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. :-)