Hi, old friends

If I were to have posted more in the last month, they would have all gone something like this:
We're having fun. Daniel is a little ball of fun. Some days my cheeks hurt from laughing and smiling so much. Take these videos for example:


He now understands most of what we say and is great at following instructions like "pick it up", "put it away", "go downstairs", or "press this button". The other day he spilled some milk on the floor, so I handed him a paper towel and asked him to clean it up, thinking "I'll let him pretend to help ME clean it up". He went promptly to the mess and scrubbed it all up completely by himself. I nearly died of shock that my baby is old enough to finally clean up his own messes a bit.

Still no talking. We had a few "dadas" but for the most part, Daniel knows how to babble plenty but not how to put meaning to sound. I'm not really worried, but I am eager for him to be able to express himself more clearly. His feet are fat enough that he barely fits in many size 7 shoes, but of course those are all 3 inches too long at the toes, so he is still usually barefoot.
Kenny went back to school a week ago for Teacher Work days, and next Monday is the start of classes. He's teaching the same class as last year, 9th grade Algebra. Having a car during the days is marvelous and I can already tell a major difference in the atmosphere of our home, not having two cabin-fever crazy people running around.
We are renting out our large upstairs guest bedroom to a friend in the ward, Corinne. Corinne was baptized into our ward last February and she and I have become pretty good friends. When we found out she needed a place to stay, and we realized that we need just a few hundred dollars more each month to make it by, this seemed like a great solution. She's already been a great help around the house and it's wonderful for me to have an adult to converse with during the day. Daniel and Lucy both adore her, more so than any other adult we've had in our home.
The only real "event" of the last month or so is that we went to visit Kenny's sister Jeannette and her family in Fort Worth. They kindly even allowed Lucy to come with us- her first big vacation! We had a wonderful time. We went to a local waterpark where Daniel thought he was just in heaven, then came back home for a s'mores party in their backyard, commemorating national s'mores day (my kind of holiday). Here are pictures of that trip and other recent happenings: