Well, It Might Not Be Pretty But Danny is Mobile Now!

As with most of the videos I post, I'll warn you that you probably won't find this interesting unless if you are one of Danny's grandparents!

We LOVE living close to family!!

Being in the Midwest is such a treat for us. The boys have had numerous opportunities to see both sets of Grandparents already and they are just eating it up. This past week, Dennis was traveling for work so Grammy arrived on the train to visit for a few days. Then, Grandpa was able to sneak away from work for a bit and drove out here for a few nights!







These pictures of Cameron and Grammy doing yoga are my new favorites!

Our Camera Died!

Okay, so over a month after Danny's baptism, I have recovered enough to update the blog again! Actually, with the holidays, we were just too busy to even think about uploading our pictures. And fumble fingers (me) dropped the camera one to many times so we don't have any pics from the past two weeks. We're working on getting a new one but who has the time to research good cameras?!? Seriously, if you have a small one that you really love, please email me!

So, we had a VERY white Christmas in Kansas City with my parents. We were snowed in for days and Cameron had an absolute blast sledding down my parent's street. Then, we returned home before New Year's and Dennis' parents were able to come for a visit. The boys absolutely ate up all of the attention - Cameron even milked one bedtime story from Mama for over 45 minutes!!

With the holidays over, we are really starting to feel settled in here and are enjoying it. Although I certainly have my days where I feel like I'm in one of those old calgon commercials ("calgon, take me away"). Just as an example, last Tuesday my day started off with Cameron asking me, "What letter does dammit start with?" Of course, my response was, "that is a naughty word and we don't say it." Not to be deterred, Cameron says, "yeah, but what letter does it start with?" GREAT! About 20 minutes later, I accidentally left our garage door open and had to chase the neighbors VERY LARGE dog out of my house. I think if I had had curlers in my hair, I would have been that commercial from long ago!!

Daniel's Baptism

This past weekend, we celebrated Daniel’s baptism. We were blessed to have all of Danny’s Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles present. We had a lovely brunch on Sunday morning and then proceeded to the church for noon mass, to be followed by the baptism.

About 10 minutes before mass started, it became a three ring circus! Cameron took a nose dive out of our SUV and landed on his forehead in gravel. Thankfully, Dennis’ mom is a nurse so she examined Cameron’s cut and said that we would need to take him to the emergency room but that it could wait until after the baptism. Since all of our family had traveled from out of town to the baptism, postponing the ceremony didn’t seem to be an option. So, Dennis and I missed all but the last 10 minutes of mass while taking care of the boys. We then proceeded to the baptism and, just when it seemed as if we had the situation under control, all hell broke loose again. Cameron’s wound started to drip below his two bright green Scooby-Do Band-Aids and he, understandably so, came unglued again. At about the same time, the priest poured water on Danny’s head and we then had two boys screaming and crying. Cameron, who had been looking forward to Danny’s baptism for weeks and telling everyone who would listen (including his preschool teacher) that the priest was going to put oil and water on Danny’s head and that Danny wasn’t going to like it, stopped crying long enough to tell his brother “be brave buddy, be brave.” A few moments later, I bent down to put Cameron on the ground and came up with blood on my nose, which Dennis kindly pointed out to me. At some point during the ceremony, the priest, who was very patient and understanding, asked where the video camera was and said that he should send a video of this to seminaries so that future priests could see what they were getting themselves into! Once Danny was baptized and a few quick pictures were taken, Cameron got the go to the emergency room, where he was glued together while eating a Popsicle and watching cartoons. I’m fairly certain that Danny’s baptism will stand out in the mind of all who attended it!

As you can see in the picture, Danny has a lovely cross from his Godmother, Aunt Jenni, and a St. Christopher medal from his Godfather, Uncle Vince. The St. Christopher medal is engraved on the back with “F.U.G.F.” which stands for “Fromma U Godfather” in Italian-American. My brother’s godfather gave him an identical medal when he was baptized and, when I opened Danny’s gift, I asked Vince if he still had his medal. Apparently, he did until about a week ago when his dog ate it! Vince had decided to give Danny his medal and set it out to bring to the baptism. He and his wife have two VERY large but well behaved dogs, Mitch and Murphy. Well, apparently Murphy decided to eat the velvet bag containing the medal while Vince and Lizzie weren’t looking (Mitch tends to stick to dog food after eating a sock a few years ago and having surgery)! Vince and Lizzie spent three hours in their yard the weekend before the baptism wearing rubber gloves and digging through dog poop to find the medal! While I greatly appreciate the sentiment and their efforts, in some respects, I think I’m okay with the fact that they only found ¾ of the velvet bag but not the medal!

Danny's Big Day

Danny had his first solid food today! Despite the picture, he actually gobbled it up and seemed to enjoy it. I think that the poor kid was just hungry - he's been waking up a couple of times a night recently to eat!

After filling up, Danny then decided that he could be mobile. He rolled from one end of the playroom to the other! I'm in trouble now - rolling was Cameron's preferred mode of transportation for about 3 months before he learned to crawl.

We Made It!!

So, we are officially residents of the Midwest now!

While Dennis was working incredibly hard on painting, unpacking, and settling us in, the boys and I made a quick visit to CA. I hated to leave such a burden to Dennis but we decided that we would NEVER get unpacked with both a 3 year old and a six month old in the house. So, I used to time to introduce Danny to various family and friends, including his two great-grandmothers, his Uncle Vince and Aunt Lizzie, and a whole bunch of great aunts and uncles!
















A special shout out to Uncle Vince for modeling good habits by wearing his helmet to skateboard with Cameron!



After the visit, the boys and I joined Daddy at our new house. We are almost settled in and are thrilled to be enjoying unseasonably warm weather.

On The Road Again . . .

This Willy Nelson tune was my brother's favorite song when he was about 5. And it pretty much describes our lives for the past 3 and a half years. As of about two weeks from now, Cameron will have lived in 4 states during his short 3 and a half year life. So, I'm taking a little hiatus from blogging for a few weeks until we get settled.

Have a Happy Halloween everyone!

The Zogg Family