Weaponized Christmas Tree

Auntie Karen asked Daniel today if he had helped to decorate our Christmas tree. His response:

"Ya! I helped put the armaments on!"

I think he might have meant ornaments...

Videos...finally...

After resolving some technical difficulties, we wanted to share some fun videos of Daniel over the past few weeks: doing dishes, box-boy, ball bopper fun, and little drummer boy.

Ah, the domestic life. Daniel and Cora play kitchen.

There's nothing like runnning around with a box on your head!

In the spirit of Christmas, we present "Little Drummer Boy".

BALL BOPPER!

Daddy's Baby

Michele is a little over 4 months along in her pregnancy. Each night before bed, Daniel kisses her stomach and hugs the baby good night. He loves it.

Tonight Daniel asked if he could hug Daddy's baby goodnight too. Hmmm....I think those Christmas goodies are catching up with me...

Daniel's been busy

Playing with his buddies: Dominic and Audrey Bernadette

Helping with the tree....

The finished product!


Woa, didn't know the camera had that setting!

Making Dinner

Daniel was recently pretending to mix things in a bowl when I asked...

Chris: "Daniel, what are you doing?"

Daniel: "I'm making dinner!"

Chris: "Sounds great! What are you making for dinner?"

Daniel: "Guacamole, cheese, and chocolate."

Yum!

Put tears back on?

Daniel is developing quite a flair for the dramatic.

When he was crying the other day I picked him up to comfort him. As I tried to talk to him to see what was the matter, I instinctively wiped a tear off his cheek. This was a huge mistake. As I did, he became noticeably more upset and, in between sobs and wails, said the following:

"No, Daddy! Put Daniel's tears back on!"

He was inconsolable until I finally put my finger back to his cheek and pretended to wipe the tear back on.

Downtown Adventure

Daniel had the treat of going on a downtown Seattle adventure with Great Grandma Eva the other day!

"Thanks for the push, Grandma!"

The Teddy Bear Room at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel.

THE BIGGEST TEDDY BEAR IN THE WORLD...well, at least to Daniel.

Taking a break with Great Grandma Eva and Teddy.

Even Daddy had a fun time in the Teddy Bear room!

What good is a Teddy Bear room if you can't snuggle?!

Daniel: Swiss Guard in training.

The Teddy Bear room was impressive, but the giant Christmas tree made the day.

Next, the Sheraton Hotel's Gingerbread house display. Yummy!

Looking at the carousel = exciting.

Getting on the carousel = exciting.

Riding on a moving carousel = terrifying.
Apparently we forgot to mention that it moves. The second it started Daniel was off the horse and into Daddy's arms.

Daniel helps the Salvation Army raise a few dollars for the poor. The nice man even let Daniel ring his bell, which yielded a few donations! (Note: no child labor laws were broken in the taking of this photo)

And what day downtown is complete without a picture with Santa? Daniel wasn't so sure about the whole experience...

Thanks for the fun day downtown, Great Grandma!

Halloween Lingers

Daniel was fascinated by all the Halloween decorations everywhere a month ago, and has yet to stop talking and asking questions about all of them. He was especially intrigued by the "bakery witch," a giant witch in the bakery department of our grocery store. After being completely fascinated by it for a couple weeks, he very suddenly was terrified one night in his bathtub, talking about the bakery witch and how he wanted to be held if we were near the bakery witch. Because this happened 2 days before Halloween, we were very easily able to promise that we would not be seeing the bakery witch again, since she usually flies home after Halloween. We also learned about jack o lanterns, goblins, spider webs, scarecrows and ghosts, which he believes all hang out on walls, since that's where people usually put their decorations. He doesn't seem to be scared of any of these, and actually is disappointed when we go out and they are no longer decorating our favorite places.

With Christmas decorations up all over the place now, I was hoping the bakery witch/goblin talk would be a thing of the past, but this morning when I went in to get Daniel out of his crib, he told me the following:

Daniel: "I dreamed about the goblins! And, ghosts on the wall, and spiderwebs on the wall, and bakery witches on the wall, and scarecrows on the wall...I like spiderwebs and rainbows."

Halloween

Daniel and his friend Matteo dressed up for Halloween as St. Dominic and St. Francis. They made an awfully cute pair of holy little men and had a lot of fun visiting Great Grandma Eva and the folks at the Newman Center together.

You would think that a couple of saints would have the ability to stand still for a few pictures...

St. Dominic looks perplexed...where'd that candy go?

Overseeing the preparations for the Newman Halloween party.

Friendly saints.

Daniel, Mommy and Fr. Jordan the Pirate at the Newman party. Daniel did not know what to think of that crazy pirate.

Daniel only had eyes for Rochelle when it came to dancing.

One last picture with the peer ministers and Fr. Jordan before heading home to bed. (Although, it seems Daniel was much more interested in Michele's weapon than the camera.)

October Highlights

I've you've been wondering why we haven't updated the blog in a long, long time, here's why: we've been busy...

...celebrating Daniel's 2nd birthday...

...missing Mommy while she visited Chicago...

...going to the zoo...

...expecting a baby...

...playing in the back yard (when it's dry outside)...

...and searching for the perfect pumpkin!

Love

Unprompted....

Daniel: "Daniel loves Mommy and Daddy"

Daddy: "Oh, thanks Daniel! I love you too!"

Daniel: "Daniel loves dinner too."

Can't blame him. I love dinner too.

Bumbo vs. Ka-Boom

Daniel invented a game about 3 months ago called "Bumbo" - we have no idea how he came up with that name. He plays by standing on something, then says "ONE, TWO, THREE: BUMBO!", then jumps in the air and falls on his bottom. If he named the game "Bumbo" because he falls on his "bum", then the kid is freakishly clever.

Today he introduced a new game called "Ka-Boom!". He plays by standing on something, then says "ONE, TWO, THREE: KA-BOOM!", then jumps in the air and falls on his bottom.

The game is exactly like Bumbo. There's no difference. When we asked him what the difference was between Bumbo and KaBoom he just said, "Its a different kind of Bumbo."

We got a good laugh out of that.

Daniel as a NFL Coach

Daniel was watching the Cowboys vs. NY Giants NFL game tonight with me and made an interesting comment.

A Cowboy's wide receiver caught a big pass in the third quarter. Here’s the play-by-play from Coach Daniel.

Player: catches the football and defenders start to chase him.

Daniel: "Oh no! Run away!”

Player: after about 5 yards gets hit hard by a defender.

Daniel: “Fall down!”

Player: after the painful hit, gets up slowly.

Daniel: noticing the player is a little hurt says, “Get a boo-boo. Get blankey and lovey!"

In Daniel’s world every NFL player would be required to have a lovey and blankey for when they get hurt.

Cheese!

The Ill-Fated Mt. St. Helens Trip

We learned a very valuable parenting lesson a couple weeks ago: never take impromptu long car rides in the afternoon with kids under the age of 2. While staying in Rochester at Grandma's house, we thought it would be fun to go see Mt St Helens. This may have worked out had we not decided to leave around 3. For the record, Mt St Helens is NOT close enough to Rochester to just jump in the car and go visit. Here's what 95% of the car ride was like:

Bound and determined to forge on, we made it to the Johnston Observatory, 15 minutes before it closed. Getting there so late was actually a blessing, as we ended up not having to pay the $8 per person (!) to walk up to and look over the edge.

Needless to say, Daniel was ready to run by the time we got there.

Aha! Caught by Auntie Karen for a picture with the mountain (which was covered with clouds by the time we got up there...)


Mommy holds on tight to a squirmy Daniel for a picture with Uncle Jesse and baby Grady.

Caught again, this time by Grandma!

Posing nicely.

Getting a ride back to the car on Mommy's shoulders, not because Daniel wanted to, but because we couldn't keep him on the sidewalk, and can't afford the $100 fine for straying off the path.

As we headed back down the mountain, the clouds parted and we were able to get a good picture of the mountain. By the way, Daniel is still telling us that "Mommy CAN'T pick up Daniel in the van-car when we go up the mountain!"

What we've been up to lately

can be summed up in this picture.

I pretty much spend my days chasing Daniel, trying to keep him from destroying property and himself, as in this picture he's about to run right off a cliff into the waters off Vashon Island.

The Long-Lost Anderson Island Files

We had the wonderful opportunity to stay with our close friends the Eustermans and the Stamschrors for a week on Anderson Island back in July. Since we had so much fun and took so many pictures, the task of blogging about it seemed a bit overwhelming... But, with many more adventures to share from the summer, we thought we'd better catch up quickly!

The trip started with a Costco run. Daniel, Noah and Ellie did a good job of picking out what they wanted to eat for the week.

Our cars packed to the brim on the ferry to Anderson Island.

Snack time on the ferry!
While the adults unpacked and got things set up, Daniel and Noah spent some quality time together...until Daniel decided to sit on Noah.


Daniel jumped right into the job of chore master...

...while Noah and Ellie worked on their walking skills.

Casey, Chris and Matt were able to spend a bit of time golfing.

The kiddos watch as the mommies go to have some much needed alone time.

Appetizers for dinner!

All of us dining al fresco.

Ellie sure enjoyed her dinner!

Aside from learning how to play with babies, Daniel learned many new things, like how to spot deer out the window...

...how to eat cereal with milk using an adult-sized bowl and spoon...

...how to build lego towers almost anywhere...

...how to play in and out of the lake...

...and how to compose his own music (or listen to the star wars theme over and over and over).

Katie and Ellie, Chris and Daniel hiking down to the beach.

The whole group crossing the lagoon to get to the beach.

We love Anderson Island!

Brynn, Casey and Noah on the ferry back home.

Daniel and Ellie share one last hug on the ferry.