Its Summer (kind of!)

It's summer! Well sort of! I finished my course!

I rocked it ya'll!

I got an A+ in stats! Yup I STILL have OCD, LOL!
I am SO glad to be done, however it has only given me room to move on to my next endeavor!
I write my Lactation Consultant Exam July 25th and I am NERVOUS!
Its a huge exam, 6 hrs long. I plan on spending every evening studying!
Please say a prayer for me!

A few weeks ago we went to a mini zoo/water park for the day.
We had an awesome time. I can't wait to do more family activities like this!
We are hoping to pack as much into this summer as we can!
L is at such a fun age for these types of things!

Here he is feeding the ducklings, he absolutely loved this! It was adorable!

Another BIG favourite was a giant sandbox with shovels and trucks. I am usually grossed out by sand by I tried to relax a little since this was clearly my little boys dream! He played for over an hour shoveling sand into the truck, driving it around, dumping, repeating.

Then there was the splash pad, my boy was in heaven! And I feel like this is less germy then a public pool so its a great compromise!

This last one is my favourite of the day. Look how happy he is!!

This boy lights up my entire life. He reminds me what is important. I can't get enough of him! He is so sweet right now, still a mama's boy but really becoming attached to his daddy too!

We hope to make him a big brother sometime next year!

I can't believe that in 20 days my baby boy will be 2!

Big Thoughts!

I am halfway thru my course! So far we are doign a great job of balancing everything. Les has really stepped up and is a huge help to me with everything. He just started a new job (to add to the chaos!) that requires him to work 8 hour shifts instead of 12s. The has meant he is spending a lot more time at home and with Logan. Its GREAT! Logan is really starting to become more of a daddy's boy, which is great. I think it will be especially helpful when baby # 2 comes!

Oh and not ONLY am I balancing everything, I'm ROCKING my course! I got a 94% on my midterm!! This is STATS people! Yay me! (I've been working my butt off!)

Logan has really started to LIKE sleep. We still cosleep most of the time (and love it!) But when he is going to sleep or wants to sleep/is tired he clenches his little eyes shut so tight. Its almost as if he is willing himself to sleep!

Just receantly he has started saying "Amen" after prayers AND he now says "I love you" melt my heart!!

He sleeps everynight with his baby. He asks for "baby" when he is sleepy. We have been TRYING to limit his pacifier use to bedtime, its a STRUGGLE. Most of my evenings I tuck my boys in bed, as above and then retreat to my books and stay up till somehere between 12-2am studying and doing school work.

We finally have warm DRY weather (we actually set a record for rainfall so far this year!) We have been taking advantage of time outside. Logan LOVES his water table and he sticks his entire head in the water!! Silly boy :)

He also loves his bike and electric scooter. This boy can DRIVE! I was shocked, but he's really good. He has a new obsession with keys and locks and has to be the one to lock and unlock the door everytime we leave the house.

He is such a fearless little guy! We went to a festival and he LOVED all the rides. His favourite was the giant slide and as soon as we would get to the bottom he was yell AGAIN! ha

He also did some flying rides, teacups and the carousel. HE laughed and laughed. He was so sad when we ran out of tickets! He kept asking to go on the big crazy rides that scare me! I think we need to arrange a trip to an amusement park this year!

I am doing good with the balance of work and school, and mommyhood and the house and of course my marriage, things are really good. HOWEVER my weight watchers journey has taken a back burner, for sure. Its so hard to plan and manage ANYTHING let alone counting points and measuring. I know this sounds like a cop out. The other thing is that we are going to be starting to TTC #2 SOON. I am ready NOW but I debate because the rest of our lives are so busy. But really when will you ever feel 100% ready!? We originally planned on starting to try in August (hoping for a spring baby to work around work/school-seriously) however i know there is no guarantee and soem things as hard as you try you just can't control. Les thinks we should just "see what happens" and not chart etc like we did last time. That sounds tempting but I'm not sure my Type A/OCD self can handle that....I guess time will tell!

Crazy Days

Things are officially crazy in our house!! We are busy and stressed. But L continues to be the light to get us thru, he is a true joy!!
We are slowly working on potty training. I wish I had 3 solid days at home I believe that if I just put him in big boy underwear and went to the potty often with prompting he would train. He LOVES his big boy underwear and has successfully asked and done to the potty (#1 and #2) several times. I'm hoping to accomplish this during the summer.
Isn't her cute in his Thomas undies!? Do you see my mess of a house in the background?! Ugh!

I've started school, its going OK. I am not finding the work itself difficult at all. Its intro statistics. I took the course during my undergrad. Its more the 8 hrs a week I am gone for class/lab and the time required for studying/doing assignments. So far I am handling it OK.

My mom is a saint and when she had L Sunday while Les & I both worked she came and cleaned my house. We have managed to keep it up so far! Its a struggle. Les has been more helpful. Its his 3rd of 4 12 hr shifts today, so he is tired and cranky.
I am prayerful that all this work and strain will be rewarded in my future with a job that suits our family better! And one that I can really make a difference in!

We are still thinking of #2. Although we have A LOT going on right now, I feel like its time. We are hoping to add to the family in the next year or two. We are committed to a young family right now and would like L and his sibling to be about 3 years apart!

Our biggest struggle right now is financially. And this makes NO sense. We both have good jobs (we are both registered nurses) and make good money. We didn't buy a house out of our means. However I am making less then I did when we first got married and we tend to (out of habit) spend a lot on eating out and other luxuries that we are trying to cut back on. I need to work on a budget, we had never had to live on a budget before. Anyone have any tips for me? I am the financial one in the house, and i have a lot going on already!

This is the face L makes when we pray, or when I tell him to close his eyes and go to sleep! Its hilarious! He is a lot of fun right now. Talking a lot, he has about 80-100 words, he is finally starting to put 2 words together a bit more consistently and even said a 3 words sentence the other day! "Daddy help me!" hahaha Les was tickling him and he yelled this between fits of laughter! Of course then Les and I were both in hysterics. It was very dramatic!
I think he is working on his 2nd year molars. He still has his guk (pacifier) and I know I need to work on getting rid of it. I'm not ready for that just yet, maybe once some of my current challanges are behind me!

A little time away...

In my pre baby days I always said that Les and I would make time for date nights and vacations just the two of us even after we had children. I believed ( and still do) that a strong, loving, healthy marriage is what a family needs to be based upon. I am the first to admit that in day to day life and the chaos that comes along with it we are not always able to make this a priority as we should. We often take things out on eachother, take eachother for granted and just let things slide. We both still love eachother, and while we do have date nights once every 4-6 weeks its not what we thought it would be, before this little man came along...

He STILL likes to lounge on the nursing pillow in the morning. I prop him up on the bed with a cup of milk and he watches cartoons while I do my hair!

Anyways....a few months ago some friends invited us on an adult couples trip to Vegas. Neither of the other 2 couples going have children. I really debated on this. I KNEW in my head we should do it, and Les REALLY wanted to go. It was a bit of a stretch money wise and my heart did not want to leave Logan AT ALL. But Les persisted and I will admit I "gave in".

We arranged for my mom & sister to take care of L and booked the trip! I was a ball of nerves before we left!

But once we were there I was fine. I am SO glad we did it! We really needed it. It was great to relax and enjoy eachother and our friends. I missed L like crazy and I had some serious mama guilt about spending our time & money on a trip that wasn't family oriented (I feel strongly that we should focus on our family). But I am very happy with did it! Here are a few photos...

Here we are all dressed up, we went to a DELICIOUS restaurant (Fiamma Tattoria) in MGM and then dancing at studio 54!


Here I am I cut my hair short again and I am really happy with it!

We spent most days at the pool. And one day the boys went golfing and the girls had a spa day, it was AMAZING!!

We even saw a few famous people!! I saw Tom Calichio (Top Chef judge) at our hotel and said "HI TOm, I love your show!" I'm such a nerd! LOL

And then we saw Sugar Shane Mosely leaving the adidas store!! Its a bad shot, but it was him in the black track suit!! His guards are carrying his bags!

He is a boxer he lost this past Saturday to the Filipino fighter, Manny Paquiao, we wished we had seen him but no such luck!

And then at the airport I saw Nelly! Not the best pic, but here is what I got!

Photo Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

Here is Logan's 1st year book. I wish I could tell you my plan to stay caught up with his second year book worked, but I am so behind! I am very happy with how it turned out!!

Easter!

We had a wonderful Easter despite Les and I having to work different shifts throughout the weekend (me nights him days). We worked around it and still had fun!!

On Friday we coloured Easter Eggs!

Logan loved it!

On SUnday while Les worked (and I should have slept!) we went to my dads for a nice afternoon. We had some nice weather, so Logan got to spend some time outside chasing bubbles!Monday morning the bunny visited our house! Thanks to Logan's new favourite show & I'm convinced his first crush, Dora he knew exactly how to hunt for the eggs!

He got a few small toys as well.

His large eggs were filled with hotwheels cars, which he LOVED

My Little man, looking so handsome and big with his Easter treats!

Our little family Easter 2011

Pretend Play

These past few weeks Logan has been such a little ham!

His personality it errupting! When we are home we see it most he just loves to be the centre of attention (he gets that from his daddy!)

Sometimes when we are out he is a but more reserved and observent, but after a little time he warms up and let lose.

He is turning into a boy, and he's ALL boy! We went to a play place last week and he wanted to be with the "kids" and he did a big slide all by himself like it was nothing! He went down backwards on his belly and didn't even want me to catch him!

His vocabulary is expanding rapidly, he is able to communicate with us very well. He learns new words daily. I want so badly for him to say "I love you" but he just won't!! Stinker

Some new words are baby, please (which he will now say without prompting), girls, help and milk. I would say he has 70-80 words currently.
He has a train table that he got from his Aunti Niki and he LOVES it he plays with it every day!

The newest and cutest activity is pretend play. It started some time ago when he woudl bring me a coffee from his play kitchen or push his baby in the stroller. Tonight however was the best so far! Tonight he took his baby and used the babys hand to pretend to pull on a cupboard he was making exaggerated moaning noises like it was difficult. Then he said "help baby help" then he said "me". Next he used his free hand to easily open the cupboard for the baby!
It was soo sweet.

He has also been falling in a very dramatic exaggerated manner, then laying on the ground and groaning liek he was trying to get up and saying help help! haha what a drama boy!

I am just having so much fun being his mama these days!