Baby Animals

One of our favorite Logan traditions took place this month, Baby Animal Days.  There is nothing we love more than a bunch of dumb, helpless animals to laugh at and cuddle.  We were especially excited to bring Jack this year so people would stop giving us dirty looks when I stood in line to hold a rabbit, we finally have an excuse to be there.  Our good friends the Carlile's came with us.  They are animal lovers too so we all had a delightful time.  Jack mostly just stared in deep thought at the animals, but once or twice he would give a smile.

Goats!

The train ride!

The train conductor insisted we had a picture with him. He was a nice fellow.

The Carlile's.  

Howdy howdy.

Bunnies!  Jack wasn't interested in them at all.  Crazy boy.

Erica sure was!

Finally a smile.  He liked holding the ducks beaks shut.  Poor baby animals take such a abuse I am sure.

16 Months

Jack has now surpassed the 16 month mark.  He is showing his personality more and more each day.  He is still pretty small in size (despite the mounds of food he eats each day)  but is quite agile none the less.  He is pretty skilled at feeding himself and even drinking from a cup.  He is an expert walker and will break into a slight run when we chase him. He loves to walk up and down stairs and up and down hills. He likes to be very independent and do everything on his own. He likes to help get dressed and comb his hair. 

 His vocabulary has really exploded in the last month.  Here is a sample of words he is saying: ducks, cereal, mom, dad, milk, truck, bird, dump, bus, plane, shoes, eyes, ears, hair, hat, eggs, and of course NO!

He is a really good solo player and will hang out in his room or crib and read books and play.  He has also learned to throw some pretty good fits.  He appears to be somewhat of a perfectionist and also gets mad when his toys don't work right and I will often hear him yelling No! at them. 

 He loves to play and get dirty but gets irritated when he realizes his hands are dirty.  He is very observant and picks up on the smallest things which just blows me away sometimes.  He loves to mimic us and will join us in doing squats when we are exercising or likes to read the kindle or play on the laptop.  And probably my favorite development right now is that he loves to give me hugs and kisses.  He has very little stranger anxiety at this point and will pretty much play with anyone.

Cars

Jack's latest obsession is cars, trucks, buses, airplanes....pretty much anything with wheels.  He plays with cars, we read books about cars, we sing about cars.  Every time we see a car he has to point it out and acts fascinated as if though he is seeing them for the first time.  Sometimes I wonder what is going on in that head.  His favorite book is called "My Truck is Stuck", or as Jack calls it "Uh-oh".  We have read it 100 times.  He knows every page and what to point out.  

These are two cars Jack borrowed from our good neighbors.  The first day we had them, he didn't put them down once for 3 hours.  And since he insisted holding both at once, he fell on his face 3 times. Our neighbors were too nice and let Jack keep them.

He is making the brrrmmm noise.

kissing his car

Driving a car while holding cars.

A car driving a tractor while pulling a car in a trailor.  See what I mean?- obsessed.

Reading My Truck is Stuck

Silly boy.  Oh we love him.

Bb is for...

My good friend Kym is having her second boy next month so we had a small baby shower for her.  Dani and Erica helped me.  Our theme was Bb is for the birds and bees and baby boys.  We played a few games, had some snacks, but mostly just had some good girl chat.  It was a good time.  What great friends I have!  

Lesson Learned

We are selling all of our furniture before we move across the country.  So yesterday I had my first KSL selling experience.  It went well, except for the fact that I sold an end table for 15 dollars.  That part wasn't bad.  It was the fact that I left $250 worth of Wii Nintendo games in the drawer of the $15 end table.  After a brief panic attack I was able to track the buyer down and get them back.  Lesson learned.

Decision Made

The decision of law school is coming near and so Logan and I spent a week visiting a few schools.  We originally planned to visit Ann Arbor Michigan, Chicago, Charlottesville Virginia, and Philadelphia, but after some careful consideration we decided that Chicago and Philly are not as family friendly as we would like.  So we visited Ann Arbor and Charlottesville.  We really lucked out because it just so happen that we traveled to the east coast the one week Utah decided to be warm and the east decided to be cold.  So instead of enjoying the 80 degree weather they are having in Virginia right now, we got 45 degrees with some clouds.  It was a long trip with lots of travel and business but we still managed to have some fun.  We missed Jack dearly but apparently the feeling was not mutual because Jack barely noticed we had left.  First we went to Ann Arbor.  We only spent 2 days here because of flight schedules.  Even though it was still bare, there were trees everywhere and I am sure its breathtaking in the summer.  We met with some LDS law students and their wives and learned more about the school.  We really liked Ann Arbor....until we visited Charlottesville.  Charlottesville, or C-Ville, or as we named it Char Char town, was beautiful.  And even though it wasn't the typically warm weather, it was still green and Logan and I enjoyed it.  We met with more LDS students and wives and toured the school.  We also ate at some yummy authentic C-ville restaurants, went to Monticello and hiked in the Shenodoah Valley.  We also saw a wagon full of puppies which really sealed the deal.  I wish I had a picture of that.  Charlottesville is like the warm version of Logan.  It's small, green and friendly.  We have yet to hear from Stanford and Harvard but as of right now, we are planning on spending our next 3 years in C-Ville.

We visited a fun park in Ann Arbor called the Gallup Park.  It is a bunch of little Islands connected by bridges. 

We had a real map when we were in Michigan, but somehow we couldn't track one down in Virginia so we ended up using this children's like map.  It was pretty ridiculous as we tried to navagate through town with it.  I couldn't tell you where Emmet street was but I could tell you where Lolly pop lane was.  

One of Logan's friends said the first thing we needed to do in C-Ville was to go to Biltmore's Grill and order Cajun Fries.  Turns out they don't make them anymore but made a special exception for us.  So Good!  Fries with cajun seaoning, cheese, green onions, bacon and sour cream.  Yum!

Monticello.  Logan is reinacting a scene from the Jefferson movie we just watched in the museum.  He is thinking about America here.

Jefferson's grave.  We really enjoyed Monticello.  He was such an interesting man.  

It is amazing how quickly eating fast food gest old.  I hated food by the end of our trip.  Here we bought some food from Wal-Mart.  It was awesome but it was a change.  We are watching Conference on our laptop because of course it is no where to be found. 

One of our rental vehicles.  We paid for an economy car but they ran out so they gave us this.  It even had XM radio.  We felt pretty cool.  We miss you DJ Spyder Harrison.

We hiked Jones Fall in the Shenodoah Park.

This picture doesn't do it justice, its so green and pretty.