Super Space Man

I love this little outfit on the Danester, but he's growing out of it already, so I had to document it before it was too late:)

Our funny guy

Dane has really begun to show us his personality lately. He loves laughing and especially loves eye contact and interaction with others. Anytime we take him out, he always manages to make someone smile as he tries to play with them. His happiest time of day is in the morning or after naps when he wakes up to one of us, flapping his arms and grinning. He also loves it on nights when Dad is coming home and gets riled up with Dad, playing peekaboo, being tickled and kicking, flapping and blowing raspberries simultaneously. He's also started really love playing with himself in the mirror. We're not sure if he knows that it's him, but he loves making friends with whoever it is. He's begun to get really frustrated that he can't get to toys, as he's not to the crawling stage yet, so we hope that he'll start to figure that out soon. Until he does, we'll enjoy the fact that he can't tear up the entire house yet.

Check out the curls:) Trying to figure out why mom is sticking a cow into his armpit.

Christmas photo outtakes and more

Well, the winter is already racing by and so we tried to get a family picture for our Christmas card. We've realized that we have a million pictures of Dane and many of him with one of us, but very few with all of us as a family. We're going to work on that for sure. In the meantime, here are some of the recent photos we've taken along with some of the family pictures that didn't make it into the card.
My giggly little Badger babe:)
Exploring our slightly pathetic Christmas tree.

Helping with his nebulizer treatment during week five of his cold.
Big eyes.
Nice smiles, crappy crop job.


My men, Dane looking like he might be laughing at mom.
And...going down!

Clapping Time!

Dane has been surprising us recently with many new talents, including sleeping through the night, going down without our attention, eating solid foods, rolling all over the place, sitting on his own and most recently, clapping on command. It's been great for us to have him starting to show us that he CAN sleep through the night, especially during these many weeks of colds we've already had. He'll be on a run of waking up at 3:30 or 4:00 am, and then will give us a full night or two in a row, which sort of allows us to catch up. We hope it continues to become more consistent as he gets over his current cold.

He's also started to eat solids at almost every meal, including many fruits and veggies, oatmeal, rice cereal, yogurt and even table food periodically. His tummy seems to be handling everything we've tried so far, which is excellent. As he's starting to eat so much more solid food, I tried my hand at making some baby food myself and was really happy with the results. We made peas, bananas, avocado, sweet potato and mango. All are pureed and frozen into ice cube trays, which I can then pop out and store for when he needs his next meal. I think in the long run it will turn out to be a lot less expensive than buying everything premade. It feels really good to pull out a bright orange cube of mango and know that I know exactly what he's getting and that it's healthy and tasty.

He's also started rolling a LOT, which makes us think he's working on crawling soon. He looks so frustrated when he can't get to a toy; we hope he'll figure out that crawling=more independence. But not too soon, as we'll have to baby proof our house, or house-proof the baby. We're not sure yet. Along with more movement comes more little bumps and bruises; he keeps rolling over onto hard/bumpy toys and not knowing how to get off them. We hope this will also pass. He's also hit his head a few times, as he's getting how to sit on his own, but is still dealing with the larger than normal weight of his noggin. It's fun to see him acting like such a big guy!

Finally, we've been working on clapping for a couple weeks now, and he's got it down. He loves to clap at anything that makes him happy, sometimes even when he's not. Tonight, Mark was on call, so Dane and I were doing some grocery shopping at Target. On the way through the store, we stopped in the Christmas tree section and Dane couldn't stop smiling and clapping; he got so many "aw cute"s that I think he's going to get a big head. Even bigger than it currently is;) Ha ha, mom and dad joke. We can do that, right?

Well, it's been wonderful to see his personality continuing to shine through. He delights everyone he meets, and we love spending time playing with him and making him laugh. He continues to be a super happy baby when not in pain. Even through the last five weeks of constant colds, he's been as funny as usual. We love it!

Thanksgiving Catchup

Our little man has been sick for 5 weeks straight now, but he's done a great job of weathering his colds during our holiday busyness. He had croup, which he kicked, but then immediately picked up another cold somewhere. Mark was on call Thanksgiving, but my family was able to come down and whip up a whole meal, including an awesome turkey, that we then brought to the hospital to enjoy. They enjoyed seeing how much Dane is changing - he's babbling like a maniac, getting more mobile every day, and is his happiest when being teased or tickled. Mark got home at about 11 on Friday morning, and his family then came over from DeKalb, where they were visiting Steve. They watched Dane while Mark and I had a Dane-free date, which was awesome. The next day, we all just hung out at our house, playing Bunco, eating good food and making Dane laugh at every chance. It was great, relaxing and enjoying family, the perfect way to spend a day remembering what we're Thankful for.