18 Months

Logan is now 18 months old. First off, here are his stats:

24 lbs 8 oz--25th percentile

32.75"--50th percentile

I don't remember his head measurement but it was around the

50th percentile as well.

Logan passed all of the developmental questions--can he stack 4 blocks, can he eat with a spoon, etc.--except one. They asked us if Logan knew if he was a boy or girl. Ben and I just looked at eachother and the nurse said, "If you asked him if he was a boy or girl, will he tell you he is a boy?" We responded with, "we have never asked him that question!" It caught both of us so off guard. I don't think we have even thought about teaching him if he is a boy or girl. I mean of course we tell him he is a good boy but not sure he has caught on to his gender yet. Guess we will have to work on that.

Logan now has 10 teeth and still getting some more. I keep wondering when all of this teething stops. Here are some of his favorite things at this age:

Watching Finding Nemo--he just loves this show. He will watch him almost all the way through if he is tired. It never fails though that he asks to watch it at least once a day. If you ask him where Nemo lives he will say "in an-a-nen-no-o-me" . I think it is so cute.

Driving his Little Tikes car--we were able to aquire this classic toy from a coworker who was looking to get rid of it as her kids are older now. We couldn't have been happier to take it. Logan just loves this car and takes all of this toys for rides in it.

Playing in the water--we have a little swimming pool that we often fill up for Logan to play in during the day. He gets a kick out of splashing you with the water. I won't complain though when it is 95 degrees. We also took him the South Ogden splash park awhile back with his cousins that live out of state. We had a lot of fun.

Dancing in the living room--he loves to turn on Ben's iPod and dance in the living room. His dancing usually consists of rocking back and forth between his left and right left with an added spin here and there. Classic moves.

Seeing his friends at daycare--everyday that Logan goes to daycare he recites the names of the kids in his class in the car (Jacob, Kiera, Jada, Abby). I love that he has so much fun there and knows all the kids by name.

Helping his dad--Logan tries to immitate just about everything his dad does. We have been doing quite a few yard projects this summer and Logan loves this trailer of my dads. He spent about an hour just walking up and down it one afternoon throwing lava rocks off the top. Needless to say, this is what he looked like afterwards--nice look, don't you think?
Playing with bubbles--what kid doesn't love to do this? He is now able to actually blow bubbles on his own though which makes it that much more exciting. When he gives up on that though we usually go to just spreading the bubble stuff on his legs like lotion--just stickier.

Here are some words Logan knows (I don't think I could write them all down but wanted to have a list of some of them): Mommy, Daddy, Nanan (Cayman), Papa, Grandma, Grandpa, bubbles, doggie (which often sounds like daddy), kitty, door, teeth, tummy, potty, bum, duck, hot dog, applesauce, cheese, watch, park, golf, football, Nemo, Dory, Jeff, Oscar, tummy, hair, cute, nose, eyes, ears, mouth, shoes, shorts shirt, jacket, fish, cracker, cookie, treat, snack, craisens (yes this is one of his favorite snacks), walk, drive, go, car, please, thank you, nap, no, Roo (his nickname for his Aunt Rachel), duck, giraffe, elephant, hippo, juice, milk, up, sit down, pick up, dirty, and many more I am sure I am forgetting.

A much needed vacation

To celebrate Ben's graduation I planned a little suprise trip to Moab. I needed his help with all the packing and what not so I have him some clues as to where we were going and then told him our final desitnation a few days before we left. Here are a few highlights of our trip.

1. Ben forgot to pack our tent. We checked into our campsight, pulled into our spot and discovered we had no tent. I just laughed. Ben at the time did NOT think it was very funny. We decided it would be cheapest (since we are very cheap right now) to go in to town and buy a new tent. So we packed everything back up and went and bought us another tent (we already own two--so if someone is in need of a new tent let me know.) Logan of course loved the tent and loved playing in it.
2. Logan slept through the first night without a peep. We were both just amazed at how well he did. Such a good little sleeper.
3. Hiking to Partitian Arch. This is one of my favorites. I love that you can sit on the other side of the arch and just overlook the park. Since we had a mobile child this time, however, we didn't opt to go sit on the other side of this arch. It was still beautiful though. Here we are at Partitian Arch and the view behind us is what you see through the arch (it is hard to get the arch and everything into the picture). We also encountered Landscape arch on the way up which is always a favorite. Wall Arch had recently collapsed so the trial is redirected around the fall. You basically climb straight up this rock wall. It was steep for a few minutes but not too bad. You can kind of tell in this picture how steep it was.
4. Finding cheese. On our hike to Partitian Arch, Logan saw this wall and said "cheese." It does look like cheese but it made us laugh.

5. Swimming at the camp site. After our hiking the first day we came back to camp and utilitized the swimming pool. Logan was a bit hesitant this time of the swimming experience. The water was pretty chilly though so once he got used to it he enjoyed himself. I was amazed at how white his hair and skin looked in the pool. He is very much a toehead. 6. Hiking to Delicate Arch. No matter how many pictures you see of this arch it just isn't the same as seeing it in person. I was proud we made it up this hike. Ben carried Logan the whole trip and we were both suprised at how well Logan did. He loved to say hi to all the passing hikers. We met a nice couple from Michigan at the top who took our picture and we hiked all the way down with them. Logan loved being a ham with them. Isn't this just a wonderful photo of all of us?

The nice lady who volunteered to take our picture at Delicate arch didn't get the arch in the background so I was attempting to do so and prove that we did it.

7. Playing in the car. Logan loved to play in the car while we were packing and what not. I was amazed at some of things he was trying to do like put the car into drive--thankfully he never succeeded and we were always watching him. We found a few new buttons after he played in there and things didn't work as they usually did but we fixed them all.

8. Matching hiking shoes. I found these cute shoes for Logan and just had to get them as they remind me of Ben's. They are wonderful at protecting his feet which is often needed at this age. 9. Just having some family bonding time. Ben was pretty nervous about this trip and how Logan would do but, as always, Logan suprised us and was such a trooper. We were able to just stay flexible and relaxed. I am always amazed at how fast vacations go by and how quickly I want another one to come.

He did it!

It is official, Ben is now a graduate! He graduated on Friday, May 8th with a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design.

Ben and his family.

Ben with my family.

We couldn't be more proud of this guy. He has worked so hard the last four years. He truly gave his all and we are so proud of him. I don't think I could even tell you how many hours he spent on all of his projects. All I can say is it paid off. I think Ben is glad to be done and now we are off on a much needed family vacation to celebrate!

Wicked

My mom, Ben and I spent about 5 hours back in October getting tickets to this musical. We had two laptops and two phones going at our house. When we finally got through we were extatic and ended up purchasing tickets for all of our family. Our tickets were for closing night which was last night! Before the play we all went to PF Changs. I love that restaurant. Our group was pretty big and I wish I could have talked with everyone a bit more. The play was just wonderful. I had seen it before but loved it just as much this time. I love musicals and have been humming the music all day. I love that this musical is more about friendship than love. For those of you who haven't seen this I highly recommend it.

Escape Artist and Another Virus

The last few weeks our dog has been having some seperation issues. Or so we think. We usually leave him in our bedroom when we go to work and he recently has started trying to open the door. He even pulled down a curtain we had up in the bathroom trying to escape. So we decided he lost his privelege of being loose and put him in his kennel the other day. Well when I came home Cayman was running around the house. I went upstairs and this is what I found....

And this is what he had to say about it.....

I think he was quite proud. To say the least Ben and I are a bit baffled as why he is all of the sudden exhibiting this behavior. Nevertheless, we still love him and are trying to figure it out. In the meantime he is back to being loose in our bedroom until we can fix his kennel.

Our other child has come down with yet another virus. This one hit him hard. We have several days of this.....

this...

this.....

and more of this....

Thankfully we think we are moving on to more days like this......
....sitting on the stairs, one of his new favorite games.

Easter

I have been looking forward to Easter for quite some time this year. I love to plan fun little holiday things and having a kid to do things with is even better. So here is a run down of our events and yes I realize it has been like three weeks since then.

On Saturday we met my family up at the local IHOP for an Easter breakfast. We then went up to their house where the Easter bunny had visited. He brought Logan this lawn mower bubble blower along with a book, some crayons and some treats. He loved the mower. He just kept walking around their house with it.

We then decided to try to hide some eggs for him and see how he would do. I was quite impressed with how well he did. He definitely knew what he was looking for. His uncle Jeff was designated as the egg opener. Logan would keep taking all the eggs to Jeff to open them. His eggs contained m-n-m's and teddy grahams. Logan had a previous encounter with m-n-m's at his dad's birthday and just loves them so he was very excited when he got to have them again.

That night we died our easter eggs. Logan had a blast coloring on the eggs with the crayons. His dad had fun making all sorts of artsy designs on the eggs. Because we are having camera issues, I unfortunately don't have any pictures of them but they turned out wonderful.

Easter morning the Easter Bunny brought Logan a bucket and shovel along with some bubbles. That morning we went outside and had another small hunt, this one was mostly for our dog Cayman. We hide them and put dog treats in the eggs for him. He then runs around the yard and finds the eggs, opens them and eats the treat. Logan even helped Cayman find a few of them.

We then got all dressed in our Easter clothing and headed to church. After that we went to the Ellis home for dinner and the annual egg roll. Every year we hide all the hard boiled eggs for the kids and after they find them we then roll them down the driveway. This usually ends up in an egg fight, however, this year it seemed to be hardly a fight at all. Logan thought this tradition was lots of fun. He loved throwing the eggs down the driveway and he also enjoyed helping pick up the egg pieces when we were done. What a good helper.

Besides Logan having way too many m-n-m's it was such a fun holiday.

New Do

Logan had his first haircut the other day. I am so lucky to have my sister-in-law as a hairstylist to help me out. I really am not so good at this boy hair thing.

Logan wasn't too happy with her. He had just woken up from his nap hence the binky. He started to cheer up when we were leaving. She even tried to bribe him with a sucker but he wouldn't even try it.
She actually cut quite a bit off but when I was trying to gather some up there wasn't much to pick up. His hair is really fine right now. I was a little nervous that he wouldn't look like a little kid after his haircut but was refreshed to see that he still does (or to me at least).

Thanks again Jana for the great haircut and styling tips. I owe it to you!