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.

Pictures

This post is for my cousins who wanted to see what Dani looks like today. Here is the picture Trent took just after Dani ate pudding. I decided not to photoshop off the pudding beard since it tells a story.

The rest of these pictures were taken at a park down the street from our new condo.

Cooking

Two days ago I let Dani help me make chocolate pudding. She helped me count as I put the cups of milk in and I let her "help" stir it and prepare some for her Daddy. She was very excited about this and then yesterday, she pretended to make pudding herself with a cup and a spatula. She then proceeded to set up a little meal for us to "eat". I hadn't realized until then that she understood the concept that all food needed a plate or a bowl, but she made sure the meal was well set up and then asked me to sit in the chair next to her.

Fingerpainting, swimming and talks

This week, we have been focusing on one of Dani's favorite letters, B. Since she already knows this letter quite well (including it's sound), I decided to introduce a couple other letters just for fun.

I made some homemade finger paint and we colored the back side of a few of our old wedding invitations. Though she really hated touching the finger paint, she sure enjoys showing the letters to everyone who comes to the condo. She will even try to name all the letters here. The only one that is clearly wrong is the lowercase A, which she labels 'O'.

In the picture above, I had asked Dani to say "cheese" , but since she is making a funny face, I decided to have her say "A". However, when I mentioned the letter A, she decided it would be more fun to hand them to me.

Yes, she is sunburned in these pictures from yesterday. We went swimming with friends from the Ward and we both ended up burnt. However, Dani's favorite activity of the day was still playing ball with Mason in the pool. She repeated "Ma" (Mason), "Ba"(Ball) multiple times during our evening conversation.

I have recently added a new activity to our bedtime routine where we talk about everything we did that day. It gives me an opportunity to reinforce things she has learned and add more vocabulary and conversation to our day. She will often nod as if she understands what I'm talking about, or she'll try and repeat the words that she recognizes or words that need more explanation. We then cuddle as she relaxes before being put in bed. It has become my favorite part of the day.