learned a lot. She finished just in time too. Just two weeks after her internship Jensen was born. She is having fun staying home with Jensen, and spending a couple of hours a week selling for IXG.

Larry (Jensen) Jensen is a joy and tons of fun. He is seven months old and on the move. He crawls everywhere and chews on everything. His little heart is set aflutter by anything electronic. He keeps everyone smiling with his infectious smile and giggle.

We are incredibly blessed from Heavenly Father. We have lots of wonderful friends and family, and opportunities. We hope all is well with you!

The McDonalds

We are ready for the Semester to be done, and for Christmas to come. We are excited to be spending Christmas in Rexburg as our little family. We even have an awesome paper tree.
His hair is long enough for me to try and spike it. The picture doesn't capture the cuteness:)


Jensen has become attached to a favorite bath toy. As soon as we put him in his bath he knows it is time for his frog and he starts reaching for it. He has even started to learn to pull himself up to a semi stand- so we get him his toy to wrestle as soon as possible.