Well the time has finally come. And it's been a long time coming. The following is the long-anticipated, much looked forward to, baby montage that I've been talking about for the last 10 weeks. Interestingly enough, during those last 10 weeks new babies are being born like every week! Which is part of the reason I've kept putting it off. Now that Kyle and Sarah had their baby however, I'm calling a cease-fire on all births until tonight at 10:00pm by which time this blog will be finished. So if you have a baby between now (8:49) and 10pm I have to tell you I'm sorry, but your baby isn't going to be on this baby montage or the next baby montage on this blog. Your baby has been disqualified because he or she broke the cease fire and now will have to stand trial for war crimes.

Since the internetic authority on the definition of "montage" is as follows A cinematic device used to show a series of scenes, all related and building to some conclusion it should be easy for you to see why I've referred to this constantly as a montage. It's going to be fun, and this will be the only time on the blog where you will see this many pictures of the blog author in one place. So single ladies, beware this post contains images of dan and babies and lots of images of dan holding babies. You probably better just move on and see what's going on here or maybe here.

And now that that's all settled, I present to you, without further delay:

THE DAN AT DRAYNET.COM BABY MONTAGE!!!

Part 1: Welcome to Planet Earth: Ciara Alice Palmer

Ciara was born a while back to my friends Vanya and Ryan. She's small and has lots and lots of black hair (insinuates nothing). When she's happy she makes neat little quacking sounds like a duck. For some reason she usually has a white tongue.

I chose to start the montage with this picture of her and I because it demonstrates what a great relationship we have even when she was only 4 days old.

Ciara loves uncle dan (the most?)

Ciara wakes up to a new day

She's just a few months away from an elusive modeling contract

These are her proud parents showing of Ciara and her sweet designer car seat. If you think that's cool, you should see her stroller/monster truck bed thingy. It has better suspension than my car.

Part 2: Naomi Grace Cramer

I said before that Naomi gets priority and she definitely does. She's the best to watch because she has this gazing stare that just really makes a person feel like they are interesting. She gets this from her father. And her mother. Everybody loves to hold Naomi and often Shannon and I have to do battle for her, at least until the other kids show up and then we all get to be happy. Naomi holds the proud title of having spit up on me 4 times in one holding while pooping 3 times. After that holding I declared that I would never change a child's diaper until I had kids of my own. And let's be honest, they can change their own da*^ diapers.

Naomi is sporting the good looks. I encouraged Josh and Grace to ground her one month for every time she cries in order to avoid having to ever deal with boys.

This is Naomi and Phil. Phil is not Naomi's father Josh is.

This is Naomi's mama Grace. Naomi often does cool things like chew on a bottle.

This is me holding Naomi like a football. There you go andrew, My babi3z frienz p0wnz y04z. She always makes cool faces like this.

Part 3: Welcome to the hood, Luke Daniel Nevens

Aww yeah! It's on now. LD Nevens is my homie from another cronie. He's my bro and my bro's bro yo. He's the man. He did the roll at age .05 and he owns it. And he owns. I love this guy. And when he's pissed, he lets you know. I like. I expect him to beat me at basketball by age 3. It's been 2 months since I've seen him and if the guy can't play guitar by now you can call me yellow.

Mom (gretchen) and Luke. Luke is clearly already planning world domination. He gets that from dad.

This one's for all the ladies…

Mike demonstrates the coolest way to hold a baby…

And I find myself sufficiently instructed. Luke enjoys

We were both tired after a long night of partying and wooing the women, so we decided to chill out and take a nap.

Here's Uncle Luke with his namesake

Most babies don't turn until 3 months. LD had it mastered by age six weeks. Mike and I were so proud that we tried to get him to do it several times in a row. This severely pissed him off.

"I'm sorry little guy." Mike had to console him. Well done little man, well done.

Part Gamma: Hannah Twombley

Hannah was born to Jeremy and Jeralyn a little over a year ago. She doesn't really like me very much, as evidenced by the fact that every time I tried to hold her, this happened:

Hannah. Not happy with Dan.

To make things worse, I tried to hold Hannah and LD together. Disaster ensued.

Part X: Anna Elaine Barber

Dillon and Kristen gave birth to Anna and she is just utterly cute. Very much like her parents. She doesn't cry, she's always happy, and she's made of butterscotch and dandelions.

Anna and Dad looking sharp.

Anna and Dad posing

Just plain cute…

But also serious at times…

My bosom makes babies sleep.

Now she's out cold.

But awake in time to play with her toys. Stay back fools!

Part 5: Welcome to Vancouver, Christian Grey Ratzlaff

Christian is just over a Year old and Heather and Derek adopted him a few months ago. As one person said in our church, Christian Ratzlaff just won the new parent lottery, 'cause Derek and Heather are as good as it gets.

This little guy is beyond words. He's fun, smart, and happy, always present with a smile or mischievous grin. I generally like to hold him upside down until he laughs. We get along great. He doesn't talk yet, but if he did he'd say, "Dan Ray, you are so cool."

Here he is planning something.

But it seems that he got distracted by some food. What is it with the little ones and food?

Part Alpha: Welcome to earth BENJAMIN WADE SPLINTER HALTON

BWSH, or as I like to call him "swoosh" (dane, that's for constantly calling me "deep chocolate") is better than bread. And that's quite a compliment coming from me. He came into this world a little bit early, so he's been gaining ground ever since. I know Luke Daniel rules, but just to be fair, Ben Wade started rolling around at age negative 2 weeks. Yeah. This guy is going places. big places.

He has been already in many ways a HUGE blessing and source of joy for Jane and Dane and their loved ones, so he basically started doing ministry the moment he was born. I love this guy.

wtf?! What am I doing here? Ben was a little startled at his early arrival.

But he acclimated quickly…

I met him on this day. He commented on how nice that sweater looks on me.

Here I gave Ben the "lion king" treatment, so that all the jungle animals could see who rules.

Bow before king swoosh.

This is Jane's favorite Ben picture. And consequently mine too. I suggest that he will be driving the car inside of 4 weeks.

Check out Jane and Dane's blog for more pictures of Ben

Part Omega: Welcome to Earth: Maia Charis Reid

I haven't gotten to meet Maia yet, which is a point of contention for me. So trips must be planned and planes must be caught soon! She's gorgeous though, just like her parents Uncle Luke and Beth.

Welcome Maia

Good morning! Anything exciting planned for today?

Proud parents Luke and Beth. We're fairly certain Maia won't have a beard, but with a dad like Luke, nothing is out of the question.

Last minute Entry!
Welcome to the World Addison Elizabeth Wilhelms!

Addison was born seven days ago and she's a doll. Had to make sure that she was added. Congratulations to Kyle and Sarah, two of my very best friends and Addison's new parents. If you want to get a deeper understanding of who they are, check out the quote on the right side of the home page.

Naked Addison: We definitely need more pictures of naked people on this blog. Seemed like a good place to start.

Addison is looking for food. Apparently these babies aren't too particular about where their food comes from.

This dude is one of my heroes. He's gonna be a great dad. As long as he doesn't sell his kids.

Addison is all ready to go with a careful glare, and alien abduction protection?

Part Revelation: Welcome to Earth, Daniel K. Ray

And the Final Picture. Worth the price of admission. This is a picture of me, age nine, hanging out with some baby in a wagon. Isn't I cute!? Too bad I didn't have a beard then.

The real question here is, which one is the baby?

Seriously Though…

Congratulations to all my dear friends and their new found joys. There's no way to adequately express the joy that we all feel with this much addition of new life, so I'm not even going to try. Hopefully this post will be an indicator though of how much all of this has blessed me and the many people (especially grandparents) that get to see their loved ones walk into this new phase of life. One day, I'll have my own kids, but in the meantime, I'll take great comfort in knowing that there are this many new people in the world who will grow up in loving, caring, Christ-centered homes. Blessings to all of you.

I can't believe it. This monster post is finally done. On that note, I'll be taking a couple of weeks off. Watch for an update or two and lots of twitter feed updates. But other than that, it's finals time for me baby. Oh yeah.

DK

p.s. Additional Congrats to Nathan and Karen on the birth of Luke Daniels (confusing, I know) little brother Caleb. I don't have any pictures but will gladly update later.

p.p.s. If you're a single girl who reads this blog and are now profusely in love with me, check out the about page for contact info or search the site profusely for the dating application. I'm sure it's on here somewhere.

p.p.p.s. Seriously though. I don't really mean that.

p.p.p.p.s. The cease fire is officially over. You can go back to birthing new babies.

p.p.p.p.p.s. Special thanks to gmail search for all the middle names

p.p.p.p.p.p.s. Three cheers for the laptop. Not one crash yet and it's soldiered through a weekend of powerpointing, 4 classes, and some online nintendo golf. I still got the skillz to pay the bills.