Too tired for a full update, but we had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend with only one day of travel (to Chariton, Iowa to visit John's grandparents, cousins, aunt, etc.)

Here's a recent story and (unrelated) photo for each boy:

John and I had versions of this conversation with Daniel separately tonight and each wanted to be the one to tell the other how cute it was.

D: It's dark
J/M: Yes, it is dark, Daniel.
D: Sun go ni-night?
J/M: Yes, the sun is going ni-night now.
D: Sun have paci?
J/M: (**guffaw**) well, sure, maybe the sun has a paci... (pacifier, an essential ingredient for a good night's sleep.)

P.S. Daniel loves to wear other people's shoes. These boats belong to Uncle Joe.

Getting Edward to sit still for dinner lately has been quite a challenge. He was getting dangerously close to tipping himself over with the booster seat on the chair, so we took it off. (Truth be told, we were also annoyed that he kept buckling himself in and therefore could not get down on his own. Oh, how foolish we were.) So we have these battles over keeping him in the chair and keeping the food-to-mouth cycle going. If he and Daniel start exchanging goofy phrases and giggles, it's all over.

Last night after a long day of travel and fun with cousins plus only a 20 minute car nap for Daniel (he was exhausted but somehow did not sleep for the two-hour return trip to Iowa City) even our paltry dinner of peanut butter sandwich for D and grilled cheese for E turned into a zoo. I finally declared Daniel to be done (he was just mashing it around his plate) and took him up to bed.

John stayed with Edward and tried to get him to calm down to finish eating. At one point, in desperation, John said, "Edward, why don't you just NOT TALK for a few minutes." Edward, stricken, replied, "But I LOVE to talk!" Indeed.

Side note that tonight's dinner ended with Edward's plate being dumped in the garbage after he was sent away three times with instructions to return only if he calmed down and decided he was hungry. However, he was as good as he's ever been during Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's. Perhaps it had something to do with being told six hours in advance that if he misbehaved he would not receive his much anticipated pumpkin pie.

If I thought it would work, I would serve pumpkin pie every night.