Smurfs

If you've ever taken your family on vacation, you know what its like trying to get everything ready to go the day before. Well here's what happened when I was trying to do that.

Its hard to see, but they are covered in blue. Blue food coloring gel for frosting...

Its easy to blame the older, more capable child, but Tolan is looking pretty guilty.

The scene of the crime: little jars of frosting colors

I thought I was going to be smuggling Smurfs across the border, but luckily it washed off relatively easily.

Tolan's First Haircut

I was going to wait and let my mom cut his hair when we see her on vacation, but I couldn't wait any longer. His wispy hair was looking too straggly.

The Before pictures:

The After pictures:

Justin's Pics

Justin took all of the pictures in this post on nights I was not at home last week.

watching some hockey - The "poon-yinz" (Penguins) as Logan says, which is perfect since "yinz" is a real word in Pittsburgh

Tolan was loving the camera attention:

These pictures are from last night, Justin was playing the guitar and Logan was playing along on the ukulele as usual, but he must have been very tired

Second Blog

I've started another blog. I keep meaning to put some recipes on here that we have really liked, but then I realized I should just give them their own space so that they won't be mixed in with the family blog. So I did.

People ask me a lot what I make for dinner. I really don't make anything special but I do make different things all the time b/c I don't want to eat the same thing every month and I don't think Justin does either. There are a few things that I repeat, but not very often.

I also know that I hate planning what to make for dinner and I know most other people hate it too. So another source for recipes can't hurt and I don't mind if you share the link with other people. Hopefully you will like it if you try one of the recipes.

I have a bunch I'd like to post, so instead of posting them all right now and have you sift through them, I will space it out and post once a week or so and hopefully save you from searching for one more recipe each week.

Happy Meal Planning!

My Recipe Blog

A Rare Occasion

I stayed up until 11:45 last night watching: SPORTS! This never happens. I usually avoid watching sports at all. But if I had to watch a sport it would be hockey. Since Justin and I are both from Pittsburgh, I had to stay up and watch the Penguins win in triple-overtime. They will now go on to game 6 for the Stanley Cup. If they had lost last night, it would have been over & Detroit would have won the Cup. So I was happy that staying up so late was worth it. Unless they go into triple overtime again, I won't be home to watch the next game, but now that I'm hooked, I hope that they win!

Here's my mom showing her team spirit:

My mom broke her arm ice skating a few weeks ago. She does play hockey, but she wasn't playing when she broke it. She was just skating. She had a friend offer to paint her cast, hopefully she doesn't mind me posting it. She said she didn't like the pic of her though, so I cropped her out.

Anyway, this will probably be my only sports-related posting, so Go Pens!

Two Firsts

I already posted twice today, but I forgot to tell Tolan's first from yesterday and then Logan had a first today too.

Tolan took his first steps yesterday! He took one step 4 separate times and today he managed two steps. I wouldn't call it walking yet, but that's progress! He won't even be 10 months old for a couple more weeks.

Logan has been speaking baby sentences, but today he spoke a completely grammatically & phonetically correct sentence. He walked right up to me and said as clear as day, "I want candy." What a great first sentence! He didn't say it again until I was telling Justin about it, then he kept saying it over & over.

"Fire! Itchy!"

This is what Logan has been saying all day after being attacked by fire ants at the playscape this morning. He was happily admiring a flower he had just picked when he just started screaming! At first I thought he had been stung by a bee from the flower, but then I remembered that we are in Texas, and that means fire ants!

You can't see them all in the picture, but I counted 22 on this foot. Just one on the other foot. But he was wearing his crocs, so they crawled right up inside! He seems to be handling it very well now though.

Going to the Pool

Since we are going to Canada this summer, and will be living on a lake for a week, we thought it would be good to practice being in the water a little before we go. Although he was born in Hawaii, and we spent many days at the beach, Logan has never really liked the water - besides the "ta-tub" (bathtub). Since he doesn't really like it, its hard for me to take both of them to the pool by myself. Justin was off for Memorial Day, so we went.

Logan asks to go to the pool and gets excited when we are getting ready, but when we actually get there, he clings to us like a leech. Maybe he does like it, I don't know. He keeps saying, "pool - have fun" So we'll have to go back.
Although he doesn't look like it here, Tolan does like the water. He has sunscreen smeared all over his face & through his hair, so he's not looking too happy. But he had a good time floating in his boat.

Adventures in Potty Training: Part 4

Just an update on the potty training since a couple of you have asked me how its going. It's going really well. Logan likes to go on the big potty most of the time and usually insists that he do it all by himself. Pretty good for a 28-month-old boy! He will literally push me out the door, say "back" as in "come back later," and then shut the door in my face. So at home its going very well. He's only gone outside of our house once, and that was on the mini toilet in the nursery at church. So we still put him in a Pull-up when we are out. Sometimes it comes back dry, sometimes it doesn't. So that's the next step I guess, to go Pull-up free in public.

A post is always better with a picture, but I doubt you want one of Logan on the toilet, so here's one of them in their new summer jammies.

I love when Tolan makes this face. I'm glad I was able to get it on camera b/c it cracks me up when he does it.