Recently...

For Valentine's Day, the "Invisible Man" left some gifts for the kids on our doorstep. Grace was very excited and even knew which of the bags was hers since she knows what the letters of her name look like.

Logan got "lovey" the Lion and some very exciting necessities... like binkies and gas drops. ha.
"Pretties", new big-girl bowls, puzzles, and her favorite things in the world: Nemo fruit snacks!
A few weeks ago our good friends gave us a hand-me-down tricycle that they had inherited and thought Grace would like. :) It was so sweet of them to think of her! We bought her a brand new helmet to go with it and took her to the church parking lot to introduce her to the tricycle. She... didn't really get it. She didn't understand how to use (or simply didn't want to use) the pedals but preferred to scoot along with her toes pushing off the cement. But oh well!

So serious...

She still had a lot of fun and we let her ride/scoot around for a little while. She looks SO BIG on her bike with a big-kid helmet on. My goodness, Grace is a "big kid". I can't get over how fast time flies!

I had to post a picture of Grace and her bestest bud: Anderson. We just LOVE the Redd family and I know we'll stay close to them through the years... even though we'll be 6 hours apart in time zones starting in June (them in Hawaii and us on east coast time). :( Grace adores "Ah-ya" ... and even adores his parents too. She's always asking about "Ah-ya's mommy" and "Ah-ya's daddy" and "baby Grace", Anderson's little sister. They have been wonderful friends to us, always thinking about what we might need to help us through a trial, or inviting us over to play games or feed us dinner, watching Grace for us anytime we need it, and simply being awesome friends who understand us and love us anyway. I can't even begin to list the things Melanie did for me while I was on bed-rest. We are very blessed to know them and it will be extremely hard moving away from each other. Grace and Anderson are just so funny together!
A few days ago my sister and her family came to Vegas with her in-laws and stayed at Circus Circus. We weren't sure how much we'd get to see them but they came over for dinner on sunday night and then again on tuesday for lunch and to play at the park with us. It was BEAUTIFUL weather, the kids had fun playing together, they all got to meet Logan, and we had a good time visiting with them. It's still hard to imagine our life for the next 3-6 years... That people won't be popping into town, or driving through on their way to the beach. :( Columbus is no Las Vegas.

So... currently we live in a 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartment. As I mentioned in the last post about Logan, he is very noisy and needed to be kicked out of our room. He's too noisy to put with Grace unless I wanted her to be up multiple times at night right along with Logan and I. Definitely not! So we stole an idea from our friends the Larsons and made a cozy little home for Logan for these last few months:

Here's our guest bathroom shower. Oh but it's not a shower anymore! It's...

Logan's bedroom!

Ryan built a little platform which hooks into the tub so it doesn't slide around. And don't worry, Grandmas, the pack-n-play is secured on the platform so it's not going anywhere. :) It's working out really well too. If we have company stay overnight, we'll just put him in our room and the shower can still be used. That bathroom really only gets used by us when Grace takes baths, so she just does that in our bathtub now. It's a perfect solution for a little while longer. Aww I love being poor and making-do with what we have. Thank you to our creative friends for giving us the idea.

Lastly, here is a link to a bunch of our videos that you're welcome to check out! I'm especially posting them for the Grandparents but I figured I'd just put the link out there to our Vimeo account. They're mostly if Grace dancing/singing to Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain", reading/reciting her favorite book, and singing songs with me before bed. The top 4 are the most recent ones, and the "hiccups" one is from today. http://vimeo.com/user7745205/videos Enjoy!

Logan: One month old

It's hard to believe that Logan joined our family one month ago... I honestly feel like he's been here a lot longer! Is that strange? It's not in a negative way. He just seems older to me for some reason I can't explain. But regardless, we're so grateful for Logan! We adore our little guy and I absolutely love having a baby in the house again. I haven't posted many day-to-day pics of Logan these last few weeks, so here is an overload of pictures and info! Enjoy.

8 days old - chillin' and watching Mommy

Making sure the binkie stays put ... just like his sister did at that age (on right)

10 days old - more alert

Peek-a-boo...

16 days old - napping

17 days old - "Hey sis! Whatcha got there?"

19 days old - trying out the play-mat for the first time

21 days old - silly face

24 days old - First bath... not so sure about it yet

Split screen to prove how big he's already getting! :)

2 days old on left - 3 1/2 weeks old on right

And just for fun, here's another split screen with Logan at 1 month and Grace at 2 months...

-weight: 10 lbs 9 oz (50-75th percentile)

-height: 21.5 inches (25th percentile)

-head circ: 15 inches (50th percentile)

-First off, I must say that Logan is not a very "easy" baby. He is fussy a lot of the time (or at least more than I was used to with Grace). He's SUPER loud almost all day and all night long because of all his grunts and groans, whines, and squeals. He is a very gassy baby, so I know that's mostly the problem. But he's also a bit demanding and just wants to be held. I was hoping I'd have a baby who didn't mind hanging out on a play mat, or a bouncy chair... but nope. Not this kid, or at least not yet. He likes his one-on-one attention and doesn't like to be forgotten.

-When we do hold him and give him our full attention, he is so chill and quiet (almost the only time of day that he is that way). He just stares up at us like he's trying to figure us out, and usually has a very pleasant look on his face... like an almost-smile. :)

-Logan is way more awake and alert than Grace ever was at this age. In fact sometimes he'll be up for his "wake-time" way too long between feedings and then he's just overstimulated. It can be hard to get him to fall asleep for naps in the day sometimes... Which has thrown me for a loop because Grace was an amazing sleeper as a baby. I like to use the Baby Wise schedule of "eat, wake, sleep" and be strict about putting him down for naps instead of letting him doze whenever he wants to. I think we just need a little more time to get all of that to work for him. He's a little stubborn!

-Speaking of sleep... we still haven't figured out what he likes the best. Sometimes he sleeps great being swaddled, sometimes he needs one or both arms out (or else he'll grunt for an hour and take a restless nap). Sometimes he'll fall asleep flat on his back but mostly for the last month he wouldn't sleep unless he was in his vibrating bouncy chair We really want to break this habit but we're still trying to figure him out. I don't know yet if he won't sleep flat because he's gassy/uncomfortable, or what else it might be.

-He slept next to my side of the bed until last night. After 4 weeks of his grunting we finally kicked him out and put him in the only place we knew he wouldn't bother anyone... the guest bathroom in his pack n play. :) He's so loud that he'd keep Grace up in her room and there's nowhere else for him. So we'll see how it goes. It actually worked out well last night, and he even slept pretty well on his back without the bouncy chair. I think we're getting somewhere!

-Logan is an amazing eater, which is why he's gained 3 pounds in a month! He nurses for a total of about 10 minutes (by the way, Grace used to take 45 mins at this age and probably drank half the amount he does). I've pumped and checked the amount he takes and it's usually 4 oz. He is hungry on a pretty regular 2.5-3 hour cycle around the clock. Sometimes (rarely) he'll go 4 hours, but usually it's more like 2.5 which is tiring, especially at night. Hopefully he starts going to every 4 hours soon. :)

-Logan doesn't seem to like noise unless it's a blow dryer, a fan, or some kind of white noise. If it's loud TV, or people talking, or noises at church, it makes him restless and whiney. He can't relax very easily... which should make church very interesting as time goes on and he doesn't want to nap except in a quiet room.

-Logan has long feet, long finger-like toes, a big hands. The other day we compared my friend's almost 4 month old's hands to Logan's and they're the same size! He definitely takes after the Goates side of the family with big hands and feet. :)

-We've been trying to figure out who he looks like, and have heard all kinds of things from other people. In our opinion he doesn't look much like Grace at all. Sure, they look related, but he's so BOY with his brow line, nose, and solid look to him. That being said, I actually pulled out one of my baby pictures yesterday and surprisingly we look quite a bit alike! What do you think?

-Logan's circumcision happened at about 10 days old. And MY GOODNESS is that miserable. Yuck. The poor kid was miserable every time I changed his diaper for a week or two after. I wouldn't mind having more daughters in the future just so I can avoid the circumcision part again.

-His umbilical cord fell off around 3 weeks but his belly button wasn't closing up. It was still pretty open and showed the yellowish base of the cord that's left over inside the skin. I showed the doctor and he used some chemical (can't remember the name of it) which sort of cauterizes that yellow part and helps the skin close around it.

-We FINALLY were able to give Logan his first real bath last week! I'm so glad. Except I accidentally rubbed a lot of his hair off the top of his head because I was trying to scrub the dry skin. I felt so bad! I had no idea it just rubbed completely off in big chunks like that. Poor guy!

-He has lots of baby acne and cradle cap right now all over his head and face. I'm excited for that to go away and have his smooth skin back. And for the record, I edited out a lot of the yucky pimples in the photos below. :)

Our impromptu photo session this morning...

You're probably wondering "What's up with the lions?" Ryan and I had been searching for a perfect and unique "lovey" that Logan would love. For some reason we kept coming up with a lion. We think it's cute!

Such a handsome boy. We love you, Logan!!

A Big Week

This last week has been a really big one for us. Last week we found out that Ryan was officially accepted to the National Health Service Corp. as a "Student to Service" scholar. Let me explain a little about what that means ...

The Service Corp. is a government program set up for primary care physicians to be placed into medically underserved areas of the country. Ryan's specific scholarship is brand new this year (currently a pilot program) and he is one of 77 other soon-to-be-residents who were accepted. Basically, Ryan will be paid $30,000 each year of his 3 year residency (while still getting normal resident's pay), plus one more year after that. This money goes straight to paying down our loans, though, so it's not just extra salary to spend. After his 3 years of residency, we will be assigned to a "site" that needs a Pediatrician and we'll move there to "pay back" our 3 years of service to them. He'll be paid at this site as a typical Pediatrician (nothing extra since it's our turn to pay them back in service). Part of his contract tells us what type of site we have to look for. It's based on a number score, depending on their need, so there's really no way we can know right now where we'll end up for those 3 years after residency. In looking at some of the options available right now, just to get an idea, we've seen some sites in the north-west, a couple in Ohio or Michigan, a few others in states we'd be ok with living in, but unfortunately none in Utah. Things could change, and more could open up, but we'll just wait and see. We're not worried about it! It just feels like another stop on the road to getting settled somewhere down the road. It just feels like part of "the plan" for us. Plus Grace will be 8 when we're done with residency and the NHSC and we feel like that's still young enough that our kids won't be negatively effected by those couple of moves left in our near future. :)

As an explanation on why we came to decide on applying to the NHSC...

Last fall Ryan and I thought we wanted to join the Air Force and do their loan-repayment program. We started the process of applying with them but then found out that there was only one spot open for a Pediatrician at that time for the whole country, and it ended up getting filled before we were able to fully apply. Obviously it wasn't meant to be for us, and we moved on from it. However, Ryan was so sure he wanted to do military that he pushed and pushed for me to accept joining the Army. I didn't feel right about it for some reason, and struggled A LOT with that idea (especially the idea of deployment). I don't know why... the programs were extremely similar and life in either branch would have also been similar... But for whatever reason I just didn't feel good about it. I literally was sick about it. To be brutally honest, there was one night that Ryan was out of town on a residency interview trip and we got into a big argument about whether or not to join the Army. He wanted me to let him apply, and I didn't want that at all. That night, in my room by myself before bed, I prayed really hard, knowing that we needed something to help us figure it out. Either I needed a change of heart, or he did, or some other option needed to come our way to help us with our financial future and the amount of loans we have. We were both so scared that we couldn't handle them with all the extra interest added to them through residency AND only getting a Pediatrician salary (which is the lowest of all specialties). Literally the next morning Ryan received an email about this brand new scholarship program through the NHSC and it was exactly what we needed. It had some of the same financial benefits as joining the military (of course a much smaller amount of money), but no deployment, and no possibility of serving our years over-seas. We both immediately felt he should apply and got excited about the possibility of being accepted. As I said before, last week we finally got the official acceptance and will receive our first payment to our loans in a few months. It is such a blessing to us and we feel like Heavenly Father literally dropped this one in our laps. He heard our prayers and knew our worries and frustration, and He provided. Of course, right?! We are so grateful and look forward to what those 3 years of service will bring to us as a family and to Ryan as a doctor. It's exactly the kind of thing he loves to do, as he's always been drawn to working in under-privileged communities and especially in a smaller town somewhere.

Now on to the other great news. Yesterday was the MATCH for all the DO students. The "MATCH" is done with a computer system that literally matches the student up with a residency program. It's kind of confusing to explain, but basically the student submits a list of programs they'd like to be at, in order of preference, and then the residency programs all do the same with a list of students they'd prefer to accept. Then the computer matches them up. Make sense??... Anyway there is a DO match in February and an MD match in March. Ryan interviewed at one DO program, which was the Nationwide/Doctors Hospital in Columbus, OH and then interviewed at several MD programs as well. Since the DO match was first, Ryan submitted his one and only program on that list and we crossed our fingers he'd get in... knowing we could still do the MD match next month if he didn't...

We had been told the email with the results would come at 9am. However at 6:15am, Ryan gets the email on his phone, rolls over to me in bed, hugs me, and wakes me up by whispering in my ear "I matched! We're going to Columbus!" What a way to wake up!... especially after an exhausting night of feeding Logan every 2.5 hours. haha. But it was the BEST NEWS! We laid in bed just giggling about it and getting super excited. Then around 7am we started texting our family members and friends. :)

I still can hardly believe it's really happening. Columbus was our top choice out of all the programs because it's the only one that will allow him to continue learning and using OMM. It'll open doors for him that he wouldn't have had at the MD programs. Ultimately Ryan wants to teach OMM at a medical school, and this puts him on that path. This program only accepts 4 students, and usually only 1 male student each year, so we knew that was also going to make it harder to get in. We're also extremely excited that we are moving to a place that has some family already there. My brother, Ben, and his family live there and we are so happy to be able to live near them! :) Our kids will have some cousins who they can play with anytime, and that makes me so happy.

I am SO so so proud of Ryan. I can't say it enough. He is amazing and I am lucky to be his wife and going through this process with him. It's not an easy one, but what worth-while path in life is?! I love him so much and am grateful for his hard work and desire to be the best he can be. He has put us on a rewarding path and so far it has been an amazing ride. :) I love you Ryan!

Gracie May

Yesterday Grace turned 2 years and 3 months old. I felt it was time to do a little spotlight on her, since she's becoming such a big girl these days!

-Grace weighs just about 30 pounds.

-She talks up a storm all the time... usually saying the same thing 10 times until you acknowledge it. She can put 5 and 6 word sentences together now, which impresses me! Unfortunately she can also be quite bossy -- telling you to "sit down" in a specific place, or "get up", etc.

-One of my very favorite things she says right now is when she's trying to say "Put it right there". Her version sounds like this: Puddin' dare. I also have to include this even though Ryan will be mad that I did... She likes to read "Green Eggs and Ham" all the time, and in it they talk about eating it "with a fox and in a box". Well when she recites it, it sounds more like the f-word: "f--- a box". Haha I'm sorry ... I had to include it. It's HORRID and we go over and over it with her to say "FOX in a BOX" but we honestly can't help but laugh so hard when she says it.

-She wants us to read books to her ALLLLLLL THE TIME. She's obsessed with letters, always pointing them out, talking about them, asking for letter games and puzzles, you name it! I think she'll be reading in no time. She even says "T for Uncle Tom" or "R says rrrrr". I don't know how she learns it all! Maybe from the show "Super Why" haha.

-Her favorite books right now are: "Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?", ABC Dr Suess, "If You Give a Moose and Muffin", "If You Give a Dog a Donut", and "Green Eggs and Ham". She can literally recite them to you.

-Grace is really good at saying prayers (with our help, of course). Except she never says the opening "Heavenly Father" when we start out... she will simply start with "Thank you day". Plus she whispers the whole prayer for some reason.?

-Grace has become such a good helper since Logan has been around! She'll grab things for me like burp cloths, blankets, Logan's diapers, etc, because she's really good at following directions when I need something. My favorite thing right now is that she'll go to the fridge and get her milk cup all by herself, or she'll even get me a bottle of water if I'm nursing or too lazy to get up. :) I love it!

-Speaking of Logan, I think she likes having him around. She gives him lots of kisses and hugs, will hold him for about 5 seconds here and there, wants him in her bed with her, tries to hand him toys sometimes, and asks to sing him songs before bed like I Am a Child of God or Sunbeam.

-Remember when I wrote in a blog post about how worried I was that our "sweet girl" was long gone? She truly struggled with the bed rest situation and was not herself at all. Going to Salt Lake helped A TON to allow her to get away from an unhappy home situation, and when she finally came home she was back to her normal self again. She can be such a sweet heart when she wants to be, and luckily for us that happens more often than not. She definitely has her terrible moments, but we'll sometimes go a day or two without needing a time-out.

-One thing Grace is doing, which is new, is being super sensitive. It's really sad actually and breaks my heart. Sometimes we'll get after her and she'll just throw a tantrum and be mean... but sometimes we'll get after her for something and she'll be super sad about it. She'll either come to us and need a hug right away, or she'll run to her room, shut the door, and quietly cry until we go in and talk to her. It may sound ideal, but it makes me feel so bad! Today she was REALLY pushing my buttons when she ran away from me at our friend's complex. I was frazzled by the time I got her in the carseat and I told her she was being a bad girl. She immediately got really sad and said "No bad girl!" It brought me back out of my freak out moment right away and I gave her a hug, telling her she was a good girl but just scared me when she ran away from me. I'm glad she communicates with me so I can communicate back so easily. We may not agree all the time, but at least we can both relax, I can apologize when I've over-reacted, and we can have sweet moments in the end.

-Grace is showing lots of signs of being interested in potty training... But then when I ask if she wants to sit on the potty she doesn't usually want to. I'm not ready to take it on full time, but I think if we did sometime soon she would probably pick it up. She knows most of her friends wear big kid undies and that interests her, at least.

-Grace is still OBSESSED with Toy Story movies and toys. I don't let her watch them too often, and we try to mix in other movies and shows too, otherwise I'll pull my hair out. ;) Her Woody figurine has a hat that isn't attached to his head and we lose it almost everyday. I swear all day, everyday, I hear "Woody hat?", over and over and over until we find it. I need to glue that thing on his head, but I'm afraid she'll just yank it off and ruin his head!

Grace's new favorite place to play with her toys (especially her cars) is up on the piano.

Mmmm, pink frosting!

Just lyin' around, watching a cartoon with Dad.

Her new favorite hiding place is under our computer desk.

Grace still loves coloring everyday and is very thoughtful about it!

We went to a little friend's birthday party at the park last weekend. Here are some photos from that...

"Look at my bum!"

Her favorite little buddy: Anderson! (aka: "yaya")

Watching the Elmo piñata getting beaten.

Grace's face was pure joy while smacking that Elmo... should we be worried?

Cupcake time!

Lots of cute friends!

I'm grateful to have Grace as the big sister in our family! We love her to the moon and back.

Football Baby Shower!

I have THE ABSOLUTE BEST friends in the whole world. I am constantly amazed at the support and love I receive from them, all the fun we have together, and the things I learn from them. Two of my bestest buds, Melanie (left) and Casie (right), threw me a baby shower last week.

Since I was on bed rest when we normally would have held the shower, we decided to hold it after Logan was born so I didn't have to lay down through the party. Wouldn't that have been fun. ;) The football/BYU vs. UTAH theme for the shower was very clever and it so perfectly fits ME and the rivalry that exists in our home... and between our friends. haha. In fact, poor Grace is so confused that when she sees anything "Utah" she yells "B! Y! UTAH!". So this was so perfect, especially how they tied Logan into it! Just wait until you see all the photos! I was beyond impressed with all the cute decorations, clever game we played using Logan's stats at birth, and all the little details they thought through.

Here is the invitation with a really great poem to explain the theme...

Decorations ...

Casie made the onesies and pants so Logan will have an outfit for each team! haha I love it!

Weeks before the shower (before I had Logan) everybody made a guess at the date he'd be born on, his weight, and length. Their guesses were represented on this board by their team's logo. It was a fun competition since Logan's birth date was so unknown due to my fun preterm labor issues. ;) My guess was the earliest one of the 12th... and I admit I chose it strictly out of wishing it would happen that early. haha Remember how antsy I was after all those weeks laying around? Anyway, I definitely lost. Nobody guessed his actual day of the 21st (marked on the board as "Game Day", but some of the ladies were close!

I loved the goal posts at either end of the table! So many great details to the decor! They seriously thought of everything. The food was typical football party things: sub sandwiches, dips, veggie tray, fruit, desserts etc.

My friend Robyn makes amazing cakes (same friend who made Grace's 2 year bday cake). She made this cake with 4 blocks. Every direction you looked at it, it said a different thing: BYU/UofU, BOY, BABY, and LOGAN. Amazingly clever, right?! Inside the blocks was either red cake or blue cake. haha I can't get over how awesome it was.

Peanut butter football bars

My friend Kirsten made this diaper cake which also matched all the decorations at the shower. So cute!!

My sweet girlfriends who absolutely spoiled Logan!! (oh, and we were kinda "supposed to" wear our team's colors/shirts to the shower but only a couple of us actually did, but that explains why I tried to fit into my small Utah shirt that doesn't fit my post-pardum body yet, ha...)

Me, Alisha, Emily, Paige, Marci, Erica, Robyn,

Melanie, Rachele, Kirsten, Amanda, Casie,

Lisa & Hannah, Whitney, Melynda

Our little guy scored some really awesome stuff, cute outfits, fun toys (which I'm trying to hide from Grace so she doesn't claim them...), and lots of diapers and wipes and other necessary things. Thank you, everyone, for all the great gifts!