"Scouting" around

So my latest calling in the church is (drum roll please). . . den leader. They could not have asked me to serve anywhere else in the church that I have less of an idea what I'm doing. My first den meeting will be in two weeks and I got the handbooks today. I am to be in charge of the boys ages 8 - 11. Upon reading through the handbooks (Bear, Wolf, Webelo) I discovered that the training of 6 years as an elementary teacher is going to come in pretty handy. I already have a few ideas for projects that go right along with the electives in the book. It is like making a lesson plan again (except these lesson plans are almost all fun activities and require no grading.) I always liked creating lessons.

As for my family, I can't believe how fast Brendan has grown. Not so much physical but intellectually. He talks so much more now and is interested in things like numbers, letters, animal sounds, etc. He even got into coloring this week (without eating the crayons). He can count to 14 using the right numbers; he mainly counts the stairs as he goes up and down (there are only 14). He tries to sing the ABC song and gets about 10 of the letters right. It just goes to show that when kids are interested and ready are the times to teach.

We took a walk a cute little park close by called Gerstle Park. The best part of the trip was walking by all these amazing old houses. There are so many old Victorian style homes, built in the early 1900s. They are beautiful with several stories, bay windows and architectural details. I love them. I would have gotten pictures but I was unsure how people would feel if some lady was taking pictures of their house. At the park Brendan ignored the toddler playground and tried the big kid playground. That only lasted a few minutes.
Then he spotted the ultimate in playthings - vehicles! He then mostly played with the trucks in the sandbox. When we left he said, "Bye truck!" He is obsessed with anything with wheels.

Too many wiggles

All right, I admit it! I am a Photoshop junkie. I love to tweak pictures. Too bad most of my initial pictures need tweaking. :) Anyway, this past summer my family had a reunion. We tried to get a picture of all the grandkids on the playset. We figured it would be more likely to get pictures with smiles in them if they could be playing while we took the picture. Well, all did not go as planned. I'll never understand how large families can get decent family photos with everyone looking the same direction. So I gathered the five shots that my sister took and made a collage using Photoshop since none of the pictures had every child looking at the camera or happy. One of my nephews was having a particularly hard time (he was teething). Here you go!

Of books, bowels and BMW's

Okay, so here is the latest of the antics of Mr. Brendan McDaniel. He is such a crazy little man! He makes us laugh (and just shake our heads in bewilderment) all the time.
First, the book part. He received his quiet book from his Great Grandma Evie. He loves it. His favorite part is the balloon page. He loves to take them off as he counts them (he now uses the numbers 2 and 6 when he counts). Brendan is pretty good at matching the colors too. He also likes the clown face page with Velcro nose, eyes, mouth and ears. Oddly enough though, he shows little interest in the page with an awesome plane that has an opening for a paratrooper to jump out. My grandma made a little paratrooper and parachute and everything. She is so cool! Well, that is Jason's favorite page. Here is a picture of Brendan with his favorite page.


Now on to the bowels part. First of all let me say that I am probably a lucky parent that he has not done these things before now. He has not shown much interest in "potty things". Well, the other day I was upstairs and Jason was on his laptop at the kitchen table. Brendan was sitting in the computer chair in the living room watching some cartoon. He had gotten dinner all over his lap earlier so he was just in a shirt and diaper. I came downstairs and as I did, Jason yells, "He took off his diaper," (pause for closer examination) "and he peed all over the chair!" So Daddy gets to take the boy upstairs for cleanup and bedtime while Mommy cleans the chair. Thank goodness there are some wonderful products available for getting the urine smell out of furniture. Then today, he pooped in his bathwater right before church. Oh yea. I realize that seasoned parents will say, "Ah, I remember when my little baby did that," then chuckle and think that there are many more stories of mayhem to come. I just hope we will be blessedly lacking in more bowel movement stories.

Finally, the story of the BMW. We were getting out of the car after church to walk up to the apartment. As anyone who has met him knows, he loves cars. Of all the cars in the parking lot, he runs over to a sparklingly clean, shiny, expensive BMW. We call to him but he does not listen. He runs his hand along the bumper and promptly smacks the taillight with his fist. Next, while Jason is running to get him since we do not want this car's alarm to go off, Brendan gives the car a good headbutt, twice before Daddy gets there. What a crazy kid!

Exploring

Well, after those two melancholy posts, let's move to some good news. The morning sickness has passed and, despite being more fatigued than usual, I feel pretty good. Poor Brendan has been so cooped up in the house with me these past few months since I felt nauseated at a moment's notice. So, now that I am an energized mommy again, we have been going out for daily walks. A friend told me about two more playgrounds that are within a mile of our apartment. We tried out one today. I loaded Bubba up in the stroller and we headed out to Boyd Park.

The playground resembles a castle, complete with a dragon to ride on. It wasn't the most fantastic park I have ever seen, but it is not hard to impress a two year old. Brendan played on the slide and the dragon most of the time. We stayed for about an hour and then walked home for lunch. It was nice to get out and for me to get some exercise (the walk to the park is uphill). On weeks when I have the car, we will try some other, father away parks.

Home

I have been thinking lately, "When do you call a place home?" The other day I was talking to Jason and I referred to our apartment in Phoenix as "home" without even realizing it. We haven't lived there in 2 months. Is it the amount of time you live someplace? Is it the friends you make? Is it your familiarity with that place? Is it the memories you made there? What is it about somewhere that really makes it home? Even though it is so beautiful here and I like it, it is not quite home yet. I am working on that. :)
I guess it is hard to live somewhere for 8 years (like I did in the Phoenix area) and not miss it for a while. I miss the wonderful friends I had there. I miss visiting my school (Dysart Elementary will always be "my school"). I miss walking just across the parking lot to see friends. I miss all the lovely people in our ward who adopted us as one of their own children and spoiled my son. And I miss knowing street names and not having to check a map before I go anywhere.
I am lucky though, that I got to take the most important people with me on this new adventure - Jason and Brendan. I guess they are my "home". Any thoughts?

Rough Week

Jason here. This has been the most difficult week of school so far. Monday was an anatomy "quiz"(it's really an exam) that I didn't do very well on at all. I got caught with my pants down of a few different things that I completely skipped over in my studies. I thought I was going to do pretty well on it. Then our wax-ups of one of the front teeth was due and that really didn't turn out either. I ended up getting a mediocre grade on it. Yesterday we had our first operative practical. This practical consisted of excavating a molar to prepare it for a metal filling. To get ready everyone stayed a few extra hours every night this week. I had been getting ready a little bit everyday after school for the last few weeks, so I felt pretty good. I still stayed late anyways though. I finished 23 preparation cuts to get ready for this one practical. Well, on the practical I didn't cut to the needed depth and failed. I am thinking I probably cut 23 bad preps to get ready. Guess I needed some better feedback. Oh well.
If you are having problems developing the hand skills then the school sends an invitation to attend remedial training Saturday mornings given by faculty (which is actually really, really cool of them to do). I think that I may be getting one of these special invitations. I have jokingly referred to this as "The Breakfast Club," (remember the 80's movie?)and am going to run for the club president position.

Baby pictures

Yesterday I went in for my doctor's appointment. I am 13 weeks pregnant so the nurse did a sonogram to check the due date and measure and stuff. She tried but was not able to get the shot she wanted (the top of the head at the crown - the widest point to measure) because of how the baby was situated and how he/she was moving around. I didn't mind because I get over 10 minutes of watching the baby on the screen. What a wiggly little one, especially with the arms. I got to see the heart beating and him/her sucking his/her thumb. It is just amazing and makes everything so much more real. Brendan came in with me and got to see the screen as well. I kept telling him that it was a baby. He would point and say "baby" but I don't think he quite gets it yet. :)
I tried scanning in the sonogram screen shots that the nurse printed for me but the files were too big. Oh well, most people (Jason included) can't make heads or tails of them anyway. On September 27th we go in for the ultrasound. Then we'll know if Brendan has a baby sister or baby brother.

Tidbits

What mom can't resist telling others about her child's cute moments? So I have to tell you some things that Brendan has done or said. First, he loves to count. But he's not very good at it. In Brendan-land the number sequence goes "1,3,4,5,9,10" and the "10" is said with great enthusiasm. He has also taken an interest in the ABC song and only sings the first part as "A,C,B,C". Lastly, the other night he was climbing on the chairs, like he is NOT supposed to do, and Jason told him to get down. So he tried to sit down and missed the seat. He fell right on his back and burst into tears. He went over to his Daddy for hugs and said, "I fall Daddy". Awwww.

Time flies

Can you believe it? Our baby boy turned two yesterday! I taught him to say, "I'm two!" Though he has no idea what it means he gets smiles when he does it so he repeats himself. I let him have a birthday cupcake as part of breakfast. He loved that.

We then went to the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield to meet up with my mom and kids and take the tour. We had to wear silly Jelly Belly worker hats. I was very surprised that Brendan left his on the whole time but maybe it was because everyone else was wearing one too. He loved watching the machinery and tasting the samples at the end. We found out that he likes black licorice.


We then went out to lunch at Round Table pizza where we put two candles in a cupcakes and sang the birthday song. After that he opened the present from my parents - a new Hot Wheels car and a Humpty Dumpty that my mom made. I Had one just like it when I was a kid. Well, Humpty soon became a driving track for the car. Boys will be boys. :)


Later that night when Daddy got home we had a dinner with some of Brendan's favorite foods - soup and quesadillas. Then one more cupcake and the birthday song again (so Daddy could sing too). Daddy got some frosting kisses too. And yes, if you are counting, that is three cupcakes in one day! I'm such a bad mommy.


Then we walked to Baskin Robbins for ice cream and the birthday boy was SO wired! He nearly ran into the street!

When we got home he opened the rest of his presents - a Cars blanket from us, a stuffed elephant from Jason's parents, a hand knitted scarf from his Aunt Amber and uncle Aaron and a remote control car from our good friend, Carolyn. Thank you to all of you.

Though he played with all his new toys, his favorite was, of course, the big car. But when Jason moved it around with the controller, he freaked out and cried. He kept asking Dad to "Fix" and kept pulling on the wire. So, reluctantly Jason removed the motor and now Brendan just pushes it around. He LOVES it! He even took it to bed with him that night. Sigh, what can you do?