friday surprise

i love surprises! especially from my husband.

last friday dave surprised me by taking the day off of work. i had been whining/pleading all week that he should play hooky but he said he couldn't. it didn't even seem like my pouting was working (what?!). on friday morning he got up like usual, took a shower, dressed in his work clothes and headed out the door (i had been secretly hoping that friday morning would come and he would stay home). i will admit i fell back to sleep feeling a little bummed. suddenly i get a call from him that he forgot his wallet and was coming back home to pick it up. i got up to find it for him and suddenly he walked through the door with breakfast (i am a sucker for the ham/egg/cheese croissan'wich from burger king. don't judge me). it took a moment for it to register that he was back home to stay (and not just dropping off breakfast). talk about commitment to the surprise...waking up early (he has to leave for work by 6:45 am), showering, getting dressed in his work clothes. it was awesome!! we spent the day reading (we are hooked on harry potter), watching a movie, taking a nap and running some errands. it was perfect! i wish he had every friday off (luckily he does for the next 2 weeks)! i love you baby!

oh, there was also some wrestling. logan seems happy daddy was home too!

and more reading (and pointing out the fish...or "shish" if you are logan)

meeting santa

mr. and mrs. claus made an appearance at our ward christmas party. even though logan doesn't have stranger anxiety, we still thought he might be a little nervous meeting santa. but while we waited in line he would run up near mr. and mrs. claus and seemed fine, so i thought maybe we were wrong about our assumption.

or maybe not.
this is how it went down...

i have to say dave and i thought the whole thing was pretty funny. and doesn't every child need the classic screaming picture with santa?! hopefully next year will go better!
***
logan does like seeing pictures/decorations of santa. if you ask him what santa says he responds, "ho, ho" and he loves to point out "no-men" (snowmen). he is also quite enamored with the lights on our christmas tree and we find various ornaments scattered through the house!

thankful 2010

we had a wonderful thanksgiving with my family this year. my sister hosted my parents and us (and a couple other families) for dinner and it was delicious.

angela did a fantastic job with the table decorations

logan's appetizer (his dad's nose) before the big meal (which surprisingly he didn't eat much of. i think he preferred the caramel toffee dip. he would just suck it off the apple).

some final prep and the kids staying busy while waiting for dinner

once the food was out i was too distracted to take any pictures. it was all delicious though. i made mashed potatoes and if i do say so myself, they were yummy! they had cream cheese, whipped cream, whole milk and lots of butter, so i don't know how they couldn't be :)

logan wanted to join in the light saber fight

as always, i was grateful for a chance to slow down and reflect on all i've been blessed with. life isn't always easy, but i'm more than blessed and thankful for my incredible family, my faith, great friends, freedom (and food).

girls weekend in denver

a month ago (how has it already been one month?!) lindsay came into town from chicago to visit and it was the perfect excuse for us to have a girls weekend! it honestly felt like a weekend away even though i was in my own city the whole time! as soon as dave got home from work on friday i headed for heather's aunt's house, who was kind enough to let a bunch of girls invade her house. we ate, talked and crafted until late (and let's be honest, i mainly focused on the eating and the talking) and finally fell into bed around 3 am (which was a reminder to most of us that we just can't go to bed that late anymore!).

the next day we headed out to shop a bunch of cute shops on broadway (the kind you don't want to take your kids to for fear of knocking something over everywhere you walk). even though i've lived in denver my whole life i had never been to these shops. they were darling!


after a fantastic lunch, we headed to a swanky little salon for pedicures (and while my toes still look great, what place does a pedicure without some sort of foot massage?! i'm still sad i didn't get my foot massage. but not sad enough to pay the extra $15 they wanted for it)

after pedicures we headed to the denver art museum because it was free night. it was once again clear to me that i am not an art expert (no surprise there) as i looked at a lot of pieces in the museum and thought, "how the heck did that make it into a museum?!"

we had dinner downtown at la fondue and it was delicious! i seriously love fodue!

we ended our packed day with an improv show. it was hilarious!
thanks lindsay for coming into town, girls for a fun weekend and dave for holding down the fort!

while i played all day with the girls, my boys enjoyed a gorgeous day at the zoo with gammy and pappy

look alikes

logan at 16 months

at the end of a previous post i included a few things that logan has been up to lately, but i keep thinking of more so i decided 16 months deserved its own post! this is such a fun age. i feel like i say that about every age, but they all seem to be fun in their own way. logan talks a ton and for the most part i feel like we communicate pretty well. i usually know what he wants and i think he usually knows what i am saying to him. it's a lot of fun!

new words: cracker, mun-kee (monkey), ha-ha (for what the monkey says), hoo-hoo (for what the owl says), meow, cat, pic (pig), doot-doot (toot-toot, for the noise a train makes), bubbles, eye, one (the extent of his counting right now), house, nuts (snacks. fruit snacks to be exact), goldfish (the crackers), shoash (fish. funny that he says fish right when he says goldfish, but when it is fish alone he says soash), animals, ships (shapes. and sometimes it sounds like another not so appropriate word which makes us giggle), sissher (sister), mahk (mark, his uncle), myles (his cousin), bus, set-go (as in ready, set, go), toys (the second he gets to either of his grandparents' houses he is asking for toys), mik (milk), gock (clock), pillow, watson (his glo worm), bear, pjs, raisins, baa (for what a sheep says), all done

he also:

• he makes a blast-off noise and puts his arm straight up in the air when you ask him what a space shuttle does
• he holds his arm straight out (for the trunk) and makes an "elephant noise" when you ask him what the elephant says
  
• sound effects. he seems to constantly be making sound effects. it's hilarious. do girls do this too or is it just a boy thing?
• he has made up his own sign for "more" (similar to the actual sign language sign, but with his own twist on it)
  
• he has discovered sticks and stops to pick them up (and bang them on the sidewalk) as we walk from the car to the front door. this is usually accompanied with sound effects.
  
• points out buses when we are out and about
• thinks every letter is called "o"
• is obsessed with books. his favorites right now are "in a people house" (he brings it to me and says "house"), "the belly book" (the most random book we got in a set of books and he loves it), "one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish," any book about trucks. if you come to our house you will most likely find books scattered everywhere.
  
• when we read alphabet books he likes to try to repeat the word the letter stands for (ie. trying to repeat crocodile when we read "c is for crocodile")
• he loves to read his "jesus" stories, the book of mormon stories book, and point out pictures of jesus wherever he sees them
• he still loves milk (which most of the time he calls water) and his lovey (his blanket). i know better than to leave home without either of these.
  
• we are watching our friends' fish while they are out of town and logan is obsessed with it. he walks around saying "shoash" (his word for fish) all day and constantly wants us to pick him up so he can see the fish (and if he can't see the fish, he wants to read "one fish, two fish," although he can never make it through the whole thing). i'm not sure what he's going to do when the fish goes back to its real home
  
• he makes an "o" face (his mouth in the shape of an "o") whenever anyone burps or farts (not that we do either of those in our house;)
• points out pictures of babies and has recently started pointing to my belly and saying "baby." he'll also give the baby (my belly) a kiss. although i still think he is a little confused because then he will point at my knee and say baby! we're still working on it!
  
• he loves to dip his food (and sometimes pretend to dip his food). i think it started with dipping fries in fry sauce (where he dipped not only his fry but his entire hand) and then proceeded to suck the sauce off, dip the fry again and repeat. this past week he has been dipping his toast into his applesauce ("sauce") at breakfast
  
• he says "home" every time we pull into our driveway with a major emphasis on the "ome" (making the "o" face again)
  
• randomly during the day he will start naming everyone he knows: dada, nana, papa, pappy, josh (and sometimes sascha, a little girl that lives down the street).
• he is getting better at running...and not falling. it is soo cute!
• he loves to play at the kids club at the gym
• he loves other kids and will sometimes go up and try to give them a hug (where he grabs them by the shoulders). we were at the mall play place and he did this to a random little girl. she looked at him like, "who the heck are you?!" and walked away.
  
• he has become more affectionate as he has gotten older (that's still not saying much but more is more). he will give kisses (he's a master at the pucker) and hugs randomly. it makes my day!
• he loves to dance. if there is music on (anywhere...home, the mall, the grocery store) he will stop and dance a little...which involves him bouncing up and down.
  
• he loves to have us say "ready, set, go" (he usually joins in on the "set, go" part) and then he will take off "running" around the house.
  
• he loves capt'n crunch with crunch berries
• he's not a big fan of tv (he only will watch for about two minutes) but the shows/movies that can catch his attention for a little longer are "cars" and "thomas the train." he will point at the tv and say either "vroom, vroom" or "doot doot" to let us know what he would like to watch
• he loves to push buttons. right now he likes to push the buttons on the cd player in his room and turn on/off the light switch (which he also refers to as "push")
• we've had to introduce "time out" a few times in the last few weeks. he's not a fan of having to sit still in the glider and we're not a fan of it either
• he is really into stuffing his mouth full of food (which apparently dave was know for when he was little). raisins, fruit snacks, goldfish...you name it and he packs it in.
  

checking out some of daddy's stuff...headphones and comic books

aunt kari taught logan to smile (on command) last night. so now when you ask him to smile this is what he does. it cracks me up how one of his eyes is at least partly closed.

i feel such a need to record all the little things logan is doing because i don't have the best memory and i want to remember it all. so thanks for indulging me (if you actually made it to the end...probably just dave, kari and the 2 great grandmas that read the blog!)