Three years ago today...

Three years ago today, Daniel was born at Providence Kodiak Island Medical Center. He was born with a head full of dark hair, weighing in at 7lbs 6oz. At this time, Joshua was 3 years and 3 months old, and Megan was 19 months old.

I was surprised at how absolutely perfect he looked. Keith says he looks just like Keith's grandpa on his mother's side - which is where Daniel's middle name, Walter, comes from.
Here is is all bundled up for one of his first trips out. This was when Daniel was about a week old. We were headed to the clinic for one of many weight checks, then to meet some friends for pizza, then Keith talked me into going to the animal shelter. So when Daniel was one week old, that is when Meow-meow officially joined our family.
About 3 weeks after Daniel's birthday is Halloween. The kids were so cute. But it was so cold, Keith only took them to the one or two neighbors that we were close friends with before we brought them back in to defrost. I remember it seemed as though every time I'd get comfortable on the couch nursing Daniel, another trick-or-treater would knock on the door. Finally, I just put the bowl of candy outside on the steps!
About a month after Daniel was born, we had our first huge snow storm of the season. Here I am out playing with Megan in our backyard. Since I was just about 4 weeks from having a C-section, that one hour of playing, landed me back on the couch for another week or two. They really aren't kidding when they tell you not to lift anything heavier than the baby for the first 6 weeks or so.
Daniel has loved his big brother from the very beginning. Here his is trying to kiss him with a big slobbery kiss.
He also loves to mess with his big sister. See him about to pull on her hair? He learned pretty quickly to leave her alone, she's pretty tough.The first winter after Daniel was born, I'm pretty sure I was late for just about every event I attempted to attend. Between all the tiny hats, coats, mittens, gloves, diaper changes....oh boy, it's a good thing they are so cute because they sure are a lot of work!

Daniel has always been a good eater. He seemed to have skipped the baby food stage all together and went straight for regular food when he was about 7 months old. He absolutely under no circumstances would take a bottle until we finally got him interested in a cup around 8 months. So, needless to say, Daniel and I were never more than a couple of hours apart.

Daniel loves hanging around with Daddy. He knows that Daddy means business, but he also knows that nobody has fun like Daddy does. Even now with Keith recovering from surgery, Daniel is hanging out with him on the couch keeping him company.

Daniel is also very well traveled. When he was just a few months old, Megan needed to fly to Anchorage for a medical procedure and since I was Daniel's only food source, he came along. Since then he's been on more flights than he can count, including many cross-country flights. He is definately a good traveler. (This picture is stuck in Chicago on Christmas Day in 2006. We were delayed coming out of Florida because of possible tornado activity, missing our connecting flight in Chicago. Which then the next flight that landed could not take off due to too much snow on the runway, so we had to wait a total of 6 1/2 hours before we could hop our next flight to Anchorage and then our flight to Kodiak. The kid in the stripes is not one of ours, but when his mother nearly had a nervous breakdown when the news of the flight delay arrived, I offered to let him watch a movie and have snacks with us.)

Having three kids is much, much tougher than we thought it would be. But each of them have their own funny personalities and add such amazing life to our family.