Hard at Work

AJ had a busy weekend with construction and yard work. First, he built this whole tower completely by himself on Friday! Seriously, I was just sitting next to him (looking at a catalog) and he was playing happily. Then he suddenly had a big structure going. He actually built a lot of it in his hand and then added it to the base. He also worked on a car to go with it. I was so impressed!



On Saturday and Sunday Aidan helped Isaac transport some soil from the pile in the woods to our front walkway.

Today he was excited to head out back with his new shovel!


He loved helping shovel into the wheelbarrow.


It was so cute when he chased Isaac to the front carrying both the rake and shovel!


Isaac showed him how to rake the dirt in.


And he happily shoveled some more.


He was good at carrying it.


Yesterday, Aidan and Isaac enjoyed a snack and a cuddle after all the hard work!

Blog Book, Baby Book, and Board Book

I've been busy lately catching up on projects that I wanted to make sure I finished before the baby was born, and wanted to blog some of the results!

First off, there's our 2009 Blog Book that arrived back in February. Obviously I like updating the blog - it's a great way to sort through photos, choose the best, and write a little about what we did so that our family and friends can keep up on our life (mostly Aidan of course). I also like being able to get my fix of AJ photos whenever I'm near a computer! But, one of the things I love most is making a printed blog book at the end of the year so that our family photo album is all done! Most people have seen all the pages I used to make for our albums (found here), but with even more photos to include and not enough time to go into that much detail, the blog book is a great way to get all my favorite pictures of the year in one place, with minimal extra effort. Through Blurb.com it was pre-populated with all our blog entries and photos, and I just rearranged the layouts a little. We've made them for 2007, 2008, and now 2009 so far. The quality is amazing!

For 2009, the theme was clearly "It's All About Aidan!"

Pages from the beach when Aidan learned to walk.

Photos at six months.

Next up is Aidan's photo baby book. Since I wasn't getting to design pages for the family album, I at least wanted to do a book for him. I kept it easy with the same theme throughout; every 2-page spread had photos from that month and a little summary of what he was doing at that point. Although most photos are also contained in the blog, I love flipping through a month at a time and seeing how he changed. There are also pages for his Baptism, First Birthday, and Halloween. I kept it fairly up-to-date throughout the year since it's just a basic album with slide-in pages, but it was good to recently order the last few prints.

"Aidan's First Year"

Nine months.

Aidan's First Birthday.

Here's a link to all of the pages if anyone wants to see more of them:

Aidan's Baby Book

And last, but not least, is Aidan's new board book. I'd thought it would be fun for Aidan to have a personalized book that he could flip through himself. I found a place online that could make a board book from your pictures - http://www.hullabaloostories.com/. I had fun writing up rhymes about the family (grandparents, aunts/uncles, and first cousins) so he could learn everyone's name. I made the pictures look like illustrations instead of plain photos.

Back cover, spine, and front cover.

Granny Blake and Ol' Pa, then Grandma and Grandpa Dancy.

Then there's all the Aunts, Uncles, and cousins.

Aidan's reaction so far has been awesome! He has sat and read it with me a number of times, happily pointing to people so I'll say their name, and even trying to say some of them back. He sure has his work cut out with such a big family, and so many similar looking aunts!

Then, the cutest was yesterday at nap time when we read it and he took it in his crib. About 5 minutes later I peaked in to check on him and he was just sitting in bed flipping through it!! I had to grab the camera :-)

Reading to himself!

Next up on my list is catching up on home videos. So, watch for some more DancyTube soon - Christmas 2009, plus some footage from the last couple of weeks.

Kristen's Baby Shower

I took Aidan up to NH today for Kristen's surprise baby shower, and we both had a great time.


Kristen had actually requested some personalized baby clothes, so she was excited to get a set of baby hats here for Chase!


She and Rob happily looked through some of the shirts I made too.


Here are the personalized onesies and hats, along with the matching pants and receiving blankets.


Aidan grabbed two cookies and proceeded to eat from both hands :-)


He made a new friend and played lots of catch!


Lindsey posed for a quick pic with the guest of honor.


Aidan was again excited when it was time to eat cake!



This morning we made another trip to the park, and then we helped daddy with some yard work.

Aidan's hair looks great on the slide!

More AJ...

Just in case you don't get enough AJ from our blog - he's made it to quite a few recent posts over at the Dancy Clan Blog too! There are lots of photos from the beach (Leigh's been catching up so she can print the blog book), including photos on the sand and some cute photos I haven't seen before of Aidan napping on me and Isaac. There's also a hilarious picture from the other night when he was dead tired but stayed up for Tobin's chocolate birthday cake. Plus, there's lots of photos of the Dancy Clan and the extended Dancy family!

Outdoor Fun

This morning Aidan and I were the first ones at the playground - I guess I was excited to take him there on our day together! Days of rain followed by sunny days in the 60's and even 70's this week was enough to finally melt all the snow, so it was the first time we got to go this year. Aidan happily played for almost 2 hours, running around the big structure, climbing up and sliding down, and playing in the sandbox. By the time we left there were probably 30 kids there, so it was good that we'd gotten an early start.



After a quick trip to the mall, some lunch, and a long nap, Aidan was ready to play outside with me some more. We practiced baseball and soccer and explored the yard. Is it just me or does he look really old here??


Then we drew on the driveway and the step!


It was still nice out after dinner, so Isaac and I took Aidan for a walk to wrap up the day. What a fun Friday - again!

Competitive Toddler Tossing

Even though I haven't been racing, I'm still finding ways to light the competitive fire. Best yet, this latest sport is a father-and-son affair, so the training regimen is a family affair.

Aidan and I have gotten into Competitive Toddler Tossing:


He's pointing his toes! What an athlete!

As a sport, CTT is still in its infant stage -- but hey, if curling is an Olympic sport then who knows what the future will hold for CTT. CTT athletes typically peak in their 20s (for Dads) and 20 pounds (for toddler). Since Aidan is such a peanut, we've really got to make the most of our CTT while we're so clearly in our prime.

The core principals of CTT are to toss with the legs, but to also really (and I can't stress this enough) -- really, really -- pay attention to the height of the ceiling. CTT scores are based on vertical distance measured from the ceiling, but you don't want to risk crashing your partner into the ceiling. I think Aidan and my's PR at the moment is about 10 inches.

(BTW, Aidan loves it. When I catch him he says, "A-dat, a-dat!" [again, again])


After a recent training session.


Pointing.


Post-training calistenics.


Athlete of the future.

My Little Helper

AJ and I just had lunch at SynQor with Daddy, where Aidan happily smiled and waved at everyone. Now we're back and I'm taking a few minutes out of my housework time to post a few photos from this morning. He was just giggling with me in the kitchen, and looking cute in his Uncle James-style polo.









He's been my little helper lately - unloading the dishwasher with me, getting his shoes and jacket ready when it's time to go (and trying to put them on), getting a sippy cup out when we get home so he can have his juice, and doing all sorts of cute little things.

Finally... some Spring!

After what has seemed like a really long, cold New England winter, I was so excited for some nice weather this weekend. I recently banned Isaac from building any more fires, and basically gave up on my jackets (although that's partly because they don't fit over my belly any more), in hopes that it'd finally be Spring. I think it worked!

Aidan was a happy boy all weekend, and really enjoyed playing outside.


We played soccer out on the deck today.


I swept up some bird seed and then Aidan wanted to use the broom - it's like the snow shovel!


Yesterday we played baseball out front.




We also made a big Lego creation this weekend. Aidan has gotten really good at putting pieces in by himself, so he and Isaac took turns putting single blocks in until it covered most of the board.


Then today we decided to keep going until we used all the pieces and animals!


This morning Aidan totally surprised us with the sign for food, without any prompting at all!

And finally, we also started setting up the nursery this weekend!

Back in the saddle!!

That's right, folks - Isaac is out riding his bike, right now!



And he managed to do a cross-style mount!


It's a beautiful day here, so we've had a great time playing with Aidan outside and even getting a little yard work done when he napped.

Date night tonight!