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.

Drive Through the Mountains

Dani was excited to try on her new outfit, though this one is still a little big.She really liked the "cute" sweater and the flower on the front.Tah dah! All dressed.We went on a drive Saturday through a canyon. Still not the peak of color for that canyon though. We have to go up again soon to see if it has changed since the leaves in our area are changing now. The only picture I was able to take on our trip.

Our Hike

A week ago we went on a hike in the mountains. We picked a hike that was rated one of the ten best Fall hikes in the country, though we were not very impressed with this particular trail. I think there might be better fall color in other canyons right now.

Dani was quite excited to get out of the house.
Dani enjoyed going "past" all the other hikers and dogs.

The total hike ended up being between 2.5-3 miles, most of which she was carried. A little boy hiking the other way sounded somewhat surprised and jealous saying "She's being carried!".

Dani had to stop to smell the flowers, pick up the acorns, and the pine cones. We also took a few of the colored leaves and stopped to look at the apples on an apple tree.Dani's favorite thing to stop for was "kneeling" on the ground. . . and "writing A"s and "E"s with her finger in the dirt. She was really upset with us when we had to move on. This is one of her favorite kinds of play.We stopped for lunch where the one trail dead ended on to another trail. The hikers going by complimented Dani on the flower in her hair. Dani said "take you" (thank you) after a little prompting and tried to remember which bow was in her hair. She really likes to have "pretty" hair.Some of the views where we stopped for lunch.Another favorite activity Dani loves to do and talk about is "beep nose" or Eskimo kisses. She loves to "beep" everyone's noses and especially characters in books and on her clothes. When reading "My Puffer Train" by Mary Murphy she likes to "beep" the goose's nose because the goose says "beep, beep, beep" in the book. When we talk about people coming to visit she will often tell me that she is going to "beep" their "nose" (if she does not mention beeping noses, she will mention kicking ball).

Dani enjoyed playing with the rocks on the hike. She tried to climb a rock.She cuddled up to a rock.She pretended to eat a "yummy" rock.

She would step from big rock to big rock like stepping stones while hiking up the canyon. She did quite well climbing down the mountain too.Here are a couple fun pictures we got of Dani.This was the only spot with a significant amount of Fall leaves. We need to find another canyon to see more.

Some of the views from the hike.

As you could expect, we had one exhausted little lady on the way home.

What we've been up to

I've been slacking on this blog a lot lately and it is due for an update. Part of the slack has been because Dani throws a tantrum every time I get on the computer and she has been teething and not taking long naps. Her canines are taking their time emerging. Since there is so much to update, I cannot update everything in one post. But at least it is a post and gives you an idea of how we are doing and what we've done this week.

We started out this week trying on a new dress that Nana bought Dani. Dani thinks it is very "cute" and we had to take a little photo shoot in it while it still looks new.

Whenever she sees Winnie the Pooh on her pajamas or dress she says "help, help" because we have a book (thanks Beth & Ivet!) that she loves that talks about Pooh getting stuck in a tree from eating too much honey. She really likes her Pooh jammies for this reason (thanks Jeff).

Tuesday we built a house for her butterfly that included stairs, and made a doll out of a toilet paper roll. Dani helped me decide what facial features the doll needed (eyes, mouth, nose, eyebrow) and she decorated the dolls dress with markers. We also made yogurt which is one of her favorite foods.

Wednesday we went visiting teaching and when Trent came home we went to the library. I like having a library nearby and being able to hold items to pick up. One of Dani's favorite authors is Laura Numeroff (especially her "if you give..." books). So we borrowed "if you give a cat a cupcake". But she surprised me and seemed to enjoy Eric Carle's "Mister Seahorse" better.

Thursday we went to a meeting to start up a preschool/play group. Dani was very excited when she saw the activities the other mothers had brought especially the paper dolls.

Dani's favorite play activity lately is pretend cooking. I can't leave her alone with her cup of water long without magnetic letters being put in for "yummy letter soup". She then stirs it with a marker and feeds it to her dolls.

Thursday night we enjoyed having Uncle Sean here and going to dinner with him. Dani was fascinated by dropping him off at the airport and that he went on a plane just like Nana. I told her that we will someday being able to go on a plane to see her cousins. She was very excited at this thought and said "Dani fly plane".

I know, I tried to keep her away from TV, but she is such a magnet to the TV it is very difficult. Dani's favorite show lately is Super Why on PBS. She will sometimes guess the letters from their sounds before the kids on the show give her the answer. She gets very excited when she sees Super Why commercials and quite upset if Super Why does not come on quickly.



Today we made sugar cookies. Dani LOVES to help cook by pouring in the ingredients and stirring things together. Though she is scared of loud noises and sits on the couch to stay safe when I turn the mixer on. She also helped me pick which letters to use to write Dad a note. Dad came home earlier than normal today and that is who she is smiling at in this picture.

Later today, Trent was playing ball with Dani in her room when Dani noticed a picture that she colored in nursery on her wall. She then excitedly said "Jesus kick ball" because she wanted to play with Jesus.

There is still a lot more to update, but that will have to wait for another day.