A sense of humor

I have been having sinus trouble that was making it hard to wear my glasses. The pressure on my nose was painful. So I took them off and laid them on the counter. A bit later I hear Eva's little voice saying, "Mama, where are your gwasses?" I looked up to see her little face peering over the kitchen counter, wearing my glasses with a huge grin.

What a turkey.

A midnight visitor

When Brendan started getting up at 6am and coming to wake us up, I bought all the kids digital clocks and taught him (and have tried to teach Eva since) to only come to get Mom and Dad when he sees a 7 at the beginning of the time. Well, a few nights ago, Eva came into our room. She snuggled in with us (on Jason's side because Daddy is the coolest) and I remember thinking it was a little odd. She usually comes to visit us in the morning but rarely at night. I figured she had a bad dream. She must have been really wiggly because at 1:00am Jason said, "Okay Eva, its time to go back to your bed."

"I can't, Daddy. There's a sound in my room!"

"A what?"

"A sound in my room!"

And so Jason went to investigate. When he opened the door a blaring alarm was going off. Eva must have been messing with the clock buttons and turned on the alarm, which has a default time of 12:00. I'd be scared too if an alarm like that woke me up in the middle of the night and I didn't know how to turn it off. So, she did indeed have a "sound in her room". Poor girl.

Harvest Fest

3rd Group Special Forces (the unit Jason works with) had their annual Harvest Fest this past weekend. It was the first time I let the kids wear their costumes.

It was on Friday and contained bouncy houses, a hayride, a haunted house, lots of food and a trunk or treat. It was TONS of fun. The costumes that we saw were excellent. There was a lot of food and snacks. Eva got her first taste of cotton candy while Darby preferred the popcorn.

The "haunted" hayride was pretty cute. Darbs wasn't quite sure what to make the whole thing and stayed on my lap eating her popcorn during the ride. An FRG member read a spooky story and a scarecrow on the ride said, "Boo!" to the kids at the end of it. The funny thing is that Brendan professed that he wasn't afraid of anything as we got on the hayride. He repeated this to a cute blonde twenty-something lady that he sat down by. After the scarecrow said, "Boo!" and he squealed, Brendan told her, "Okay, maybe I am scared of one thing."

We ran into some friends and Brendan went to the kiddie haunted house with them while I took the girls to the bouncy houses. He again made a big show about it being "not scary." Due to his costume, people would say things like, "Hello Spiderman." He would feel inclined to tell them that he wasn't the real Spiderman, it was just a costume. Such a literal kid.

There were many trunks at the trunk or treat and the decorations were the best I have ever seen. The Fort Bragg fire department was even there with a real firetruck. The kids got to go inside, which they LOVED.

The candy haul was really good too. I couldn't get Darby to say "Trick or treat" for anything but she would say "thank you" sometimes. Eva caught on fast and Brendan was a pro. I'll admit I snuck candy from their bags.

The kids were all very excited to wear their costumes and I think Halloween night will be a lot of fun for them. This was kind of a practice run. Here's how Eva felt about the whole night.

Darby today

This morning Darby brought me this pair of bloomers and insisted that I put them on her head. She kept telling me they were a hat. I told her that they were "underwear", and so did her siblings, but she cried and threw a fit until she got to wear them. At least she didn't want to wear them to church.

When I came out of my last church meeting today to get the kids I saw that one of our neighbors was holding Darby. This is unusual since the nursery does not release the kids at the end of church, you have to go and get them. Apparently she had escaped from nursery and this neighbor caught her trying to get out of the building. Sheesh. Do we have another Eva on our hands? When I scolded her she just gave me a big smile and hug. Little stinker.

Corn Field Maze

Every October since we have been dating, Jason and I have gone to a corn field maze. We have been in three states (AZ, CA, and NC) and even manged with children tagging along. It was becoming a fun tradition. Well, this October was getting a bit hectic on the calendar and so we set aside last Saturday as the day we'd go as a family. There are a few local mazes and we chose one we hadn't been to yet. Apparently lots of other people had the same idea because it was packed. Bummer.

There was a bouncy house, playground, hayride, pumpkin patch, and performances on stage in addition to the maze. The older kids wanted to go right to the playground first. I took Darby and we meandered the pumpkin patch since that's what intrigued her most. Even though it was right after her nap she was SO cranky. She has hit the stage where everything is "I do it myself" and doesn't take kindly to listening to directions or not being allowed to walk where she wants. I was regretting leaving the stroller in the car (we had the baby backpack for the maze part of the outing). Finally, riding on the tricycle (or rather me pushing her on the tricycle) made her happy.

When we made our way back to Jason, he gave the older two the five minute warning and told them we'd go to the bouncy house next. When five minutes were up, we couldn't find Eva. The play area was fenced in so we spent over fifteen minutes checking all the play structures, while keeping an eye on Bubbs and Darby. She must have climbed the fence because she wasn't in there. So we started to search the farm. After about another fifteen minutes, I found her. She was hanging around the hay ride line and one of the farm workers had noticed her and picked her up, getting ready to find her parents. Sigh. I wasn't quite to the panic part yet but I was nearly there.

Next the older kids got to jump on the bouncy and I walked around with Crankypants since jumping isn't a preferred activity for a pregnant lady.

After that, Jason waited in the hay ride line while I took the kids to look at pumpkins.

I tried to get a picture with all three kids looking at me. What was I thinking? This final shot is the magic work of Photoshop merging three separate pictures together. And they are all at least looking somewhat in my direction. Sheesh.

The kids loved the hay ride. It was a highlight of the trip.

By then kids were all exhausted and behaving poorly by this time. We had to make the choice and decided an additional hour in a corn maze with them would be torture for all involved. Sadly we packed up and went home. Jason and I hope to make it back for a date with just the two of us so as to not break tradition. But hey, we get points for trying, right?

Here are some cute pictures I got that day.

A morning run

If you have ever spent any time around Eva you will notice that she never walks anywhere. I mean it. She either runs or skips or jumps or bee-bops or whatever. When she was littler she used to ask us, "Running? Running?" to get us to chase her. Now its a family term - when you need to go somewhere fast on foot you go "running, running".

Anyway, Jason had today off (yay for the Army's observance of every federal holiday) and so he woke up and wanted to go on his jog before we had to leave for Eva's speech class. He got dressed in his running clothes and told me where he was going. Eva overheard and declared that she wanted to go running. She was still in her pajamas but was adamant that she go too. So Jason, being the nice daddy that he is, told her to get her shoes and that they could go on a run. And they ran around the block. Jason told me later that the high schoolers who were waiting for the bus were pointing and "ooh"-ing" and "ah"-ing over the little girl in a Tinkerbell nightgown and red Croc mary janes running with her dad. I'll admit, I thought she was pretty cute too. Here she is stretching after her "workout." Jason says she wasn't even winded at all. Go figure.

A nice surprise

Jason here. Have you ever had your expectations wildly exceeded? The McDaniel family has recently in the form of a small orange snail. That's right, a SNAIL.


We bought a snail a few months back for Brendan's fish tank. It died the next day. So we thought we might try again. I went to the store and had the guy there pick out what I hoped to be a snail in slightly better shape. I remember asking the guy if he had any favorites. He gave me this funny look and said, "Uh... a favorite snail? No. What color is your fish?" "Red." "Try this gold one." He reached into the tank and grabbed a gold snail, put him in a bag and I paid $2.12 and went home. We dropped our new snail into Bubb's tank and away we went. We kept checking on it to make sure it wasn't dead. Every time we did Snail was in a new spot. He was quite fast and ended up in some interesting places. We were impressed. Then we came home later and this snail was perched atop one of the small spiny aquatic plants looking quite asleep. How he got up there I have no idea. I mean, its not like it had broad leaves to climb or that he has hands to hold onto the plastic spiky "leaves". Right then we knew that this was a special snail who had probably just graduated from the Shaolin Temple Snail Training Program.

I call him Master Oogway after the turtle from Kung Fu Panda.

Christine just calls him "Ninja Snail." Either way, you get the idea. He's pretty awesome.

Fall is here!

It has been consistently cooler this week so I can say that autumn has arrived in Fayetteville, finally. One of my favorite parts of fall is the clothes. I love layers, wearing sweaters and jackets and I adore tights with boots on little girls. I had a lot of fun getting out the autumn clothes and getting the kids dressed this morning. Happy Fall!

Military wards

In our married lives we have been in a variety of wards in the church. Most have been small and lopsided in that they were very low in youth and Primary and heavy on the "older generation". We were even in a stake that was so small it was dissolved and the ward members were absorbed into surrounding stakes. As a result we have held multiple callings at one time and felt it was normal. We were in an average sized ward for about 5 months right before we moved to San Rafael . After that we went to San Rafael 2nd ward which was a unique ward in that a large portion was transient dental students. Things in that ward fluctuated with the school year. But the ward we are currently in is very different from any other for many reasons. I have been thinking a bit about this recently. Here are some things that, in my experience, you will find in military wards that aren't common in other ones.

- The largest Primary in the stake with the smallest available priesthood.

- Ward members have likely lived in more places than the average member and are extremely well traveled.

- There are more acronyms used in the average conversation. I swear it must sound like a foreign language to non-military types. "After BCT we are going to PCS because my husband's MOS changed before going on TDY."

- The amount of moms who go to church alone is easily double that in any other ward I've been in. In fact, its common to never have seen your friend's husband unless you have lived in the ward for over a year.

- There are so many move out and move ins. That in itself is not too odd but what is abnormal is that the Elder's Quorum rarely needs to help out (movers do it all).

- Its very common for a person you barely know to come up to you and tell you they have seen your spouse recently. That spouse is thousands of miles away and you haven't seen them in months. And you don't think anything odd about this phenomenon.

- Scout leaders are supremely qualified and possess crazy skills like parachuting, hand to hand combat, extreme backpacking and being able to jerry rig just about anything with tape, floss and/or 550 cord (another military thing I knew nothing about until I married Jason. Now we have plenty of it on hand).

- Prayers from the pulpit frequently mention the physical safety of its members. Think about it, those of you in non military wards. How often do your opening and closing prayers in church meetings plead with the Lord to keep the priesthood from being hurt or killed? I know our previous wards didn't mention it in just about every prayer.

- Fourth of July is WAY bigger than 24th of July.

These are some of the differences. Its an interesting place we find ourselves in. The military sure has a unique culture.

Jumpmaster School

Jason here. The day after I got home from Afghanistan, I heard I was going to Jumpmaster School in 9 days. I know what you are thinking: what business does a DENTIST have going to jump master school? In any unit that is on jump status there have to be a certain number of qualified and current individuals who conduct and supervise the jumps. Those people are jump masters and our unit is critically short on them. So anyone who wants to go, goes. Even the dentist.

The training was three weeks long with Sundays off, but it felt longer. It was all day long of being in parachute harnesses getting manhandled as student furiously tried to make the inspection sequence in the allotted time. The standard for the school is that you have to inspect three jumpers, one with combat equipment in 5 minutes without missing any major gigs. It was tough! It really tore my hands up. This is a picture of my fingers that had twin blood blisters from tracing and poking things all day long.



After a while it hurt to touch anything.


I made a bunch of buddies though and generally had a good time, except for the part where I failed the actions in the aircraft.

What we had to do was go through a series of time warnings and commands. Things like: FOUR MINUTES, GET READY, HOOK UP, CHECK EQUIPMENT (all caps because you had to YELL to be heard over the engines and the rushing wind of the open door.) When you were done getting everyone ready, you stuck your head out of the door to check for other aircraft in the area and to look for your reference points around the drop zone. By the way, if you are wondering what it is like to stick your head out of a flying plane, just drive down the freeway at about 80mph, open the window and plop your head out. Whatever you do, don't open your mouth. Your face will inflate like a circus balloon. Anyways, after you did all your checks and were over the spot where you thought you should jump, you gave the thumbs up to the instructor who gave you a thumbs up or thumbs down. Thumbs up and you were golden and then you jumped out the plane. Thumbs down meant you did something wrong and you took a seat.


(This was taken during our jump week from a blackhawk helicopter)

One of the guys who went before I did jumped out and landed in a tree. That meant that no one else could jump until they got him and his parachute down. He was fine, but it took a half hour. Meanwhile, 8 out of 11 people who went after him messed up, including myself. This was the day before graduation and I was pretty bummed about it. The morning of graduation the no-gos retested and we all passed and graduated.

The graduation was typical SF. They welcomed everyone out, announced the honor grad, handed each student his certificate, and that was that. No speech or hoopla or anything. Pretty nice. My boss came out (who is a great guy) and gave all of the GSC grads a big knife and an armband with our names on it to use when we do our jump master duties. Pretty cool.

All in all I had a good time but I am ready for a break, heck I haven't even inprocessed from my return from Afghanistan.