Cajun Christmas! part I

We spent an exciting Christmas in the South with the Dannenberg side of the family! We had so much fun for the eight days we were able to visit. Our trip began with a very bumpy landing into the New Orleans airport, there was so much turbulence people thought we were going to die and were screaming at the top of their lungs everytime the plane darted or dropped during the last half hour of flying. We could see a bad storm with lots of lightening and thunder but didn't realize until after we landed that New Orleans received 7.5 inches of rain in less than 10 hours that day! That's more rain than Arizona gets in a year!

We spent the first few days at Dan's parents house in Baton Rouge, and got to see Susan and our nephew Paul. Emmy and Paul had so much fun playing together, it was cute to see them take to each other so well. Emmy started walking more and more because she saw Paul running everywhere and wanted to keep up!

We had a truly southern style holiday. For three days we were in Onalaska, Texas - town on Lake Livingston which was beautiful, and very cold. Once we started hearing stories about the lake, I was really glad it was so cold --- the alligators, snakes, and other dangerous things hibernate when the temperature is cold.

Emmy had so much fun staying on the lake. There were a few dogs around that she laughed at all the time. As you can see, she loved looking out the windows of Dakin and Gary's lakehouse, who wouldn't with such a nice view. On Christmas Eve we had a meal fit for any southerner - Gumbo and a dish called Shrimp and Butter Beans. Delicious! Christmas Day was even better, real Cajun stuffed chicken cooked in a "Cajun Microwave" (really cook outdoor cooking contraption - see picture below), Boudin (Cajun Sausage containing meat and stuff, but traditionally was a blood sausage), grilled alligator, sweet potatoes, LSU cheese, pumpkin cheesecake, and Chess Pie ( I hope I spelled that right). Delicious! Couldn't have asked for better hospitality.

After our stay in Onalaska we headed back to Baton Rouge and had the chance to visit Mike the tiger - LSU mascot. He is in his own zoo like setting on LSU campus all the time. The kids loved seeing him, despite the pouring rain.

What a great way to spend our Christmas, we had the best time!

Emmy turned one!

Emmy turned one last week, she had a good time at her party. We had a dinner with just the AZ family, it was fun. She ate so much food I thought she would burst! Here she is eating cake and ice cream and opening presents.

We are headed to the South (aka the 'dirty-dirty') for the holidays, hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and remember Jesus Christ and his life and sacrifices for us.

Emmy's first steps.

Emmy decided to take her first steps the other night (December 12, the day before her first birthday). She completely surprised me with it, and actually repeated it for the video camera after a little coaxing. Here is the repeat, so its actually her second steps? :) She is not a full fledged walker, in fact she still crawls everywhere, but she's getting there.

Mohawk tubs!

Here is emmy in her mohawk tub time! She is always extremely happy in the morning and loves her ducky in the tub.

Almost walking!

Our monster is becoming quite the active girl! She has always been into things, but it is getting bad! She is walking around everything so well that she can get into most anything. She can even reach the top of the table, which she does often. Despite the messes she makes, its pretty cute seeing her almost walking! She doesn't quite have the confidence to take more than one step on her own, but I'm sure she will be there in no time, and I'm enjoying her not quite walking yet!

Sick Days and Cabin Fever

Well, Emmy has had some sort of flu bug the past three days. It has been hard for both of us to stay home all day long! She is such a good girl when she's sick, just extra tired and not wanting to eat anything. I know she is so tired of being in the house though, I can tell by the way she acts. She misses Tyler and probably Target, since we are there so much! Today she is feeling a lot better - she didn't puke this morning (hallelujah!) - so we get to get out of the house.

Here are some sick day pictures. Special thanks to PaPa for buying new toys this past weekend, its nice to have something new to play with when you have cabin fever!

Emmys first Halloween!

Emmys first halloween as a puppy! She was great in the costume despite teething alot, which explains the first picture. We took her to a trunk or treat event at a park with the church where emmy got some awesome candy for mommy and daddy!!! I know its wrong, but shes too young for most of it. Minus the sucker which she really liked.

Busy life with the Waffle Monster!

So, we gave Emmy some waffles for breakfest last week, and it was a big hit. She loved it as do I! I have never seen her stuff her face like this before with food, she REALLY liked the waffles. She can be quite passionate about her food.

Its been a busy week for us all. Bekah has been extremely wonderfull as usual as a mom by toggling between a busy mother / housewife and work. Watching Emmy alone can be a handful as she explores everything, and loves to destroy anything. As for me, Im done with my midterms, and I did fantastic! They were harder than I thought, but I overcame that and did well. School is going great and I am enjoying the program.

I went to an ASU game last saturday night with my brother-in-law Layn, and my father-in-law Roger, where the Sun Devils beat out Cal state bears. It was a great game and had a good time with the family.

Haven't posted anything for a while, sorry! Emmy is doing great, she is so on the go! She is such a happy girl, especially when she gets to play with her best friend Tyler! They are so dang cute together, always getting into trouble. They have been giving each other baby hugs lately, they press their heads on the other one's back or shoulder and close their eyes. They are also pressing their heads together, they are so cute! Everything one of them is doing, the other is right behind! Emmy is crawling everywhere, but Ty is still just scooting on his bum, he's really fast, and can keep up with her pretty well. They both light up when they are together, it is great having Celeste, Layn, and Tyler here. Emmy's top teeth are almost finished growing in, but she still won't let us take a picture of them. She has a favorite blanket now, she is so attached to it, just loves to take it everywhere with her. Here is a few pictures of her snuggling her blanket (thank you Cathy Bobby andAnnElise for the blanket:)

She has also started to hold her own bottle - it's great! I can just sit next to her, just a little independence for our little one!

Dan is facing his first set of midterms right now, and I am trying to juggle a full time mom and part time employee. It is a constant battle for balance in my life. I think I'm choosing the correct path? Hope so. I is hard to know the long term outcomes of many of our decisions, but I feel this decision is right, family first.

Emmys first word!!!

Besides mama, and dada, emmy said her first real word!!! And the word is Burp!!!! Shes taking after her father in so many ways!

Super Emmy

I tell you, being a mother is great, always something new and
different. Emmy is getting her fourth tooth, the second front tooth on
the top. It has completely cut through and now just needs to keep
growing in. She is a champ at teething, just gets a bit cranky now and
then.

Lately her favorite thing to do is read. She crawls up to her toy
basket and starts to pull out all her books. She loves to sit on the
floor surrounded by them just flipping through their pages, usually
upside down.

Here is a video of our Sunday mornings. Since our church
doesn't start until 3 p.m. - we have lots of time to read the Sunday
paper and stuff. Emmy really likes to look at all the ads.

I have remembered a very important moment in my young life today. I recall a
day when I was very young, a disappointing day, the day I realized in
my very young mind .....
that Cookie Monster doesn't really eat the cookies, just breaks them up
and throws them around. Yes, that was a sad day.

Love to all, Bekah

Home with a cold

Well, not a lot is going on here. We are supposed to be at an ASU
football game with some good friends, Pete and Rebecca, but Emmy and
Bekah have colds, so we are home. We both have fevers, sniffles, and
congestion. Despite these, Emmy is in a great mood, just a little
tired. We have failed to post some of her recent accomplishments, so we
caught them on tape today and yesterday.

Here is Emmy laughing with Daddy, note the snort in her laugh that is not usually there, just cause she's sick.

Here is a clapping segement.

And the playing of the peek-a-boo.

This is such a fun age for babies.

Emmy the Amazing!

So here is an update for the arizona Dannenbergs.

Emmy has recently picked up two new tricks out of know where. We are not sure where she picked this up, possibly from some friends of ours, but she plays peek-a-boo with blankets, hands, etc.... She also decided to start clapping. This were sure she got from her cousin tyler. In other emmy news, shes still an adventurer and a tough kid. She can take a good tumble. Shes also getting in her third tooth!! Its poking through.

As far as bekah goes, shes busy with watching emmy during the day and working part time at night.

And I (dan) am still cranking it out at ASU. Its crazy busy though. As it should being the 2nd busiest campus in the nation!!!!!! I have usualy an hour and a half inbetween classes which is great for homework and lunch. Lunch though is quite pricey on campus, so I try to bring food or on thursdays the Institute building has $1 lunchs. (The Institute is an LDS building that has gospel classes you can take, its really cool). So far im loving school still. The design college is VERY competitive, but I like that. Out of the 300 students in my class, only 44 will be accepted for the 2 - 4 years of the school!!!! Its REALLY intense. But, I love challanges and their course do that for me.

MONKEYS CAN CLIMB BUT THEY DON'T BITE!!!

Hello again, so soon! Just an update on our little family. Emmy never ceases to amaze me. She is getting her top teeth, one has been cutting through for the past few days. She is wonderful about it. Just a little upset here and there, couldn't ask for a better teether. She is so obsessed with her tooth, she has to chew everything, and sometimes trys to bite things she shouldn't (like my arm, and tyler's head!!!). She has also been climbing everything. Every time I look over at her, she is climbing something different. Here is a picture from this morning, she climbed into her toy basket with one leg, to try to get to Elmo on the tv, and couldn't get the other leg in or her one leg out! She got stuck, and wasn't quite sure what to do about it. I don't even know how she got in there, since its about waist height for her. She is a monkey girl, maybe she should be one for halloween ..... hmmm

Emmy's third tooth and my ramblings about things!!!!

Emmy has her third (upper front tooth) coming in!!! Its just now slowly poking through and I must say she handles teeth coming in like a pro. Shes been a trooper as always. Shes kinda slowed down with the growing, but with her massive sleeping epidemics lately we might be wrong.

School is alive and kicking for me. Im taking a full load and studing: Design Awareness, Design History, Designing Life, and a Studio class. Of course my favorite is the Studio because its hands on. I got my Mac, laptop computer for school and I must say, I LOVE IT!!!! The simplicity of the thing is unreal and brilliant. I use it for graphic programs and it handles it perfectly. I love it so much I think I might name it and give it a placemat at our dinner table.

In other news!!! My beard is officially gone (at least until the sequel is permitted). Bekah and I were released with the cub scouts at church and I was given a new calling. Bekah is yet to recieve hers. My new calling is Assistant Priest Quroum Advisor. I help out with the 16 - 18 year old boys with teaching their class on sunday, or going to events with them or camping, etc...
It should be fun. But, back to the beard. I shaved the beard off because bekah and I agree that I am teaching and helping these young men prepare for missions, so it felt appropriate to be more clean shaven. Emmy really likes it too!!! thats a plus.
(note: callings are church duties assigned to church members to help run the church, every position in the church is a calling and based on the willingness of the member to serve) not sure if everybody knew what a calling was or not

bye
-dan

Labor Day Weekend!!!!!

Well, labor day weekend just passed and it was great. We spent the 3 day weekend with family the whole weekend just laying low and having fun. The Bekah, Celeste and Kelly went shopping on saturday with the babies freeing up the guys schedual!!!! Wrong, well partly wrong. We cleaned the insides of our cars and then we played Rogers new Nintendo Wii!!! Gotta love video games.

Roger (bekahs brother) and Kelly (his wife) came down for this weekend and had a good time with them. Kellys fairly new to the family and she handles our odd ball craziness like a pro, she fits in as if shes always been family. We love her as a new edition. And shes picking up High-Low (card game) really well. (sorry for losing with you kelly, dont let anybody tell you what to do in cards, your doing fine without them!)

Dan's first week of school!

Well, Dan has officially started college - he's a SunDevil! He had a good first week, while Bekah stayed home and waited for Fed Ex and UPS everyday! Dan has his new Apple laptop, and has already been 'geeking' it out quite a bit.

He also gets to ride the bus everyday to school, it saves us a lot of money in gas, not to mention the $500 for a parking pass (yes that is five hundred dollars!)!!!! Dan's favorite bus moment so far is when two guys started fighting over a seat, and the bigger guy finally got up in the small guy's face and said "I'm getting off at your stop today, esse" - and then did get off at his stop! Other than the bus rides, he seems to love school. He is immersed in art and computers, what more could he want in life?

Emmy is doing well - we call her our little monster. She is all over the place. Already she is walking around furniture and pulling herself to standing almost unassisted! She gets cuter everyday.... this is such a fun age for her to be in! Her personality is really showing. We will post more pictures soon.

Emmys going swimming!

Emmy loves going swimming. Though at first she didnt care for it, but now, she loves splashing everyone.

Emmy Vs. the Strawberry

Here are some pics of emmy having fun with her favorite food, strawberries. We have to get her dressed down to only her diapers due to the mess she makes. She is cute though.

Emmy is all over the place with her crawling and climbing anything she can get close to. She mastered crawling about two weeks ago, and within a week of that milestone, starting pulling herself up to a standing position. She is really on the move, giving no break for her parents to catch up! We weren't supposed to have to child proof everything for another couple months! Here is some footage of our little sweetie!

crawling like MAD!!!!

Since she turned 6 months old, Emmy started doing the belly flop and crawl thing. Now that shes 7 months old, shes at full speed and determined to explore. We figured that she would take a break and get used to this crawling thing for a while, but now it seems that she wants to go straight into pulling herself up and standing mode. She has two toy bins she likes to crawl over too and pull herself up to stand to look in. *Note: When I mean stand its a wobbley stance, arched over, but she progresses quickly.

Wish I had a picture of her in action, which I should probaly do, but I dont. A video file would be better I suppose.

Emmy likey strawberry

This little device that emmy is chewing on holds food in a tea bag like pouch. You put fruit (or whatever) in it and it filters out the seeds and chunks of food allowing only the juices to go through. Emmy seems to be enjoying her strawberry in this picture through the pounch and the other picture is the aftermath. Its a no cloths function when she is eating like this.

Daddy's little girl

I feel a bit remiss in my blogging efforts. Thought I would make a quick entry. Here is Emms, her Daddy's girl with headphones on - 'geeking it out'. She is doing well, so much fun to be with. She is an unusally great baby. We are so happy to have her in our family. I can't believe she is crawling already and has two teeth, she is probably going to be trouble as a toddler! She is learning to talk a little, knows MaMa, and she now knows who Mama is! Daddy's jealous.

We are so excited for our upcoming trips, Baton Rouge and Roger's wedding in Utah. It will be so good to see lots of family members. Can't wait.

Bekah

Three weeks away

Its only three weeks away from our trip to Baton Rouge where emmy will meet her other grandparents for the first time. Its really exciting for us all. This month is looking to be a busy one as I am trying to wrap up all the financial stuff for my start at ASU. We also have a quick 2 day trip to Utah for bekahs younger brothers wedding.

Sick days

It seems emmys a little under the weather at the moment. Bekah may be a little ill too it seems. Our nephiew who lives close by has a cold so were pretty sure it started there. Emmys not too uncomfortable as she still seems to be in high spirits.

Dr. visit for emmy

Emmlyn had her 6 month check up today to finish off her shots for a while. I believe it was 5 shots today. She took it like a champ and only cried when she got it but was back to being happy right after them. Her current health report says shes the following:
weight 16.2 and in the 75% amongst her peers.
height is 28 and is she has no percentage because shes above average.
head circumference is 17 and in the 75 % range.

Shes getting so big.

Emmy on the move! Get out tha way!!!!!!!!!!!!

Emmy for the last week has found out she can crawl. She first started off really well going backwards, but has slowly learned thats really silly to be crawling backwards everywhere. So now she has found the strength to push herself off the ground completely and very slowly move forwards. This is good because it crazy watching her roll everywhere to get where she wanted.

Some intresting tidbits about the Emminator,

Shes becoming more vocal than ever. If her cousin (only 7 weeks older) is screaming, she will scream back quickly to get him quiet.

She will eat ANYTHING! If you can grind it up in the food mill she will eat it.

When she passes gas it sounds like a grown man. Its true.

Recently found that she can play with and hold a toy with her feet and hands at the same time.

Shes loves to smile.

A few days ago Emmy was playing on her mat, and started crying. When I turned to look at her she managed to get her binky stuck behind her ear. All, I can say is she is her fathers daughter.

These are some pictures of my recent trip to Havasupi Indian Reservation this last May. The air was hot and the water was freezing, but its quite beautiful there. Worth the 14 mile hike to its campgrounds. Yes the water is really that color!





























You would have expected the rocks to be very slippery but it was quite the opposite, they were very rugged. It would have been very hard to have fallen when walking around in the water.
This small pool was also extremely deep, as some old guy in a speedo demonstrated for us.







This was about a 40 to 50 foot waterfall that had a trail to the top where you would hold onto a rope as you would climb down to a good jumping spot. Yeah, I didnt do that.

It was a horrible trip due to my knees, but it was worth seeing the waterfalls. Nothing quite like it. All of these waterfalls, and some I didnt get pictures of, are buried at the bottom of a canyon in a oasis. Its extremely wooded and great for camping. Very busy though.

New blog

Hello, we figured this would be a great way (having a blog) for everyone to keep up with us. Especially with Emmy as she seems to grow up too fast.