10 on Wednesday

1. I always seem to start with what Ryan is doing, so I'll start there again. :) Ryan had a really awesome rotation for his regular clinic month. It makes him SO happy to do well-checks and to see the same patients/families multiple times. That right there is how I know he chose the right specialty. He was also able to do well-baby exams and discharging at the hospital in the EARLY morning hours most days, which he enjoyed. That also meant that he was doing lots of circumcisions on those brand new little boys. Last week a family came in with their 14 day old baby boy with concerns that his circ. wasn't healing right. He thought they looked familiar and they pointed out that he was the one who actually did the circumcision! haha Awkward? Everything was fine with the baby... Just some nervous parents. But that story made me laugh.

He also gets to go into elementary schools with some of the other residents every so often and teach them about good health. He really enjoys a lot as well!

On monday he started on his "Behavioral and Development" rotation. He's not too excited about it, besides the hours. Once again, we'll have pretty good hours and apparently weekends off... But he won't enjoy "standing in a corner" during this rotation, as he put it. He even fell asleep while listening to/watching the doctor work with a patient! haha Poor guy. He doesn't do well when it's not hands-on-medicine.

2. I feel so busy these days! I find myself making lots of lists, feeling more prone to frustration (because of feeling overwhelmed), and I am relearning time-management. Between the kids and running the house, menu-planning, YW stuff (which is taking a lot more of my time than I expected), planning preschool lessons when it's my turn, adding more photography sessions/editing every weekend, and everything else in between, I am definitely the busiest I've ever been before. They are all great things, of course, and I feel fulfilled and happy... just always doing something. No time to relax. Time gets away from me so quickly before I realize it's been a MONTH since I've talked to close friends or family members on the phone! Or checked anybody else's blogs! Or read a good book just for me! Or finished decorating rooms in my house that still need it! Or sat down to practice the piano! I need to get into the flow of our new life here so I can start finding time to add in those other good things.

Just a funny picture from today... hanging out on the floor with the kids. :)

3. It's officially turning to fall here, and I just love it! The tips of trees are turning red, it's getting chilly outside, and I've already had my decorations up for almost 2 weeks. For the last 4 years in Henderson, it didn't feel fall-ish until November so this is such a welcome change for me! However the kids and I don't seem to be prepared physically. Over the last few weeks I've been trying to get their wardrobes stocked with warmer clothes (since they pretty much had none). Logan seriously had 3 pairs of socks and they were all borrowed from his cousin. Grace still needs good fall/winter shoes, but otherwise the kids are pretty much set for now. However I have now realized how little I own as far as warm things! It's sad, really, but typical for having come from Nevada I guess. I need shoes and sweaters and long sleeves shirts, so that's what my birthday money has gone towards.

4. I am going to miss my garden when it gets colder. We've had so many awesome tomatoes and they're still coming (although much slower now). I made 3+ batches of homemade spaghetti sauce and HOLY COW I am in love. It's been great to use our tomatoes that way since I also have a ton of basil as well. Also in the last 2 days, Logan has finished eating the last of the yellow squash and zucchini baby food that I made from our crop. It's saved us so much money having that garden. Ryan keeps telling me he has big plans for next year and is excited to use what we learned this year to help us do better next time. Those darn beetles won't take down our plants next time! We'll be ready. ;)

5. Ryan gets 2 one-week vacations each year, and his first one starts this weekend. We decided that since we don't have money to go and see any of the bigger places on our list (like NY or DC or Disneyworld, etc), we are going to drive to Iowa! haha You're thinking "Why Iowa of all places?!" We will get to stay a few nights with our friends the Larsons (from Henderson) and spend a day in Nauvoo! I am so excited to go! I hope the kids will cooperate with sleeping somewhere different and with the 10+ hour drive each way... but I know it's just what we need as a family.

p.s. Just wanted to mention that we found out Ryan has to work on Christmas. Boo! :( My bro and SIL will be away with their other family for the holiday, so it'll just be me and the kids. True resident family style. We'll make it fun and special in our own way, and I'm sure it will be fine. But it still sucks. The silver lining is that he gets a 4 day vacation for New Year's instead and that's when my parents and brother will be in town. So that will definitely be great!

6. Grace has started up another session of story time at the local library. We go on wednesday mornings with her cousin Owen. She likes it a lot but can have a weird attitude about it sometimes. Sometimes the moment we get there she begs and cries for a snack or a drink, like THAT'S the thing we do at story time. Which is obviously not true, and I never give her a snack there anyway. I've always given her a snack if we run errands, especially to the grocery store, so no matter where we are outside of the house she immediately asks for those things like she is entitled to them. It's annoying... but I did it to myself. I'm sure I'm not the only mother of a 2 year old that knows how that goes though! Anyway, back to the story time... they have had the kids wear a particular color each time and center the books and activities around that color. It's a lot of fun! We never got to go to story time in Henderson so it's really nice being able to now!

Green shirt day with a parachute!

7. Last week was "Mormon Night" with the Columbus Crew soccer team. Apparently there is someone on the management team (??) who is Mormon and they do this every year. The tickets are discounted if you get a coupon code through your missionaries and all the missionaries in the surrounding areas are given permission to attend. This year we also heard that a particular Subway location was giving out free ticket vouchers if you buy something ... so I drove to that location and ended up with about 30 or 40 free tickets so that the whole youth group could go. Ryan and I took the kids, a bunch of ward friends were there, and a good amount of our youth as well. It was fun! A little chilly, and a bit disappointing that there was no mention of "Mormons" or the missionaries the whole night, which isn't usually how these things go, from what I hear. But it was still nice to get out and do something different and new as a family! :)

8. I enjoy waiting to hear what will come out of Grace's mouth these days. There's always something note-worthy so here are a few I can remember...

"Look at my wing-span!" (thank you, Toy Story movie)

While dancing in the car, she said: "Logan, check out these moves!" (sounds like what Sid the Science Kid says, although we don't watch it anymore because I can't stand that show!)

Today we were talking about how daddies go to work, and I asked her what Mommies do, and other family members. 

Me: "What do Nanas (Grandmas) do?" 

Grace: "Nanas wash dishes."

Me: "What do Bompas (Grandpas) do?" 

Grace: thought for a minute "They at Nana's house"

Grace: "My shoulders are bothering me" shrugging her shoulders up and down, over and over...

Me: "They are? I'm sorry."

Grace: "Ellen's shoulders were bothering her too." 

She remembered that from a joke on the Ellen Show today. Grace is a total sponge! I need to be careful!

9. We have now made it a goal to do FHE every week. Ryan and I have been so bad about it... as in we've pretty much never tried. Maybe once or twice, I guess. I mean we do go out and get ice cream together sometimes, or go to a park after dinner here and there, but we haven't ever made it an official "family night" or held a lesson. But we are starting it now, thanks to the kick-in-the-butt I received at our Relief Society activity last week. It was exactly what I needed to hear and got me excited to JUST DO IT! I over-think FHE and have been scared away from trying because I was overwhelmed by it. But it doesn't need to be anything big and Grace can't handle anything intense anyway. So it will be simple, fun, and easy... and we will do it! We started on monday, teaching a little about Jesus' life and starting helping Grace memorize the 1st Article of Faith. She did great and seems to really love focused lessons like that.

10. One final picture... Grace and I found this Halloween tray in the $1 bin at Target and she is obsessed! I don't blame her either - - I wish I had one. :) It makes lunch so fun when everything has its own little spot. What will we do when it's not Halloween anymore?! 

ABC School

Grace is absolutely loving going to school twice a week! She just eats it up. She has pretty much always enjoyed learning new things and having a focused activity. I know I should have been doing this type of thing with her already, but I haven't very often... so doing a co-op with 2 other moms has been the kick in the butt I needed to get going on it. Grace has a tendency to obsess over something new like a new puzzle, new kind of craft, new activity I show her, etc, and wants to do that thing OVER AND OVER and over... So I kept imagining that if I did some sort of mommy-class with her, she would just obsess over whatever we did that day and I'd never hear the end of it. haha! I know, I'm a mean mom. But my point is that this is perfect for her!

The first week the kids learned shapes, letter A (for apple and alligator), and number 1. The second week was weather, letter B (for boot), C (for cold/cloud), and numbers 2 and 3. Last week was my week and we focused on animals (specifically about their different habitats), numbers 4 and 5 (well we sort of forgot to cover #5 while at the zoo), letter D (for dolphin), and E (for explorers and elephants).

Walking home from school, which happened to be next door. So convenient!

On the first day of my week, we did a toy animal sort so they could think about which animal would be found in which home or "habitat". They did a great job and did it several different times! We sang a few songs (Old McDonald, I'm a Little Fishy, etc), read some library books, played an animal-dice game, and a made-up farm game that I threw together with my little animal figurines from our game "Snorta". They also wrote out the letter and number, colored D for Dolphin sheets, and did a paper plate craft where they sorted their cut-out animals into the correct habitats again. The kids did awesome with that too and definitely love anything to do with glue-sticks, am I right? ;)

(we also had a little friend join us for just monday's class)

The snack was gold fish (because dolphins eat fish) and carrots (because horses eat carrots), and milk from a cow. They got a kick out of Bullseye eating his carrot right along with them!

For the second day of my week we took the kids to the zoo on a field trip and I made them each a set of binoculars (made from paper towel rolls that I'd been saving). We talked about being Explorers at the zoo and finding all the jungle/safari animals. We were able to see lions, leopards, gorillas, elephants, and a few others I can't think of at the moment. After seeing what animals we had time for, I read the kids a book from the library that had a cute rhyme about each of those animals we saw. They loved it! Before we went home, we headed to Stringray Bay for a few minutes to let the kids see and touch the stingrays that are swimming around. It was free that day so we were all for it! The kids thought it was pretty awesome and would giggle every time one came over to them or splashed them. So fun!
The kids (and the moms) had a really great time! We've been to the zoo 3 or 4 times now since moving here and it never gets old. It was so great to go this time with a "plan" and a purpose behind it.

Grace is now writing some letters so well, especially when she can trace around something I write out for her. 

The other day I told her how to spell DAD she wrote out "D - A - D" all by herself!! I texted it to Ryan and he wrote back "I'm a proud papa right now." :)

So cute.

Logan: 8 months old

I can pretty much sum up Logan by saying that he is such a busy-body! His sister at this age was also pretty active, of course, but she was also perfectly content sitting on my lap or hanging out with me no matter what I was doing. Logan, on the other hand, is always moving around, looking for something to do, trying to get the nearest thing in his mouth (no matter what it is), or frustrated with his limits. But we love having him around and he makes our home feel so much more complete! Grace would be SO bored without a brother to body-slam, hug, push around, dress up, find toys for, and generally "bug".

Grace's doing, of course.

-Nurses 5 times a day still. On occasion I will try to take away the 10pm "dream feed" but he always wakes up a few hours later hungry and bothered. It's just easier to continue with it for now. He eats solid foods once a day (usually dinner) but sometimes I'll also give him something for lunch as well, if it's convenient.

-Ryan gave him little pieces of cantaloupe tonight and he was LOVING it! He also really really loves puffs. Just in this last week, he can finally get 90% of the puffs in his mouth on his own. He's getting a lot better with his fingers and correctly guiding them to his mouth. :) 

-Wearing mostly 12 month clothes lately. Still a fatty too, but people around me keep telling me he appears to be slimming down a bit. 

I seriously love his man boobs and rolls. I couldn't resist documenting with a photo.

-He isn't crawling yet but Ryan is anxious to get him going... not sure why, other than the fact that he isn't home to deal with TWO kids who won't sit still. ;) Logan is getting close though, and does get places when he wants to. There are times he inches forward in a belly/army crawl if he really puts his mind to it, but they are few and far between. Anytime I grab the video camera and taunt him with puffs, he doesn't prove it to us. But he will soon, I'm sure! He is, however, good at backing up until his legs are underneath the couch or his exer-saucer.

-His favorite place to be these days is down on the ground and left to his own devices. He will roll around in whatever direction he wants and seems to enjoy exploring that way. The exer-saucer used to be one of his favorite spots, but even that is now getting more frustrating for him because he just wants to be able to move around from one thing/toy to the next.

-Logan seems to be getting tired of his baby toys already. He doesn't stay interested in them long, especially when we're out and I hang things from his carseat handle. But he is pretty much always more than ok with Grace's toys! Of course. And he LOVES his binkie, which I'm more than ok with. :)

-He throws tantrums like a 2 year old!! Another thing Grace never did as a baby this age. If Logan gets frustrated, he will throw his head back, cry or scream or growl, and arches his back with so much strength that it's hard for me to try and force him back to a normal position. :( Sometimes he will also show me he's frustrated while sitting on his bum on the floor by dropping his head to his chest and trying to throw himself on the ground. Almost like he would bang his head on the floor if he could reach it. Such a drama queen sometimes!!

Trying to fit in to the local scene! :) Go Bucks.

-Starting to be more vocal and sometimes silently opens and closes his mouth like he's mimicking what it looks like to "talk". Lately he has started to say "dadadadada" but that's the only thing that sounds relatively close to saying a first word. No "mamas" yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if his first word was some version of "Grace"! (his favorite person, of course)

-Takes 2 naps everyday and sometimes a short one in the evening if he's miserable by 5pm. At night he is generally a very good sleeper and wakes up about 7 or 7:30am (making 12 hours).

-Is nearing the maximum weight of his carseat already! :( Boo. It only goes to 22 lbs so we will have to figure something out really soon. I think he's only a pound away from that, or not closer. (I need to weigh him and check)

-Will generally take a nap at church if we hold him. Usually I have to swaddle him and rock him while standing in the foyer. But recently he fell asleep simply by laying his head on my shoulder. :) I just LOVE when babies do that. He will cuddle with me when he's super tired or needing some extra loves. It makes this mama's heart so happy when I get those precious moments with him. 

-Speaking of that, my very favorite time of the day with Logan is after a dream feed when he is completely zonked out and letting me hold and rock him before setting him back in bed. I love it!

We all love you so much Logan!! Please stop growing up so fast.

Canal Winchester

We live in a smaller town, called Canal Winchester, just 15 or so miles from downtown Columbus. We love that the drive home from any direction takes us through corn, wheat and soybean fields, and tons and tons of trees! There are sweet little farm houses and barns set back in between all that farm land, and we even have a couple of cattle ranches down the road. Just a couple miles north of our house is a bird and nature preserve called Pickerington Ponds which has a paved walking/biking trail winding through it. I've seen a bunch of really neat birds including Osprey, Cardinals, Herons and at a different park the other day I saw a Bald Eagle! The trail connects up with other trails in the area, so you could get on your bike and ride all the way into the city and beyond, if you wanted to. I don't know the total miles involved, but it's such a neat feature of the city!! I've been on walks at a few of the Metro Parks within 10 or so miles of our house, and it really is so beautiful anywhere you decide to go walking. The trees are so beautiful and huge and green, and there are rivers and ponds throughout the parks. It's so peaceful to be in those amazing parks and feel like I'm actually in the mountains back "home" in Utah. We are surrounded by so much beauty, and I know it'll be 10 times more beautiful when we reach the peak of our fall colors in just a few more weeks. :) I can hardly wait to get a bunch of photos of the trees, and I promise to post them when I do!

Until then, I wanted to post some pictures I took this week at Three Rivers metro park ...

 My walking buddy took a snooze for the morning, while Grace was at school.

These were taken tonight at Slate Run park. There's a neat covered bridge that I've heard all about from some of the people who want me to do their photo sessions. I needed to take a look for myself before I trudged in there ready to take pictures at a location I'd never been! ;) It's a neat place, and will be SO beautiful when the leaves change. I used my favorite little subjects to practice a little...

 Ryan took a couple of me with the kids. :)

I love all of Logan's PUDGINESS!

I live in a pretty beautiful place. And before I admit this next part, I must first say that I AM and always will be a Salt Lake girl. Even though there's a part of me that feels this is blasphemous to admit, I will say it anyway: If we ever do move back to Utah, I know now that I would need to find a place that is a lot more like THIS. I don't think I would love living in the "city" part of Salt Lake as much as I thought I would now that I've lived in a more rural, open place.

Anyway, moving on... Last week was the Labor Day festival in "Old Canal" (which is the quaint, little downtown part of Canal Winchester). It's a neat couple blocks of older homes, a few old buildings and historical features, and if you blink you will miss it... but it's so neat to have some history in our little town! On monday, during their sad excuse for a festival/carnival, we took the kids to walk around the Old Canal area before the rain clouds let loose.

 I need to find out what this place is... 'Cause I am lovin' the red barn and train!

 Another neat house to add to our list of favorites!

I hope you enjoyed the tour! :)

Ten on Thursday

1. This month Ryan is doing normal pediatric clinic work. We are LOV-ING-IT! Some days he's doing his continuity clinic, sometimes it's OMM clinic, sometimes "adolescent clinic" (which he dislikes because it's teenagers with STDs and stuff). Today is "Core Day" which he loves as well because he gets to spend the day with his peers. He's usually home by 5:30 and has even been home at 3:30 or 4 once or twice. It's so amazing to have a little break from the horrible schedule we've had the last couple months. I really love having a happy husband come home everyday because he's actually doing the work that he enjoys and has chosen as his career. The surgery month last month was just rough on both of us because he really disliked it.

2. My sister in law and our ward friend (who is also my next-door neighbor) started a co-op "ABC School" for our kids. Owen is 2 1/2 y.o., Grace is 2 3/4, and Anne is 3 1/2. I think it's going to be great! It will be held every monday and thursday from 9-11am. Today was Amanda's turn, next week is Liz's, and mine is in two weeks. We each take the 2 days of teaching that week, which sounds like a lot, but then we each get 2 weeks off without our 3 year olds for a couple hours on those days! haha. :)

Haha! I just noticed us mamas in the window... Funny!

3. We had a homemade Cafe Rio night with Ben and Amanda a couple weeks ago. It was SO GOOD and so needed. We'd all been craving it... Gosh, what I wouldn't do for a real Cafe Rio chicken salad right now. The food was great though, and we also did s'mores in their backyard which was lots of fun! I'm so grateful to have them so close by.

4. It's been my goal for the last couple months to meet my neighbors. I only know the people on either side of me, and it's been bugging me that I don't know anyone else yet. The development we live in has one super long street that serves as the "entrance" to the neighborhood, and then has a big oval connected to it with another street through the oval (which is my street). The only people I ever see outside are families with older kids, like 10-15 years old. I haven't seen many little kids in their front yards because I'm sure everybody with little ones plays in the backyards. So it's been hard to figure out which houses to pay attention to in order to meet some other mommies. I just need to spend more time out in our front yard, I think. Hopefully when it cools down more it will be easier. Last saturday we walked around as a family to deliver cookies to the few houses across the street and the people on either side of us.

 It was saturday afternoon AND during an Ohio State game (which is when life shuts down here and everybody watches the game) so I assumed it would be a good time to catch people at home! WRONG. Nobody was home! Only one person out of 6 answered their doors, although I know one of the other five was home and probably just didn't hear the door or something. :) I did leave our name and house number on the tags so people weren't weirded out by random cookies on their porch... and they're my neighbors, so I didn't feel uncomfortable leaving that info with them! Anyway, it proved successful in one case! The next day (sunday, as we were about to leave for church), an entire family walked over and introduced themselves to us. They were so excited and grateful for the cookies - even said "it's like Mayberry!" (small town, USA). haha I thought it was sweet. They have a teenage boy, 2 elementary school aged daughters and a brand new baby boy. We even talked for a minute about which churches we each attended. I'm so glad we could start a friendship with them. I hope we can continue to build a good foundation, and hopefully introduce them to the missionaries in the future. My neighbors (the Browns) are going to plan a street BBQ soon, so hopefully that will help too! Maybe the two Mormon families on the block can convert the rest! hehe. :)

5. My 25th birthday was yesterday. Quarter of a century old now. Unfortunately Ryan had to work from 5am-8pm, so it was just me and the kids. It actually was a really great day! Grace was beyond sweet by telling me "Happy Birthday Mommy!" at least 25 times throughout the entire day. I didn't even remind her once - she did it all on her own! Such a sweetheart. In the morning we hung out at Amanda's house for a bit and ate lunch with them, which was fun. I also have the most incredible ward friends and visiting teachers! I had multiple people dropping off treats (mostly dark chocolate YUMMINESS - my favorite), cupcakes, a package in the mail from my mom and sister, cards, phone calls, texts, and a whole ton of Facebook posts wishing me Happy Birthday.

I felt so loved, to say the least! It felt like the day was going so well... and then that night while getting kids ready for bed, Logan had some pooping issues and I felt like it all went to pot! Excuse the pun. ;) He had a blow-out on my carpet while I got Grace in the tub. I put him in the tub with her, like usual, and then he pooped in their too. A big, nasty, yellow cloud of poop started taking over the bath! So I grabbed her out and all the toys. Rinsed Logan and disinfected the bath quickly, refilled it and put the kids back in with some clean toys. Then, not 2 minutes later, Logan pooped AGAIN!!! I was so mad! I went through the same process again but just washed Logan as fast as possible while poor Grace shivered in her towel for the second time. :( Got him in a diaper as soon as I could and bathed Grace. Ugh. What a mess. I left the toys in bleach water to soak overnight. Unfortunately my good mood was gone by the time Ryan got home after the kids were finally in bed. haha Such is life these days.

6. A few weeks ago my parents mailed a really fun sprinkler attachment for Grace and Owen to play with! They know how wimpy Grace is about spraying water, splash pads, and sprinklers, so they knew this would be a good choice for her. They were right! If you turn the water up to high, the little hose things wiggle around and spray everywhere. I turned it down to medium so it was more chill for Grace and she loved it.

Gosh, he's a chub. Look at those rolls!

7. Recently I was released as the sunday school teacher for the 12-13 year olds and was put in as Young Women Secretary. Working with the young women has been a dream calling of mine for years. I am so excited to be a part of something so important and so fun! I already felt like I had a connection with most of the beehives (from my sunday school class) and now I am able to get to know all of the girls. They're so sweet, and I've already felt the Spirit so strongly in our sunday class with them. The laurels especially are some incredible girls who are awesome examples to the younger ones. I am over the Personal Progress in particular and I truly look forward to encouraging them to make and keep their goals so they can achieve their medallions. It's been a SUPER busy calling already, and I've only been in it a few weeks, but it will be good for me. I may not make it to every tuesday activity but the Presidency has already made it clear I'm not expected to and they're very supportive of me having two little ones with Ryan's crazy schedule. :)

8. I forgot to post pictures from past park days and picnics with the Goates we had in August... (minus Ryan)

This is Black Lick park and I am in love with it. Isn't it so beautiful with all those trees?!

Four babies all born within weeks of each other. Logan is a little ladies' man and by FAR the biggest!

9. My mom injured her knee a few months ago. :( She found out last week that it's more extensive than they originally thought, and she will need surgery on it very soon. Amanda and I wanted to do something to help cheer her up, so we sent her a box of "Sunshine" full of treats and fun things that were all bright and yellow and happy! We included this picture of all the Ohioan grandkids. My brother's family is able to make a trip back to SLC in a couple weeks, and I'm so jealous! I know we were just there in May but I miss family and friends and Utah... and Cafe Rio, of course, haha.

10. I got an iPhone. I never thought I'd be able to afford it ... for at least a few more years! But the price of iPhone 4 has dropped now that the 5 is coming out really soon, and it was less expensive to get the iPhone than it was to get the basic, boring one I was going to get. Not only that, but Nationwide Hospital employees get a 22% discount with Verizon, which we didn't know about until we walked in the store to upgrade my phone. That means that not only did we leave the store spending less money than expected, but our monthly bill is staying the same even with two of us on data plans! So cool. I got this cute picture of Grace with my new phone, which I wouldn't have been able to do and retrieve easily from my old, crappy one. :) I won't rely only on my iPhone to takes all my pictures though. What kind of photographer would I be if I did only that?! But now I can have memories of things I wouldn't have normally because I don't carry my DSLR everywhere. That's just one plus of finally having a smart phone. Woo hoo!