Darr Family Blog

This past week was pretty average: piano students (I’m getting two more starting this week…yay!), grocery shopping, house-cleaning, etc. We are getting to know our new neighbors (they finally built a house next to us where there was the empty field, so that will hopefully mean fewer bugs since there won’t be a bunch of digging right next to us). We were pretty excited to find out they have a little boy who is only 5 months older than Joseph. Also, their family story is kind of similar to ours. The wife (Erica) had their son (Hayden) right before her husband (Gene) was deployed to Afghanistan with the Army. Considering that’s the same thing that happened to us, we find that rather cool. They are really nice, too. They invited me and Joseph to Hayden’s birthday party this past week at Chuck E Cheese. I must admit, even though I really like them, I was a little wary about Chuck E Cheese. I remember it as being a loud, LOUD place with crowds of kids and a lot of flashing lights. Those are things that Joseph is not a fan of. It turned out really great, though, because they had it on a week day before school was out for the day. It was quiet, not crowded, and not as many flashing lights as I remember. Erica and Gene had gotten tokens for all the kids, so Joseph got to play some games and get some tickets. There was also pizza (which he refused to eat, but he doesn’t eat pizza at home, either, so who knows?) and a guest appearance from Chuck E Cheese himself. It was really fun for him. A couple of days later, we invited Erica and Hayden over to our house to play. Those two little boys get along so well. It’s really great!

The Weekly Weather: last week was pretty normal, except for Monday. Monday started out fine (sunny, breezy, warm) but then black clouds rolled in and it started raining, HARD. Then it started hailing. At that point, I remembered my cilantro out on the front porch. I ran out into the hail (not too bad since the porch is covered, but it was still hitting the cilantro) with boards to throw over the planter so that the cilantro seedlings would not be totally destroyed. After it finished hailing, it settled into a steady rain, which cleared up into the sunny, warm, and breezy conditions that it started out as. This was all within a space of two hours. Crazy!

Cute/Funny Stories for the Week: Joseph decided to put all his weight onto the top of my foot, which seriously did not feel good. I told him that it gave me an “owie”. He looked really concerned, asked where the “owie” was, and then kissed my foot “all better”.

He is still really into pretending to be a doctor. This time, he wanted to look in our mouths, so he would come up to us and say, “Ahhhh” so that we would open our mouths and say “ah” for him.

Paul wasn’t feeling very good today, so he was resting on the couch. Joseph went over to him, noticed his eyes were closed, came over to me and said (in a whisper), “Shhhhh! Daddy’s sleeping.

Our “no-sweets” boy has deemed a couple of different sweets as being acceptable: peanut butter cookies, root beer cookies, and Reese’s peanut butter cups. Neither of the cookies are overly sweet, and the Reese’s are mostly peanut butter, so we can kind of see why he likes them.

This Week in Pictures:

The week just seemed to fly by. The weather was gorgeous, so Joseph and I spent quite some time outside playing and taking walks. Then we got the added bonus of it being General Conference weekend. I love General Conference! I must admit, with a toddler running around, it makes it a little difficult to fully absorb everything that is said, but I am able to glean little, precious nuggets of truth here and there. Plus, I was able to watch the Priesthood session this time, since it was broadcast over the Mormon Channel on our Roku box. Extra bonus. 🙂

The Weekly Weather: As mentioned before, the weather has been just great! The days are warmer, but not too warm, with an occasional cool/rainy-ish day mixed in here or there. I’ll have to remind myself, once summer hits, just how much I love the other seasons here in San Antonio.

Funny/Cute Stories for the Week:

One morning, I went to get Joseph out of his crib and we had this discussion:

Me: Good morning, Joseph!

Joseph: Good morning, Mommy! I hear sound!

M: Oh, you heard a sound? What did you hear?

J: I hear cricket!

M: You heard a cricket? Did it go ‘chirp, chirp’?

J: Yup!

Joseph loves helicopters, only he calls them “hello, copters” 🙂

One afternoon, I was laying on the couch, resting. I felt Joseph come up next to me, and place something on top of me (which turned out to be one of his bears). He then proceeded to do his best to cover me up with a blanket. He then said, “All comfy, Mommy?” When I answered in the affirmative, he then proceeded to climb up and start climbing all over me. 🙂

Joseph was playing with an old Nintendo game controller that Paul has. He came over to me, with the thing slung around his neck. He then held the controller part up to my chest and put the other end up next to his ear. When I asked what he was doing, he said, “Hi, I Dr. Joseph, check heartbeat.” He then proceeded to check it by saying, “beep, boop, beep, boop.” Then he said, “Okay, thanks. I’ll be right back!”

Today he walked up to me and asked me to sing “Grandma’s song”. At first, I didn’t realize what he was wanting me to sing, and then he said, “My little baby?” Then I knew what he was talking about! My mom made up a song and used to sing it to him all the time. The last time he heard it was at Christmas time…yet he remembered it. It goes, “My little baby doesn’t want to go to bed, my darling little baby doesn’t want to go to bed. My little baby doesn’t want to go to bed, my baby doesn’t want to go to bed. My little baby doesn’t want to go to sleep, my darling little baby doesn’t want to go to sleep. My little baby doesn’t want to go to sleep, my baby doesn’t want to go to sleep. My little baby doesn’t want to shut his eyes, my darling little baby doesn’t want to shut his eyes. My little baby doesn’t want to shut his eyes, my baby doesn’t want to shut his eyes.” 🙂 He then asked for the “dooty-doo Grandpa song”. That one I knew to be the one that my mom’s father would hum to his children and grandchildren, but my dad would do it, too, while bouncing Joseph on his knee. What wonderful memories!

This Week in Pictures:

Bonus Video: I actually got Joseph to sing “Itsy, bitsy spider” for me…even though he first thought I was taking his picture (hence why he says “cheese” in the beginning):

The week itself was rather normal. We hung around the house, went grocery shopping, etc. The weekend is where all the action took place. On Friday I took Joseph to the zoo for a couple of hours. This time we focused on the Africa section and Joseph was super excited when we got over to where the elephant was, because we got there right as the trainer was getting it to do tricks. 🙂 Then Friday night, I had a night out with the girls. It was at my friend Tasha’s house. A bunch of us got together and did a favorite things party. Basically everyone chooses something they like that costs around $5. They buy 5 of those things and then bring them to the party. Then everyone puts their name into bowls (5 times). Once all the names are drawn, everyone basically has 5 things to take home. It’s pretty fun! Joseph came along to play with Tasha’s kids (her husband was watching them) since Paul isn’t supposed to lift anything yet. Joseph surprised me by NOT wanting to leave me at first. I think it was because he knew I was downstairs (not upstairs with him) and that I was having fun at a party. Andrew (Tasha’s husband) decided to take them to the park across the street. Joseph was happy to go play, but a little while later they came back with him crying and blood coming down his chin. Apparently he was laying on the bridge of the play area and another kid ran by him and he smacked his face against the bridge and split his lip. After we got him cleaned up, he wanted to stay with me, so he sat on my lap for the rest of the party. Towards the end of it, he started feeling better, so he kept getting up and trying to give people some of the stuff that I had collected, hahaha! There was one time that someone had put their items out on the floor and he said, “Oh, no! Mess!” and started trying to clean it up. 🙂 Saturday morning was spent running errands, Saturday afternoon at home, and then Saturday night, I got to go to the Women’s Conference. I dropped Joseph off at my friend Denise’s house (he did much better because Denise is Kysen’s mom, and Joseph has decided that Kysen is his best friend…we just don’t know if Kysen realizes it; he’s only 2, after all). 🙂 Denise and I then went out to the conference. There was a dessert bar before the conference, which was really yummy. The conference itself was SO great! Because this was the first year that they dropped the age all the way down to 8, the format included more music and a couple of videos to kind of keep the younger girls engaged. It was such a great night! As we were going home, Denise checked her phone and saw that she missed a couple of texts from her husband. The first one was asking if Joseph could have ice cream and the second one was him telling her to never mind the previous message. When we got back to their house, we found out that the reason why he told her to never mind was because Joseph had said no when asked if he wanted ice cream. He’s never really been into sweets. 🙂 Today was Paul’s first week back to church and it was so nice having him back and having his help with Joseph during Sacrament meeting. 🙂 After church we went and let Joseph “ride” his bike with the neighbor kids across the street and then we went and met the new people who just moved in next door. I’m super-excited that we have neighbors on both sides of us now! Oh, and they have a little boy who is just a bit older than Joseph!! After we met them, Joseph and I took a walk around the neighborhood.

The Weekly Weather: The weather this week has been great! We had a couple of days that were rainy, but they were still warm, so I think spring has finally come. Most of the days were warm (not too hot) and sunny. The bluebonnets are in full bloom, so I am remembering how beautiful South Texas is in the spring. 🙂

Funny/Cute Stories for the Week: Joseph was looking at an empty box I had given him (it was from some Ziplock bags). On the side of it, there were pictures of things you could keep in the bags. Joseph was pointing to each picture and saying, “Cookies for Kysen, crayons for Kysen…”. Have I mentioned that Joseph loves hanging out with Kysen? Hahaha.

While I was reading to Joseph one night this week, he decided I needed a microphone, so he held his hand up, in a fist, under my mouth. I guess the fact that they use a play microphone for part of music playtime is rubbing off on him.

When we were on our way to the zoo, we drove past a distribution center with a bunch of big rigs parked all in a row. Joseph said (kind of to himself), “Awww, all those sleeping trucks!” Yep. That’s a direct quote from Cars (when the truck that is hauling the race car wants to pull off at a rest stop and the race car tells him not to, he laments about all the sleeping trucks).

When he had his play date with Kysen, one of the first thing he did was gather up all the Lightning McQueen cars that they happened to have and play with them all at once. He seriously loves Lightning McQueen and Cars!

Joseph was looking at his Cars book that has some lift-flap features (hiding tractors). One of the tractors looks like it’s sleeping, so Joseph was yelling, “wake up!!” at it. 🙂

This Week in Pictures: