Art Mediums

Since we had so much fun drawing on my dry erase board, we've been trying out a different art medium for each week. Last week it was play dough. At first Dani was very gentle with the play dough. So much so, that the play dough did not even deform as she played with it. It took a while for her to become comfortable enough to break it into pieces. I really need to work on hand strength and letting her explore more.

We used "tools", like cookie cutters, a rolling pin, and a straw, which helped her explore it more. Dani loved to pretend to bake with the play dough, but she mostly requested that I create things, like this play dough version of our family.

This week we used chalk on the balcony and then squirt bottles to wash it off. Here is Dani dressed up in her favorite outfit.

Zarabella

This past weekend we have watched a little dog for a friend from church. Her name is Zarabella. This is a picture of our first visit with Zarabella. Dani brought her puppy "Bryson" along to visit too. Zarabella comes up to Dani's knees, so she is a fairly small and easy to manage dog.

Normally Dani is scared of dogs, and she was scared of Zarabella the first time she met her, but has since come to love her and loved visiting her. Zarabella is a fairly shy dog and will not approach Dani on her own, which makes it a lot easier for Dani to love her. She feels more in control with Zarabella than other dogs that come and greet her quickly. While Zarabella's family is out of town, she doesn't like to eat much. In fact, she would only eat if we hand fed her food from the fridge. Food left out does not get touched, no matter what the food is (hot dogs, cheese, peanut butter, mac n cheese etc). Dani's favorite part was feeding Zarabella, so in a way it was nice that she waited for us to get there to eat. Dani would put the hot dog chunk on the floor and say "eat it! eat it! Zarabella, eat it!". She got a kick out of it when Zarabella would take food out of her hand, but her squealing of excitement sometimes scared Zarabella into dropping the food.

Since this weekend, Dani has been much less afraid of dogs in general. She is not one to go up to a dog, but she will not scream if a dog is being held near her or comes within 3 feet of her without touching her.

Fourth of July Celebration

On Saturday the 3rd, our Ward had a breakfast in the courtyard of our building. Dani was all excited about being able to eat pancakes like in the book "If You Give a Pig a Pancake" by Laura Numeroff. During the readings and musical numbers, Dani ran through the grass with other toddlers.

That evening we got take out barbecue and had a picnic at a park near our condo. Dani love picking the clover flowers for Mom and eventually had a whole bouquet full.

It was a little overcast which made the picnic nice and cool, but not nearly as cold as last year's 4th of July. We were considering going to watch fireworks, but it started to rain and we still had church in the morning, so we decided we'd try the next evening.
We enjoyed our time at the park. It sure is nice to have Dad with us!

Drawing Games

I am having trouble uploading the video of Dani and our drawing games, but at least I can post a still picture of her latest drawing for "Mommy and Daddy and Nana and Grandma". She decided to draw Jack and the Beanstalk. So she drew a straight line on the right (the beanstalk). Then she drew a circle for Jack, eyes, nose (scribble), a mouth (horizontal line) and hair. Then she drew the giant's face, eyes (two dots both on the right of his face) nose (the dot on the left of his face) and smile. Then she thought she was being funny by drawing hair all over his face and on his chin. Afterwards she wanted to make pictures for everyone and she started labeling all the people she was going to draw a picture for.

Also on this picture, the scribbled out mass on the bottom left, was originally a cat (circle with dots for eyes, scribbled ears, a dot for a nose, a smile and whiskers that extend upwards and almost touch the giant. She mentioned that the long whiskers made the cat look like a ghost. We were playing our question mark game, which we came up with this week. Dani (or I) will draw a picture, I will label it, then she will scribble over the picture and I will add a question mark to my label (that's why you see "Cat?" written above this item). Dani thought it was hysterical when I would say "cat?" in a question tone as if saying "is this a cat?" or "where is the cat?" or "you call that a cat?".

New Sayings

When Daddy says "I love you more", Dani responds thinking she is topping him by saying emphatically "I love you RIGHT NOW!".

The last few weeks Dani has been using the word "maybe" in an interesting way. We think that she started using it to try and ask for things in a nicer way, such as "may I", but she has extended it to other phrases that just sound funny.



"Maybe I want juice"
"Maybe you will help me with my puzzle"
and my favorite,
"Maybe I love you"


Dani is showing off her purple tongue from eating cherries.

Lately I've been working with Dani on reading small words every day and we call this time her reading lessons (or as she calls it "Reading Blessin's"). This week she started to compliment me saying that I was a good teacher.

Then today Dani tried to use this compliment to get what she wanted. When I asked her to finish the puzzle she had taken apart, she asked me to help her, and then asked me to "teach" her and then said "because you a good teacher Mommy!". She's learning quickly what to say to get her way.

Videos for Jess

I figured out my video issues. I'm just not able to see them in the preview until I have posted them. Anyway, here are the videos that I think Jess would love best.

The first video is of Dani and her cousins dancing to the Laurie Berkner Band (or as Dani calls the band to the best of my interpretation "locally banjo"). She gets bumped in the end and I have to stop the video, but it just goes to show how sensitive she is. Every little bump right now requires a kiss from Mom.

The second video is Dani drawing the picture of Jack and the Beanstalk. I posted this story with a still picture because of my issues uploading videos.

First Joke?

Today at dinner, Dani came up with her first real joke. She just randomly asked:

"Why do Pirates say 'Ar!'?"

I told her I didn't know. I wondered why she was asking and bringing it up. She then responded, "Because they don't know the words"

I thought it was quite clever that she mixed a joke from one of her favorite books ("Rhymes and Riddles, Gags and Giggles") with a cartoon she saw yesterday (Backyardigans, "Pirate Treasure") to come up with a similar, but appropriate joke.

She's been trying to figure out knock-knock jokes for a couple months now, and even though she knows how to respond, her attempts at retelling the joke, or creating her own have been funny mostly because of how nonsensical they are, such as . . .

Knock-knock
who's there?

Dr. Pizza

Dr. Pizza who?
Dr. Pizza surprised by a banana! (followed by hysterical laughing, which you can't help but join)

Here are Dani's "Noculars". Notice there are no holes through them for her eyes.