Carter for the past 2 months!

Carter is growing like crazy! This is a few pics that I have taken the past couple months. I was talking about Mikey on my last post and how I couldn't believe that his b-day was coming up, well Carters 1st b-day is in a couple days!! Time has flew by! With Carter's upcoming big day, it got me thinking.... I remember the day I found out I was pregnant with Carter. I JUST had Mikey 3 months before and when that pregnancy test read positive I thought "life as I know it will DRASTICALLY change!" We tried for YEARS to have a baby and then all of a sudden we have 2 GREAT kids! What a blessing little Carter is in my life and even though he came a little bit sooner than I had planned I am grateful for Carter and the boy that he is. I love his little personality and he is such a lover.... how could I NOT love this boy!

Mikey 22 & 23 months

Mikey playing baseball

time out

cute boy

Driving in his new car

playing on his new swing set

So It has been over a month since I posted last. Probably because there isn't anything new happening. Things start to slow down once there's a threat of winter. Mikey is such a cute boy and LOVES baseball! His newest thing that he does is, he carries a baseball glove around everywhere he goes and he is DEFININTLY a lefty! Mikey has started speech therapy and is SLOWLY starting to say some things. That boy is stubborn! He has someone that comes to our home twice a week to work with him so were hoping that he will start communicating in some way, either by signing or talking. He climbs EVERYTHING and is WAY to curious. And with the terrible two's coming up the tantrums are starting! I can't believe his birthday is coming up!

Catch Up

I realized that I haven't posted for about a month and a half. Summer has been BUSY and I'm excited to have things slow down a tad. With Carter's first birthday quickly approaching and Mikey's 2ND, I realized that summer really is coming to an end. We went to Silverwood the end of July and we did some boating too! We also went to the fair a couple weeks ago. It was fun to see Mikey riding on the rides and really enjoying them. He screamed every time we pulled him off of one. Mikey enjoyed the Jeep the most and anything with a steering wheel. Carter was sooo laid back at the fair and he stayed in the stroller the whole day barely making a sound. Carter is such a good kid! cute, cuddly, kissable Carter! Things are good here at the Dan's! Carter chillin at the fair
Silly boy

Mikey in the Jeep at the fair

I love how his arm is over the side and he's just chillin

At Silverwood riding the train with Daddy

Carter with Nana

My lil sis LOVES Carter.... He fell asleep shortly after this pic was taken

I was multitasking! (love his "FIEVEL" cheeks)

Tragedy & Blessings

July has been CRAZY to say the least. It started off not that great. We found out the first week in July that my sisters best friends (twins) were being molested by their father since they were 8 years old. Needless to say my parents turned their father in (who is also my Dad's good friend) He is currently sitting in the county jail and I hope he will go to prison for a LONG time. This was the only thing I could think about and I just couldn't get the girls out of my mind. Thank goodness for a loving Heavenly Father who is looking out for them and things are starting to iron out. We are working on getting the girls out of protective custody and back home. With such a bad start to the month of July it was going to take A LOT to cheer me up.

The blessings have been POURING in since the bad news. Mike's little brother and his family gave a semi-surprise visit. They stayed for about a week and a half. We did A lot of fun things together. We went to the 4th of July parade downtown, Gondola rides, fireworks, walks along the lake, and Mike even took us all for a boat ride. Our last family activity was a bike ride on the Hiawatha trail. To top off the Brian Dan family fun we found out yesterday that they will be expecting a baby girl! They will have one boy and one girl. YEAH!!

Next Mikes older brother Steve and his family MOVED to Idaho. We are so glad to have them here and have been hanging out almost everyday since they have arrived. We missed ALL of them and are happy they are here with us. Their kids are giants and their little Summer is such a cute little girl! We have been going down to the beach everyday that it's nice and taking advantage of Summer.

We just had a birthday party for the twins and we are able to have supervised visits with them. They seem to be doing well and I am thankful I have been SUPER busy to keep my mind off of the bad news.

This is BY FAR the longest blog entry and I promise I won't write books every time I post!

I posted most of the pics on facebook and I tried to post different ones on here of the craziness!

Carter 8 months

Little Car is 8 months old! Carter is now "army" crawling everywhere. So I thought it was appropriate that I posted a pic of him in camo. A few of the things that I LOVE about little Carter are....

1. likes to "nuzzle" his nose in my neck

2. MELLOW (thank goodness)

3. likes to cuddle

4. He sleeps in MANY positions and it's fun to peek in his crib when he's asleep

5. LOVES music and moves ONLY his shoulders and head when he dances (reminds me of a bobble head)

6. He tries to make me think that he's hurt and lets out his hurt cry when I'm not paying attention to him or taking too long making a bottle.

7. He doesn't get into anything even though he's mobile! YET.................

8. Will go to ANYONE that wants to hold him

9. Carter adores Mikey to no end

10. He likes his Mommy the best :)

Shrine Circus

While Carter stayed home with Mike, Mommy and Mikey had a fun time at the circus! For a small circus it was A lot of fun. Mikey saw bears, elephants, a alligator, ponies, and lions and tigers. He actually sat and watched A big portion of the circus. What's a circus without food? Mikey ate popcorn, hot dogs, cotton candy and a snow cone. He had A lot of fun riding a pony. He kept petting the pony's mane and saying "DOG" and making barking noises. It's funny that he randomly got to ride the pony that had a personality that matched his. He got the most defiant pony there, it kept sneezing and moving it's head back and forth and you could tell it didn't want to be restrained. We had tons of fun and will definitely go next year. I can't wait for Mikey and Carter to enjoy this together next year.

Mikes 30th Birthday

Mike's 30th was on June 5th. We got a sitter for little Carter and decided to go out on the lake and catch some fish with Mikey. It was Mikey's first time on the boat and he had fun. He saw Mike reel in a few fish, organized Mikes tackle box, threw a sippy cup in the lake, tried to throw the net in the lake and fell asleep on the way back to the dock. The fish were spawning and it was cool to see them protecting their eggs. What was even cooler was you could see the fish before Mike caught them and reeled them in. Mike had a good birthday because he caught some fish. On our way back home we drive by horses. Mike stopped the car and showed Mikey the horses. The last picture is of Mike making really loud horse sounds and crackin Mikey up.

Carter 7 months ( a month late)

Little Carter turned 7 months old in MAY! Just a little late posting pics of our cutie pie, snugly, mellow, spitter upper baby. 8 month pics coming soon.......

First day at nursery

Mikey went to Nursery for his first time last Sunday. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! I think Mikey was ready for nursery a couple months ago. They let him come a couple weeks early since he is clearly ready. His first day at nursery was suppose to be this coming Sunday. He is very independent and didn't miss Mommy at all. He colored me my first Mothers day card (one red squiggly crayon mark) and I actually got a little choked up over it... go figure? Whenever I drop him off to Nursery or Day Care at the gym they always say the same thing. "WOW, he is really....... ACTIVE for his age." My response is always the same. "That's an understatement." Mikey with his nursery leaders

Father & Sons

The night of Father & Sons was a little chilly and rainy. Mike decided he wanted to take Mikey just for the evening so they didn't have to brave the cold. Mike said that Mikey LOVED throwing things into the fire and enjoyed the big boy bikes. Mike can't wait until next year when it will hopefully be a little warmer and Mikey will be even more fun and hopefully not a full blown PYRO! watching the fire
throwing things into the fire

Father & Sons

Mike, Mikey & Bishop

playing on the big boy bikes

Carter 6 months pics (a little late)

Our little Car turned 6 months old at the end of April. He is such a good baby! Carter loves to sleep. He is also really mellow which is a welcomed "break" after Mikey. He loves to snuggle and is a tad bit sensitive. He is looking more and more like big Mike every day. Mikes Mom brought pictures of Mike over when he was a baby and you can really see a resemblance. Carter can sit up for short periods of time. Carter is a trooper when he's teething. He has 2 bottom teeth now and the top two are going to poke through any day now. It's nice to have a baby that falls asleep in odd places so I can break out my camera. Love you my snuggle bug! happy boy!

asleep in the bouncy

Eating his first cracker


First time in the "big" high chair

A LOT ISN'T ALLOT IS IT ALOT?

OK so I was informed by my dear friend Sarah F. that I have been spelling the word "A lot" incorrectly for quite a while. This bothered me so I had to google it. You see I always use spell check and I was spelling "A lot" like this.... A-L-L-O-T. Well I found this is also a word and that's why spell check never caught it. Just in case everyone else is having this problem here is what I found. Thanks again Sarah. After all what are friends for? By the way I forgot to tell you that it was time to trim your nose hairs! Just kidding of course, you always look fantabulous!


Dictionary Finds:


A lot (two words) is an informal phrase meaning "many." It can take an adjective, for example, "a sizeable lot."
Example: MIKE needed a lot of time for the job.


Allot means "to distribute between or among." It has the same root as lottery.
Example: Rusty Dan never allotted breaks at work.


Alot does not exist as a word.
Example: previous blog entries

Fantabulous: Marvelously excellent: “a really fantabulous find, just magnificent” (Mel Fisher).
[Blend of FANTASTIC and FABULOUS.] (just in case you were gonna call me on that one, however this word isn't in some dictionary's and spell check doesn't seem to recognize it)

*C*A*L*I*F*O*R*N*I*A

Wow where do I start? We decided to take a last minute trip to Northern California. We left the Friday before Easter and it only took 13 hours to get there. We left at 11:00 at night on a whim while the kids were asleep. EASY CHEESY! We got to Napa Valley area and had a blast with my Mom and her boyfriend Cliff. My Mom couldn't put Carter down. That's why there isn't very many pics of Carter because my Mom doesn't like to be in them and she was holding him 24/7. Mikey looked for Easter eggs on Sunday and he seemed to like the candy in the plastic eggs. Mike helped Cliff chop wood for the fire and even helped a neighbor for a few hours with his firewood. Towards the end of the week we met up with Steve & Lani (Mike's older bro) We had allot of fun visiting with them. It was good to meet little Summer and was neat to see the relationship between Steve and his little girl. The boys have grown up sooo much. Cory is REALLY tall. Rusty is cool to hang with and I enjoyed having some one on one time with him. Jared is as cute as ever and a little helper. I really miss them already! Since we are giving all of our money to charities this year we decided to do some no cost activities. We hung out by the pool and the kids and the big kids went swimming. We found a sweet living room set up at the mall complete with a coffee table to kick our feet up on. The next day we went hiking at a State Park and saw a cemetery where some of the Donnor party were barried. We then hiked to a mill and then we said our goodbyes! Thanks for driving all that way to see us Steve, Lani & kids. We can't wait to do this again. We spent the rest of the time at my Moms relaxing and even went to the river. We then headed back home and we decided to take a different route. We went through the Redwoods and it was AWESOME! The different route was only a 100 more miles but it took us 4 more hours due to traffic and end of spring break. That's ALLOT of hours when your traveling in the day with kids. We are finally back home and enjoying getting back to normal.