lego train

Legos are one of Daniels favorite past times. He usually keeps them in his room and plays with them every night. One of these days we'll have to plan a trip to Lego land.

Partners in crime

Daniel has taken on an apprentice and shared his trouble making skills with Rylie. They have become quite the partnership.

In this training exercise Daniel would unroll the toilet roll paper and direct it to Rylie. It was then Rylie's job to shred it into small unusable pieces.



This next scheme was accomplished with great team work. Daniel brought his chocolate milk over by Rylie and Rylie "accidentally" knocked it over. It was more fun to play in than a mud puddle. This mess they got to slurp off the floor.



Although he has a partner, his partner was taking a nap when the next opportunity arose. Daniel demonstrates below that he is still the master of mess making. He found the Neosporin and not only put it all over himself because he said his foot hurt, but he managed to spread a nice layer on the couch as well.




Not pictured: Another day Daniel found the tub of vasaline and decided he needed to lather himself, mostly on his head. Unfortunately I intervened too quickly before I thought about taking a picture and quickly had vasaline all over myself so I didn't want to touch the camera.

Although I did learn never to try and shampoo vasaline out of hair alone. That only helps to spread it around everywhere. What wonderful things we learn as parents: love, patience, understanding and the chemical properties of cornmeal that allow it to bind to vasaline and absorb it so it can then be washed out. Thank you Google.

The Do

Daniel has many favorite hairstyles. If Rylie can wear things in her hair I guess he figures he can too.

My favorite is the George Washington wig he made for preschool.

All by myself

Daniel lately has determined that he can do everything himself. This is a great new stage although there are times you wonder if he has gone too far. Today Daniel decided he needed to wash his hands, but instead of just going in to the bathroom to wash his hands he disappeared. A few minutes later I walked into him going potty all by himself. There is no joy like that of seeing your child finally starting to understand the potty. So, I let him be and went to change Rylie. A few minutes later I returned to find him doing this--




He didn't say it on camera, but at first he said "Daniel stinky, I clean poo."

Is he trying to be self-reliant or just independent. Probably both. The fact that he refers to himself in the 3rd person is funny enough.

So do you celebrate that he understands how to clean himself, freak out because he is in the sink taking a bath, or just laugh? I always chose the last-- Daniel sure is creative and constantly cracks me up on how he figures out how to solve a problem.

Also, did you notice Rylie hanging out on the side. She is Daniel's partner in crime these days. She is set on doing everything Daniel is doing. Here she is trying to crawl up next to him-- hey, it looked like fun!

Daniel funnies March 09

Church:

Last Sunday while we were in sacrament meeting Daniel was being his normal restless self. Some little kid across the isle started crying and Daniel was watching as his dad picked him up and carried him out into the hallway. As soon as they disappeared through the door Daniel turned to me and started the best fake cry I've ever seen him do. It was obvious that he wanted to be taken out to the hallway too so he was just copying a method that he observed worked.

Every Sunday he gets more creative. I'm sure bribes and blackmail are not far away.


Breakfast:

Today for breakfast Daniel had a banana bread muffin but only ate the top half before he got down to go play. It's common for Daniel to come back and finish eating later but today I wasn't thinking about that when Rylie got fussy and I let her have the rest of Daniel's muffin. About 30 minutes later Daniel came back to the table and looked surprised and upset to find his muffin missing. He kept asking me what happened to his muffin, where did his muffin go?

So avoiding confrontation like I do I said go talk to your mom. He ran over to where Heidi was and while pointing an accusing finger at me from across the room said, Daddy Ate My Muffin! Hey - I never admitted that! But in all fairness I gave him another half of a muffin. He ate part of it then as he was about to get down he stopped and looked at me and said "no eat it, right?"

Hey, I never ate your first muffin! But he was skeptical all the same. He got down and moved the muffin to the farthest corner of the table opposite of where I was sitting and repeated, no eat it! Then after a few minutes of playing in the other room he stopped and from the other room checked to make sure his muffin was still there and when he saw me he mouthed the words "no eat it" while wagging his index finger at me. I'm dying laughing!

Fire station

If you could see Daniels face I'm sure he is exuberant and in a happy euphoric state. When he got home he had to call me at work and tell me all about visiting the fire station. I love calls like that. And calls about wearing underwear and going potty on his own.



He even got to work the hose!


When it was over he of course had to give out hugs. No wonder we all want to be firemen, it's the best job ever.

Bed time stories

I heard Daniel talking to himself one night after I put him to bed. I peeked in and saw that he was really just reading stories to himself in bed. I thought it was so cute, I took a video of him but it didn't come out because it was too dark, so I took some pictures of him with his books.

He was more than happy to pose with a couple of his favorites. Of course he can't really read yet, so he will just go through the book page by page and point out all the familiar things he knows: animals, balloons, colors, cars and trucks and foxes that eat gingerbread men.

I've never known a 2 1/2 year old to be so attentive and self entertaining and I'm amazed at the level of detail he will pick out of a page. What little kid pays that much attention to detail? Or is content to be doing something constructive and educational for more than 5 seconds at a time. He will sit and read books by himself for a 1/2 hour.

He will sometimes sing himself to sleep at night singing Twinkle Twinkle little star or something we sang together before. He will also accompany himself on the piano while singing something. I need to get a video of that next time.

Daniel sleeping again

Daniel has defied all traditional sleeping habits. Here are some more pictures of him where we've found him sleeping in awkward places.

Once again, sleeping in a bed is optional.

He stayed asleep in this chair at least 45 minutes before Heidi decided to move him before he could fall out.


Another evening as I was going upstairs to bed I found him here.



He looks comfortable enough. He sleeps with that big blanket all the time now. I think it will have to conveniently get lost come summer time and warmer temperatures.

I did move him up to his bed after taking these pictures. I didn't want him to roll over in the wrong direction.

Chocolate Fondue

One of the evenings we were together we decided to have chocolate fondue. Daniel was instantly addicted and probably wondered why every meal wasn't like this.



Here is Heidi's dad cleaning his plate:


What is it about chocolate we love so much?

The Park

We also spent some time at the park. They loved it.

A getaway weekend

Last month Heidi's Dad came to visit us and we had the chance to stay with them at their house exchange. It was a beautiful home in a gated community and although it was just across the valley it was still a great vacation because it wasn't our home!

Here is Daniel posing in a fun chair he found.

And Rylie always enjoys playing with her big brother.


We played lots of games and loved to hang out together.





Rylie would crawl around with a ping pong ball in her mouth and hand at all times. I guess she liked how it just fit right in there.



Here are my thoughts on a tempur-pedic bed: