Dante

2/13/08 - Dante's Birthday!

party scene It is amazing, in one fell swoop Dante doubled his age, going from one to two. His birthday was on the 13th, a Wednesday, so we postponed the party until Friday morning Char making the pinata (our weekends are Thursday and Friday). We had a lot of fun and many of his friends from school were able to join us in the festivities. The only downer was a sudden turn in the weather, which drove us inside for everything but the pinata. Charmagne did a great job setting up everything and really did a good job making the pinata (with a little technical advice and base-painting from Alex). Birthday cake

Best of all, by far, was that Dante seemed to have a great time. He had so much fun in fact that he crashed for his nap that afternoon...Mom and Dad only wish they had too!

1/1/08

sand_fun We just returned from a trip to Al-Ghat. For Dante the highlight was the camel riding. camel_ride Boy was that something! He could hardly stand it. Of course we knew this was coming because for the last two hours driving through the desert to get to Al-Ghat he kept saying "amel!". Though he has been there before, and ridden before, he did not loose any of his enthusiasm. Especially when one nibbled at his hand looking for a treat. To read more about the trip click here.

11/1/07

Last night Dante found out the best thing of all about being able to walk; you can go door-to-door and ask for candy on Halloween! What fun it was, too. He and his sister had a great time going around the block visiting other people's villas and getting candy. The best part for us was he does not care about the candy, he just liked the fun of going door-to-door. He is doing very well at school, and despite a bit of rough play, he is well liked by his teachers and classmates.

4/21/07

Man, once they start to walk they really go for it! We had forgotten how quickly Isabel went from crawl to run...Dante is well on his way already! He walks almost non-stop from dinner time until bed time. To see him walk click here.

3/24/07

We were having a nice bath night and Dante got quite excited about the bugger (sorry Jan Baier) sucker. Hope you get as big a kick out of it as he did! Click here to see fun with bugger sucking (no it isn't gross)

Well he has been home for almost two months now and it is about time I update the Dante page! I thought I would leave a few of the early pictures just so that you can see how he has grown.

The last section contains a video (may take a few seconds to load) of Dante and Isabel. It will give you a good idea of how they interact, and what it is like in our house when the two of them get each other going.

Photos of Dante
Photos taken on our trip to Guatemala in August.
Photo received on March 2, 2006		Photo received on March 31, 2006
Photo received on May 15, 2006		Photo received on May 15, 2006

Photos from Riyadh
Click for larger image, this section only


Sibling Fun
Play \| Stop

Now that we all have been together for a while it seems that a routine is slowly setting in. Getting back to work helped, and Dante loves the daycare and his teachers there. It is so nice to have this option open to us. He has been cutting teeth as if there is a juicy pork chop awaiting a full set of chompers, well, perhaps a steak, but definitely not a pork chop! He has had the usual colds and runny nose, all endemic to a new set of exposures, but for the most part has gotten through them well.

The hardest part is the sleeping. He came from a system of feeding every three hours, to a set of parents who believe in having their kids sleep the night through. He is almost there, but not quite. We are not sure when we will be able to put him in the same room as Isabel, so for now he is with us.

So, that is a brief summary of how things have gone so far, there are more details and current events on our blog. With the exception of a short trip to Bahrain we will be here for Christmas this year and really do not plan to travel elsewhere until this summer. See you then!

My Stats