Talking

Just a quick post because I wanted to brag about how far Daniel has come with his talking. I just told him it was time for dinner. He said, "Little busy right now, using tools to fix washer and dryer!" 

And he was!

Christmas, Part 3

I meant to include these two videos in the last post, but forgot.  So, here they are!

Christmas, Part 2

We just returned from a weekend in Iowa to continue the Christmas celebrations with more of our families.  It was great, as always, to see everyone.  Daniel definitely loves going to his grandparents' houses, and thankfully they all had laundry for him to help with.  He also received a lot of really great gifts.  He loved opening them, followed by insisting that I build them for him to play with.  Lots of building, lots of playing, lots of fun!

Some of those presents required a bit of muscle to get open!

Helping Daddy build his new car

Yeah...he got a few presents!

Christmas

This year we were lucky enough to have Christmas at our house!  My mom and dad (aka Ghama and Ghampa) joined us.  We had a very low-key day starting with presents from family and Santa, lots of playing, a very tired boy who didn't want to take a nap but eventually gave in, a pasta feast (benefits of marrying an Italian!), a little TV, more playing, and finally bedtime.

This year was really fun.  Daniel was really in to opening presents and making sure the Christmas lights were on all day, every day (basically since Thanksgiving).  I read somewhere that said, "I used to think being a kid on Christmas was the best thing ever.  But it turns out having kids on Christmas is."  I couldn't agree more!  Daniel really does make Christmas feel special to us.

We will continue the Christmas festivities this weekend with our family in Des Moines.  I just hope we can fit all the gifts for Daniel in the car on the way home.  I have a feeling he's going to be one happy little boy!

Cutting a cookie for Santa

Coming down the stairs Christmas morning

Cool stickers, markers, and an activity book from Santa

Daniel is very proficient at opening presents now.  It was fun to watch him!

A garbage truck from Mommy and Daddy

A trampoline from grandparents

I think it's safe to say Aspen and Trixie had a good Christmas too

Playing a new board game... his first time and he did very well!

Yum, daddy's pasta!

Playing with Ghama and Ghampa

No surprise here... Daniel wanted Ghampa to watch "Two go!" with him (the washer and dryer)

Picture Update

This morning we woke up to new snow.  Daniel loves the snow... from the inside.  When we asked him if he wanted to go outside to help shovel, let's just say he wasn't thrilled about it.  After some persuading, we got him outside.  He stayed in the garage.  We tried to get him to sled too, but he wasn't having it.  So he mainly hung out in the garage.  After about 10 minutes (which is pretty good, actually), he asked to go back inside.

One of our favorite things about Daniel is his love of all things projects/home improvement.  He recently discovered that while eating, it's very important to check out the Lowes ad.  Now, it's pretty much necessary to look at the Lowes ad while eating.  We may have even made a trip to Lowes today just to get an ad... ok,  ok, Bobby needed some screws for the bed too.  :)

Painting

In an effort to expand on some sensory play, I finally decided to break open the finger paints.  I've been avoiding it because I feared a mess on par with the daily tornado that hits the inside of our house.  Really, I love this kid for how clean he is, but it shouldn't come as a surprise that Daniel wanted nothing to do with getting his hands "dirty" in the finger paint.  (The kid loves garbage, but won't get his hand messy... the irony!)

Bobby had the brilliant idea to get him paint brushes and paint with those instead of making him use his hands.  The bonus that came with this was he got some paint on his shirt and hands and dealt with it without freaking out... win!  Here's a brief video of one of the four different painting projects we did today.

I think we will be painting much more frequently... and hopefully move on to actual finger painting soon.

Cuddling cuteness

Here are some cute pictures of our adorable little guy:

Trixie makes a good foot rest - she's such a sweet girl.

Aspen is such a good (and tolerant) dog!

He's learning to use a blanket and pillow for his new big boy bed to come soon.  Bobby is building the new bed.  Currently, Daniel won't sleep with a blanket or pillow.  This was a big step for him today - ha!

Thanksgiving Weekend

We're a little behind this week, but still wanted to post some of the pictures from our Thanksgiving weekend.  It was great to have a 4-day weekend and to spend it with our families and friends in Des Moines.  Daniel loved all the attention and play time - mostly consisting of doing laundry and vacuuming (the usual).  Here are a few pictures from the weekend:

Playing with Papa before the Thanksgiving feast

Daniel had a lot of fun playing with Uncle Mike

Playing pretend with Great-Grandma

Daniel is always happy around "Ghampa"

Watching "The Grinch" for the first time... it didn't last long.

Daniel got to play with his friends, Elizabeth and Catherine while mommy and daddy got to chat with their parents!

Classic!  We're always fighting Daniel to get his hands out of his mouth.  Here, we embrace it.

We went to the Festival of Trees... after three days of very short naps, Daniel was exhausted.

When we got home, we put up our Christmas tree!

Smile!

Daniel will now smile for pictures.  Or at least try to.  Actually, it's not really a smile, but it's hilarious:

Random Cuteness

Daniel doesn't really understand the concept of time.  He says "soon" a lot but I realized tonight that to him, soon just means "not right now".  So, I attempted to educate him a little more about the passage of time.  I'm not sure he quite gets it yet:

And a few random cute pictures:

Playing the Super Why letter game - Daniel knows his alphabet very well

Watching a few minutes of Martha Speaks ("Woof woof") before dinner

Taking his 'woof woof' for a walk around the house

Uncle Gene and Aunt Mary Jo Visit

This weekend, Uncle Gene and Aunt Mary Jo came down to visit.  On Saturday afternoon, Uncle Gene and I went to see the Ender's Game movie and had a great time.  The rest of the weekend was spent watching, playing with, and otherwise being entertained by Daniel.  In other words, there was lots of vacuuming.  Lots.  Daniel had a really great time with both of them and we were very sad to see them go, but we'll be looking forward to when we can get together again and do some more vacuuming!

Ok it wasn't all vacuuming.

And just a cute picture of the boy, asleep. 

Hello?

Here's a cute video of Daniel "talking" on the phone at the hotel this past weekend.

Trip to Sioux Falls

Last weekend we went up to Sioux Falls to see Aunt Danielle, Uncle Leo, and cousins Bennett and Oliver.  Grandmommy and Don-don were also there.  It was so fun to see our baby nephews and see how much they've grown.  They are absolutely adorable, and their parents are doing an incredible job with them.

Despite constantly talking about the "babies," Daniel didn't have much interest in actually doing anything with the babies once we got there.  We did manage to get him to give each one a kiss in exchange for doing something he really wanted to do (vacuum).  He did have a great time playing and being silly with his grandparents, eating cookies with Aunt Danielle, and learning a little guitar from Uncle Leo.  It was a great trip, but far too short.  We can't wait until we can all get together again soon!

Rather than post a few pictures, here is a link to the whole album of pictures from the weekend:  Click here to view the pictures.

Halloween

Yesterday was a fun day for Daniel - his third official Halloween, and I think he finally enjoyed it this year.  After Friday's fight with the costume, he willingly obliged on Wednesday when we went trick-or-treating with the mom's play group at John Knox Village, an assisted living facility.  (I don't know why or what happened, but I was one happy mama!  I think it helped that he loves Toy Story, so dressing up as Woody wasn't so bad afterall!)  He then also wore his costume yesterday for a fun playdate at an open gym again with the play group.  After that, he once more put on his costume and we went trick-or-treating to a few neighbors, and then came back to hand out some candy of our own.  Happy Halloween!

No thanks on the hat, Dad.

Mommy likes the hat

Let the Trick-or-Treating begin!

Fun playgroup

And a reminder of the not-so-happy duck from 2012