3GS Baby!

Jon got one of the new iPhones last week and, because I've been a good girl and have been using the First Gen for the past two years, I decided to get one too. ;-)

One of the main reasons I decided to snatch one up was for the video camera (and improved digital camera) - since I almost always have my phone with me, but don't always carry around one of our two cameras. So, tonight on our front porch, hanging out in our brand new chairs before swim class, I decided to test out the video myself. It's a little long but I left most of it in so that you could hear Logan say a few words (altho, he's more interested in his juice than chatting with Mommy). *sigh*



You can see hear a couple of times the sound is super muffled. It took me a few minutes to realize I was covering up the mic when moving the camera around. But other than that, I really like the functionality! I can't wait to start using it more often! Logan also really enjoyed watching himself immediately on the playback, pointing to his sippy cup and informing me it was "juice" over and over again. ;-)

(Funny, the quality looks a lot better on my iMac than it does on YouTube. Still, not bad for a phone.)

Hot Summer Nights

I guess it's due to the ridiculously hot weather we're now dealing with, but I got in the mood to (finally) dress up our front porch. What better with, than a couple of cool festive red Adirondack chairs to relax in. I figure they'll come in handy on these hot summer nights where all we want to do is sip our iced tea while Logan runs around kicking balls on the front lawn. I know, I'm getting old. :)


We had another busy busy weekend. But, before I blog about that, I remembered a few pics I recently took with my iPhone that I had forgotten to post about. Specifically, a couple of Logan's cousin Luke (and Renee and Logan) while out to dinner on Father's Day. What cutie pies!


And then a few more from last Tuesday night's pizza outing with Robert (and Jenn) after a fun swim class. It hadn't dawned on Jenn nor I what fun a few old-school arcades would be, but we should have known. Lights! Buttons! Balls! Cars! Duh.


Saturday morning Logan and I both got much needed haircuts. We then spent the rest of the day relaxing - well, sort of. I got some chores done while Logan napped, and Jon went up to the city to get some work done. That's our definition of "relaxing" these days.

That afternoon, I dropped Logan off with my parents and then took the train up to the city to meet with Jon and several friends. Eric (one of Jon's best friends) is in town visiting so it was a good excuse for everyone to get together.

While we were out catching up with friends, Logan spent time exploring my parents' neighborhood. They went to my old elementary school (the school has since shut down but the playgrounds are still there) to play. The twisty adventurous slide was the best, I hear. After that, they took a walk to a nearby business complex which has some nice landscaped grounds full of fun things, like plants, bugs and creeks, to explore. Logan happened upon a flock of ducks that were VERY exciting. All in all, a really nice night out (and all the exploring tuckered our little guy out!)

This morning we picked him up and went over to the Jodoins' house to visit. We had grand plans of hopping in the pool, but no one had the energy to get farther than the living room couches. ;-) It's probably just as well, it hit about 100 degrees around noon time and the boys were already pretty tired. They played with cars and balls galore and I had the pleasure of reading Robert his Potty Time with Elmo book because he insisted "Auntie Bree" read it rather than his Mommy. Sorry Jenn! ;-) I figure it's good practice for when Logan starts potty training.

We quickly left as Logan started to have a meltdown. Thankfully, he fell asleep in the car ride home. I took the long way home to give him a few more minutes of snoozing time - but when transferring him from the car to the crib, he woke up. Usually, he'll snuggle up to his blankets and fall right back to sleep. Not this time. :( It turned into a battle of wills. He screamed and hollered and cried. I finally went in with a bottle and we rocked and he downed his bottle and rested his head on my chest. He was very sleepy, but didn't want to fall asleep. I finally put him back in his crib to lay down and he spent the next 30 minutes or so just playing in his crib, never falling asleep. *sigh* When Jon got home (he had been out running errands), he tried the same (rocking, holding, calming Logan down). Logan pointed to his crib saying "night night", Jon laid him down, and he proceeded to roll around playing in his crib again.

He finally won - never actually taking a nap (argh!) - so we packed everyone up to head to his friend Max's first birthday party. We had a great time visiting with friends (many old eBay coworkers of Jon's) but after a couple of hours we had to split since Logan was starting another one of his infamous meltdowns. By the time we got home, he had calmed down enough to eat a little bit of dinner before bedtime. The poor guy had a pretty crazy busy (and hot!) weekend, so I didn't blame him for demanding his crib the minute we were done changing him into his pj's for the night.

Vampire Fangs

Tonight, during one of Logan's rare frequent moods on the changing table, where he was screaming his head off as if I was actually hurting him (thank God I have such a good relationship with our neighbors because otherwise I'm sure they would wonder about how we're treating our poor child), I noticed his two upper vampire fangs canines totally poking through.

And I'm not kidding when I say that Logan was screaming bloody murder at me, so ANGRY that I had the gall to change his poopy diaper in the middle of an intense game we like to call "Dumping blocks and Legos all over the floor". Exhausted end-of-a-long-work-week mom that I am, all I could do was stare down at his open screaming mouth, unaffected by the piercing noise coming out of it, and instead say:

Wow! Would you look at that?! Your canines finally came in!!

AWESOME!


I'm all about seeing the silver lining in things these days.

The End of an Era

In sad sad shocking news, the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, died today. :( Personal and eccentric life choices aside, he was a wonderful entertainer, amazing dancer and a profoundly creative successful musician/singer. I was so enamored by Jackson when I was just a little girl that I often tried to perfect the "moon walk" and made my mom buy me a necklace with, you guessed it, a rhinestone-studded glove (unfortunately, I don't think I kept that little gem of my 80's past).

Even though we'll now never get to see him perform in person, Logan has already, and will continue to, groove and get down to MJ's funky music with me. We love his music, his style, his rhythms and beat - he most certainly will not be forgotten.

Shit.

Logan and I got home tonight to a house smelling of shit. I thought oh great, one of the cats didn't cover up their poop again! Ugh! But, as I turned the corner to let Lola out of her crate, I saw the splatter of shit across the floor of our den.

And then another splatter closer to the sliding glass door.

And then another.

OMFG it was awful.

I quickly let Odin out (he was looking sheepishly guilty!) and then had Lola go out the front door and around the house to the back (so she wouldn't run into the puddles and track it all over the house in 15 seconds flat). I then ran back inside just in time to catch Logan walking thru the piles of soupy shit.

His shoes were suctioning to the floor and he couldn't figure out why.

STOP!

I hoisted him up as fast as I could, stripped his shoes off, carried him to the master bathroom (where I had to PEE like nobody's business) and locked us in the room. My mind was racing. How the hell was I going to clean up this house while keeping a very fast and mobile toddler out of that shit?

The big jacuzzi tub in our bathroom was calling my name. And Logan was already throwing his toys in as if to say, I'm ready Mom! Let's take a bath!

So I stripped him down, filled the tub and then did the unthinkable.... I left my kid to play in the tub on his own while I raced around the house gathering cleaning supplies and assessing the damage.

To my horror, Logan's room was also hit. And because he has a rug in there, it was really bad. :( My guess is, Odin had his first diarrhea attack in Logan's room (where he likes to hang out and sleep during the day). When he realized it, he ran to the den to try and get outside but since we keep them locked in the house during the day, he couldn't get out. So, he had a few more accidents near the door. Just ONE MORE REASON to get that friggin' doggy door project DONE!! Argh. Don't even get me started.

I thought I could probably handle the cleanup on my own if it had just been the den, but with Logan's room also a mess, I needed some help before I had a major meltdown.

I called Jon and told him to come home ASAP. I knew this was a big "ask" since he actually had some late night work to do in the data center and coming home now meant he'd have to be back up to the city bright and early tomorrow morning to finish the work. But he could hear the urgency in my voice and dropped everything immediately. He was still an hour away, but I knew I wouldn't be done by then anyway.

I spent the next hour checking in on Logan and singing to him from the other room - me on the floor, hands and knees, scrubbing away, while he blissfully unaware and totally having the time of his life in his tub.

That is, until suddenly he started yelling for me: "Mama! Mama! Out! Out!"

That's strange. My son never volunteers to be taken out of the bathtub. What gives?

I come in and he's standing in the tub, reaching out to me to be picked up, and pointing back down to the tub.

The little shit had taken a shit!

Nice. Just what I needed. MORE SHIT.

I tell you, it was at this point that my eyes were threatening to well up with tears.

I drained the tub, cleaned the poop up, hosed him and his toys down, and refilled the bathtub so he could continue playing. I was hoping he'd stay in long enough until Jon got home to help and watch him while I continued to clean up Odin's mess(es).

Luckily - it worked. I had the den cleaned up and was still working on the rug in Logan's room when Jon finally pulled up an hour later. Jon scrubbed Logan down and dressed him while I tried vacuuming the rug with our shop vac. It didn't work so well - so I decided we needed to rent a steam cleaner. And, I needed to get out of the house before I went ballistic and strangled our pets. None of us had eaten dinner yet either - and it was hitting Logan's bed time (approx. 8pm)

So, off to Fresh Choice (for some healthy greens spoiled with ranch dressing. mwahahaha) for a quick bite to eat and then Longs Drugs to rent a steam cleaner!

We were home by about 9:30pm and Logan was exhausted. Frankly, we all were (and my back! KILLING me softly.)

We couldn't put Logan to sleep in his room. The house had aired out pretty well, but we wanted to spray the carpet with some stain treatment we bought at the store before using the steam cleaner tomorrow - and we weren't really crazy about leaving our kid in the room overnight inhaling all those fun cleaning fumes. So, he's now conked out in his travel tent in our bedroom, and we'll just spend another night on our futon out in the living room (because, didn't I tell you? one of the cats or Lola, we're not sure, had an accident on our bed over the weekend and I've been airing out the mattress to dry after treating it as well!).

I'm pretty sure we won't be getting any new pets for a loooooong time.

Martha Stewart Would be Proud

Yesterday evening Jon and I went to a surprise birthday party for a friend of ours. We dropped Logan off at my parents so that we could stay out late for the night. It was a harder drop off than usual - we had to wake him up from his nap in order to drop him off in time, which already had him out of sorts, and then we literally dropped him off and said good bye in a matter of a few minutes. He caught on as we were leaving and was VERY upset. :( It was really hard for me to go; I could tell he was going to have a rough time getting over it (and I was right). :(

After the birthday party, we caught a late night showing of Angels and Demons. I liked it okay (although it was a little fast paced and some of the plot lines were hard to follow), but Jon wasn't impressed. He's been reading the book and I guess a lot of the character development and key story lines were left out. Oh well, we still had a nice time out. :)

This morning, I picked up some crazy donuts at the new local Psycho Donuts shop. I got several so we could sample them all. Left to Right: Butterfinger, Peanut Nutter Butter, Cookie Monster (with Oreo cookies), plain Glazed, "Apricotology" (Apricot Critter) and Massive Head Trauma (Raspberry Jelly Filled). They were sooooo super sweet that we had tummy aches after a few bites. It was fun to try but we agreed we'll be sticking to our regular ol' Stan's or Manley's donut shops from now on. ;-)


We spent the day running errands before Jon's brother Curtis, Renee and Luke, stopped by for a visit (on their way through town to Monterey). Logan was still down for a nap during the first part of their visit, but the two boys got to goof around and play together some before dinner. This was the best pic of the two boys together that I could snag all night! *sigh*



For Father's Day this year I made not one, but TWO! (ah-ah-ah...), craft projects for Jon. For a person who never does art and crafty things, this is a big deal.

First, I started with the photo cube - I had a couple of small snafus in getting the pictures to adhere nicely to the block, but otherwise I think it turned out rather well. Jon can flip the cube around based on how he's feeling for the day, and show off his cute kid to the guys at work. :)



Then, because I was feeling ambitious, and because my coworker Amanda got this idea into my stinkin' head (thanks Amanda!) I decided to make those cheezy matching Dad/Son t-shirts.

Yes, I really did. With cheezy taglines too (Logan's says "My Big Hero" and Jon's says "My Little Hero").


But, aren't they adorable?!?! :)

Hope everyone had a fun filled Father's Day weekend!

Happy Father's Day!

What two good looking Dads! Out to dinner with Jon's brother Curtis, Renee and Logan's cute cousin Luke. :) Hope everyone's Father's Day is going great!

Daddy's Home!

Even though he's mastered eating pasta with a fork, he STILL manages to stain his hands and face bright red. I wonder if it's a ploy to get more bath time in? (it worked)


Logan stayed up a little later than usual tonight so that we could see Daddy when he got home (a little after 9pm). He was thrilled, of course. Jon is his favorite guy - he often asks for "dada" repeatedly when I pick him up from school or when the two of us are putzing around the house getting ready for bed. And, when Jon does get home - he squeals and runs toward Jon/the front door with his hands up in the air (wanting to be picked up), yelling "Dada! Dada!"

Of course, Logan's not the only one happy to see Jon home again. It's a huge relief just knowing he's here to lean on and help out if I'm just too exhausted. Yay! :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Update: I forgot I also wanted to cross post from Woot because I liked today's post so much :)

12 Bugs We've Found In iPhone OS 3.0

1. Multimedia messaging does not support sculpture, macrame, or interpretive dance.
2. Voice memo recordings totally don't sound like me. I don't sound like that, do I? Seriously?
3. Turned on adult content filter but everybody in my videos still has their clothes on.
4. Adding a task to calendar did not result in task getting done.
5. Clicked this blue "compass" icon but kept getting some stupid web browser.
6. Still no apps to cure the nagging feeling that I should've bought a Palm Pre.
7. The touchscreen is now on the back of the phone instead of the front.
8. Gone to the bathroom four times already today, and Remote Wipe hasn't worked once.
9. Spotlight search crashed with memory overload error trying to index my Harry Potter cosplay photo collection.
10. Tried out tethering, but I think I broke my finger smacking that phone around the pole.
11. Apple still hasn't fixed the no-hardware-keyboard bug.
12. "Cut" function does not apply to monthly AT&T bill.

Kick, Kick, Kick!

Tonight was Logan's first swim class of the summer season. We haven't been in a year and Jenn suggested we sign the boys up for another round now that they're older and more mobile. We're going twice a week (Tues/Thurs) after work, which is more often than we wanted to go, but all the once-a-week classes were during the day when we both work! Yet another annoying place that caters to stay at home moms more than working ones. :(

In any case - we had a really nice time and I think Logan's going to like the class much more this time around. We practiced kicking forward and floating on our backs, dipping their faces in the water and doing big round forward swimming arms. Lots of exercises and tons of toys to entice the kids with. The class was nice and small (all boys! Logan, Robert and two others) - and for the first few minutes of class as the teacher was reminding us of the pool rules, both Logan and Robert were content splashing each other wildly in the face. Definitely the class "trouble makers".

Logan clung to me for dear life - which is funny since he can't get enough of water play time or baths at home - wrapping his legs tightly around my waist. But, by the end of the class, he was finally loosening up and actually even trying to kick his legs some on his own which was neat! :)

We were both beat when we got home - he from swim class, me from an early morning con call (which meant dropping Logan off at school by 7:30am - yikes!) and single parenting this week. I can't wait until (late) tomorrow night, when Jon is back home.

Almost Home

Just as I was taking this pic, he slid down and started screaming because he (more specifically, his head) got stuck. *sigh*

Our flight was delayed which really sucked because Logan was already tired and I couldn't let him run around as much as usual since it was just me with him today (Jon took a separate flight out to Philly for business). I thought it was bad dealing with a super tired delirious baby running around the airport, all on my own.

Then, he pooped. Just as we boarded the plane.

I think this one hour flight will be the longest with him yet.

18 month checkup

Just finished Logan's 18 month checkup. All looks great as usual. We've got a strong active healthy little boy. But, we all knew that already. ;-) Here he is, playing up a storm after his Hep A shot, which he didn't even flinch from!

He's definitely continuing his growth spurt on the height curve. His stats are 26lbs, 3oz (55%), 34.25" tall (95%), and 49.25cm (77%) round head.

Short post today. We have a funeral service to attend in San Diego this weekend (for Jon's great grandmother - she lived a long and full life but we are, of course, sad to see her go).

So, I've got a number of errands to run before we hop on the plane later this afternoon. Toodles!

1.5 years old

Wow - today marks Logan's 1.5 birthday! I can't believe he's already 18 months old. He's continuing to babble and throw in semi-recognizable words in between. Some of the new words he's picked up over the last month are: "fish", "cracker", "buh-bye", "boy", "girl", "shoes", "there", "cookie", "belly", "eye", "nose", "more", "night night", and "mine".


Last month he started pointing to his crib when he wanted to go to bed. Now he's actually saying "night night" as well. He's also starting to vocalize some of his previous signed-only words, the main one being "more". It's cool because he hasn't dropped his signing, he just says "more" at the same time that he signs it. :)


He's gotten very good at identifying CARS!


and BALLS! (would ya look at that milk belly?!?)


and saying BUH-BYE to pretty much anything that's moving away from him. He also likes to remind you where his (and your) belly, eyes, ears and of course, we all know this one well, nose are.

Oh, and let's not forget his favorite red furry friend, Elmo. It's not a new word but it's definitely his favorite (or, at least, ties with car and ball for most used). In fact, just this morning, when he woke up, he greeted me with a sleepy smile and, not a "Good mornin' Mama!" or a "Hi Daddy!" No no no.

Instead, his first word of the day had to be, in a very sweet and innocent voice, "Melmo?" (and when I proceeded to change his diaper first, before obeying his command and flipping on the TV, he started screaming "Melmo! Melmo! Melmo!"


The "Melmo" demands aren't too bad. However, the MINE! are a totally different story. Because, you know, everything is MINE! (I'm sooo glad his school taught him how to say mine.)

The food you're eating is MINE! The toy he's playing with is MINE! The toy you're playing with is MINE! The toy that another kid is looking at is MINE! The chair you're sitting in is MINE!

Jon and I have seriously looked him square in the eyes and said, Look kid, you better just forget this MINE! shit. Everything in this house is Mommy and Daddy's. Ain't nothin' yours yet.

But alas, you know how that discussion goes.

Lots of grins and more MINE MINE MINE!

At least he's not biting?

He has started to count (or at least mimic counting), likes to wear our shoes and clomp around in them, is known to sit quietly for 4 minutes flipping through his books, and LOVES to bend over, butt straight in the air, trying to turn a somersault (he can't quite do it by himself, but absolutely loves it when you help him and can't get enough).


But what makes me swell with pride most of all, is sharing with you how our love has picked up the habit of saying "tank u" for everything. Whether he's saying thank you for something you've given him, or thank you for something he's giving you, he's got it down pat. It's the most precious, adorable habit in the world and almost makes up for the nasty MINE! phase that we can't wait to move past.

I said almost.

Rocks are a Boy's Best Friend

You never really want to wish a traumatic experience onto anyone, let alone your own child. Yet, this evening, as I was driving to an urgent after hours on-call doctor appointment, I have to admit, the thought definitely crossed my mind.

Just as I was packing up at work, I got a call from his school today. Logan stuck another rock up his nose. And, this time it was too far up for the teachers to reach and get out on their own. They were a little panicky and not sure what to do.

I called Dr. Safir - whose office was closed for the night, but gave a number for the on-call doctor. I called them and they told me it actually wasn't a terribly urgent issue and if I wanted to just wait until the morning and take Logan in to see Dr. Safir tomorrow instead, that would be totally fine.

Uhhh, I think I'd like you to take the rock out tonight, thank you very much.

I whisked him away from school (where he was happily sitting at the table eating his late afternoon snack, seemingly 100% unaffected by the fact that there was a rock lodged up his nose) and drove like mad to make the 6:15pm appointment clear across town.

And there I was, preparing myself for a traumatic event, where we'd need 5 adults to hold down my screaming writhing son as the doctor reached up his nose with long needle-nose pliers to painfully pull the rock out, all the while Logan imploring me with his tear-filled eyes to stop. But then I thought, well shit. Maybe this will finally teach him a lesson. Maybe he would finally learn that ROCKS DO NOT GO IN NOSES.

Unfortunately (or fortunately?), the rescue mission went nothing like I had imagined. Instead, Logan laid quietly still on the table while I pinned down his arms against his ears/head and the nurse held down his torso/legs, pointing a flashlight up his nose. The doctor took out a medium sized pair of tweezers (with long skinny tips) and within 5 seconds, the big honkin' rock was out of his nose.

Not a scream. Not a tussle. Not a tear nor a drop of blood. Not even a whimper.

Damn.

Instead, my kid just smiled REAL big, wondering what all the commotion was about.

And I'm pretty sure the lesson he learned tonight wasn't "Do not stick another rock up my nose", but rather, "If I stick rocks up my nose, I am going to get a lot of attention and an easy 5 second rescue mission right afterward. Score!"

Offending Piece of Evidence

A little smaller than a dime and still slimy and wet from Logan boogers :)

A weekend of new toys

It's been awhile since I've posted a video - so long that, the last few clips I had on the camera, which I had grand plans of putting together, were from when Logan had first started walking, some 5 or so months ago! Yikes.

So, I finally finished that little long-forgotten project. And, though 5 months late, I'm sure most of you will still enjoy it since Logan is just so damn cute. :)



This weekend we spent some serious cashola and bought a few toys for the house - a new TV for our bedroom, a new Blu-Ray disc player, and (so Logan wouldn't feel left out, of course) a new Bean Bag Toss game to hone his mad throwing/tossing skillz. ;-)

We took a bike ride this evening just after dinner and Logan was so wiped out from the weekend with Zafu and Zabuton (he spent last night at my parent's while Jon and I met with our friends for an adults-only night of dinner, hilarious movie and games afterward to celebrate Kim's recent birthday) that he actually fell asleep toward the end of the ride!

But, the minute we got home, he woke up, caught a second wind and decided to run around playing with his new tossing game. Here's a few clips I put together of him playing just before bedtime. Enjoy!

Another growth spurt?

For the last week or so, Logan's had a tough time sleeping through the night again. This has been really hard on us, as we have been working late hours ourselves and not getting to bed early enough, nor getting enough sleep through the night.

At first I thought he might be teething - which I think could still be the case, since I'm seeing some swollen whites underneath his canine areas. But, after the last few days of 4am bottle feedings and then another 1-2 FULL bottles a couple hours later when he wakes up for the day, I have to think our little guy is just hungry! And, as much as we try to get a full meal in him at dinner time, it seems like he's still hungry as he downs those bottles like nothin'.

So, now I'm thinking our kid's just growing like a weed. With all the eating he's doing, and the restless sleep, AND the short-short pants I noticed this morning that totally fit him fine like 2 days ago, I'm going to put my bet on another growth spurt. We have his 18 month checkup next Friday (seriously, it's already been a year and a half?!?), so I guess we'll see then how much he has really grown by then! :)

Out Sick

I've been home sick the last couple of days, just battling a common
head cold that stole my voice. But since I've got a bit more "free"
time, I've also been taking care of a couple errands in between the
downtime.

Get my son a much needed haircut? Check!

Build. Craft. Hack. Play. Make.

Although not quite as hectic, we had another full week last week and by Friday we really needed some time off. At the last minute, we asked my parents to babysit Logan for the night so that Jon and I could have some R&R time by ourselves. Thankfully, they said absolutely! :)

Unfortunately, Jon didn't get home until 8:30pm that night, but we didn't let that stop us from going out anyway! We had a late dinner at Willow Street Pizza, where we tried guessing how old the teeny-bopper girls at the tables near us were (and how they drove themselves there? since there wasn't a parent in sight), and then went on to the movies to see Up, another amazing performance by Pixar (arguably the greatest of all Pixar movies) that EVERYONE should go see! We didn't get to see it in 3-D, which is what I want to do next. It was THAT good.

On Saturday, we three had plans to spend the day at the Maker Faire (a large DIY festival). However, Jon's work got in the way so he had to miss out, but Logan and I still made it (albeit a little late in the day). We had a lot of fun - it was our first time ever, even though my cousin is the Managing Editor of Make and helps coordinate the entire Maker Faire every year! But, we will be back for sure. Most of the shows and activities were too old for Logan to really appreciate - yet he was still fascinated with everything and wanted to look at and touch it all. Mama was just as overwhelmed (possibly more so than Logan) at all the amazing creativity under one "roof". It was super nerdy cool.

Sunday, Logan and I met with several other friends at the Monterey Bay Aquarium to celebrate Nathan's belated birthday (two months ago), but also really just to have another excuse to get out of the house and get the kids together. :) Jon couldn't make it because he was up in the city getting shading done on his recent back tattoo, a multi-month project of his (to be chronicled later).

It was a lot of fun and was a much more interesting and interactive setting for Logan this time around, than last. Since he now knows what fishes are (and calls pretty much anything he sees in water a "fish"), he was fascinated by the giant bluefin tuna and hammerhead sharks in the Outer Bay exhibit and didn't want to leave the playful Sea Otters area.

Although Mama was enthralled by the beautiful special Seahorse exhibit, he couldn't be bothered (way too small, slow moving and "boring" for him) and instead sat backwards playing with the buckles on his stroller as we walked through the entire section (it was also the end of the day and he was beat).

Look Logan! Another seahorse! A dragon seahorse! TWO seahorses! OOooooh TINY seahorses!

Not even a nod or glance in their general direction, he was too focused on getting his buckles snapped (and then unsnapped by me to snap together again). *sigh*

Of course, the most fun of all was the Splash Zone, where he was allowed to run around freely with his buddies (in dizzying circles), race down the slides and get as wet as Mama would let him. :)

All in all, a fun-filled whirlwind busy weekend!(Click on any of the pics for more)

Turndown Service - At home

Just when you think you've had enough, the new housekeepers you recently hired stop by and turn your home into a gloriously fresh smelling haven!

I was a little nervous at first - they are more expensive than my last, which means I can only have them come every other week rather than weekly. And, for a house with two maniac workaholics, a messy toddler, two shedding dogs and three crazy cats, we need weekly, if not daily, cleanings!

But, I'm so glad I hired them (our previous housekeeper moved out of state). They are super thorough which is the most important part for me, but then they have these little touches like folding the first sheet of toilet paper, as if my house is actually some 4-star hotel.


I had to laugh. But hey, they know what they're doing. Next time I'm going to look for a mint on the pillow. ;-)

I have a much longer post (with pics!) from our past busy weekend, but that'll take me more time to write....so, stay tuned.