Merry Christmas!

It's officially midnight as I'm typing right now and that means Christmas is officially over. What a sad thing! Today was so perfect and I don't want it to end yet, therefore to stretch today out, I'll blog about it:

Logan is officially big now. All month, whenever Logan has asked what he wants from Santa he just says " a big boy bed!" We decided it was finally Logan's time to graduate from the crib (we put this off as long as we could)! So this morning Logan got what he wished for (thanks to Tamara we got a free toddler bed, thanks to Kristy it no longer has Nascar stickers on it--big bummer, I know--and thanks to Andy for helping me make a quilt for it!)

He was ecstatic to actually see his big boy bed "under" the tree this morning. Here's the evidence:



He rolled and jumped and frolicked all day on his bed. It will be hard for Santa to beat this present next year!

Fearing the sudden freedom of our toddler, we anticipated putting him back to bed many times tonight, but this is what we found 1/2 hour after laying him down tonight:


But then just a half hour ago, he had found his way out of bed, and either tripped on a chair or ran into a baby gate, causing a nose bleed and much screaming. We'll see how the rest of tonight goes.

*Update* I just heard some jabbering from Lo's room, so I went to check on him and sure enough there he was just standing waiting for someone to come. Here goes attempt #3 to put him to bed.

Lo playing with all his animals



Lo's awesome bookshelf that Ben made. It just needs to be painted now.



Savoring candy from his stocking



Because we were away from my home this Christmas, I made the traditional Christmas breakfast casserole that we have every year. Yum!


Ben and Lo playing with Legos from his stocking (a Parker tradition)

It was so nice to have a relaxing day full of family, fun and play! Merry Christmas!

Conversations

Ever since Logan hit his second language spurt a little bit ago and his vocabulary is growing bit by bit, little conversations are actually possible now. Let me tell you... this makes the half hour at the lunch table much more interesting than staring at each other and out the window. :-)

Well since these little conversations have been happening, there have been some things I've been explaining to little toddler ears that I never in a lifetime pictured myself verbalizing.

For example, the other night our conversation (keep in mind these are simple "conversations" here) went like this:

At the dinner table...

Logan: (burped, smiled, looked at me and pointed to his mouth) "I tooted in my mouf!"

Me: "um... well... kind of..."

I then proceeded to explain (and point with my hand) in toddler terms where burps come from and where toots come from. I was going to post the entire conversation, but I think I will just spare you the actual words that came from my "mouf".

I'm so glad that Logan is comprehending more and conversing, but I have a feeling this will not be the last of those...um...delightful toddler conversations. Or grade school conversations... or teenager conversations...*shudder*.


On a not-so-different topic, can I just say how much I love boys?

This very well could have been the same night at the dinner table...

"What are they looking at" you ask? That would be toe jam (who thought of that word anyway? Gross.) A bonding moment between father and son, picking out toe jam together.... at the dinner table.

And I often see half-naked prancing around the house with "fire boots" on. If you can't tell, those are his rubber boots that look like firetrucks. A dream come true. :-)


And speaking of BOYS, I found out about a month ago (thanks again Steph!) that we are having another one!!! I put that detail on facebook, but forgot to post it here.

A tired, worn out, end-of-the-day-picture at 19 weeks along.
I would have posted another pic (perhaps one a little more flattering...) but this is the only one I have so far. This is a second child for sure!

HAPPY birthday

I love mother; she loves me.
We love daddy, yes sirree.
We have a garbage disposal now, so you see...
We are a HAPPY fam-i-ly!

Thanks to all the wonderful birthday wishes I got on my birthday - it really made my day!

And thanks to my hubby who gave me the dreamiest, melt-your-heart-iest gift ever: a garbage disposal!

I know I've turned into my mom, who always left me baffled with requests of new dish towels and kitchen utensils for her birthday and Christmas. But now I understand: when your sink doesn't smell for the first time in three years and dishes are much more pleasant to do - everyone wins! Yea! {insert non-pregnant jumping up and down and cheering here. Wait. Who am I kidding? There has been no jumping, really, since before I birthed a child. ha ha.}

Here she is...ain't she a beauty? I really was excited to make food just so I could shove it down the disposal. And of course Ben let me take the first spin.

Mr. installation himself. With much thanks to his electrical coach (Dad) and a plumbing mentor who wished to remain anonymous. Thanks Ben!

Attitude of Grattitude

Ben and I got the chance to speak in Sacrament Meeting today in our new ward. Well, it's not completely new. Just 2 weeks ago our ward was dissolved and was split between two other existing wards. Crazy, but very exciting.

Anyway, we got the chance to speak on gratitude and that's just what I needed. While researching the topic, I came across this site on lds.org and loved it. There are short videos to watch and quotes to read and it completely lifted my spirits.

I thought I'd share - so here's the link if you've been feeling sorry for yourself or need a lift today:
http://www.lds.org/topic/gratitude/

Here's to a season of gratitude, thinking of others more than ourselves, and questioning at the end of every day, "How have I seen the hand of the Lord in my life today?" Happy (soon to be) Thanksgiving!

(And because posts are better with pictures, here's a trip we took to the temple back in August)

My Cowboys

I love fall and all that comes with it...including these two cowboys.
Yes, I know Halloween is already 3 weeks past, and we're already moving on to Christmas music here at our house, but this is mostly for the grandmas!

Apparently being a cowboy is serious business. Here's L with his painted pumpkin, cowboy boots, fringed chaps and sheep skin vest. Yeehaw!

Trick-or-treating. He was more obsessed with all the pumpkins on people's porches than he was about the candy.

We went to the Red Barn pumpkin patch and picked out some pumpkins. You can't tell by this pic, but Logan could hardly contain himself. He was so obsessed this year with "Hoween Punkins!"

We also went to Gardner Village to hunt for witches and of course Logan located all the pumpkins as well.

LOTOJA

I'm having a good day..."good" meaning I haven't been gagging and nauseated all day. Therefore I thought this would be an opportune moment to post. Are there toys all over my floor? Yes. Is there laundry to be folded? Yes. Is there a Halloween costume I have to start making for a little cowboy? Yes. But has it already been a month (almost) since my last post? Eek, yes. I feel justified. :-)

Last month we went to Ben's big race, LOTOJA (200 mile ride from Logan, UT to Jackson, WY... Lo to Ja...get it?).

Ben and the team took off from Logan at 5:45 am (crazy) meanwhile Logan and I slept and took our time getting ready to get on the road. We stopped at two of the feed zones while driving up to Jackson to witness Ben's pain, agony, sweat and tears... Oh, wait... I mean to love and support him along the way.

(Never mind Logan's mini-shorts and thighs in this picture...)

We also got to visit my Grandpa and Grandma Campbell's graves in Weston, ID. Haven't heard of it? Yeah, that's because it is in the middle of nowhere, but fortunately "the middle of nowhere" happened to be on our way. :-)


This was about 3/4 the way through the race and Ben's trying to stomach more food. Yuck. He burned thousands and thousands of calories during the ride so it was a battle to eat enough junk and high-caloric food to keep his body fueled. Wish I had that problem. :-)

Ben and some of his peeps.

Meet Brianne. Crazy mother of three who drove up to support her husband, Curtis, and swears she will never do it again. Ha ha.


This is what the kids were doing while waiting for the team to ride into this feed zone. Who says a string tied to a rock on the side of a road can't be a fun toy?


Ben finished at about 7:30 pm (right honey?) and due to user-error, there's no pic of Ben crossing the finish line. Go figure. Here he is with some of his teammates. And that's Paige in the pink. :-)


The cheering crew.


Logan's new discovery.

It was a long, long day and I don't think I'll ever make that trek again, but it was fun to see Ben get to work so hard for something and then to achieve it.

And a BIG thanks to Katy and Russ for letting us crash at your house that night! It was so nice to stay somewhere like home!

Ben's prize

Ben won this ...um...interesting... baby as part of a prize at a party we went to recently. (The party was to celebrate an amazing little lady who has survived the first part of hyperemesis in her pregnancy. Thanks for the super fun party, Katy!)

The funny thing is that Logan has completely attached to the baby. Yes, the face is pink and the legs are yellow, but he doesn't seem to mind.

Here's a video of Logan and the baby you won't want to miss:






And for those of you who either didn't watch the video, or didn't quite catch onto "Logan lingo", here are a few more pics...

Back from LOTOJA

We're back. We got home last night from Ben's big race of the season, LOTOJA. Updates on the fun race weekend to come. But first we have a full day ahead:

Unpack my bags.
Clean.
Make sure Logan is still alive.
Unpack Logan's bag.
More cleaning.
Feed Logan lunch.
Unpack the huge box of snacks that I took on the trip.
Laundry.
Frost sugar cookies (I promised Logan that we would).
Weed through Logan's toys.
Make dinner.


And HERE is how my day started:

Logan took off his pajama pants. Then took off his diaper. Then proceeded to (accidentally) pee all over his toys.

In talking to Logan, it turns out that Daddy went into the bathroom and was going pee pee and Logan wanted to as well. But he never actually went into the bathroom to use his potty. Instead he got side tracked by his toys. Can you blame the guy?


Gotta go...I smell a poopy diaper to change. Oh and now he's helping himself to a Snickers bar and saying over and over, "Chocate! Chocate!" Here we go. :-)

What I Couldn't Leave Behind

On my "Why the crap do I blog?" post, my friend Emily advised that when blogging gets behind, just start fresh and forget trying to catch up 2 months worth of life in one post. Very wise. And I'm taking that advice...mostly. While looking at my pictures of the past month, there were some moments I just couldn't pass up and leave behind:

The Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. Very long with a child and crowds, but very worth it.

Crossed fingers.

I apologize in advance if my child comes up to any of you, shoves his left hand 2 inches away from your face and demands, "Yooook!" insisting that you "yook" at the fingers that are crossed and outstretched toward you. He is so proud of his new accomplishment and is currently working on the other hand.

Seeing my crazy husband run alongside professional cyclists at the Nebo summit during the Tour of Utah, just like you would see in the Tour de France. It was hilarious and embarrassing all at the same time. :-)

Cheering Ben on at the ULCER finish line. It was freezing and windy that day so Logan was sporting Ben's arm warmers on his legs.

Washing bikes with Dad. It comes as no surprise that Logan is as obsessed with bikes as Ben is.

So there. I pulled those out of the archives and will put the rest behind me. Going fresh from here forward.

The time has come...

The time has come to really begin monitoring our language.

I'm not a potty mouth (at least not now that our last cat, Chaco, is long gone. Dumb cat).

But I'll admit that an occasional word of frustration slips out sometimes.

And thanks to Ben, Logan's virgin mouth has now repeated, "Oh crap" and "Damn it". He's also discovered the word "boobs". Ack. Not sure where that one came from.

Here's to better filtering. :-)

Here's the potty-mouth himself holding his favorite (and I'm not kidding when I say FAVORITE) ostrich from a puzzle.

I would like to add that for a long time Ben tried to convince me that this was a flamingo. Really? I think he still believes it, but has given up arguing with me.

Why the crap do I blog?

Does anyone else get so overwhelmed by blogging?!

I love reading everyone else's blogs and staying caught up with friends and family, but the more I do that, the more I feel like I'm so behind! For example...I still haven't posted on our July 4th activities....and probably never will. :-) We've gone on a couple trips that I've never mentioned. I cut my hair, we've played and played and made lots of fun memories and stories. But because I'm a "someday" scrapbooker ("I will start doing it someday") and mediocre at journaling, I fear those fun memories will just stay filed away on our computer in the nicely-organized 2009 photos file, unless I document them here.

So I wait and wait, and then once I realize it has been a month...or two...or three... since my last posting, I spew a bunch of picture vomit (sorry for the imagery) out onto a new post and feel like my job has been done until the next upheaval.

So what's the point in blogging if it just stresses me out? Good question Kristi.

I don't know.

I like it though.

I like feeling caught up and organized.

I like the thought of remembering many little things that Logan does to make me smile.

I like feeling therapized once I get my thoughts and ideas out.

And I'll admit it...I'm human... therapeutic journaling isn't the only reason I like blogging... I like getting comments too. Phew, there I said it. Is that taboo to say outloud? Don't judge. Don't hate me for appreciating approval from others.

I like the thought that someone actually cares about our measly lives enough to read boring posts like this one. I like the warm fuzzies I get when I feel understood. Even if I'm disagreed with, someone cared enough about me to let me know I'm wrong.

So now that I've convinced myself that blogging our lives is worth my time, effort, and hours of sleep I should be getting instead, I guess I'll keep trying.

Keep aiming for consistency rather than the vomit effect.

Keep trying to download my pictures sooner instead of sitting on the camera until the card is full. :-)

To anyone who still happens to be reading...(because I know that posts without pictures aren't as fun) thanks for listening.

Here's to better blogging...and blogging with more pictures next time. (Because I know that's why the grandmas REALLY check the blogs.)

And here's to going to bed because it is now 2 am. Again. Oops.

PS) I really didn't say all of this about commenting just to get comments. Promise. So if anyone is still reading, don't feel obligated to comment.

PPS) Here is my aforementioned hair (as if most everyone hasn't already seen it because I cut it FOREVER ago. :-)

And here's to band-aids that make everything feel better and eating chocolate ice cream cones outside:

Chatterings

Hello. Has it really been a month since my last post? As usual, I have way too many fun things to journal about here and don't know where to start, but until then I thought I'd share a couple cute things Logan said recently:

We dropped Ben off at work one day and as we were driving away Logan said, "Daddy sit down dhere" pointing to the passenger set. I told him that Daddy had to go to work to which he replied (and repeated about 10 times in a row in a nagging, begging tone of voice...) "I wanna wuhk toooo," "wuhhk," "Logan wuuuuhhhhk". If only he really meant that. I'll put you to work alright... you just wait.

Today we were reading a book that had picture of a guy fishing in it and I asked Logan what the man was doing to which he paused and then replied, "fish pole-ing." Close.

And today while standing in the mirror, I asked where Logan was and for the first time he patted his chest rather than pointing to himself in the mirror. Small, but exciting. His sense of self and autonomy is definitely coming along.

More pics of fun summer happenings to follow, promise.

New Addition

Welcome Hoodoo! He's the newest addition to our family. To make a long story short, he was being abused by some neighborhood boys and so we ended up taking him in. He is 10x's sweeter than our last kitty, Chaco, a.k.a "The Devil Himself" or "Gilly" (see here).

Hoodoo has survived Logan for a couples weeks now, so here's wishing him a continued happy and somewhat peaceful life with us!

Birthday Song

Here's Logan singing the birthday song as promised in the last post. He just started singing it that day in the car and I happened to get it on video. He had no idea I was taping him (between the seat and the head rest).



And the first part of this video has the beginning of his ABC's in it:

Logan Updates

Wowee am I behind on posting! Logan has changed so much lately, so I thought I'd post on his latest and greatest:

1. Logan's 2nd Birthday Party: So I realize this party was almost two months ago, but I thought it was so fun that I couldn't not post some pictures of it. Anyone who knows Logan knows that he is the hat man. He adores hats. So we thought it only fitting to base his party on one of his favorite books, "You YOU Have a Hat?" by Eileen Spinelli, and we had everyone wear their favorite hat.

2. The next exciting thing that has happened is the weaning of the binky! It was bitter sweet. He was ready for the change, but Ben and I weren't. I think we've had to wean ourselves from the binky more than Logan! He only got it at nap and bedtime and the occassional public situation :-), but man was it nice to have for those 3 hour afternoon naps! Overall, the effort to take the binky away (which wasn't really bad at all) was very much worth the comfort it gave Logan these past two years.


3. His vocabulary has exploded once again and he's forming sentences now. (Referring to a sticker on his cheek: "I want sticker orange, I want blue off.")

4. He's got his colors and some shapes down pretty well.


5. He's singing songs. He loves to sing Happy Birthday and the beginning of the ABC's. (video to come soon).

6. He's going pee in his own potty at times, when he chooses. This is nothing I'm forcing and honestly I'm not ready for potty training quite yet, and I don't think Logan is either. But he goes everytime before bathtime, and will occassionally ask for the potty. It's fun to see how proud he is of himself when he goes!



7. And last, but not least, he loves Mr. Potato Head and loves to sport his accessories.