A play date with friends

A couple of weeks ago (the 16th to be exact) we met some friends at Leapin' Lizards off Forest Drive for a little play date. It was so much fun and Logan absolutely loved it. He didn't want to leave when it was time - even though we were there for an hour and a half. He had so much fun we decided that we would do his birthday part there in February.

We met Chappell, Sara Grace, Elizabeth, James, Maddox, Stuart, Mandy, Sawyer, and sweet little Mary there. Hampton stayed bundled in the carseat the whole time. It was naptime for him!
Little Sara Grace even enjoyed some of the attractions. Lucky for Chappell SG was free (you get in free if you aren't walking and parents are always free).

Sawyer and Maddox playing in the kitchen

Logan went straight for the train table - even though he hardly plays with the one here at the house. Why is that???

My sleeping baby!

Stuart thought that Hampton had the right idea!

Logan finally figured out how to get up to slide down the slide.

"Snail"

Logan had his turn in the kitchen. Maybe he will grow up to be a good cook like his daddy!

The sleeping Mary

Maddox drew some cute pictures on the easel.

I love this picture - apparently Maddox thought this was a football helmet.

Logan at the easel - notice he is left handed like his two big brothers.

Who can get in there first??

I love love this picture of James bouncing down one of the slides!

This is one of the tables with the magnets underneath where you can move the objects around through the sand. Logan did very well figuring it out. Sara Grace was so funny trying to grab them through the glass.

Logan sharing a rocking toy with Sara Grace. You can't see SG in this picture because Logan had a stalker who followed him everwhere. He ended up hurting Logan once by trying to hug him and then it was time to leave. Funny!

Logan 23 months

I'm so sad that Logan is about to turn two in a little less than a month. He is getting so very big and doing more and more cute things each and every day! His latest thing is to play with his guitar. He sees a guitar on tv and takes off running for the playroom to get his so he can dance and "play" with the tv. That is how it started, but now if he even hears the radio playing in the kitchen, he'll go get it and dance in there while we're cooking or cleaning or whatever. It is so adorable to watch him. You'll see in the pictures that he usually has his guitar with him when I manage to take some pictures! Of course I am biased, but Logan is so smart. He is already doing so much more than I ever expected of him. He:

• Can spell his name off the letters on his wall (just started this in the last week)
• Can sing "Happy Birthday," "Jingle Bells," "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," "Itsy Bitsy Spider," and has started "Jesus Loves Me," but that is a little longer and he almost has it so I can't say he knows the whole thing
• Says his own prayers and night and at the table
• Is learning his colors and knows Blue right now and we will be moving on the next color soon
• Knows his ABC's
• Can count to 10

Logan is still a very finicky eater. He will eat oatmeal for breakfast every morning and sometimes will eat a fruit with it. I guess it depends on his mood. He asks for oatmeal for dinner a lot too, but we don't do that because we still try to get him to eat from more food groups than just the one. It doesn't always work, but we still try. There are many nights he goes to bed with only having eaten a couple of bites or nothing at all. It is frustrating, but he knows the drill and doesn't seem to be bothered by it.

One of my favorite times during the week is when just Logan and I go to My Gym for his class. We usually go Tuesday mornings and then afterwards go to Chick-fil-a for lunch. We have to bring it home because I usually need to feed the baby about that time, but Logan knows that after the gym we are going to get "bauck-bauck" and "apple juice." He loves it and I love the one on one time I get to spend with him at the gym. It is "our time."

One of the quirky things Logan has decided is that he is going to be very particular about who does what for him. For instance, he only wants daddy to feed him his oatmeal in the morning. Mommy can get the milk, but daddy has to prepare and feed Logan the oatmeal. But when he goes to bed at night, he runs from daddy and wants mommy to do it. He will tell us "daddy feed Ogi" or "mommy take Ogi." ("Ogi" is what Logan calls himself. He still can't quite say "Logan.")It is pretty funny, but can be difficult if Patrick or I are in the middle of something and don't have the time to do what he needs at that moment.

Logan is still very good about going to bed. His bed time is now at 7:30 with an occasional 8:00 in there - especially on Sunday nights when he doesn't get home from church until almost 8. He has a good little routine...he and Hampton take a bath together and then once Hampton gets out, Logan says, "daddy out" as he is lifting Hampton's bath seat for daddy to get it out for him. Never mind that daddy is trying to help me bundle the baby in his bath towel - Logan wants that thing out of there and right away!

After he gets out of the tub, Logan (barely dried off) runs to the hallway and stands up on the banister, looking through the rails and hollers for me to look at him (we are just waiting for the day that he pees off of there). Then, he and daddy go get him dressed and hair combed then it is time for his big phone call. He comes down and gets the phone so he can call Mimi and G-daddy (Logan now calls I-dada, G-daddy. The "g" is as in goat.) He talks all about big trucks usually and when he is done, he waves at the phone to tell them bye-bye and either gives the phone to one of us or just lays it down somewhere - where we have to go find it. It's super cute!

Logan got up on the Rubbermaid to use it as a stage

Logan loves to watch "Go Diego Go," "Backyardigans," and has just started watching "Mickey's Clubhouse." He begs to watch all of them every day - it is a good bribing tool. I don't like him to watch too much tv, but sometimes you do what you've got to do! It is cute that he even sings the songs with them and will say the words that the shows ask him to say.

One thing we are working on with Logan is sharing. I think every child goes through this, but it is a difficult thing to teach them to do! I heard Logan screaming in the bathtub the other night and couldn't figure out what was going on. Then I heard Patrick telling Logan that he needed to share with daddy. It was so funny. Logan will take all the toys in the tub and hoard them so that no one can reach them. And, if you try to play with anything he is playing with - even if he isn't holding it, he will take it from you and squeal. We are definitely working on that, but since he doesn't really play with other children too often, he doesn't know any better.

On a side note...this week and next I have several appointments to go with Logan to look at preschool programs for the fall. I have tried to get him in to a couple of places, but since it is the middle of the year and I didn't do it in September, he is on a waiting list. I don't mind it though - I just wasn't ready to put him in a program back in September. But, I am ready now and will definitely be ready this September! I know it seems early, but registrations begin in February, so I have to figure out where to put him now.

Logan is so very sweet and really is such a good little boy. My favorite thing to hear him do is in the mornings when he has awaken, he will play in his bed for a little while and then when he is ready to get up, he'll yell for one of us to come get him. He usually says, "daddy, daddy" or "mommy, mommy." He pretty much sings it and it is just so sweet. We LOVE it.

Logan, we are so grateful to have you in our lives. You are such an awesome little boy and you always make us laugh and smile. We love you so very much and look forward to all the new things you are going to be doing in the near future!!

Lots and lots of love,

Mommy and Daddy and all your brothers

Hampton 4 months

I know I am posting this a little late, but better late than never...
Hampton is now 4 months old and is really becoming very interactive with us. He smiles a lot now and has such a sweet demeanor. I love watching the things he discovers. The big thing he has learned this month is his hands. He has learned to put them in his mouth and now knows when there is something in his hand. It immediately goes to his mouth when he figures out there is something there. He dropped a toy from his hand the other day and I noticed that he realized it wasn't there anymore. It was pretty neat seeing that look on his little face.

Hampton has really started "talking" a lot lately. He will just make noise after noise and sometimes it is difficult to tell whether he is talking or getting fussy (he usually goes straight from one to the other). I rotate Hamp's activities throughout the day because he tends to get bored after being with one activity for too long. He loves to play in his bouncy seats, on his activity mats, and he LOVES the around-we-go that he got from Santa. Usually when he is having awake time, he will be pretty content rotating from one activity to the next. He is really good about entertaining himself.

Hampton has started rolling to his side and it is so cute. He usually just rotates to his left side and back, but occasionally he rolls to the right. It seems like this milestone just snuck up on us, but it is fun nonetheless. As you can see, he loves to eat his hands. If he gets excited when you are talking to him or laughing with him, he shows off by putting his hands in his mouth. It is really sweet the way he is!

Here he is in the around-we-go. I just put a little pillow or blanket behind him so that he doesn't fall over. He is so cute just sitting there. He looks like a little old man!

I think this picture shows H's eyelashes better than any other pictures I have. He really has long pretty eyelashes and I can't ever get them to show up in pictures, but this one does a pretty good job. He is just so sweet!

Hampton is sleeping pretty well still. Since he was 3 months, he has been sleeping about 7 1/2 hours a night. But, he does have some nights that don't go so well. Just last weekend he was only sleeping about 3-3 1/2 hours a night. Luckily, that didn't last long. He is getting back on track. He also decided about a week ago that he didn't want to nurse lying on his left side - meaning that he didn't want to nurse the correct way on my right side. SO, I have to lay him on his right side and lean over him to make him nurse. But, he has done better the past few days, so hopefully we are not going to have to keep having such awkward nursings! It really is quite comical, but sometimes VERY inconvenient!

Hampton "talking."

I took Hamp to the doctor on the 6th. Dr. Whitaker said Hampton looked perfect and he is doing pretty well. We are not going to start H on rice cereal yet because he is still having tummy issues. We tried to wean him off the laxative, but learned quickly that that wouldn't work. Hampton had a very rough day the next day and didn't go to the bathroom at all. AND, all we did was cut down the dosage. So, he'll stay on that a little longer. He still has the reflux pretty bad, but we are getting more used to it. He pretty much throws up every time he eats and usually for a while afterwards. What do ya do? We do go back to the GI doctor this Friday, so it will be interesting to see what he says. I am assuming that he will tell us to just continue what we're doing, but who knows???

Some of Hampton's stats from Tuesday:

• 14 lbs. 15 oz. (50th percentile)
• 25 1/2 inches tall (75th percentile)
• 16 1/2 inch head circumfrence (almost 50th percentile)

Hampton did really well with his shots. He did cry a little when they gave them to him, but it really didn't last too long. He had the same shots he did when he was 2 months old, so we knew what to expect. Since he had no reaction to them the first time we expected he wouldn't this time - which was the case. That was very nice! We just love our hands! Talking Hamp is still sleeping in the co-sleeper in our room. Due to his tummy issues, he wakes up a lot still during the night and I sometimes have to pat his little bottom for a while to get him comforted and back to sleep. It helps having him lying right by the bed so I don't have to climb up and down the stairs. This is Hampton's favorite toy right now. He will just stair at this toy while kicking and talking for a long time. I think it's because of the bold colors. Happy 4 months, Hampton!

We love you and are enjoying every little milestone we go through with you. You have been a wonderful addition to our family and we love you so much!

Love, Mommy, Daddy, and your older brothers

Blog Award

The award states: "These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

And now I have to choose eight wonderful friends to pass it onto. Here you go ladies!

1. Elizabeth - I know you were already awarded this, but I had to pass it back to you because I love your blog so much!

2. Chappell

3. Amy

4. Jennifer Gray

5. Aimee

6. Gina

7. Shannon

8. Linda

Happy Anniversary & New Year!

We celebrated our 7th wedding Anniversary New Year's Eve. We actually had a date night and it was so nice to spend some time together just the two of us and talk about something other than the children. It was also a lot of fun getting to dress up and feel like a lady! I haven't gotten to do that in a while. We went to Dianne's on Devine for dinner. We just love the atmosphere of the place and the food is fantastic! It was very nice...we did get a phone call right after our meal came saying that Hampton was crying and was acting hungry, so we had to leave a little earlier than we would have hoped. BUT, that is part of being a parent! Patrick,

I love you so very much and love having you in my life. Thanks for so many good years with you and I look forward to all the years to come. Happy 7 years!

Lots and lots of love,

Traci

After our dinner, we headed to Chappells for New Year's festivities with friends. Logan spent the night with Mimi and I-dada and Hampton slept in the Moses basket in the guest room at Chappell's. Between all of us there, we had 3 children sleeping in the house and it was so nice that ALL of them were down and sleeping sound the whole time we were there!
Steve, Meg, Travis, and Elizabeth
Us

Scott and Karin

Kat and me

Funny shot Scott took with my camera

This is a little more blurry than I realized, but it is Meg and Elizabeth.

Chappell, Sara, and me (and the Champagne)

Everyone watching the tv with anticipation for the ball drop.

Happy Kat!

We had a re-gift exchange that night and it was lots of fun. I ended up with a shower radio that someone stole from us. The next day I went to leave and it was gone...we are thinking we know who did it though, and Patrick swears he is going to break in to that person's home and get it back!

Thanks for a great time, everyone! We a blast and enjoyed great company!!!