True California

Being that we live in Southern California and therefore in earthquake country, we happened upon Daniel's first earthquake. Matt was out with him in the car and didn't even feel it, much to his dismay. He really wanted to feel an earthquake. Apparently around the time it happened though Daniel started getting upset so Matt decided to drive around the parking lot to calm him and noticed that people were coming out of the buildings. I was at the district office in one of those little portable classrooms, you know the ones with no foundation. It jerked a little bit and then rolled for what seemed like forever but was only like 15 or 20 seconds. It wasn't really scary or anything and nothing was hurt or damaged but it was a 5.4 and they always catch you off guard.

Also, being a true Californian, Daniel wore sandals and a really cute "surfer" outfit today so of course I took a picture!

To My Wife

My wife and I celebrated our 2nd Anniversary and I wanted to share with everyone how much I love and appreciate her.

She is my motivation day in and day out, especially when I don't want to work hard or go to school. She loves me in spite of me and all the things that I put her through. She is the woman of my dreams, which makes this reality all the better. She is an excellent mother who has displayed patience I could only ever hope to have with our lovely son Daniel. She believes in me even when I don't, and lets me know that I am good enough, strong enough, smart enough, and of course hot enough. She is the home that I always want to be with. She lets me be me, which is the best blessing I could ask for, and for some reason she loves me for me, weird I know.

I know it has only been two years, but for me it has flown by, which makes me glad that I have eternity to savor our time together. I love her with all my heart, and love the wonderful child that we have together. She brought the most wonderful, beautiful child into the world and I love her for that, and have a new found respect for her and what she went through with pregnancy and the labor. She is the best around, and always will be.

I love you honey!!! Muah!

New Friends and Photo Shoot

For about 4 days in a row I woke up in the morning to hear Daniel making noises. I waited around for about 10-15 minutes waiting for it to turn into crying for breakfast but instead he just "talked." I snuck over there and he was just talking away to his broncos mobile. It's like they're his friends he chats with. Another "friend" he's found is a balloon he got when he was born. He sits and stares at it, follows it when it moves around, pulls on the strings when we play with it, and "talks" to it. We even brought it with us to Kiddie Kandids when he had his sitting, which we used towards the end to get him to look at the camera. So here's a little video of him and his new friend.


Here are his pictures that were taken yesterday. They turned out so cute!

Becca calls the one abve "Blue Steel" because it reminds her of Zoolander.


And finally Daniel was out in the living room the other night and when my mom handed him the drumstick from RockBand, he grabbed it. So my mom put him on her lap and they were "playing" the drums. Plus yesterday we found that Matt & Daniel were like twinsies in their blue striped polos and khaki shorts so we had to get a picture.

One busy week...

Warning... Really long post ahead. We had a lot of people in town for Daniel's blessing so there was a lot going on. So lets start with my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary party. My dad's parents, Grandma Judie & Grandpa Peanut, have been married 50 years as of June 28th, a pretty huge feat. Surprisingly, they gave my dad and Uncle Kenny the green light to throw them a party so we all got together to celebrate. It was great seeing my uncle, aunt, and some of my cousins since I haven't seen them since before Matt & I got married. It was fun having everyone together since that doesn't seem to happen much anymore. It was also the first time my brother Brent met his nephews and we got some great pictures of Daniel laughing and Clayton posing (he's already holding up his head!). My grandma was trying to teach the babies spanish already!

After the party, we went to meet up with the Brinks II and Josh who had just come into town that night. Josh spent the next couple of days with us and went to church, played games, and went swimming. That Monday was Daniel's first time going in the water. He didn't like getting in the water at first because it was cold but once he got over the shock he was pretty content just chillin. There's some cute pictures of him and also Josh & Matt playing crossfire. One night when Matt & Josh were outside throwing the football around, Matt nailed Josh right in the eye, making it bleed. Josh was excited because he was going to have a black eye, though it never actually materialized.

On Tuesday, LouAnne, Taylor, Lindsay, Madison, & Brooklyn came out. It was also the day that Daniel got his first set of shots. He wasn't happy when it first happened but he was good after a minute. Then, after the tylenol wore off, he was very upset. Of course by then we were in Irvine and we both thought the other one had grabbed the tylenol. Long story short, Daniel was a trooper after we got him some more tylenol & he didn't need any more after that.

Thursday was Daniel's first trip to Disneyland and we were soooo excited about it. Matt, Daniel, my sister Lindsay, & I met up with the Brinks II, the Smiths minus Colton, the Empey Family, LouAnne & the boys. We went online to try & find tickets for a better deal, you know someone trying to sell their last day or something & we found a guy able to get us tickets for $60 a piece. Anyways it was kinda shady so next time we'll just buy them at the ticket counter. Daniel went on 3 rides: King Arthur's carousel, King Triton's carousel, & Pirates of the Caribbean. He was asleep for 2 of them but we were really excited that he was going on the rides. Jackson got to be one of the Jedi in training which was pretty cool. We split up & while the boys went on Indiana Jones, Lindsay & I hung out with Daniel where we got the cutest pictures of him laughing & smiling. He was "playing" with the ewok we bought him. =) Because we split up we missed the parade but later we of course caught the fireworks since Daniel loves them. Becca joined us later too because she has a pass. We couldn't resist buying Daniel mouse ears either, even though the infant size was still too big for him. It was a ton of fun but seriously, it seems like everything goes in slow motion when you have kids because you have to worry about stroller passes, when they need to feed, etc. Welcome to the rest of our lives I guess right?

The 4th of July we spent recuperating from the Magic Kingdom. We had a BBQ with all the Brinks (Torrey & Ali got there that morning), Smiths (so did Colton), Empeys, & Janet and then went to the Los Alamitos Air Force Base for fireworks. It was Daniel's 3rd fireworks show and Torrey couldn't believe that I woke him up from a nap to watch. Daniel ended up waking up on his own schedule anyways. Afterwards we had a good time watching TJ throw the football to Josh, mostly running yellow 13 where Josh had to run to the flagpole, and quoting almost the entire movie of "The Karate Kid."

Saturday all the grandkids took photos, which turned out way cute, & then we had my Lindsay's, Jeff's, Shannon's, & Maddie's birthday dinner. It was actually Lindsay's b-day but everyone else's kind of got postponed because of Clayton's birth & the river, etc. My grandparents were in town so it was almost like one of our old family dinners minus Brent since he lives in San Diego now. It was nice.

Then the main event Sunday... Daniel's blessing. We got him the absolute most adorable blessing outfit, a little white suit. Matt went early to save seats which was what we needed but that made me run a little behind since I had to get myself ready, get food ready for the party afterwards, feed Daniel, get him ready, and be at the church before 10:45. I'm seriously going to have to start waking up at 5 just to get everything done! It went perfectly and we had so much support with family coming from Colorado, Utah, Riverside, San Diego, & the high desert. It was such a whirlwind when we got home that we didn't for real get all the pictures that we wanted but I think we also jammed way too many people into this house too! We're going to take Daniel in to get his pictures for real taken in his blessing suit so I'll have to post those as soon as we do it. The last pictures are just some fun ones of Daniel playing. Plus, Daniel has full on found his thumb. We were hoping to avoid that but what are you going to do? We have video of him talking but I'll have to post video some other time when it's better footage. Enjoy!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Also I apparently don't have pictures of a ton of people so I apologize to anyone not included. It was unintentional I promise!