Logan in Action

Here are a couple videos that I didn't have energy to include in the last post.

Logan loves anything having to do with the prophets... pictures of prophets and apostles, Follow the Prophet song and Latter-Day Prophets song. Anyway, I don't even know where he got this random paper of the First Presidency and Apostles, but I was amazed to see what he knew.

As mentioned in the last post, Lo loves "playing" hop scotch and here he is in action:

The Terrible Two's

I title this post "The Terrible Two's" not as an ode to Logan, but because TWO complete months have passed by me, void of any updates in the blogging world!

Considering it's almost midnight and we have a 5 am waker-upper whose name starts with "L" and ends with "ogan", I'll only update a smidgen tonight.

2 months of life, Logan style:

To maintain a balanced lifestyle, Logan makes it a point to do Yoga daily.



Just in case he decides to ride his "Giddy-up horse" through water, he'll be safe. :-)

Autonomy. Curse that word. Don't get me wrong, I love that Logan is getting more independent... but when it comes to dressing one's self I am MUCH less judgmental now.

When I see a child wearing nasty sweats and a dirty, mismatched shirt in the grocery store, instead of assuming the parents don't have descent clothes to dress their child in, I now think to myself, "Let me guess, your child dressed himself today too?" :-)

Since Logan has been insisting on dressing himself, not only does dressing take a full 30 minutes, but it also means he picks out his clothes which almost ALWAYS include "campy pants" (comfy pants) and either his race car shirt or his dinosaur shirt. Never mind that he wore his race car shirt 3 times this week already. Never mind that his dino shirt is neon orange and his pants are blue. And never mind trying to change his outfit before going out in public because convincing him, picking out new clothes and changing him would take a whole extra hour.

In a odd way I am actually really proud of Logan's mismatched outfits and incorrectly placed shoes.

Puzzle-mania. Logan lives for puzzle building. This is his newest jig-saw puzzle (yes, Ben did have to help him with this one). Thanks Marmie!

And because some puzzles, apparently, aren't challenging enough, they must be done upside down as well.

"Etcha-sketching" otherwise known as playing hopscotch.

For those who aren't in the know when it comes to Curious George (another obsession), there is an episode about hopscotches. One day (yes, it was warm outside... never mind that Logan insisted on wearing his coat and snow boots) I decided to make a hopscotch for him and he LOVED it.

More updates to follow shortly...

Success! (for now)

After 2 1/2 weeks of many prayers, pleading, crossing fingers, tip-toeing, holding our breath, hours and hours of work, anger management techniques and experimenting with every sleeping technique under the moon (including finally having to bolt the bed to the wall).... Logan is finally staying in bed!!!!

WAHOOOO!

Can you tell how ecstatic I am? The precious & productive after-bed-time hours have been reclaimed and I now have a little more sanity to my name!

For the past 3 nights, we have had to return Logan to bed ZERO times (as compared to previously 20, 30, 40, 50 , 60 times in one night). I'm sure more bed time bumps will come down the road, but this is one milestone I am SOOO thankful to be over. A mountain has been climbed... for now!

always accessorizing

And I had to add this because I thought it was so hilarious... last Sunday I took pictures of each Primary class so I could make flash cards for myself to learn names of all the kids I don't know in our newly formed ward.

Proof that girls and boys are NOT the same...

(mostly) SWEET VALIANT GIRLS

VS.



CRAZY, LOTS-OF-UNBRIDLED-ENERGY, VALIANT BOYS

I love Primary. :-)

(PS: If you read that last comment as sarcastic, it wasn't. Against all odds, I really do love our Primary!)

So far...

Life is never dull with Logan.

So far today:

Logan wakes up at 5:15 am, WIDE AWAKE. We try to put him back to bed. Yeah right.

Because I can't function at 5 am, (ok, I can't really function until 8 am :-) I go out to lay on the couch while he watches Sesame Street, Curious George, Super Why, and even part of "the kids movie" (Polar Express).

5:30 - 8 am: Doze off and on to make sure Lo doesn't kill himself.

8 am: I wake up just a split second before a huge drumstick falls from the sky and hits me in the face. Fat, bruised lip. (I think he threw the drumstick in the air because it was the part in Polar Express where all the Elves throw their hats in the air...is it sad that I know that movie that well?)

8:05 am: I sneak a bite of Lemon cake before breakfast and Logan sees me and insists on Lemon cake too. :-)

8:10 am: Logan breaks a glass on the floor while eating breakfast. 9 am: Logan gets into Ben's things and loses one of the lenses to Ben's sun glasses. (NOT good. Sorry hun.)

11 am: Take a shower finally. When I get out, Logan has fallen asleep on the couch. When I pick him up, I see a chocolate chip he was sitting on melted nicely into our sofa.

11:05 am: Logan takes an early nap? No such luck. He wakes right back up.

11:30 am: Logan actually asks to go potty (a first!) and does so with success.

1:oo pm: While out running errands, Logan steps in mud and while getting in the car, smears it on the seat in front of him (not on purpose).

2:50 pm: Lo picks a book to read before nap time called "David Gets in Trouble". How fitting. :-)

And now he's down for nap. Hooray! Oh wait, he's waking up again. Gotta go :-)

Miscellany

Ben had a headache tonight and hit the sack early, so here I am pondering whether to organize my new purse, or to update the blog. You see what I chose. :-)

There have been lots of happenings as of recent, and there's no way to connect them all , so I'll just list it out for simplicity's sake:

1. As of a few weeks ago, I am officially done with work! This job has been so flexible and a blessing to have over the past 2.5 years, but I am just ready to be done now that #2 is on the way. Wahoo. That's 6 more hours a week to spend with Logan before his world gets rudely interrupted. :-)

2. Our ward was dissolved way back in November and so Ben and I were released (along with the entire ward) and were sad and relieved at the same time to be "done" with our callings. But, as always, Heavenly Father knows best and has something else up His sleeve because it was just 3 weeks later that our new ward was completely reorganized and we were both (not on purpose) called back to the same callings (Primary and Young Mens). I cried for days knowing what a struggle this was for our family for the past two years, but it only took one trip to the temple for me to know this is where I'm supposed to be right now. Things have been busy, chaotic, yet calm and collected for the past four weeks. What a blessing.

3. Pregnancy is going great now. Night sickness went away 6 weeks earlier than last time and it has been bliss! I'm actually starting to see boy#2 move my belly around. That's crazy. I actually forget half of the time that I'm prego.

Me at 23 weeks

4. Update on Logan's transition to big boy bed: it's hell! Ok, well it's not that bad, but definitely one of the worst stages we've gone through with Logan. He's always been a good sleeper and all of that has gone out the window. He was really good for the first week, and then the honeymoon phase ended and the excitement of the holidays and company in town threw him for a loop. Now he just gets out of bed many, many, many times before falling asleep, laughing and enjoying the game the whole time. This stage of autonomy has brought out the mean and ugly in me and I hate it. Can't I just control Logan forever? Oh right... that was Satan's plan. :-)

We've tried it all: time outs, taking monkey away, taking blanky away, taking his bed away and leaving the mattress on the ground, putting a baby gate between his room and the toy room, taping the light switches down, moving a big cabinet to block the pathway from his room to the toy room, patiently putting him back into bed over, and over, and over, sitting next to his bed in the dark with him. Nothing has worked. I'm afraid time will have to take care of this one.

So first thing tomorrow, I'm headed to the library to see what the child development experts say. Here's to hoping, crossed fingers and lots of prayers.

5. On a more positive note I set new goals for this year. And for the past few years I've tried to adopt a saying or motto to live by for the year. One year it was, "Simplify everything" and last year it was, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."

I really didn't follow that adage very well last year, so I'm adopting that same motto this year and trying again, especially now that we've cut out my small income. This means assessing true needs vs. wants and realizing that joy, satisfaction and therapy don't come from purchasing or having new things. Thriftiness is the new black.

Us partying on New Years Eve at the Nelsons.

6. Logan sang his first primary song all the way through, randomly, without any prompts today. As you can see, he was enjoying breaking out in song much more than eating dinner. Luckily, he actually performed it again when I asked him to so I could tape it! I was so proud of him and so thankful for nursery!



7. Here are some random pics of this weekend. Ben's sister, Maegan, and her husband Nick were here visiting. Our weekend of fun proved just how much we miss them! Thanks again for coming to visit!

Logan loved getting to play with Abby Dabba again. Here she is reading to him in Logan's bed.

Nick and Maegs on New Years. Sweet shirt, Nick.


Here are the kiddos all lined up watching Snow White.

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!