I'M THE BOSS!

The battle of wills has begun. Pinky Dinky Do has a new hobby of getting a mouth full of water and spitting it anywhere she pleases. This was fully under control until Grammy arrived and showed her that it's fun to wipe it up afterward. That darn Grammy! :) Now it's a constant struggle of her spitting and wanting to wipe it up (which really just makes a bigger mess). So we take her water away when she does it and then the sh** really hits the fan! She really is trying hard to let us know that she's in charge here and we'd better back off if we know what's good for us. We're considering just moving out and giving her the house to do whatever she pleases.

On a little nicer note, there's a blooming friendship beginning with my two girls. Dani has started having wonderful conversations with Emma that last a good half hour or so. Here's an example of the most recent:

Dani: What's da matter Emma? Huh? Huh? Huh? Emma Jean, what's da matter? Huh? Huh? Huh?
Emma: (stares with head shifting from side to side)
Dani: What's da matter Emma Jean? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?
Emma: (kiss on Dani's nose)
Dani: Silly Emma! What's da matter Emma? Huh? Huh? Huh? EMMA JEAN!!! Huh? Huh?

This went on for quite a while yesterday. I finally left the room for my own sanity. Poor Emma.

Poor me

Happy Sunday to you all!
I have strep throat, so it's not so happy for me. But I am glad that I finally went in to the doctor and now have medicine. Hopefully Dani and Duane don't get it as well.
Dani fell asleep on our bed this afternoon. I went in to check on her and she was all cuddled up under our covers fast asleep. SO CUTE! If it weren't so bright in there I would have left her (and maybe even napped with her). But a good dark room with a nice comfy crib ensures us a good 2-3 hour nap.
We're very sad that we had to miss the O'Shea family celebration in St. Cloud this weekend. It was just horrible timing, and I probably would've given everyone strep throat anyway. Hope everyone is having a great time there!

Elmocizing

More weekend pics

Here are some more pictures from our weekend in Minneapolis. I stole them off Jill's blog. This is us before the Neil Diamond concert. No Duane?

At the zoo.

Averie and Tate checking out the sharks.

All of us at the dolphin show!!

Playing on the playground.

Averie was such a good little mother hen.

Thanks for the pics Jill!

Fun weekend!

Well, we're back from Minneapolis. We had SUCH a great weekend. Here are just a few pictures from the zoo. Jill and I took the kids while Stef and Duane went golfing. This is a picture of the dolphin show.
Here was my favorite part of the zoo. The SHARKS!! They're so pretty.

I didn't get many pictures, as usual. So hopefully I can get some from Jill and I'll post more soon. Danica had so much fun with the kids, and they were really good with her too. Averie is a great little babysitter/helper. And Tate is awesome at banging the crap out of things!! :)

Jill and I got to go see Mama Mia at the theatre. It was really nice to have some girl time - no kids and no boys!!! But of course the highlight of the weekend was seeing Neil Diamond!! We were the youngest people there by far. In fact, we're pretty sure we saw at least one oxygen tank. Definitely a lot of blue hairs in the room! But Neil put on a great show and we had a lot of fun.

The only down side of the weekend is that Danica has a pretty rough cold now (Mama has a little one as well). I guess we shouldn't have drank from that water bottle Jill!! :)

Thanks to Stef and Jill for a great birthday weekend. Love you guys!!

Parties and penguins

Having a tea party all by herself.
Daddy went to our bedroom to find Dani all cuddled up with her blankie and the penguin he got me after my surgery. Too cute. By the way, thanks honey for my penguin! He kept me company while I had to read all those hundreds of get well soon card. Oh wait... no one sent me a card!!!! Bunch of poop faces! :)

Monkey

I turned around for about 10 seconds to start making lunch, and this is what happened.

Terrific!

So jealousy has kicked in at our house. Dani's become a bit concerned with the attention Emma's getting from us. And when I say she's concerned, I mean she screams at the top of her lungs. It's great fun.
I'm not sure if it's normal for the terrific two's to start early, but I think they have. Yes, I've renamed the terrible two's... I'm a firm believer in, if you say it, it becomes true. So they'll now and forever more be known as the terrific two's. We've definitely had some tantrums begin, and Dani even got her first time-out the other day. She wasn't thrilled with it. I must say, we both had broken hearts when it was all said and done. But there were many hugs and kisses at the end of it.
We still haven't put up her big girl bed like we said we would. I think we're both secretly worried about the 5:00 wake-ups. With no crib, there's no way to keep her in there so we can keep sleeping!! A little selfishness never hurt anyone, right?
More pictures to come... be patient.
And Jill, don't worry about losing your loyal readers - we'll keep reading!

Latest doings

This is Dani's new watching t.v. spot. She loves to get under the covers now and get nice and cozy with her Teletubbies!

My new find!!! Duane and I wandered into a consignment store the other day and found this great china hutch and a really nice set of china as well. So we picked it up, and now we finally have a place to keep all our crystal that we got for our wedding! Yipee!

Here are a few more pictures of when we were home in Garrison.

Dani in her pretty wedding day dress. So cute!

We are without Grammy again, and we all miss her lots. We especially miss those famous Grammy eggs! I'm not sure of her secret, but I think it may be heroin.

Danica's latest fascination is singing. She can sing almost the whole alphabet song now, and she's working on a few others as well. Emma's not a huge fan of her singing voice, but Duane and I think it's pretty sweet.

She's rearranging empty crystal boxes right now... stacking them up on one side of the room, then moving them to another. It's a pretty serious job if you ask her.

Swimming!

Thank goodness for Grammy's!

Here are some fun pictures of playing outside with Grammy. She's been a trooper to play all day with Dani while I'm healing. I'm getting much better and am almost back to normal (not that I was ever normal).

Just doing a little gardening!

Grammy and Dani both doing their very important work. One of them is coloring and one of them is doing the crossword puzzle. I won't tell you which is doing what.

YAY! We finally got Danica's pool set up and she LOVES it! She had so much fun playing in there with Daddy. I said that tomorrow will be my turn, but if there are any cameras in sight I'll kill someone.

Daddy taught her how to blow bubbles in the water. Luckily I had the video camera going and I'm pretty sure we're going to win the $100,000 on America's Funniest Videos. Dani apparently has very little depth perception. She bent down to try it and dunked her whole head. It was a bit surprising to her. Wish I could put that on the blog!!

Garrison pics

Grandpa must have been pinching her again.

Dani wasn't feeling too photogenic that day.

Dressed like twins... too cute!

Dani and Hannah had lots of fun.

Run Grandma!

Reading

Grandpa and his girl playing with the salt.

We tried to take her to the baby pool, but it was closed for the summer. So Daddy put on his trunks and took one for the team. Thanks Daddy! The water was a bit chilly for her, so we didn't last too long.

A fun week was had by all. Thanks for all your hospitality everyone! We had a great time both in Bottineau and in Garrison.

Bottineau pics

In the car again!!
What a lucky girl to have such a great Daddy!

Aves and her loot. It's very hard to believe that she's already 5 years old!!

Aves is such a good cousin! She was a very big girl and helped us take care of Dani. Thanks Averie!

Grammy's porno cake. It was fixed and clothed quickly, but I couldn't resist a little picture.

So last night Duane, Grammy and I were watching t.v. after Dani went to bed. We heard, "All done. Dada... Mama..." And then a big bang. Yes, she climbed (fell) out of her crib. We're thinking that this weekend will be our big girl bed weekend. What a little monkey!