A Visit with Santa

In early November, our neighborhood had a Bazaar that Santa came to. So, the kids went to see him. Logan did great. Lexi - not so much...

Snow, snow and more snow

Just about everyone we've asked here in Boise if it snows a lot during the winter has said no. It usually only snows a few times in the winter. Well, it snowed twice before I went to AZ for Christmas, at least once while I was down there, and now it's already snowed 2 more times in the 3 days that I've been back! I really do like the snow - I think it's very pretty (until it gets all dirty) and it just really makes it feel like winter (unlike the 65 degree sunny weather I encountered in AZ).

Today, however, was the first time in over 10 years that I have actually driven on snow covered streets. I do not like it! Of course, after it takes me 20 minutes to make a normal 10 minute drive, I realize my truck is rear-wheel drive - which explains while I kept sliding around on the turns!

So, when I have to go back out later today, I can take my car (front-wheel drive is so much better on snow), but it's been sitting outside all day and is now covered in snow, and we don't even have a snow brush/ice scraper thing to clean the car off. Let's just hope the sun comes out today and melts everything before I have to drive again. Alas, I just looked out the window and it is still snowing.

But, really, folks, I do love it here. Becuase yesterday, when it was only 30 degress, but very sunny, I had to take my coat off because I got too hot. How cool is that!

This picture doesn't have anything to do with anything, I just wanted to post a picture. I now realize where Logan gets his ability to fall asleep anywhere!

Christmas Tag

I was tagged by my sil Beth. Warning: some of my answers are pretty boring, but here you go...

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Definitely Hot Chocolate - can't stand the other stuff. (I know, big surprise coming from me, huh?)

2. Do you wrap presents or not? Yes.

3. Colored Lights or White? I've gone back and forth recently. I used to love just white lights, but then it seems that everyone started putting up just white. So, I'm starting to revert back to colored. It also depends on where the lights are (house, tree, etc.)

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No.

5. When do you decorate? I try to start the day after Thanksgiving. Sometimes it's all done that weekend. Usually it takes a week or so.

6. Favorite holiday dish? Good question...I don't think I have one.

7. Favorite memory as a child? Another good question... without a good answer. It's weird, but my memory of my childhood is kind of sketchy and I can't seem to recall any Christmas memories.

8. When & how did you learn about Santa? I don't remember that either. But - every Christmas that I spent at home (even into my 20's) I got a gift from Santa.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? As a kid we usually opened 1 present on Christmas Eve. Although, I do remember that one year my brother and I talked our parents into opening all of the presents that night. The only thing we got on Christmas Day was our Santa giflts.

10. How do you decorate your tree? I'm currently into a blue and silver/white phase with all of my indoor decorating. The tree has blue and white lights and blue and silver ornaments. Logan has had his own tree the past few years that has colored lights and all of the kid ornaments.

11. Snow...love it or dread it? Love it. Of course, ask me that again after we get a really big snowstorm here and I may have a different answer!

12. Can you ice skate? Not very well at all.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? I don't recall a favorite, but a few that I remember liking a lot were a flute, a music writing software program, a bracelet and a power screwdriver.

14. What is the most important part of the holidays? Remembering Christ and spending time with family.

15. Favorite holiday dessert? Hmm... again I can't think of a favorite. Anything chocolate.

16. Favorite tradition? It's a relatively new one for me - breakfast with Jon's family on Christmas morning.

I tag Laura, Heather, Kim, Trina and Kevin. I was going to tag Marcy, to keep it all girls, but I figured I'd give her a break since she is travelling 14 hours alone with a 4-year-old!

I've climatized

When I picked up Logan from school today, it was around 50 degrees outside. It was so warm that not only did I not wear a jacket, but I wore a short sleeve shirt! It's amazing how fast you can climatize to different weather.

Good Hair Day

Not much to say today - just wanted to show off my darling girl.

Bad Hair Day

Such a girl...

Logan is Five!

Logan's 5th birthday was on the 15th. Logan said he wanted a party with only boys, and he really only knows 1 boy, Alex. So, instead of a "party" we decided to go to Chuck E. Cheese on Saturday with Alex and his dad. On his actual birthday, Jon did not get home until very late (he was taking a class for work), so I decided to invite the girls next door (4, 7 and 9) over to have cake and ice cream. Well, for some reason, they also did not get home until after 7. They're usually home by 4, so I had the cake and presents ready by then, and since they weren't home, I made Logan wait. Man, what a mean Mommy I was! He waited for a while, but have the cake and presents just sitting there was driving him crazy. So, I finally let him do the candle thing and open presents.

He's so funny. He wanted to put the candles in himself. I told him to put 5 of them in, and he did this:

First he made a circle in the frosting for his sections of candles. If you look closely, you'll see there are 3 circles with 1 candle, 1 circle with 2 candles, 1 with 3, 1 with 4 and 1 with 5. Why are there 3 circles with 1 candle each? I guess he had extras.

He had a great time opening the presents. Although, the first 2 he opened were silverware, which he wasn't thrilled with. See, he likes using his own utensils - not the regular ones Jon and I use. He has a Thomas the Train fork and spoon that he loves, so I got him a Spiderman and Cars fork/spoon set. I thought he'd love them, but you know what his first reaction was? "I didn't want this, I wanted a toy. Can I throw them away?" What a little turd! He enjoys them now, so all is well. He also got a few Transformers (one of them was a Stars Wars one, how cool!) a puzzle and some games we wanted.

Finally the girls next door came over and we did the candle thing again (this time with only 5 candles) and had cake and ice cream again. Then Jon finally got home and there was nothing left to do. Poor Jon was disappointed that we didn't wait for him, but we tried. Oh well. He got to have his fun with Logan at Chuck E. Cheese.

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

When Jon was getting ready to leave for work today, he told me there was snow on his car. I said, "You mean frost, don't you?" No, he meant snow. So I took a look, at there indeed was a tiny little bit of snow on the top of the car.

By the time I took Logan to school an hour and half later, it was actually snowing! Yipee!!! I am so excited, I love living where it snows!













Logan thought it was great and had fun trying to catch snowflakes with his tongue. He was amazed that it turned into water in his mouth.







And now, another hour and a half later, it has stopped snowing and whatever snow was on the ground and melted. Logan was hoping it would snow enough to make a snowman, but, alas, not today.

The Firestation

Back in early October (when David and Laura were visiting) there was an open house at one of the fire stations here. Since Logan has liked fireman related things for a while, we decided to go. They had all kinds of things for kids to do.


There was a little building that kids got to shoot water at with a fire hose.

There was some kind of fire awarness thing (Jon went in with Logan, so I don't know exactly what it was). They taught the kids the correct way of climbing out a window - assuming there is a ladder attached!

The kids also got to sit in the drivers seat of a real, live firetruck! How exciting!

I think this trip helped solidify Logan's choice to be a fireman again for Halloween.

Halloween

I finally got around to downloading our Halloween pictures today. So here's how it went down. I picked up Logan's friend Alex from school to watch him until his dad and Jon got home from work to take them trick-or-treating. I thought I'd do a "mom" thing and let them make cookies.


Here are Logan and Alex using the cookie cutters. Logan made broomsticks, owls and bats and Alex made pumpkins, cats and witches. They both got bored pretty quick, and I ended up cutting out most of the cookies.


By the time the cookies were baked, both dads were home to get the kids dressed. Logan went back and forth a lot about what he wanted to be - but he usually came back to being a skeleton. So we searched and searched and searched, but we could not find a costume in his size. It turned out to be a good thing, because he finally settled on being a fireman again. His costume from last year still fit, so we lucked out on that one.










Alex is a huge dinosaur fan, and he also liked the skeleton idea, so his mom made him a dinosaur skeleton costume. I think it turned out pretty good.







And then there was Lexi, who we had almost forgot about. Side note, while we were searching for a skeleton costume for Logan, we toyed with the idea of all four of us being skeletons. We actually found the cutest skeleton costume for Lexi, but once we got it home and put it on her, we realized it didn't fit. So we took the costume back and promptly forgot to get her another one. Halloween day, I happen to be at Walmart when I remembered we needed something for her. Luckily they still had a lot of costumes left. I decided to go for the bear.












So the dads took the kids trick-or-treating and Lexi went along just to look cute.



By the time the kids returned home, I had finished making and coloring the frosting for their cookies. Logan did pretty good frosting 3 of his cookies (then he got bored). Alex got his dad to frost most of his while he just snuck bites.


All in all, the day was a success. The following day, Logan got to go to Alex's house and play all day. After I picked him up, I decided I didn't want to make anything for dinner, we went through the McD's drive through and headed home. Logan told me he was going to go to sleep and to wake him up when we got home. Well, I tried - with no success. After I carried him in from the truck, I laid him down on the ground, thinking he would wake up, but he didn't. So I went about my business - I ate my dinner, I fed Lexi, I put her to bed, I watched a little TV. Still, Logan just laid there. At one point I took his jacket off, and still, nothing. After an hour of this, I realized he just wasn't going to wake up, so I took him up to bed. Poor kid was so tuckered out he went to sleep without dinner!

Logan's Teeth Saga

A little over a month ago, I had the worst night of sleep since Lexi was just born and up every 2-3 hours. In fact, this may have even been worse. See, Logan tends to crawl into our bed just about every night. Sometimes we make him go back to his bed, but we usually just let him stay, because we're too lazy to get out of bed ourselves. This particular night, however, the kid would not stop moving around. So, we'd take him to his room, and then an hour later, he'd be back in our bed, wiggling around. He finally settled down early in the morning, at which time Lexi decided to wake up. Not a fun night for Jon and I.

One of the times Logan crawled into bed with us, he said that his cheek hurt. Whatever, right? Lo and behold, in the morning (after I was already up with Lexi and Jon had already left for work) Logan comes down complaining about his cheek again - and he has proof. His left cheek was all swollen. So, I'm getting ready to call the doctor, when my Mom (who was still here, thank goodness) told me to call the Dentist instead. So, off we go to our family dentist Dr. Walker. (note: this was now Logan's 5th trip to the dentist an account of the root canal he had and the 8 cavities he already had filled. Needless to say, he his not fond of going Dr. Walker's office). One look inside his mouth and the doc says he's got an abscessed tooth. It appears that a filling cracked and got infected, or something like that. Dr. Walker knows that Logan is very anxious now about getting his teeth worked on, and kids are not his specialty, so he decides to send us to a peds dentist, Dr. Rogers (Roy Rogers, actually-ha ha). After an x-ray and quick peek in Logan's mouth, it's determined by the doc and myself that Logan needs surgery. Even after all of the work done on his teeth, the doc can see even more that needs to be fixed, plus there's an excellent chance the infected tooth needs to be pulled. Rather than make Logan even more anxious about visiting the dentist, we decide putting him under and doing all of the work at one time will be the best thing.

So, five days later, we go to the hospital. He had to put on a gown, which he hated. He kept saying he wanted to put his clothes back on. But, they did give him 2 lizards to play with and he liked that. Before they took him away from us, they gave him some medicine that made him loopy, so he wouldn't have separation anxiety. It was funny to see him like that...he was obsessed with that thing on his finger. It has a red light on it that was apparently utterly fascinating. He was in surgery for about an hour and half. When we went back to see him afterward, he was still a little out of it, but he started crying a little, so I held him and rocked with him. The first words out of his mouth were "Where are my clothes?". I wonder if that's what he thought about the whole time he was under.

The result? The infected tooth was removed, his front two teeth were separated (they touched, which gives a greater chance of getting a cavity), his teethed were cleaned up and - get this - he got four crowns. I was in shock. Four crowns!?! On my 4-year-old, who just had 8 fillings, who had to cut way back on juice, soda and all other forms of sugar, who was finally doing so good at brushing his teeth not once, but twice a day?!?! So now he's got a bunch of silver 'bling' in his mouth.

Logan did great during the recovery. So great, that it was hard to get him to lay down and rest the rest of the day. He kept wanting to go out and play and eat everything in sight. It was hard to find soft foods for him to eat. He's not a big fan of soup, and there's only so much yogurt, pudding and ice cream you can give a kid in one day. The good news is that he says he likes Dr. Rogers better than Dr. Walker, and that next time he goes to the dentist, he wants to go to Dr. Rogers.

One month later, we still battle all of the time about juice and sugar and brushing teeth. In fact, the other day, after the 3rd or 4th time I asked him to brushed his teeth, he says something to me about don't I remember that he likes Dr. Rogers and wants to go see him? Sure, I say. "Well, then, that means I don't need to brush my teeth." (Because he needs to have bad teeth to go to the dentist, or something?) I'm not really sure what his exact reasoning on that it, but any excuse to get out of brushing teeth, right?

Joining the music club

So I finally figured out how to added music and join the club. Like many others, I chose some "old school" music. However, this music is from Elementary and Junior High. Boise has this radio station that is comparable to 99.9 in Phoenix. It plays a lot of current pop music, which I am so not into, but the station is one of my pre-sets. (which should tell you a lot about the radio station selection up here) Anyway, a few weeks ago, I heard some songs I remember liking in grade school that I haven't heard in a very long time. One of them was 'Right Here Waiting' by Richard Marx, and I couldn't find that one to put on the playlist, but it was definitely one of my faves. I'm sure I'll add more as I remember them. Enjoy the flashback.

Lexi updates

It's been a while since I've done a Lexi update, so here you go. Back in the second week of October, she started getting the goop in one of her eyes. When it didn't go away after a day or two, I took her into the doctor, and lo and behold, she had an ear infection. A pretty bad one, according to the doc, but other than the eye goop, you wouldn't know it. She was not fussy or pulling at her ear, or anything. I just hope she doesn't follow Logan's path and have 7 of them in 5 months and end up getting tubes.

She had to go back to the doc 10 days later for a follow-up and since she was within a few weeks of being 9 months, we went ahead and did her 9 month check-up, as well. She weighs 22 lbs and is 29 inches long - about 94% in both categories. While we were at the doc's, I noticed her first tooth had finally popped through.

She's just taking her sweet time with things. She sits great - she will sit and play with toys or watch a video for a long time. She can roll, but she hasn't figured out continuous rolling. Once she falls down, she can't get back up to sitting. She's not crawling. She is starting to get in the crawling position, though. And, I have seen her scoot backwards a little. Really, though, I'm totally okay with her not being mobile yet. I can definitely wait to have to keep an eyed always glued to her.

We are pretty sure she said her first word on Saturday - Mama. It was kind of hard to tell if she actually said it, or was still babbling and happened to stop after 2 syllables. But, she did look at me when she said it, so we think it was for real. She's said it again a few times, but it's still hard to tell if she really knows what she's saying. I noticed today that her second tooth popped through. Both are on the bottom.

She eats baby food really well, now. I've started giving her table food (oatmeal and fresh cooked veggies). She basically threw them both up. She really didn't even swallow them, but made herself gag until they were out of her mouth. Oh well. She sleeps around 11 hours at night, so that's excellent. She's still having trouble napping in her crib during the day, but we're getting there. I still think it's a little funny that she has no problem sleeping in there all night, but fights it during the day.

So, there you have it. She is just an excellent little baby, and we all adore her. And, she just thinks Logan is a riot. He can get her to laugh at just about anything he does.

Another little break

I took another break from blogging while David and Laura visted us for a week. With this visit, I got shelves in my garage, a ceiling fan hung up in Logan's room and 3 electrical outlets in my new craft room. We also got lots of homecooked meals and the kids got lots of Grammie and Papa time. Logan was just devestated when they left. Well, we were all pretty sad, really, but Logan did cry the hardest and loudest.

Also, while they were here, we had our annual pumpkin carving. It was a little early, and the pumpkins are already in the trash - mainly becuase I caught Logan and his friend throwing them into the street and smashing them up. Here are the pumpkins carved by Jamie, Jon, Logan and Laura - can you guess who did each one?

1. 2.

3. 4.

Spencer and Chloe

A few weeks ago, Jon took Logan to eat and play at Carls Jr. While they were there, Logan found an abandoned name tag that said 'Spencer' on it. Several times since them, Logan has referred to himself as Spencer. For example: In primary one day, they were asking if anyone was new. He raised his hand. I happened to be teaching his class that day, so I pulled his hand down and said he wasn't new. He says, "But, my name is Spencer now, and that means I'm new."

Today, Logan was playing with my jewelry - something he loves to do, but I don't let him as often as he would like. He was taking all of rings and stuff out of my jewelry thing and he says, "Don't worry. I won't let any small pieces get near Alexa - I mean Chloe." What? I guess he still remembers when Jon wanted to name the baby Chloe!

A little break...

My mom came to visit for a few weeks, and I fell behind in my blogging duties. We hung out a lot, but she helped me do some stuff around my house. We hung up pictures, put some bookcases together, painted Lexi's room and changed my huge pantry to half pantry/half craft area. I'll take some pictures soon and post them for all to see. It was great to have her here and I was very sad to send her home today.

Another Logan story

Whenever Logan tells me not to look, or if he closes the door to his room, I know he's either up to no good, or doing something sneaky. Yesterday after church, he went into his room to change his clothes and closed the door and told Jon to stay out.

Later that evening, as Jon was helping him put his pj's on, he discovered why. Jon took Logan's underwear off, and lo and behold, there was another pair of underwear. When Jon commented that Logan had on 2 pairs of underwear on, Logan grins and say: "Not only two..." Yes, there was even a third pair on.

I've seen him put several pairs of socks on several times before, but this was a first for the underwear. What a crazy kid.

The Tape Master

Logan loves tape. I mean really loves tape. He tapes everything. Here are a few pictures of things he has taped.




This is the arm of his carseat. He also blue-taped his leg, but Jon took it off before I could get a picutre.










Here are some arts projects he did yesterday. Instead of using glue, he opted for the tape.












This is his train table. I wonder if he's afraid the trains and cars will fly away or something. He's got most of them taped down.










And here are the "mystery" toys. I think they're mostly cars and a dvd remote.










I keep waiting for the day when I come into the room to find Lexi all taped up.

Reminders of home...and other stuff

We had 'severe thunderstorm warning' here a few days ago. All we really got at my house was a dust storm.

It was actually pretty mild, but it reminded me of Arizona. I really shouldn't be thinking of AZ as home right now. Idaho is my home. If I don't think of Idaho as home, I'll just keep waiting for the day we leave, instead of settling in here for however long we stay.

One of the things I love about being here is the landscape. I'm trying to figure out how to take good 'nature' pictures. I really have no idea what technical things make a picture good, or not, so I just practice by taking a bunch of pictures. Here are some of the ones I've kept:


There's a beautiful rose garden downtown.

One day we drove up to Bogus Basin, which is the ski resort that's about 40 minutes from the city. Here's the view from the top, a butterfly and Logan holding a ladybug. I do believe that this is the first time he actually held a bug.

Sunday in the Park

We decided to take advantage of the nice weather today and take a walk in one of Boise's many beautiful parks. This is Kathryn Albertson park, which is located downtown, close to the Boise river.