Saturday, October 11, 2008

Happy Birthday one more time!

Birthdays have begun to be a weekend-long celebration! This weekend at church, Daniel's class sang Happy Birthday to him.


He was so excited! He was really enjoying his class today, when Megan walked in sobbing. She somehow managed to fall out of her chair in her class upstairs, scraping up her forehead.

We came home to find Keith resting on the couch. He seems to be doing so much better, but he still tires pretty quickly.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Numbers

For anyone interested, there are 1.64 miles (or 4,757 steps) round trip between my front door and Keith's parent's front door. Betcha can't guess who has a new pedometer? :)

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This entire week, I have not had a full night sleep. Last night's interruptions came at 1:30am when Keith was making a little too much noise feeding the cat (she was crying so loud!). Then at 3:30am, Megan came in my room to tell me that the ice pack (from her sprained wrist) that she put in her freezer did not stay cold and that she needs a new one. Mind you, her freezer is part of her pretend kitchen, but at least I now knew where the missing ice pack had gone. Then at 5:30am Daniel had a big sneeze that left boogers on his pillow case. You guessed it, I simply flipped the pillow over, took a baby wipe to his face and crawled back into bed - only for my alarm to go off 20 minutes later. Someday I'll look back and think this is funny. :)

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.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Celebrating Daniel's 3rd Birthday

Tonight we invited Grandma and Grandpa over to have dinner and celebrate Daniel's 3rd birthday.
Megan helped me make a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.
After enjoying a yummy dinner, we lit up the cake for the Happy Birthday song.

Daniel was so excited! Look at those dimples!
The cake was very yummy.


Daniel was very excited about his gifts. Megan and Joshua were both pretty excited about Daniel's gifts, too.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

A busy day

Keith, Daniel and I returned to the surgeon's office for Keith's 2-week post-op visit. Keith is progressing well, but still needs to rest and follow his special diet for a few more weeks. We follow up again in 2 more weeks.

After the doctor's appointment, we went over to Grandma's office for a quick visit there. Then we took Daniel to Toys R Us to look around. We ended up buying him 3 small automoblox cars. This seems to be right up his alley since he's all about taking things apart. We are having a small birthday celebration tomorrow night to celebrate Daniel's 3rd birthday.

Monday, October 6, 2008

The Chefs

Joshua went on a field trip this past week to Green Meadows Farm. Since he's been home, he's an expert on all things farm-related. His favorite part was the cow-milking experience.

Joshua has been looking through the cook books for something delicious to make. He wanted to make some cookies this weekend, but decided we should wait until Daddy is feeling better. Instead, I helped him make some eggs in a nest on Sunday morning.
Using some Halloween cookie cutters, Joshua made the nests while I heated the griddle and added the eggs. Joshua added some shakes of cinnamon/sugar to the cut out toast for a treat.
We cut the fruit together, then Joshua poured the juice and served the breakfast. He did a great job.

Sunday night Keith and Joshua went out to Target with Grandma. Megan decided she needed to made dinner with me. She went to the pantry and picked out some Annie's shells and cheese. While that was cooking, she got out the carrots and some lettuce and made a small salad.
She did a pretty good job and enjoyed the fruits of her labor.
Daniel did not get to do any cooking on Sunday. Maybe next time. I will say that it takes three times as long to get anything done in the kitchen when the kids are hands-on helping vs. them just sitting at the bar keeping me company. It is a lot of work, but really fun.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Outside fun

This morning Grandpa came over to help us work on our lawn. Keith is still recovering from surgery and is unable to mow the grass. Grandpa brought us over some yummy bear claws from Panera Bread and I made some Chai lattes. After a nice breakfast, Grandpa went to work on the lawn and I went to work following up with the medical officers at the Coast Guard base. Keith rested on the couch and Daniel kept him company. On Fridays, the kids get out of school at 12:30 pm. We played outside from the time they got home until it was time for me to go inside to make dinner. Joshua practiced shooting hoops.
Daniel worked on his batting skills.
Megan explored the yard, looking for things to inspect under the magnifying glass.
She inspected the grass, a few acorns and some leaves.
I love those chubby little hands.


Every time Megan would find something interesting to look at, she'd call over to the boys for them to check it out, too.