The Daniel and Eva Show

It's been a while since I wrote something totally focused on the kids and the funny things they've been doing, so here's one for the grandmas and far-away friends. Fair warning to those who stumbled upon this blog post through facebook and don't care what cute things the Sterup kids are up to... I won't be hurt if you navigate away from this shameless promotion of my offspring.

So Eva is talking a lot more these days, and is doing a lot of funny things. A couple of weeks ago I was trying to get her excited for another trip to the hardware store to buy something for our garden, and was reviewing all the great things we are going to grow this summer, like
"...peas, and green beans, and tomatoes..."
"Cheese."
"Well, Baby, we don't really grow cheese in the ground, but we can have carrots..."
"No. Cheese."
I think someone is going to be very disappointed a few weeks from now. Actually, maybe two of us, since I spent time planning our nice, organized, square-foot garden only to have Eva shake half a packet of lettuce seeds ALL over the garden and yard. But I digress.

Eva also has been renewing my self-consciousness regarding my singing voice by saying "NONONONONO!" and holding up her hand every time I sing a song to her. This is bad news for both of us, as a good portion of my parenting repertoire involves silly made-up songs.

Daniel is turning into quite the entertainer. We went to Nebraska over the weekend for Kyle's grandma's 85th birthday party, and Daniel spent most of the day working the room. He climbed all over Kyle's cousins, put fake worms on Kyle's aunts, and went ahead and saved Great-Grandma the trouble of having to blow out her own birthday candle.

After a LONG trip back to Missouri today, we pulled in to find the annual dandelion takeover in full swing on our block, and Daniel exclaimed, "Look Eva! Look at ALL the FLOWERS!" While Kyle and I unpacked the car, he went around the yard picking them and showing us all his "Daniel-lions." During the unpacking, a fly got into our house. He was very concerned about getting the fly out of his room before bed, but then told us that after he went to bed we could just let that fly right out the door and then "Don't worry; everything will be back to normal."

Last week our babysitter told me that he sat down at the table and told her "This looks really nice! Thanks for making us this good lunch." then told her that this is what Daddy usually says to Mommy. Another day he told us "I laughed so hard I made myself funny!" Also, he noticed one afternoon that I had neglected to empty the canister on our vacuum, and told me "THAT is NASty-nast. You should empty that." The upside is that when I didn't stop folding laundry to get right on that he took the canister, emptied it, and returned it to the vacuum for me. Finally, he told me this evening that my ability to jump on one foot is just aMAzing. Maybe he was trying to make me feel better about myself in light of my terrible, terrible singing.