Play Date With Noah

Logan had a play date with her friend Noah on Wednesday. I was highly disappointed when I realized (two minutes before we left) that my camera batteries had died and all of my rechargeable batteries were still in my suitcase from this weekend waiting to be charged. Luckily, Lindsey, his mom, has a blog and got some cute pictures of the two of them. You can see them HERE. Logan got her first kiss from Noah (and BOY did she smooch back...good gracious, Mike is going to have his hands FULL with this girl).

Beyond Her Years

Yes, I believe that I birthed a sixteen year old girl who is stuck in a one year old's body.

Between the sassiness, the obsession with daddy's old cell phone, the way she was sitting in her chair and the sheer amount of moodiness that went on today...I'm pretty convinced.

Make's me really look forward to those teenage years. :)

On a side note, this child CONSTANTLY surprises me with the amount of things that she knows and can do. Today after the little boy I watch left, I asked Logan if she wanted to go see her daddy. She immediately squealed "DADDY" and ran for the door. I told her that I needed to grab my purse (which was on the couch on the other side of the room with my car keys) before we left and she ran right over to the couch, picked the purse up and brought it to me. Then I looked at her and told her that we needed to go find my keys (I didn't realize, at the time, that they had been with my purse) and she again marched over to the couch, grabbed the keys and handed them to me before saying, "dada, go." I love my job.

We Like to Go "Wah"ing

Logan and I, typically, take a walk a day (sometimes 2 or 3 depending on her energy level...ha!). I like to get out of the house and get some exercise and she likes to ride along in the stroller, watch what's going on and "chat" with her friends (who we walk with a couple of times a week). All you have to do is mention the word walk in passing and you'll have her running for the door trying to get out. Because we've not been feeling well, we haven't gone out to walk the last few days and I could tell it was getting to her so I asked her if she wanted to walk to the mailbox with me. After getting the mail, I could tell she needed a little more sunshine and needed to get rid of some of her excess energy so I (bravely) left the stroller at home and let her walk our normal route on her own.

She stopped to admire every flower, leaf, twig and piece of dirt along the way, pointing each one out to me:

She was very independent and wanted to walk on her own, though, she did hold my hand when we had to cross the street.

And after one round around the block (it's a long round and includes one VERY large hill), she's now sleeping quite soundly in her bed.

She likes "wah"ing.

15 Month Well (kind of) Baby Visit

Today we went in for L's 15 month check up! It turned into a bit of a sick visit, though, as she's had a hacking cough now for about a week and I wanted to make sure that they checked that out. Here she is with her favorite book in tow, getting ready to walk out the door:

Here are her stats:

She's 22.4lbs (she went down, probably due to the increase in walking) and in the 40% for weight.

She's 31 inches long and in the 65% for height.

And she's in the 70% for her head circumference.

So, she's tall and skinny just like her daddy! :)

Here's our skinny minnie as we waited for the Dr. to come see us:

I've gotten in the habit of throwing some of our pre-purchased playhouse disney shows on my ipod and Mike's iphone so at a moments notice we have quick entertainment in case we have to wait for a backed up Dr. for....oh....30 minutes! Our Dr. had several walk-in sick patients today to deal with so he was a little behind schedule. Thank goodness for Tigger and Pooh!

Logan is talking up a storm and the Dr. was very pleased with her development. She's got a slightly larger vocabulary than an average 15 month old and he was shocked that she goes potty by herself (as are we)! She's got about 29 words down and the normal range for her age is between 6-15, so we're doing really well with our talking.

Here are the words that we hear from her (with the real english translation next to it):

mama

daddy/dada

uh-oh

anana (banana)

boo (book)

boo-boo (poop...sorry)

tee-tee

bye bye

nah-nah (night night)

num num (yum)

mo el (elmo)

moe-moe (more)

no

yeah

wa-wa (water)

wah (walk)

own-pronounced like down without the d (down)

nun (done)

dowie (doggie)

be-be--short e sound (belly)

soo (shoe)

joo (juice)

ba (ball)

cah (car)

piper (diaper)

baby

my (mine...or my my in reference to her blanket)

eye- pronounced like the body part (hi)

bow

-She's also starting to put two words together like hi daddy (on the phone), bye bye daddy/mama, no more (no moe moe with a finger wag and head shake).

-She points to things that she wants or places she wants to go. She knows where to walk to in the house when you tell her to go potty or to go get ready for night-night.

-Our reading kit included a set of flash cards with pictures of rooms in the house and she can pick out specific rooms (for example, when you ask her which room she goes night night in she picks the one with the bed).

She's a big girl with big blue eyes:

Logan does have a bit of a respiratory infection/bronchitis and her ears were a little red (not enough to diagnose an ear infection but on their way) so we're on antibiotics and should see results in the next day or two. Praise the Lord! They wanted to hold of on her immunizations because she's already feeling yucky so we'll head back in a couple of weeks when she's done with her meds for those. After her appt. we went to see daddy at Starbucks and Logan had her after Dr. apple juice slushy treat.

Mother's Day #2

After a crazy morning of travel, Logan and I got home and began the process of humanizing ourselves again. Then we went on a nice mother's day walk so we could enjoy the weather. It was a perfect 75 degrees--trying to enjoy these last few days of spring as we're starting to see summer temps now and we know it's going to get a bit hot and unpleasant outside, soon.

I love this sweet little girl who made me a mommy!

I made her this dress a couple of months ago, intending for her to be able to wear it throughout the summer (not the spring), but I'm glad we pulled it out a few weeks ago because I don't think it'll fit her this summer!

Logan loves to take little walks outside, especially now that she's very steady on her feet.

She also now has quite an affinity for walking up and down stairs. I am SO happy that I'm her mommy and look forward to celebrating many more mother's days with Logan and any other brothers and sisters God may bless us with.

Then we came in for dinner! Mike asked me what I wanted and I replied, "lobster", knowing it wasn't possible financially. And what do you know? Harris Teeter was having a fabulous deal on lobster tails and shrimp this week! He did get a deer in the headlights look when he realized it'd be possible, though, because he had offered to do the cooking. :) After a weekend of eating out, though, I got home and wanted nothing more than to cook dinner for us. I really, really missed cooking for my family. Preparing a meal for us to share at the dinner table as a family is one of my favorite parts of every day. And the shrimp pasta with creamy tomato sauce I made with a recipe courtesy of the Pioneer Woman! I've been dying to get this cookbook for ages now and Mike heard my pleas and surprised me with it at the airport.

The best mother's day gift of the day, though? Logan is fully potty trained! And by this, I don't mean she's running around in panties today. I consider her potty trained because (for a while now) she's been telling us when she needs to go number 1 and she walks us to the bathroom and she does her stuff. I didn't expect it to happen this soon, but yesterday she looked up at Mike and told him she needed to go number 2 and we rolled our eyes (because she says it all the time), but she was persistent so he took her to the bathroom and she sat down and definitely went! We immediately went and got her a spoonful of ice cream (the only sweet treat we had in the house) and we're hoping the trend will continue.

We were E-X-H-A-U-S-T-E-D after our trip and both went to bed way early. I fell asleep during our night-night routine, which is rare since it starts at 7:30pm, but it signaled that I needed to get a long night sleep. We're headed to the Dr. today for L's 15 month appt and shots so I'll update again later!

Before I end the post, though, here's a little comparison picture:

Whirlwind Weekend

This weekend, Logan and I took a crazy whirlwind trip to Tuscaloosa, AL, for my brother, John's graduation and commissioning into the Army. To say I'm tired is the understatement of the year! Two 45 minute layovers in the Atlanta airport with flights leaving from the opposite end of the place is enough to have me sleeping for the next week straight. Whew!

We got in late Friday afternoon and headed to dinner for my grandma's 80th birthday!

They sat us at a table with a nice little corner for Logan to run around in. She found her great grandma's purse and it entertained her for quite a while--she is SUCH a girly-girl, I LOVE it:

We stayed in Aunt Carolyn's dorm on Friday night and helped her clear it out so she could check out and head home. Logan had a blast running up and down the hallway screaming (because she enjoyed the echo of the empty place). I'm sure she was good birth control for every college student left in the building, ha!

She also barricaded herself in Carolyn's room. Here she is saying "bye-bye, mommy, I'm in college now." (I know, this day will come much sooner than I care for it to)

We knew Logan would not sit through a three hour graduation ceremony so she and I stayed at my parents' hotel while they were there. All morning I showed her the pool and explained that we were going to go play in the "wa-wa" while everyone was gone. I also hyped it up as I put her in her swim suit and by the time we got down to the pool she was incredibly excited...until we realized that the pool was still pad-locked and hadn't been opened for the summer season yet. So, she had her juice box in her suit and took a bath instead. Sad day.

Then we headed off to see John be commissioned. Here she is with Carolyn while we waited for the ceremony to start:

She was not to thrilled to be sitting in my lap again (after so many hours on my lap in planes):

She lasted all of...oh...four seconds before I had to take her to the hallway and we spent the rest of the ceremony running around there and watching from the doorway. Such is life with a toddler, right? Any time she heard clapping though, she'd stop, drop anything she had in her hands and clap right along with them. She was VERY happy when it ended and we headed outside for a snack.

My favorite photo of the weekend:

Here are Carolyn and I with John:

Logan ate up all of the attention she got from all of my family.

How perfect are those cowgirl boots with that dress?

And we woke up way too early this morning (since we were an hour behind our normal schedule 5:30am was the wake up call from Logan) to head back home. I broke down about a week ago and got Logan a harness for the airport, just knowing it would be a nightmare by myself without one.

I was VERY glad I had it being that I was so tired and had no energy what so ever to run after a toddler in the airport.

Logan was so excited to see her daddy!

I'll do a separate mother's day post. I had to come home, shower, and become a normal human being again after the day's travels and now can take pictures with my sweet girl and be ok with posting them on the blog. :)

Healthy Appetite For Reading

Logan's absolute favorite activity these days is reading. She loves to go pull books out of the bookshelf, cuddle up in mommy or daddy's lap and listen to us read--sometimes the same book over and over 10 times. It's such a sweet time for us! I've actually taken to putting her books all over the house so that wherever we are, we can stop and read if she wants to. She's been so into it recently that when hooked on phonics had their blowout sale (umm...70% off PLUS an added 50% off coupon I had--amazing), we picked up the toddler reading set for her. Since it came in the mail, I don't think the box has sat still unless Logan's been asleep. She's CONSTANTLY getting into it, pulling out books/flash cards and bringing them to us to read to her.

Looking at the reading chart:

Going through the flash cards:

Exploring the books:

And the onesie? Speaking of wonderful sales, my friend Stephanie over at Faith Baby (our favorite store for all things onesie) sent us an email the other day letting us know that a ton of her onesies are on clearance now -at 5 bucks a piece, I had to stock up with the summer months coming. The look on Mike's face when she walked out of her room wearing this onesie this morning was enough to pay for the thing ten times over (it says, "Jesus loves me and so does my daddy"). Happy Monday AND happy teacher's appreciation week to all of my fellow teachers...even though I'm not in the classroom anymore, I appreciate you and the wonderful job you do!