All about Dane.

I've been waiting to meet Dane since Alyse called and said they were going to have a baby. So, if I seem a little bit excited to be around Dane... deal with it. It's a meeting a year in the making.
Pardon the pun, but our family went gaga for Dane this week. So much so, in fact, that there's a whole blog post just about how much we loved him... with tons of pictures.

When we went to the airport, everyone jumped out of the car as soon as it had stopped and ran to go see Dane. He has a ton of hair, and is in the phase where he will smile at everyone. My dad, being the proud grandpa that he is, snapped this picture:

He was smiling at Cole, as you can see.

The whole way home, we talked to him and smiled at him and pretty much did our best to entertain him. The only time he cried was when my mom turned off the lights... we turned them back on and his lip was sticking out. She felt bad.

I gave Dane his Christmas present of a hat I had made, which I admit I am quite proud of!

It's monstrous (again, pardon the pun) on him, but he'll be able to wear it for a long time now.

At Grantie's homecoming, Dane was nice- generally. I got to bring him out during the 3rd hour, and we spent time bonding. I made him laugh, and also tried to get him to go to sleep, but he's a fighter. After his post-church nap, we all took turns sitting by him so that he would talk to us. I've never heard a baby talk that much in my life. He just has lots of good things to say, I guess. My dad caught this moment on the camera too:

He was laughing so hard when I'd blow a raspberry on his stomach, I wish we had caught it on video. But then he started to get fussy, which is the time we decided he needed to get acquainted with his uncle Brandon... it didn't go over so well.

Brandon's making the face because Dane was stiffening up and basically being an infant who was tired and hungry. Don't worry, they get along better later.
We decided that Dane needed to meet the missing family member. We pulled out Austin's senior picture, and Dane talked to him for a good couple of minutes. He just wanted to tell him how cool he was.

He didn't respond that well to "Candy Dallin"... we didn't catch a picture but every time he looked at Dallin his lip would stick out.
Alyse busted out Dane's NYE outfit, and we loved it...

See? Both happy... sort of!

The last full day we were there, Dane was tired and didn't want to sleep. I took him and walked into my room. I was planning to sit on my bed and rock him, but as I stepped on the trundle bed he stopped crying for a second and got really quiet and still. I bounced on the bed one more time, and his eyes started to close. After about 4 more bounces, he was completely out. What a good little guy. They said I could put him in his carseat, but I just wanted to snuggle one more time before I had to go back to Idaho. So he stayed asleep for about half an hour.

Little guy.
We walked around Balboa Island, and Dane got his first experience of the West Coast.

He sure loves his mom.
He likes to be bounced a lot, and rocked, and all sensations of falling and moving. He's going to grow up to be an extreme person!
Before we left, we couldn't resist getting just one more picture with Danie.

I was bouncing him in this picture... he would laugh then wait for the fall again.

There were some other things we did during our time in Irvine, but this was the best part. We loved being around little Dane, and can't wait to see him in June! I loved just being able to be an aunt, and hear him laugh and talk and smile and make all sorts of cute baby noises.