1st Day of School

My girls did make it to their respective 1st days of school, although it was a close call for me. For those who don't know, I am NOT a morning person. I know, I know, the bus doesn't even come until 9am, but the new baby thing just set me back that much more. Emma is in 2nd grade this year. Luckily Emma is a total morning person, so she was up, dressed, had breakfast, backpack packed, lunch ready, and woke me up at 7:45! I told her to set the timer for half an hour and come wake me up again so I could do her hair. I had to drive her once and I had her get a ride with a neighbor once that first week because we missed the bus! What a way to start the year. We have done much better these last few weeks.


Here she is with her friend Naomi. They walk together to the bus every morning.

On the other hand Mady is not a morning person either. I usually have to drag her out of bed, dress her and practically spoon feed her her breakfast. But give her a few minutes and she is bouncing off the wall. Mady is going to preschool Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings for 2 hours. She did half a year last year in the 3 year old class and is now in the 4 year old class with a lot of the kids that were with her last year. She really loves her teachers and loves school.


Here she is with her new bike. We finally got one to replace the one the plumber ran over!


I am really enjoying having a few hours with just the two little ones in the mornings. We have even ventured to the store and it wasn't the slightest bit traumatic for me. Oh, and they survived too!

Emma turns...

Once again a little late on the post. Emma's birthday was in June.
This year was going to be family only, low key birthday celebrations. Emma woke up to birthday balloons in her room!

She wanted cinnamon rolls for breakfast and since I have only attempted to make them once we headed for the bakery. But we got there and the donuts looked too good.



Emma got a birthday lunch at McDonalds from my friend Lisa and her kids. Cooper, Mady and I tagged along. It was a rainy day so playing inside was perfect. For dinner Emma requested steak. She is our red meat eater and can out eat both Drew and me. We went to Tepanyaki so that we could not only eat steak, but be entertained at the same time. It was yummy!

We came home for cake and presents.



I figure if you are getting a DS for your birthday there is no room in the budget for a big friend party. But somehow Mady and I ended up taking Emma and 3 friends to see KUNG FU PANDA that Saturday. Go figure.

The most important thing is that we love Emma and are so glad she is in our family. After all, she is the one who made me a "mom" for the first time. It took a mere 14 hours of labor,2 trips to the hospital, a shot of something in my hip, throwing up, sleeping in the tub (with Drew sleeping on the floor next to me), throwing up again,an epidural, and a few stitches. She finally arrived in all her 8lb 8oz ,20.5 inch glory at 2:02 pm and as Dr.Johnson put it, that is one big fish!

Emma is my sweet and sensitive girl. I love her toothless smile; she has a great smile! She is always willing to be my helper. Her favorite thing to do is to play with friends. Thank you Emma for being willing to be my first baby and letting me practice on you. Hopefully I can make it up to you in the coming years!

Trip to the Beach

Our kids love, love, LOVE the beach. It almost beat out Disneyland for best vacation spot ever! Almost.

Here they are jumping in the waves. Look at them Hops!


So, this actually happened right after we went to Disneyland, back in MAY! But pictures of the beach still work for my summer in review posts. Enjoy.

We stayed with our good friends the Miles family for a couple of days. It is so good to catch up in person every once in a while. I owe Brenda a bunch of beach pictures and she is probably cursing me as she reads this and soon there will be a post about her good friend Ashly who promised to send her the beach pictures and has failed miserably. I am NOT looking forward to the scolding.

Here is Brenda with her sweet baby girl Abby.

And this is why I love my Andrew. He doesn't get to act like this very often in his line of work. This was all done because I wanted ONE picture of the boys.
I believe Trevor said something witty.


The laughter.

A few pretend punches in the gut.

And off into the sunset!!! Yeah, they are holding hands. Who would guess these 2 have wives and kids?

We met up with some other friends also. James and Cyndi were both in my freshman ward at BYU.

Brenda, Ally, Cyndi and I all worked at the plasma center in Provo. Why don't I have sunglasses on you ask? Probably because I don't live in Cali, and thus am not as cool. Drew getting buried in the sand.

Our girls with Brenda's boys. Emma and Preston are 13 days apart and Carson and Mady are exactly 2 months apart.

We are going private.

I sent out invites to everyone I had email addresses for and then realized it would not be viewable to those I don't have on my list. I know some of you have gotten new addresses and some of you are just blog stalkers! So, if you would like to be on the list to view our wonderfully entertaining blog, and you didn't get an invite, you will now have to make yourself known. Leave me your email address.

2 weeks...almost

We were trying to get a picture of Lillie smiling and this is what we got first:

And then.....we finally got it. She was barely falling asleep and going through the gamut of emotions on her face. I love when newborns do that! And that is why she has one eye closed and one kind of open. So Sweet!!

I was trying out taking some "professional" pictures of my own. I need A LOT of practice but I did like a couple of them. The second one shows how hairy she is! If you click on the picture you can REALLY see it.

Sprinkler + Trampoline=

HAPPY KIDS!!

This was the day after I came home from the hospital. This is actually prohibited at our house but they must have known that on this particular day mom wasn't going to stop them.

And more water fun from this summer....

So the baby countdown ticker was a little off.

This is "the hubby", as I am affectionately referred to on this blog. And why am I posting, as opposed to my lovely wife, you might ask? We'll, she currently is laying in the hospital with baby McDaniel #4. (Actually, baby McDaniel is probably laying in the nursery while mommy sleeps, got to take advantage of the hospital staff while we can.) Anyway, I promised a few of you that I'd do my best to get some pics posted tonight, so here you are:


Oh and by the way, she's a girl. We were both guessing boy so we were a little surprised.


It's late and I'm sleep deprived, so I'm just going to cut straight to the necessary details. Mom's water broke at 3:30 a.m. Monday morning. We arrived at the hospital at 5:00 a.m. Baby joined us at 7:10 a.m. 7 pounds, 4 ounces, 20 inches, slimy and cute. Mom and baby are doing well. Mom's awesome sister "nursed" us through the whole thing, even though it was her day off. In keeping with Mom's prohibition on names on this blog, you will have to call to find out that little detail. We have yet to settle on a middle name, but we've got the first pinned down.








Mom and baby are doing great. Older sisters are ecstatic. Brother was mildly entertained for a moment. More later.