Merry Christmas (part 2)!

WARNING: THIS POST HAS A TON OF PICTURES.

As promised, here is part 2 of our baby's first Christmas adventures! I was going to do a part 3, but heaven help me, I have another post to make about my sweet little girl being 11 months old that's already almost 3 days late and so this post will have both parts 2 and 3 in it and then I'll hopefully get around to the other post. (was that a long sentence or what?)

SO, Christmas day rolled around and we headed to Dublin, OH to see the rest of Mike's family for Christmas. It was so much fun because four of us have had babies in the last year (though, we were missing Mike's twin sister, Lindsey, so only 3/4 baby producers were there) and so we had quite the baby fest. Madelyn is 15 months, then Logan was born 5 months later and is 11 months and Claire is 4 months and Benjamin (who wasn't there) is just a couple of weeks old. The three baby girls all got to meet and play. It was fun to see Logan interact with other kiddos since it's usually just her and I at home. Though, starting on Monday, we'll have another baby here with us full time--not our own :)

It wouldn't be a holiday without a mommy made outfit, would it? I'm a pretty (new) huge fan of Michael Miller fabric--particularly his Christmas line. It's funky, but doesn't toe the crazy edge that so many of the funky fabrics do.

Logan L-O-V-E-S her daddy so much. Lately she's just been craving his attention and loves being held and snuggled by him. It melts my heart!

Here's Logan with her cousin, baby Claire.

Whenever we go somewhere else that has toys, you'd think that we keep this child in isolation and that she's never seen a toy in her life (is that why she got so many toys for Christmas? do you all think that we don't have any at all? ha!) because she goes absolutely NUTSO over new toys!

Logan got to try turkey for the first time on Christmas day. She kind of liked it for a few bites and then decided she'd stick with some of her staple foods for now. Doesn't she look like a little girl (less baby) in the next picture?

I wanted to get a good picture of Logan and Madelyn together because they're so close in age but when one was interested, the other wasn't and visa versa so this was the best I got.

We did another family Christmas after we got home on the 27th. This next gift had been under our tree since before we left and Logan had slowly been working on getting it open. She was excited when we finally took it from behind the tree and let her have free reign on it.

It was an activity table from her Nana and Grandaddy! She adores this toy! She uses it all the time. As soon as we put her down in the morning she heads right for it and literally spends hours standing there banging on it until we finally turn it off to keep ourselves sane. (I mean you can only listen to, "one, uno. yellow, amarillo. cat, gato." so many times before you go crazy--yes it is a bilingual toy, it's brilliant.)

We got a ton of books this Christmas which warms my heart as a teacher. We love to read to Logan and it's nice to have more of a variety now.

I had to include this next one because I think it's SO FUN that Logan got a toy that I used as a child, not the exact one I used, but the same kind of toy.

And these next ones are probably my favorite of the bunch. They are electronic story books that are plastic. I can turn them on and she can sit and turn the pages and they'll read themselves to her AND she can drool and chew as much as she likes and do no damage. I mean, really? What will they think up next?

Uncle John and Aunt Lindsey got her this cute stuffed turtle that has a scarlet and grey shell--they must have known how much her daddy would appreciate it as an Ohio State fan.

She was really into tearing off wrapping paper towards the end of it all, I wonder if she'll remember this come January 28th with her birthday presents?

Our big present to Logan this year was her very own soft seat that we got in collaboration with my parents. I saw it in the store before she was born and decided that's what we needed to get her for Christmas. I think I love it more than she does.

And lastly, mom and Carolyn got Logan her very first Vera this Christmas. For those of you that think an 11 month old has no concept of what a purse is--you haven't met my daughter. This child knows exactly what to do with the thing and wants to hold onto it and stuff it all the time. In fact, we went shopping today and she whined for it (I left it in the car) until I re-opened the door and gave it to her. She proceeded to hold it (by the straps) the entire time we shopped.

Oh. My. What are the teenage years going to bring?

Happy Birthday Mommy

Christmas came and went and then we celebrated my 25th birthday. We flew home early on the morning of the 26th and so we spent a lot of the day catching up on sleep and household stuff. We debated over and over whether or not to take Logan with us out to dinner because she'd been fussy most of the day and also because sometimes it's nice to actually be able to enjoy a meal out without worrying about finishing quickly to get a fussy baby out of the restaurant. We decided to go ahead and take her with us because it was my birthday and I wanted a family celebration and because we didn't want to have a babysitter deal with a teething, fussy baby who hadn't had enough naps during the day.

I was SO glad we did take her, though! She was such a good girl, smiling and giggling with/at everyone and didn't fuss a bit. She sat sweetly in her high chair the whole time and tried some mashed potatoes and had quite a bit of water with her meal.

She also hit another developmental milestone while we were at dinner and it just MADE my birthday! She learned the difference between yes and no and also learned how to communicate them to us. She signed for more and I assumed she meant more potatoes because that's what I had just given her but she quickly shook her head no and said "na!" and then signed for more again and when I pointed to the water she said "ya" and when I gave it to her she signed thank you. This continued throughout the rest of the meal, it was so much fun!

I think this is my favorite picture of Logan and I to date.

She was a little weary of the guy who took our family picture and this was the best I got, but I'm so thankful that we were able to go out and celebrate as a family.

Merry Christmas (part 1)!

Since the airlines started charging for luggage, we decided to bring a few of the gifts that we had gotten for L with us to Ohio and to leave the rest and have a second Christmas when we got home. It worked out really nicely and we got to stretch Christmas out almost an entire week!

Again, we had the wonderful ability to use a very nice camera while we were there and so I used the chance to snap and have snapped some more artistic photos like this one: (if you look into the ball you can see L and I)

Logan wasn't much interested in Christmas trees this year, she pretty much ignored ours with the exception of a couple of incidents and so on Christmas morning before we did gifts, I held her close to it so she could check it out.

Logan was our Christmas present this year! Last year I was so miserable at Christmas with contractions and just pregnancy discomfort that it was a gift to have her out and enjoying it with us this year.

(this is out of order) We got Logan a vacuum for Christmas in hopes of getting rid of her fear of my vacuum. She LOVED it! We had to take it out of the box for her because she was so excited about it.

Logan got her daddy this book to read to her. It's "My Little Girl" by Tim McGraw, the pictures are GORGEOUS and the story is just precious. They'll enjoy this book together for many, many years, I'm sure.

The next few pictures are just opening gifts. By the end of the event Logan knew what to do with the gifts and had more fun ripping paper.

It was such a fun first Christmas with Logan! She was just old enough to enjoy tearing through the paper and playing with some of the gifts that she got which was nice. The next few Christmas mornings will be even more fun, I'm sure!

Trip Recap

We've been home for a couple of days now and I'm FINALLY getting around to updating the blog. We've had a busy two days since getting home with birthdays and more Christmas presents and just getting life back together after almost a week away. SO, you'll get lots of good reading today as I have several posts to make. First, I figured we'd do a quick trip recap in pictures from our Ohio trip this holiday season (Christmas morning pictures will be up on another post).

Logan got to spend a lot of quality time with her grandpa Don:

And her nana Kathy while we were there.

We were very spoiled with a much nicer camera to snap pictures with while we were there so enjoy the amazing quality, as it will only last in a few posts and then we'll be back to just a regular digital camera:

After we arrived, Logan was given one of her presents a little early so that she could enjoy it while we were there. At first, she was a little skeptical, but she LOVES her little walker and can't wait to get it in the mail so she can play with it here at home:

Logan also got a good taste of what this snow thing is all about. Before we left we had a light snow and I took her out (post to come) and showed it to her, but she really got to play in this snow! It was nice and white there all the way up until Christmas Day. We had so much fun with it!

This one is a little out of order, we were getting ready to go out into the snow when I snapped this precious picture. Logan was not a huge fan of her hat (though, once we got out in the cold she changed her mind), so we threw a little headband around her ears to start with.

Family picture:

And out came the hat after a couple of minutes when she realized it was much warmer with it on.

Then she was ready to have fun!

Logan had a great time watching her Aunt Kim's dog, Lucky, play around in the snow. Whenever Lucky was around, Logan ignored the fact that people wanted pictures of her and just focused in on the puppy.

Again, focused on that dog!

Logan also got to meet her very first cousin, baby Benjamin while we were in Ohio. We drove out to her Aunt ZZ's house for a day to celebrate Christmas with them as he is just a little too tiny to travel yet. Isn't he sweet?

Logan really wanted to get her hands on him and so it was hard to get a good picture with the two of them together! She loved to look at him and repeat, "baby" over and over...and over and over and over. Her nana Kathy was in seventh heaven with her two grandbabies together!

I found a wonderful website that sells these sweet onesies and when I saw them I knew they were perfect for this trip! Though it's hard to see because my little one is such a mover, they say "grandma's answered prayers" and just fit for the occasion.