70 degrees leads to F-U-N!

We started today with a delicious brunch with Mimi, Pops, Aunt Hope, Uncle Brian, and Daniel.  Not only was the food delicious, but we had yummy mimosas, too!
Here is a picture of my little silly monster cracking us up at lunch.  He kept sticking his fingers in his ears and laughing.  I guess it was a little too loud in here for him!  Hopefully he's not poking them because their hurting. 



After lunch we decided to head to a park to play since it was so beautiful outside.  Snow just two weeks ago and now 70 degress outside!  We stopped by a park pretty close to our house, not knowing what to expect since we hadn't been there before.  We stumbled upon the coolest park EVER!!  I am so excited to have this playground so close by.  Here's some of the fun we had today:

When we first got there, Logan decided to get right to work.  He would bend down, pick up one piece of bark, slide his hand through the bars and make a pile on the gray thing. 





The boys driving their car!



He loved the swing!







Daniel and Logan swinging



Big boy going down the slide!

That's right ladies...Look out for the Chick Magnet!

All pooped out on the way home with Mimi and Pops!  Playing is such hard work!

We can't wait to go back to the park!  I have a feeling we will be visiting often, especially if the weather stays this nice!

Silly Willy

Logan's little personality is blooming by the second these past few days. He does the funniest things that just crack us up. Lately, if I say his name, he will look at me and I can shake my fists and make a real excited face, and he will do it right back. (Sorry about the shakey camera) Watch his face, it cracks me up!

Logan the Stacker!

Mimi let us borrow her wooden stacker after Logan tried to play with it at her house a few weeks ago. We have been practicing and he's gotten really good at it. The holes on the rings are pretty small, so I'm always impressed when he can do it. Check out his stacking skills!

Well rested Mommy!

After countless nights of waking up at 12, 2, 3,4, and 6 am, and the nauseating thought of not having a full night's sleep since before I had Logan, we finally made the decision that we had to do something about Logan not sleeping through the night.  Logan was great about going right down at 7:30 every night, but for some reason he would wake up at these crazy hours and the only thing I could do to calm him down was to bring him to our bed and nurse him.  When Logan did fall back asleep in our bed, it was usually followed by kicks and elbows into my side, which lead to him waking up, which lead to more nursing, which of course lead to crappy or no sleep for me.  Darn cycle!
We tried giving him extra milk before bed, thinking that maybe he was hungry.  Nope, didn't make a difference.  I tried letting him cry for a few minutes, like 10 or so, but I couldn't stand to listen to him cry, so in I would go to rescue him, but deep down I knew that something had to be done.
At Logan's 1 year check up we discussed this with the doctor and she basically said what I already knew.  I just had to let him cry.  She explained that there was no reason for him waking, besides we had trained him to do it.  Who wouldn't want to come snuggle in their parent's bed and get as much warm milk as they wanted?  So, then I felt so horrible and guilty.  I knew I was part, if not the entire, reason Logan was waking so much, which lead to him getting such poor sleep.  I spoke to several people, read a few books and articles, and finally decided that we would go with the Ferber Method of crying it out.  I luckily had a lot of encouragement and support from friends and family to help me get through the first few nights.
So, last Friday we put Logan to bed and prayed for the best.  I won't bore you with every awful detail or tear that I cried, or the horrible detail that I turned the monitor down, but let's just say that those first two nights were pretty rough.  I did go in and check on him in timed intervals, just to quickly pat his back and tell him it was okay.  I hate to say it, but there was a total of a few hours of crying the first night, a little less the second night, and by the third night he slept straight through from 7:30 - 5:00am.  At 5am I went in and gave him his paci, rubbed his back and like magic, he laid himself back down and was out!
Every night has been golden since then.  He has still woken up at 5 the past few mornings, but with a quick hug from Mommy, he lays right back down and sleeps until around 7am.  I have to say, I am more than glad that we did it.  It was terrible and hurt like hell, but being able to sleep until 5 again is so great!  I know this may sound silly, but it is almost like childbirth.  You know it hurt like heck, but somehow when you look back, it doesn't seem so bad and you know it was absolutely worth every second. 

Chris was home with Logan on Monday morning when I went to work and I was really worried that Logan would be upset and quite possibly in a bad mood, since he had lost so much sleep over the weekend.  This is the picture that I got from Chris as I was trying to keep my mind on work, but only able to think about how bad I wanted to be home comforting my baby.  Obviously he was FINE!  Daddy let him come have some snuggle time in our bed and they watched a little Mickey Mouse Clubhouse together before starting their day! 

A little late, but still have to celebrate!

I am just a little late, but I want to take a second to appreciate a major accomplishment....Logan and I made it to breastfeeding for ONE year!!!  YAY!!!  We are on the downward slope, but still going strong.  We have dropped the morning session in an effort to get him to sleep through the night (more to come on this), and are currently nursing around 4pm and right before bed.  I'm still not quite ready to completely drop either one of these sessions, so we'll keep on for now.   I can't help but love this extra Mommy & Logan quiet cuddle time.  It's so nice just to snuggle up with a blanket and just stare into my baby's eyes while he's so content!

I remember being pregnant and being so worried that I would not be able to breastfeed and obsessing over the struggles I had heard about before I had even had a chance to experience it.  It is so amazing to look back now and see the wonderful successes we have had!  I pray that it will be this easy when we have baby #2 (in the distant future). 

*By the way...look up at the top of the blog, do you see the breastfeeding ticker?  The little strip that says, Logan's been breastfeeding for ____ days.  Ummm, why does it go all the way to 12?  I mean, really!?!

Clone Check! Is Logan still a clone?




 

Logan at 1 yr



Jess at 1 yr

Logan's Winter One-derland!

Friday was Logan's actual birthday and we luckily were at home to spend it with him.  We woke up and Daddy made Logan special Mickey pancakes!  Logan loved it! 

Being Silly with Mommy!

Sitting on my birthday pillow from Ms. Debbie

We spend most of the day just playing and getting ready for Logan's party.  Scott, Melanie and Jack got in around 2:30 and we had fun playing with baby Jack.  We had a nice visit from Mimi, Pops, Uncle Brian and Daniel.  After they left we had a birthday dinner at home and just relaxed and visited.
Saturday morning, we woke up early and left to go find out the sex of Logan's new cousin. 

Logan and Jack waiting to go back to the ultrasound

We felt so honored to be a part of Scott and Melanie's special moment and I think we might have gone through a box of Kleenex when we saw that Melanie's precious new baby is a GIRL!!!  We were so excited and Melanie decided to wait to tell everyone.  She tried to tell me that she didn't want to talk about it until Sunday after Logan's party, but I told her that was ridiculous and we had to scream it from the rooftops!  She was so worried about taking attention away from Logan.  Obviously, telling her exciting news would no way take away from Logan.  We are family and I am so honored that no only we got to be a part of her special day, but that she was going to allow us to share in the celebration!
Here are a few pictures of Jack opening his present to find out the sex of the baby:

It's a what?

We got home from the ultrasound and got everything ready for the party.  I have to say, the party was pretty close to perfect!  We had a wonderful time, Logan seemed to really enjoy himself, and we were surrounded by loved ones.  Chris and I worked so hard to get everything ready and I was so thankful he had finished the basement!  I knew we would need the basement due to the number of people coming, so it was so nice to have that available for people to use as well.  Josh, Megan and Mackenzie spent the night, so it was great that they had a place to stay and their own bathroom!

I have had so much fun working on this party and I feel like I have been planning it forever.  I was so lucky to have my mom on the look out for snowflake stuff for the past month.  Here are a few several of  the pictures of the decorations:

These are the invitations I made.  (I blocked out our address since this is online)



wreath on the front door

 

Logan's monthly pictures

The hot chocolate bar

The goody bags

Here are some of the pictures from the party!

my new bike from Mimi and Pops!

too much fun



I wish I could take credit for this idea, but I borrowed it from a friend from high school.  Chris is going to buy Logan a tool for each birthday so that by the time he moves out he will have a complete set of tools.  This year, Chris decided to get him his very first hammer!

Happy Birthday sweet baby boy!!!  We love you so much!!!

12 Months!

Weight: 24 lbs. 3 oz.
Length: 29 1/2 inches

Eating: First of all, our big boy has 7 teeth all the way through and 1 more on the bottom left that looks like it will be next!  Logan is still nursing first thing in the morning and before bed, and since I've been home for almost a month, he is nursing once or twice during the day.  We were planning on no nursing during the day at this point, just whole milk, so we will aim for this tomorrow, when I go back to work. :(
Logan is 100% off the bottle!  We have been bottle free for over 2 weeks!  He drinks a little whole milk out of the sippy and lots of water during the day.  He will pretty much eat anything, but has definite favorites.  He LOVES any type of melon, bananas, mini pancakes, peas, green beans, pasta, grilled cheese and yogurt.  We tried peanut butter today.  I put a little on his lips, which of course he liked off and gave him a cracker with a little drop of it.  He seemed to like it.  I think we will try a sandwich tomorrow! 

Sleeping: I left the doctor's office feeling a little frustrated with myself about this.  As you know, Logan has woken during the night for 90% of his life and I know this issue has continued partly because of me.  When Logan was younger and even recently, when he wakes during the night it is SO much easier to bring him into the bed to nurse.  I love the rocker in his room, but when you are freezing and exhausted at 3:00am, your own warm bed sounds so much better.  So, there in lies the problem.  We have this horrible cycle of Logan waking not because he's hungry, but because he wants to be with me and in our bed.  The sucker that I am, I continue to feed into this pattern.  After talking to the doctor, she explained that once the baby has a taste of the parents bed, that is what they want, and they are smart and can figure out how to get in their.  Here's my frustration: How in the world do you nurse a baby and never bring them into the bed?  I know millions of mommies nurse, so does that mean every other breastfeeding mother is dealing with the same problem I am?  I made the decision to breastfeed, because I knew it was best for Logan, and it was what I wanted to do.  Hearing that I am the one who is causing him to not sleep really frustrates me.  I would never change my mind about nursing and don't think for 1 minute, I regret my decision, I simply just want to vent and express my frustration. 
(deep breath)....okay ....so we are going to try crying it out AGAIN tonight and over the next few weeks or months, wean Logan from the 5am feeding and see if we can get him to sleep for 12 hours. 

Social Skills: Just in the last two weeks, our sweet little baby has decided to become quite independent!  He has started to push my hands away when I try to help, and even pushes my hands away when I push the grocery cart!  He also doesn't like to be fed.  He wants the food to be on his tray and then he will pick it up and put it in his mouth.  For a while he has let us know when he didn't like something, but watch out, now he will put up a protest!  He will throw his head back, let out a few wails and whip his head around.  It is pretty amazing to watch him make his own decisions and choices right now and be able to so clearly communicate them. 
Dada, Baba, Yeah, and Hey are the words that frequently come out of his mouth.  There is an occasional Mama, mmmmmm, and something that resembles Lilly.  I swear he said Josh the other day, when my brother was trying to get him to say it. 

Motor Skills: Look out world, here comes logan!!!  Although he is not a walker yet, he has on several occasions taken three steps.  He is so adorable when he tries to walk and you can also hear the thoughts in his head saying, "should I try this, maybe it's easier if I just squat down and crawl over, no maybe I will try it....whoa....".  We'll keep working on the walking and post a video as soon as we can catch a few steps on camera. 
Logan loves to wave bye bye, clap and give high 5!  He is still being a little explorer and crawling and climbing on everything! 

Snow-cation 2011

That's right!  Snow-cation 2011!!  We have been out of school Monday-Friday!  So many people have complained that they are going stir-crazy from being trapped inside, but I must say this has worked out beautifully for us.  Lots of extra cuddle time for us, plus I've been able to get the house picked up for the party.  I've already started decorating for the party and I am so excited!!  I hate that we couldn't invite everyone, but our house is not that big.  We said we wanted to just invite family, which ended up still being about 25 people.  I can't wait to see Logan dig into his cake!  (Ramble, I know...sorry)

We've ventured out into the snow and ice a few times and been able to snap a few pictures of Logan.  He's still not sure about about the snow and his eyes start watering after being out there a few minutes.  Here are a few of the pictures:

We decided to brave the icy roads yesterday to take Logan to the doctor.  If you remember, he had an ear infection about 2 weeks ago, and I had been noticing him still poking at his ears.  He also has been waking up several times in the night.  So, our cycle of not sleeping and coming to our bed has started again!! UUGGHHH!!! I wanted to make sure his ears were okay, before I have him cry it out again.  We made it to the doctor, and his right ear, where the last infection was, is clear, BUT his left ear is now infected!!  So, we are on antibiotic #3.  We also were given some numbing drops, so hopefully those will help, too.  Cross your fingers that when we go back for his 1 year check up next week, his ears are clear.

Wholy Cow's Milk!

I returned to work on Wednesday, and I am happy to report that the pump did not come back to work with me!  YAY!
With the okay from the doctor, I gave Logan a few ounces of whole milk a few days before going back to work and he seems to like it just fine.  I've just been giving to to him cold in his straw sippy cup or the Nuk sippy cup. 
Here's a picture of him taking one of this first sips. 

He is still nursing 3 times a day and it's probably a good thing I'm not quite ready to wean, because I don't think he is either!
I am also happy to report that we have not used a bottle since before Christmas!  I think I will pack those away, too!

Chris has been out of town since Sunday and Mimi and Pops are enjoying a cruise in the Panama Canal, so Granddaddy came and spent the night with us Tuesday night, so he could be here with Logan Wednesday morning while I went to work.  I had no doubt that Granddaddy would do fine with Logan, but I have to say, I was quite impressed!  I received several pictures and reports throughout the day and although Logan kept Granddaddy very busy, it looked like they had a great time!  Granddaddy told me that they had lots of talks, several of which included hunting!  (Although I'm not keen on the gun part of it, I am looking forward to the time Logan gets to go hunting with the boys.  The men in our family are hunters from the get-go and I look forward to the guys introducing Logan to this family past-time).

Chris got back last night, and we were so excited to see him.  In fact, Logan was so excited, he decided to get up for the day at 5:45am.  Nothing says, "Welcome Home, Dada" like an early morning wake up call!
The bad thing about Chris being out of town, was that I had 5 days to create his new "Honey Do" list.  Opps!  Hey, there's a lot to do before a party.  Plus, Melanie, Scott and Jack are coming in Friday!  YAY!  Can't wait to see all 4 of them!  :)

Christmas keeps coming!

Logan and I started out day out yesterday by going over to Granddaddy's house for a visit.  Logan enjoyed a chicken biscuit with Granddaddy and we had plans to head to the mall to buy Logan some new shoes at Stride Rite.  I have such a hard time finding shoes that fit Logan's feet.  His feet are pretty puffy!  Before heading to the mall, we went to visit Logan's G.G., (Great Grandma).   G.G.  is an amazing quilter, and is always so generous with quilts for us and Logan.  She made Logan an adorable Cat and the Hat quilt, an ABC quilt, and my favorite, a fabric Golden Book of The Pokey Little Puppy.  This book is especially special to our family, because Chris was known as the Pokey Little Puppy growing up, because he is ALWAYS late!

Here are a few pictures from their visit.  Logan is so lucky to have G.G. in his life!   

After GG's we went to Stride Rite and got Logan this very cool pair of shoes!  Aren't they cute!  He is a 5 1/2 wide!  There were a few other pairs that were really cute, so we'll have to go back!  After that Granddaddy took us to lunch at On the Border.  Logan pigged out!  He ate a huge bowl of rice, and some chicken quesadilla. 

Checking out my new shoes

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