Christmas Comparisons

I love, love, love clothing that can be worn two years in a row--especially Christmas clothing since it only comes around once a year. This is the dress Logan wore for Christmas Eve last year and since we've got our small group Christmas party tonight, I pulled it out for her to wear again this year. She wore it as a dress last year and is wearing it as a cute little tunic top this year. What's even more special? I wore this dress when I was a baby! She's been walking around all day saying, "mama dress" and pointing to it.

This morning Logan and I cleaned out her toybox in effort to make room for some of the new goodies she'll be getting this year. She also had a TON of baby toys in there that no longer get used so I told her we needed to make a pile of toys for her and a pile of toys to save for baby brother. She got very into it and I think she may have put away more toys for her brother than she actually realizes... She did want to experiment and play with each one before deciding, though:

Logan's got a light up Santa ornament that has her name on it, but we've used all of it's juice up and it no longer lights up anymore. Instead of spending $10 on batteries, she and I ventured out to Kohl's this morning and picked up a new one for $2. Next year I'll buy several of the Logan ones so that we don't run into this problem again. :) She calls it her "o-ment" (ornament).

Speaking of our small group Christmas party, Logan and I had some fun making some goodies for it this afternoon! We made these yummy cookie dough truffles (with safe, eggless, cookie dough). Logan was a big help rolling the cookie dough balls to be dipped until she gave me the puppy dog eyes (indicating she really wanted to taste it)...I let her have one bite and then realized after several minutes that she had devoured TWO of our cookie dough balls (and they weren't tiny!). At this point I gave her another job ;). Here she is showing them off:

(yes she's wearing her sunglasses backwards...we don't know why she does this)

Then, we made an igloo cheese ball. It had all of Logan's favorite things in it so she really, really enjoyed helping with this one and then getting to taste some of it. She's turning into quite the little Vanna White, isn't she?

Christmas Outfit #2

We were going to try and stop by the Christmas tree at the mall this afternoon to get our Christmas picture done but Logan was in desperate need of a nap so we knew we wouldn't get a decent one. Anyway, that's why she was dressed in her second Christmas outfit today, we'll see if we end up making it out to the big tree or not. I was nervous when I picked this one out that it might not fit her because it's an 18 month outfit and she's just about all in 24 months/2T but to my surprise and delight, it did! (I apologize for the quality of the pictures...our rechargeable batteries have bit the dust and I'm hoping to pick up a new camera for Christmas so I don't want to purchase any more without knowing how many/what kind I'll need...so these are iphone pictures again. I promise, I'll get some disposable batteries so the quality of our Christmas Eve/Christmas morn pictures will be better!)

Daddy stepped in on a few of the pictures to get Logan to cooperate. We bribed her with a Christmas ornament to get her to smile for the first one:

In the picture I took before this next one, Logan had her eyes closed, so I told her I needed to take it again because her eyes had been closed. I guess she thought I was telling her she needed to close her eyes:

She's pretty enchanted with her light up Santa ornament. She holds him and says, "OH! Sinsha (which is sounding more and more like Santa), ho ho ho."

Here she is telling us what Santa says:

Sweet smiles:

She thinks that the gift bags under the tree are all purses and will routinely take them and put them on her wrist and say, "buh-bye, shop shop." Oh dear.

Holiday Dresses

We love our little community sharing shop here at the seminary. When Christmastime rolls around you can find some really sweet little Christmas dresses. I've picked up a few in the last couple of weeks and so Logan will get to wear a nice little array of dresses that we didn't have to pay for. Then we can pass them on to some other little girl when next Christmas rolls around. The bow is a mommy original. Surprisingly, it's one that she doesn't even touch when it's in her hair. She likes having the "amas tree" (Christmas tree) in there. I'm going to try to grab pictures of her in her outfits but she's been a little anti-camera the last few days so we'll see how she cooperates. :)

We've had a lot of uncharacteristically cold days the last few weeks here and have already had three snowfalls this year! Last year, it hadn't snowed at this point in the year so we've enjoyed watching the snowflakes fall. We are crossing our fingers for a nice, white Christmas. Along with the cold weather, though, comes the chapped lips. They are a new phenomenon for Logan. She complains to me that her lips are "boke" (broken) and that I need to "frow them avay" (throw them away). This is until I pull the chapstick out, then she perks up and begs me to slather it on so she can lick it off and then she wants more. Oh the joys. :) She likes to carry around one of the tubes and pretend to put it on her own lips. Whatever keeps her busy and happy and out of trouble, right?

She also has quite an affinity for my camera and she carries that around, as well. The batteries are pulled out and she's extra careful when she's got it in her hands. But, this is why the quality of the pictures isn't very good--we took them with the iphone so that she'd cooperate.

Aunt Carolyn Visits!

Carolyn (An Tare according to Logan) started her winter break this week and came to spend a few days with us. It came at just the right time, too, because Mike had finals pretty much all week so it was nice to have some company and an extra set of hands to help wrangle our little toddler. We did a lot of shopping while she was here so I could get our last minute gifts checked off the list and we also did a lot of hanging around the house because it's been SO cold here.

Yesterday, though, we did take Logan outside for a few minutes to run off some energy. She thought the mud looked fun until it got her shoes messy and then she fussed about it until we went inside and threw them in the washing machine.

She did try to shuffle her feat through some of the leftover snow to get rid of it first, though.

Here are some shots before Carolyn left this morning:

(please pardon the pregnancy fluff...I only put this one up here because C and L look cute)

This is Logan ASKING to go back inside because it was so chilly out. This is the first time she's ever asked to go in.

See you in a few months!

29 Weeks and 4 Years!

Today I'm 29 weeks pregnant! Only about 11 weeks to go and I'm sure they're going to just fly by. I've been extra tired this week, Logan's been sleeping a little fitfully so we've been up about once a night all week (can you tell by my raccoon eyes?). I think she's trying to prepare me for a newborn...or drive me nuts...I'm not sure which yet. :) Nothing new to report other than feeling bigger and starting to feel more and more ready to have a baby around. We're trying to spend a lot of time together as a family of three while Mike is on Christmas break knowing it'll all change soon.

Mike and I also celebrated our 4th anniversary last night. We went out for a nice dinner and then finished up some last minute Christmas shopping while my sister watched Logan. It was so nice to be able to have a conversation and eat a meal without having to help feed someone else or talk over a babbling toddler but we certainly were ready to be back with her when it was over. It's been a crazy four years, but it's been wonderful! We're ready for another 4 and beyond.

Logan's been feeling very affectionate lately. She loves giving the baby kisses and letting people know it's her brother in there. Hopefully she'll feel just as affectionate when he comes and we won't face the crazy jealous toddler syndrome that we hear so much about. :)

Tried And True

The box wins the affection of the child instead of the bazillion gifts that were inside.

28 Weeks

Only about 12 weeks until we meet this little guy! This week I hit the third trimester mark--where did that second trimester go? I had so much energy and got so much accomplished it just FLEW by! So far, I haven't felt any loss of energy, though. I've been cleaning like crazy, anytime I stop to relax, I can find something that I haven't taken a brush to. It's nice because the house is relatively (to me) clean all the time, but it also drives me a little crazy knowing I can't sit still for two seconds.

This baby can MOVE! He likes to go from head down to sideways and he's starting to run out of room to do it so it's just uncomfortable now. Thankfully, he's still not active at all during the night so I'm sleeping wonderfully. I need all the rest I can get with a crazy active toddler running around! Speaking of...she wanted in on the action today: