Happy Father's Day!

Darci is a lucky girl to have her Dad at home with her full time. He's a great Dad! Marta shared some of her photos of Darci and her Daddy with me to make a Father's Day gift for Doug, and I thought I'd share them here, she's taken some great shots! You can see more of her work on her website: http://www.hurleygirlphotography.ifp3.com

Latest Photos

Here is a link to my facebook album with Darci photos from June.

Facebook Photos

Oh No!

A saying we hear all the time...

Bugwatching

Darci thinks bugs are cute.

It Can’t Be June, It Feels Like November

We’ve had a lot of rainy days this year, and I mean a lot. Every day we look at the forecast and just sigh. It should be 75 degrees, when it’s actually 55. In a normal year we’d have Darci in skirts and shorts by now, running around outside every day and ready for the pool and the beach. But instead, she and Daddy spend a lot of time coloring, playing with toys, and going shopping – she goes to the $1 Store a lot and gets a new animal or other fun toy. Most recently she got a mylar Tinkerbelle balloon, Doug says it’s the best dollar he’s ever spent – a week later the thing is still popular and going strong.

We did get a little break in the rain this Memorial Day weekend for a trip to the park with Darci’s McCoy Grandparents and her Auntie Emily on Saturday. The girls loved the wooden playground at Bear Creek Park. It was a great playground for Darci since the walkways all had railings so she was able to climb up and down all over the place pretty easily. Her favorite things to play on were a swinging platform and a rubber bouncy bridge, which she ran across at least a dozen times. Emily tried to coax her onto the little tire swing, and I tried to hold her in my lap to swing, but she hates swinging and absolutely refused both. It’s funny because she loves to be swung around and held upside down, but just hates the swings at the park.

Sunday we enjoyed having the McCoy’s over to our house for a BBQ, including Ben & Minda. It was yummy! Steaks, corn on the cob, BBQ chicken, and more. Darci loved it of course, she played dollhouse with Minda and Emily, got Emily to push her around on her Elmo airplane for a very long time, and generally got all the attention she could from everyone. We had a great time visiting.

Mommy was home Monday and Tuesday thanks to an extended holiday break at work, so we got in plenty of snuggle time and fun over four days. We took a trip out to Emigrant Lake and played on the playground, watched the geese with their babies, threw stuff in the water, ate snacks, and explored.

Tuesday was super rainy again, so we went to the Ashland library for Little Wobblers Storytime, but they cancelled it! Then out for grocery shopping, where Darci entertained me by naming every item she saw, fishing through my purse for toys, and singing. Daddy grilled up some brats, peppers and corn on the cob for us later in the afternoon. Darci loves corn on the cob.

Funny Girl

Darci says and does a lot of funny things. Sometimes it’s tough to figure out where she got them from.

Lately I’ve been hearing her say “Hey, Lady!” to me (and to Daddy) multiple times a day. And it’s drawn out, like “Heeeey….Laaaadeeee!” (But you also have to substitute a W-sound for the L – Waaadeeee!) I’ll have to try to get a recording. It cracks me up every time. I finally realized where she got it when I was reading her one of her favorite books the other night, called “Hi!”. In it, little Margarita says Hi to each of the people coming into the post office, and no one responds until the Post Office “Lady” says “Hiiii!” back to her and I realized Darci was imitating me to a T, exactly the way I read that part of the book each night.

Over Memorial Day weekend we were talking about Hawaii and volcanoes. Darci picked up on the word volcano and insisted we needed to go there right now. “Come on, volcano!” she’d say, dragging Grandpa by the hand to the door or window. She kept insisting the next few days that we go to the volcano, and referred to a hill at the park as a volcano before climbing it. We figured it must be because Dora the Explorer goes to a lot of volcanoes.

I put some magnet letters on the fridge for her, she knows all her letters, numbers to 10, and colors now and loves bringing me all the pink ones or all the 9’s, etc. I’ve started putting together 3 letter words and sounding them out to her, like T-O-P or C-A-T. The other day she made a 12 letter word out of mostly consonants (some upside down), and then proudly sounded it out to me, H-O-T.

She wants to “work” on the computer and we have an application on our laptop that allows her to type whatever she wants and it shows the letters and reads them, and makes shapes for the other keys. She can bang on the keyboard to her heart’s content without renaming all of our files or causing other mayhem. She loves it, and when she gets into the office now she runs to the laptop bag and tries to haul it downstairs to play.

Darci’s Nana Fox got her a tea set with a talking/singing teapot and a little cake tray with three plastic cakes on it. She loves playing tea party and pouring cup after cup of pretend tea for herself and for you. And she really loves the cake tray. She carries it around everywhere balanced on one hand like a waitress. She’ll often will show up with it, announcing “It’s dinnertime!” and offering you an obligatory plastic treat.

BBQ time

We enjoyed a few days together between my job at Rogue Creamery and my new job at Harry & David. Went mushroom hunting, Darci is getting much better at navigating in the woods, loves to climb over fallen trees and jump in piles of snow. "I crush! Ice cubes!"

Friday afternoon we had a BBQ with cousins Marta and Damien and their two boys. Fun! Marta kept bringing great toys out for Darci to try, she loved the trampoline and the slide playground, and a plastic pool with rice and shovels for the kids to play with. Lots of fun stuff. Here's a short video of her.