Birthdays Galore!

It's been a couple weeks, but we're rolling again!  Summer's just around the corner and wouldn't ya know it, it's starting to actually stay warm outside.  I'll have you know, however, that just around the corner, we're looking at close-to-freezing temperatures again this Wednesday/Thursday.  Oh joy!  We've had a lot happen in the past couple weeks and a lot coming up.  I've personally had big contest performances, a Pancake Feed fundraiser, musical performances, and lots of quality time with Daniel.  Katie's been finishing up her UNO classes and keeping busy with school work.

Fun with backpacks.

This past weekend, in between musical performances for me, we had our families over to celebrate some birthdays, mine on May 4th, my brother, Eric's on May 2nd, and my father's on April 29th.  It was nice getting everyone together.  We got some great cousins pictures and enjoyed some of the smallest charred-hamburgers this side of the Missouri.  Brats were pretty good.  Maybe I'll stick to brats.  I'm not kidding, I literally shrunk these burgers to half a bun's width.  You might not have thought that possible.  Gordon Ramsay would kill me...

Birthday fun.

This upcoming weekend, my sister and her fiancé are getting married.  I always love weekends like this because it means lots of family time, unhealthy food, and dancing (although my dancing is less than appetizing).  I'm excited to see my Nana (my mother's mother) from Alabama.  Very happy for Jason and Tina.  They're excellent together.

He's talking to the dog on the package.

Daniel just continues to impress.  He's such a routine-orientated guy.  I don't feel like we're that rigid with him, but he just likes things to be in a place or happen a certain way.  As stated in previous posts, this is for better or worse.  A somewhat unrelated note to self from last night, eating soup is no bueno for Daniel.  If I drain the broth, he seems to do okay.  I also need to cut the noodles up.  I was able to get some veggies in there too.  That was muy bueno.  We worked on his bubble-making skills yesterday.  He usually just takes the bubble-dipping mechanism and shakes it violently, not allowing any bubble slime to stay on.  He likes getting "wet", but it makes for a messy venture.  We'll keep working.

Off to school...

...oh yeah...forgot my pants.

Fun to see the similarities between me and Daniel.  

Growing Up So Fast

Man...it seems like Daniel is just making such great strides these last couple of weeks.  His attention to detail when it comes to routines is pretty great....most of the time.  He certainly gets very upset when things are out of order or against his wishes.  We've really been working hard on teaching him ways to communicate with us, because we find that's one of the times he gets really frustrated is when he wants something or is ready for something and we...don't know what that something IS!  Again, routines and certain words seem to help.  One of the best ideas (from Katie) was to teach Daniel to say "Help, please" when he would get frustrated with something.  Situations like getting stuck somewhere, not being able to get a lid back on can, not being able to find a certain page in a book.  He used to just get pretty darn upset, but he's much more calm and communicates so much better from just say "Helpee"...which is how it comes out.

Good speller.

A couple notes of some fun displays by our little guy, Daniel.  He's a very helpful guy.  He helps with the laundry and dishes.  I can give him his socks or PJs or shoes or pants or even shirts and he'll know where they go in his room...they don't stay folded, but it's a good start!  I'll take all the knives and sharp objects out when unloading our dishwasher and he'll proceed to hand me dishes or even put away items where he can access the cabinets/drawers (pots/pans).  He always helps clean up at night, he's usually very good with directions, and he's eating at the table very well for the most part.

I put him in the swing backwards...whoops.

This last week was pretty blazay (spelling?).  I had an honor band last weekend which is always bittersweet because I have a good time, but it often means an entire day without any time with Daniel.  Makes me look forward to getting more time in the summer.  We did get some big news for Katie.  As of this week, she will be working in the Papillion-LaVista School District this upcoming year at Trumble Park Elementary.  I know she would say that she truly loved Millard and will miss it terribly, but this will be a great opportunity for her and she's very excited to have her very own classroom and building.  I am truly ecstatic for her and know that Trumble Park is going to be extremely blessed to have her...also...it's about 5 minutes from our house =)  Katie's also been very, very busy with some graduate courses she's taking towards her Masters.  She just finished off some big benchmarks this week, so I know she has some relief, even if it's little.

Reuinted!

Lots of writing this week!  Looking forward to a nice rest of the week and hoping that you all have a nice time as well!