Happy Halloween (a little early)

Look at this adorable spider!! We went to a Fall Festival on Friday night at my school and Dane was a definite hit. Unfortunately, he was more interested in the posters on the walls, running down the hallways and going up and down the steps in the "pit." I was running after him the entire night. Needless to say, we both slept great that night! :)




(By the way, you can still see remnants of his first black eye! Poor baby ran into a chair. Maybe he should have been a black eyed pea. )

Peek-A-Boo!

Christmas came early for Dane. Grandma & Grandpa Penney got him a new point and shoot video camera. This thing is so easy to use, he could actually use it and take great videos! Don't worry though, we'll wait a few years for that. Here are a few videos of him playing peek-a-boo this past week.



Dane is just in love with this cupboard!! He loves to climb in there and then wants us to shut the door and play peek-a-boo! I'm surprised he doesn't get scared in there. I guess he's not claustrophobic. :)

Actually, he's in this new stage of wanting to shut the doors all around the house. I'll be in the laundry room and he shuts the door and just waits for me to open it up and goes in to little giggle boy when I do.





Here's another sweet peek-a-boo video.

Look at my new smocks!

Nanny made Dane these AWESOME bibs! You wear it just like you would a paint smock - what a brilliant idea! I think Nanny could sell these to mommies everywhere and make a killing. I love the fact that his clothes no longer get stained because the bib is way too small or he rips it off and he loves the fact that he actually gets to wear clothes while he eats. You may remember from past pictures, that we went through a phase where I would strip him down to just his diaper and throw him in the sink when he was done eating.






Here's one that Nanny actually made from a chicken feed sack. I can see why she kept the cloth bag from the chicken feed. It's beautiful!













Here's a picture of the naked eating phase we went through!

(He was 7 months old in this picture.)

Thanks Nanny! We love our new bibs. :)

Party Guy!

This is what happens when you turn your back for even a second! (Thankfully, they're clean.)

Dinner's Served!

Dan and Bailey have been heading out the backyard to get us dinner almost daily! Dan is loving the fact that he can walk directly out our backyard to stir up trouble. And, of course, Bailey is ecstatic. He's turning out to really be a bird dog, which is good for the whole family. Dan was thinking he'd have to give him back and get another model if he didn't get this hunting thing down.

So now we're on the hunt for awesome duck recipes. I found one on allrecipes.com (my favorite recipe site!). It was a Worcestershire sauce and garlic mixture and it was so good. The duck tasted like a steak. Who knew? I think the secret was putting the duck in ice water for several hours to eliminate the gamey taste. Only in Alaska right? It's hard to imagine that I used to be a vegetarian!

Success!

Dane's surgery went beautifully and exactly as Dr. Rastor described. It truly was as easy as he said it would be. Everyone at Bartlett Hospital was amazing from the woman that registered Dane to the FIVE nurses that stopped by to introduce themselves to Dane. We were equally impressed with both Dr. Rastor, the surgeon, and Dr. Parker, the anesthesiologist. When we arrived they gave Dane a sedative so that he would go to the nurses without any fussing (this is standard procedure for babies over one.) About ten minutes later Dane was VERY mellow and they took him back to begin the surgery. The surgery took all of 15 mintues and he was back in our arms in only 30 minutes. The worst part was Dane coming out of the anesthesia. He was confused and disoriented going back and forth from Mommy & Daddy over and over. He was crying and we just couldn't console him. Thankfully, this only lasted about 40 minutes. We knew we could leave the hospital when Dane could sit through the entire reading of How Do Dinosaurs Clean Their Rooms.

Here's Dane on the way home from the hospital. As you can tell, he's still pretty sad about the whole surgery thing.















And here he is by the end of the night!
Back to his sweet loving self. Yeah, for ear tubes!

Dane's 6th doctor appointment in a row!

This poor kid has been to the doctor everyday for the last 5 days and that includes Saturday and Sunday! He has ANOTHER ear infection (his 4th in only 3 months.) This time Dr. Smith went straight to the shot of antibiotics which didn't really start to make a difference until the third day of shots! Dane is so tough though. He, of course, cried while he was getting two huge shots each day, but once it was over he pretty much jumped off my lap and dove toward the blocks on the ground. He obviously has an extremely high pain tolerance - definitely higher than mommy and daddy! Dan and I would have milked these shots the entire day. "Oh, I couldn't possibly get off the couch, I had a shot today." :)

The good news is that we had our appointment with the specialist (Dr. Rastor) today and we've scheduled Dane's ear tube surgery for tomorrow. Here's the scoop on what will happen -

*Dane will receive general anesthesia.
*Dr. Rastor will make a small hole in the eardrum and remove fluid from the middle ear using suction.
*Dr. Rastor will finish by inserting a small plastic tube called a pressure equalization (PE) or tympanostomy tube into the hole in the eardrum. This tube will help ventilate and equalize pressure in the middle ear. This will help to prevent future infections and the accumulation of fluid, and will help normalize hearing.

The actual surgery will only take about 10-15 minutes and Dane should be home within a couple of hours. This is a relatively common procedure and we aren't too worried about it. We just want Dane to be healthy and not so sick all the time. This will definitely help! :) The nice thing about the tubes is that with future ear infections we can give Dane antibiotic drops directly in his ear. Antibiotic drops work better, faster, have fewer side effects and there is less risk of developing bacterial resistance. Good news indeed! :)




This is how Dane feels about having to
have surgery tomorrow...














And this is how I'm going to feel when it's all done and I won't have nearly as many ear infections. Yipee, yahoo and all that jazz!!

Big Boy!

Look at this cool new Batman chair Dane got today. As you can see, Dane absolutely loves it! He can get in and out of it all by himself (except when he gets his leg caught under the arm as in the picture!) But he prefers to just drag it around the house. Our poor floors!

Who wouldn't love daycare with a yard like this?

It was a sunny day here on Monday, so Dan went to Ms. Tina's (Dane's daycare provide

r & second mama!) to take pictures of him playing outside. Dane absolutely LOVED being outside as you can see by the pictures. He had all of his Juneau gear on: fleece coat, rain suit and he was even wearing his "big boy" shoes. He looked just like all the rest of the toddlers. I must say there was a tear in my eye welling up as I watched him play. My little baby is growing up so fast. He was so independent out there and he just ran from one plaything to the next. We had to pretty much drag him kicking and screaming out of there.

A boy through and through and he's got the dirt to prove it. :)

I choose this one!

Dane is doing the cutest thing recently. Daddy will tell him to go pick out a book and he brings one of his favorites to you. Then he crawls into your lap to have you read it to him. It's so adorable to see our little man picking out his favorite books. The not so adorable part is that he chucks the ones he's not at all interested in across the living room floor! How can a one year old be so opinionated?

Yesterday was National Card Making Day, so while Dan and Dane had Daddy & Me time, I went to go make cards at a card making extravaganza. I just love being crafty and I especially love it when I don't have to pull everything out of my guest room closet. It was such a treat to go yesterday and it's giving me the push I need to pull out Dane's baby book. I think I'll actually pull that out tonight after Dane goes to sleep. I really need to get that updated before the poor kid turns 18! :)

Dane's sweet giggle

The title says it all. Press play and enjoy! :)