Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving my ENTIRE family was together! I realize that we aren't all that large of a family, but it's been years since we were all together. We were able to go down to Reno to celebrate Thanksgiving at my parents house. We did the important things like eat at Port of Subs and In-N-Out multiple times (our two favorite restaurants that don't exist in Utah or Oregon) went to a couple movies (yes, Twilight being one of them), and did a little shopping. Here are some highlights from the trip.

Preparing Thanksgiving Dinner

Eating Thanksgiving Dinner - Notice the champagne bottles, we're heavy drinkers over the holidays. Ok just kidding, it's Martinelli's

Logan's first trip to Grandma and Grandpa's house

Noah, Sammy, Greg, Michelle, and Dad all had birthdays in November and December. We celebrated with a party which included a whale pinata. Here are a few shots of the fiesta.

Notice Greg in the background stealing candy from the little kids. I don't know how you sleep at night.

Only 1 year old and already posing for the camera. So adorable!

All six of the grandkids!

Twilight Series

Ok so I'm a little embarrassed to be posting about this but I just couldn't contain myself. I've been hearing for the longest time about these Twilight books and how good they are. I was never interested in reading them for that very reason. Whenever someone talks something up so much, it's never quite as good as you expect it be. Well I was completely wrong. They were better than I ever could have imagined. To say I liked the books would be a huge understatement. I think I might actually be obsessed. I found myself reading in excess of 500 pages a day. I'm not even all the way through the series and I absolutely love them. And to top it all off, the movie comes out in a week. I'm totally going to be in line with the 13 year olds dying to get in. Yep, I LOVE these books!

Baby's First Halloween

This year was Logan's first Halloween. Obviously he was way too little to have any idea what was going on but Taylor and I sure enjoyed it. We dressed him up as a little cow and took tons of pictures. We went up Brian's house (Taylor's brother) for the evening with all of the Dean family. We had dinner and then the kids went Trick-Or-Treating. I sent Taylor out with Logan to score some candy for Mommy. Here are a few pics of Logan in his costume.

Mommy Dearest

Today I'm doing a blog in honor of my mother. Taylor has been out of town on his annual South Dakota hunting trip so my mom has been staying with me. For those of you who don't know her she is Miss Organization. She is probably the biggest clean freak/organizational freak that I've ever met. Growing up I wanted to shoot myself. My room always had to be clean, every square inch including all my drawers, closet space etc. As much as I hated it during my childhood I love it now that I'm grown up. Every time she comes up now, she helps me de-clutter and organize my house. This time we went through all the things I had in my basement storage and cleaned it out and organized it. I had a few rough moments where I curled up in the fetal position in the corner because there was so much stuff it was overwhelming, but she always talked me through it. And now that it's organized, I am soooo glad. Thank you mom!

Besides organizing, we had great time. We went shopping, went out to eat (a few more times than we should) went to a pumpkin patch with Jenny and the kids and played non-stop with Logan. I'm so excited for Taylor to come home but I'm sad for her to leave. 

My New Love

We finally did it! What seemed like forever of looking and talking about buying a new car, we went out and actually purchased one. It's a 2008 Toyota 4Runner and it's a beauty.  It's an SR5 V6 4x4 with limited rims, running boards, and a sun roof. We absolutely love it!! Now, anytime we go anywhere, we fight over who gets to drive. Usually the person who wins is the one that can run out the door the fastest and get in the driver seat. Now that we have the 4Runner we are going to be selling the Chevy Cavalier. Jenny asked me if that was going to make me sad and I laughed. Don't get my wrong, it's been a great car, but it has its issues. I'm pretty sure my Cavalier was a special model that they made with only 1 cylinder. 0-60 in 1.2 minutes if you know what I mean.  

Things I'll miss about the Cavalier aka the Crapalier:

(1) How the car shakes uncontrollably when I come to a stop

(2) The oil leak that never stops no matter how many times we've had it fixed

(3) The clanking noise the engine makes

(4) How the air conditioning only has two settings - small breeze and hurricane

(5) The scratch on the side where the pole jumped out from nowhere and hit my car

Cousins

As many of you know my sister Jenny was pregnant at the same time as me. Once I got over the fact that she totally stole my thunder it became really fun. :-) We called each other all the time to compare who was throwing up more, or whose heartburn was worse. And we called each other after every doctor's appointment to compare notes. The best part though was when we found out we were both having boys! Our due dates were only a day apart but our babies ended up being born 12 days apart. Everyone has been asking me if our babies look anything alike. Well here is a picture of Logan and Gavin so you can be the judge. I personally don't think they look anything alike, but they both are adorable. We're pretty sure they are best friends already. The other day they were staring at each other smiling, and making cooing noises. It was like they were having their own baby conversation. I'm sure Logan was saying something funny (he is my child after all). :-) I can't wait until they get a little older and can really interact with each other.

 

P.S. Logan's shirt says "Mommy's Little Monster"....it's my favorite

Logan

It's been awhile since I've posted anything but not a lot has been going on. Anyways, I thought I would just post some updated pictures of the little guy. I took him to the doctor a couple of weeks ago and he's up to 9 lbs 7 ounces and 21 1/2 inches long. He is still so little for his age but the doctor said he's growing just fine. He has turned into such a happy baby and smiles all the time. And he laughed for the very first time today. 

Taylor holding Logan

Bath Time

So Fresh and So Clean

Daddy and Me

He Smiles!

Logan has started smiling and it is the cutest thing ever! It is so fun to interact with him and try different things to get him to smile. My mom was playing pat-a-cake with him the other day and he loved it. I've never seen him get so excited. My dad also figured out that if you call him a handsome baby then he gets a big smile on his face. One might think he doesn't understand english yet but obviously he does. Cute and smart!! He is still a little fussy during the evenings but he is the best sleeper at night. Last night I put him to bed at 10pm and he didn't wake up until 7 this morning. Yeah Logan! Mommy loves it when you don't wake her up in the middle of the night. 

Happy Anniversary

Taylor and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary yesterday. It's hard to believe it's been 4 years already. We celebrated by going up to Park City, doing a little shopping at the outlets, and then going out to dinner. We took Logan with us and luckily he slept most of the time. Logan has decided that if he's awake and in his car seat, he needs to be screaming. So thank goodness he stayed asleep. It was a perfect outing for our new little family.

Happy Birthday Taylor

This past week we celebrated Taylor's 28th Birthday.We had a little birthday party at the house and went out to dinner at the Mandarin restaurant with his family. For Taylor's birthday we splurged and got a new macbook laptop. It is the greatest thing ever! For those of you that own a mac you know what I'm talking about. Everything is 10 times easier and there are so many cool features. Thank you Taylor for having a birthday.

Preggers

So I've had some requests for pictures of me while I was pregnant. A lot of you never got to see me and I guess you want proof.  So here I am in all my fatness. I put on around 25 pounds and I think 20 of it went to my face. My sister was pregnant too so I posted one of the both of us. The fact of the matter is, when you get that big it's hard to do anything. Getting out of bed was a workout in itself. Putting on my shoes...nearly impossible. Oh, and I kept running into things because I would forget that I stuck out so far. I can't tell you how many times I ran into the corner of the counter, and let me tell you, it hurts. On the flip side there were so many exciting and fun things about being pregnant. I'll never forget the first time I felt him move or our first ultrasound when we got to see all his little features. 9 months seems like such a long time but it's amazing how fast it goes by.

Logan's Blessing

Sunday we had Logan's baby blessing. Here are some pictures of Logan in his Tuxedo. The tux is huge but he still looks pretty darn cute in it. Thank you to all the friends and family that came to support us. (Don't worry Greg, that doesn't include you). ;-) 

OUR NEW ADDITION

Everyone has been telling me that I need to start a blog so here it is. As many of you know we recently had a little addition to our family. Logan Taylor Dean was born on July 1, 2008 at 5:44 pm. He was 5 lbs 8 ounces and 19 1/2 inches long. Just a little guy but so adorable. It's hard to believe that he is a month old already. He's already gained over a pound and is doing really well. He's a pretty good baby all and all, just demands a lot of attention. He prefers to be held about 90% of the time. It's hard to get much done so forgive me for not getting back to many of your phone calls and emails. Right now it's hard to tell who he looks like. Taylor and I don't think he looks like either of us but maybe that's a good thing.

I am doing really well. It's definitely a huge adjustment but I love being a mom. The middle of the night feedings are probably the hardest. As many of you know, I love my sleep. There was an unspoken rule that no one called me on Saturday mornings before 12pm because I probably was still sleeping. Well all that has changed now. I'm up at least every three hours. It's probably good many of you haven't seen me because you know how cranky I get on so little sleep. But I'm adjusting. I thought that I would be so bored at home but it's amazing how a baby fills up your time. I do have to admit that when Taylor gets home from work I'm ready for a break, but it doesn't take long before I miss holding Logan and I'm ready to step back in. 

Taylor has been so great. For never holding a newborn and never changing a diaper, he has sure risen to the occasion. He is so great with Logan. Sometimes I think Logan likes his dad more than he likes me. He seems to always calm right down for Taylor which is a good thing. We are so grateful for our new little baby and can't imagine life without him.