Our December Happenings

Life seems to be going at super sonic speed and we can't seem to slow it down to save out lives :)  Life is good though.  Seeing these two faces makes everything better!  Well...haha, until Logan has hit a cranky stage, although the pictures seen would not make it seem that ever happens.  Regardless, he makes up for all that crankiness.  I'm working a lot a lot...the other day was 17 hours straight.  This week will be around 57 hours.  It's crazy...but I guess we need the money.  It just makes me miss these two a ton.  I guess the plus is it makes me really appreciate the times we do get.

It's been a wonderful Christmas season and we have been so blessed.  All those answers we've been seeking as to why for all the changes are slowly coming up with answers and we are starting to see the bigger pictures it seems.  

Just prior to church decked out in a bow tie...what a stud, right?!

The face..."what, me?  why are you looking at me like that?
  I never make a fuss.

Good old daddy time...their little love fest.

Logan has continued adoring his dad.  The moment he is with him...Logan can be cranky all day and suddenly dad is home and the world is right again.  It's actually quite cute.  They never stop talking with one another.  Jimmy is the best with him.

Aren't we just how you pictured the manger seen

Haven't we told you...our church ward asked us to be Mary & Joseph.  Well...and of course, the star of the show Logan as baby Jesus.  He did PERFECT on stage.  We moaned and groaned a bit about being the center of attention, but in the end it was great...and actually fun for us.  When will we ever get such an opportunity again.  Jimmy even grew out his beard for this moment.  As can be seen moreso in the picture above.

Him in his snow suit...I just want to squeeze him.  

It's funny this suit is like the one on Christmas story.  You push the arm down at his side and it just pops right back up.  Logan thought it was pretty goofy.  Worked well for the times we've needed him to stay warm and just a cheap garage sale find.

The cutest!

So...I had NO intentions of going and seeing Santa.  In fact we weren't ever going to go to the mall.  We were supposed to see the zoo lights this night.  Did it work out for our good though.  We were not in the mood to be out in the bad weather, so we changed our plans to venture into Portland.  We go into the Macy's and want to check out all the Christmas-y items.  As we're enjoying our walk through suddenly Santa came up to us.  Being as wonderful as he is, he said he would love for us to come and even take a picture with our own camera.  Before long we suckered into the whole shin dig.  How can you not fall in love with such an adorable couple for the season.  It was perfect!  Hard to see this small, if you click on the actual picture I do believe it enlarges.  Enjoy!!

Thanksgiving, New Car, Piano's

It has been a great couple weeks, but stressful!  Thanksgiving was probably the best part of it all.  We went out to Seaside with my grandparents and had a DELICIOUS feast.   

Happy boy in his Santa suit

We were the lucky ones to spend Thanksgiving with these two :)

What a blast.  It was perfect weather for Thanksgiving.  We even walked down to the coast on the way we saw a herd of Elk.  The food was out of this world.  On our way out the door Grandpa Steck asks to hold the baby.  Mom was hollering to "quick take a picture".  Any excuse to take pictures works great for us!  It was great to have time off and spend it all together.

Our 2004 Toyota Prius

Wow...what an adventure purchasing a vehicle.  We were not quite prepared for what the day would entail.  We started at a Honda dealership...didn't like the cars all that much.  Although we learned from this dealer what to do in the future.  The salesman called us later that day to attempt to get us back in.  The following day he called to tell us he got the boss to lower one of the cars $500....next time we'll not act interested and leave.  Regardless we went to the Toyota dealership.  It was pouring rain.  The guy had trouble knowing prices of cars etc. after much searching this is where we ended.  It seems to be a little fancier than either of us initially expected to end up with, but hopefully it lasts us a long time and has minimal problems.  It's one of those moments with used cars that you wish you had a glass ball.  Then I would maybe feel better about such a huge purchase :)

You may not be able to tell even with the wood pieces taken off the piano above, but the pedals are quite broke.  The metal is sheared off.  The hammers on the piano, about 5 or so are entirely snapped off.  The sound is super bad...that really takes the cake.  It's becoming a practice piano for my dad to work on to maybe fix the nice one below.  Crossing our fingers it works!

The piano Jimmy & I are going to take on isn't it beautiful!

I have to mention a little about this piano.  The guy we got it from has quite the story with it.  He got it at an estate sale.  It came totally black and cheap.  He told us that it was due to being in Europe (I can't remember what country), but to make people who might steal the piano not be interested they painted it black.  This guy took it and stripped the black.  He replaced the top.  He flattened out one of the wood pieces that were warped.  It actually in really good shape.  Our only concern is my dad recently tried to tune it and for the one note he tried it won't tune.  We're hoping it's a one string fluke thing.  Hopefully no restringing is needed.

Getting Bigger

We have so many great videos I wish we could post...maybe someday.  Until then there's only one to tell the story about.  Him eating his first bites of "real" food.  I started him with a couple tablespoons of rice cereal and propped him up in the high chair.  He definitely knew something was about to happen.  His first few bites were entertaining as he seemed to look at us like, "what do you think I'm supposed to do with this stuff in my mouth....aww I know, lets spit it back out."  I then resumed to shovel that newly spit out goodness back in the mouth.  Eventually he got the idea.  End result...he ate the entire bowl!  I was so impressed.  I guess it's all those times of having him taste/lick our food, haha.

He's getting to be so big.  I don't remember if I posted this in my last post, but he's in 3-6 month clothes...I can't even handle it.  We also nearly completely weaned him off breast milk.  I am partially hate this.  Aside from enjoying simply nursing him most times.  His diapers have now become potent!  I mean I never recall it this bad at Primary Children's Hospital potent.  It's terrible...maybe eventually my schnozz will get used to it. Until then...I will keep on complaining.  Good thing he's cute :)

Onto happier things...he's taken to being tossed up in the air.  It's so fun to have nearly instantaneous laughter.  He loves it....which means I can't get enough.  His other funny favorite thing is anything to do with his feet.  Those shoes and socks come off and we're meeting a whole new Logan.  He just giggles at having me make him eat his feet or having me eat them.  It's hilarious.  He also is quite ticklish around his upper shoulder rib area.  He bunches up and doesn't breathe much.  As soon as you stop, he lets out this giggle.  He's taken more to jibber jabbering.  Mimicking seems to get the most out of him or dinner time.  He just assumes he's part of dinner talk, it's cute.  My only complaint there is his volume level seems to have risen recently with that jibber jabbering.

Pictures...

smiles

Notice him being caught sucking on the back of his hand.  He does it ALL the
time...he also gets his finger involved adding to a great array of noises.

The only time he's done this on his own...putting himself to sleep.
He was jumping and jumping until apparently this energizer ran out of energy.

Jibber jabbering with dad.  He seemed to be having quite the conversation with him.

3 Months Old & Halloween

Our little man is officially 3 months old!  Logan has now bumped up sizes it's now 3-6 month clothes.  Can you believe it?  I can't believe how fast babies grow...I wasn't done enjoying his cute little 0-3 month old clothes.  He needs to slow down!

I've started work and suddenly I am missing this little guy all the time.  It's all for the best, but man it makes me that much happier when we all get to be together.  Such as Halloween and the property this weekend.  It was great to have so much down time. 

It's been raining a ton up here, like I've known in the past I didn't realize how long it had been until the sun started poking through the clouds today.  It makes it all the much better.  The leaves have been beautiful up here changing.  Logan loves being outside, however the rain and him get along for only a short duration.  

Jimmy and I are still just poking along the trail of work.  Jimmy is on his final month officially.  My job is growing on me...they just didn't leave the best first impression.

His CUTE hat I have to show off

Being a bashful raccoon, occasionally when he smiles now he tries to hide his face in your shirt/couch/etc.

Halloween night indoors, there was tons of rain!

Jimmy carving his skeleton pumpkin

Grandpa's birthday which was fun to be able to celebrate together :)

Up at the property

Had to get a closer view of this adorable jacket hoody...it has a face along with ears.
He loves it, he'll just snuggle right with it alone in his car seat.

An Easy Baby

What a day today!  We had this baby over today that my mom was watching...it really made me grateful for how great Logan is.  This baby was not only a shrieking banshee, he also had a rather impressive fountain of spit up nearly constantly going.  My mom did 2 loads of laundry in a day for this one child...to top it over the shrieking never ceased.  Well, okay it did for the 5 minute nap and minimally with eating.  The decibal the child would reach still sends shivers down my spine.  Haha...while Logan was eating I could swear he took he arm to cover his ear with it....priceless.  Now I've learned Logan barely whimpers to let me know he needs something and basically never spits up.  What have I ever been complaining about.  I can even get him down for his naps in the pack n play.  My mom's "no fair" when laying him down for his nap just settled the deal for me how great I have it.  LOVE love love my boy!!

For news in our lives...we got a piano.  Guess...what did we get?  The ugly piano that plays beautifully OR the gorgeous piano that plays like crap.  You may have guessed it...the second one.  Well, we were happy with our find...afterall who can beat free.  Then my dad went online and found an even better deal for hardly much more money than free.  This piano is beyond gorgeous, the guy simply wanted it off his hands quick for a move.  It has a fun story attached to it as well.  SO...hopefully soon to come are pictures of the beauty.  Oh, I forgot to add my dad let us have a choice between the two which we would want to have move with us.  I am just thrilled to have a real piano that can play.  We just picked up this second one today...I'm still on cloud nine...never thought we'd get a chance like this for a number of years to be piano owners.

No car yet...I'm officially starting my job tomorrow.  I'm excited and yet not excited at all at the same time.  Having these months off of working has been absolutely wonderful, yet I am excited to finally start a real RN job of which I have been working forever towards.

One of the first times in the jumperoo

...he loves it!

Already a couch potato, he gets GLUED to the tv.
He can be somewhat fussy and the light up screen puts him dead silent.

more tv time...waking up from a nap

post tummy time...he rolled over multiple times.

2 Months

We recently went to his 2 month old appointment.  He's essentially average in every way (50% in all categories) which is perfect for him.  He's officially 11lbs 9oz.  It's crazy those 3 shots they get.  I thought I would have no problem with medical things done to my child, but it's actually quite challenging having him get upset about it.  He recovered great, minus the expected fussy-ness the rest of the evening.  

We're gearing up for halloween.  It's fun dressing him up in a bat outfit for "normal" outfits.  Halloween we have a raccoon outfit which is fitting for where we live.  Just the other day Jimmy was driving to work and saw 3 raccoons on the road.  He nearly hit one of them.  With this woodsy scene he'll fit right in...next getting raised by wolves.  Jimmy can be scary enough to him sometime, haha...you'll understand the day we can post one of his videos of Jimmy's way of getting Logan to smile :)

In our lives Jimmy's vehicle has officially taken a full size leap into the grave.  I had a job interview that day that got cancelled last minute, so I thought I'd change my time into checking in on Jimmy's car and getting it tuned up by Jiffy Lube.  Well...as I went to turn it on in the garage it wouldn't start.  The idiot lights came on, but no sound from the engine.  My mom and I pushed it out of the garage...I had to REALLY crank on the shifter to get it in neutral.  We attempted jumping it, but to no avail.  It eventually came down to towing the vehicle and finding the transmission was entirely shot.  We're now on the hunt for a vehicle...although I have my doubts how soon we'll be getting it.  We'll see...hopefully sooner than later with I hope a job starting up soon for me.

Logan is absolutely wonderful and perfect in every way.  He is a great eater and complains very little.  Although he definitely capitolizes on any time with us, but he's hard to resist anyways so life is great!  He just learned to roll over from his stomach to back on September 28th...it seemed a one time deal as he's yet to figure that one out again for a while.  He smile and coos in his play time with us all the time.  We're both excited to see him continue to interact more.  It's just adorable.  My favorite time is his baths still with all his crazy splashing, but also him at dinnertime.  Jimmy just has come home from work and they seem to have a little love fest together.  

Baby Blessing...a while after now that his eye is cleared.

glimpse of Halloween outfits

smile :)

building up his energy for the splashes

More smiles...

My favorite jacket on him...

at the ocean with dad

Baby Blessing & More

Our little man is officially 6 weeks today!  I can't believe the time has gone by this fast already.  Just this past week he has started cooing and smiling at us.  It's absolutely adorable.  Although I must say it's funny that we've been waiting for this forever and suddenly now that he's able to engage us...he ALWAYS wants to engage us if he's awake.  He a big time talker.

As for the baby blessing it was absolutely wonderful to have Jimmy's family come out.  It was so fun and made it such a special experience to share.  Jimmy did a great job with the blessing.  I am so proud of him.  He is such a great father.  Having his family here it seems crazy how three months really seems a lot longer when there's miles of distance apart.  Overall the weekend couldn't have gone better.  It was cram packed with going and feeding ducks, kayaking on the lake, and going to the ocean.  Wouldn't have changed a thing in the end.

Lately I've been super busy attempting to apply to jobs in between caring for Logan.  The job market up here is rough.  I made a few phone calls and the HR people have made the process sound a bit more challenging than Utah.  SO...I've been focusing my effort more on nursing homes.  We'll see...keeping my fingers crossed that a job that crosses our path will work well for our little family.

and pictures...

The family at the baby blessing

Our darling little family :)

Fun at the ocean burying Jeff Shaver

Burying Ms. Abby for the 20th time

Our little man at the beach for his first time

We're working on getting a picture of him smiling on our main camera...we have several on our phones, but find we need to have our good camera more at the ready.  Can hardly wait to share more of his cuteness as of late.  Love this little guy!