Hammer Hammer

I am running out of energy and I feel bad for little Jack who is constantly pulling on my arm and saying"come here mommy, come play".  I randomly threw some stuff in the freezer one night and the next morning let Jack hammer away at the block of yellow treasures.  He found this pretty entertaining and although it resulted in a puddle on my floor it was worth it.

37 Weeks

Full term.  Yay!  I think I have had enough pregnancy for a while so lets just do this.  At my 36 week appointment I was dilated to a 2 (not that that really means much).  I have another appointment tomorrow so we will see how that goes.  I can't complain too much though, besides my fat feet I really do feel pretty good.

Welcome Dragon

The year of the rabbit has ended with the dawning of the dragon!  We are recent fans of the Chinese New Year.  After doing a Chinese New Year party last year I think we may do one every year.  The Chinese don't make you stay up until midnight to celebrate their new year.  It was kind of a crazy day so we didn't go all out as I had hoped but we did have a delicious Chinese dinner.  That was basically it.  It was funny to hear Jack talk about the Chinese New Year.  We aren't sure what was going through his head.  He made some comments like, "China is dancing" and then danced around.  He also said "I hear China".  We also went with family housing to a Chinese restaurant, Hibachi Grill, on the following Saturday to celebrate.  About 80% of family housing are from China so it makes sense we celebratedIt was a free buffet and super yummy!  We love family housing.

Our Chinese buffet.  I love making Jeannie Inouye's crab cream cheese wontons!  It takes me back to Young Women's and they are sooo good.

Our decorations were a failure this year.  Not only did our printer break that I was going to use to print off Logan's awesome art and post everywhere, but the lanterns kept falling down so I gave up with these 3 measly lanterns. 

We had oranges because they are a traditional Chinese fruit eaten on the New Year as a symbol of good health and long life.  We also had Poky!  I remember my grandparents brought us some of this home from Hong Kong when I was a little girl and loved it!  

Eating at Hibachi Grill.

Dating in Mexico and at the Olympics

Logan planned a date night for us last week.  It was last minute but he did a great job improvising.  The theme was Mexico and we ate Choco Tacos and nachos while we played Mexican Train with La Cucaracha playing in the background.  For my date we made homemade donuts into Olympic Rings and then competed in the Olympics playing Shawn Johnson Gymnastics.  

Choco Tacos and Mexican Train! 

Don't mind the giant belly.  I won Mexican Train and so my reward was a cockroach that Logan caught for me but smashed in the process.  Yes we have cockroaches from time to time.  Welcome to Virginia.  At least they are only the size of ants, still gross though.

Making donuts.

Our Olympic Rings.

Logan smoked me.  How is that possible!?  Boys and their dumb video game skills.

Just Hanging Out

We have thoroughly been enjoying our vacation before school starts.  Yes we don't love being poor but man how we love the academic school schedule with amazingly long breaks.  It will be a sad sad day when they end.  Anyway we have been getting organized for the baby, relaxing, and giving Jack lots of playtime.  Logan got the new Zelda Wii game for his birthday and although he doesn't usually play Nintendo at all, he has sure gotten his money worth out of that game over the break.  We hung out with friends, made a volcano, went to the Children's Discovery Museum, and much more. 

The Sturgeon's invited us over along with the Lauder's and the Wotrings for dessert.  

Making a volcano.

The Children's Discovery Museum a the downtown mall.

Working out.  Jack loves to exercise with us.

Playing Cucky Bugs.  This is the spot and the chair for some reason that we must play it.

Playing farm.  I love that Jack is getting old enough to do imaginative "play".  He actually came up with this one.  We are playing farm.  Feeding the animals their blocks of food.

Some onsies I made for baby girl.  I love that dumb bird.

Watching a movie and eating Whirly Pop and Orange Julius.  Jack lasted about 15 minutes into the movie.  He is not quite there yet which is fine with us.

Homemade bathtub painting.

The Year of the Rabbit

With the year of the rabbit at a close and the year of the dragon upon us, lets do a brief recap of major events.

We enjoyed one last semester in Logan after 5 years and Logan graduated with his Masters.  Logan celebrated his Masters with another shoulder surgery and months of recovery.  So far the shoulders have done well, no problems yet.  We said goodbye to good friends and moved into the Cottage in Gunnison.  We enjoyed a fun summer close to family and Logan studied his heart out which paid off when he passed the patent bar test.  We shared our good news of expecting another baby in February with lucky rabbit feet which now I realize is super awesome since it was the year of the rabbit.  We then packed our things up again and made the long trek across country to our new home in Charlottesville Virginia.  We hit the ground running and were quickly involved in school, church, and friendship with other law families.  The semester flew by and before we knew it it was over and we were back home enjoying Christmas with family.  So with one semester down and 5 more to go we look forward to spending more time in Cville and exploring the east coast.  Here is to 2012!

Jack knows his alphabet and is speaking in full complex sentences.  He is trying to be more and more independent everyday which is both a blessing and a curse.  He worships the ground Logan walks on and he thinks I am okay.  He can be very sweet at times and will randomly stroke our faces and say "Are you okay? Don't cry mommy."  Not sure where that came from.  He loves his extended family and does a good job remembering who everyone is.  He also is good at remembering all his little friends we play with.  He loves being silly.  A recent game that was randomly invented one morning when Logan was pretending to eat bugs for breakfast is called Cucky Bugs.  He can play this for about a half an hour straight without getting bored.  Basically we all just pretend to eat different things like pancakes, grapes, cookies or bugs.  If we eat bugs we make a disgusted face and say "Ew!  Cucky Bugs!"

Logan applied for internships and did three interviews in Utah while we were there over the break.  When we returned home he found out he had one in Chicago as well.  We booked the 600 dollar flight and were prepared to go when we got the wonderful news that he got an internship with one of the firms in Utah!  Yay! So this means we will be heading back to Salt Lake City this summer to work at Ray Quinney.  We are super excited and feel very blessed.

I am getting ready for the baby.  She could be here in just a couple weeks.  I am mostly stressed that I won't make it to the hospital in time or get to have an epidural because Jack was so fast.  So we will see how that pans out.  I have my house reorganized, freezer meals cooked, my babysitter call list arranged, and a few things sewn.  Mostly I just need to finish some crocheting and sewing so hopefully I get those projects done.

And we're back!

After a wonderful month in Utah, we made our way back to CVille.  It is nice to be back in our own home and Logan still has a couple weeks before school starts so we get to relax at home.  The flight home was long but we made it.  I flew home without Logan again (boo) because he had an interview that day and we ended up changing his flight to the next day at the last minute.  So the day after Logan got home we had our 3rd Christmas.  Don't worry, we weren't too spoiled, our Christmas was just drawn out in small pieces.  Logan's birthday was next.  Jack is starting to get birthdays and he had fun helping me decorate and make cheesecake for Dad's bday.  Logan loves breakfast so I made a big breakfast.  We went for a hike later that afternoon, played with play dough and then had dinner at a buffet resturaunt called Wood Grill Buffet.  It was yummy and we had fun stuffing our faces as well as Jack's face.  On the way home Logan was making Jack laugh really hard.  Jack has a sensitive gag reflux from his acid reflux as a baby and all the Buffet came right back up.  He literally laughed so hard he threw up.  Thankfully throwing up doesn't phase him, it was just a mess to clean up.  And that night Logan and I actually watched a whole movie (we no longer have the attention span to do this very often) Moneyball which we enjoyed.  We also went to Bounce N Play, one of Jack's new favorite places.  It was a good day :)

At first Jack refused to get on the bike.  Then all the sudden it became cool and he loved it.  Kids are weird.  The best part is it folds down!  I am all about space saving toys.

At Bounce N Play.  It was so nice to have Logan to crawl through the tunnels with him this time unlike last time when I had to.  It was pretty awkward for a 6'3" man though.

He was pretty adventurous and would go on most of the stuff on his own.

Coloring on the wall mural.  

Checking out the coy pond.

Logan's B-Day breakfast.  Jack showing his "piggy meats" aka sausage.

Jack helped with the decorations.

Rivanna Trail we hiked.  We taught Jack "Pooh Sticks".  He thought it was amazing.

Jack's big stick

We did some Chicka Chicka Boom Boom play dough letters.

And some hammering.