Bubble Wrap

As we were unloading our Christmas ornaments to put on the tree this year, Logan found a small sheet of bubble wrap that needed popping (what else would you do with it?). I have to say, it's provided days worth of entertainment for her, so we'll just buy another roll to re-wrap the ornaments in this year. :)

26 Weeks

Closer and closer we move toward March 6th! It was nice to be pregnant on Thanksgiving, again, the food seems to taste just that much better when you have another person inside of you who wants to enjoy it too. :) Though, that horrible "I'm stuffed and think I'll never fit in another pair of jeans ever again" feeling you get after Thanksgiving dinner is 100x worse when you're pregnant...I still feel that way today. Looking forward to being a family of four next Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving For Beginners Part 4

So, after a nice two hour nap (who knew cooking could wear her out so well? maybe it'll have to be a new daily activity), Logan got up and was ready to help me with the cornbread stuffing. This was probably the most time consuming project of them all because we made the bread and the cornbread for it from scratch first and then made the stuffing. It was definitely worth it, but I'm trying to rethink how I could do it again next year without spending so much time on it on Thanksgiving day.

Then we worked on our green bean casserole. Logan was standing next to the sink with me watching me snap the green bean ends off and couldn't, for the life of her, figure out what I was doing.

While the casserole baked, Logan spent some quality time coloring.

After our marathon of cooking (I don't think I left the kitchen for more than 10 minutes from 7am-4:30pm...whew!), we got changed and got everything ready to put on the table. Logan wanted to make sure everyone knew she was wearing a tur-tee shirt so when I asked her to say "cheese" for the picture she couldn't help but pointing it out.

And I'm very pleased to announce that this guy came out JUST the way I wanted him to! Juicy, not overcooked, not undercooked, and a beautiful golden brown.

This picture is more for my future benefit, but I thought I'd include the spread on the blog, too. While I would have loved a more elaborate dinner, we only had so much room in the oven/fridge/kitchen itself so we had to each pick some basic dishes we wanted and stick to them.

We were both highly satisfied with the results of our labors and look forward to doing it again next time!

Thanksgiving for Beginners Part 3

When I pulled the turkey out of the brine this morning, Logan promptly screamed "MEAAAAAAAAAAAAAT" (we're raising a vegan, can't you tell?). She was ready to chow down before we even got the brine rinsed off. Don't worry, in good mother fashion, I held her off from eating the raw turkey by giving her some fruit snacks. ;) I prepped the turkey and got it set up in it's baking dish and then let Logan look at it. She spent about 5 minutes saying hi and waving to it. Wonder if she knows it's what we're eating for dinner?

We have the turkey in the oven now!

Thanksgiving For Beginners Part 2

We got a bright and early start this morning! We started by getting our bread ingredients into the breadmaker so that we'll have a loaf later to make the dressing with. Logan was very helpful and dumped all of our ingredients in and then enjoyed watching the dough in the machine swirl back and forth for a while.

I had to get creative when I pulled the potatoes out to get the mashed potatoes ready. Sometimes Logan likes to be a little too helpful and we end up with a disaster (i.e. when I first gave her some she tried to eat the "toe-toes"...that didn't go over too well). But, I pulled a couple of the small potatoes out and gave them to her along with her very own "peeler" and she kept pretty entertained while I peeled the rest of them.

Then we took a break and watched a little bit of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade while the potatoes boiled. Logan likes to carry both of her babies around with her. She actually has been sleeping with both of them lately--they don't leave much room for her, but she doesn't seem to care and has a major meltdown if she wakes up and they're not both right there with her.

After the potatoes softened, we got to mashing!

Then, we started our "poo-pie" (Logan's version of the classic pumpkin pie). I knew I'd never be able to get away with making this one on my own once L saw the kitchen aide out. So, right now the pie is baking (Logan is waiting anxiously to take it out so she can see it). No disasters as of yet--the potatoes are in the fridge and the turkey is in it's dish waiting to be thrown in the oven! AND the kitchen is staying relatively clean--it's a good start.

Thanksgiving For Beginners Part 1

I've decided to chronicle our first Thanksgiving with just the three of us on the blog. Mostly because I can get some really cute pictures and stories about Logan up here seeing as she's VERY into helping with everything that I do in the kitchen; but also so I can keep record of all of the things that go wrong....I mean, go off without a hitch...yeah.

So, this morning, after Logan's little bladder woke us up at 6:15am (though, I have to say I'm so thankful that she uses the potty, it's still hard to get up nearly an hour early every morning due to it), we got started! Our first project was to get the brine made and the turkey settled into it. Logan actually dumped all of the ingredients in herself and did a lot of the stirring (with close supervision). I'm happy to say that the turkey is now resting peacefully in the brine and will be pulled out tomorrow morning to start cooking!

(make sure to scroll below for our fun morning of crafting!)

Thanksgiving Crafts!

Logan and Kate play so well together that we've been trying to be purposeful with some of our playdates and we've gotten into a lot of crafting. Last week we made our Turkey cupcakes and then began to plan for activities that we could do for today. We came up with three fun ideas and I was pleasantly surprised at how well the girls did with the crafts and how involved they wanted to be! We're working on Christmas craft ideas, now.

Project 1: Turkey Puppets

Logan was very into the glue sticks. She wanted to put glue on e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g and I had to literally pry the stick out of her hands when we were finished. I think she was ready to keep going until we had the entire apartment glued together. Don't think we'll be getting glue sticks for ourselves anytime soon! ;)

Mommy helped a lot, but she put most of the glue on herself and she stuck all of the pieces down (with positioning help, of course).

She didn't quite understand what I wanted her to do when I told her to put it on her hand and then got really frustrated with it there after a minute so I couldn't get a picture with it right side up. It's hanging on the refrigerator now so that Mike can check it out before Logan destroys it.

Project 2: Fruit Turkeys!

We found this idea on Disney's website and thought it was a fun way to get a healthy snack in for the girls.

And they certainly saw it more as a snack and less as a craft! It was hard to get the turkey's assembled before they got eaten.

We had a fun lunch together and for our last project, we made dessert!

Project 3: Pilgrim Hats

While the girls played, we dipped the cookies and marshmallows in chocolate and then let the girls put together the little hats. We ambitiously made them each enough to make 4 hats but barely got them to make two each before they scarfed down crazy amounts of chocolate.

I finally got Logan to pose with one of her projects.

And the aftermath:

So excited about celebrating a holiday together as a family tomorrow. Logan and I already have begun our preparations for the big meal!

Traces of a Little Girl

Sometimes I wish I had the power to freeze time and keep this little one a baby. She's looking more and more like a little girl every day.

Afternoon in the Park

Mike's been holed up studying for a big paper he's got to write pretty much all this week and will continue to be most of this coming week (thank goodness there's only about 4 weeks left of this semester) so this afternoon when Logan woke up from her nap a little early he suggested we get out of the house and go to the park. It was a beautiful day and Logan loves to run around there, hopefully she wore herself out and will sleep well tonight.

I know I get a lot of pictures like this one but I couldn't help but take it because it was unprompted--in fact, Mike told Logan she didn't have to hold a hand because we were on a sidewalk and she looked at him for a second and then reached up and grabbed his hand anyway.

Proof that Logan has developed a crazy love for climbing lately.

Just like Pooh:

And my camera ran out of batteries after this shot so we went with the iphone for the remainder.

We probably won't have too many more days where we can do this since it's getting cooler and cooler but we really love this fall weather and will be sad to see it go.

I hope this helped hit the spot that you needed for your Logan fix! I know it's been a while since we've gotten a bunch of pictures of her and that's why a lot of you check the blog. ;)