Return of the Shenanigans

I keep telling myself that someday (hopefully soon) Daniel will learn about logic and physics and listening to warnings. In the meantime, life gets more and more interesting. For one, few surfaces in the house are safe from him now. He can reach his little hand over the edge of the table, and even thought he can't see what he's getting to, he knows to wiggle and flop his hand around til he finds something to pull down. Like animal crackers:

Which he then eats whole:

even though they are too big for his mouth, which causes him to choke:

and then cry:


He no longer gets stuck between the washer and dryer, but now he knows how to open them and put in items (like hairbrushes, computer mouses, and flip-flops):


(note: the drooliness in that second picture is pretty commonplace around here. I'm pretty sure this kid could hydrate all of Africa with his drool. He just cut teeth numbers 11 and 12, so here's hoping the drool factory slows down a bit).

But sometimes I get back at him, like making him wear a baby bonnet of mine I found in my memory box:



His newest trick is blowing filberts (when you take your open mouth against something soft and blow, making "pbhhhhbbbb" sounds). He does it against my legs, arms, and neck all the time. Better yet, he's discovered our leather furniture delivers a good sound. He continually tries to do this on the dog, usually leaning on her in the process. That alone is pretty comical (filberting doesn't work on hairy creatures), but Lucy doesn't like being filberted so she moves out of the way, causing Daniel to fall on his face. I, being the horrible mother that I am, crack up every time. So funny.

Hand-me-downs

Kenny and I don't like buying things. This is just as well, since we're living off a starting teacher's salary. We've been very lucky to inherit a good many things for free. Most recently, we inherited this couch and coffee table from a couple who moved out of the ward:

I LOVE the couch, but we're still trying to figure out how to make the coffee table fit our style a bit more. (Any suggestions, particularly from Anna Rose?) The couple that gave it to us used to be mission presidents and told us at least 6 General Authorities have sat on that couch:).

When we married, inherited a LOT of furniture from my deceased Grandma. Including this beautiful teak table:

And this bedroom set, which was meant for a Full, but we had a king... so kenny sawed it right down the middle, spread out the sides, and put some plywood and two-by-fours in the middle (we covered up the gap with some wood- and now we have extra under-the-bed storage):

(note, these pics are OLD from when we first moved into the house). I do secretly wish that my grandma didn't have such a thing for natural oak furniture, but... free is free. She also gave us a natural oak entertainment center, and a natural oak desk.

We also got a TV from Kenny's parents (which has since given up the ghost and is now a glorified alarm clock stand in the extra bedroom), a couch from Kevin and Candace, a queen and a twin mattress for very cheap (we now have TWO guest bedrooms), countless clothes for me from my sisters over the years, and toys for Daniel from ladies in the ward (we've bought maybe 6 toys for him his entire life, and he still goes for the ones we got for free). I think word has gotten out that we need/accept free stuff so we're getting lots of little things regularly. My guilt from mooching is nearly entirely gone- we make good use of what we get and in turn we happily give away the things we aren't using anymore.
And some of my favorite outfits of Daniel's were hand-me-downs from my siblings:




And now, for the happiest news, here is another hand-me-down:

A 2002 Dodge Durango.
K, we're not getting it for free, or even close, but we're getting a great deal on it. We're not completely decided on it, but unless something goes very wrong in the next month, we'll buy it when we get back from vacation.
A good friend of mine in the ward has been meaning to sell it and heard me bemoaning my carless state and offered it to us for a great price. She loaned it to us over the weekend and we fell in love with it.
I'll admit we're scared (terrified, actually) of buying an american-made car, much less one with 100k miles on it, but it's a great deal, we know it's complete history (only one owner, no mechanical problems ever, mostly freeway miles, well maintained) and... well, frankly, I want it. I'm completely biased because the idea of having a second car completely thrills me. It took a lot of budget finagling, but we can afford it even after our recent mortgage fiasco. I must admit I'm proud that we'll own TWO cars with no car payments, even if the cars are nothing to brag about. Now if we could just get rid of my student loan (at a whopping $80 a month), we'd have only a mortgage to worry about.

On a side not, we need car name suggestions. Our black civic is named Morgan (after another old black man.) I bought Kenny an Autobots and a Decepticons decal for father's day (to replace the one he lost in my car wreck), and we're pretty sure Morgan will be the Autobot (how could it be a Decepticon with a name like Morgan?), leaving Green Car to be the Decepticon. Ideas would be appreciated- I don't want it to end up like my Elantra or my Accord and never merit a name. My first car was Mephistopheles, and that was hard to top:).

Such a ham

Daniel is a huge ham. Any time we go out, he waves, giggles and smiles at everyone we see and is constantly entertaining whoever else is in line with us, or behind us in sacrament, or in the pick-up truck next to us. He just cut teeth #11 and 12 (top molars) and fortunately this teething experience wasn't as bad as tooth #10.
He is just such a joy. He makes me laugh all day long. Really, the only thing I'd change about this kid to get an ideal toddler is I'd teach him how to sleep somewhere other than his crib in complete silence. Vacation will be interesting.

The other day we discovered that the property tax people just realized that they were taxing us only half what they should be and we now need to pay another 400 a month to catch up. This came to us in the middle of me going over our budget (my 5-sheet, 1500-row excel spreadsheet) to see if we could afford a second car. We could buy the car out of our savings but to afford the month to month (and rebuild savings) we cut out our cable television and landline (I have a new cell phone number, by the way- email me if you don't have it). Things looked great and shiney before the tax thing happened, and I was very proud of our frugality. Of course, I was pretty bummed when I finally figured out that the tax people have the right numbers now, it wasn't a mistake, and we're in the hole (even without the 2nd car). So here I am, sitting on the floor sobbing, and Daniel comes in giggling and cuddling. He's never seen me cry like that before and he thought it was hilarious! It sure is hard to cry or be upset with a toddler giggling and burying his head in your shoulder. (the good news is if we refinance we can get back to the same place we were before- no 2nd car, but no debt either).

So we got some video of him being giggly and playful. They're kind of long, but I think the cuteness is worth it:

A Day at the Pool

Today we went swimming with our friends Josh and Jen at her parent's pool. Daniel and I have been doing swimming lessons together and wanted to show off his new skills.
This is his biggest new skill- the dunk:

Can't you see how much he loves it? Just kidding. Here's a more successful attempt:

He does very well but always sticks his tongue out, which is hilariously cute. He sticks his tongue out pretty mch all the time, like this pic with his BFF Jennifer:


See how well his duck tail is coming along:

I promise we'll cut it soon. I just love the curly hair too much, but I do know the mullet is hardly fashionable right now.

All in all we had a great time. I've posted lots of recent pics and videos on our web album.

Spread the Word

I'm officially done starting every post talking about what a bad inactive blogger I am. This will be the last mention of it:) I'll assume from here on out that you guys know I'm sorry about my lack of blogging.

On to my post...
An acquaintance of mine recently told me a story about how as a young unmarried woman she made some poor choices and found out she was pregnant, about 6 months into the pregnancy. Quite the shock, I'm sure. But she said "I didn't worry for a second. I knew exactly what was going to happen and where that baby was going. I was friends with a family that was eagerly awaiting an adoptive child and I knew I was the answer to their prayers."
Of course, the situation was hard and sad for her, but can you imagine how much worse it could have been if she didn't know from the start that her baby would have a loving, complete family?

So I'm spreading the word. Kenny's sister, Jeannette, her husband, Jeff, and their 4-year-old daughter, Laura, are eagerly seeking an addition to their family. They're a wonderful family, incredibly talented, tons of fun, and so full of love. Laura is adorable and bright and well-behaved and that little girl deserves to be a big sister.

They've done everything they can and have completed their end of the LDS Family Services Adoption process, and have nothing to do now but wait and hope. Check out their story and spread the word.

How things are coming along:

The Hair:


He has legit ringlets in the back but is still bald on top.
The Walking:

This is actually from about 3 weeks ago, but you can see he's gotten pretty good at walking. He doesn't "plerp" nearly as often. Still can't get to standing from sitting though.
He's also finally learned how to clap! Yay!
The Yard:


It no longer looks like a checkerboard, though it has some patches that are still "filling in". It's definitely taken root and parts grew up to 5 inches in a week last week. Whew! That's a lot of mowing (thanks, Kenny)
The Novel:
It's not. I've been way too anti-computer, then I lost my copy of MS Word (and all my files are .docx), and I've given up for a little bit. Once Daniel is old enough to understand "please don't eat the computer cord" I might start back up.
The Resolutions:
Well, it's been five months. Which of my resolutions are still going? None!
Well, not entirely. We still meal-plan and only shop once a week, and that's been a good budgeting thing for us. I no longer keep to our weekly cleaning schedule mostly because our place just doesn't require that much cleaning. I clean when needed. Unfortunately, this means there are days when I have no idea what productive (and baby-friendly) thing to do. It doesn't help that Daniel HATES the vacuum cleaner.
I did stop hanging out on my online bulletin boards- I was spending way too much time on them and in the end I got too emotionally involved and when the board started falling apart it hurt too much. It's been 4 months since I've been on those sites at all, though I still miss those ladies and the friendly, useful mommying advice I got there. I still use my internet timer and generally I spend one hour on the internet a day (it may seem like more if you follow me on facebook, but really- I just hop online for 3-minute increments at a time).

A Day Downtown

I've been bugging Kenny for months to take Daniel and I down to Discovery Green park in downtown houston so Daniel and I could play in the fountain. Finally, Saturday was our day. We had a blast. At first Daniel just hung out on the side, looking a little confused but still interested:

Then he ventured in:




He happily weaved through the fountains (which popped in and out of the ground at random):

And was even a good sport when he got overwhelmed:


In other news, Daniel has learned how to get into kitchen cupboards (no worries, any cupboard with something dangerous in it has been baby-proofed).