What Does a Lion Say?

Week 54: August 10th - 17th

A few exciting things have happened this week. First, I learned how to make a really cool adjustable sling that I think is going to come in really handy when I finally have Damon. I'll be able to hold the baby and still have my hands free to play with Logan. Morgan can even use it. We tested it out and with Logan and it works quite nicely. I think I have found a rekindled enthusiasm for my sewing hobby this week. I also made a whole bunch of different colored drawstring bags to put different sets of Logan's toys in. He loves taking everything out of the bags and he's even starting to help us clean up a little bit.

Next is our progress on the toddler bed. Logan has not slept in his crib for an entire week now. We had a couple rough nights where I spent a couple hours by his bedside keeping him calm and another night with Morgan ending up in the recliner with him, but I think he's starting to get used to it. We've had more good nights than bad and he doesn't climb out and wander in the middle of the night. I think he's actually afraid of the dark a little, so this week I'm going to try and nightlight and see if that helps him sleep a little better. Usually for naptime and falling asleep I have to close the door so he can't get out and since we keep the toys in the ottoman in the living room, he found other things to play with until he finally crashed against the door. (I had to squeeze my arm around and move him until I could get in, then I put him in his bed and took pictures of the damage).

And most exciting of all.....we went to the zoo! It was our first zoo experience as a family and it was actually really fun. It got a little hot, but there was just enough breeze to cool you down every once in a while, since after about 10 seconds you were drenched in sweat and humidity anyway. :) We got to see all sorts of animals. Logan loved watching the chimpanzees swing around and made his little chimp sound, but the never fail sound is the lion. At any point we can say, What does a lion say? and he'll answer with a roar. He knows what a duck, dog, monkey, lion, & elephant say, but sometimes they all end up sounding like a lion. :) He is such a fun boy, here's just a few pictures. The only downer of the zoo trip was the lack of elephants, they were currently in Tulsa mating, but the zookeeper promised that they would be back with the baby elephants, so we'll have to go again when the elephants return. They're my favorite and I think Logan would have liked them too.

The rest of the week we just got to spend time together since it's the last week before Morgan's schedule gets busy. He was able to pick up work shifts Mon-Fri next week and then the week after that he starts school and his class/clinical/teaching schedule basically make it like he will be working a full-time job. This next year is going to go by so fast and we're already starting to dream of all the possibilities and opportunities the future will hold, but most importantly, being done with school!!!!!.....well, that probably comes second to having our baby. :)

We also got to go to a really good baptism on Saturday of one of our primary kids, and then we went to a birthday party for Brayden, and Gary and some of his kids. It was fun to hang out and see everyone and eat some delicious hamburgers. It was a good week! Hopefully this next one will be just as good.

A New Year Begins

53: August 3rd - August 10th


Well, now that we have been here a whole year, I think I'm going to start being a little more creative with our titles. I'm still going to keep track of the weeks, for some reason that makes me feel like the time is going by faster.


Morgan has been home this week since he hasn't had any classes or clinical hours and hasn't had any shifts at work yet. It's been so nice to spend extra time with him; he's going to be super busy this Fall semester and I think it will be the toughest on us. I'm glad I won't be working and I'll be able to have two babies to keep me company...well, Logan is more of a little boy now, but still he'll always be my baby. (sorry if that song is stuck in your head now).


Speaking of Logan, he got his first shiner this week. He was running around in the office being his hyper self and then all the sudden just tripped on the carpet and went head first into the futon and just happened to miss the cushy part and hit the metal frame with his face instead. At first he just cried really hard and I thought he might have broken his nose or teeth, but after a quick check, there was no blood and everything was in tact, but about ten minutes later we noticed some swelling in his eye and then the colors started appearing. Poor kid. He'd also taken a tumble earlier near the futon and had a big goose-egg on his head, which is now another bruise adding to his collection. He had a really rough day with all those falls...alas he'll learn. You just feel so helpless as a parent when you see it coming, but there is nothing you can do about it or nothing you could have done to foresee it or prevent it other than living in a soft cushy bubble.


This week we had a little "sizzle" added to our life and by sizzle I mean trial. In our most recent family home evening we talked about prayer and how sometimes our prayers aren't answered immediately or that they are sometimes not even answered the way we want and that sometimes a little "sizzle" or struggle is needed to help us remember that trial. We're feeling that way about our townhouse we're trying to sell in Lehi (small plug here, anyone want to buy the most awesome townhouse in the most awesome location?), but I digress from our real sizzle this week:


So, we were at Walmart running some errands and trying to track something down for a craft project of mine and Morgan noticed that the steel belting? (The metal wiry looking stuff inside your tires) was showing. We had figured that we needed new tires on the Camry and after checking our records we really did. So, rather than risk a blowout on the tire and something worse we decided to just bite the bullet and get the tires replaced at Walmart right then, it would either be then or very very soon. We probably could have made it another month had we put on the full-size spare for a while, but it just felt like time. We asked how long it would take and they said about an hour and half. Lowe's was just across the street as well as IHOP and it was about 11:30, so we decided to wait it out and go eat lunch and then pick up a few things at Lowe's that we were going to get at Home Depot and hopefully save a trip. So...we walked and walked on the hottest day of a very hot summer in Oklahoma with the humidity drenching us. And, oh yeah, did I mention that I'm due to have a baby in less than 6 weeks! I have to get some complaining out, the good part is coming. So we ate at IHOP and it was delicious and then walked around at Lowe's and ended up back at Walmart in an hour and a half. Perfect...except they hadn't even started on the car!!!


Logan was getting sleepy, and ended up falling asleep so we decided to keep waiting...I think it was another 45 minutes before we had our car done. We noticed several times one worker actually working on the car while two others were standing by...sheesh. Sorry that was such a long story, but here is what we learned:


*Sizzle:
1) financial hit having to buy 4 brand new tires-expensive even though we got the cheap ones.
2) Sitting around waiting for over 2 hours
3) Walking in near-death heat while pregnant and carrying Logan--well Morgan carried him whiile I carried Damon.
4) Not being able to find my craft stuff :(
5) Not finding what we needed at Lowe's


*Blessings:
1) Logan and I weren't by ourselves stranded on the side of a road because of a blowout that could have caused a major accident harming all 3 of us (in over 100 degree weather I might add again).
2) We got to go out to eat lunch with Morgan and Logan devoured his food and it was nice and cool at IHOP and we got to sit and enjoy a meal that we didn't have to rush.
3) We got to be together as a family.
4) We got some good exercise and I didn't feel bad at all about not going for a walk that day or for relaxing and watching "Wipeout" later that evening :)
5) We have 4 brand new tires on the Camry that will last us another 5 years and we'll feel confident this winter knowing that.
6) It was just by "chance" that we even noticed the tire based on how we parked since you could only see the damage from a specific viewpoint.
7) We had all our "big" projects done yesterday, so we didn't feel like the day was completely wasted.
8) I was able to order my craft stuff online and get exactly what I needed.
9) We didn't have to carry anything extra with us from Lowe's back to Walmart since we didn't get anything.
10) Morgan does have a job this Fall teaching, and I still get to work for 6 more weeks.


So, even with all that trouble, there is still more to be grateful about, even if it were only for the #1 blessing of our family's safety. I'm sure this isn't the first time the Lord has protected us from something like this. I know that was quite the winded story, but I really wanted to share it.

Morgan has an overnight Scout Camp this weekend. We're going to miss him. It's a good thing I got "Breaking Dawn" before and got it all read before he left though, so Logan would have some sort of supervision while I was lost in the book, which was everything I hoped it would be. I loved it. Anyway, here are some pictures of Logan just before Morgan was getting ready to leave and getting packed Thursday night.

See how grown up he's starting to look. It makes me sad and happy all at the same time. I think we're having another baby just in time. :) Logan had a Dr. appointment this week and is still growing, he's about 50% for height, I can't remember on his head, probably still around 16% and probably the same for weight. He's healthy, just skinny. He was being a nice little hyper jabberbox at the dr.'s office. It was fun...until the shots, you'd think he'd taken enough beatings this week. He's a tough kid though. His appointment was the day Morgan left for camp, so me and Logan just cuddled all day and watched some movies, and I did a little bit of sewing while he was sleeping. Ooohh ooooh speaking of sleeping. He slept ALL night in his toddler bed last night. WooHoo! I don't want to get too excited yet, but it's definitely progress...granted he was already asleep when we put him in there. He had a pretty tragic experience with a tick. We have no idea where he got it, could have been a million things from the tent that we were airing out, anything of Morgan's camping stuff...etc or even our own front yard, but last night after we finished our movie, we found a tick buried in his neck.

We got some tweezers and tried to hold him down to get it out, he cried and cried and cried, it took us a while to calm him down enough to pull it out, but we're pretty sure we got the head and everything is okay. After that, Morgan spent another hour or so tick-checking everything to make sure there weren't anymore. I think we're safe for now, but we'll keep an eye on things. Wherever we end up, I hope there aren't any ticks! And now finally, the end of the post with some shenanigans that Logan was up to last night as well.

"Logan, what did you do?"

"Uh-Oh!"

"But, it wasn't me mom, it was like that when I got here."

"Okay, okay, it was me, but, I love you!"

Oklahoma Adventures Week 52

July 27th - August 3rd

We've lived here for 1 year officially! Looking back now the time has gone by really fast and I think we're in for another speedy with a new addition to the family coming soon and Morgan only having 2 semesters left instead of 3.

This week has been very busy. We'll start with a few Logan moments. :)I've been trying to let Logan be more independent with his eating, he seems to do better that way. We also have a CD that we listen to in order to keep him from getting bored and distracted and it just happens to play "If you're Happy and you Know it" and one of the things it says to do is "cover your eyes" (peek-a-boo) and it was too late before that part came on and with PB&J covered hands, Logan quickly obeyed the song and ended up with PB&J all over his face, hair, eyes, well as you can see just about everywhere. It was hilarious.
We've still been working on the toddler bed sleeping issue since we now only have about 6 weeks to get him weaned from the crib...maybe a little longer depending on how long Damon will be in our room. We have to wait until he's really tired and ready for a nap..which also means he's getting pretty cranky too. I used to sit in there with him until he fell asleep then I would leave, it was taking less and less time, so I stopped sitting there, but if I didn't close his bedroom door he just gets out of bed and runs around the house and thinks it's a fun game. So, I put him in bed, close the door and turn on the monitor in case he hurts himself, the first couple times he did not like that, but after a couple days we made some progress and I at least found him asleep in the middle of his floor (above picture). The next day however, was even better, after playing around in the room for a while, he actually climbed back up in his bed and fell asleep, it was wonderful...then the weekend hit. Oh well, I guess we'll have some more work to do next week.

Morgan is officially done with his 3rd Semester and clinical hours for the summer, so he'll have a couple weeks to enjoy. An opportunity came up for his Fall semester that is going to be a huge blessing to us. His instructor asked him to teach a class for Radiation Therapy students for half a semester, so he'll have a job for the Fall and he only has to teach 1 day a week for 8 weeks, but will get paid for the whole semester. We're really excited for this since I will be quitting my job when I have Damon (YAY). This Fall however will probably be the hardest semester yet, so it's going to be really good that I'm not working and we won't have that extra stress around the house and I can really focus on our family.

In other news which we didn't want to bore you all for the past 6-8 weeks with the details, but we re-modeled our bathroom. We've been thinking about doing it for quite a while, and then Good ol' Uncle Sam gave us a little extra incentive to just get it done now before the baby and before Morgan's schedule got even crazier and harder. There were a lot of reasons to do it and a lot of reasons not to, but in the end, we felt it was the right decision to get it done. We have learned so much and blessed to have some of these projects to work on together and learn from. Morgan is truly Mr. Fix-it now and did such a great job. He ended up doing most of the work while I watched Logan and kept him out of the way. There were definitely times it was a challenge and a trial, but we had some great times working together too, especially towards the end. We were determined to have it finished this week and on Thursday we relished our success. It's not perfect, but it's definitely and improvement and we're very pleased with our project. Here are some before and after pictures.

And a brief video unveiling the finished product (well except for a few paint touch-ups)

Oklahoma Adventures Week 51

July 20th - 27th

I can't believe that the end of this week will be August...and I think I said the same thing about it even being July. The months and weeks seem to be going by fast, but sometimes the days go by really really slow, so I guess it all evens out in the end.

This has been a good week though. Me and Logan walked at least 7.5 miles. I had to stop jogging for the half mile because I started feeling some contractions when I was pushing it a little too much and that has slowed our pace, but it's still been nice to get out every morning and do something. My freckles are showing up like crazy..Morgan loves it. I just didn't realize how freckly I can actually still be...I guess I haven't been getting as much sun the past 4 years as I am now.

This week we had FHE, something that we're trying to do better at. I was being pouty and pregnant about something, but Morgan pulled through and had a good lesson and for our activity we had a great time teaching Logan how to play hide-and-seek. I think he likes it better when Daddy hides though. :)

I had a dr. appointment and everything is looking good and on track and healthy. I ended up having to wait for about an hour and half because he had an emergency c-section to do earlier. I was completely fine with waiting since Morgan was able to come home and watch Logan and I took a book and I was able to finish it. It was actually a bit relaxing.

This week we also went to the Jump Zone with some friends and of course I forgot the camera. Our friends had their camera and they'll be sending us some pictures, so when they do we'll post them. It was really fun, it was basically just a big room full of tons of different blow-up toys, like the big slides and mazes. Logan wasn't too sure of the shaky ground, but he loved the open area that he could just run around in. He went on a few slides with Morgan. I even went down one of the big slides, about halfway up though I was thinking, what am I doing? It was fun, except I didn't have socks on and on the way down my foot sort of got caught and I went sprawling every which way, but not to worry, my dr. appointment was the day after and the baby is still fine. :) But I think I'll wait until after having Damon to do anymore jumping/sliding/running or otherwise crazy pregnant activities, but I'm not giving up my morning walks or our swimming time yet.

So, sorry for the boring post with no pictures, at least we have one video to tide you over until next week. :)

Oklahoma Adventures Week 50

July 13th - 20th

This week has been pretty fun. We've been swimming a couple times and Logan and I have been going for walks. It was also this week that realized that Logan's not my baby boy anymore and he's really a little boy now. It was the weirdest feeling, but I was just watching him walk around the house and I just thought, wow, he's a little boy and growing up so fast.

Pretty soon he'll be making real phone calls to his friends. That seems like such a long way off, but I know that it will suddenly be here and I'll be wondering where my little boy and where in the world this teenager came from. :)

We're trying to do better at making FHE a habit and not watching so much TV at night, so this past Monday after we got dinner cleaned up and Logan bathed we decided that our activity would be GameCube :) Logan actually had a lot of fun....until he fell asleep.

Logan has been going through a bout of crankiness and I could have sworn that he was teething, he had all the signs, but nothing was coming through, then finally on about Tuesday I was tickling him and he had his mouth wide open and I saw his two top molars coming through, they were bleeding a little bit, so they must have just been breaking through. It was actually a relief though and I felt he was justified for his crankiness. I suspected he would get his molars early, but he still only has two teeth on the bottom and now he has 6 on the top, his four front teeth and now the two molars. Hopefully now his appetite will be better since he's got some better chompers for eating and it's not as painful now. I'll have to see if I can get a picture, but it was hard enough just getting a glance to see that something was actually coming through.

I've been noticing his toys disappearing lately and wondering where they are all going. He's getting very sneaky and I have found a couple stashes. This is his car stash.

..don't see anything...look closer....Yep, right down in the corner where they are very difficult to reach of course.

Logan's favorite time of the day is anytime that he gets to play with Daddy. He's got better balance now so they get to play a funner version of horsey.

We went over to a friends house for dinner last night, so I made cookies and let Logan be my taste tester when he woke up from his nap. You wouldn't think it, but he loved it and devoured the whole thing and I swore he said "good cookie"

We had a few minutes before it was time to go, so we decided to take a little break and watch some baseball. We'd been working hard all morning. Morgan trimmed up some trees and bushes in the front yard and it looks sooo nice, and he got the lawn all mowed. I'm so lucky to have such a good husband. Me and Logan went for a walk in the morning and did all the grocery shopping and then we got the house cleaned really good.
This morning we were eating breakfast and Logan was just babbling like crazy, we got a little bit of it on a video. And we were having fun with a little tickle torture. :) Enjoy..until next time.

Oklahoma Adventures Week 49

July 6th - 13th

In just 3 short weeks we'll have been in Oklahoma for our first official year, and then 6 weeks after that we'll be having a baby. Wow, I have a feeling that the next couple months are going to go by really fast and really slow at the same time.

This week was sort of your average run of the mill week. Logan and I got out and went for walks in the morning and then for FHE we went to the pool and went swimming. You can't take cameras in there though, so we don't have any pictures.

Logan seems to be getting bigger and bigger and growing up so fast and he loves getting into things. I have a little portable drawer system for his bedroom for things like his medicines and extra binkies, stuff like that and he started getting into it. I wouldn't worry except for the things is plastic and he tried to reach into the drawers that are too high and a couple times he's almost pulled the thing over on top of him, so I decided to put it in his closet where we can close the door.....but I guess that won't last long. I swear I thought I closed the door and I think he opened it. He can reach the handles just barely, so I might not have closed it completely and all it took was a little turn, who knows, all I know is it got really quiet and we knew something was up and we go in and he had raided the drawers.He can even reach the top drawer where we keep his shoes and he loves his shoes, so of course he goes for that drawer that is mostly likely to make it all topple over on him. I think I need to do a little re-arranging :)

Logan is a big helper and loves brooms! He loves to help in the kitchen after dinner...well sort of.
He actually does pretty good holding up the big broom, but I think we might have to get him one a little more his size so that I can still use the big broom and sweep while he's helping me.

Since we've been playing outside a lot more and Logan has been wearing his sandals constantly he gets some really stinky feet sometimes. We have a fun video of daddy playing the stinky feet game.

It gets him laughing even when his feet smell as sweet as roses.

This week, a tragedy happened...we accidentally cut Logan's hair too short. :( It took me a while to get used to it. We were just going to trim it up a little bit, but I started with the attachment that was just a little too short and ended up taking off too much, so we had to just buzz it and start from scratch. Of course, he's still as cute as can be though.

"What have you done mother?"

Look at all his sweet golden locks of hair...gone...it'll grow back, I just keep telling myself that.

"This is all your fault mom if the kids in nursery make fun of me...but I still love you."

No, he doesn't have a hairy back thank goodness, but there sure was a lot more hair to clean up than I thought he even had on his head to begin with.

This weekend we also had a Pioneer Day Celebration, it's not really a holiday here, but then had a ward activity and we all got together and ate and played games and such. Logan liked running around and playing with all the other kids and we were even able to snatch of few pictures while he was sitting on the saddle.

Some things went a lot better than expected and some I wish would have gone a little better, but overall we have a great ward and we had a good time. It was nice to have something to do on a Saturday and see some of our friends.
We love our little boy and can't wait for his little brother to come and be a part of our family too. If only we could get him to sleep in his toddler bed through the night good thing we still have a couple months to work on that.

Oklahoma Adventures Week 48

June 29th - July 6th

I can't believe it's already July! That's crazy, that means only about 10 more weeks until we have another baby, that's insane. I get a little anxious with some things and this week I got a booster seat for Logan (not realizing that Damon won't really be using the high chair until he's almost 6 months -oh well we'll be prepared). We decided to try it out this week.

He actually did really good. He loves using a fork, he's still getting used to the spoon though, he tends to turn the spoon and dump everything off before it gets to his mouth. We had a little video of this too that I'll try and post. As we suspected though, he only lasted about 10 minutes (which is really good actually) before tossing his plate and all the food on the floor. :)

Me and Logan got to go to the splash park with some friends on Monday and he had a blast! And of course, I said I would bring my camera, and I forgot, so sorry there are no pictures, I imagine they would have been very similar to the last ones, just imagine him in his stars and stripes swimsuit. :)

This week I've been checking out other activities that me and Logan can do. We've been working on getting him to sleep in the toddler bed again, and right now it's just a game to him so he has to be really really tired to stay in there and sleep, it's been a rough week that way, but he has taken his now once a day nap there since Monday. Anyway, the point of that was that now that he is awake all morning, it gets a little dull around the house, so I've been looking at some different places and there is an awesome indoor swimming play area for toddlers. I've also looked at a nice gym so I can go work out for 30 minutes to an hour while Logan plays, but I'll still be close-by (and I have great friends that would love to have Logan come over and play if I didn't feel comfortable with the in-house daycare at the gym. (sorry if that's kind of vague, I don't want to give too many details to any crazy stalkers out there) I really think I'm going to need something like this to keep my sanity for the next few weeks waiting for the baby and not getting cabin fever with Logan. And it will be fun with Damon around too.


The are some really good parks too - a little of a drive, but worth it to feel safe by myself, so on Thursday I decided to go for a walk with Logan. We went 1.5 miles...and 3/4 of that was with giant blisters on my heels, but we still made it. It's actually not too bad of weather here in the mornings.


We had a wonderful weekend that started early on the 4th of July, both of us had Friday off work and it was wonderful. Morgan wanted to get some projects done around the house, so Nola and I went to the park with the little ones. We got there a little early for the "parade" which consisted of about 50 kids walking about 100 yards taking up about 5 minutes of time. :) We had a good time walking around though, we were there for about 2 hours. The boys loved their treats they got at the booths.

Brayden with his first lollipop :)

Logan doesn't look happy, but that's because he rammed the whole thing in his mouth so quick he sort of gagged on it a little bit and his eyes were still a little watery. He devoured his lollipop too.

We also decided to get some sno-cones...if you can call them that. Basically they were crushed ice (almost the consistency as from a refrigerator) with some flavored syrup on them. They weren't too bad I suppose, Logan and Brayden sure loved them. I was a little disappointed after I broke a tooth on a piece of ice, yes, I have a gaping hole in one of my molars now, it's been very distracting. And then Nola found a rock in the bottom of her cup, so maybe that's what broke my tooth, who knows. We're giving the crazy guy that sold them to us the benefit of the doubt though and hoping that the rock got in there from one of the boys when they were dipping there straws everywhere and back into the cups.

We tried to play at the park for a little while, but I think the kids were worn out by then. They both fell asleep on the way home after a screaming match. We still don't know if they were happy or mad. Later that night we went to the park with Nola and Brayden and we all watched the fireworks and for a brief moment both Morgan and I were thinking this isn't so bad, it's actually a really nice night...don't worry it didn't last long enough that we're going to settle down in Oklahoma. :) Logan was exhausted that night by the time we got home.

On Saturday morning I woke up to a wonderful breakfast in bed (I have the most wonderful husband in the entire Universe!) And Logan slept in until about 8:30, so we got to as well. After that we got up with determination to get some things done around the house. I helped Morgan with one of is projects while Logan was taking a nap and I think we did a pretty good job, we'll have to post some pictures of it later. After that Morgan cleaned the house while me and Logan went grocery shopping, then he went with the missionaries to meet a new investigator. They only briefly met, but had to re-schedule the discussion, so he got home early, which was good because we went to Nola's for hamburgers, they were delicious. We played some games and I almost won. We were playing Hearts and I was killing everyone until the very last few hands and then I lost by 3 points!!! I demand a re-match. :) It was a really great day! I took the camera, but forgot to take pictures.

We came home and Logan was exhausted and we all slept in until 8:00. It started out as a slow week, but then turned into a wonderful holiday. We hope you all enjoyed your weekend as well. Until next time....