Our Summer

We have had a lot of fun this summer as a family so I wanted to give a little recap of some of our favorite events. We got to ride on "Thomas The Train" which is basically the Heber Creeper with a Thomas look alike engine on front. It was a short little ride down the train track and back but Logan had a great time.

We also took Logan to Lagoon for the first time this year. At first he was terrified. We put him on one of the little rides and the whole time he was yelling at us to get him off. It took a few more rides until he realized it wasn't scary and then he loved it. He started running from one ride to the next and we could hardly keep up with him. Especially me since I was eight months pregnant (at that point I could hardly keep up with someone walking at a normal speed let alone a toddler running around). His favorite rides were the rocket (because it had a gun) , the airplane, the ferris wheel and the dragon roller coaster. Now every time we pass by Lagoon (which is pretty often since it's right by our house) he tells me over and over again that we need to go there.

We did a little renovation to our yard this year because we had a fence that was falling down on the side of our property. We put up a concrete wall in place of the fence and then poured concrete in the backyard so that we can build a shed on it. Taylor did almost all the prep work himself so we had a backhoe in our yard while he was working on it. Logan is obsessed with tractors, as most little boys are. He can point out every tractor and tell you exactly what kind it is. If you call it a backhoe and it's actually a digger he'll be the first to correct you. Logan love love loved working out in the yard with his dad and riding on the backhoe with him. It was a sad day when Taylor had to take the backhoe back to work.

July 1st we celebrated Logan's 3rd birthday. His big thing right now is airplanes so we made him a little airplane cake and had a family party. He got an excavator that you can sit on and dig in the sandbox, a toy engine that you can take apart that and put back together, and a bike. I wasn't sure how well he would do on the bike but after a couple of weeks he had the thing mastered. He cruises on it and rides all the time with his buddy Jace next door.

In mid July we went up to Oregon to visit my brother and attend a family reunion on Taylor's side of the family. We had a blast and it was great to have one more vacation before Jacob was born. We went to the Tillamook Cheese factory, and to the beach in Lincoln City. We ate at this really cool restaurant that was right on the ocean. We happened to be there during sunset and it was absolutely gorgeous. We also spent some time in downtown Portland eating and shopping. The family reunion was a lot of fun and it was great to catch up with family that we don't get to see very often.

Age 2

Ok so this post is mainly for my own records. I seriously have the worst memory so I want to write down all the things that Logan is doing at this age because I know in 6 months I will have forgotten. By the time Logan turned 2 he could count to ten. Shortly after, he learned all his colors and just a few months ago learned all his shapes. For awhile he thought motorcycles were called motorcopters. Whenever he doesn't want something he tells it to go buh bye in the car. For example when I try to give him medicine he says "No, medicine go buh bye in car". Also if he can't find something he's looking for (mostly toys) he tells it to "come home". The other day he told me his first story. I was drying him off after he got out of the bath and he said "Throw towel in garbage....no no....timeout....hit bum....sorry towel. Logan doesn't hardly ever get spanked but apparently he associated throwing the towel in garbage as a serious enough offense to have his "bum hit" in which he would then need to apologize to the towel. When Logan wakes up in the morning he comes into our room and climbs into our bed. Usually Taylor has gone to work by this time so Logan lays on his side of the bed. The other morning Taylor was still in bed so when Logan walked into the room he yelled "Daddy get out". I was laughing so hard. Logan has learned who Jesus is in nursery and knows that all the paintings at church have Jesus in it. Now whenever we're at the store and he sees a painting he points to it and says "Mommy, Jesus". He also on a regular basis asks to go to Jesus's house. We've been trying to teach him about Santa Clause this year and told him Santa will come on Christmas and bring him lots of presents. He now asks me everyday for "Santa to come over" because he's ready for his presents. He's obsessed with boats, trains, helicopters, and airplanes. He's been on at least 8 airplane rides (possibly more but I can't remember) and absolutely has the time of his life. We flew to Reno in October and when we were taking off Logan was so excited he was laughing. The guy sitting next to me thought it was hysterical. He said he had never seen a kid laugh while taking off. His favorite song is "You are my sunshine" and he marches around the house and sings "Follow the prophet". When he wants you to chase him around the house he says "Mommy get you". We were in Reno one time I was laying next to Logan trying to get him to fall asleep. All the sudden decided to shove his finger up my nose super hard. It gave me a bloody nose so and when Logan saw he said "Mommy, fire in nose". Also if something hurts his eyes he says "fire in eyes". All and all Logan is a pretty good kid. He gets mad a things but he doesn't really throw temper tantrums. I think we are pretty lucky because I don't really feel like we're experiencing much of the terrible twos.

Hawaii - Again!

I never thought we'd get to go back to Hawaii again but we were soooo excited when we found out that the Dean Family was planning a vacation there. We've been looking forward to this vacation for months and it was everything we'd hoped for. We stayed in this amazing house right on the beach on the North Shore of Oahu. The house had a pool, hot tub, pool table, ping pong table, fuseball table, and badminton - pretty much anything you could think of to keep yourself entertained. And if that wasn't enough you could walk right out the back door straight down to the ocean. We spent a lot of time just hanging around the house and laying out on the beach but we also did quite a bit while we were there. We spent one day at Pearl Harbor touring the USS Missouri as well as the Air Museum. We went to the Waikiki Aquarium, and to Hanuama Bay to go snorkeling. I'll be honest, things in the ocean still freak me out no matter how old I get. We also went to Waimea Falls which was incredibly beautiful. I had been there years before but didn't remember how cool it was. We also spent some time in Haliewa shopping and eating snow cones. All in all we had a great time...Logan especially. He LOVED the ocean and playing in sand. Too bad he won't even remember this trip but I guess we've got the videos to prove it to him.

24th of July

Do you ever have one of those days (or weekends) when you have a million things to do around the house so instead of doing it you just leave and avoid it all together? Well that's what we did for the 24th. We had big plans of getting all our chores in the house and the yard done and at the last minute decided we'd rather go play instead. So we tried to pack in as much into our three day weekend as possible. Thursday we drove up to the family cabin and had a little barbecue. Afterwards we took Logan down to Causey dam and let him play around in the water and also let him fish for the first time. It would have been more exciting if we actually caught something but it was still fun. Afterwards we went for rides on the Rhino (that's a 4-wheeler) and then back to the cabin for our traditional monopoly match. Friday morning we woke up, cooked breakfast and then headed off to Pineview lake. We spent a few hours there just hanging out on the beach and playing in the water and then headed home to go to the rodeo with some of our friends. This was actually my first rodeo I had ever been to and I was quite entertained. I'm not really sure what possesses these people to do these "sports" where they could be trampled by a horse or a bull and seriously injured but I guess I to each his own. Logan loved watching the rodeo and as I put him in bed that night the last thing he said to me was "mommy, more horseys". Saturday morning we woke up and got ready to head back up to the cabin. We had to stop by the paint store first because the deck needed to be repainted and we decided that we'd get a little work done while we were up there. When we got there we started working right away and let me tell you, it's not all these easy painting and trying to keep a two year old away from where you just painted and all the paint supplies. Luckily for us though, Taylor's parents had come up and were able to keep Logan distracted. After painting we took more rides on the Rhino and just played outdoors. We spent the night and then came home Sunday afternoon. It was a fun little weekend and although we came home to a lot of work that needed to be done it was completely worth it.

Happy 2nd Birthday

I know I keep saying this but it really is so hard to believe how fast time goes. We celebrated Logan's 2nd birthday this month by having a little family birthday party. He's obsessed with tools so he got a little home depot tool bench set. It's pretty amazing that in his little vocabulary are words like drill, wrench, screwdriver, hammer, nails, screws and wood. His other current obsession right now is basketball hoops so we got him a little toy one that he plays with in the house. In fact his first sentence was shoot ball in hoop and that's the first thing he asks to do when he wakes up in the morning. He also loves trains so I made him a train cake and almost a month later he still asks me for his "choo choo cake".

The Zoo

The past couple of months Logan has started talking a ton! One thing he loves to do is say the different animals sounds. For awhile he thought every animal said ruff ruff so it was a big step for him to learn that not every animal is a doggy. I've been so excited to take him to the zoo to show him all the animals we've been learning and we finally had a warm enough day to go. We went with my friend Tiffany and her little boy who is also named Logan. We walked around and saw all the animals and then took the kids on the carousel and the "choo choo". A few temper tantrums were thrown after getting off the rides but I managed to distract Logan with a new exhibit so that he would calm down. They also had a little playground that we let the kids run around in. We had such a good time and I can't wait to go back!