October 12-17

I know it has been a while since I posted. We have been keeping pretty busy with our many library trips and art projects.

A couple weeks ago (~Oct 16th) Dani helped me do a leaf family by picking out which leaves to use. The book I read ("Look What I Did With A Leaf") told us not to use glue sticks, but that is all we had. As you can see, one of the leaves on the sun has fallen off as a result.

She also decided it would be fun to draw on the wall with a pen that Friday (Oct 16). The next morning I was reading on of my library books "First Art: Art Experiences for Toddlers and Twos" by MaryAnn Kohl, and she mentioned that giving the child a vertical place to draw will help draw attention away from the wall. So, I made an easel by folding a box so it has three main sides instead of four (as described in the library book). Dani loved making designs on her easel and has colored a lot on it since. However, a couple days ago, she came to me distraught that she made a mess because she decided to draw on the "pi-board" (aka keyboard, this is her mix between piano, and keyboard). Luckily the pencil erased quite easily.

Below is a few details of the week to describe Dani's development, probably not interesting to most readers, but it will be of interest to grandparents, and my memory book which are the main reasons for this blog.

• The week of October 12th, we borrowed the book "Chicken Little" by Ed Emberly from the library. Dani thought this book was hysterical and laughed after talking about it and said "funny book". She still talks about the names in the book and how the fox tricked the birds.
• Dani's favorite phrase that week was "some too". She now LOVES juice like her Daddy and begs for everything he has when he gets home from work.
• That week, Dani also started singing "Rubber Ducky", though she doesn't know all the words, or the tune and generally just repeats "Rubber, rubber, rubber... Ducky".
• Thursday (Oct 15th) Dani decided she wanted to call Nana. She had practiced on her play phones by picking them up and emphatically saying "Hi! Nana?". She talked to Nana for over 30 minutes and threw a tantrum when I had to take the phone away. Nana is very patient with a little one who doesn't say much but likes being on the phone.
• Dani is now recognizing where we live and where Dad works.
• At our play group, we made a paper Jack-O-Lantern and did Rhythm activities. Dani really enjoys seeing others teach lessons (other than me).
• This week Super Why became available on Netflix and Dani became obsessed with the Giant in Jack and the Bean Stalk. When she first said "giant", we could not figure out what she was talking about, it sounded like dayants (dance with a 'y' in the middle). In this story, the giant is tired and needs a bed. Dani gets really frustrated with the "super readers" when they continue to try the wrong answers first to help the giant. I now explain to her when she is throwing a tantrum like the giant that this tantrum often means her body is tired and needs to go to bed. This actually has helped when it is bedtime or nap time.

How are you?

After reading a ladybug counting book, and talking about numbers, I mentioned to Dani that she was 1-year-old. Shortly after that I noticed her spacing out and asked "How are you?". She replied "old".

THANKS JAKE!!!!

While we are being hit by the worst winter storm I have ever seen (though, that doesn't say much since I'm not originally from here), our heater started acting up.

Everytime the heater turned on yesterday, I momentarily noticed a natural gas smell. Then this morning I noticed that the heater was not working. Trent went out to see what the problem was and it just would not ignite when it should. After we called repair shops to see what it would cost for them to look at it, and called the gas company to make sure we didn't have a leak, we called my brother. Jake was able to explain all the parts of our furnace to Trent so that we could figure out what was likely happening. Just a few minutes on the phone with Jake and we are able to start the heater again and we have a "differential diagnosis" of the problem. We also realized that it is cheaper to fly Jake out here to visit and fix our heater than it would be to pay a technician to just look at it. I'm so lucky to have a handy brother! Thanks!

Building Blocks

Sunday morning Daniella made this "house" all by herself. I didn't touch it at all. I was pretty amazed by the height and balance she was able to create.

Weekly Update

Last Saturday and Sunday we enjoyed general conference. I felt spiritually uplifted from listening to the talks. I especially liked the routine described by President Monson of a father who asked his children at the end of the day what they had done to help someone else that day. I think it would be fun to add that to our routine as well.

Dani has been trying to help me and Trent lately. She helps clean her room and load the dishwasher. She puts her toys away when asked. At times, she will even clean up the water she spilled without being asked.



Tuesday we went to the pediatrician for Dani's late 18 month appointment. When the doctor came in she handed Dani a book from the Reach Out and Read program and Dani looked at it with excitement and said "Clifford!". The book is "Clifford Barks". The doctor was surprised by this response and asked her what color Clifford is. Dani thought about it for a minute and replied "red". Dani does not know her colors yet, but she knows Clifford is "the big red dog", so it was an easy question. Obviously, the pediatrician was not worried about her development after a few minutes of visiting.


Dani may know her letters, but she does not know shapes yet (all circles are not called "circles", but are called 'O's). She is also learning her colors, but is still somewhat confused about color. We were reading "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" by Bill Martin Jr. and Dani was saying "brown bear!", so I asked her what color brown bear was. She responded quite quickly, "green". Everything else in that book is also green according to Dani.


Today as the sacrament was being passed Dani opened my scriptures and was telling me what colors she thought the scriptures were highlighted in. . . "green, purple, red". . . Then she proceeded to count starting at "13, 14, 15". She has been able to count to 13 for about a month now, but does not always use one to one correspondence. She will also occasionally forget a number or two, or decide that 4 needs to return later on in the sequence. Then she decided that her sacrament cup was a "cupcake".



Wednesday we went on a hike in the mountains. See other post. We will definitely go back some day.



Thursday it was my turn to lead our preschool. So we read Leaf Man and made our own leaf people and animals. We woke up around 5:45 so we could take Trent to work. After taking him to work we grabbed some leaves to play with in a small group. It was sprinkling and snowing as I collected the leaves and we had to towel dry some of them so it wasn't mush by the time it reached the preschool/play group. Dani was excited to hear that it was snowing because she wanted to make a snow man, but it didn't stick so that will have to wait until later. By the time we finally made it to the play group, Dani was exhausted and fussy. She did not want to leave me to see the other groups and she was not interested in making any leaf people. The activity went as well as could be expected with well over 20 kids present of varying age levels. Luckily the parents stay and help.

Friday we watched Curious George and ate popcorn. Dani enjoyed watching George play peekaboo. She talked about the monkey all and popcorn all night.

Yesterday I went to a "Super Saturday" activity put on by another ward's Relief Society. Our Ward was invited since our primaries meet together and we have lots of activities together. A week earlier I took Dani over to a home of someone who was organizing the activities to give her money for the craft activity I wanted to do. I told Dani that I was going to make a caterpillar puppet for the "Very Hungry Caterpillar". She was confused when we left her home that I didn't bring any caterpillars with me but I told her that I would make it later.

When I returned home, I asked her if she remembered why we went to the lady's house to give her money. She responded "pillar". Last night I finished gluing on the final pieces and decorating the butterfly. This is what we now have . . .

Dani absolutely LOVES this set and acting it out with the caterpillar eating through each of the foods. It will make it easier when she is able to put it on her own arm, but for now it's at least very entertaining on Mom's arm.

The person who designed the pattern for this puppet set is in my Ward, but she asked that we not use the pattern for profit. She has her own etsy page and sells these herself. Honestly, it's too much work for me to do this for profit, but it would be fun for a Christmas gift! The butterfly was not exactly patterned after hers. I designed the decorations on the butterfly's wings myself. I also made a few minor changes to the watermelon, strawberry, and salami.

I think it turned out quite cute. It has given me some ideas for Christmas presents.

Since it was freezing cold and snowing all day yesterday (thankfully still not sticking much), we went to the library to spend a little time outside of our condo. Dani brought home three Clifford books to read and I brought home a few for me. I love having a library close by.

Fall Leaves Hike Take 2

Wednesday we decided to explore the area a bit more to find good hiking trails for Fall colors. On the way to a park we drove by a few weeks ago, we missed one of the turn offs and took the next available turn. We ended up visiting a different park on the other side of the mountain range that had some scenic views of downtown.

This park mostly had evergreen trees. So we collected a few pinecones for our preschool craft and enjoyed the views. Dani walked around and collected a handful of little rocks. I'm not sure why she found them special, they just looked like gravel to me, but she would periodically have to stop to pick up some special rocks to add to her handful.There were a lot of interesting large rock formations all over. Dani enjoyed climbing on them and playing with the pine needles on them. We went on a short hike just to see what this trail looked like. It didn't have the fall leaves we were looking for so we eventually turned around, but it looks like it will be a fun trail to try in the future. Since it was likely to snow the next day, and we might miss our chance of seeing Fall leaves, we continued on and found our way back to the park we originally were hoping to reach. The light was perfect and made the trees look like they were glowing and the sunrays were gorgeous.
Dani enjoyed running through the "tunnel" of trees. The trees next to the stream were quite pretty.

Unfortunately, our camera battery died shortly after arriving at this park. We did get a few additional pictures on Trent's phone which I will have to upload later. This park is now one of my favorite places to take pictures. I hope to return later for family photos. The ~1 hr long drive is still worth it.

Dani's Letters

Dani recognizes most of her letters. I wanted to show off, so I had her "read" her Backyardigan's alphabet book for me on tape. You can tell that she still confuses M, N, and W. She also confuses X, K, Y, and V, but otherwise she is typically correct. She had only "read" this book by telling me the letters once or twice before, so it's not like I quiz her on this all the time. She looks at letters all over the house and not just in books. You can tell she gets a little bored mid way and needed the dog to "help" her finish.

I also love how she says W "double- YOU!". Lately she likes to speak in beat. Just like she emphasizes rhythmically the words Lie-BERRy (library) and double - YOU (W), she chants "NEW Dia-per" every time she is changed. She made sure to announce to everyone during sacrament meeting that she got a "NEW diap-er". She also likes to say "bug SHOES" (sounds like the emphasis given to Ahhh Choo when talking about sneezing) every time she is going to wear her ladybug shoes to go out. It's hard to show the emphasis with just words, so I may just have to try and video tape these words for you. I think it is quite cute.

Learning a Language

I find it funny as Dani is learning new words how she starts to use these words and what she does to show us she understands (or doesn't yet understand) their meaning.

In late August and early September Dani was confusing the words"you" and "me". For example if she wanted to tackle Mom or Dad, she would say "tackle me". When she wanted to lie on top of Mom to get ready for bed, she would say "top me". If she wanted to play with her other toothbrush while I am brushing her teeth she will say "your" because I called it "your toothbrush". Whenever we talk about Dani and call her"you" or "her" she points to herself and says "you Dani" or "her".

Pronunciation is always interesting. Dani is still perfecting her 's' sound. Sometimes it sounds like "sh", like when she says the word sit. This makes me pause at certain times like when I tell her we need to brush her teeth and she says "no, sit" because she wants to sit on the counter. Or a couple weeks ago after we went to eat with Uncle Sean, we were leaving Best Buy, Dani was repeatedly yelling "sit" because she wanted to sit in the cart.

I love to see what she is learning through her play. Saturday Sept 26th Dani was playing with her toy spice containers saying "soap on" and putting them under her arm pit. I think she was pretending it was deodorant.

Dani has also started copying some of my quirks. When we dressed her in a new outfit she squeals "cute!!!" just like I say when I think she looks adorable. This past week everything was "CUTE!" and she had to rub whatever she thought was cute over and over (the snake in the book, Clifford in the puppy book etc). Then today, after a little baby boy was blessed in church, she said "cute!!!" quite loudly.

During regular conversation she will sometimes mention "Dani funny". I then agree with her that she is funny. The ironic thing is that this statement is often the reason I think she has been funny.

I have lots more to add from this week, but I wanted to make sure to post these for my own records later. I think it's pretty cute.

"Lie-berry"

We started a preschool RS group yesterday. We are studying Fall/Halloween this month.Dani LOVES to have people teach her new things and tell her stories, so she will really enjoy it. Since I don't have a car during the week, my sweet visiting teaching companion who is setting this group up with me offered to give us a ride.

Here is Dani pretending to "catch" my companion's son. Of course when she actually sees him she can barely say "hi".
Here she is all excited that her picture is being taken.
Next week I will be leading the preschool group and I'm excited to read "Leaf Man" by Lois Elhert and make our own leaf people and animals inspired by "Leaf Man" and "Look What I Did With a Leaf". Some days I wish I could put together a children's book club where we would cover a new author each month and pick one book a week to study and do activities around. Perhaps when Dani is little older.

Dani's favorite place to visit is the Library. This video was taken yesterday on the way to the library down the street. Unfortunately I forgot as I was recording from the camera that I cannot rotate the video like I do the pictures. So, its' a little sideways. She thought I was taking her picture the first time I took the camera out, so it starts out with a "cheese!".

I tried to refilm, but since she knew what I was going to ask it seemed less natural to me. I just love how she says Lie-Berry similar to strawberry.

As I write this Dani is running back and forth between taking bites of a slice of bread and sniffing my arm and saying "funny" and then cracking up laughing. Randomly she will say "Dani funny".

After the library, we went to the store and bought a pumpkin.

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

Wednesday we went to a baseball game. Dani enjoyed riding on the "bus" to the field. She really got into clapping when everyone else cheered.

We had to make sure she didn't knock over the beer from the guy in the front, but she sure enjoyed dancing on the bleachers.


Her favorite part of the game was the popcorn. She did not want to eat her sandwich before coming in, but sure chowed down on the popcorn. It was a fun family trip. Even though we didn't make it the whole game due to bedtime and the cold (it was quite windy), I'm glad we got to go.

Froggy

Tuesday Dani played with her duplos. She was very excited to build homes for her toys. She picked out the top pieces and called them "froggies". I wondered where she got this, until I looked at them. They kind of are shapped like frog faces with eyes on top. Neither Trent nor I had noticed this similarity until she named them.