Daniel and I had a little Christmas party last week for our friends who are stay-at-home moms and kids. We played, ate snacks, and talked about our childhood Christmas memories. It was great fun! Here are some pictures.

Mama's Little Christmas Party

Daniel's new stool

Thanksgiving 2009

Happy Thanksgiving! We are thankful for all our blessings, and our biggest blessing--Daniel!

Words at 17 months

Here is the list of words that Daniel can say without prompting at 17 months. These are in addition to the words he could say at 14 months.

a-choo
Andy
Angie
Ariana
baaa
baby
beach
Becky
beep beep
bees
Betsy
Bible
bird
black
blue
Bob
brown
bus
butter
Buxton
cheese
cold
Daniel
dog
door
Doris
dos (two in Spanish)
down
drain
draw
eat
eight
Elaine
elbow
Elmer
Elmo
eyes
Ezra
five
four
go
GrandDaddy
green
Hank
hat
hawk
hello
help
horse
hot
ice
in
Jenny
Jim
Joseph
light
mow
neigh
nose
ocean
off
oink
olive
on
one
out
pen
penis
plane
please
poop
pretzel
quack
red
rice
Seth
shoes
six
socks
Stacy
sticks
teeth
three
toes
tres (three in Spanish)
truck
two
uh-oh
uno (one in Spanish)
up
van
waffle
walk
whoa
whoo (owl)

Pumpkin Carving 2009

Cute in overalls

Pumpkin Patch 2009

Notice Daniel and Dada are dressed alike. I found some brown cords and a red flannel shirt at a yard sale for Daniel. They "match" Joseph's outfit. I just think they are PRECIOUS! We had fun at the pumpkin patch.

Fire Trucks with Dada

Making birthday cards

1st Tar Heels football game

Here we are with the Tar Heels ram mascot. We made it through a whole quarter!!!

Second Hair Cut September 12, 2009

Daniel's words at 14 months

Words he can say without prompting:
Yes ("yeahhh")
No
More
Water ("wa")
Dog
Dada
Mama
G.G.
GrandDaddy (sounds like "glhdada")
Bye Bye
Ball
Duck
Ruler (I know this is random; he has a ruler that G.G. left here, and he plays with it in the bathtub)
book
moo


Words he can say with prompting (Do you want cheerios?)
Cheerios (chgee-ah)
up
down
in
help ("bop" or "dup"--all words that end with "p" start with "b" or "d" when he says them)

I pause after I say words so that he can try them. He likes to try. He will try almost all one and two-syllable words. Sometimes he gets the beginning sound or the intonation. Most of the time, it's another sound, like "ba" or "da". It is SOOOOOOO much fun to play with words with him.

He responds to "splash," "dance," "jump" and "love." In fact, he loves to dance right now. It looks like a cross between the cha-cha and running in place. I can say, "Would you please dance for me?" and he will just dance it up. Most of the time he just spontaneously starts dancing, often for Calvin. When he "loves" something, he puts his head over on it. Sometimes he says, "mmmm." He loves ANYTHING. He loved the blueberries tonight at dinner. He loves Calvin 100 times a day. He loves the phone when I'm talking to G.G. The other day at the playground, he walked up to a random little stranger boy and loved him. The boy thought he wanted a turn on the equipment he was sitting on. I said, 'No, I think he just really likes you." This morning we were playing with his tape recorder, and he loved the microphone. Every morning when we come into the playroom, I say, "Do you want to love Charlie this morning?" (Charlie is the big stuffed chipmunk). And he goes over and loves Charlie. It is precious. We have a sweet boy.

I can ask him if he wants me to read him a book. If he says yes, I can say "Bring me a book and I will read it to you." He will bring me one, and he usually lets me read at least two pages before he is off doing something else.

If I say, "Do you want to ride your horse?" he will go over and get on the horse. Then I sing the tune to Bonanza and he rides.

I think he knows LOTS of food words, but I haven't empirically tested that. Most of the time, if I say "Do you want to eat X?" The answer is yes. So, he may be responding to "eat" instead of the food word.

Life with Daniel is great. One day he is going to start talking and he will probably never hush.
"

Little Foodie

This is an update on all of Daniel's fun eating. He is interested in seasonal fruit right now-strawberries, cantaloupe, blueberries, and sometimes blackberries. A few nights ago he ate, along with his other food, ten strawberries for dinner. At lunch today he ate several huge bites of some of my home-grown cantaloupe. I tried it with him last night and he didn't like it. Today I was eating it (and not offering it to him), and he pointed at it and said, "More! More! More!" So, I gave him some, and he loved it. That made me happy, since he never enjoyed the squash I grew. Tonight at dinner he ate at least five strawberries, and he saw me eating blueberries. He wanted some and got SO EXCITED to eat them. He'd say "More!" and I would hand him two blueberries (one for each hand). Just before he popped them in his mouth, he'd say, "More!" again so that I could get the next two ready. Then, he would put them in his mouth really fast and say, "um, um, um" which is his version of "yum, yum, yum." I didn't really count them, but I think he ate at least 30 blueberries. He had a new food today- gnocchi- it's an Italian food that is kind of like pasta but made of potatoes. It's a little bit like small lumps of mashed potatoes, except more dense. You boil it for three minutes, and you can put sauce and/or cheese on it. I made some with just a bit of mozzarella cheese on it, and he loved it. He can pick it up with his hands, so he likes it. He ate gnocchi, cantaloupe, and sweet potato french fries for lunch. And some rice. Happy Eating, Daniel!

After the bridge

Look at the bridge videos. They're probably on page 2 now (please click "older posts" at the bottom of the page). We posted a lot yesterday, but they're worth seeing. Here is a video after the bridge. Daniel's hair is even wilder than usual.

Wilson Creek Trail- Blue Ridge Parkway

We went on a tiny hike off the Blue Ridge Parkway, part of the way to Wilson Creek. The path got a little too rocky for me to feel safe carrying Daniel, so we turned around.

 

 

 

 

Last two Father's Day pictures

 

 

More Father's Day pictures

For some reason, I can only upload four pictures at a time from Picasa. I will try to figure out what is going on. Until then, I'll have to break everything down into smaller groups.

 

 

 

 

Happy Father's Day, Dada!

Daniel has the best Dada in the world! We spent some time at the park making some pictures for a Father's Day surprise photo album for Dada. Then, he surprised us by coming home a little early and meeting us at the park.

 

 

 

 

St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Blowing Rock, NC

Jan Karon's Mitford series' books are set in Mitford, which is based on the town of Blowing Rock, NC. Father Tim's church is based on this Episcopal church. This little town was so lush and green. We got there during a heavy rainstorm, but soon the sun came out. We found the church and right down the street was a park. Daniel played in the baby swing, and we listened to some live music at the park's pavilion.