Birthday Fun Continued at the Magic House

I am still a week behind blogging about all of Dane's birthday fun! Dave has been on vacation since July 20th and we have been loving every minute of it. I know Dane and I are both going to be soo sad on Sunday when he has to go back to work.

Exactly one week after Dane's birthday we get to celebrate Dave's birthday! Happy Birthday to a great husband and father! We enjoyed birthday dinner at Mama and Papa's house and then had ice cream cake. We hope you enjoyed your day!

Now back to Dane's birthday celebrations.....after a trip to the zoo in the morning and a long nap we bar-b-qued at Mama and Papa's house with the Aunt Amy, Uncle Darnel, Aunt Kara, and all the kids. We then headed up to the Magic House as Aunt Katie's guests. It was Missouri Baptist University night and she invited us all to join her.

Dane ran the whole time we were there. He followed Delaney and Trey alot and did everything they did. There are a lot of pictures here, but he did so much that I just followed him around snapping pictures.

Playing in the Childrens' Hospital Room

Loving on the baby doll

Dr. Frost

Dr. Emerson checking on the baby

Going down the slide

Sand table fun

Delaney's filling his car with gas for him.

Shopping in the grocery store...climbing the shelves to get what he wants!

Changing a tire on the car

The Restaurant

Claire working the register

Fishing with Daddy

Water table fun

Outside to the construction site

A fun night at the Magic House! Thanks Aunt Katie!

Birthday Trip to the Zoo

We started Dane's birthday celebration with a trip to the St. Louis Zoo. Aunt Katie and Papa came long to help us celebrate. Mama was working at the zoo with Childrens Hospital Thursday so we made several stops by her area to visit as well.

It was supposed to be pretty hot on Thursday, so we were at the zoo by 7:45 a.m. A big bonus was that the carousel, stingrays, and the Childrens Zoo are all free before 9:00. We decided to head to the carousel first. Mama's Children's Hospital tent was right next to the carousel so we were able to see her right away.

As we walked toward the carousel we saw a couple of bears out early and then decided to go into the Penguin House. There were only 2 other people in there this early. Dane loved the penguins.

Papa held him up so he could get a good look.

He would point as they swam by.
He watched them for quite a while.

Every so often they would splash water out and he would crack up.

Daddy held him up high to look at some more penguins.

We went to the carousel and were able to jump right on.

Getting so big that Daddy doesn't need to hold on to him anymore.

Even at 8:00 in the morning it was getting too hot for this bear.

Dane kept saying, "Bear, water."

Our next stop was the Stingrays and the Sharks!

Just waiting for one to come by.

Perfect timing! We got to the Childrens' Zoo about 8:45 and could spend the rest of our time there. We saw the goats first.

Hugging onto the goats just like he does with Max.

Coming down the giant slide

Dane eagerly climbed into the hippo's mouth.

He didn't want to hang out long enough for a picture though.

And the next stop was the sprinklers. It was hot and it was his birthday, so we just took off his shoes and let him go play.

He ran all over and got soaking wet, but he had a ball.

We had to start walking around a bit to get dried off.

Petting the Guinea Pigs

At this point it was getting pretty hot. We had about a half hour before we met Mama for lunch. Mama and Papa are Grandparent Zoo Members so they have special passes. We decided to redeem passes for the train. Dane has recently discovered trains (thanks to his cousin, Trey) and absolutely LOVES them so he was thrilled to ride the train. He hung with Daddy for the beginning of the ride.

He then jumped back and sat with Papa for the rest of the ride.

He was getting hot and tired and was ready for his birthday lunch at the zoo...thanks to Mama and Papa's Grandparent Pass.

We met Mama and had lunch. After lunch we headed to the car. Dane was sound asleep before we even got on the highway.

I am hoping we can head to the zoo at least once more this year. Dane loved it and perhaps there will be more animals out when it is not quite so hot!

Happy 2nd Birthday to Dane!

Dane turned two on Thursday, July 21, 2011. We have celebrated ever since! We took at trip to the zoo, the magic house, had a small party, and tomorrow will be the last celebration, his party at daycare. We had his two year pictures taken a couple of weeks ago. He had a great time and had no idea he was performing for the camera the whole time!

Not quite a celebration, but in the midst of all of the celebrating we had Dane's 2 year appointment at the Dr. He was in the 50% percentile for height and weight. He weighed 28 lbs and was 34 inches long. He has changed so much since his 18 month appointment that when we did the developmental screener I felt like I was checking Yes for everything this time! He loved exploring in the examination room and was really happy the whole time. When the Dr. left the room he said, "Bye Doctor."

Dane is only going to daycare one or two days a week this summer. I had a hard time taking him the first few days of summer, but he loves it soooo much and now that I have a lot to do to get ready for the baby and this school year it actually is really helping me out right now. He is learning so much at Tracey's and has a lot of fun with all of his little friends.

On days that Dane is not at daycare we are totally enjoying our summer. We have Mommy and Me swim lessons once a week, go to the pool to play, go out on the boat, visit cousins, and just play, play, play. We have taken quite a few "daytrips" this summer also

Dane is talking so much now. I love listening to him. Sometimes he just cracks me up with everything he tells me. Sometimes I hear him talking away to Dave and will ask Dave what he is talking about and Dave will have no idea! He loves to talk on the phone also. He will ask him to call many people during the day. I also like to hear him ask to go to his friends' houses. If we are in the car he will tell me, "Aiden's house mommy".

Dane's favorite things right now are dogs, trains, trucks, and Buzz and Woody from Toy Story. He also loves firetrucks. We just redid his bedroom in firetrucks and I can hear him talking about firetrucks as he lays in bed at night.

Dane is a very affectionate little guy. He gives mommy and daddy hugs and kisses constantly throughout the day. He will give hugs and kisses anytime he says goodbye to anyone. Tracy says he kisses her all day.

Dane is learning so much. Everyday he does or says something that amazes us. I can't count to 3 when I am telling him not to do something because when I say 1, he finishes and says 2, 3. He will ask me to give him trucks and tell me which color he wants.

We can't believe another year has gone by. We are having so much fun with our little man. We can't wait to see him and his brother play and grow up together.

Love you little buddy!

A Trip to the Lake of the Ozarks

This past weekend Dane, Mama, Aunt Katie and I went to the Lake of the Ozarks to visit Aunt Tammy, Uncle John, and Baby Joe. I talked to Dane a lot about taking a trip to see Baby Joe. For days he walked around saying, "Trip, Joe, Mommy." He was so excited he even got a little confused. I would ask him what our baby's name was going to be and he would say, "Baby Joe".

We left Friday morning and Dane took a little nap in the car so when we got there he was ready to go. We met Aunt Tammy at her house and headed straight to lunch on the water. It was really, really hot, but it was worth it because the food was great and Dane had a ball.

There were a ton of fish and several ducks swimming right by the deck of the resturant and they kept Dane very busy.
After he finished his lunch he had some waffle fries left that he fed to the fish. The ducks kept getting the food and he would yell, "Duck got it" and run back for some more.

Dane spent quite a bit of time loving on Joe.

Joe is sitting up now so they played a little on the floor.

We had a fun weekend shopping and hanging out. It was so, so hot, which about did me in, but my mom and my sisters helped with Dane. He was so excited to be there that he was very, very busy all weekend.

His Backpack

Aunt Amy is constantly finding toys that her kids no longer play with and she happily passes them on to Dane and her other niece and nephew. Amy recently gave Dane this backpack full of plastic picnic supplies. Dane loves it! He will bring it to me and ask me to put it on him.

Then he just walks around the house for quite a while with it on.
Sometimes he will say, "Bye, Bye Mommy" and he will blow me a kiss.

He loves to take the dishes in and out of the backpack. He is working on zipping it and unzipping it himself...the zipper is a little tight so he has some trouble with it.

The only issue with this backpack is that for some reason there are these lids in the backpack that do not fit on anything in there. Dane tries and tries and eventually, as you can see from this picture, he just starts to scream he gets so frustrated. I think I may have to hide these lids.

We are loving our summer vacation. Sadly though, it is half over. We were so, so happy Dave was on vacation for the past week. We had such a good week. Dave went back to work today and we are getting back into Mommy and Dane mode. With summer halfway through and with one of Dave's vacations down I am starting to get stressed. While we had such a good time while Dave was off, we really only did one little thing on my BIG list of things I NEED to get done before school starts. I have a list of things I want to purchase for our new little one and we have a nursery to get ready. Dave has two weeks of work, then another vacation. Hopefully in these next few weeks I can be productive with some of the things on the list that I can do myself. We have lots and lots of fun things planned during Dave's second vacation, including celebrating an adorable little guy's 2nd birthday. Hopefully we can get some things crossed off our list during that time as well. There is lots to do and I am just afraid the last half of summer will go just as fast, if not faster, than the first half.