Baby Boy's First Photo Shoot

One of Mike's former co-workers is a photographer and offered to take some maternity/fall pictures for our family. We've been SO blessed by photographers here who have generously offered their services to us so that we can document our family throughout our time in seminary--it's been wonderful! Adrienne did such a wonderful job, we're hoping she'll come back and do some newborn shots when baby boy arrives. Of course, the best of them are being saved for our Christmas cards, but hopefully these tie you over until you get those in the mail. :)

1st Snow!

This afternoon started the first snow of the year! It's still coming down pretty steadily so we'll see what this does to the crazy NC roadways (they really lack the ability to clean things up well, here). Logan was napping when it started and the forecast called for light flurries so I thought she'd miss it, but it only got harder and harder so when she woke up we bundled her up and took her out. Her reaction?

She thought milk was coming out of the sky. As soon as we walked out she got really excited and in her most high pitched voice started to shout, "Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, MOK! (milk)" I love that her little 2 year old brain put together the fact that milk is white and wet and so is snow, so milk must have been falling out of the sky. As soon as she walked out and got a taste of it though, she changed her mind and said it was ice instead. At least she's enjoying the snow this year...last year you couldn't keep her in it for too long--she wasn't amused at all by it.

Little snow bunny:

Finally, after refusing to wear gloves all day, she decided that it was ok to wear them so she could dust the stairs off.

I wish I had gotten her initial reaction on video, but I knew my camera didn't have a whole lot of juice and wanted to make sure to get a few pictures first (in fact, some of the pictures came from a neighbor's camera because I did lose battery). I did manage to catch a clip of her in the snow, though, before it died. She was very, very, very concerned about what was happening to the car.

Goodnight Tree

In good Goodnight Moon fashion, since setting up the Christmas tree, Logan has taken to saying goodnight to every little piece of it before we put her down at night. She came up with this on her own, mind you. I think it originally may have been a ploy to get to stay up a few extra minutes...little does she know that we now start the bedtime routine 5 minutes early to beat her at her own little game. ;) Either way, we just laugh and laugh when she does it every night so I caught it on tape last night. It's not quite her most animated version, but it's pretty close. (I'll post translation below the video)

Seeya Yights (see ya lights)

Seeya Sinsha (see ya Santa)

Ni-Ni Tof (night-night coffee--to our Starbucks ornaments)

Ni-Ni Tee (night-night tree)

Ni-Ni Yights (night-night lights)

Seeya Morrow (see ya tomorrow)

Amorrow Sinsha (tomorrow santa)

27 weeks!

This week I had my dreaded glucose screening. I had the orange flavor with Logan and they gave me some kind of lemon lime this time that tasted more like just syrup and water...yum. I passed well within the range, so we're good to go and are now starting appointments every 3 weeks. My next one is on the 22nd.

New this week: we set up the crib! Only because it was becoming quite an eye sore sitting in several pieces in Logan's room. She's loving it and keeps asking where the baby is. I'm trying to explain to her that her baby brother will be sleeping in there, so now when she goes in her room she talks about her baby brother going night-night. It's sweet...we'll see how long the novelty lasts before she's wanting her own room back. :) 13 weeks to go!

Marble Museum

Have I mentioned lately how much I L-O-V-E my job?! I get to wake up to a sweet face every morning, eat breakfast with her, read to her, play with her, snuggle with her before naps, snuggle with her after naps, cook with her, clean with her and not miss a minute! AND we get to add a baby boy to it all in March. It really is my dream job. I couldn't be more thankful for a husband who works SO hard to provide for us so that we can make that dream a reality and we're truly thankful and blessed by a God who never fails to come through for us. The last year and a half has been such a faith builder for us and we're so thankful for it. Anyway, I had to throw that in there because it's all I could think about this morning as I drove to and from the Marble Museum with Logan.

It's a sweet little kids museum downtown in Raleigh that has a TON of imaginative play areas. I'll let the pictures do the talking...

I had to throw this picture in because after posting about L not wanting to wear her winter stuff out she complied this morning and then didn't want to take the hat off.

She loves to "drive" cars so she was in her element running from vehicle to vehicle. Here she is in the electric car.

And the ambulance:

She wasn't too crazy about the dress up stuff until we got to the hospital, then she wanted to dress in the gowns so she could help the babies.

Then we went to the grocery store where Logan went way over budget in her food purchases...but I'm pleased to say that she bypassed the unhealthy junk and went straight for the fruits and veggies:

Some milk:

And eggs:

After shopping we went and learned where the vegetables come from. She stomped through the garden, I tried to get her to help me pull them from the ground but she much preferred to just step on them.

Umm...she didn't know what this was:

I tried to explain to her that it's a phone and that she could use it just like she uses my phone when she talks to Mike but she didn't like that idea. I guess they are a thing of the past, now.

Here's Logan's best, "please, just let me play woman" look:

Moving on to the post office, she helped sort mail in the mail truck:

Then did some crazy running around:

Before she was ready to sit down for a snack (and while we really weren't getting ready to eat a snack in this exhibit, a meltdown followed shortly and we did end up heading to the cafe for a snack).

She played at the bank, mainly in the safe with the "mons"

Funny story...whenever Logan finds cash in the house, or sees it in my purse, she proceeds to grab it and say, "No mamas, dada's mons" and will find him and give it to him or find a pair of his pants to go put it in. Guess mommy's don't need money if they stay home?

And onto the pizzeria where Logan got to make some pizza!

We finished up our trip in the waterworks area where they had boats and submarines to play in. Logan was fearless and climbed without mommy to the top of the boat and camped out in the crows nest for a while.

Directing the submarine to the surface with Kate:

And I think we only managed to see about 2/3 of the museum before we pooped out and had to head home for a nap! Such a great way to spend a morning and it was so fun to see Logan using her imagination to play.

As we were headed out I saw a couple of classes coming in for a field trip and took some quick glances at the panic stricken teachers (because we all love a good field trip where 25+ kids are wound up and wild and are in your care away from the comfort of the classroom) and did NOT miss that job at all.

Winter Wear

You know what's really frustrating? When you can get your little one to play with her winter gear while you're inside where it's warm, and she seems to really enjoy it...but the second you're ready to go outside into the 28 degree morning weather she doesn't want any part of it. How does that work?

Tangled!

So, after dealing with a week of hacking coughs, 4 totally sleepless nights and several days without naps...I took Logan in to the Dr. yesterday only to discover she's got a mild case of walking pneumonia. Boo. It's the remnants of a cold she caught and got over a few weeks ago, it just never left her little lungs. Looks like she may have inherited something undesirable, after all. Anyway, the Dr. wants us to keep her activity level a little lower than normal (how I'm supposed to do that with an almost 2 year old without medication, I'm not sure :) ) and since he assured me that she's not contagious Mike and I took her to see Tangled today at the theater.
We were a little nervous about trying to get her through an entire movie, but she rose to the occasion. Pretty much as soon as the Cars 2 preview came on screen, she was sold and sat back and relaxed. (we had to bring no name baby with us--we don't like to leave home without her)

The movie was in 3-D and they gave Logan a little bitty pair of glasses to wear. She kept them on for the first 15 minutes of the movie but they seemed to get on her nerves so she took them off and watched it without them for most of the rest of the movie.

We got her a kids pack to keep her entertained in case the movie didn't entertain her. It was her first time eating popcorn ever and she l-o-v-e-d it! She and I shared it, but she downed most of it (though she'll tell you her baby brother did).

She tried daddy's glasses on for size at some point and kept them on for a bit.

Then when the movie was over she wanted to run around the "her" (hair) display.

We're LOVING being able to do fun things like this with her! This age (while definitely challenging) is SO much fun. She's still talking about "puzzle" (Rapunzel), as I'm sure she will for quite a while. It'll definitely have to be a movie we add to our collection when it's released!