The Perfect Saturday

Derek and I have always had different ideas about what makes a perfect Saturday. Derek’s perfect Saturday would look something like this: Stay in bed until late. I say stay in bed and not sleep because Derek is the kind of person who loves to just stay in bed in that quasi-sleep/awake state. He might wake up at 9:00, but he would stay in bed and snooze until 10:00. Then he would want a good breakfast-perhapas waffles and bacon or maybe a breakfast burrito. He would then spend the rest of the day playing x-box, browsing the internet, or working on his computer projects. Dinner would be a good home cooked meal. He would crawl into bed sometime after midnight. The most important aspect of his perfect day is he wouldn’t go anywhere. To him, the best Saturdays are those spent entirely at home.

In the almost 10 years that I’ve known Derek, one thing is definately clear. We are opposites in just about every way. Perfect Saturday’s are no exception. My perfect Saturday would go something like this: I would wake up around 8:00 or 8:30 and immediately get out of bed. I hate staying in bed if I’m not sleeping. I would eat a good breakfast (preferably waffles) and drink some coffee while checking my email and the blogs I have become obessed with reading. After breakfast, it’s shower and get ready time. I would then spend some time shopping or just browsing around the mall, Target, or Kohl’s, and maybe a good scrapbook store. I would spend some time scrapbooking or browsing the internet. Dinner would be out at Chili’s, BJ’s or Chipotle. After dinner, I would watch a movie and scrapbook and head to bed around 10:00.

Of course, these perfect Saturday descriptions are the pre-kid descriptions. It’s highly unlikely that either one of us could have our old perfect Saturday. But, I think today was a pretty good mix of both our perfect days. After breakfast (which was just cereal, not waffles), Connor and I went to Target to shop while Derek stayed home with Logan. After lunch, Derek played X-Box Live for a few hours while I scrapbooked. After Connor’s nap, he and Derek went on a little 15 minute walk to look at the fire truks at the station down the street. When they came home, they had flowers for me. What a nice surprise! Derek said it was Happy Being You day. I certainly can’t complain about that. Connor spent the rest of the afternoon playing outside while Derek and I took turns keeping an eye on him. Dinner was leftovers, which makes Derek happy because he doesn’t have to go out anywhere and makes me happy because I don’t have to worry about cooking. After Connor goes to bed, Derek has an x-box live date set up with some friends and I’ve got my scrapping out, ready to be worked on some more. Today might just be my new perect Saturday.

Forkin Watermelon

April 115.jpg Connor’s favorite fruit of the moment is watermelon. He asks for it constantly. He wants it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and any time in between. Sometimes he wants to eat “big watermelon” (a big slice) and sometimes he wants to eat “forkin watermelon”-cut up into pieces, in his star bowl, and eaten with a fork. Don’t you just love the vernacular of a two year old?

Connor has also been expressing his artistic side lately. He loves to color outside with his chalk and inside with his crayons. Today he decided to be artistic on our kitchen wall (Can you see the orange on the wall?) Cleaning crayon off the wall feels sort of like a parenting rite of passage. Thank goodness for Mr. Clean Magic Eraser!

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Logan finally got to enjoy his first real bath yesterday. He had the most stubborn umbilical cord. At his doctor’s appointment they put some silver nitrate on it and voila- it finally came off. I, of course, pulled out the camera for the momentous occasion. 🙂
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I decided it was time

I decided it was time for a little website update. What do you think? Learning how to make this blog more asthetically pleasing is one of the perks of being married to a computer nerd. For anyone who has questioned Derek’s geek-dom, you should really check out his blog. Despite his rampant geeky-ness, I really do love him and think he’s pretty much the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Do you ever just have one of those days? One of those days where you just want to crawl into bed and forget it ever happened? That was my day today. It didn’t really start out that way. It actually started out really good. Logan had his one month check-up today. He weighed in at 9 pounds 4 ounces and 22 inches long. (Side note: my best friend RyAnn had a baby last November. Her son weighed just about that at birth. You go, Ry! You’re my hero!) Anyway, Connor was GREAT at the doctor’s appointment. The kind of great where I start to think that I know what I’m doing as a mom and that I’m doing an okay job. He behaved, he listened, he didn’t get impatient. He charmed the nurses and doctors. He was so well behaved that I took him to Mickey D’s for the coveted Happy Meal.

Then came nap time. Since we moved Connor to his big boy bed, naptime has been somewhat of a struggle. Okay, a major struggle. He’s only fallen asleep once since we moved him a week ago. I’m not sure exactaly what is causing this resistence. Is it just his desire to be independent? Is it because he no doesn’t have his paci anymore? Is it because he’s ready to drop his nap? I highly doubt it’s the last option. My guess is it’s just a test-a power struggle, his drive to be independent. Whatever the cause, it stresses me out. As much as I try to not let it bother me, it does. I know I should just consider myself lucky that on the days he doesn’t sleep he is happy to just stay on his bed and talk and sing and play with trucks. But I want him to sleep! The afternoons are so much better when he sleeps. I’ve tried several different things to get him to take his nap. Today, I decided on a few rules for naptime. No toys, no getting out of bed, and no looking out the window at cars. If he followed these rules and went to sleep, he would get a special cookie for snack. I figured with no toys to play with and the added incentive of a cookie he would eventually fall asleep. Boy, was I wrong! He spent the good part of two hours whining, crying, and complaining about this. He snuck cars in his bed once, climbed up to look out his window once, and pooped twice. I had to rearrage his room in the middle of naptime so his bed is no longer by the window. He never went to sleep. By 3:30, Connor was cranky and I was even crankier.

Just when I think I’ve got this mom thing figured out and when I think doing good on my own, God reminds me that I really need to rely on Him. He humbled me in a big way today. When I don’t turn to Him for wisdom and guidance I fail miserably.

Will Connor take a nap tomorrow? I’m not counting on it. But, I will be patient with him and pray for wisdom. I will trust that God is making up for all of my many shortcomings as a mother. I will remember Proverbs 3:5. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.”

Someday Connor’s Gonna Kill Me

I just know that he’s going to hate all the pictures I took of him. This one is just priceless!

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Since Logan was born, I’ve only made it to church one Sunday. For the first two, he was still kind of little and I was still recovering. The third Sunday, the Thurman’s were here and we can’t all fit in the car so I stayed behind with Logan. The 4th Sunday I finally made it. Granted, we were late and I spent most of the service feeding Logan in the ladies lounge. But I made it. I had every intention of going today, but it just didn’t happen. To be on time, we need to be pulling out at 10:20, which means walking out the door about 10:13. At 10:00 I had just gotten out of the bath tub. Logan was sleeping and still in his pajamas (actaully his 3rd pair-we had a little episode of projectile spit up this morning…) I could have rushed to get ready and we might have only been 10 minutes late. But, I decided it would be better to send Derek and Connor to church and I could have a little break. And as much as I love going to church, this morning was wonderful. Logan was a little bit fussy, but I really enjoyed getting to spend one on one time with him. Once he fell asleep I had a chance to scrapbook, which is something that hasn’t happened much in the past month.

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All in all it was a really great morning. I feel refreshed and ready to start another week.

Happy One Month Birthday!

It’s hard to believe that Logan is one month old today. Why is it that the last month of pregnancy went by so slowly but now time is flying by? I was talking to my sister yesterday and she thought it was funny that this is supposedly Logan’s website but there is more stuff about Connor. She did bring up a good point. I guess maybe I should change the web address since this is turning into more of a family thing and not just a Logan thing. Anyway, since today is Logan’s one month birthday I will talk about him some. He is such a good baby. He’s rarely fussy, eats like a champ, and is a pretty good sleeper. One night he slept for 6 hours, but I think it was a fluke. He hasn’t gone longer than 5 since that one blissful night. I guess the reason I haven’t written much about Logan is he just doesn’t do much right now except eat, sleep, poop, grow, and occasionally smile. He really is growing a lot. He’s starting to get those pinchable baby cheeks. I’ve decided that every month I’m going to take a picture of him in the purple chair wearing only a diaper. It’s the scrapbooker in me-I can already picture the cute layout! Anyway, here are just a few from today’s photo shoot. I can’t decide which one I like the best.

I like this one because he looks like he’s performing.
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I like this one because he looks like he’s about to go on a water slide and I love water slides!
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I like this one because he’s cross-eyed. It makes me laugh when babies forget how to focus.
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And I like this one because his smile melts my heart every time.
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Happy one month birthday, little munchkin head!

It’s Here!

The fire truck bed, that is. As I type this, Connor is sleeping in his big boy bed for the first time. But that’s not the only momentous thing about tonight. For about the past week I have been trying to get rid of Connor’s pacifiers (a.k.a. his ducks). I have been slowing cutting the nipple off. Up until tonight he has needed his little nub of a duck to go to sleep. Yesterday he went to bed without it and I thought we had conquered the duck. But, about 10 minutes after he was tucked in he needed it. Tonight I figured the same thing would happen. The only problem is that I couldn’t find the duck. It got lost somehow during the room rearranging today. But, thanks goodness it turned out to be a non-issue. Connor has fallen asleep for the first time without needing his paci! I’m so happy-but a little sad that my baby is grown up. Now if we could just conquer the potty…

Connor is thrilled with his new bed. As soon as it was put together, he gathered up his trucks and started playing on his bed. He couldn’t wait to go night-nights. I was a little worried that when bedtime came he would do more playing than sleeping. But this was also not an issue. He put on his firetruck pj’s, got his firetruck book and his softie and climbed right in. I can’t believe how smoothly this transition has been. Now as soon as Logan starts sleeping a little longer at night, my two boys can share a room (and I can finally stop waking up a million times because of the dinosaur noises Logan makes.)

Playing on the new bed.

Peacefully sleeping.

And just for good measure, a picture of my three boys.

How to Eat Fried Worms

I don’t like worms. I don’t like that you can cut them in half and they live. I don’t like that they are hermaphroditic. But, How to Eat Fried Worms was one of the great books of my childhood. It was disgusting, yet fascinating. Who would actaully EAT worms? I don’t remember too many details about the book, but I do remember that he ate them with ketchup. Maybe this book is one of the reasons I don’t like ketchup either.

Somehow, I have ended up with a son who is currently fascinated by
worms. I can thank Derek for this fascination. I was pleased that the first time Derek showed Connor the worm farm outside he wanted nothing to do with them. Connor has always been a little bit leary of textures (i.e. he HATED the feel of grass when he was younger, he can’t stand to have sand in his shoes, and he compulsively wipes his hands when they get food on them). I’m not sure if Derek kept pushing the worm issue or if Connor has just turned into a typical boy. Whatever the cause, Connor loves the worms. When he woke up this morning, it was the first thing he asked for. “Outside? See big worms?” Derek, of course, thinks this is great. It’s like Derek is reliving his childhood through Connor.

As much as this new phase grosses me out, I am a compulsive picture-taker. click here to see more pictures of wormy Connor.

Logan’s Birth Video

Since I haven’t really had the time to scrapbook lately, I put together a little video of Logan’s birth.

Warning: This video contains actual footage of Logan being born. But don’t worry-it’s not a health video. My doctor wouldn’t wear the helmet cam.

Click here to see the video.

First Smile

For the past few days I have been wondering if Logan’s little smiles were more than just gas. Today, I am sure of it-I even caught it on film. Here are Logan’s very first smiles!