Just hanging out

These past few weeks have been pretty busy but also a lovely time of hanging out and going out. Daniel has done very well with adjusting to different activities and seeing different people. 

Oscar has been around a few times and he enjoys being a help with Daniel. After growing the confidence to hold Daniel by himself, feed him the bottle, he decided last week to give Daniel his lunch. I let him give the grapes after he had eaten most of his food. Oscar did very well to avoid Daniel's teeth!

 One of my friends Ali was in Sydney for the colour conference and so she organised for my group of girls that we hung out with lots to get together. It's pretty crazy that a lot of us now have a little bub with us. It was really nice just chatting, seeing Tom and Tilly run around, having cuddles with Hannah, Daniel and Penelope. Lots of laughs, chats and good times. 

Elise with Hannah, Ali with Tom, Lyndy, Ez with Penelope, Daniel and I, Zoe with Tilly and Shell

Daniel has increased his enjoyment of standing. He isn't pulling himself up on things (nor am I encouraging that) but he does go up on his knees more and he likes to climb over things in his way. Last week I tried standing him up so he was holding onto his mobile. It was the first time that his legs didn't seem like jelly. He was quite stable standing there (I was still prepared to catch him incase he fell though). 

Standing and playing

Happy boy

 On Sunday James, Daniel and I went for a daytrip to Canberra so that James could get a photo in a capital city for the March Photo Scavenger Hunt. We left the house at 6am so that we could get to Canberra by 9:30 to go to church with Deby and James. On the way we saw a beautiful sunrise.

Daniel was a very good traveler. He slept for an hour in the car on the way and then was happy to just play and hang out after a milk feed.

Such a dag!

Just cruising in the back

Happy chappy

It was lovely to go to church with Deby and James and to hear James preach again. James took Daniel outside because he was being a bit too chatty (very cute but very distracting!) but he was happy to crawl around and apparently sat and watched James for a while too. After church we went for a drive to Parliament House for James to get his photo. Unfortunately Daniel had fallen asleep so there was no family photo there. After driving around for 40mins we then met up with James and Deby for a picnic lunch. It was very yummy and great to catch up with them. Deby had a great time playing with Daniel who was much more interested in the dirt and sticks than the toys that we brought him.

Tickles with Deby

Debbie, James, James, Deby and Daniel

For dessert James and Deby brought raspberries. Daniel hadn't tried any before so we decided to give them a go. He pulled some funny faces but was happy to eat more. Basically he either wanted it all in his mouth or none of it.

We also got to catch up with my friends from work, Deb and Nath. It was a great to see their new place and have some good chats. Daniel enjoyed choosing wines from their wine rack - Daddy's boy.

Daniel then slept for the whole trip home which was great! It was his nighttime sleep time so that was good. When we got home I fed him and then put him down but I think that with all the travelling he was wanting to have a bit of a play. After 1hr of crying and James and I going in to settle him, he eventually went to sleep. Hopefully this won't happen when we do our roadtrip to Melbourne and Adelaide as we were so tired and it was even more draining to have Daniel not want to sleep. He has settled back into a good routine now though which is good.

On Monday we decided to swap the milk feeds and solids feeds. He hasn't been very keen to eat his lunch most days and I was wondering if that was partly due to him feeling full after having a milk feed. While I still didn't feel I had my head around it, I thought it was worth a try and James agreed. At the moment Daniel is often having a milk feed around 5am and then going back to sleep. When he wakes up I give him his breakfast and then a milk feed around 1hr-1.5hrs later. After his morning nap I then give him his lunch - often around 12/12:30pm. Again, around an hour later I give him his milk feed. The difficulty is that he is seeming to have a long sleep in the afternoon. Both yesterday and today I have had to go in and wake him up at 4:30 after he has slept for 2 hours. I then give him his dinner and then a milk feed at around 5:30pm. He then goes to bed around 6:30pm. I am hoping to bring that time to around 6pm but we will see how he goes. We have decided that he will go to bed around 2hours after he wakes up in the afternoon, which has worked both Monday night and tonight. Hopefully it will continue that way. I'm happy that the switch has worked ok and I hope that it will continue to go well.

Waiting for the next spoon full

I am increasing the amount of 'finger food' that Daniel has a lunch time as he isn't very keen with using the spoon. Today he had potato and spinach but then also had carrot sticks, cheese sticks and egg cut into quarters. This worked well. When he doesn't want a spoon full, or is chewing his food he sits like this which is pretty cute. I think he learnt it from me because I sat like that while I was waiting for him to finish chewing. Oops!

He has also taken to using a cup to drink his water instead of using his sippy cup. It is pretty cute, but he does have a lot of it end up in his bib.

 

Dadadada

Not only did Daddy get the first smile and the first giggle, he also gets the first word (although I'm not sure Daniel knows what he is really saying). Today when I was hanging out with him I could have sworn he said 'Dadadada' but he wouldn't repeat it. He did it again when I was changing his nappy but wouldn't perform again. Then when he was playing with his soft toys in his shelves and started to say it again. I managed to catch it on video. It's pretty cute.

 He did mostly say it when he was giving me his teddy so maybe he is thinking he is saying 'ta'. I don't know. It's still pretty cute and I'm pretty sure that James is going to claim it :-)

On Monday we went for a road trip with Jens and Oscar to see our friend Zoe and her little girl Tilly. It was so cute to watch them all interact - especially to see Daniel start to get involved with other kids. When we got back to the Howie's place Oscar said that he wanted to hold Daniel all by himself. He hasn't held Daniel for a long time and each time he had held Daniel it was with Jens or I helping him. It was very sweet to watch. 

Yesterday Oscar came around to visit and Mum was giving him a bottle in preperation for Friday when I need to leave Daniel with Jens. Oscar decided that he could give Daniel his bottle. He had Daniel lie down on his lap and was very sweet in giving Daniel the bottle. I just love how much he enjoys playing with Daniel.

 My little cheeky boy has also worked out how to open the door to the pantry so we need to make sure that it is closed properly.

Baa baa...

This week Daniel started saying his first sound - more than just the squeals and mmmm. He has started saying Baa baa baa baa. He says it in excitement, to respond to someone or just when talking. It's very cute.

Now I'm frequently asking him if he can say 'dadadadada' or 'mum mum mum mum' because that would be exciting but we will wait and see. I wonder what his first word will be.

Daniel also enjoys climbing over things, particularly legs and toys. Here he is climbing over my leg to get to his toys.

Everywhere he crawls at the moment he likes to take something with him. Often it is his afl ball (which is good - future Sydney Swans player maybe?)

On Friday Daniel and I went to Pennant Hills library to go to their bubs 'n' books session. Some mums from Mothers' Group have gone to it and said that they enjoyed it a lot. It was pretty cute - Daniel sat with me. He enjoyed playing with the bells and was very intrigued when singing the songs. We read 2 books and then sang some more songs. The lady leading it was very bubbly which was nice, but a bit full on too. I think it would be more fun with people that I know. Hopefully some other mums will make it next week.

Daniel's Dedication

On Sunday 3rd March James and I dedicated Daniel. It was lovely to have Malcolm and Julie come down for the weekend and hang out. They were a great help! Malcolm helped James with putting up the blinds, fixing the door handles and other odd jobs while Julie helped look after Daniel which was a wonderful assistance on Sunday!

Daniel loved hanging out with Nana J and Boompa!

We started the afternoon by having an afternoon tea for family and a few friends. It was great to have so many aunties, uncles, cousins, grandparents, great-grandparents and friends come together to celebrate Daniel. It was a little bit stressful in the preparation (I'm so bad with time frames) but we got there and there was just the right amount of food. God was good and even though it rained both before and after, it held off during the afternoon tea - we even saw some sunshine! I love the whole 'small world' times. It turned out that Steve (my cousin's husband) knew Cam (Rach's husband) through SMBC so they got to catch up. The kids all played really well together which was lovely to see. I love it how even if they don't know eachother, they still enjoy playing together.

4 generations of Nobles

Opening a present from Aunty Megan and Mark

Family chatting

Elyse, Oscar, Joey and Noah

Socialising

Me with my amazing teaching buddies. Love these girls!

It was great to have Paul and Carol come and join us

Daniel enjoyed hanging out with his Boompa and Grannie

 It was a lovely afternoon tea, only problem was that the time went too quickly. We weren't too sure how Daniel would go with regard to church because he didn't have an afternoon nap, even though he was very tired, but he did really well.

We headed to church and it was so lovely to see friends who we hadn't seen for a while. Zoe and Tom came down from the Central coast, the Toonie people came to visit (Leanne, Aleesha, Kate, B, B2), Lyndy, Ez, Shell Elise each came (it was a lovely reunion - we just missed Ali), Lachie came too. It was also great to have Ruth and Jono come as well as Rach and Cam (to the afternoon tea). Daniel is a very loved little boy. Paul was very nervous to be dedicating Daniel. He found it to be a real privileged and we were so grateful for him to do it. Daniel did a great job too. He loved eating the microphone during the service (it was so wet!) but he didn't cry at all and even got excited when Paul mentioned he was looking forward to seeing how Daniel will use his God-given gifts when he grows up - particularly in music. 

Dedicating Daniel is such a privilege to do. We were committing him to God as well as committing ourselves and how we raise him. We pray that Daniel will experience God's love and presence. We pray that he will grow up hearing about Jesus and when the time is right, he will make a commitment to follow him. He is such a blessing. My prayer is that he will grow up and know Jesus as his Lord and Saviour. It was lovely to have our church family and friends stand with us to commit to helping raise him and help him grow up to be an amazing man of God. It was lovely for Auntie Jenny to pray for Daniel and us in this journey.

Paul explaining what dedication means

Paul praying over Daniel

Daniel trying to eat the microphone

Auntie Jenny praying for Daniel

Paul needed to hold Daniel's hands so that he would stop eating the microphone while Jenny prayed

Thank you to all who came to be a part of this big day.

Also, this week Daniel has started a new skill. He has started to confidently move from sitting to crawling and then today he moved from crawling to sitting for the first time. Clever boy!

 

And then there were 2...

Teeth that is :-) This week Daniel got his 2nd front bottom tooth. He wasn't noticeably grumpy or anything. Atleast no more than normal, although he was a lot more unsettled when going to sleep at night so maybe that was connected. I'm not too sure. Anyway he is starting to show off his teeth a little bit, but you need to work at it. I finally got a photo that shows both of his little teeth - so cute!

A big left tooth and a little right one

A couple of weeks ago Daniel received a special package which was part of his Christmas present - his first Sydney Swans membership. I'm very happy with what was included in it.

Proudly accepting his membership certificate (and then trying to eat it)

Happy to wear his scarf

Go Swannies!

All ready to support the Swans - Cheer, cheer the red and the white...

 Last Friday we had our 2nd (and last) swimming lesson and Daniel again loved it. It was very sweet watching our bubs swim together and enjoy the different activities and songs. One of the girls had her mother-in-law come to watch the lesson and she was kind enough to take some photos which she sent to me.

Kicking to a new station

Swimming over to the beam and then hopping over it to Mummy

Twinkle toes down the mat and then jumping into the pool.

 Another thing which Daniel is increasingly doing is blowing raspberries. It is cute until he does it while eating, yet I have been good to keep a straight face and not respond when he does it.

Daniel is still being quite adventurous. I haven't been using the playpen much as it's an effort to get it out, but also because it is very little and Daniel likes to move around so quite often his goes for a trip down the hallway to visit different rooms. The music/study room door tends to stay closed, same as the toilet door. The spare bedroom is a fun place for Daniel to visit. It has the pool in it which Daniel really enjoys climbing into and pushing on the side. One day he pushed on it and the pool flipped over ontop of him. I had a good laugh as he crawled around underneath it.

Stuck under it

Boo!

Trying to climb into it again

 He has also started to pull himself up onto his knees and rocks forwards and backwards. Fortunately he hasn't pieced it together to use that method to crawl, I hope he doesn't do that anytime soon. 

He also uses this technique to pull himself over different things like his pillow-pets or to pull up on his walker.

It is pretty cute watching Daniel's excitement when he sees Chilli. There is always a squeal of delight. Part of me feels sorry for Chilli as she doesn't get peace when Daniel is around and she is on the ground. Chilli has taken to sitting on the chair that I use when feeding Daniel and Daniel found her on Monday and decided to say hi.

Hi Chilli

I wanna hold your hand (or paw)

Trying to get your foot

 Moments later he did then grab Chilli's tail that was dangling down. Not such a good idea Chilli!

I love his giggle! It is such a delight and always puts a smile on my face.

He also has a great sense of rhythm. We went to young adults camp last weekend and 2 of the boys that I had as my youth boys who are very into music were impressed with his sense of rhythm. They were tapping on the table and then Daniel was patting on the table at the same time. That apparently doesn't happen much at such a young age. Here he is beating the table in time with Daddy.

Also, one of my favourite moments from the week was when we were at church and we were singing praises to God. The music was awesome and Daniel was in my arms. He started to clap his hands in time to the music. It was so sweet. I hope his love for music doesn't stop. It would be wonderful if when he was older, he was involved in the church bands. We will just have to wait and see.