Hopefully...

I don't want to jinx things, but we are at 6 days and counting that Dane has woke up dry in the morning. He has also been wearing his "big boy" underwear during the daytime since Sunday with no accidents. We'll keep our fingers crossed! Just some recent pictures.

Athletic and artistic?

Nora practices her jumping and screaming. A little young to try out for the cheerleading squad, if you ask me!

Finger painting with sweet potatoes. Loads of fun!

Almost 3

Dane has almost perfected his wink. Watch out, ladies!!

He has been saying the funniest things recently. We started writing them down so that we can look back and laugh.

On a walk the other day- Dane: "Momma, why is that car passing us?"

Me: "Because it's going faster than us."

Dane: "Why is it going faster than us?"

Me: "Because it's a car."

Dane: "What's it doing now, Momma?"

Me: "It's turning around."

Dane: "Why is it turning around, Momma?"

Me: "Because it's a dead end up ahead."

Dane: "Why is it a dead end?" ( Do you see the pattern yet?)

Me: "You ask lots of tough questions, Dane."

Dane: "Yes, I do."

Me: "Oops. Excuse me. I just passed some gas."

Dane: "I just passed three gasses."

The other evening during our potty training crusades-

Daddy: "Dane, please stay on the potty and try to go."

Dane: "I need to stay off the potty."

We are making some slow progress here, but the battle is definitely not won yet!

Tonight, as Dane was playing around the house and narrating his play: "My ball just went over the couch, of course!"

Fun & Games

Just a lazy evening at home together.

This is Nora's new little trick. She will not hold a ball in each hand. If you hand her another ball, she drops the first one she was holding, then transfers the ball from her left hand to her right hand. It's almost as though she's juggling.

8 months

Our sweet little peanut will be 8 months old tomorrow. A year ago tonight, Mike was able to feel her kicking in utero for the first time. We were pretty convinced that we would have another little boy because she was always so busy, and her ultrasounds looked so much like Dane. We're more than happy that she turned out to be our little princess! She doesn't actually pull herself up yet, but she's getting better at holding herself up for a while. Her favorite activity is still bouncing in her Jumperoo. Must be kind of like all the kicking she used to do in Mommy's tummy! Nora finally pushed those two bottom teeth through a week ago after all those months of chewing and drooling! That's the reason for the tongue you see on many of her recent pictures. She likes to feel those little teeth, it seems. We love you, Baby Girl!!

A wonderful Valentine's Day

Getting ready to open Valentine's Day gifts from Daddy and Mommy.

Daddy found these great toy 1957 Corvettes for the kids. They both love them!

After a nice lazy morning at home (and a breakfast of chocolate cake for me!) we took Dane up to Mount Charleston to do some skiing. It was a gorgeous day, and they had gotten 11 inches of new snow the night before. I even did a couple of runs on skis- my first time in over 8 years since I started snowboarding. It wasn't too bad, but I'm not ready to give up my snowboard any time soon!

Dane in some fresh powder.

Dane is getting pretty good on his skis by himself. He's even learning to turn himself a bit, especially to find the nice deep snow along the groomed runs. This video is a bit shaky as I was running along behind him, just trying to keep up. He really cruises!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Our favorite little Valentines!

Matching personalized shirts from Grampy and Grammy. Thank you!!!

Mike brought home this beautiful (and delicious, I'm sure) chocolate cake with raspberry cream filling. Can't wait to try a piece!

And we're out the door for a wonderful double date night with Jeff and Renee. Melting Pot, here we come!!

Pictures from the past week

Dane's second day of skiing, and he got to meet Riperoo!

Heading up the lift with Daddy. Looking quite cool in their shades, I must admit!
Some backcountry goofin' off!

Grammy and her kiddos by beautiful Lake Tahoe last Friday evening.

We passed through the town of Goldfield, NV on our trip to and from Lake Tahoe. In the early 1900's, it was the largest town in all of Nevada with around 20,000 people during the gold boom. Now it's mostly a ghost town, but they have kept up this cute fire station and the old fire truck which Dane was most intrigued by.

"Am I supposed to smile like this for the picture, Daddy?"

Early morning snuggles before Mommy heads off to work.

Mike had a rather busy week at work with his national conference here in Vegas. Then I was on call this weekend and put in a long day yesterday, so he didn't really get his Saturday off. He proved again why I married the most amazing guy in the world. During my day at work, he took care of the kiddos (even made their beds!), washed, dried, folded and put away every bit of dirty laundry in the house, ran and emptied the dishwasher, fixed a leaky pipe on our water softener, and took the kids and dog for a walk to the park. Impressive, isn't it?

Videos

I didn't forget that I had promised videos after my last post a week and a half ago! Here is little Miss Nora learning to patty cake.

As you can tell, Dane loved to ski, and he does pretty well! Hats off to Mike who shot this video while skiing backwards in front of Dane!

Mike's already teaching Dane the fine art of jumping on skis! When I first met Mike, he and his brother would pile up snow in their farm yard and take turns pulling each other on skis behind the four-wheeler (or truck or snowmobile). They would hit the pile of snow and do backflips and other crazy things. Oh, the joys I have ahead of me as my daring boy grows up and becomes even more daring!