Fall 2014

We have had a lot of funny sayings lately!

Andy (on Thanksgiving):  I'm so thankful for you, Johnny.  You are such a great son, you are so sweet and smart, and you were the one who made me a dad.
John (after some thinking):  I'm thankful for fat William Howard Taft.

John's new song:  I want to travel to Antarctica, travel in the dark-tica, travel on a lark-tica!

John has lost two teeth and has had two visits from the tooth fairy.  The first time, he wrote to the tooth fairy and asked her to bring him a book instead of money.  He is not quite on board with the tooth fairy though.  He doesn't believe in fairies, but knows that whatever takes the tooth and leaves the book must be small and smart.  His first guess was a tooth rat.  Then, when he saw the pink curly writing on the tooth fairy's first note to him, he thought it might be a tooth flamingo.

Andy: Put on your PJs.
John: Why are so many people using imperative sentences?

John:  Who is the composer of Gangnam Style?

I had the stomach flu and was staying away from the boys before they left for school.  I heard John getting ready to leave and shouted "Bye, John, love you, have a great day at school!"  He shouted back, "Bye, love you!.....Sorry about your throw-up sickness!"

He has been thinking ahead to Christmas because of the store they have at school where the kids can buy presents for their family members.  He worked really hard on it, shopping during the preview day, making a list of what he wanted to buy for each person, keeping track of how much each thing cost so that we could send money and totaling it all up.  Then he said "I hope everyone likes their presents."  I said, "I'm sure they will.  Because you put a lot of time and thought and love into it, and that's what matters."  He said, "I mostly put thought into it.  Because I'm smart."  I replied, "Well, you also have a very tender heart, so you put a lot of love into it too!"

John has a great new business plan.  He will be an architect and design a restaurant called ShrimpRia (because -ria means store in Spanish, like tortilleria) and there will be an elaborate tunnel system whereby the workers can go catch the shrimp in the river at the end of the tunnel.  He loves shrimp.

The song "Santa Baby" came on Pandora and we had quite the discussion about it.  Danny:  "Santa Bay-bee?  Dat's like me!"  Then John listened to a few verses and said "Who's singing this song?"  Me: "A woman is telling Santa what she wants for Christmas."  John:  "Why is she talking to Santa like he's her husband?"  He really understood the flirtatious undertones!

Danny:  I wanna watch Specia-bles.  (Incredibles)

Danny loves to stir drinks while saying "miska miska miska"  (mix-a).

He is really loving Ollie lately, he follows him around, hugging him and saying "I love you, Ollie."  Once, he looked up at me and said "Ollie's my best friend."

He also is really trying hard to use complete sentences.  On Thanksgiving, he worked very hard to come up with every word in this sentence:  "We're going to Grandma...and...Grandpa's...house!"

Mom and Dad: "Bye, Danny, love you!"  Danny: "Bye!  Love you!  Gimme hugs!"

We were asking him to eat a bite of ham and then get a bite of chips.  He was going along with it until we changed it up and asked him to eat two bites of ham for a bite of chips.  He ate one bite, and we said "eat another bite, you need another bite of ham before you get chips."  And he got really frustrated, and opened his eyes wide, stretched out his arms in front of him with jazz hands and screamed "I eat it!  I DID!!!!!"

Daycare newsletter for October/November:  "Daniel is so intelligent.  He knows all his shapes, numbers, and colors.  He loves to play with bubbles and to color.  He is a blast to have in class."

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We have had a very nice fall.  First grade has been SO great for John.  He is loving his work with his gifted teacher, Mr. D.  He and the other two gifted first-graders (Prabav and Josh) are thick as thieves.  In fact, they are not allowed to sit by each other in class because they talk too much.  :)  His teacher is so perfect for him.  Since he is advanced in math, he is allowed to do research and make powerpoint presentations during many of the daily math reviews.  I just love how he has grown up so much this year.  He still loves states, and just took a quiz online identifying state capitols and only missed 6!

Daniel has also grown up a lot this fall.  He moved up to the Twos class at school in October, which means he gets to do a lot of fun activities!  He started music class every other week in Twos, he got to trick-or-treat around the strip mall with his class, and we are looking forward to his Christmas program tomorrow!  He is talking so well and enunciating so clearly!  We did have an assessment done by early intervention through the state, because we were worried about his gross motor skills, but the assessment included developmental, emotional, verbal, and vision assessments.  He aced them all, and charmed all of the therapists.  We were so proud!

Daniel and Ollie

Daniel is loving Ollie a lot lately. We have caught Daniel trying to ride poor Ollie. He also told me "He's handsome."

He also like to boss Ollie around. He tells him "Go to bed!" when we are all around the dinner table. Then if Ollie doesn't go to bed, Daniel says "He's not listening. He's in trouble. He needs time out!"

A great week!

John had a week in which he did a lot of cool things and really overcame some of his shyness.

• He finished the school read-a-thon and earned some prizes, including a limo ride with the principal to McDonalds to have ice cream.  His class read the most minutes in the whole school!
• He got to dress as Jack from the Magic Tree House books for the last day of the read-a-thon.
• He tested for his next belt in karate and earned his white-orange belt.
• He started to really enjoy the new church we are trying out, and went to Sunday School by himself without being anxious and shy for the first time.
• Later that night, he went back to church and started a class called "The Art of Faith", where he will learn about the church history and building, and sketch a building on the church campus and then do an oil painting of it.
• He is working on his timeline with an event from every year: 0 - My cousin Bailey was born, 1 - I went to Rocky Point, 2 - I started going to see my mom in her shows, 3 - I went to Seattle for the first time, 4 - My baby brother was born, 5 - I had a very nice Easter with my cousins, 6 - I went to Chicago.  He picked the events himself, and is writing and coloring a picture for each event on a full-size blank paper. 
• He ASKED to compete in a karate tournament being held by his school's two locations.  Because each competitor gets a medal.  :)  Still!
• At Someburros, he colored a picture, and then went up to Nacho (their donkey mascot character) and gave it to him.  Nacho made a gesture like "For me???"  and then John came running back so proud of himself.
• Also he has decided he doesn't believe in the Tooth Fairy.  Because nothing can fly except God and angels and maybe the Holy Spirit.  So it has to be something small and smart that comes in and takes the tooth.  At first he thought it was a Tooth Rat, then he decided it was more likely a Tooth Dog or Tooth Monkey.  He's totally serious. 
• He also informed me that his plan is to be an author, then a governor, then the president. But you can't just decide to be president, people have to vote for you. So he will just have to keep hoping.
• He wanted to know if World War III had happened yet.  When I told him no, he told me he had a feeling he was going to be in it.  He thinks it will be Israel, Egypt and China against America, Canada, and Chile.

Daniel also had a great week:

• At dinner one night, he sat in a booster and kept leaning forward and back, saying, "Back!  Forth!  Back!  Forth!"  Then he used his straw to stir his milk and kept saying "Mixing!  I'm mixing it!"  Except it sounded like misking.  He was also extremely polite, saying, "More milk, please thank you!"  and "Here french fry, Daddy!  Thank you you're welcome"
• A game we like to play is this:  Me:  "Do you like cookies?"  D: "i LIKE cookies!"  "Do you like cake?"  "i LIKE cake!"  on and on.  He will repeat whatever I say, claiming to like it.  It's so funny.  Oh, until he finally says "Stop.  Stop talking."
• He had a great time asking Uncle Dave to read to him during the Packers game.  
• He loves church too because of the nursery.  Between the playhouse and the play school bus, he could probably just stay there forever.  They even changed his diaper for us!  When we took John back for his art class, Danny recognized where we were:  "CHURCH!!!!" and Andy had to get him out of the car and let him play on the playground, because he was NOT ABOUT to be left in the car while I dropped John off instead of playing at church!
• On the way to school, I said "Daniel, we're going to school now for snack.  Don't fall asleep, no sleeping."  And he said "NO!!  No sleeping!!!" very indignantly, like how dare I suggest that he might fall asleep when it wasn't time for sleeping.  Like he has never fallen asleep in the car on the way to school, oh, every day!  
• He will be moving up to 2s as soon as the next one in there moves up to 3s.  He is next in line, but it takes longer for 2s to move up to 3s because they have to be potty trained.  His teacher said he is totally ready, and he is the only one in the class that knows all his shapes and most of his colors.
• This morning, I said two, he said three, I said four, he said five, I said six, he said seven, I said eight, he said nine, I said ten, he said BLAST OFF!!  When I picked him up from school, I said "what did you have for lunch?" and he actually responded "I had sammich."  Sure enough, he did! 
• He had a great time meeting Nacho the burro, which at first he thought was a "wabbit."
   

John's plans for the future

John is planning to adopt three kids (because he doesn't want to get married because love is yucky.)  The oldest boy will be named Leonardo, the next boy will be named Thomas. For the girl's name, he wanted to name her after a state, so after some discussion, decided on Virginia.

Also, he stuck his toes (in flip flops) into a puddle and declared, "My toes are skinny dipping!"  He doesn't really know what skinny dipping is; he thinks it's just swimming. He heard it on the kids' special "So You Want To Be President", in which a president went skinny dipping and a reporter caught him and sat on his clothes until he gave an interview. 

Geography

John wants me to record that he loves geography, which he is pronouncing GEE-oh-GRAPH-ee. He got moved to a higher reading group this week, and now they are reading the first Magic Tree House book about dinosaurs. Perfect for him, since that's his very favorite series. He is up to #39 and he has read many of them by himself. Some books he has read in less than a day!

Summer 2014

Family

May 2014 - Andy and I took our much-anticipated tenth anniversary vacation to Kauai.  We spent four nights in Poipu on the southern shore and three nights in Princeville on the north shore.  We went to a luau, went on a horseback riding/ziplining adventure, and took a boat/snorkeling tour along the Na Pali coast.  We had the best time and really enjoyed each other!  Andy and I went to Sedona overnight to help a friend celebrate his birthday.  It was so beautiful!

July 2014 - Tour of the Midwest!  We visited Andy's brother's family in Milwaukee, our friends and their kids in Chicago, and made a final stop in Iowa to see a friend of Andy's before flying home.

August 2014 - I sang Mabel in Pirates of Penzance with the Prescott Pops Symphony.  What a great group of musicians and singers.  I had a fabulous time and the performance went really well!


John

John turned 6 and had a dinosaur-themed party at his karate studio.  Kindergarten was over, and John got to do a lot of fun camps this summer, including dinosaurs, science, baseball, computer game design, junior inventor, and Summer in July at Childsplay.  He also took a ton of swimming lessons, in addition to his normal karate classes.

He became very interested in the 50 states after playing an iPad trivia game called "Stack the States."  This led to a love for all things American.  He has an insatiable appetite for learning any trivia about the 50 states, American history (especially the Revolutionary War), geography, and any trivia about the U.S. Presidents.  Dinosaurs and space definitely took a backseat to America by the end of the summer.

His reading has been fantastic.  At the end of the summer we started getting Magic Tree House books from the library, and he would sometimes read one a day.  He loves the library.  First we stop in the juvenile fiction section and pick up the next Magic Tree House books he needs, as well as other series like "Notebook of Doom" and sometimes a "Choose Your Own Adventure".  Then we hit the children's room, where he scours the non-fiction section for books about states, America, and presidents (of course), but also for anything that interests him, such as "Slugs and Snails," "Parasaurolophus" (his favorite dinosaur), "Cuba", and so many other random topics.  He just loves reading and learning!

He started first grade in August and is enjoying himself so far.  He gets to see his gifted teacher twice a week this year, which he loves.  He says he wants to be just like Mr. D. when he grows up.  He has had a little trouble settling in, behavior-wise, but seems to be doing well with his friends.  One big improvement over Kindergarten - homework!  He has a great attitude and is much more self-sufficient, and is really starting to take pride in his work.

June - Karate teacher:  "How many steps back, John?"  John:  "T-W-O sir!"

June - He and last-year's-BFF aren’t friends anymore because Jacob “claims” he knows more than him.  Nice word usage!  :D

July - I wrote this to him on my phone since my voice was pretty rough:  "I know sometimes it is no fun to have a sick mommy who is a singer and worried about her performance."  John wrote back:  "I don’t kare your the best mom ever."  Melted my heart!

July - Keeping an eye on my reality show:  “I haven’t watched this in a while.  Marcus got deleted?”  I think he meant eliminated...

July - (text conversation)  Me: John is watching "So You Want To Be President" again.  Andy:  He really really wants to be President...


August  - He had a great day at school one morning, but then got in trouble in the afternoon for writing down the lyrics to the Hokey Pokey with “butt” as the body part.  It ended with “That’s what it’s all a-butt.”  Even when his teacher came to tell me about it, he was more giggly than chastened...

Daniel

Daniel got to do a lot of fun things in the summer program at his school.  They had water play day once a week, and he also got to do a lot of fun crafts and see animals from the zoo.

In July, he turned two, and had an awesome birthday party at home.  The theme was Sulley from Monsters Inc.  He definitely had a great time and loved the cake.  He did not want to blow out the candles though!

No real sign of the terrible twos yet.  If he is hungry or tired, he is more quick to have a meltdown, but that is standard for him, and has been his whole life.  He has definite ideas about how he wants to do things and will let you know, especially now that his language skills are so developed!  But his temperament is about the same as it was six months ago.  He is a happy, smiley guy, and everyone loves him!

He is coming up with full sentences (see below) and expressing likes and dislikes.  Sometimes he uses words that we had no idea he knew!  He is also repeating what we say quite a bit, and then using the sentences back later.

He still likes Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood and is really into Dora the Explorer right now.  Sulley fell off the list shortly after his birthday party, but Frozen is a big favorite.  He is starting to get into Toy Story, and likes Buzz better than Woody at the moment.

May - email from Grammy while we were in Kauai:  "Whenever Danny leaves the room, he turns to us and says 'be right back!'"

July -  At his two-year-old checkup, walked happily down the hall and waved "hi" to the doctor when he passed by, like the friendly kid he is.  The normally-stoic doctor couldn't help but smile.

July - At our friends' house, he really enjoyed playing with the toy broom and saying “clean!”  I told him we were going to the petting zoo and he said “First clean!”  Then I asked him if he was ready for lunch and he said “Not yet!”

July - Danny was watching Daniel Tiger and Miss Elaina was being too loud.  He looked over and said “She too loud!  Too much noise!” a few times until he was understood.  Then he said “Help me eat it” and put Andy's hand on his pizza so he could feed him.

August  - One night at dinner, he spit food out on purpose and said “I frew up!”  We have no idea where he learned that because as far as we know, no one has ever thrown up in front of him.  Also, that's not throwing up.  :)

August - Reciting along with Dora - You hear dat?  Sipah fox!  ("Do you hear that?  That's Swiper the Fox!"

August - "I like this song.  More music, I like this song.  Roar!"

August - "I pay pee-oh.  Mommy's pee-oh." ("I play piano.  Mommy's piano.")

August/September school newsletter:  "Daniel is so active and full of energy.  He loves running around outside!  He also likes to play with the puzzles and read books with all of his friends.  Such a sweetheart!"  I will vouch for that!  At home, he LOVES to take the puzzles off the shelf and dump the pieces on the ground, leaving them for Mommy to pick up later.  That's how he "does" puzzles.  And sometimes we go looking for him, just to find him looking at books in his room.  He loves to be read to!

Family update - 2013-14 school year

We had a great year as a family, with lots of milestones and trips!

May 2013 - I graduated from ASU with my doctorate in voice performance.  I got to sing the National Anthem and the alma mater at the graduate commencement for the entire university!  John turned 5 and graduated from Pre-K.

June 2013 - A trip to Rocky Point and other summer fun!

July 2013 - I did a gig with two other singers as an Andrews Sisters trio, singing for a 4th of July event at the Phoenician.  I received my printed and bound dissertation in the mail.  Daniel turned one!  We replaced the tile floors throughout the house and redid the guest bathroom.

August 2013 - John started Kindergarten and Daniel moved to the toddler room at daycare.  Andy and I traveled to Minneapolis for the wedding of two friends.

September 2013 - I did a lunchtime recital at Arizona Opera's new facility downtown.  I gave a lecture recital on Elizabeth "Baby Doe" Tabor and sang all four arias from "The Ballad of Baby Doe."

October 2013 - A trip to Rocky Point.  John came to an ASU game.  For Halloween, John was a ninja and Daniel was a puppy.

December 2013 - This was a very busy month for me, singing-wise.  I sang in "Sounds of Christmas" again this year, sang the soprano solos in "Messiah" with the Phoenix Symphony at Grand Canyon arena, and sang "popera" quartets with three other ladies as the group "La Diva" in a benefit concert.  I was rehearsing Adele in Die Fledermaus, but that got cancelled at the last minute when the funding fell through.  After Christmas, the whole family took a trip to San Diego for the Holiday Bowl.  Mom and Dad, Robyn and Keahi, and our four all went to see the Sun Devils take on Texas Tech.  We even brought along a babysitter to watch the boys in the hotel room while we went to the game.  Sadly, the game was terrible.

February 2014 - Andy had to go to Seattle for work, so the boys and I joined him there.  We had a great time at the Seattle Aquarium, Pacific Science Center, Seattle Children's Museum, and John got to build his very first snowman right underneath the Space Needle!  Later that month, we went to Disneyland with Grandma and Grandpa.

March 2014 - A trip to Rocky Point and the Renaissance Faire.  John earned his white-yellow belt in karate

Daniel update - 2013-14 school year

Our sweet Daniel had a great year!  He had a wonderful time in his daycare class and grew tremendously over the year!

Spring/Summer 2013

April/May 2013 school newsletter - "Daniel has accomplished so much this past month.  He rolls over, sits up, holds his own bottle, and has two teeth!  He will shine in Nursery 2...Daniel is another one coming over from Nursery 1.  Miss Bre took care of his older brother almost 4 years ago.  We can't wait to see what surprises he has for us as he grows."

July/August 2013 school newsletter - "Daniel is crawling, so watch out!  He loves to move all over the place.  He is also attempting to stand up while playing in the pit.  It won't be much longer now!"

Daniel turned one and had a party at home for family.  The theme was "Little Dino".  He was definitely a little cranky at the party but a good time was had by all.  He still wasn't walking by his first birthday but John was a little late too, so we knew he would be walking shortly!

During this summer, we found out that Daniel has a Hypothalamic Hamartoma, a benign congenital  brain tumor.  It was found during an MRI as we tried to track down the cause of the eyelid flutter he had since birth.  We spent one very scary night in Phoenix Children's Hospital until we got the news the next morning that the tumor was non-cancerous, probably non-growing, and nothing needed to be done at that time.  The initial diagnosis was actually just a brain hamartoma with no specification as to the location.  We would find out more as the year went on...

Fall 2013

Daniel had a repeat MRI in September that showed no growth of the tumor.  Later that same day, he took his first steps and said his first word!  We joked that he came out of general anesthesia and decided "Hey, life's too short, I'd better get a move on!"  He was 14 months old!  He moved up to the toddler room from the baby room on the same day that his big brother started Kindergarten.

September/October 2013 school newsletter - "Daniel has moved out of Nursery 2 and into our toddler room and we are excited to have him with us.  He is making friends fast and he loves his one-on-one time."

November/December 2013 school newsletter - Daniel is such a cutie!  He has a smile that just melts your heart.  He enjoys doing art and he really loves playing on the rocking horses!

By the end of the year, he was almost running and was saying over 20 words, and really receptive to our language usage.  He understood everything we said!!  He got a reputation for being the most smiley, happy kid around!  :)


Early 2014

In December, his case was transferred to the HH team at Phoenix Children's Hospital.  Throughout this semester, we had countless appointments with neurosurgery (repeat MRI - no change), neurology (no change), neuropsychology (developmental assessment - normal) and endocrinology (most hormone levels were normal, but cortisol levels were cause for concern, which led to a months-long false alarm about adrenal insufficiency.  In May, a retest showed his cortisol levels were fine, which was a huge relief).  At the end of the semester, we were released by almost every specialist to yearly or semi-annual appointments.

But really, he was absolutely doing great!  He was showing no signs of any issues relating to his tumor and was just a normal one-year-old kiddo. 

His language development continued to amaze us.   Daniel's quotes are just words, but we like to transcribe them because they look so cute written down:

-In early January, he figured out how to ask for more juice, in three different ways to make sure we got it:  "Juice?  Mo juice?  Juice all gone?"

-February - Pee-po = paper

-March - Mo tee-ta = more tortilla

-April - Uh wuh nee-nuh! = I want dinner!

He really started to get into characters and TV this semester.  Early favorites included Mickey Mouse (who he called Nee-Nee), Daniel Tiger, and Sulley from Monsters Inc!

John update - 2013-14 school year

It has been about a year and a half since I last updated the blog.  I always intend to keep track of the fun things the boys say and do, then I tell myself, "Well, I text Mom and Andy with the funny things.  One day I will go back and read through them all and then I will put them on the blog."  Unsurprisingly, things didn't work out that way.  I was able to find a few things, so here is an update on John!

End of Pre-K:


John turned 5 and had an Avengers-themed birthday party at Makutu's Island with 9 friends from school and his two cousins.

He finished up Pre-K at the end of May 2013 and participated in the graduation.  They gave us a DVD with interviews they did with the kids.  John said his favorite part of Pre-K was art and holiday parties, and he was most looking forward to homework in Kindergarten!

6/13 - I wrote to my mom:  "Wasn't it nice that John was so concerned about your house getting 'robbered your money'?  He also told me when I asked what his teacher's name was "Neil. I think Grandma thinks it is Nail, but it is Neil."'

Summer 2013:

John went to several summer camps including Math/Science camp, Vacation Bible School at Grammy and Pa's church, and three weeks of sports camp, in which he got to do all the team sports, plus archery and daily swimming lessons.  He was really nervous about swimming - the first week, he didn't even get into the water.  By the end of the summer he was paddling around on his own!  He also went to a week of Kindergarten Prep at his new school.  He went in the mornings, wore his uniform, and had a lot of fun figuring out what school would be like. 

2013-2014 school year

Kindergarten was a great year for John.  He learned to read very early on in the year, and absolutely took off.  Reading and writing became his favorite things to do.  The other big news academically was that he scored a 99% in math on the district gifted test.  This enabled him to be identified as gifted at his school and they were able to begin providing services for him.  In addition to being given (marginally) more difficult work, he attended a math class with his gifted teacher once a week, and bonded with the teacher instantly.  Outside of that, he didn't progress too much in math in Kindergarten.  I was not a big fan of his teacher in general, because I felt she didn't work well with him in either academics or behavior.   As a parent, I felt there were some ups and downs in Kindergarten, but as a student I don't think John perceived it that way, so that's great!

He made friends in his class, and I was able to volunteer in his class several times, and chaperone the field trip to the zoo.  He really liked his school and all his classes and teachers.  Fun activities included:  Fall Festival, singing with his class in the Variety Show, grandparents' day in his class, and of course, a party to celebrate finishing Kindergarten.

Outside of school, we went to Rocky Point several times, and he and I had a few dates to see Lion King and Disney Classics at the Symphony.  He started taking karate in December and continued to go twice a week for the rest of the school year.  He started speech therapy twice a week in May 2013 and was released almost exactly a year later in May 2014.  

His interests for the year were dinosaurs, space, and Magic Tree House books!

-He had a best friend for most of the year and was such a tender-hearted kid about him.  Apparently this child really admired John's twistable crayons, so for weeks, John told me he needed to buy him Twistables.  When I finally told him that his friend's crayons were fine, he pleaded, "Please, mommy, I PROMISED him!"  Sweetheart.

-In November, he had a worksheet about hand washing, and he wrote in "Happy Thanksgiving" on the picture of the towel, because that's what we had on our hand towels at the time.    He also captioned the picture, "Gurms make me sick!"

-Is there anything sweeter than your son giving you a ring he picked out at the elementary school's Christmas boutique? "I will wrap up your other present, Mommy, but I just couldn't wait until Christmas to give this to you!"

-On Christmas Eve, he left out a bowl of water for Roodough.  He spent a lot of time learning phonogram sounds in school, and -ough does say "off" as one of its sounds.  So, John sounded out Rudolph and that's what he came up with.

-March  2014 - "Will the dinosaurs be with us in heaven?"