Ladybugs and Friends

We watched Dani's best friend, Ella, today while her Mom was in the hospital to have her baby sister. In the morning Dani had her 2 yr old Doctor appointment. She is still extremely tall (36 inches) and average weight for her age (26.8lb). At first, Dani was excited about going to the doctor because usually we go to the Obstetrician and she is not the focus of the visit. However, when the nurse started to look at her, she started to scream. She did not like being measured, she did not want to be weighed, she did not want the doctor to look at her feet or listen to her heart. She would scream every time the doctor tried to look at her or touch her. Ella on the other hand was a great example, very calm and just looked at Dani as if she were questioning what was the matter. The doctor showed Dani that Ella was fine with the stethoscope, but Dani still didn't trust her.

At the end, we got a book from the Reach Out And Read program, "A Frog in the Bog" by Karma Wilson and it has become one of Dani's favorite books. She even likes to tell me where she got it, even if at the time the visit was an unpleasant experience.

After the doctor appointment, we had a snack at home and then went to a ladybug party at a friends. Our friend had purchased a small bag of live ladybugs that she released in her backyard for the kids to see, catch, and feel. She provided magnifying classes and crayon rubbings of bugs, and we had a potluck brunch. They even let us catch a few ladybugs in baby food jars to bring home.

Dani was all prepared with her net, which she demanded we bring to catch the ladybugs, but she ended up being more interested in the large sandbox and toys. Ella stayed close to me with all the people around. Unfortunately, my camera battery died before I could get any pictures of this party, but I did have our video camera.

After the party we came back home to have a little nap. When they woke up we went to the park down the street and played in their sandbox with the large cement turtle. It was a little windy so we didn't stay very long, but they sure loved playing outdoors. When we got back home, Dani wanted to dress up in her skirt aka "dirt" and put on fishing hats to play a fishing game we have.

After our fishing game, we played on the balcony and let the ladybugs we caught at the party loose. Dani cheered them on as they crawled out of the jar and flew away.

While on the balcony Dani and Ella played peekaboo behind the chairs together. They played this for a couple minutes with me, so I decided to grab the camera. I caught the end of their game, but you can see somewhat how it went.

On the way to pick up Trent that evening, Dani told Ella made up stories. This was the first time I had heard her use her different voices to tell a story and Ella found it hysterical, which to my delight encouraged Dani more. Dani's story had about 3 different voices and even though the topics seemed to change randomly (the baby turned into a dinosaur and the dinosaur wanted a valentine box), it was so cute to hear her talk in her dinosaur voice, and her Mommy voice, and baby voice.

By the time we got home it was time for dinner and bed. Overall, it was a fairly busy and fun day.

My Little Dancer

While watching General Conference on Easter Sunday, Dani's first real sugar rush started to show. She ran around the condo for about ten minutes straight "dancing" and saying "ballerina!!!".

I'm not sure where she learned the concept of being a ballerina, could be another TV thing or she remembers it from the Ward Christmas program that included a rendition of the nutcracker, but if you look at her dancing in the second video taken after a nap, you may notice a few moves similar to ballet (for a 2 year old).

These videos go on for another 4 minutes each, but in order to upload them, I had to trim them to work.

Ever since this day, Dani has demanded that she wear only clothes with skirts. Dresses are fine, skirts and shirts are fine, long flow-y shirts with leggings are fine, but khakis or jeans alone require a skirt placed on top so she can dance. There is very little room for negotiation on this issue, but at least she lets me take the skirts off if we leave the condo.

It's a Boy!

Baby boy, due at the end of August.

The anatomic ultrasound confirmed it today. Dani is going to have a little brother. The last few days I feel like my belly has grown a LOT. Everything measured within normal limits, but he is a little bigger and heavier than average (~9 oz). Dani measured at a lower percentile than he is measuring right now, and she was 9lb. . . I guess I just have big babies.

Doctor Dani

When Dani received scrubs for Christmas she was not very excited about them and refused to try them on. Today, however, Trent was on home call and was called in for a surgery. She ran to grab his scrubs for him so that he could get ready. I offered to put her scrubs on her and she was quite excited about this idea.

While Trent was showering, she dressed up in her scrubs and we packed her pockets with all her equipment and played doctor on her stuffed animals.

She was quite excited to show her Daddy her scrubs and "doctor tools" when he got out of the shower.

As Trent was grabbing his pager, wallet and phones, Dani ran to the door and held the door knob ready to "go to the hospital". She was quite sad when she learned Daddy had to leave without her. It took Trent a few extra minutes to get passed her because she was so determined to go with him because she was all ready like he was.

Happy St. Patricks Day

These glasses were given to us by a friend. Dani LOVES them!

Sunday Best

To celebrate the coming of Spring and warmer weather, I dressed Dani in one of her lighter dresses. I took some pictures since she has not been able to wear the Jacket with this dress before today.

Tall & Skinny

Tonight we went to Activity Day for the girls in our Primary. They were preparing babysitting kits with fun activities to do with little kids and they needed a few kids with whom to practice their new skills. I brought Dani since I know she loves games, stories, songs, bean bags, and stringing necklaces out of fruit loops.


She particularly liked "playing" the game Duck, Duck, Goose with the girls. She didn't really understand the concept of the game because every time someone said "goose" she ran, even if it wasn't her turn. She held her pants up each time she ran. I have avoided using belts while potty training because it is so difficult to pull them off and unfortunately, this skinny little girl still has trouble keeping her pants up.

Dani made lots of new friends at this activity and LOVES attention from the older girls.