Trick or Treat! Pt. 2

Here is video we took of the kids doing their rounds:

Trick or Treat!

Happy Halloween!  We are celebrating Halloween this year in Atlanta, visiting Andy and Heather, Sofia and new baby Xavier Jon.  It's Xavier's first Halloween, and Sofia and Logan's first Trick or Treat experience!

View our Kodak Gallery photos here!

Fall Family Fun

We have had a busy week with our friend Anika!  We had been planning an outing today to Apple Holler in Wisconsin for months now, and today was the big day.  Of course because we planned it for today this had to be our coldest day yet!  The weather wasn't on our side, but it wasn't totally miserable and the rain held off.  It was just brisk and windy.

Of course all the OTHER days lately have been glorious, and next week's forecast is fair as well.  We had a couple of spontaneous outings this past week to take advantage of the sunny and unseasonably warm days while they last.  Please enjoy the album of our THREE field-trip week!

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Happy First Birthday, Logan Carmichael!!

We have had quite the celebration for young Master Logan!  Saturday the 18th we had his party. 

We got a HUGE surprise when Uncle Jeff and Aunt Sam arrived (all the way from South Carolina)!   

 

There were very many gifts to open, from toys and books to outfits with room to grow.  We sang, and blew out candles,and Logan smashed his cupcake clear up his nose.  We're pretty sure there are still chocolate boogers up there.  It was a dream party really, and I could hardly hold back tears as I watched my tiny baby pass this milestone into toddler-hood.  What a sap, I know! 

One surprise we had to share with everyone at the party is that Logan has started WALKING!  He is still learning, and a little jerky, like Frankenstein, with his arms outstretched as he toddles.  He's getting to the point now where he stands back up when he falls, instead of just quitting and crawling.  So this milestone along with the autumnal weather approaching seemed to dictate that it was time to pick up Logan's first walking shoes!  For our family celebration today we took him to Payless where he measured at a whopping size 5 shoe!  We picked out a pair of black airwalks and a pair of brown Stride Rites that we found on a good deal at Marshalls.  The Stride Rites have a thinner more flexible sole he seems to prefer.  But watching him try to walk in shoes reminded me of my first time in snorkelling flippers.  It will take some practice for sure!

After picking out his shoes we went out in search of Banana Cream Pie!  Jason had a banana pudding cup a couple of weeks ago and Logan went CRAZY for it, demanding a second cup and eating most of it himself!  So after that I figured that he would LOVE some banana cream pie. :) We found it at Baker's Square, and when we arrived with Logan in his birthday crown, we requested that they save us one of their last slices especially for him.  The ladies were all very sweet and tickled that he was spending his first birthday with them.  They brought his pie with a candle in it and sang for him, and his slice was even on the house!  And much as expected, it was a gooey, creamy, banana-y hit!

Happy Birthday sweet boy.  Mommy and Daddy love you so  much.

This has been the best year of our lives, and we look forward to many more!

Summer fun, the sequel. Cuz what is summer without a sequel?

Here we are, in Logan's twelfth month!  Where has the time gone?  My baby is almost a toddler!  Ack.  "Toddler".  Let's just put that off for another year shall we?  I think he can stay my baby until he's two, right? 

We've been thoroughly enjoying ourselves and the company of family whenever we can.  It's fantastic, if downright exhausting at times!  Recently we spent a few days up in Wisconsin visiting the extended family. We got to see Nanny Paula play her Irish music at 52 Stafford and Auntie Devin sing and dance in her Broadway review.  Logan and Jason went with the Sippels to Bay Beach, a mini-amusement park in Green Bay.  We caught some rays at the New Holstein Aquatic Center.  We also took in a fish fry at Villa Loretta where Jason's grandmother lives, and got to see all the animals on the farm!  Logan got properly spoiled by his Grandpas and ate his weight in ice cream all in one night.  And now that he's participating more at the dinner (and lunch and breakfast and snack) table, Logan has hit a growth spurt and is putting on some weight.  (All muscle.  He's ridiculously strong!)  Must be all those cheese curds he's been eating!

This past weekend was a whirlwind of activity.  On Saturday we enjoyed a new hangout (well "new" to us) at Montrose beach in Chicago.  While we do have our little beach on our block, this one is much more user friendly with wide expanses of flat, fine, packed sand with no rocks to hurt your feet.  The water is not exactly warm enough for swimming by my standards (about 74 degrees) but it was refreshing once you got used to it, considering the very hot days we've been having.  Sunday Logan and I went with our new friends Anika and Jodie to the farmers market and Glenwood Arts Fair which was really fun and a lot bigger than we expected.  Unfortunately we are sad to announce that Ducky didn't make it home from the fair.  We realized he had flown the coop when taking Logan out of the stroller and putting him in the car seat.  And despite re-tracing our steps he was no-where to be found.  Which is strange, considering that when I posted about it on Facebook, two different people claimed to have spotted lost Ducky lying sadly on the sidewalk all alone.  *sniff sniff*  Thankfully we had been training Second Ducky for this very day, and after mourning in hiding under the futon for some time, we found him when it was time to put Logan to bed and he has performed his duties solo with great stoicism and valor.  After the Arts Fair, we picked up Jason at work and drove up to Milwaukee to see Nanny perform at Irish Fest.  Please enjoy the pics below.  Believe it or not, a birthday album will be just around the corner!

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Up Nort'

Another few weeks have gone by, another few milestones have come - 3-1/2 to be exact: Logan now has toothies!  His bottom middle right was visible first, but then out of nowhere the two top middle and bottom middle left started coming in too, and are catching up pretty quickly!  He likes to bite the spoon now when we are feeding him, and is really enjoying finger foods as well.  He's pretty messy though, so we've had to start leaving bigger tips when we go out to eat because he feels the floor needs to eat as much as he does!

We also had another road trip last weekend, this time to the U.P. - that's the upper peninsula of Michigan for non-Midwest folks.  My college roommate Adam had a wedding ceremony at his wife's family retreat on Lake Michigan - they had already had the actual legal stuff done back in January but wanted to have a shindig all of their friends and family could attend.  It was a beautiful location right on the lake, and suited the couple's sensibilities perfectly.  It was great to see him and our other roommate Ingvar again, although we realized after the fact that we didn't get a shot of all three of us together.   It was a long drive, but well worth it.  Congrats Adam and Ashleigh!  Enjoy the slideshow below.

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Summer fun!

I'm having a flashback now to when I was 11 years old and every entry of my diary began with an apology for not writing!  Of course it will come as no surprise to other parents that the bigger Logan gets, the more demanding of our time and attention he gets.  So now here we are two weeks after his 9 month birthday with a lot of blogging catch-up to do!  We have been living the jet-set lifestyle lately.  In fact, of the past three weekends he's seen all three sets of grandparents, and in the past two months he's seen all three sets TWICE!  No small feat considering we aren't exactly "around the corner" from any of them.  But this first year is flying by in about a minute and a half, so we want to share the joy as much as possible. 

Memorial Day Weekend was Logan's first big road trip.  Grandma and Grandpa Winter picked us up in the minivan and we drove overnight to Atlanta for a family reunion at Heather, Andy and Sofia's house.  It was a very fun trip!  When Sofia saw Logan, the first thing she did was go up to him and take Ducky out of his mouth to try him out for herself.  He looked a bit surprised and hurt for a brief moment, until she put her pink paci in his mouth, and then he seemed to figure that was a pretty fair trade.  This spirit of sharing continued throughout our visit!  We had a blast playing with all of Sofia's toys and chilling at the hotel pool.

Jason's first Father's day coincided with Logan's 9 month birthday.  (June 20, 2010)  We celebrated with Grandma and Grandpa Winter, Great-Grandma and -Grandpa Winter, and Auntie Beth.  There was a somewhat ceremonial passing of the tongs from Jason's Dad down to the new Dad over a hot charcoal grill, and we all enjoyed the meats of their labor.

The following weekend we had another family reunion, this one with the Winsteads at Great-Aunt Kathy's place in Virginia.  This was our official celebration of Granny's 90th birthday.  Another reason this was such a special trip was because we got to meet the newest cousins, Luke and Isla.  My cousin Patrick and his wife have the most adorable twins, who are now four months old.  Granny certainly had her hands full! 

What I thought was hysterical is that the first thing Logan did when he met them, was go up to Luke and try to take his froggy paci away!  Hmmm... Whom did he learn THAT from Sofia?!

It was a short but sweet trip.  We wish we could have stayed longer!  We got to introduce Logan to the beach for the first time (he likes the pool better), and Granny gave Heather some baking classes in her classic Pound Cake and Italian Cream Cake.  She's trixy with her baking secrets, that one.  We're still not sure she's really given up the true recipe! 

Baby's first Fourth of July was a somewhat terrifying event.  Oh it started out innocently enough.  Nannie and Bapaw came from Wisconsin to have a cookout with us and spend the night.  And we met a new friend in the park this week so we invited her (Anika) and her mommy (Jodie) to join us!  The babies are only two weeks apart in age, so we are hoping to have more play dates in the future!  We had burgers and dogs on the grill and sat outside as much as possible because our brand new A/C still isn't working!  (Wednesday, we are told, it should be fixed.)

After Logan ate just about ALL of Bapaw's Italian Ice, we decided to check out the fireworks.  Originally the plan was to go up to Evanston to see the municiple fireworks there... but a neighbor told us about the usual Chicago fireworks at Navy Pier dividing into a northside and southside deal, whereby we could walk a mere 4-5 blocks and see them from the nearby Touhy beach.  This sounded good to us!  And it was in theory, but not so much in practice.  Knowing that the Evanston display was scheduled to begin at 9:10pm, and assuming that the Chicago ones would be in that vicinity, we started walking about about 9:00 and arrived about 15 minutes later to Touhy beach.  Apparently we missed the "real" fireworks which were reportedly only a disappointing 15 minute display.  (I guess the plan to have two Chicago displays didn't double the budget!)  But as we arrived at a smoky Touhy beach we realized there were still plenty of fireworks to see.  So long as you could dodge them.  Oh yes, this was the biggest display of illegal guerilla explosions any of us had ever seen!  We stayed for about 10 minutes before it all seemed a little too close for comfort.  It's amazing how the city just turns a blind eye on this craziness!  Mom made the comment that it was a blessing that this was peaceful celebratory anarchy.  Imagine the alternative if the crowds were angry about something!

In other news, Logan has decided that Daddy's blueberry pancakes are finger lickin good.  His 9 month well-baby visit was fantastic.  He clocked in at a lengthy 29 inches but a mere 16 pounds 11 oz.  Only the 5th percentile for weight, but the doc says he'll just be long and lean and that he's progressing and growing beautifully. His first tooth (the bottom left) is just starting to poke through today.. too soon to get a picture but that will certainly be a blog post in the near future!  He's thinking about walking but can only do it when he's not thinking about it... if that makes any sense.  We caught him twice today taking a single step unassisted, and then he gets this look like "What am I doing?!" and he sits down and starts crawling!  I finally heard a distinct "Mama" from him at the city pool on Monday.  Not sure yet if he knows what it meant, so we'll keep you posted.  We've been working hard on the concept of "No" and "Up" and "Mama" and "Dada" and also trying to incorporate gestures such as clapping, waving, and pointing at things.  We'll keep you posted... sporadically. :)

A busy month! - 8 months old

We have had one BUSY month! Our first goal for the month was to get some pictures taken. We missed the traditional 6 month portraits, so we got them done for his 7 month birthday for Mother's Day gifts. 

As the weather allows, we have been enjoying our local park, including the first ride in a big-boy swing.

First play date at our house:

And we're still working on getting the first tooth to pop through...

Mother's Day was very special. It was a whole Mother's Weekend, actually. Saturday Mommy got to go to the salon and get a mani-pedi. Then we all went to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch, and out for a little shopping. Sunday we drove up to Milwaukee and visited Jason's parents and grandparents, and then to Tia Erin's house where we had a BBQ and visited with Nannie, Bapaw, and Auntie Devin.

The day after Mother's Day was special too!  It was Heather's Granny's 90th birthday, and the day that we were travelling to North Carolina to meet Great-Grandma Lois!  You have never seen a baby so excited to meet someone... he smiled, and grinned, and made noises, and reached right for her... and smacked her square in the face.  Sorry Grandma, but that's what rough and tumble boys are about!!  We were in NC all week, and got to visit Greensboro and Sanford. Our visit even coincided with a visit from Great-aunt Linda and Great-uncle Roger, from Montana.  Mommy, Tia Erin, and Nannie Paula all travelled with Logan.

And Grand-daddy Bud, GranJoan, and Auntie Christine met us in Sanford!

Today being Logan's 8 month birthday of course we had to have a photo shoot.  We are pretty sure that soon everyone will think we only bathe him once a month on his birthday, but this shoot happened in the tub because we're trying to make the transition to the big boy bath.  The most important lesson there is "DON'T STAND UP!" And this bath was extra special because Grandma Lois gave Logan some of Mommy's bath toys from when she was his age.  Thanks Grandma, they are a BIG HIT!!

So on the cusp of Logan's ninth month we bid you an early good night so that Daddy can go trim his beard a little shorter...

Holy cow! Seven months old?!?!?

You have to be kidding me, right?!?! Seems like just yesterday I was swimming all day and kicking all night. This has been a super busy month for me. Every time I complete one new trick they want another... A couple of days before my six month birthday I started army crawling. Then it was just one thing after another! Chase the froggy, sit up by myself, crawling, pulling myself to standing. Next they are tryin to make me talk... but I don't really wanna. I'm too busy using my mouth to explore all this cool stuff around me. You should see what my mom does when I start licking the wheels of my stroller! She starts making these "achhh achhh icky icky" sounds. It makes me laugh and laugh. So far those kitties are still pretty quick, but every once in a while I get a good fistful of fur. That's not so good in the mouth though... hard to get out... gotta remember that one.

As long as we're celebrating, I have to tell you about my new cousin Riley Lou. She's a pretty cute kid alright. It'll probably be quite a while before we get to meet each other, but we're so close in age that I bet someday we will be great friends. Here's a picture of her with my Auntie Tine:

And here she is with Christine and D'Wayne. They adopted Riley Lou because they love babies so much! There are all kinds of families, and our family grew by three people in ONE day.

Oh yeah, Mom told me to mention that she posted a bunch of pictures from this month on Kodak Gallery because people miss printing them out. If there are any from previous posts that you have seen and not gotten a chance to print out, just let her know. Click here to view the pictures!

Crawling!

Please enjoy this video of our little monster! We are very glad that the bathroom renovation is almost complete, and plan to spend the greater part of the weekend cleaning up the construction dust because this guy is ready to GOOOOO!!!

PS. Thanks to Uncle Andy for the tip on getting these videos loaded! We'll be editing some earlier posts soon to include video, but we'll point you to where to look. :)

Stand up and shout

Logan's been getting pretty mobile these days, either army crawling or rolling and sitting to get where he wants to go. He hasn't crawled yet, but has been getting up on his hands and knees and revving his engine, so to speak - rocking back and forth to eventually figure out how to coordinate the movement. What he has been able to do is pull himself to a kneeling position, especially with the help of the bumper in his crib. He's also been trying to pull himself up on our coffee table but couldn't quite figure out how to get his feet under him and would end up sliding underneath the thing. This morning though, he was making a bunch of noise in his bed as he was waking up, so I went in and talked with him a bit, looking at him through the slats in his crib as though he were a prisoner ;). He was laughing and having a good time though, trying to yank my beard through the boards. I noticed he was grabbing the slats pretty well and thought he might finally figure it out. I turned away for a second, and the next thing I knew he was peeking over the top rail! I called Heather quick, and she was like "Get the camera! Get the camera!" Here's the proof:





It's a good thing I lowered his crib a few weeks ago! I expect to see him looking over the top again when he wakes up from his nap. Next up should be crawling, which might be any day now too! We're very proud of our little guy - he's learning so quickly. Until next time, love to all.