Our 15 Month Trouble Maker

 He doesn't just look at the camera and smile. It's nearly impossible! Everything has to be a candid with him and I have to use every trick in the book to make him at least look in my DIRECTION with a pleasant expression on his face.

 Chubby, red faced boy!

 Logan turned 15 months old a few days ago. We are well on our way to sending him to Nursery, people! He is learning and changing and growing so quickly. Here are a hundred and one photos (almost) of him this last month, and some facts about him...

-weight: 26.19 lbs (89%)

-height: 30.75 inches (32%) - this is probably not very accurate

-head circ: 19 inches (86?%)

So in other words, he is still our chunky boy and his percentile in weight is holding a perfect curve! :)

-Logan LOVES to eat. He will eat pretty much anything I give him, but sometimes he will spit things out that he has eaten and liked plenty of times before. Recently he tried mangos and was not a fan. He loves veggies, especially green beans and carrots... but doesn't like broccoli, and is getting tired of peas I think. He will even eats thin, raw baby carrots and does really well using his 8 tiny front teeth to help shave off little chunks at a time. But he will only eat carrots if there is ranch to dip it in. He is obsessed with ranch, just like his sister.

He doesn't like when I put pieces of things on his tray but prefers to hold it in his hands and take bites.

-Like I said he still has 8 teeth, but he has been cutting his upper molars so I'm sure that's been a big reason why he can be so ornery these days!

-Logan hits his head at least once a day it seems. Every few days it will be a really good, hard bonk on his forehead that leaves a mark. I documented a couple from recently.

-He is all boy, this one! Really. He is so rough and tumble and plows into anyone and anything. He likes to play in the dirt and can't stay away from the garden unless I physically remove him from the area. But usually I just let him have at it. I'm way less annoyed about playing in dirt than I was when Grace was this age. He's a boy! It's just how it's supposed to work, right? :)

-When we play in our backyard, he will climb up the ladder and go right down the slide... over and over and over. He usually always needs help to climb up, but the other day he did it all by himself once! 

 -Logan absolutely LOVES the bath. He would stay in for hours if I let him. When I stand up to grab his towel, he squeals, drops whatever bath toy is in his hands and tries to find a way to get away from me so I won't get him out.

 -Even though I am posting a few pictures of Logan looking at the camera, he is SO stubborn and rarely lets me get a picture of him looking my direction. He purposely looks away. In fact he will look away and give me these eye rolls, knowing that I'm just waiting for him to turn his head. Such a trouble maker! Here's some proof of it that I caught on camera...

 -I think it's pretty safe to say he is a total mama's boy... He really loves his Daddy too but is very bi-polar about it. He only gets to see Ryan for about 15-20 minutes most evenings before bedtime, and on the random day off every week or two. When Ryan is home, Logan loves to wrestle and be rough with Ryan, but he can also be very adement about NOT wanting to be near his Dad. It's strange. All throughout the day, especially when I am running errands with the kids, Logan will look out the window and sing "da-da, da-da, da-da", and get super excited when he can hear the garage door opening when Ryan pulls in... but then when Ryan walks in the door at night, Logan usually runs or pulls away and gets upset. Silly kid.

My little stud. And my big stud. ;)

 -Logan does this funny thing where he walks around with his hands behind his back... like he is trying to be nonchalant or something. It's hilarious! We love it.

Being a couch potato, post-nap.

 Actually looking at the camera for a second!

 Not a fan of the hat that day...

 -It appears that Logan hates the feel of the grass on his bare legs. Even if he is in shorts, he still hates it, like in this photo...

 -He hasn't developed many new words since last month. He says "Buhbuhbuh" for "bubbles", and "aaahhh-poh" for apple. Mostly he just pronouncing some a bit closer to the real words like thank you, binky, drink, and maybe a few others. But mostly I think I just understand what he is trying to tell me better this month. He gets better at making it clearer as time passes, and I get better at understanding. :) It sure makes life easier on me!

 -This boy has the FATTEST feet. He is currently size 5, almost 6. Huge! I went to 4 stores with him, looking for some closed sandals that would work for his feet, but everything was too skinny towards the middle part of the foot and the toes. I finally found something although they weren't the best looking. They actually work because I can make it as loose as I need to get his fatty foot inside. haha

Sorry, I'm too lazy to turn this photo the right way.

 He adores his blankey. 

 Squishing his face. He is such a character sometimes!

 Today, after his 15 month shots, he was having a hard time taking a nap. He usually sleeps 1-1.5 hours in the morning and 1.5-2 hours in the afternoon, so it's rare that he struggles like that. I gave him more tylenol and rocked him, and he fell asleep in my arms. I just sat and rocked him for awhile. Aw. It was so wonderful.

 We love you so much, little man! We are so grateful to have you in our family.  

Springtime and Preschool

Spring in Ohio is so beautiful! We have finally been experiencing the change in seasons here. In other words, it means lots and LOTS of rain, roller coaster temps, allergies, and everything is beginning to grow again. This was what out tree in our front yard by the street looked like several days ago. Now it's already changed over to reddish leaves and no more pretty blossoms. Things change so fast around here!

Recently we visited Slate Run Historical Farm. We have been there a few times because it's free and fun to see the animals. It's self-sustaining and they use zero electricity. The farmers demonstrated how they sheer a sheep with clippers powered by a hand-crank. Pretty cool! But that poor sheep has to sit in the strangest position in order to be sheered... 

There were some week-old lambs and pigs, and even a few lambs that were literally born a few hours earlier. The lambs were so cute, however Grace was concerned about the smell (as always). She was not too thrilled by the experience.

We had a picnic at the park there and it was very chilly. We all felt under-prepared but the kids had a good time at least.

And as spring-time often goes, we went to a local park with friends on a different day and this time we were way too hot. It was probably 80 degrees and we tried to have a picnic there as well. We were overdressed in jeans and shoes/socks... just look at those kids' cheeks! Ryan was sleeping off a night shift at home so we stayed away a little longer by sharing an ice cream from DQ. It was perfection.

Last weekend we went out to Texas Roadhouse for dinner together. I had been looking forward to going out together to a sit-down type of place for weeks, so we chose something out of the ordinary for us. :) I think the last time Ryan and I went to a Texas Roadhouse was in St. George several years ago! Grace surprised us by being really good at (and really interested in) cracking and eating the peanuts. She is growing up so fast.

Logan was so cute pouring out the crayons and putting them back in the box one by one. He is getting pretty good at his hand-eye coordination.

Here are some photos I took during an afternoon with Dad. Ryan had been sleeping off a night shift and had a couple hours before his next one, so we all went outside for a bit.

Some cute sibling shots...

Both of these kids are obsessed with Disney Cars. Luckily we now have two Lightnings and two Maters. They still fight over them, but it's less frequent now.

Ryan was working hard on our front garden while the kids rode their bikes.

Here they are getting into trouble together. It was one of those days when I just needed them to stay interested in something for even 5 minutes straight! Cookie cutters did the trick this time...

For pre-school 2 weeks ago my topic was Dinosaurs. It was really fun! I was surprised how much fun I had planning it since I don't know much at all about them, and we don't have any dinosaur toys ourselves. Luckily I have a friend in the ward who seems to have every type of toy I have ever needed for a preschool topic! :)
The kids learned about the letter "Dd" so we talked about the sound, sorted items into a D-basket and a no-D basket, and they worked on these Dd shape sheets.

I saw somewhere that you can use Bananagrams for a letter activity, so I made something in Word. I like this activity and the kids stayed focused looking for letters to match on their sheet.

We talked about fossils and made imprints in play dough. They loved to feel the impressions, especially the bumpy, scaly ones.

We also made dino footprints in some sugar cookies, and ate them as part of our snack. 

I saw another idea where you take a plain white piece of paper, a white crayon, and you trace over a print-out of a dinosaur skeleton. Then the kids use watercolors to discover the skeleton underneath! So neat! They become paleontologists. :)

The kids also did some free-play with a bunch of electronic (moving, roaring, stomping) dino toys from my friend and that was one of the highlights i think. Grace was very sad to see those toys go home later that day. She is so NOT into "girl" toys and always surprises us by obsessing more over what you would think would be a "boy" thing. I do kinda like that about her, but I also wish she would want to brush her Rapunzel doll's hair, or play barbies sometimes. haha Probably because that's how I was.