Happy 2nd Birthday!!!

I can't believe that Logan is now 2 years old! It amazes me at how fast time has gone by. It seems like it was yesterday that we were bringing him home from the hospital and now, here he is a rough and tumble toddler. He has endless amounts of energy. One of his favorite things to do is just run in a circle while saying "run run run, fun fun fun". (He got that from his favorite tv show.) He can run in a circle for a minute to sometimes twenty.

He loves his sister and is always so careful around her. He's always willing to help out if Olivia is involved.

His vocabulary is increasing daily. He can count to 5, but knows his numbers up to 10. (We're working on the higher numbers.) He's recognizing the alphabet and colors. It's just so much fun to watch him learn. His curiosity level is endless. He is always wanting to learn new things. One of his favorite phrases is "what's this?"

To celebrate his birthday, I decided to make him a cake with one of his favorite TV characters. His favorite show right now is "Yo Gabba Gabba" and he loves Muno. So I decided to try to put Muno on his cake. It turned out alright, not the best, but for the first time decorating a cake...ever, I think it looks pretty good. Logan even recognized it right away. :)



And looking back...here are some pics of Logan.

Newborn

3 months
6 months
9 months
1 year
18 months
2 years

Family Pictures

Sam's sister, Minna, takes awesome photographs. So, I just had to ask her to take some pictures of my family while she was in town. I'm glad she agreed to do it, Sam and I are not the easiest people to take pictures of. Anyway, the pictures turned out great! Thanks for taking the time to take our pictures Minna!!!

The Holidays

This week has been super busy, but super fun. All of Sam's family came to town, so we got to spend time with them and Logan got to spend time with his cousins. He had a great time with his cousin Bailey, who stayed with us for a couple of days. The two of them seemed to get along very well. Logan still goes around the house looking for "Bayee".




Christmas Eve was spent at my parents house with my family. It was nice, relaxing, and fun. I'm very blessed to have all of my family in the area, but it doesn't mean we always get together, so seeing them all on Christmas Eve was really great. The kids had a great time playing with Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle Aaron, Uncle David, and Aunt Heather. My dad made rotisserie chicken out on his grill that was delicious. However, Logan decided to have some fun of his own while my dad was outside grilling. He turned off the outside light and locked the sliding door so that my dad was outside in the dark. I had to run over and let him back in. :) It was pretty funny though, who would've thought that an almost 2 year old would do such a thing. Although, knowing Logan, I'm surprised at myself for not realizing that he would do something like that. But I think that Logan's favorite part of Christmas Eve was playing with the cat. He followed the cat around the house and didn't stop until the cat had had enough. It was pretty funny.





Christmas morning we opened presents at home before heading up to Sam's parents house. Logan was not in a good mood when he woke up and didn't want anything to do with opening presents, so Sam and I opened them for him. He did enjoy his kitchen set that he got though, it was the only thing he would even look at that morning. Olivia had fun attempting to open presents though. She tried to bite the paper off, but we helped her out anyway. She was all smiles. It is so much fun to watch her eyes light up when she's excited.





Later in the morning we made the trip up to Sam's parents to open more presents and spend Christmas day. With 22 people, it was a crowded home but it's always more fun when the entire family gets together.

With Christmas over for this year, we just have Logan's birthday to get ready for next week and then we can finally relax a bit.

Christmas Lights

Logan loves lights, especially Christmas lights. All day long if he sees a Christmas tree or lights on someone's house he'll say over and over again "ligh, ligh, ligh, ligh!!!!" He doesn't say the "t" at the end for some reason, and he's always very excited about it. It's so much fun to see him get excited over something so we decided that we would go out and drive around to look at the lights on houses. I had heard about this one house in particular and thought we should check it out. I'm glad we did, it was AMAZING! Definitely something we will go see every year if the owner of the home continues to do it.



It was 12 minutes of choreographed lights and music. It was so much fun to watch. If you're in the area, it's definitely a must see!

First Food

We were a bit hesitant to start Olivia on rice cereal because of her problems with formula. We thought she might be allergic to the milk based formula because she broke out in a huge rash, but when we tried her on soy, it didn't go any better. But we got the Enfamil Gentlease formula and so far she's doing alright. Of course, she hates the bottle and it's a fight to get her to take it. I'm hoping that one day she'll be okay with it though, especially after a day like today when she ate every hour!

But the cereal seemed to go over very well. She loved every bite and in fact, cried in between. I guess I was moving to slow or something. She just wanted it in her mouth. It was fun to watch.

She's almost got it

Maybe another few weeks and she'll be able to sit for more than a few seconds. :)

It's finally finished!

So, 1 year, 2 months, and a baby later...



It's not perfect, and I opted to not do a few details, but I think it turned out alright. I hope Logan enjoys it for years to come!

Time sure flies!

At 5 months, Olivia is sure doing a lot! She's rolling over both ways, scooting (backwards, but still scooting), laughing (mostly at Logan), smiling all the time, sleeping through the night for usually 7-8 hours at a time, and spreading joy wherever she goes!

One thing we have found out recently is that she is allergic to milk based formula. So we have her on soy. So far she is doing well with it, but it's only been a few days. We were going to start her on rice cereal, but figure we should wait and see how she does with the formula before starting her on that. We have to take her to an allergy specialist when she's about 8 months to get her tested to see if she is allergic to dairy products. Not fun, but necessary. It's wierd though because I eat lots of dairy every day and she hasn't had any problems that we know of. But with the formula she broke out in hives, and a huge rash all over her face. I guess we will just have to wait and see what the diagnosis is.

Her weight gain has slowed down quite a bit. She only gained 5 ounces this past month, putting her at 16lbs 13ozs. We're not sure how tall she is, but my guess is close to 27 inches.

Jump Planet

Ah, to be almost 2 and have endless amounts of energy. I'm so glad there is a place we can take Logan to that is perfect for him to run and jump around for an hour or so. We've been to Jump Planet a couple of times, but this time he was really into it, always running around from one bouncy thing to another. He never stopped. I even had some of the other moms comment on his amount of energy. Luckily though, it wore him out enough that he was able to come home and take a long nap!

What we've been doing

Now that we are all better, it's time to post what's been going on around here. We've had a couple of weeks where at least one of us has been sick. There was one day when all of us were sick (not a fun day). At least it was all colds and not the flu. I am grateful for that.

I am so glad that my kids seem to get along. They have started to interact with each other more and that just melts my heart. Logan is so good to Olivia, and Olivia cracks up at Logan all the time, unless she's telling him how it is, as this picture shows.



Logan has found 2 new interests. Shoes and Pens. He loves to wear shoes, anyone's shoes. And as for pens, he loves to take them apart. I'm always finding pieces of a pen laying around the house.






Logan keeps me on my toes. He's always up to something. I keep wishing that one day he will slow down, at least for a little while so I can catch my breath, but at the same time, I love his energy and curiosity for the world around him.

I have a feeling that Olivia won't be giving me a break either. She's already curious about everything. If she could, I'm sure she would be running right alongside Logan. She's trying so hard to crawl. She loves being on her tummy and will move in a circle. She can scoot a little bit. She tries so hard to move and gets frustrated that she can't, but someday soon she'll be on the move. I'm not looking forward to the day where I have to chase 2 little ones around the house.

Look how long my hair is!

So what if I have a bald spot on the back of my head, at least mom can still put a bow in my hair!!!



P.S. Watch out world, as of today, I'm rolling over like a pro!

Some new things

Livi has been introduced to a few new things today. First, Logan wanted to hold her, but then decided against it once we let him. Then she tried her exersaucer and seemed to enjoy it for a few minutes before freaking out. Last we got out the bouncy thing (not sure what it's really called, but who cares). She had a good time with that. Notice that her outfits are all different...she goes through at least 3 a day, today she went through 4. She's the queen of spit up and drool. It never stops!






Some other things that Livi's going through right now....TEETHING!!! And she's so close to rolling over from back to tummy. She can go from tummy to back, but she's having a hard time with the other way. She can scoot to get to something she really wants, but she does so on her back. She just pushes with her legs and goes backwards. It takes awhile, but she does get to where she wants to be that way.

She's 4 months already!

I can hardly believe it. She is the sweetest baby EVER!!! She's always smiling or laughing for me, not so much for the camera. Rarely does she cry anymore. I'm glad she's so calm though, it definitely makes up for her out of control brother. Her appointment went well.

Weight: 16lbs 8ozs. (95th %tile)
Height: 26 1/4" long (above the 95th %tile)

She's off the charts yet again for height and cuteness, and is barely on for weight. I am crossing my fingers that Olivia stays cute and calm for a long time. I'm sure she will stay cute forever, but it's her calmness that I'm afraid will one day disappear.

Halloween

This was Logan's first year out trick or treating. He didn't like it. He fought us on wearing the costume (he didn't want to) and when we went door to door he didn't want the candy. Oh well, perhaps next year he'll get the idea. It is kind of strange though, that once a year kids dress up in costumes and knock on doors, all to get candy. I think it's fun for the kids, but I also think that it was a little too much for Logan.

On a brighter note, our neighbors had a halloween party and had a bouncy house for the kids. Logan loved it! I'm glad that he had fun for at least one part of halloween. :)



As for the costumes, I had originally planned to have Logan be a lion and Olivia be a lamb, but I couldn't find a lion costume in Logan's size. I did however find a puppy costume for Logan and thought it might be cute to have 2 puppies, but I couldn't find one I liked in Olivia's size. Then I thought that she could be a kitten, but same problem, nothing in her size (at least within my price range). I could've made something, but I didn't have the time or energy to put into it. So they ended up as follows...Logan a puppy and Olivia a lamb. You take what you can get!

He did not want to wear the hat, or the costume for that matter.

Finally out trick or treating.



My cute little lamb!