Two Year Old

It has been a great weekend. My best friend came to stay with us for a few days, and it was amazing. It's a complete treat for me to have someone in the house who is willing to play with/entertain Logan, constantly pick up all the toys and just be there for random girl conversation. Don't get me wrong, Zeb's great...but sometimes I think a 3rd parent would just be perfect :) But in all seriousness, having her here was so wonderful. I miss her already.

This was the first time that Logan was actually able to interact (we only see her about twice a year), so he was loving it...he called her "Sem" (her name is Sam)....and they were pals. She's going to be a great mom someday! Leave it to the fun "Aunt" to bring the finger paints for the little guy. But hey, she cleaned up the mess, so I'm not complaining! (She's great in all the ways that I'm not...you know, cleaning things up, keeping things tidy, etc.)

We had lots of family time this weekend. And I have started to realize that I really love having a two year old. He is so funny and fun to be with. Here are some random things about him...

*He calls trucks "twucks." And sometimes, he adds a few extra "u's" so it's "twuuuuucks." I love to hear him say it. *One of his recent memory verses was "God is strength." Today, he was pulling at a string on a blanket and said, "God is string. Good Job."

*He's been wearing a bandaid on his toe since the toe nail did fall off. Today, the bandaid (with he calls binday) came off and I heard him say to himself. "Oh no. Binday. Owie. Kiss it. Okay." (then I heard the kissing sound as he kissed his own foot.

How grown up does he look in this next picture? See that sweatshirt? Size 4T. Tonight, oh tonight....it was one of my favorite moments as a parent (now that it's over). His Sunday School class sang a song at church. They all got on stage and Logan's eyes just lit up when he saw all of the musical instruments on stage. I held my breath, just praying he would not go knocking them over. And then, he spotted the microphones. They had some technical difficulties with the CD, so the kids were just waiting up there. Logan was pretty much the only one who wouldn't stand still. He just kept looking at everything, looking at everyone, lifting his shirt up, bending down, etc. All of this kept up once the music started, but
once the music started, so did his dancing. I was wearing a red shirt, and I'm pretty sure that my face was as red as my shirt! I was laughing, but also praying that he wouldn't jump right off the stage or ruin any of the equipment.

A lot of people saw him eyeing the microphones. I think they all thought he was going to grab one, too...but he never did. I really regret that I didn't bring my video camera.

He went on the potty again this weekend, and once again, once he started going, I yelled and then it scared him and he stopped. Poor little guy. I need to learn to hide my excitement so that he can just go in peace. I think I'm making it harder on him than it should be!

We have a regular, uneventful week coming up. I can't wait!!!!!!!!

Home.

I was a sucker for baby sleepers, but I'm happy to report that I'm just as in love with kids pajamas. Logan was so excited to wear his new Thomas the Train pjs tonight.
I am home...and I don't have to travel for a few weeks now. I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but I am honored to be a part of the Leadership Academy at work, which requires travel each month for six months. Add that to my normal travel which sporadically occurs, and you have the perfect storm of traveling. It's been a lot lately, and I'll be honest, it's hard on us. Actually, it's probably harder on me and Zeb than it is on Logan. Last night, he stayed with Grandpa & Grandma M. and he was thrilled! His cough is still hanging on (as is his rotten toe nail, but I think he's going to lose the nail before he loses the cough!).

Yesterday at the conference, I started getting sick. I missed out on the evening's events at the conference because I was in my room sleeping. I stayed for one session today and then headed home. The weather was awful. There were tornadoes around, but fortunately, I made it home. I'm feeling better tonight, which is surprising because I was SICK yesterday. I typically try to fight things off without too much medicine, but I was in no mood to fight anything, so I took some medicine, and it worked! I don't know why that surprised me, but when I started feeling better, I was seriously thinking, "Oh wow...I should try that more often!!!"


The travel last week and this week, so close together, has really taken a toll on me. I was so happy to be home. I honestly start to take our routine for granted and even start to dread it some days. But it just takes a little bit of time away to remember how great a routine is...how great it is to be in my messy house instead of in a neat hotel room thinking about how much I could be doing if I were at home.

Anyways, enough about me. Logan has been saying some funny things lately. My favorite is when we say something like, "Logan, stop doing that!" and he will reply, "I'm trying!" or "Logan, come here!" and he'll say, "I'm trying!" Makes us laugh every time! Tonight in the bath, he was doing his usual, acting like he's swimming while on his belly and he kept dunking his head and trying to drink the water (what is up with that?!) and Zeb would say, "Logan, stop it!" and Logan said, "I spit!" and would spit it out...like that makes it okay. Sometimes I think we'd be better off to just hose children off then actually put them in bath water.

It's good to be home!

Blah

We don't have time for sickness around our house (who does?), but it crept in this weekend. Logan was up so much during the middle of the night last night, and we're not sure why. He was coughing, but it definitely wasn't croup. He didn't have a fever. I do think his toe was bothering him, as it looks like his toe nail is about ready to come off, so of course, he hits it on everything and hurts it several times a day. Maybe it was a combination of all of him not feeling well and his cough/cold.

I'm not saying we were near death's door at all, but all of us were feeling blah today. We stayed in and rested and we're hoping for a better night. We've been giving Logan cough medicine, hoping that it will help combat what he's fighting. I'm not a big fan of medicine per se, although I must admit that it's so nice now that he's 2 and we can give him so many more over-the-counter drugs without worrying. Don't get me wrong, we use them sparingly...very sparingly, but for kids under 2, there's basically nothing you can give them. Logan enjoyed playing with my guitar today. What's that you say? He will probably break it? You might be right, but he was seriously so excited to be playing it, that I was happy to let him. It's safely put away now. He did not break it today. Perhaps another day.

Some of my favorite things from today:

*I had the hiccups and each time I would hiccup, Logan would say, "What's that noise?" and run over to me.

*Zeb went out to get some medicine at the store and Logan wanted to go with him. We told him that daddy would bring him home a surprise. So, Logan waited patiently. When daddy arrived home, Logan jumped on my lap and closed his eyes, awaiting his surprise. When daddy indicated that surprises at Walgreen's were outrageously expensive, he panicked and picked up one of Logan's existing toys and handed it to him. At first, Logan opened his eyes and did his excited "yay!" but then he recognized the toy and said, "No," and gave it back. I thought fast and remembered that I had picked up a package of dinosaurs at Target's clearance rack for .25 a few weeks ago, so daddy ran and got those and Logan was thrilled with his NEW toy. I guess that he's starting to catch onto things and we're going to have to become smarter with our interactions :)

I'm on the road again tomorrow...praying for health and safety for all of us, and looking forward to coming home, that's for sure!

Weekend

Well, I'm done with one part of traveling....heading out again first thing Monday morning. It's difficult, that's for sure.
A sweet lady from our church gave Logan this baseball mitt and ball. Logan looked at it and said, "I love you, Chuck E Cheese!" Logan had some fun playing with my cookie cutters today. It amazes me how he has so many toys, yet he finds random house stuff to be the most interesting to him.

In more exciting news, Logan went pee-pee on the potty today (yes, we say "pee-pee" at our house!). We've been working with him for a while, letting him just get used to sitting there, and if you recall, he has done the other on the potty twice so far. So, tonight, he was getting ready for his bath, and he decided to "go potty" as he calls just sitting there. Well, I heard the little trickling and started to scream with excitement. He thought he was doing something wrong (I need to learn to control my excitement!), but then he realized it was a good thing. This was a big step for us. I worry about potty training him since I'm not with him every day/every minute, but this was just a nice boost of encouragement for both of us :)

Logan has a scratchy voice, so I'm assuming he has a sore throat, although he was acting fine today. He has a cough, too. I'm particularly paranoid because it's been about a year since his first bout with croup, and I certainly have anxiety when I remember that from last year. Please say some prayers for him!

Another busy week ahead...but then we're looking forward to a few low-key weeks after that...

We'll make it through, one day at a time!

Sunday, Busy Week Ahead

The next time we will all be home on a weeknight will be next Tuesday night. We have a Revial meeting at our church today - Wednesday and I'm heading out of town at the end of the week. Next Monday & Tuesday, I also have to be out of town (but for all you crazies out there...our house will still be occupied...don't worry, I would never announce when our house would be empty!). I am also teaching two classes right now, Zeb is going full-force on his classes for his master's degree and we're both still working full-time. I'm tired. And it's only Sunday night. But I thought I needed to at least post some updated pictures of the best thing in our life....

I don't know when I'll be able to update next, so take care everyone!

This Evening

Zeb had class tonight. But I knew that this evening was just too much of a treasure to waste it by staying inside. So, as soon as we got home, Logan and I ate a few cookies to hold us over and off we went. We had exploring to do. It was just the two of us. We were on a mission to find ducks. Unfortunately, we did not find any ducks on our walk.

However, we did take our sweet time while on our mission and we had lots of opportunities to smile...really big...like this one.

We saw some motorcycles and some dogs and some cars...all very exciting for Logan. He was also excited to pick up rocks and sticks.

We did a lot of marching...

More smiles....

Logan has a Nemo tattoo for the next few days....he is so proud of it!

And at the very end of our walk, he overcame his fear of touching the light pole. During the walk, he would say, "I touch it," and then when we would get close, he would say, "No, no!" I think he was scared because it was so tall. But he finally touched one... And then everyone after that!

Once we got home, we headed right out back to play on his slide and in his sand box. But my camera battery was dying by then. My favorite part of the evening was when he was getting ready to go to sleep and he said, "We see bikes." He remembered what we had done. He must have enjoyed it as much as I did. Precious little boy.

French Lick, Bruised Toe and a Hayride

I had to go out of town for work on Thursday and Friday. Although I hate being away from home, I was very blessed this time...my trip was to French Lick, IN. WOW. The hotel was beautiful, and although the town of French Lick isn't much, the 2 hotels in the town are amazing. Unfortunately, it took me 5 hours to get home on Friday night because of traffic. But overall, it was a good trip. Here's a picture of my room:

Here is the hotel lobby:
And here is part of the outside of the hotel in which I stayed. I would love to be able to go back there sometime with Zeb and Logan!

I was so excited to see Logan when I got home around 8:00 p.m. on Friday night. I miss him so much when I am away. Of course, he was more than happy to entertain me...

Tonight, we had a hayride at the church. About 20 minutes before we left, Logan dropped a can of kidney beans on his toe (he was playing in the pantry, which he often does. The poor baby cried until we left the house 20 minutes later. I don't think he's ever cried that much when he's been hurt. He was cranky all night long and cried on and off -- not like him at all. However, I did happen to see him kicking a ball with his hurt foot when he was playing with his cousins...yet he limps????? But I do know it's sore...there's a picture of it at the end of this post. We felt so bad about it. I hate when silly things happen that could have been prevented.

But as you can see, there were some smiles tonight. It sure wasn't typical fall/hayride weather! It was hot enough to wear shorts although I wouldn't let Zeb wear shorts because I told him it was just plain wrong to wear shorts on a hayride! We didn't make Logan wear shoes tonight because of his hurt toe. So, he started out with a white pair of socks. By the time we got home, they were pretty much black with dirt!

I think this was the scariest ride Logan's been on to-date. See how he was holding his hands up in pure excitement?

Here's his poor little toe. Bless his heart. I hear him whining now in the bathtub (don't worry, his dad's watching him!)...but he's still just more whiney than usual tonight!

More Random Things

*Logan had his 2 year check up today. He's 37 1/2 inches tall (off the charts) and 30 3/4 pounds (80th percentile). He cried just a little bit when he had his shots, and the nurse said, "Okay, that's it." So, I told Logan to say "Thank you." It was the cutest thing hearing him say "Thank you" through his sobs. What a sweet boy.

*Since he did so great at the doctor's office, we went out for supper. When the lady came and asked us for our drink orders, without being prompted, he told the waitress, "milk." And then when she was taking our meal orders, he said, "pizza." I don't know if he's ever really had pizza. He didn't get it tonight either, but it was so cute that he understood what was going on.

*At the restaurant, he was given a yellow balloon. He let the balloon go in about 1 minute.

*It's not always fun eating at a restaurant with a toddler, but tonight, it was thoroughly enjoyable. I've heard that once a child turns two, the "terrible twos" are over for the most part. Perhaps that is true. I hope so.

*We hadn't bought Logan a gift for his birthday yet, so tonight, we bought him a musical instrument set. Hours of fun, I tell you.

*We have a pretty busy week, and I have to go out of town for work at the end of this week...about 4 hours away. I'm not looking forward to the drive or being away from my little man. Please pray for safety for me and pray that Logan and daddy will have an easy time without me here!

Remember When...

There is a country song that has the line "Remember when...the sound of little feet was the music we danced to week to week..." I cry almost every time I hear that song, and tonight, as Logan's little feet were pitter-pattering across our kitchen floor, I just started to cry. WE ARE LIVING IN THE MOMENTS THAT I WILL REMEMBER WHEN I'M EIGHTY. Seriously, THIS is the BEST time of my life. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that different things will happen throughout our life and we'll experience lots of joy. But these days, just the day-to-day, being together, loving on each other -- this is what is going to make my life worth living. I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS LITTLE BOY.

Don't get me wrong, it's not easy being the parents of a toddler. Tonight, he even said, "Dad, shut up!" (Daddy is starting to understand that Logan does listen to what we say!) But the joys certainly outweigh the difficulties, and I know that when we look back, we won't even remember the difficulties...well, we won't remember them as clearly, I'm sure :)

I want to remember that Logan calls himself Logie. I want to remember that sometimes, when he gets excited and cheers, he'll say "Mommy, Daddy, Logie!" really loud like we're all on the same team and he's cheering for us together.

This little one will probably have no idea how much joy he brings into our lives. What did we ever do without him?! Taking pictures just doesn't seem like enough to capture all of it...and I want to remember every moment. Thus, at the close of every day, I'm a little bit sad that there are things that I know I will forget. Even as I type this post, I'm certain that there are things that happened just today that are already gone from my memory.

I wish that I could carry around a video camera with me every second because let's face it, the best moments are the spontaneous ones.

Tonight, he was singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star...." but he replaced the word "Twinkle" with "Bible," so it was "Bible, Bible, little star." I don't know why I found that so amusing. I just don't want to forget it.

He was acting like a dog this afternoon (the above picture) and he also fed Charlie an M & M earlier today (Charlie's still alive, so we're hoping it didn't do any damage!)

I love everything about having a little boy. I hear a lot of people say that the clothes for little boys aren't as cute as the clothes for little girls. I disagree. I absolutely love the adorable clothes that you can purchase for little boys. And I wouldn't be one bit sad if I have a house full of boys one day. (Don't get me wrong -- I'd be equally happy to have a house full of girls one day...how about a house full of boys & girls?!)

I love how he will be sitting on a bench and then suddenly think it's a good idea to lay on the bench like this.

We have our moments when things seem impossible, but I am so thankful for this precious little boy who is going to be a big boy before we know it.