Lots of random things and pictures

1. Grace and Logan have had colds so we were stuck in side for most of last week. We were all going stir-crazy and it was much too cold to send coughing children out in the backyard to play... so Grace especially has been driving us nuts with too much pent-up energy. Luckily this week we have been able to get out for errands and play in the backyard some. It's been beautiful and sunny (although still in the 40s) so we were all in better moods. :)

2. During the month of November we made a Thankful Tree. Grace and I gathered sticks one day and we put them in a vase. Everyday we would each write on a leaf something we were thankful for (sometimes we did more than one). Grace sort of understood... but mostly she would look around the room and call out the first thing she saw. She also mentioned all of her favorite toys by name several times and I kept trying to get her to branch out (HA... branch. Get it?). ;) Oh Casie Dekker, that made me think of you. Anyway, I thought it turned out cute, and I didn't even mind the ghetto-ness of the white yarn I used to tie them leaves on.

3. I taught preschool for one day last week and the theme was Transportation. We did a "V is for Vehicle" craft, learned about school bus size sequencing, read a couple books, played Red Light, Green Light with cars, played with this Radiator Springs printable, and had a snack of apple boats and cracker/pretzel cars.

4. For thanksgiving we were invited over to our friends' home, the Langes. Ryan serves with Steve in the Young Mens presidency, Anne is Grace's favorite nursery leader, their younger son is so hilarious and sweet to Logan, and their 3 beautiful daughters are all in young women's with me. We just love their family! They are so great and welcoming and were so sweet to include us. We really enjoyed spending Thanksgiving with them!

 A harry potter wand and a pirate ship = a happy Grace!

 Around the table: Anne, Steve, Tanner, Melody and Ted? (visiting family members), Eliza 

 Isn't that the face we all have when we're done with dinner? "I'm stuffed and happy."

 After dinner with the Lange's, we all went over to another family's home for pie. Several of ward members and extended family was there. We had a great time playing the candy-stealing game and eating yummy pie! I made pumpkin pie for the first time, by the way. I think it turned out pretty well! 

5. Ryan spent saturday building us some shelves in the garage. It's not a very big garage, and we could only store things in the crawl space in there. Having shelves will be SO NICE since I already feel like our closets are too packed and I am too afraid of creepy-crawlees to ever go looking for things in our crawl space. Ryan thoroughly enjoyed building it and I know he wishes he has more time on his hands to do projects like that.

Before:

 After:

And it snowed a little while he was doing that. I sure hope we get lots more and SOON!

6. Grace is struggling with her nap times. She is hit and miss... She'll refuse naps for a few days in a row and then the next day or two she will take really great ones (1.5-2 hours)! But at least she plays quietly in her room instead. I know our napping days are numbered.

7. We set up Christmas over the long Thanksgiving weekend. Quick story about that: Ryan found out literally wednesday at the end of his shift that he had the weekend off. Such an awesome surprise! We were very lucky, and Ryan has been blessed being able to have extra time to study for his Board Step 3 exam coming up (on monday). Anyway I absolutely LOVE having Christmas up. I love having the tree lights on, and our candles lit at night, changing our advent calendars each day, reading Christmas picture books, having Christmas music on. It's such a great time of year. It's also been nice living in a bigger place with more surfaces to put decorations on than our tiny apartment. :)

8. A couple of really cute pictures of the kids I've caught:

Grace and Logan were holding hands in the car this morning and Logan fell asleep like that. So precious!!

9. Last night was the Young Women in Excellence night and it was a LOT of work getting ready for it. Women are so detail-oriented and of course everything has to be just right. ;) We put together a cute gift for each girl, put the program together, made the decorations, taught a song to the girls and had multiple practices, etc. There has been a lot going on and only 4 of us. I seriously never understood how much work my Young Women leaders were doing behind the scenes and appreciate them all the more. I really love my calling though. I'm more of a 3rd councilor than a secretary, and I appreciate that I am needed and welcomed and have responsibilities that keep me very active in these girls' lives. It's a lot of work though! haha I'll post pics from last night soon because we were so happy with how it all turned out!

YW Presidency: Katie McFarland, me, Anne Christley, Heather Baldwin

10. I have slowly been losing weight over the last few months and I don't really have an excuse. (other than nursing, of course) The new jeans I bought recently are a size I have never been able to fit in before and it feels good. I'm definitely not complaining! Of course the holidays are upon us now... plus I will be weaning Logan in 2 months, so I will need to be a lot more active to keep it up into 2013! At least I can say I have A LONG while until the next baby (if there is going to be a next baby??) so I can have my body back to normal for quite awhile before going through the weight roller coaster again.

11. Ryan's rotation that he started last monday is OB and he hardly does anything at all during his shifts. He is bored, but gets tons of study time in at least. He leaves at 5am and gets home around 6 or 6:30 pm depending on the day so we are grateful to see him in the evenings usually. He still does pediatric continuity clinic days on monday afternoons, and really loves doing that. Wednesday afternoons he goes to an elementary school and does a presentation there and also really enjoys it. This continuity clinic he does on mondays is called the Hilltop Clinic and is in a pretty bad, low-income part of the city. It is the only clinic in the city that the National Health Service Corp would allow Ryan to work at after Residency in order to pay off his 3 years we owe. We have toyed with the idea of staying here for those 3 years (making it a total of 6 years in Columbus) ... but just the other day Ryan and I admitted to each other that we've both been feeling it's not the right plan for us. Who knows - maybe things will change in a couple years when we have to decide... but for now, it feels like we will be moving on to some other location after residency. Ryan is still really hoping for the Northwest and I'm still hoping for Utah while my kids are still young. :) We will see!

12. A couple weekends ago I was able to go on a girl's night out to see Breaking Dawn part 2. I really loved it!! It was done well, in my opinion, and I only had a couple complaints. But it was so nice to get out with some new friends while Ryan was home. It's not always the case that I'm able to do that sort of thing, and I've missed a few girl's night prior to this one. Then again last saturday evening, several ward ladies got together for a Downton Abbey season 3 marathon! We watched the last episode of season 2 and then 3 episodes of the new season before I called it a night. It was so fun to hang out with these awesome ladies again and feel included. :) Plus I sure love me some Downton!

13. Today I created a free, personalized Santa video for Grace on this website. Santa talks to the child (by name) about being good, shows that Santa knows where (which state) they live in, and even pulls out their own personal "naughty or nice" book from Santa's library which has the child's picture on it. It's really cute and pretty believable to a 3-year-old! She was amazed that he knew she lived in Ohio and was even responding to Santa when he would ask a question or say her name. The thing I chose for him to remind her was that she needs to work on not having temper tantrums in order to get her special present. I can honestly say that 3 separate times today Grace started in on a tantrum and all I had to do was remind her about what Santa said before she would settle down again. YES! That is totally what we needed for her to understand what this whole Santa-thing was all about. :)

Wow, that was a lot.

Logan: 10 months old

I am several days behind on posting this. And I've been so busy that I haven't had a chance to do a real photo shoot of Logan, but here is an impromptu shoot from yesterday.

Logan really is becoming such a big boy! I feel like he wakes up and says to himself "I'm going to quit being a baby today." SLOW DOWN, MISTER! Here are some new things:
-He has two new teeth: his top, front ones. Total of 4 teeth.
-He is crawling (or "creeping", to be exact) on his hands and knees now. It's funny to watch too because he will do this bouncy hop type of move if his hands and knees get out of sync.

-Smart daddy helped/taught Logan how to crawl up the stairs and now he heads towards the stairs and tries to do it himself. :( Luckily he can't do it on his own quite yet. We really need a baby gate now...

-Logan doesn't like baby food anymore. I can get him to eat some apple sauce or a few other things by spoon, but he really loves eating with his hands. He really loves bread still! Just plain old bread. Carb-lover much? He also loves bananas, peas, carrots, cheese, black beans, sweet potato chunks, cheerios, broccoli, oranges, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something...
He also gets really annoyed if my hand is in the way (like if I'm cutting something up smaller). He will push away or swat at my hand. Don't get in between Logan and his food!

-His hair is coming in pretty well. I even styled it in a nice faux hawk and it looked really awesome! I know everyone thinks this about their sons, but we sure have a handsome boy. :) He gets it from his daddy, of course.

-Logan is pulling himself to stand up to stand against just about anything. I frequently find him standing up in his crib and protesting sleep. He loves to stand up against the couch, the TV stand/coffee table, and his exersaucer.

 -My very favorite thing he does right now is sit on his knees like this:
There's just something about it that makes me want to squeeze him every time I see him sitting in this position.

-Logan is still very oral! More-so than Grace was. He will pop his binkie out to suck/chew on something so it doesn't always deter him like it did for his sister at this age. He is obsessed with going after the remotes, phones, books, and DVD cases in particular.

I love detail photos. :)

-He doesn't do much cuddling or even sitting nicely on laps these days. But the other day he lounged with me while watching a show and I love every second of it!

 He also fell asleep on Ryan while they waited for me to get home from errands. I still needed to nurse him before bed, but he just couldn't wait that extra 15 minutes or so for me to get back.

 -Logan is getting really good with a sippy cup, which is a good sign for when he is done nursing in a couple months.

 -He loves playing outside with his big sister! Thanks to Uncle Ben and Aunt Amanda, he gets to use a baby swing on the play set until he outgrows it.

 And he scoots himself down the slide if I sit him at the top. It's so cute to watch him get excited and scoot himself off the edge. :)

-He is starting to be more physical with Grace which his funny to observe. FINALLY he is starting to fight back a little bit haha. She is so pushy and mean to him sometimes and I knew the day would come that he could throw his weight around a little more. ;)

 -Logan says "Dada" a lot, and I am pretty sure that he tries to say "Grace" by saying "Zzssss", but he doesn't do that much anymore. Sometimes we can get him to wave his arm and say "Hiieeeee" but it usually comes out as a breathy whisper. He also says "Mama" but it's only when he's straight up YELLING "mama mama" at me because he is hungry or wants something I'm taking too long to give him (food or to be picked up).

 We just love this boy!!

Birthday Girl

For Grace's 3rd birthday, we decided to get her a BIG surprise present. Our backyard is so great to have, and we feel blessed to have it, but Grace doesn't find it exciting. She will go out and play if I go with her and make up a game or kick a ball, but I can't ever send her out by herself because there's nothing to do back there. I'd been waiting to find just the right backyard play set and finally found this Step 2 Play Up Gym Set. It has a ladder, a slide, and steering wheel, and 2 swings, all just the right size for the kids over the next few years. It's a good sturdy plastic and I love the colors. I found a discount code to use on top of the $2 shipping charge (as opposed to the $180 shipping that ToysRUs would have charged! Ridiculously high shipping, right?!) So we just went ahead and did it! Yes, it was pricey, but SO worth it. I just knew Grace was going to love it. 

Ryan and I built it together in the garage on the night before her birthday. It took three chilly hours, even with two of us!

 And she was so excited about it!!

 And so was Logan. :)

 Grace asked for a Woody party, so I made it sort of a simple Woody/Jessie party. I am NOT a good party planner or decorator, so I got all my ideas online or from friends. With all the researching I did, I realized there are no Toy Story decorations you can buy that aren't green and purple with mostly Buzz on them. So I just made stuff up... Thank you, Robyn, for the cow-print idea and the cake tips. :)

 Very simple... but Grace LOVED it! She was so excited.

 A local dollar store had these little Toy Story figurines for a dollar each so I surprised Grace with them on her cake! I made her a triple layered yellow cake with chocolate frosting. 

 And used her toys, boots, and her halloween costume hat for decoration. I also stacked up the presents from her Grandmas and Grandpas. (I may have rewrapped a couple last minute so they fit the color scheme haha)

For dinner we decided to go to Chick Fil A because Grace loves french fries and chicken nuggets, and that place makes me feel better about feeding it to her! So we went there and got home just in time for a few friends to come over for cake and ice cream.

 We invited my brother's family, our next door neighbors (The Browns), and another family from the ward (the Langes). Anne Lange is Grace's favorite nursery leader and her sweet YW-aged daughters have babysat and helped with my kids. I just wanted a few people to come who I felt knew and loved Grace... and we don't have that many close friends yet haha. :) I was glad they were there to help us celebrate our 3 year old!

(it seems like I caught this picture while everyone was singing the "haPPy" part. ha.

 Grace's grandmas each sent her a couple of games, which is what I knew she would love. She got Cootie, Candyland, Hi Ho CherryO, and The LadyBug Game. We have played all of them and she loves them and begs to play something everyday. :) Her friends were also so sweet to bring gifts, although I told them not to! She was given Toy Story Memory, the super cute silver flower headband in the pics, an activity sticker book, and Ryan and I gave her a small play dough set. She's a happy camper!

 We had a great time celebrating Grace all day and weekend! I think between her favorite meal, some cake, a bunch of games, chicken nuggets and french fries, and everybody singing for her, overall she had an awesome birthday!

Video of birthday highlights: