It's all in the Wording

Lately our Sunday routine has been for all three of us to go to mass at 9:00. Then at 10:15, Daniel can go play at the nursery while David and I go to Bible study. Knowing that we were going out to eat after Bible study and knowing how the nursery ladies love to feed Daniel animal crackers, we had a little talk beforehand. I told him that he should probably not eat any animal crackers today so that he had room for lunch at the restaurant. He agreed.

Conversation after Bible study:

Daniel: I didn't eat any animal crackers today!
Me: Oh, good!
Daniel: Not even one animal cracker!
Me: Good! You should be hungry for lunch now.
Daniel: Yeah, I just ate a pancake, but no animal crackers!

Guess I should have been more specific, or maybe more vague.....

Pumpkin Patch

First of all, when did my baby boy drop the "baby" part and become a little boy?? Look at these pictures! He looks so much older than he did last year during our pumpkin patch adventure!

For the last several years we have gone to the Pumpkin Patch with our friends, the Calvo's. This year, since they have brand new triplet girls, we just took their daughter with us. Daniel and Riley had fun running around the pumpkins. Apparently this year's cool thing was to roll the pumpkins because that's all Daniel wanted to do. He rolled the heaviest ones he could find, moving them from one pile to another. We did the hay ride again, and they both seemed to enjoy it. This year, the pumpkin patch staff put various "runaway pumpkins" for the kids to spot during the hay ride - that was the big highlight! We're planning to carve a jack-o-lantern this weekend and cook some little ones to have pumpkin treats all year!

Abilene State Park

We took our first trip to the Abilene State Park yesterday. It was a gorgeous day - not even too hot for this pregnant mama! We took a picnic lunch and spent time going down various trails. Daniel really enjoyed doing all the hiking and was proud to lead us down the trail. He was really funny about listening to every little sound he heard - from blackbirds cawing to ducks quacking to cars driving by on the not-so-distant freeway. Every time he heard a new sound, he would stop, crouch down, and put his hand to his ear, listening intently. He'd say, "What was that?!" Here are a few pics of him listening:

The park was actually quite pretty - better than I expected! Daniel would have made Grandpa proud. He looked all around for "signs" of animals. He found deer tracks and scat and identified both of them correctly! We saw two small deer on our way into the park, but the only other interesting wildlife we saw was an armadillo! Daniel was intrigued by that!

Daniel stopped in the trail to play in the sand. He might have played here for hours if David hadn't pretended to see an animal run by. We then had to go check that out!

Here's the pic of the armadillo!

Learning the Social Ropes

When we were shopping in HEB the other day, there was a rather large man near the check-out line. Daniel commented (thankfully, not loud enough for anyone to hear) on the size of the man's stomach. I talked to him about how it wasn't polite to talk about how big a person's stomach was and how it might hurt that person's feelings if he heard a comment like that. Daniel didn't have too many questions and seemed okay to drop it.

Then today we were outside playing in some mud puddles. A teenage boy rode by on a bicycle, and Daniel commented to me that the boy wasn't wearing a helmet. Then he asked, "Does it hurt a person's feelings when someone says that he isn't wearing a helmet?"

We don't have the rules figured out yet, but at least he's thinking about others' feelings!

Reading

Daniel's babysitter, Ms. Sarah, is teaching him to read some sight words. He's learned about six words or so - like, and, the, we, see, etc. She made him a little book that has sentences like, "I see the ______" or "I like the _______." He drew pictures to fill in the blanks so that he could read his very own book. It's pretty cute to watch him "read."

I think it's more fun to watch him read one of his real books though. We checked out a book called "The Rain Came Down" a couple weeks ago from the library. Because we read the same books over and over and over and because Daniel has an impeccable memory, he can recite this lengthy book almost word for word. It's so sweet to hear him read to us for a change! I'm thinking maybe he'll read to baby sister in a few months! Either that, or he'll grow tired of her in about two seconds and ask me to take her back to the hospital. We'll see......

Chocolate Chip Tree

We spent the weekend in Amarillo for a wedding. My mom and sister-in-law did a lot of babysitting for us - thank you!

Here's a story that my mom relayed to us when we got home:

Daniel told everyone that he had a chocolate chip tree outside. Uncle Brian asked how he managed to keep the chocolate chips from melting in the sun. Daniel responded, matter-of-factly, that the tree was in the shade, of course!

He's always got a "logical" reason for everything.