Eleven Months

All dressed up at church and looking so handsome. Just like daddy. 

Things about Logan at this age:

-Still loves his binkie.

-Waving "hi" and "bye".

-Folds his arms when we ask him to before a prayer. :) Which is probably my favorite of his new tricks right now! 

-Blows kisses.

-Still hasn't mastered clapping yet but he is getting better. He mostly just waves his arms around.

-Can climb the stairs, but frequently stops, sits, and tries to turn around to look down (which is when he would fall DOWN the stairs if someone weren't there watching). 

-Is still very oral and wants to put EVERYTHING in his mouth. His binkie doesn't deter him either because he will simply spit it out for whatever he wants to have in his mouth next.

-Tried peanut butter for the first time and isn't a huge fan.

-Crawling all over the place and moving lightning fast! He gets into EVERYTHING and is especially obsessed with playing with our bluray player and DVD cases which are currently at his eye level on the bookshelf. (I know they need to be moved but I have nowhere else to put them currently) He frequently gets caught touching the power button on the bluray player which will either shut it completely down in the middle of a show, or boot up the player and whatever DVD is in the player will start up.

Momentarily high-centered while discovering new things to crawl over/under/around/through, etc.

-Is such a character and keeps me laughing with his silliness! He gives me these funny eye-roll type of looks, or side looks. He'll also play games with us where he'll pretend he is trying to touch or grab something he knows he isn't supposed to. He will barely touch it, then pull his hand away and look at us and laugh, then do it over and over again. Such a silly boy!

-Has SUCH an attitude. He still throws his whole body some sort of spasm when he's mad about something. Either his head whips back and hits me in the face or chest, or he flaps his arms and body back and forth as if to say "I don't want it!" or "Don't touch me!" 

A perfect example of a pouty Logan. Oh how I love those big lips.

-Will start up little sentences in his own little language and just go on and on about something. It's so cute.

-Plays peek-a-boo with me and his blanket every single time I lay him down in his bed. It's our routine. :)

-Has his bottom 2 teeth and top 2 teeth. Nothing else poking through quite yet.

-Takes really awesome naps lately - usually sleeping 4 hours in the daytime (between 2 naps) and 12-12.5 at night. I often need to wake him up from naps early so we can get out on errands. Poor guy.

-Favorite foods still include bread, cheese (and any combination of those things like pizza, grilled cheese, or quesadillas), black beans, pears, cheerios, pasta noodles with sauce, bananas, and mostly anything we are eating. He is also very good at using sippy cups. I think he'll take to cow's milk without a problem at all.

-Speaking of that, I will be weaning him officially in a month or so. He is practically already weaning himself though. He only nurses 4 times a day but doesn't like it much anymore. I think he is annoyed to still have to be doing it, but I will stick it out to 12 months if he lets me.

-Stays standing without holding onto anything for quite awhile if he wants to.

-Makes a car noise.

-Has some awesome dance moves!

-Tries as hard as he can to get ahold of any cup of Grace's and drink from it. The other day Grace was at the kitchen table with a little (non-lid) cup of milk near the edge of the table. Logan reached up, grabbed the rim of the cup and poured it on himself. I saw it happening from several feet away and made it just in time to avoid the milk splashing on more than just the front of his PJs.

-Absolutely loves the bath.

-Absolutely hates getting his face or ears washed or wiped down.

-Has very large hands and feet, and we get frequent comments about their size. (Gets it from the Goates side)

Logan is a very sweet boy and gives us lots of loves, kisses and snuggles. I honestly can't wait for him to wake up each day so I can go in and get my loves from him! Unlike some other child I know, he is still at an age where he likes to be with me and be nice to me. ;) I can see and feel how much he loves his mama (and daddy, of course), and I really appreciate that about him.

Update and Holiday Fun

I'm behind again! Boo. I don't like that. So here goes...

1. Ryan took his Step 3 board exam a couple of weeks ago and felt like he did alright on it (which I'm sure he did great on!). I'm so proud of him. He works so hard and enjoys the career path he's on. We are all very happy to have Step 3 over and done with so he doesn't have anymore structured studying or testing to prepare for. He still studies during lulls at work, but rarely does at home now. Yay!
The kids and I made Ryan some little pictures to welcome him home and congratulate him on a job well done. Grace was so weird about putting it up on the door for some reason... but I still put it up while she wasn't looking. ;)

2. Preschool is over for a few weeks, now that we went through the alphabet, holidays are coming up, and we are trying to figure out how to best continue with curriculum and such. To celebrate all their hard work, I hosted a little "Alphabet Party/lunch" at my house right after the last day of school. The kids played a letter-seeking game by finding all the letters hiding around the room and then matching them up with the correct lower-case letter on a white board. This activity alone proves how much they've learned, in my opinion! Grace couldn't have matched up all of those letters like that a few months ago. We also let the kids watch a short Leap Frog show and had lunch with foods that corresponded with the kids' names. Between the three kids there are several food allergies, so we've been able to get creative with our snacks and foods. I made a pasta salad with alphabet noodles, and wheat bread ("G" for grain). The others brought oranges & oreos, and apples, to go with their child's name. All safe foods for everyone. :) Lunch was yummy and we had a good time!

3. With the start of the Christmas season, we decided to see if some reminders that "Santa is watching" would help Grace. We are really struggling with her attitude, back-talking, temper tantrums, hitting, kicking, not listening when we ask/tell her something, and stealing toys. So... we had Santa send an elf from the North Pole to come stay with us. ;) We named her Lulu. I admit she hasn't been the most creative at times when it comes to the silly things she does at night, or the mischief she causes. Sometimes she's too tired to decide on a new cool thing to be doing... ha ha... but here are a couple of things I remembered to take a picture of.

(this is actually a "Plushee" Elf on the Shelf instead of the real one)

Lulu TPed the Christmas tree...

And was caught stacking food cans...

There is one toy in particular that Grace has been asking Santa for, and talks about multiple times a day. Santa is very willing to provide her with this special toy, BUT of course Grace has to show him that she deserves such an awesome present. We, I mean HE will not give her this special thing if she continues to be so naughty all the time. He might need to send a letter via Lulu to remind her of how it works...

4. Speaking of Santa, we were able to make the drive up to Easton Mall (about 30 mins away) to go visit him last weekend! Grace was really excited, but then totally clammed up and politely looked away and didn't say a word to Santa once it was her turn. Oh well. :) We did get some awesome glasses that make twinkle lights look like little snowmen and a couple of coupons for free treats inside the mall. It was a fun evening together with the Goates!

5. We also decided to go out to the Columbus Zoo (about 40 mins away) to see their "WildLights" show. I was very impressed! It was beautiful and so neat. It's totally NOT the same thing or feeling, I know, but it did make me feel slightly less homesick for Temple Square. The lights were beautiful and EVERYWHERE. It must have taken a ton of work to set them up. The kids enjoyed it as well, especially the part where we got some Tim Horton's donuts for the drive home. Boy were they hyper in the car after that. ;)

6. Who needs toys when you have cans of food to play with?! This activity literally created hours of entertainment for these two crazies.

This was Grace telling me that she made a Christmas Tree with the "star" on top (in this case a can of yellow pineapple). So imaginative!

7. Last sunday we made ourselves a second round of Thanksgiving. It was SO good! We got a turkey breast which was only about $12, cooked it easily in the crockpot while we were at church, made some homemade rolls that morning, potatoes and gravy and stuffing after church, and steamed some veggies. It was so easy, to be honest, and so perfect. I don't know why we don't do turkey breasts in the crockpot more often!

Sorry about the yellow quality... I'm too lazy to fix it right now.

Classy. 

8. I am feeling homesick. I really miss Utah and family and traditions. It's been really bitter sweet this year coming into the holiday season again, after everything we went through last Christmas. I was put on strict bed rest with my pregnancy the first week of December and all my plans for the season were thrown out the window. I couldn't finish christmas shopping, or prepare fun activities for Grace and I to do, or go to christmas parties, or see Temple Square in Salt Lake when we visited, or participate in the ward choirs I was a part of, or even go to church during any of that month and sing Christmas hymns. It was so strange! Truthfully, it was a very special experience that I will never forget, but I definitely came into this season feeling much more excited about all the stuff I DO get to do this year with our little family this time. I feel blessed to have two sweet kids who are excited about the "magic" of it all, and who truly just want to spend time together as a family... They don't care what Lulu the Elf is doing, or if I made awesome neighbor gifts, or if we sent out Christmas cards, etc. I even make an activity advent calendar for us to do something fun each day. I won't post pics because it didn't turn out looking very good and I'm sure I'll do something different next year. Anyway... even though I wish we were able to travel home this christmas, we will make our own great holiday memories. Even though Ryan has to work his 12+ hour shift on Christmas (and all the days surrounding it), we will still make it special. :) And, for the record, I WILL make myself sticky buns and ham soufflé that day - - even if I'm the only one to eat it. It's just not Christmas without them.

9. One tradition we want to continue, whether we are in SLC for December or not, is to make Ryan's mom's sugar cookies and decorate them. She doesn't mess around and makes many batches of awesome cookies (which I still can never seem to get right myself) and the whole family gets together to decorate them. It's been a really fun tradition that we miss when we aren't there for it. We did make some today and they were yummy, although not nearly as good as Stacy's!

10. My parents and brother are flying out here in just 11 days!!!! I can hardly stand the wait. They'll spend a few nights with us and the other few nights at my brother's house. We have already planned to see Les Miserable together and take them to the zoo lights and eat and play and listen to Thomas play the guitar, and hang out together. I can't wait! I know I'm such a mom to admit this, but I also really look forward to them being able to see how much my kids have changed since they saw them last. Especially Logan. He's almost one and getting so big and smart and funny. Skype and pictures just doesn't do it justice.

11. Tomorrow Ryan's "wards" rotations (hospital hours instead of clinic hours) are starting up again after we have had a really great few months with clinic hours. It's going to be rough, and I've been trying to prepare myself. The first couple months here were pretty terrible, and it was all very new still so I did a lot of complaining. Then we had a few really good months lately, I admit. Now we're probably going to have rough ones again with no breaks or vacations until next May. :( I know we can handle it, and I know it can ALWAYS get worse. I'll try to be less whiney and frustrated this time around. We have been so blessed and I really have been counting those blessings each day. Now it's time to take on the second half of intern year and enjoy the experience. On that note, I still can't believe that we've already made it half way through our first year! It's already going by really fast, in my opinion. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!

Young Women In Excellence

Last tuesday our young women presidency hosted the Young Women in Excellence night. This is a special night when we are able to showcase our girls and all their achievements. For the theme, we chose "Let Your Light Shine" and "Shine On" taken from Sister Dalton's talk. All of the parents were invited to come and we made sure at least one parent could attend so they could spend a few minutes talking about how their daughter "shines". The messages shared by our Young Women President and a councilor in the Bishopric were so perfect and beautiful. I hope all the parents, leaders and girls in attendance felt the Spirit that was there, because it was very special. I was especially grateful for all the sweet things the parents said about their daughters because it helped me to get to know them better and learn more about them through their parents' eyes. We truly have an amazing group of young women who will one day become great wives, mothers and leaders.

In the cultural hall we had each girl set up a display of things about them, achievements, artwork, awards, etc. Things that represented them. We also wanted to have a photo of each girl, and have a gift to give them at the end of the night. I took each girls' picture on the same brick wall of our ward building. Then we printed them up and made each girl a matching frame that matched our decorations. Here are their portraits. :)

For the decorations, we went with an idea we found here. Who doesn't love the grey and yellow combo?! And it was perfect with our theme of shining when we threw in some silvery things and the young women helped us make glittery jars for candle holders (battery-opperated, of course). Perfect for a night celebrating a bunch of girls! :)

I have to admit, my pictures aren't very good because a) I had about 30 seconds to snap a few before everyone came in, b) no time to switch lenses, and c) we had the lights dimmed quite a bit so my camera was working harder than it should have been. But hopefully you still get the idea! 

We had white chocolate dipped pretzel rods, lemon heads, white chocolate popcorn, and cupcakes.

 One of our councilors made these super cute, double-sided "Shine On" cupcake toppers, and the cupcake cups were printables found online (can't remember exactly where from).

 We were all very happy with how it turned out in the end! Lots of work, but worth it. :)

 Our president, Anne Christley, had replaced a window a couple months ago and had the genius idea of saving one of her windows for this night! Isn't that so great?

Here are several displays, and you can see the photos we made. Their displays were so fun to see! They did a great job gathering things that represented them.

Overall, our presidency felt it was a success! We had an AWESOME turn out (we just barely squeezed everyone into the relief society room together) and lots of compliments on the evening.

I love these great ladies! I am so blessed to work with them each week. Even though my title is "Secretary", I was told from the very beginning that I'm more of a 3rd councilor (if there was such a thing). ;) And I believe it! There's always so much work to be done... and with Ryan in the YM presidency, we have to take turn who gets to go to mutual (or neither, if Ryan is working). So it's been an adjustment, to be honest. But both presidencies are understanding, and our Bishopric tells us to do what we can. The Lord knew we could handle both callings and provide that service to the youth, so I know we can make it work. I'm just more than grateful for the opportunity!