Christmas 2009

So I know I am a little late (ok more than a little) but still want to have this documented. We spent Christmas Eve up at my parents house and had dinner with our friends. We never see each other expect for this event and its always fun to catch up. Logan loved playing with their girls and was hamming it up big time. We had them all sit and Logan just kept saying "cheese" as loudly and as silly as he could.

He also got a special visit from Santa that evening. He hadn't met the jolly man yet and was definitely unsure as every 2 year old is. He did warm up to him after Santa revealed his candy cane treats.

Hanging out with his favorite Aunt Roo! Ben and I have started a tradition of giving eachother pajamas on Christmas Eve so that we have new jamies to wear on Christmas morning. Here is a picture of Logan opening his pajamas from the Christmas Elves. My favorite part was that he held the shirt up to himself and said cute without any help from us.

One of my other favorite traditions is Ben gets Logan and I a Christmas tree ornament each year. This year he gave me one with a graduation cap to symbolize both of us being all done with school in 2009. He gave Logan a Snoopy camping ornament since he just loves Snoopy and camping.

I then went to the Christmas Eve service at my parents church while Ben stayed home with Logan. We stayed the nights at my parents house this year and woke up in the morning to open up our stockings. I think some of Logan's favorite toys came from his stocking including his nemo phone....
and a Thomas the train engine named Ben.....
When we were done with stockings we went to see what Santa brought us. Logan got a basketball hoop and a little table (that we didn't give him till the next day since he got so spoiled). Ben got a smoker and I got a sewing machine. We decided this year to give eachother a much needed new camera. We purchased a Canon XS20 IS which is a glorified digital camera with some SLR functions. Our old camera wouldn't stay charged so it has been nice to have a camera to capture moments and one of my resolutions for 2010 is to be better at taking pictures.

Here is Logan helping his daddy open presents. He definitely lost interest after awhile and just wanted to go play with some of the toys he had opened.
I love this picture of him playing with his puppets!
After we were done with presents, Logan and Cayman both crashed before we headed down to Ben's family for more festivities.

We hung out with Ben's family for part of the afternoon. Logan loved seeing all of his cousins and their cool toys including this cool toy....

We got him to sit still to catch a few shots of us with him. We then went back up to Ogden to enjoy Christmas dinner and more presents with the cousins.

Logan was so wired by this point. I couldn't get him to hold still for a picture. He loved helping with paper control and just running around. This is the best shot I could get of him and its still a bit mid action.

When we finally made it home after all the festivities Logan cuddeled up with my mom's new cat Mike. He was so excited that Mike would sit next to him. He is such a sweet cat.

The day after Christmas we took it easy and just played with all of our toys. Logan broke out his playdough and opened some gifts that we didn't open on Chritmas.

We are so grateful to all of our wonderful family. We had such a wonderful Christmas. I know the day can be crazy but we enjoy getting to see everyone.

Cookie Night

Our Christmas festivites began with our annual cookie making party. Every year we get together with our cousins and make lots of yummy holiday cookies. It was fun this year that Logan was old enough to actually decorate some cookies. And that he did. The sprinkles were his favorite part, of course.

First he had to taste them to make sure they were ok.
Then once he determined they were ok he would start to sprinkle away....
....and keep going.........to create these beautiful creations! I think there are more sprinkles than frosting but hey he had fun.
When he got bored with the sprinkles he then went to help his grandma with rolling and cutting out cookies.
Here is a picture of just some of the cookies we made that night. It really is crazy how many we bake but the crazier part is they all seem to be consumed!

Logan's Stocking

In preperation for the holidays I decided to make Logan a stocking this year. My mom had made me a stocking when I was a little girl and when Ben and I got married I made him a stocking to match mine. I, therefore, thought it was time to make one for Logan.

I decided to put a reindeer in the center of his stocking and just made up a pattern for it. I was impressed with how cute it turned out. Here is a picture of how it turned out....

And here is what they all look like together. I wouldn't have been able to make this without my mom's help (and sewing machine). I love that our cute family all has matching stockings now. When Logan's stocking was finished and I hung it up at home he came and asked me "what's that". I told him it was his stocking and he said "cute!" That was enough to make me feel good about the work I put in to it.

Hawaii--Day 8 and 9

On day 8 the boys decided to take SUP (stand up surfing) lessons. We had seen several locals doing this each morning from our house and the boys thought it would be easier to do than surfing. So we got there first thing in the morning and they got their instructions.....
.....and then went to try out their moves. They both did really well and only fell off a few times when trying to turn. Their instructor then convinced them both to come back and try surfing later that day. They both did so great at this as well. They got some waves and were able to ride them in. They were pretty far out in the ocean so I wasn't able to get pictures of them surfing but here if Ben afterwards carrying his board to shore. I think they wished they would have taken these lessons earlier so they could have experimented with it more at our beach home (there was a surf board at our house).


That night we took it easy and just hung out at our beautiful beach home. There was a wheelbarrow at the house and Logan loved to play with it on the patio. The funny part was that is was pretty small so he would squat down and walk around like this...... It was quite amusing to us.

Our last day in Hawaii we got up and went to breakfast and then headed to Turtle Beach. This had to be the most beautfiul day that we were there. The ocean was crystal clear which made for good turtle watching.
We had seen several turtles close to our beach home and we saw several more at this beach. It was amazing to watch them swimming only a few feet away. If we would have stayed a little longer the turtles would have come up on the land during the afternoon but we had to head back home to get ready to leave. Can you see the turtle in the picture above?


Before leaving we all had to go get in the ocean one last time. The best thing about this time was that Logan finally decided that he wanted to get in. Before now he was a little intimidated by the waves, but not today. he would keep pointing out further into the office and telling us to go 'out there.' We finally had to take him out because it was starting to get cold. Kindof ironic that on the last day there he finally warmed up to the ocean.

This is one of the last pictures we took in Hawaii and I think it sums up our trip nicely. We had such a great time. We had a few more delays coming home but nothing like our flight out there.


Logan had a hard time adjusting when we got home but after a few days he was back to normal. We are so lucky to have been able to go here. I always feel like vacations like this go back too quickly. It seems like you try to savor it when there but then its over in a flash. I hope we are able to go back here someday, I am already craving another chocolate covered pineapple.

Hawaii--Day 5-7

The 13th was my sister's birthday and she decided she wanted to go and hike Diamond Head. We all got up early and drove to the other side of the island to do this hike. It wasn't too bad of a hike and Logan enjoyed walking for a lot of it. It was pretty narrow though so it was hard to let people pass us cause he walks slow. The worst part of the hike was the 100 stairs or so at the very end that just went straight up. We all did it and got some great views of the island from the top. After we were done hiking we went to a local shrimp truck for lunch. Ben and I really don't like seafood but I braved it and tried some pineapple shrimp and thought it was pretty good. They didn't have any fried shrimp which is usually more up my ally. We then spent the rest of the day playing in the ocean and celebrating my sister's birthday at our wonderful house (Logan was kind of melting down by this point and we decided he just needed some down time). She turned the big 30 in Hawaii and we got her a cake from Tom's Bakery (the best bakery on the island supposedly).


The next morning we went to visit the Dole Plantation which was only a few minutes from our home. I think this was one of Logan's favorite places we visited as a lot of the activities were geared towards him. He loved feeding the fish.... ...riding the Dole train .....and putting his head through the pineapple cutout.

And his mom loved the chocolate covered pineapple. This was one of the highlights of the Hawaii trip to me. It was sooooo good. I also loved learning how pineapples grow. I had no idea they grew on small bushes like this. You learn something new everyday.
The only thing we didn't love about the Dole Pineapple Plantation was that our rental car got broken into. We didn't even notice until we got in the car to go horseback riding a few hours later. We went to plug in our iPod only to find and our GPS missing. All in all they stole two iPods, a GPS and prescription sunglasses. So frustrating. If you every go to Hawaii, take the signs about not leaving personal belongings in the car seriously.

After the Dole Pineapple Plantation we had reservations to go horseback riding on the other side of the island. It was so beautiful. The North Shore is a bit more desert looking. It doesn't get as much rain as the east side of the island. Here are a few pictures from our horse back ride. There were several movies filmed on this location. For example, 50 First Dates and Jurassic Park were filmed here. While we were horseback riding, my mom and dad stayed at the beach house and built a sand castle with Logan. He loved playing in the sand and helping fill and dump the buckets. The next day we went to Waimai Falls. It was a beautiful park with a trail to a waterfall. Even better you could actually get in the little spring at the base of the waterfall and swim right up to it. The water was pretty cold at first but felt so good once you just got in. Logan hadn't really wanted anything to do with the ocean up to this point but it was all we could do to keep him from swimming out into this spring.

After our hike, we went to check to Waimai beach which looked pretty calm from the main road. We were hoping it would be calmer so that Logan could get in a play. The sand at this beach was just beautiful but boy were we mistaken about it being a calm beach. There was a drop off just a few feet out that would send waves straight up right before they hit the beach. Many people enjoyed getting thrown around by these strong waves. Logan and I mostly sat on the beach and watched.