Dingoden Family Outback Yapper: 04/2006

Out for a day at the horse races

Logan chows down on a corn dog

Logan, Mommy and Delenn

Logan gets a bit dirty on the bleachers.

Going for a horse ride.

Logan enjoyed the first five minutes of the ride, but then it went on and on and on...

Taking a tumble on the bouncy castle

All smiles

Logan watched his first horse race.

Logan, Mommy and Delenn enter the Telegraph Station to check out the events being held for Heritage Day.

Watching the horse get a shoe put on.

Look at all that smoke as the red-hot shoe was applied to the horse's hoof

Mommy and Delenn happy that they're not shoveling coal (pictured behind)

Logan's ready to go for a ride!

Logan's ready to crank out the laundry

Doing what all boys must do!

Logan was fascinated by the spinning wheel

Daddy and Logan play Antz in the Pants

Logan waters some mustard seeds

Logan planted these green bean plants and is now watering them with his spray bottle.

Logan shows how his seeds grew (This picture was actually taken May 2 -- 5 days later, but it made more sense to show you here.)

Wow! Look at these...

Kimberly over for a play. (Logan goes to play with Kimberly each week on Thursdays when Rosalie watches him. When Mommy was working, Logan went to Rosalie's for day care several times a week. Now he goes just for a few hours so Mommy can do some errands.)

Getting ready to climb up Trigg Hill at the Telegraph Station.

Ready to climb!

Nicholas, Kristin and Steven followed by Le and Linda

Near the top -- with the Telegraph Station buildings down below in the distance.

Logan watches the Anzac Day Parade (Anzac Day is similar to Memorial Day in the States).

Logan claps for the service men and women marching by.

Delenn gets ready for a nappy change on the changing table. She loves playing with the magnetic gears.

Ready, Get Set, Jump!

Jumping over a crack.

"I'm strong" Logan told us after he pulled this large branch a few feet.

Logan and Mommy in training for hockey and soccer! (Mommy plays field hockey on Saturdays. On Sundays, Mommy and Daddy play on a casual soccer team.)

Mommy made a rice cereal, Mommy milk baked cracker that Delenn seems to like. She seems more interested in eating things with texture than smooth cereal or pureed pumpkin.

Good stuff! Logan's asking "Can I have some?"

Good Night!

Delenn is not really into being fed. She'll eat a bit of cereal if she can use the spoon herself, but otherwise spits most everything out.

Opening the Easter bags from Bradon and Seth.

The good thing about Delenn being able to sit up now is that we set the yellow bin next to her and she'll happily pull out toys one by one and play with them!

Logan and Linda find a hollow log to climb in at Standley Chasm.

Linda, Logan and Le exploring on their big "nature walk" (as Logan calls it) hike at Standley Chasm. We hiked for about two hours... and Logan and Linda did a great job the entire time!

Taking a well-deserved break. Notice Logan and Linda are wearing their "nature bags" so they could collect things along the way.

Cheese!

Linda, Logan, Mommy and Delenn

Exploring the "cave"

Climbing up towards the chasm

What good hikers!

Standley Chasm

Logan and Linda used this big boulder as a natural slide. It's a slippery boulder, but neither of them needed help climbing up.

Hey, what's for lunch?

Where's the beef?

Splish splash I was taking a bath

Crabcakes anyone?

Daddy always accompanies us on our walks on the weekends. He was impressed that Logan has become such a good walker--covering longer and longer distances on his own. In this case, Logan had just walked around a quarter mile.

Looking cool for our walk.

When Logan woke up on Easter Sunday, he found a piece of yarn attached to the end of his bed. He had to follow the yarn all around the house -- in the living room, laundry room, kitchen and down the hall until he came to the end and found his easter basket. In the basket the Easter bunny left a Thunderbird rocket, a lollipop and chew toys for Delenn (no chocolate).

Logan found an Easter egg and is running to put it in his basket (you can see the yarn that was draped throughout the house).

Hmmm... where's the egg??

Logan and his Easter basket

Wow! The Easter bunny also hid some eggs outside.

Found another!

Logan climbs over to find more eggs (good thing he wears undies most of the time now!)

Logan finds the final egg

Of course, no Easter is complete without an egg fight, hard boiled eggs for breakfast and egg salad sandwiches for lunch!

Happy Easter!!

Mommy and Delenn get ready to pose for Easter pics

Dying the Easter eggs

Good work with the tongs, Logan

Delenn looks on

Update: Lots of pictures and a few funny moments

We got a bit behind on the blog--in part because of the illness Logan
suffered through at the beginning of this week. Anyway, we've taken the
time to post quite a number of new pictures... going back about two
weeks so you'll need to scroll down below.

Just to catch up on a few things I don't think we mentioned:

On our campout, Tony had a funny incident with Logan. Here's Tony:
Dad was putting Logan to bed in the tent and trying desperately to put
on Logan's pajama pants. Being a two year old with a fondness for
adversity, Logan kept making his body stiff and rigid and would also
wiggle away at Dad's every attempt to apprehend him. Finally Dad got a
handhold of Logan's waist on both sides and picked him straight up into
Dad's lap. The abruptness of the movement must've been too unsettling
for Logan as he burst into tears crying that "You scared me Daddy!"
After apologizing by telling him that Dad was sorry and calming Logan
down enough to put on the pajama pants, Logan moved over to sit on his
sleeping bag. Then, in the faint hazy red glow of light emanating from
the night stick we had hanging above us, Logan put on a performance like
no other. His face shriveled up into a grumpy and sour, quite menacing
visage. He stared dead-on into Dad's eyes and proceeded to speak in a
dark, slow, almost poetic tone with the following famous statement, "You
DON'T KNOW the POWER of the DARK side!" Coming out of left field like
that and not ever having heard Logan speak those words before took Dad
completely by surprise, and it took everything but the dark side of the
force to keep from bowling over in pain from laughter. As an aside, we
do have a Darth Vader helmet at home (given to us by Auntie Wendy and
Uncle Joe), and Logan likes to wear it on occasion and chase us around
the house (without having even seen the movie). On it are several voice
recordings of Darth Vader (James Earl Jones) giving some of his finest
orations.

Another note about our campout, Logan got his first splinter and
'enjoyed' (through tears) having Mom remove it from his left palm. No,
before you ask, Logan did not then become 'Darth Vader' to Mom like he
did to Dad.

On April 2nd Delenn had her first food (the night we got home from the
campout). Liesl took the time to hand express milk for Delenn's baby
cereal. She put the milk down on the table and turned to get the rice
cereal powder. When she turned back, the milk was gone and Logan had a
satisfied look on his face. "Good!" he proclaimed!

April 3: On our morning walk, Logan stopped at one of the park signs and
traced all the letters on the sign for "Jim McConville Park." When he
got to the end he wanted to do it again. He's noticing letters and words
everywhere and often asks, "What does that say?" Later that afternoon
while Logan was jumping on the trampoline, Delenn was sitting in her
bouncy seat nearby. Delenn seemed to be doing the sign for jump.
Delenn uses the "UP" sign consistently now (to indicate things like
she's all done eating and get me out of the bathtub).

April 4: Delenn started to sit up on her own and play. Previously she
slumped forward considerably and toppled pretty quickly. Every day
since she has gotten stronger and stronger. Now, just 10 days later,
Mommy is comfortable to leave her surrounded by toys and go off for a
few minutes. Delenn can sit without toppling for 15 or 20 minutes at a
time already.

Dad is happy that while Delenn seems to have issues being held by others
(at times), she seems to accept her Poppa holding her almost as much as
her Momma. At Mom's field hockey games, Delenn holds out for 2-3 hours
without Mom while Dad and the kids have a grand old time playing our own
form of hockey.

Mommy wants to mention that when Delenn nurses her free hand often goes roaming around--generally looking for a finger to hold, but also exploring the environment to see if a book is being held nearby, whether there is hair available to pull, and so forth!

That's it from us for now. Again, be sure to scroll down. Enjoy the
pictures!

Logan makes some dyed Easter egg cards

Logan goes for a ride on Linda's bike (with help!). Linda (not quite 3 1/2 years old) can ride this bike on her own (no training wheels).

Logan and Linda look for tadpoles.

Doing some 4-wheeling at the Telegraph Station. We just had rain which is why the Todd River has a bit of water!

It's easy to get bogged in the sand, but Logan found a solution for the tough driving conditions.

Logan and Nicholas find a way around the mighty Todd.

Snack time. L to R: Le, Steven, Linda, Logan, Nicholas

Doesn't Steven look cute in this pic?

There's not much talking going on at the time of this photo. Delenn has learned to drink from a straw cup.

Logan loves his Thunderbird rocketships. It's his favorite game at the moment.

Logan and Delenn play together a bit now (re. side by side).

Delenn spends a lot of time playing with balls like this and blocks.

Delenn is Six Months Old

The beginning of the week was quite rough -- with Logan suffering
through a stomach/flu virus. He seemed to be in a lot of pain and often
called out "Help me Mommy (or Daddy)." At this age he can now tell us
what hurts, but when it comes to a queasy stomach or a sore throat,
there's only so much that can be done. Since Delenn is pretty sensitive
to Logan's moods, it made it tough -- as she became tearful when Logan
was crying a lot. For a couple hairy hours, Mommy ran between the
throwing up Logan and the weeping over-tired Delenn trying her best to
placate both. Delenn needed to nurse, but Mommy couldn't do it as Logan
desperately needed her. This week (and Logan's illness) was hard on
both Mommy and Daddy because Delenn has become quite unsettled at night
-- waking many, many, many times throughout the night. Daddy catered to
Logan's needs throughout the nights while Mommy coped with Delenn.

One thing about sickness is that it makes the healthy, happy days seem
AWESOME by comparison. Today (Thursday) we're finally all in good
spirits and good health. A trip to the grocery store, the toy library
and time at Nicola and Peter's place (with cats, dogs and a bird for
Logan to enjoy) was a near blissful day!

Delenn is now six months old (as of yesterday). I think we mentioned
that she started sitting up last week (and being able to play). Every
day we've watched her get stronger. She reaches for toys and plays with
them (while sitting) with relative ease. She keeps her balance pretty
well though little mischievous Logan will often just nudge her the right
way to get her to topple over while acting innocent of all charges
against him!

Delenn babbles quite a bit (dada, baba, ruru) -- and really knows our
sign for up. For example, in the middle of the night she'll be moving
around but if she spies Mommy she immediately puts her hands over her
head. For the most part she's not that keen on eating yet; most cereal
seems to be spat back out. Last Saturday at a friend's birthday party,
Mommy had Delenn in her arms and had a plate with breakfast food on it.
As fast as lightning Delenn reached for the blueberry muffin and jammed
it in her mouth!

That's it for the moment. We have quite a number of pictures we want to
post (campout and various things) -- which will be posted below sometime
soon. See ya soon!

Making shakers at Steven's birthday party. L to R: Holly, Nicholas, Delenn, Liesl, Steven (age 1) and Logan

Creative car painting (Logan said "I'm all done" just a few minutes into this cool project!)

Steven is such a cutie!

Happy Birthday!

Found ya!

Jump, Logie, Jump!

Delenn sucks on the duck dummy

Who can resist a look like this?!

Logan and Nicholas go to the dirt hills to drive their trucks

Logan gets ready to jump.

And he's off!

Nicholas leads the way.

Delenn sits up for the first time on her own (without toppling over after 10 seconds). Within a few days she was sitting for up to 15 minutes or so playing with toys and not toppling over (unless Logan was "helping" her).