Helping House Sale

When Daniel saw the sign go in the ground he said, "Hey!! We aren't for sale yet!!! We have to wait for the new baby first!!!"

He accepted the sign when he got to help with it. He enjoyed pointing out the letters and numbers he recognized.

Brownie Helper

Daniel's learning tower is used very often during the times when we must be indoors and find something other than watching the washing machine or watching a Sesame Street DVD to occupy his time.

He can pour the batter mix into the bowl without spills these days, but he does prefer to pour in the (premeasured) water and oil.  He also points to the eggs and says something that sounds like the word egg.  He usually drops the whole egg in the bowl if I am not watching!  I always crack the eggs, but I think soon he will want this gooey job.

Daniel has been fascinated by sprinkles since his Dad let him put them on muffins a few months ago.  He gets into the cabinet with baking supplies (which is off limits, so then he gets in trouble) and carries around the containers of sprinkles (and cinnamon and etc).  I let him put the sprinkles on the brownies unassisted this time.  WOW.  There were a lot of sprinkles!

 He really, really loves chocolate, and while I have my qualms about letting him lick the batter (raw eggs! Salmonella!), the pediatrician said he lets his kids do it, and Daniel isn't immunocompromised....so... we'll follow his lead and let him lick the spoon and then expect him to grow up as healthy as we did as frequent-spoon-lickers, too.

Photos from Winter Weather Event #4... aka, the Blizzard of 2011

During the first week of February, we had a Major Snow Event.   Our yard easily had 18 inches of snow, and the piles Dan made from shoveling the driveway were over 6 feet tall.   We were cooped up in the house for three days unable to drive anywhere, and DHH himself stayed in the home from Sunday afternoon (we went to a grocery store to get some milk and etc... WOW we weren't alone!) until the following Friday morning.  He was cooped up!  He wanted desperately to spend time with his shovel in the FOOF, but wind chills only let him do this two or three times.   Here are photos from some of those times.

This is the blizzard.  Windy.  See the bird who camped out under our grill?

This is drifted snow... it came right up to his window!  Easily 3 feet!

He REALLY wanted to open this door.  He kept tugging at the handle.   

The fire pit is buried.

This is after the major snow event.  Dan shoveled half of the drive, but it was covered again with 10 more inches by morning.

Daniel watched his dad shovel.  When he got the chance, he brought out his shovels, too.

It went to his waist!

Can you find Daniel!?

One of my favorites.

Here he is begging to stay outside.  The only way I could get him in was to promise HOT CHOCOLATE!

He didn't really like having snow on his shoes.  He whined about it.

Snow on his head!  And in his mouth!

What a helper.

As you can see from these photos, Daniel became more adventurous with his FOOF.  He wanted to touch it, taste it, and look at it.  He still did not want to walk in it (more like wade in it!), and he preferred to reach over into the snow piles from the safety of the pavement.  He also had practice enough to know to leave the hat and gloves ON this time, instead of shouting OFF!!

The snow from this storm finally all melted on February 18th... two weeks of very deep snow was fun to watch!