Logan grinds his teeth right before he's ready to throw up.

Don't ask me how I know this.

22 Months

Oh, my heart is happy today because Logan reached an important stage...he reached the "Goofy Smile" stage. You know the stage, we all went through it. It's the stage where mom and dad say "Smile, so I can take your picture!" and this is what we get: I love it! I wasn't sure at what age this actually started, but evidently it's around 22 months. It can stick around for the next 2 months, but this stage must be over by his 2 year pictures. I don't like it THAT much.

At 22 months, Logan is definitely an explorer. He loves to get into anything and everything. He loves to push the limits and is definitely going through an "independent" stage. Tomorrow, we will take down his pack-n-play because he no longer enjoys being confined to such a small space.

He still loves his pacifier, so we're having a little trouble letting that go. He still loves books. He also likes guns and swords. He has been watching the movie "Batman" the past week. I don't necessarily approve of this "dark" type of action for such a little guy, but you know, daddy gets a say in some of this stuff, too.

My house has never been messier; my heart has never been fuller. To me, it's hands-down worth the messy house. I simply can't keep up with him and everything else. But I don't mind.

Logan, we love you more today than we did yesterday. I had no idea we would love you this much. I had no idea how much happiness you would bring into our lives. I had no idea how much joy we would feel and how much gratitude to God we would feel with you in our lives. I can't believe that you will be 2 in just 2 short months. Wow.

Climber

I love (most of the time) that Logan likes to push himself so that he can see/do something different, like climbing the fence so that he could see the guy trimming a tree.

On a totally unrelated subject, I also love that within about 10 seconds of him waking up this morning, he yelled "MEAT!" What can I say? The kid loves to eat meat!

My Other Baby

Remember my other baby, Charlie? He still does adorable stuff like this, sleeping in the dryer. (I have NO idea why he started doing this just today...he's never done it before!)

Logan loves to torture him. He will find his collar laying around and will chase him all over the place saying "Char Char! Char Char!"

Often in the evening when I'm snuggling with Logan to get him to calm down for bed, Charlie will jump up on the couch with us and will all lay there together. It's hard for me to move even an inch, but I love it and it fills my heart with joy!

I can't wait until Logan gets a big boy bed and Charlie will sleep in there with him. I know he will, because whenever we have my nephews or Zeb's cousins over, Charlie likes to sleep with those boys, so I'm sure if he could jump in Logan's crib, he would! I am so happy that these two like each other!!

New Outfit

Dear Great Grandpa & Great Grandma Johnston --

Thank you for the new outfit that you sent me. I love the dinosaur on the front. I wish that you could see me wear it in real life, but I guess that these pictures will have to do for now. I love you!

Love, Logan

Little Helper

Logan unloaded the case of Diet Coke and put them one by one in the refrigerator.
Each time, he would open the drawer, put the can in and then shut the drawer.

But he left the door open the whole time. When the alarm went off on the door (for being open too long), Logan said, "What's that?"

He is really becoming a good helper and I love it! We try to assign him little tasks, that we know he can do to help him understand that he can contribute to the family. He is very proud when he finishes a job.

And after all his hard work, he got a treat of organic apple juice. We'll save the Diet Coke that may-or-may-not eat the lining of your stomach for the parents :)
The best part...I got to sit back and "supervise" and take pictures. I can't wait until he can wash dishes and vacuum the floors!

Batman

Come to think of it, I have never seen Logan and Batman in the same room...

This is how Batman flies...or whatever it is Batman does...

Yesterday, it rained really hard. Logan and I spent quite a while staring out the front windows watching the rain gushing down. I love seeing things through his eyes, like everything is new.

Here are some random thoughts:

*Dear Logan, tonight, I saw you sneak that blueberry during prayer before supper.

*While Logan and daddy were going outside to play tonight after supper, Logan says to me, "Bye! Miss you!"

*I love that Logan is interested in toys that a month or two ago, he had no interest in or didn't know how to work. Every new discovery is followed by a "oh my!" "oh wow!" "oh cute!" or "awww dude!"

*He plays house at the babysitter's (have I metionted this already??). I love that he already kinda gets the family structure. He's always the little boy and has a "sissy" and a "mommy" there.

*He loves to eat oatmeal for breakfast every morning. He will run down the hallway and scream "OATMEEEEAAAALLLLL."

*Tonight for supper, he ate: blueberries, strawberries, lettuce, cheese, chicken and peppers.

*I often hear a little boy yelling "Mommy!" when I am in another room and he is looking for me.

*We bought him a toy computer, which he calls his "peo." I love that he uses English for some words, but some words are all his own.

*He is nothing, if not polite. The other day, he was crying because he was hurt and my mom handed him a toy and through his tears, he said, "Thank you."

*It is not even right how just when I'm trying to get after him for something, he looks at me and my heart melts. NOT FAIR.

Last Week

Last weekend, we met our friends from Chicago at Amish Acres. It's about a 1 1/2 hour drive for us and about 2 hours for them. I just snapped a few pictures. Zeb took more. But here are the ones I took:

Being with friends is just plain good for the soul. We miss them so much, even though with modern technology we can talk several times a day. We were only together for a few hours, but it was good.

(Thanks to Aunt Michelle for his adorable outfit!!)

Logan's First Haircut

It can't be possible...here is Logan's last picture before his haircut. He wasn't sure what was going on.... But oh, look at the cool fish on this cape!
Aunt Tammy sprayed his hair with some water and he thought that was funny.
And then, she let him hold the water bottle...and the rest is history.


Well, almost...I guess he decided to intercept the mission. And me, being the focused picture-taker that I am, decided to snap some pictures instead of try to prevent my son's fingers from getting chopped off.
But the result...oh, the result was well worth it....here he is being silly --

And here he is being so adorable...and grown-up. My dad said that once Logan got his first haircut, it would take him on that last step from looking like a baby to looking like a little boy, and I would have to agree! Ahhhh, I love it!

"If You're Happy and You Know It"

I realized after we posted this, that I probably should have sung quieter...sorry that you have to listen to my voice :)

Untitled from Amy Johnston on Vimeo.

New Week

We have been so busy lately. Logan is doing so much new (and adorable!) stuff, but we're busier than ever chasing after him. Seems that when all he did was lay around and "coo," I had tons of time to blog about that. Now, that he's actually doing STUFF, I have no time! Right now, he's carrying unopened cans of diet Coke from the box of 24 to the table. He lines them all up and then once they are all on the table, he puts them all back in the box. It's keeping him busy for a while!

Last week, Logan got to spend a lot of time with our family from Alabama. Of course, he loved all of the attention!!

I never think it's possible, but we fall more in love with this little man every day. He is quite the entertainer/comedian and silly boy. He loves to joke with us (hiding something, and saying "where is it?!") and hiding himself under a blanket to scare us. I was thinking just the other day how we actually communicate with him now. We can understand most of his requests (yes, at this age, our communication is simply him requesting things of us and vice versa!). He will pretty much say any and every word we ask him to EXCEPT for "I love you" (which he's only said once or twice) and his own name. He still doesn't like the numbers four and five, so he avoids them mostly, but he can say them. We have to be increasingly conscious of the words we use, how we use them and how loud our voices are. Zeb and I were having a "discussion" the other day and Logan thought that it was okay to raise his voice as well. He serves as a reminder to us to guard our words and our actions, as we are constantly being watched by little eyes.

I have several other pictures that I will try to post throughout the week, but I'm not making any promises! Time slips away so quickly and I'd rather be enjoying the time than writing about it!

July 7

Go back and read this post about why July 7 is such a special day to us.

Praising God today.

Boys

We just love it when these boys come to town.

Logan is in HEAVEN. They show him so much attention and they are so great with him. For instance, I overheard Russell reading to him in his room and then teaching him how to pick up his toys! Tonight, Zeb and Dalton made supper while Russell watched Logan and I actually sat down for a couple minutes and relaxed! What a treat for me!

As far as I'm concerned, these boys can stay around forever...but their mama might miss them. Unfortunately for us, they're only here for the week. But I appreciate the things they teach Logan while they are here and I hope he grows up to be as great as they are!

My Colorful World

Logan brings color and life to our world, and what represents color better than crayons? He really loves crayons...especially loves to eat them!! We've been working on this and trying to teach him how to color. He's catching on. So much so, that he colored on the refrigerator and the kitchen tile. Now, I'm one of those paranoid mothers who tries to have him within my view at pretty much every moment. HE'S FAST! Although I watched him color on the tile and the refrigerator, I was not fast enough to stop it. Here is Logan learning that his actions do have consequences.

He kinda thought cleaning it up was fun. Not much of a punishment I guess.

And this, dear friends, is just another part of our colorful world. On any given day, this is a variation of what our living room looks like. If I stop to think about it, it might drive me crazy, but really, it's pretty colorful to me. It takes Logan about 1.5 seconds to take a room from clean to this:

I do love color!

21 Months + 1 Day

I had this written yesterday, but we lost our internet connection and I lost part of this post, but here it is anyways:

Throughout the day, a hundred different things run through my mind that I should write about, but whenever I sit down to write, the number one thing that comes to mind is just how extremely happy Logan makes our lives. He's doing so much these days...learning something new practically every day. He repeats what we say more and more, he can count like a pro (well, he still won't say 4 or 5 -- go figure!), he loves to sing and dance and especially loves to make lion sounds to scare his mommy! If he is in the kitchen with his daddy, daddy can tell him to "go find mommy in our bedroom" and he will go find me. We can tell him to go to his room for a diaper change and he will go. He still uses a pacifier, although we're thinking of ending that soon :) He is still learning to use a spoon and can pretty much drink from a cup without a straw or a top...but he ALWAYS dumps it on himself, so we stick with the sippy cup! He favors his left hand while eating and coloring, but he does use his right hand. He is going to bed later and later. He typically goes to sleep between 8 - 9 (it's never consistent anymore). He still gives me kisses and pats my back when we hug. One of his new favorite cartoons is called "Little Bill." It's so cute to hear him say "Little Bill." We don't watch Shrek as much anymore, but that's mostly because we are outside every chance we get! (not that I was sorry to take a break from Shrek!!!)



Tonight, we ate supper, played outside and then we came inside to eat a brownie. We all sat down at the table and Logan realized we hadn't prayed (we prayed before the meal, but not before dessert). So, he prayed. And said "amen." Then, he prayed again. And again. MELT. MY. HEART. Of course we all stopped (his grandpa and his Aunt Rachael were with us) to pray with him each time.



He loves to sing "If You're Happy and You Know It." He has really loved the few times that he's spent with the children in Sunday School and Wednesday night Bible study. Tonight, he realized that the neighbors have children (they are 13 and 10 and those kids are NEVER outside until tonight). We've lived here almost 4 years and I've never met them! But Logan was staring at them in between the fence, so we went over and introduced ourselves. He loves other children, no matter what age they are!


But this sweet boy, fills our life with so much joy. I'm not sure I laughed every day before he came into our lives. I laugh every day now. Do you laugh every day? How precious is a little life that makes two people (at least...probably more on an average day) laugh and smile. Don't get me wrong, happiness in my life is not contingent upon Logan, but he certainly makes life sweeter. On the mornings when I wake up tired, I am suddenly inspired by his smile. I continually glance at the clock throughout the day thinking about how excited he will be when I pick up him (and how excited I'll be to pick him up). He brings so much joy our lives!

I guess I should mention that he is also going through, you know, the "terrible twos" in a big way. Like hitting things with his toy golf club, falling to his knees when we're walking through the store and refusing to walk, basically refusing to sit still for any extended period of time, throwing anything and everything....the usual. Fortunately, my rose-colored glasses help me to overlook all of these things, for the most part, and focus on all of the happiness.