July was a big month!

Here is a recent video of Christopher. In the past couple weeks he has started doing so many new things. I have a few videos that I'm trying to compile into a movie to show the development, but the Flip software is not really doing what I want. So he started crawling and doing the army man crawl a couple weeks ago. He seems to prefer the army man because it was faster until today. Today he really started to get into crawling with speed. Last weekend he started pulling up on the couch. Now all he wants to do is stand. He will even walk a bit holding our hands. Each day he gets better and better. I'm amazed at how quickly he masters new skills.

He stared using some baby signs this week, too. Hopefully knowing 'more' and 'all done' will make mealtimes easier. Well, they are pretty easy now, so I don't know if they will actually get easier. Christopher loves to clap. He claps a lot when he hears any kind of music. It's pretty cute. As you can see in the video, Christopher is quite thrilled with his voice.

This month Daniel is taking on the puzzle world among many other new things. He loves jigsaw puzzles. He is getting pretty good a the 30 piece puzzle from Gamma and Boppa. When he finished it, he always makes me wait a minute while he looks at the picture. Daniel is also becoming quite the pack rat. He will get attached to the strangest things sometimes. Last weekend we went to a parade and he got two lime green frisbees. They are about 3- or 4-inches in diameter. Anyway, he likes them so much that he has taken them to school each day and sleeps with them for naps and at night. He has also reached the age where he will tell me stories about what happens at school or he will start doing things he learned there like singing "Yankee Doodle" in Target today or doing the "Firecracker, firecracker, boom, boom, boom" cheer between stories and prayers tonight. The "boom, boom, boom" was complete with hip shaking for those of you who were wondering. I can't wait to see what comes next.

Christopher's Big Week

I know I already mentioned it here, but Christopher had a huge week. He got his first two teeth, started sitting, and is almost crawling. The pictures and videos here are already out of date. Now he is getting up on all four and rocking. I'm trying to enjoy my last few days with a stationary child. As you will see, he is quite vocal, too. He loves squeeling. He is naked in the pictures because he is such a messy eater that his clothes had to go in the wash after lunch. I should be a pro at babyfeeding, but this kid is sneaky and quick. He will distract me and then grab the spoon. Maybe I'm just a pushover? The videos are kind of long, sorry.

Lots of Happenings

Where to begin? Maybe with the littlest member of the family. He has been busy doing new things every day. He has suddenly changed from a relatively stationary baby to one that can't move enough. He is not quite crawling, but he is trying really hard. He is pulling his knees up underneath him and trying to pull himself up. He is also starting to do the army man crawl and sitting quite well. He got his first tooth on Saturday, and the second one is not far behind! I suspect that the second tooth is why he was so crabby last night.

Last weekend we headed to Pittsburgh to go to my Dad's Mom's family reunion and to see the Guarino's who I insisteded on calling the Antonetti's. The kids had a great time playing all weekend long, and even though we did not spend much time with the extended family, the time we spent was great. The car ride there was quite challenging, but we used our hard earned experience to make the return much smoother.

Daniel is loving summertime. He is a fish and loves all sports. He is particularly into golf at the moment. He goes in the porch and gets a club and ball for each of us and makes me go outsite and hit the ball with him. So cute! He is still very curious. On Wednesday I got a phone call from his school saying that I had to come pick him up. He had put a raisin in his nose. Thankfully, I was prepared with an extraction method after the Cheerio incident.

Here are some pictures from the weekend and other adventures.

Brothers

Daniel and Christopher absolutely love each other. It is such a treat to watch them together. Unfortunately Daniel is strong enough to really cause damage with Christopher. Over the past week or so he has become much more interested in having Christopher be part of the action. It's getting to the point where I have to be right next to them if they are within reach of each other. Daniel does really nice things for his brother. He helped Christopher move over to a new toy by grabbing his arm and dragging him there or he shared his new Playdoh with him. I had my back turned, and I heard, "Here Christopher, one for you." Christopher's 7th food was Playdoh. On the good side of the sharing, Daniel shared his sippy cup with Christopher the other day. Christopher found the spout and started taking sips. It took over six weeks and about 10 different cups for Daniel to get the sippy cup.

Here are a couple videos of the boys together. I had finished feeding Christopher dinner, but Daniel wanted to have a turn. He hopped up on the stool, and Christohper smiled and squeeled with delight. They just had a ball with each other.

The Potty and Money

Daniel has a love/hate relationship with the potty. He will have days and weeks where he uses the potty more than five times in a day. He even poops in the potty. Then there are days where you ask him if he wants to use the potty and he starts throwing a fit and running the other way. Well, I think I'm ready for him to start using the potty, so anything that seems remotely promising, I jump right on.

Well yesterday Daniel tells me that if he uses the potty he gets a Thomas sticker. So I think, seriously, all it's going to take is a sticker chart. Well, let's go. I'll make one tonight, and we can buy Thomas stickers at Target tomorrow. Well this morning Daniel used the potty twice before swimming and twice at the pool. As Daniel would say, "Woo hoo!" Four stickers before noon. We are on a roll.

Little did I know that sticker charts could be complicated. The original placement of the sticker chart was prominent but high so Daniel could not take back the stickers that make it to the chart. This proved to be a problem because Daniel really wants to put the stickers on the chart. The second spot was on the refrigerator at eye level. Great, he can put the stickers on the chart... and take them off. Now we are down to one sticker hanging on by it's last stick. To boot, we have had no interest in the potty since he got two Thomas stickers. Maybe he will find renewed interest when he has finally lots all the remnants of the last sticker, or maybe Christopher needs a sticker chart to provide a little motivation. I'm not that mean.

Daniel loves money. Who doesn't really? I made the mistake of giving him my wallet in the store one day to buy a few extra minutes. Well, now he goes into the change part and grabs all the pennies. He really likes having a penny to hold. Tonight he was playing with a penny, and decided to put it in his mouth. Matt scolded him and said something like, "Daniel, take that out of your mouth, you could choke." Daniel replied, "Un-huh, choking hazard Daddy," in his most serious voice.

Later in the evening I had the special treat of getting a glimpse of Daniel's imagination. He was playing in the pillows on our bed which must be really fun for him since he can hide his entire body behind one of them, and decided that he wanted to visit the giraffe. First he drove to the zoo. At the zoo, he visited the giraffe then he picked up a balloon and a ball for me. He brought me my balloon, but then he made me let it go. I was sad, so he said he would get me another one. He drove back to the zoo to got me another balloon, and brought that one to me to. In case you were wondering, the balloons were orange. I'm not sure what happened to the ball.

Picture Time

Daniel and Christopher were being particularly cute this morning before church. Daniel has become very interested in playing with Christopher and sharing toys. I had to run downstairs to get the camera, so I put Christopher in his crib to keep him safe from Daniel's big and somewhat uncoordinated hands and feet. Well, this is what I arrived back up to. Daniel decided to join Christopher in the crib. He felt left out.

So we tried a few poses...

Daniel wanted to hold the camera case.

He thought Christpher might like it...

...to chew on.

Then he thought he wanted to get back in the crib.

Christopher liked having the chair to himself.

Two Boys and Shirts Off!

Daniel learned to take off his shirt at the dinner table the other night. Dinner was finished. We were just chatting. He was so proud of his efforts. It makes me wonder about the things to come.

Cheers!