Our Brown Eyed Girl

This picture along with a lot of other pictures from our trip are trapped on a disk unreadable by my computer. So we may be coming back to those adventures later on, but for now we'll go with what we do have. My Dad took this shot and I am just in awe of her eyes. Danya's eyes are set apart and they are almond shaped and a lot of times her eyes look crossed, the eye Dr. assures us they are not it just appears that way, but in this picture they are just piercing and beautiful.

Oh the things you find when you clean...

So when we were in Minnesota I went through lots of stuff that had been packed away. Mom in all her wisdom decided when we all were done with our Barbies to just pack them up so that our kids could play with them. We don't seem to have many of the dolls left in playable shape but boy do we have decades of clothing styles, there are even some that Mom made as a sewing beginner when she played with her Barbies. In the process of sorting I decided to separate all those little shoes and other accessories from the clothing so that some of the older younger cousins could play with them without parents worrying too much. Sorting, sorting, sorting and as I looked at the smaller accessory bucket I realized we had an amusing collection of Barbie technology.
First the Barbie desktop of the 80's and Barbie's laptop of the 2000's

As some of you know when I was the camp speaker for a camp in Iowa I used toys to tell the stories on powerpoint and slides. So to do that I would always keep my eyes open for Barbies on clearance. This gives us more Technology than you would suspect given my age.
Now the evolution of Barbie's music equipment.







All I need is a Barbie 8 track and a Barbie Ipod to complete the evolution. Could you imagine how small a Barbie Ipod would be?

I know this is a little departure from the usual topic of this blog, but I thought it was a funny story to share with all of you.

The Dress Saga

A while back Aaron and Mary asked Danya to be their flower girl. We agreed. At the time we agreed Danya was only partially into her trying 2's and so we thought it would be no problem. However we did relay to them the story of our flower girl who got half way down the aisle and then ran back to the beginning. I knew that flower girl dresses could be extremely expensive and so I asked the bride if I could just make it. Long story short, I designed a little dress that was a copy of the brides dress for Danya. I started with the same pattern I've used for my flower girls and Michelle's flowergirl, and then made my own pattern using the sizing. It was a fun challenge.

Naturally we had to make a trial dress so we could see if the pattern worked. So using some leftovers from her halloween costume we put a sample together. Um... trying it on didn't go so well. Now is when I started to get really nervous about the wedding.

(these 2 shots and many more are pictures I don't usually post. They are the ones that I keep to remind me that I survived and that although she is generally a really snuggly little girl she certainly has a temper. )
So when we arrived in Minnesota, my Mom said we should buy a shirt to go under it and perhaps that would work. It did. Danya played in her dress for about a half hour that day. Then we washed, pressed and got it all ready for wedding day.

The original plan included a short nap and a hair appointment, but plans changed. The weather wasn't great and 2 and a half year olds with no nap are bears! So we made a frantic call to the flowershop, who changed the flowers for her hair into a little wreath. As my Mom was helping her get ready, my aunt Melanie walked in and proclaimed Danya a princess. She loooooooved that! Her wreath became her crown.

You can't see it here, but her dress has a little train just like the brides. Danya's dress was the opposite colors of the brides dress. So Mary's dress was white with a red sash.

There is a long wait for flower girls and ring bearers to go down the aisle. The kids were supposed to go down together, but Danya was refusing to go. Then her cousin took off down the aisle and well that was it. She stood up and ran down the aisle after him. The only petals that ended up on the ground were the ones that flittered out as she ran down.

Of course we can't be perfect all day. No she didn't fall. She threw herself on the ground and held her feet up like this until we said she could leave the photo. I can't wait until she's 16 and she sees these photos again. Hehe. This morning we were getting dressed for the day and she selected her "princess" dress. She actually wore it for a little while, until she decided she wanted to wear underwears instead of diapers.

Family Photos

One of the things that was very important to us was that we all get together and have a big family photo taken. It was a bit stressful, as Danya is 2.5 and not always so cooperative, but we got some cute shots just the same.


Nana and Papa wanted a photo with their grandkids too so there was a huge variety of shots that day.

Here's everyone...


Danya was a bundle of energy and in the last few moments as we were packing everything back up she actually co-operated for some shots.

All Photos in this post were taken by Liz Westerhaus, who is the photographer behind Foresthaus Photography (612-600-2211)

Meeting the cousins

Danya and Oliver were fast friends. She was very excited to see him and to play with him. They were flowergirl and ringbearer together so they had lots of times together as we prepared for the big day and several since. Danya, I will be honest, has not always displayed the best sharing techniques-- but she's 2, so with a little correction and encouragement she does pretty well.

She was just in love with baby Brianna. She loved to just sit and watch her. If she cried, Danya would stop whatever she was doing and go close just to check on what she was doing.

She now occasionally comes up to me and says "carry baby" which means she wants to be carried like a baby. She is a very heavy little girl when she's not helping to be carried.

Danya was also quite taken with her cousin Lucius. He is so sweet too. The night of the Vikings game we went to Auntie Em's house to watch (they have the biggest TV) It was getting to be a late night and Danya was exhausted. She wouldn't however lay down anywhere. I got the chance to hold the baby as my sister was putting Oliver down to sleep. I sat down and Danya cuddled right in with him on my lap. She patted his leg to help him calm down when he fussed, and sat still for 10 min.

Anyone who knows Danya will tell you this is amazing especially when she is tired. She tends to keep moving so she doesn't fall asleep. When my sister came back out she took the baby back so that he could finish eating. Danya yelled, "MINE BABY" and started to cry. I hesitate to tell this story because everyone who hears it starts making hints about another baby. My answer is as it always has been. When God blesses us with another baby we will be ecstatic and let you know.

Traveling...

As you know we've been traveling in Minnesota the past couple of weeks. "Why are you in Minnesota in the winter?!?!?!?" seems to be the predominant question. Well my cousin was getting married so it seemed like a good excuse to go. Danya was the flowergirl, more on that later, and I was the photographer. John had a very important job too. Making sure I didn't loose my mind or my cool. He was busy chasing down family to be in pictures, making sure my lights didn't get knocked over, and making sure the list was completed. I couldn't have done it without you babe. Anyway, we made many people in the airport smile as we deplaned with Danya's unique travel style. She was still too tired to walk because it was a rough flight and so the sleep was intermintant at best, so she rode the suitcases to Nana's car. Or at least until we got near the door. We spent the weeks before we left home practicing dropping petals, and learning as many names as we could. The one thing we forgot to practice was putting on a coat to go outside. She was not very pleased with us when we put on a big heavy coat to go outside. Once outside and she saw all the snow she was soo excited. Plus for the first time that she remembers she saw her breath without being in a walk in cooler at Costco. I already posted how she looves to play in the snow but I thought these quick stories were important to share too.

SNOW!!!

We are off on a visit to MinneSNOWta and Danya who has been really interested in snow lately, because we've been watching lots of videos about snow to prepare her for it. Well she loooooves the snow. We almost always have to coax her out of it.

The first morning we arrived we were very tired and so we took a nap, mommy and Danya, and when we woke up both of our braids were falling out so after taking the french braids out of our hair, we, by we I mean Danya, decided it was time to go out and play in the snow. I didn't super bundle her up because I figured we wouldn't be out too long. Boy was I wrong. She would have stayed out all morning I think, but I did get her back inside, but not before I took one of my favorite all time photos of her.

"Snow!"

Later in the afternoon when we had a better chance at bundling up we went back outside. She got really into it.

She even found a shovel in Papa's play toys to play with in the bucket of toys.

It was more of a trowel than a shovel but it was lots of fun.

Of course Kleo was a source of constant smiles as we played in the snow. Danya played and played until Mommy saw her little legs shaking and we went inside. That evening we went out and bought her snow pants so we can really have some fun in the snow soon.