Getting Ready For Disney

We'll be headed down to Florida in about a week and we've been trying hard to get Logan ready to see all of her favorite Disney characters by playing our Handy Manny, Little Einstein, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Tigger and Pooh videos. She just dies with excitement when one of them comes on and is even more excited when we talk about seeing them. We're going to a character lunch with all of the Playhouse Disney characters, so, provided she's not completely terrified by them, we should get some fun pictures. This was Logan's reaction today when I reminded her that we're going to see Pooh in about a week:

(I've already mentally kicked myself for not having a bow in her hair.) :)

After our Disney trip we'll be headed down to Miami to spend a few days with my parents. We're excited to get back down there after a little over a year of being away and catch up with the church and family. Logan's excited about getting to spend time with her grandparents and to have full access to a pool 24 hours a day!

18 Months Old

Our sweet baby big girl is 18 months old today!

Logan is growing like a weed! She weighs in at close to 24lbs and is about 32 inches long right now. These are just measurements taken from us here at home, we'll see the Dr. next week and things will be more official then.

Here are a few of her favorites-

Favorite Toy: Elmo and her stacking blocks.

Favorite TV Show: Tigger and Pooh. Though, she's ver into the other playhouse dinsey shows- Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (mo-mo), Handy Manny (hammo) and Little Einsteins (I-Nines).

Favorite Movie(s): Cars (tars) and Finding Nemo (she-shes).

Favorite Books: I Love You More Than Rainbows, Counting Numbers and Tigger and Pooh All Year Long.

Favorite Food: PB&J sandwiches, she likes to open the bread, lick out the insides and then eat the bread.

Favorite Drink: Apple Juice.

Favorite Activity: Playing fake night-night. She piles pillows and blankets and then lays on them and repeats "night-night" over and over. If only bedtime were that easy.

Logan is such an easy going, sweet little girl. While she does throw fits like any normal toddler, she is overall a very happy child. She loves to laugh and to make people laugh. She gets upset when she sees other people upset and she'll smile a mile wide when she knows she's made you happy. She loves to snuggle up, but she's also very independent and is so excited when she figures things out on her own.

It's hard to believe that she's already a year and a half old! It amazes me that just a year ago she couldn't talk, couldn't walk, couldn't crawl and now we can't stop her.

We love each passing second with her and I have to admit that at the end of every day, I'm a little sad that it's over and that she'll be a day older tomorrow.

Here are the comparison pictures:

Weekend Ramblings

Just a few pictures to share with everyone.

Here is L after naptime on Friday afternoon.

She really loves it when we leave her in her diaper and let her run around semi-nude.

It's fun to notice subtle differences in the length of L's hair now. It seems like every few days it grows just a little bit more. Friday afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised when I was able to throw them up into piggies without any tugging or pulling to get enough hair!

Mike's been doing a lot of push ups lately and Logan, being in her imitator phase of life, loves to get down on the ground with him and do some herself. I think sometimes Mike pushes out a few extra just to see her do it too.

Today I'm working on getting closets cleared out. I had to pull out three different shirts for L yesterday as she seems to have grown an inch in the last two days and those shirts are now a little short on her. It's ok, they were her 9-12 month shirts so it's not like they needed to fit anymore, anyway! She's fitting into her 18 month clothing right on time, as she'll be 18 months this coming week! She's keeping plenty entertained while I'm cleaning by putting on some of my shoes and prancing around the house in them.

That's about all that's going on up here!

Counting Baby

Logan has a little number puzzle book that she's recently been obsessing over. As in, we take it to the bathroom, we take it to bed, we take it in the car, we take it pretty much everywhere. When she wants it read she says "Two! Two!" Because she's been so interested in it, I've been working on getting her to actually count to five. We count EVERYTHING and for a while she could say both two and five (eye-f) but lately she's been putting both of those numbers in order when we count together. Here it is caught on video:

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Yesterday, Mike turned 27 years old. Since John and Lindsey live only about 2 hours away now, and since Lindsey will be celebrating her birthday later this week, we thought we'd head up there for a little joint celebration. It's the first little road trip we've taken with Logan since she was 6 months old, so I was a little nervous about it...but I guess it's better to know how she reacts now on a two hour trip before we make our big drive to FL when we'll be in the car for 13 hours. Ew. A friend of ours lent us a car dvd player and it seemed to really help quite a bit, I think we'll be using it again in August and then will start looking into purchasing our own set (or putting it on the Christmas wish list).

All ready to go!

Aunt Carolyn got L this little Elmo doll a couple of weeks ago and Logan won't sleep without it now. When we head to bed we have to search for my-my (her blanket) and mo-mo before she'll lay down.

When we got there, Logan made herself right at home in their computer chair.

Mike and John headed out to play a round of golf, so, Lindsey and I took L to the big pool. It's the first time she's really been in a big pool and so we got her a little life vest and she was all set!

She seemed to enjoy the water. She DID NOT like that she couldn't touch the bottom...but since it was so hot out, she decided it wasn't that important and continued to hop right in.

After the boys got back, we headed out to the mall to walk around before dinner. Logan got her first ride in a little mall car from Uncle John and really enjoyed it. We had to pry her out of the car when the ride was over.

We did a little bit of shopping. Logan picked out a cute little t-shirt dress for herself. I'm not lying...she picked it out and took it right to her dad.

John bought a ball for himself, which Logan quickly claimed as her own...and I think it's still in one of our little bags waiting to be unpacked. I may have to hide it. She gets a little crazy throwing it.

Then we went and had a nice birthday dinner at Olive Garden.

For those of you with little babies who can't move around yet--take lots of family pictures! When you hit 18 months they no longer care to look at the camera. We took about 5 and this was the closest to a good one we could get. :)

J & L.

Dinner took quite a while, so after exhausting all of our entertaining abilities, Mike let Logan play with his glasses.

The trip home was pretty uneventful. Logan slept the whole time. We were hoping to get her into the house and into bed asleep, but it was raining when we pulled up and it woke her up. It took us quite a while to get her back down, but she then slept until almost 8 this morning, so she made up for it. Happy 27th Mike!

Word Worm 2!

I caught another quick video of Logan this morning. Sometimes if we can get her distracted doing something she otherwise isn't allowed to do (i.e. play on the computer), we can get her to rattle off several of her words. Again, it's just another small selection of the words she knows. I always forget what else to ask her about until I've got the camera off, but you at least can get a taste for what she knows. (and she said mama this time) (please pardon the fussy baby in the background, I just can't seem to please him unless I'm holding him 100% of the time)

Little Word Worm

Here's our little word worm in action! This was actually an impromptu session because she was in such a chatty mood--unfortunately, this is just a tiny selection of the words she knows. As soon as the camera went on, I couldn't remember a lot of the words that I had wanted her to say! Sigh. Oh well, that just means another video, right?

Please pardon the fact that she is in the BABY jumperoo, she's gotten a bit possessive of it lately as the baby we watch loves it and she feels that it is hers. She spends most of her evenings and weekends sitting in it--as if she's just waiting for him to appear and steal it from her.

Also, when she says please, she's also signing it--that's why she keeps tapping her chest. And, she really can say mommy. I'm not lying.

Little Watermelon

Here are a few snapshots from our day so far.

We got this sweet watermelon dress from our seminary sharing community, she's worn it several times already this summer.

It was already a blazing 92 degrees by 9:30am this morning, so we opted for some more indoor activities. I'm starting to run out, so she's watching Tigger and Pooh on daddy's iphone.

Mike has the day off today and Logan is soaking up the daddy attention. Here they are reading together. Mike would read and turn a page, Logan would "repeat" and turn her page.

Ransom

Dear Uncle John Hey Mister,

I have your hat.

If you ever want to see it again follow my instructions very closely.

Deposit 100 goldfish, 3 cheese sticks, 2 juice boxes and a Pooh video in an account of my choosing.

I'll deliver your precious hat safe and sound in two weeks given my directions are followed.

Love you!

Today

Sorry for the lack of creativity with the post, the sun has completely wiped me of all energy and it's taking everything I've got to post even the pictures. Logan and I got up early this morning (5:45am to be exact--when she decided it was time to potty) and she was a bit cranky. I didn't want her to wake J & L up so after eating breakfast and watching some Tigger and Pooh (and Darby, too!), we headed out and walked for about an hour. It was a beautiful 67 degrees and sunny and was just perfect for a good work out...much nicer than the 99 it is right now with the heat index close to 110. Yuck.

John and Lindsey hung out until about 4:30 today, so we had a really nice visit. It's great when they're here because Logan sleeps SO much better. She takes longer naps and usually goes to bed early and sleeps later. It's magical. We're going to head up to VA in a couple of weeks to celebrate both Mike and Lindsey's birthdays (he's the 18th and she's the 22nd).

Love. This. Picture.

In other news, Logan's been asking to sit on the big potty, where she either:

A. falls in

B. needs someone to hold her there for 10 minutes at a time

So, today we made the jump and got her a potty shrinker (or whatever they're called). We took her to target and let her pick one out. One step closer to being out of diapers!

Happy Fourth!!

We haven't been super busy today, but I can't believe it's already almost 7:30! We got up early this morning and headed off to church. There weren't enough 1 year olds in Logan's classroom, so they sent her to the 2 year old class and she did fabulously. If it weren't for her size, you wouldn't have even known she didn't belong--when I went to pick her up she was participating in one of their big activities and came home with all kinds of crafty goodies. I can't believe how grown up she is!

Logan was given several outfits for this holiday, but when we tried them on this morning only one of them fit. Most were too small and a couple were too big--maybe they'll fit her next year? This morning I threw on this dress that used to be mine, I figured it was a fun, summer dress and had red and white in it, so I threw a blue bow in her hair and she was patriotic for church.

When we came home we changed her into this outfit that Tita got her. She was quite a character in it!

This afternoon, Logan's Uncle John and Aunt Lindsey drove down from VA to have dinner and a sleepover with us and she has been playing with them like crazy. She won't give them a second to rest before she's got a new activity to do with them!

Happy Independence Day!!