Morgan & Erin Dahl

A new addition — Erin Beckett Dahl

Molly, Morgan and I are pleased to welcome to the world Erin Beckett Dahl (3 days old).

Birth weight: 6lbs 12oz
Birth length: 20 3/4″
Birth head: 13 3/4″
Born: March 29, 2012, 11:47pm
Delivery: 3-4 intrepid nurses and (late in the game) a wandering resident, about 2-3 minutes

Everyone’s well.

Counting and Pedaling

Morgan can count to 109. I don’t know how or why 109 became the number to count to, but it is.

She has gotten much better at pedaling her tricycle too. Yesterday she pedaled all the way down the hill and across the flat portion of the sidewalk at the bottom of the hill. She still insisted that she needed help pushing her up the hill back to the house. In her defense, the hill is pretty steep and her tricycle isn’t exactly a precision pedaling machine. I suspect this spring/summer will mean tons of practice time. She loves being outside (and hates being in the house).

Early math work

Morgan’s teachers report that she’s a bit of a math whiz at school, so we put her to the test… as usual, she never performs quite as well for the video as when the camera isn’t running, but it’s a decent representation of what she’s doing.

MLK Jr remembered

Christmas and singing

Morgan’s first successful visit to Santa since 6 months old, at her school’s Christmas party, making cookies with Grandpa Wetzel, a full set of stuffed Dora and friends from Dahls, a new bike, getting the motherlode from Santa (the apple was her favorite), silly hats with cousin Caroline, and last but not least… the one thing she wanted most of all… an orange soccer ball.

Also, snuck into the Christmas post because of her somewhat humorous command of the song (despite a false apparent disinterest in this particular video) at the end. Those music lessons are starting to pay off!

Thanksgiving at Outer Banks

We invited both families (Grandparents Wetzel, Grandparents Dahl, Aunt and Uncle Angie and Andy and Uncle John) to the Outer Banks (NC) for Thanksgiving this year. A great time was had by all, and Morgan had a blast playing with cousin Caroline; also featured is newborn cousin Ben.

A couple of recent milestones

Morgan can dress and undress herself entirely and easily, though she usually would prefer help.

She has moved to a big girl bed. That was about a week before Thanksgiving and we haven’t had any falls to the floor yet.

And she can write her own name. For a while now she’s been able to do the M and the O. But then she’d ask you to do the R-G-A-N. Then she moved on to just asking for the R-G and then she’ll finish up with the A-N herself. She can do the whole thing herself (I’ve seen lots of evidence on her art from school), but if Jim or I are around she still asks for help with the R-G. My guess is they refuse to help her at school so she does it there, but not at home.

And, in general, she’s just a ton of fun these days.

Canned Goods Drive

They are having a canned goods drive at Morgan’s school this week. The teachers talked to the kids about it last Friday. As we were driving home that night Morgan was adamant that we had to stop at the store on the way home to buy canned goods for the families that don’t have enough to eat. We told her that we had some things at home and that we would get some more at the store over the weekend, so we’d be sure to have something in hand on Monday morning. This was okay.

Cut to Monday morning…Morgan is super excited about taking her canned goods into school for the families that don’t have enough to eat.

Cut to Monday evening pick-up…Morgan wasn’t a great listener at school that day, so we were talking to one of her teachers about that. And she lost at a game of musical chairs mere moments before leaving (this is actually what freed us up to leave). And so on our way out the door she starts balling. I ask why she is crying (it could be any number of reasons) and she says (through tears) that she didn’t get to give her canned goods to the families that don’t have enough food! She misunderstood the nature of the canned good drive and thought that she would actually be giving the food to the hungry families herself that day. And she was distraught that she hadn’t done so. It brought tears to my eyes. Of course, I was also having to tell her about the importance of good listening and to remind her that we don’t hit our friends. But, still, it was very touching.

Halloween

Various Halloween festivities, including:
* What was supposed to be an outdoor block party, turned into an indoor party in our house
* Halloween celebration at school, including trick or treating in her daycare’s office building
* Trick or treating on Halloween night

Dancing at Cox Farms

Much as last year, the highlight at Cox Farms is still dancing with her friends…