First Birthday!

Danny turned one! It is hard to believe, but an entire year has gone by since I got to hold my tiny sweet baby for the first time! He was, and of course still is, just wonderful! I can not describe the joy this little guy's smiles and giggles bring us! He is a perfect addition to our family!

Here are 10 things you probably do not know about our Little Monkey:

1. He loves dogs and spots them from afar. I know that there is a dog in the area when Danny starts gibbering away and waving his cute pudgy arms in extreme excitement (cats do not get the same reaction).

2. He will eat almost anything. He will never let you eat something and not let him have a piece. Danny will drop doing whatever he is busy with and arrive at your feet at a speed of a bullet train and will not leave until you share.

3. His favorite book is a puppet book "Meet Little Lamb"

4. He loves to clap!

5. He loves to swing and laughs so infectiously while doing it!

6. Splashing in the bath tub is at the top of his "fun things to do" list!

7. So is splashing in the toilet...

8. He almost always sleeps with his bummy-bum in the air

9. He can eat a banana under a minute!

10. He has 6 teeth and is not shy using them on people (knees and shoulders in particular).

About a month ago I would say that Danny was a papa's boy, though right at this moment he is more of a mama's tail. If I am in the room he has to attach himself to my leg and not let go unless I sit on the floor and play with him or pick hm up. Erin sometimes saves me and plays with him instead. Occasionally Danny will play by himself. That normally happens after he has eaten and taken a good nap. One of his favorite games is rolling a ball around the house or climbing in and out of the blue chair .

We did not have a big party for Danny's birthday. Andrew took a day off and we just spent the day together. We took our birthday boy his present shopping at ToysRUs. Erin felt that she died and went to Heaven. I felt like I died and went to China. You know that smell of Chinese merchandise (Payless shoes has the same smell). I imagine that's what the entire country smells like. Anyhow, an hour later Danny became an owner of a new shiny bathtub wale that squirts water into the air. We decided against buying more toys as we already have more than enough in every nook and cranny of our house.

In the evening we had a nice birthday dinner (chicken Florentine was the main course, mmmmm) completed with a birthday cake (chocolate with whipped cream for frosting). Danny actually ate his cake and liked it. As any responsible big sister Erin blew the birthday candle out.

Danny is almost walking, but does not find it to be a very important skill as he is an excellent crawler. He is fast and can get places without falling down (it's hard to fall down when you crawl, ha ha). He is also and adamant climber. He can go up the stairs and tries to scale shelves, cabinets and anything else when he can find footing and he does find it (boxes of cracers work well).

We took our monkey to his 1-year-old well visit for his vaccination and to see how he is doing. He is still tiny standing at 28 inches tall (under 5%) and weighing 17,5 lb (0,4% yeap! 0,4%). He is still following the curve though and that is the important part. Developmentally he is doing great! He picks up his raisins, self feeds crackers and expresses extreme displeasure while getting his diaper changed. Danny is very curious and social, just what a 1-year-old ought to be. He is our wonderful Danny! Happy birthday Little Monkey! I am so happy to be your mama!

Ta ta for now!

Take me to Coney Island!

Today my sweet Pooky turned four! I will always remember the moment when I got to hold her for the first time. Well, it was actually my second time, because right after delivery I was rather dazed from the experience, so I do not recollect holding her, though I know I did (I have photos to prove). She was so tiny and fragile. This was my first time holding an infant, more over a newborn, moreover my own newborn. I did OK though. My Pooky was not dropped and I figured out which way was the top and which way was the bottom. After that day I knew what a complete and utter happiness felt like. By the way we almost named her Sonya. What a mistake that would have been, that name does not fit her, but Erin Sophia absolutely does.

My amazing and beautiful Erin Sophia is my joy (and sometimes pain, ha ha) and life (along with the Little Monkey). She barged into our family( just a 4 hour labor) on that day and what a bliss it is to know that she is ours for ever. I love her as much as it is humanly possible to love!

10 random things you most likely do not know about the birthday girl:

1. She always puts her shoes on proper feet

2. She thinks that 64 comes after 20

3. She had known the alphabet since she was 2 and a few months old

4. She'd better not catch you washing away her chalk doodles on the sidewalk (all hell WILL break loose)

5. She has a row of corn growing in our garden

6. She loves salmon and grapefruit, but hates majority of other foods

7. Her favorite color (currently) is blue

8. She is going to need braces (I saw the x-rays and it is obvious even to me)

9. She wants a blue motorcycle just her size from Santa (not going to happen! ever!)

10.She will bring home a kitten if you offer her one, so please do NOT! I mean it!

Today we were snuggling on the couch watching a documentary about amusement parks in America. One of the first mentioned was Coney Island. That was it! "Let's go to Coney Island!" She's been talking about it for the rest of the evening. Her plan is that papa will take her to Coney Island and I will stay home with Danny. Some day we will! But for now she is a child equivalent of Coney Island, our personal Coney Island: fun, special, beautiful, significant, happy and just wonderful! Happy Birthday my Erin Sophia!

PS: We were taking our friend Tyson home this evening and while in the car she was entertaining her audience with " Skip , skip, skip to the lou. Skip to the lou my darling!" It was was rather enjoyable.

Ta ta for now!

Another PS: We did have a party for her on Friday , but this tale will come at a later time, hopefully this week, along with the many other tales of the past month. I have much to tell!

Day out with Thomas

Erin loves Thomas the Train. So this year we treated ourselves to Day out with Thomas. Andrew took two days before the Memorial weekend off and we headed for a fun adventure (despite a promise of a rain, which never materialized). We drove to Heber through Provo canyon. I love following these wounding mountain roads (that is because I am not the one driving, ha ha). There were so many small and medium size waterfalls throughout the canyon from all the snow run off. Indescribably beautiful! Plus the back seat passengers behaved and no one screamed in displeasure.

Anyhow, I am a tiny bit disappointed by the magnitude (or more like a lack of it) of Thomas the Train event. I imagined a bigger place, a longer ride and more activities to do...oh, and train cars not from my grandparents' era (no, they were not antique, they were junky, at least the one we were in). Something just was not quite right, but despite the minor aesthetic drawbacks it was an enjoyable trip.

I am not entirely sure what Erin's expectations were. I suspect that she hoped that Thomas would be more animated and capable of having a conversation with her. As you might imagine, he did not. However, even if he did Erin would be too shy (though impressed) to meet him. She appeared to be shy as it was...or maybe it was boredom. She also refused producing a suitable quality smiles for photos with Thomas and instead scowled .

She did love the train ride though. I believe it was her first time on a train and my Pooky grinned the entire 20 minute trip. Erin looked truly happy to be riding the train. In the best spirit of the Thomas show everyone along the way was so friendly. I am telling you, there were rough looking road fixing crew dudes, random people who walked onto their back porches, drivers waiting at the road crossing and other folks all waving at the passing train. I guess any person with a heart will wave when a train full of little kids is passing by and you see those happy faces. What other reaction can be natural? (No, throwing a rock is a wrong answer Andrew). It was a very sweet experience! Here we are riding. Danny's expression can be translated as "Meh! train-shmain. Is it lunch time yet?" He was bubbly and happy for the most part of our outing though. Being around people usually puts him in excellent mood. Here is Erin waiting in line to get a photo with Thomas. She just could not give us a good smile. Me thinketh she was nervous. We did not manage to get a good shot with Thomas' face and I noticed that there were quite a few kids not thrilled to stand next to their train hero. I think he is best admired from the couch at home. He must look rather intimidating to the little peeps.

Erin and Danny got balloon animals. Erin's is obviously a butterfly and Danny got a monkey holding a banana that I held for him. Erin got acquainted with Porto potty on this trip. She was actually impressed, ha ha.


There was a huge tent devoted to nothing but train sets. Erin spent at least half an hour playing there. I took a notice that for the most of that time she was the only girl in the entire tent (moms and grandmas do not count). Just an interesting observation.

Erin spent another half hour making bubbles. Bubbles and trains obviously go together. We also watched a part of a magic show, but neither Danny nor Erin were impressed, so we had to leave. All in all it was a fun day, full of smiles, good weather and choo-choos. We might be back some other year.

Ta ta for now!

May rambling

I am just going to pile up all of the May updates into this post.

We opened the gardening season. I took two plots, but because of the rain haven't had a chance to plant anything. This year I am not using a spade to dig. No way Jose! We are renting a rototiller! The field where we garden used to be occupied by alfalfa and I have a first hand experience of what nasty roots this plant leaves behind! No manual labor for me!

Danny had his first visit with Dr. Howell, who is our wonderful pediatric dentist. One night Andrew noticed that our little dude had a chip on his top tooth. We are still not sure under what circumstances the chomper got damaged, but figured we might as well take Danny to the dentist to make sure his tooth was fine. As it turned out the tooth WAS fine. Danny got his first X-ray and got to sit in THE chair. He was not sure what to think of it all until Dr. Howell began applying some fluoride on his 4 chompers. At that point Danny decided this was not cool and started screaming!

By the way, I am a fluoride-twice-a-year advocate. A few of Erin's friends already have cavities (seeing dentist for the first time at about 3-years-old), Pook on the other hand with her terrible tooth brushing habits sports a set of perfect pearly whites. She's been getting the treatment twice a year since she's been 16 months old. By the way Danny was diagnosed with a heavy frenum between his two top teeth. That explains the giant gap between them. But we'll take care of that when he is older. Of course dental insurance is making it all easy, without it...

This last weekend Danny was sick. This was his first ever nasty virus of some sort, well actually not of some sort. As it became obvious today it is roseola. Poor babe had a fever of 102-103F since Friday, then all of a sudden it was gone on Tuesday, but I noticed some rash and it spread today. Lesson I learned from it all is that Infant Ibuprofen trumps Acetaminophen. The latter would not lower his temperature for long or by much, Ibuprofen on the other hand lasted long and completely knocked it down. Now that the fever is gone he is a happy little dude as usual. Rash does not bother him, so life is good again.

This little guy melts my heart! While sick he kept putting his head on my shoulder, which he's never done before. So sweet...

On Monday we went to the wedding. Christine and Peter got married for time and all eternity.
The night I arrived at the Dyers 11 years ago, she was spying through the upstairs banister to see exactly what the cat dragged in. In her imagination I had darker skin (she obviously knew nothing about Slavs, ha ha)and she was concerned that I might have an unpleasant personality. To her relief I turned out to be OK, even though I had greenish skin tint ( I blame it on the sack lunch on my last Delta flight and too much flying- Vilnius-Frankfurt-LA- Salt Lake, night in Germany and over 20 hours in flight). I arrived in August and by Halloween we discovered to be kindred spirits after all or to put it in the words of Anne of Green Gables - "bosom friends". We talked, we laughed, had countless marathons of "Pride and Prejudice"and "Anne of Green Gables" (of course), walked to get some ice cream, built snowmen, goofed around and had wonderful time. So on Monday my Beanie married a wonderful guy! So happy for them!

Pooky got to be one of the flower girls and she loved it (I'll post photos later). I instructed her to say "Congratulations!" when Peter and Christine were coming out of the Temple. Instead she yelled "Ni Hao!" Where did that come from? She made a second attempt at the reception and it went better, though she almost knocked both the groom and bride off their feet. Erin looooves Peter, she just hangs on him every time she sees him. So after her congratulations line she gave Peter a bear hug and hung on his neck. She did the same to Christine, who made a mistake of getting to Erin's eye level. Our child assumed this was an opportune moment of lunging at her favorite Christine and trying to climb onto her back for a piggyback ride or something of the sorts. After that I dragged her away. Oh, while posing for a photo with the bride, Erin began twisting a bead from her wedding gown (those hands just can't be still). Everyone around began yelling "Erin, stop!", but my child kept twisting. I do not think she was even realizing that her hands were doing something, she was concentrating so hard at staring into the camera. The bead was saved!

Danny was not feeling well and refused to smile, period. So he looks rather grumpy in all photos, but he got to wear his suit for the first time. It was a tad big, but he looked very handsome.

Other than that this May has been rainy, cold and we've been watching a lot of shows and played a lot of PBS games on line. Danny turned 10 months and Erin is almost four. Sometimes I want to pinch myself, because it seems impossible that I am a mom of two children, one of whom is not far from starting school.

We are still working on potty training. Today after Erin needed a replacement for her third pair of pants in one day I expressed to her my frustration with her going through the entire collection of pants and shorts in three days. To that my Erin replied: "Don't give up mommy!" That of course was said with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. Oh, how can you be getting upset at this child!

Danny is fully mobile, crawling everywhere, getting his cute button nose in everything, pulling up on furniture and walking along it. He talks non stop and wants me to constantly hold him. I finally installed a gate (a nifty one with a door) at the top of the stairs, so at least I do not need to worry that he is heading downstairs while I am folding laundry. Now I only need to remember shut bathroom doors. The little guy is fascinated with toilets. I have caught him sticking his hands in the one downstairs last week. Ewww!

Apparently I have been awful at taking photos this months, but here is one I took. Here Danny is sporting a tutu and seems rather pleased about it.
Ta ta for now!

We have a climber!

Danny learned to pull up this last week. I put him down for a nap one day, went into the bathroom and on the way back discovered that the little guy was holding onto the bars, standing and mischievously staring at me. Here comes trouble! He is so excited to be able to stand tall and reach things. And what a curious little boy he is! His favorite place to be is the pantry! He used to kneel down by the lowest shelf, now he can stand holding to it and today I caught him attempting to climb higher. He stood there, than put his foot on a can of Crisco, lifted his arm, grabbed the next shelf and pulled himself up. By the time I got to him he was already standing on the lowest shelf and holding to the one above it. Oh boy! Another climber in the family. What shall I do? Erin of course is an excellent teacher. He watched her monkey up to the top pantry shelves for snacks a few times and decided to try it out for himself. Perhaps he wanted some pickles?

Being a mom is wonderful! It is a tough job, but oh! so wonderful. Watching Danny today learn a new skill (even though it will make my life harder, ha ha!) made me so giddy. Having Erin tell me that she loves me is so touching and makes me want to be a better mom. Life is beautiful!

Sledding anyone?

To Erin and Danny's immense joy we woke up to about three inches of snow on the ground on the last day of April. Seriously! It is not supposed to snow on April 30th, ever. We ought to be enjoying a light breeze from the mountains, sunshine and bird chirping. Anyhow, it was a great opportunity for the last time sledding this season. It was fun and short (the funnest part for me, he he)! Danny loved it and Erin was excited to finally have someone to enjoy it with.

Danny stretched out at the bottom of the sled and Erin pulled him.

He was visibly enjoying himself while Erin huffed and puffed trying not to slip while taking him for a ride.

That's when I took over as for Erin it was work and not much fun , he he. I pulled them back and forth and helped going down the hill behind the house. It was wonderful!

Then the snow melted and Erin went to ride her bike. You've got to love Utah spring!

We had some friends over for a dinner on Sunday. Erin was given the honors of saying the blessing on the food. The child proceeded listing everything on the table and even went into trouble of blessing every single ingredient in the "yeekee" salad. That is when both Andrew and I began chuckling. Erin was quick enough to put a stop to that: " Hey guys, close your eyes!"

When she went to bed she continued being very thankful in her prayer. I am not sure if she was full of gratitude or just tried to stall. She went on to thank Heavenly Father for , but not limited to " walls, windows, blinds, pillow, washing machine, wood chips, Aliyah, Skitz (a dog from Martha Speaks), Beebee, toys, mommy who takes me to the park, Daddy, Danny, Gemma, projector, etc." No kidding! she continued her list for good 3-4 minutes. To me it was indescribably moving to hear my Pooky express gratitude for things that I do for her.

PS: Danny got to eat my lasagna today. He wolfed it down. That made me happy. No more that blended tasteless baby paste for him. Immersion blender to the rescue! (why didn't I use it before?)

Many faces of Mr. D

Danny boy is growing...and making faces. So here you go. It was time for Mr. D's 9 months well check up. Despite trailing at the bottom of the height and weight percentile, our Danny is doing great. This time he came in at 15,7 lb- .8 % and 27 inches-11,81 %. His growth is steady and we are pleased about that. There were no shots this time, only a poke to test his iron. He was a champ and did not even squeak during the procedure, he just watched wondering what on earth were they doing to him. His iron was perfect.

He does all he ought to be doing and more. Danny-boy is following in his big sister's footsteps and crawls with supersonic speed. He likes to frequent the pantry and inspecting our food supply within his reach. Just this weekend he figured out that kneeling down gives him more height than just seating or standing on all four. He carefully picks food items of the shelf he can reach and carefully examines them (he does not always conduct a flavour test).

Danny's romance with rice cereal continues. It is still his favorite food on par with yogurt. We are introducing textures, but they rarely impress him. I can understand that, it is not easy chewing with your four front teeth. He does his best though.

Mr. D is very friendly and enjoys good company. If you want to win his friendship than bounce him on your lap or help him stand, he'll be your best buddy for ever. Sometimes he sits surrounded by toys and is perfectly happy. After he gets bored he heads into the kitchen to see what I am up to. Danny is curious about everything. He needs to touch, poke and prod things.

Bath time is always fun. He and Erin sometimes bathe together and make sure to splash half of the bath's content out. It seems to come as a shock every time water splashes on his face.

Danny is definitely a daddy's boy. His face lites up every time Andrew enters the room. He loves sitting next to him and watch whatever papa is doing. Then he gets bored and starts looking for trouble.

I made a brilliant move this Monday. I sat Danny on the stairs and dashed into the pantry to get a jar of food to pack in his bag (Danny was off to aunt Theresa's). I was not THINKING. Next thing I heard was a slow thud! thud ! thud! I looked into the hallway and saw Danny laying at the bottom of the stairs. He was more surprised than hurt. Yeah, great going mommy! As Andrew put it at least I did not leave him at the top of the stairs. Poor kid had only three stairs to go down.

PS: While I was typing this Erin was sitting behind me in the chair styling my hair. I need to wrap up though as my child is mentioning "snipping scissors" to get my hair "short and beautiful".... and now she left to search for her cutting instruments. She is serious! I'd better run and hide.

Ta ta for now