Logan's #4!

Happy 4th Birthday Mr. Cooper!Phew! We had a great day celebrating Logan's b-day and are just now winding down with kids in bed by 10 PM.

It's tradition that the kids get to eat almost whatever they want and do something special of their choosing for their birthday. If Logan had his choice he would eat sugar all day every day, so we had to add a stipulation of some good food today. After his apples and toast for breakfast, Logan cracked the eggs and mixed up all the ingredients for his sprinkle cake. He has always loved helping me in the kitchen. He was in heaven eating gum and chocolate between meals and an out-of-the-ordinary dinner of pizza and soda. We played ball and climbed trees outside then Logan got to play the Wii all by himself. It was funny to see him do a double take when I said "YES" to his request to play Lego Batman and watch Sleeping Beauty.

While Sydney took a nap I whipped together Logan's Lightning McQueen cake. For 2 years running, he wanted Lightning McQueen racing Chick and 'the King' all on his cake. I could only fit two of them but he still loved it. This was my second attempt at a fondant cake and I learned a lot more than the first time. Yes, I realize the bottom border is not even all the way around. It gets worse in the back, but considering the time I had and the fact that I was flying by the seat of my pants, it's not bad. It took me about 4 hours to do with breaks in between to get J from school, feed the kids and myself, pee, etc. Everything is edible except the cars straight out of Logan's collection, and the candle, of course. Dave was surprised I wasn't going to make the cars out of sugar too. HUH?! He's got a lot of faith in my rookie cake skills if he actually thinks I could make sugar, fat and food coloring look remotely like the real things. Considering I was in bed with a migraine most of the last 2 days I didn't even think about attempting that one. I am pleased with the results and all the kids loved it.Our Mr. Cooper has been talking about going to the Jungle when it was his birthday since Toby had his birthday in January. We surprised him by inviting a friend to come with us to spend the evening at the Jungle. Dave met us there after work and we played, ate junk food ;) and spent a couple handfuls worth of tokens in record time. Dave relived our dating days by kicking my can at air hockey and we called it a night. We were the last ones out of the place at 8:30 PM. By the time we got home at 9 o'clock it was crunch time. Coop opened his presents, we ate cake and ice cream, and played with Coop's new race track before getting the kids in bed. Mr. Cooper has been in some sort of funk lately, but it was nice to see his happy, Joker-smile and sweet personality today. Happy Birthday Logan! We love you so much!

Logan right now;

*sigh* Our dear Logan. This boy has been giving us fits lately. He has gone into snake mode, we call it. He will eat really well one day and then not eat for days on end. He'll pick at stuff, but not eat a decent meal. At every meal these days, Logan can be heard saying, "I hate ______(insert any food he used to like)! I'm not eating that." Grandma Evie took him out for lunch yesterday to Rubios. He usually devours the chicken tacos there but he wouldn't touch them........hoping that passes soon.

Logan really, really, really likes sweets, movies, and video games. I don't know what happened. The kid bugs me numerous times a day for all of the above starting as soon as he wakes up. The other kids don't do this. I've learned to ignore and redirect pretty quickly. Some of the things that he loves doing after I've got his mind off the sugar and electronics are puzzles, Playdough, playing with cars and blocks/Legos.

We usually turn on some music and play/work in the morning until noon. Logan likes Michael Buble and says, "can you play my Jazz?" when the music starts playing. His favorite song is Sway and he and Syd dance around the living room whenever it is playing.

If Logan gets upset or frustrated he will start to threaten with anything he thinks is important. Yesterday it was, "Mom, if you don't let me have more (chocolate) I am going to throw you in the garbage!" I wouldn't mind being thin enough to fit in the garbage...........

Logan loves his Daddy so much. He is so attached to him right now and doesn't want him to leave for work in the morning. The first thing Logan does after he wakes up every morning is come in to Dave's side of the bed and asks him if he's going to work today. No amount of "Dad has to go to work to buy you food and clothes" reassurances will suffice. Some mornings when Dave leaves before we are up Logan will wake up and cry. On the flip side though, he is so excited and happy to talk Daddy's ear off on the mornings he is home. Sweet boy.I think Dave and Mr. Cooper look so much alike. They act alike too, sometimes. They have become quite adept at pushing each other's buttons. Sometimes I have to put them in separate corners. :)

I mentioned already that Coop likes to work in the kitchen with me. He unloads the dishwasher like a champ and loves to lick the beaters and bowl when we bake.

One of Logan's hobbies is speaking his own language. He keeps us on our toes with new names for things and often we are rolling on the floor laughing when he gets on a roll. We all have our own names in Loganese. Daddy is Jinx, Mom is Boppy (since he was 18 months old), Jessie is Hawks, Toby is Pomcheeks, Sydney is Meeks and Logan's name for himself changes all the time.

Logan, you are such a smart, sweet boy. Dad and Mom love you so much and are thankful you are in our family forever!



Oh what a difference a day makes. I'm so thankful I felt better today to make it a great day for Logan. The 2 Ibuprofen I popped this morning as a minor insurance policy might have helped a little.

Whitty title here..

So.....
it's April Fools Day. Not my favorite day of the year. When Dave and I were first married, I basically said, "I really don't like April Fools Day and if you ever play a mean joke on me it's likely I won't forgive you." When I found out Logan was to be born around April 5th, I prayed he would not be born April 1st. I got my wish and he was born one day after, thankfully. I understand the fun, harmless jokes like food coloring to change your food, but I am not a big practical joker. I guess it's my current mood and bad health that prevents me from getting in the spirit of the day this year. It's just another day for me today. I do love to hear about a good joke though. Anybody do some fun things this year?

I stopped nursing my sweet Sydney about 3 weeks ago at 14 months old. I put it off as long as possible because I do enjoy nursing and this was my last chance to do so. I think I finally drew the line when Sydney was getting so attached to me that she wouldn't keep her hands off me. She perfected her own "nipple-fishing" technique by shoving her hand down my shirt until she found my nipple. Then she'd squeeze the Charmin just to reinforce what she wanted. Not exactly appropriate while I'm talking to someone in public or checking out at Target. She still tucks her hand inside the top of my shirt for comfort, which I do think is so endearing, but not as often now that we are not nursing.

I weaned Sydney very gradually, but now that my hormones are shifting back to 'normal' it is really messing with my body. I've had a few killer migraines that have laid me up for entire days and now my monthly 'friend' has worn out her welcome over the past 7+ days and draining my energy big time. It seems I get really sick from one thing or another at least once a year, and it reminds me how thankful I am for an otherwise strong, healthy body. Ironically, Sydney has been sick the last 2 weeks right after I stopped nursing her when she could have benefited from the antibodies and milk. Dave has been so patient and helpful by fixing meals and not complaining about the condition of the house when he gets home.

The first time I was down with a migraine it was all I could do to make sure the kids had food and got home from school. I picked up Jessie from school at 3, and told her she was in charge because I had to go lay down. She came in at 6 o'clock with Logan carrying a tray with dinner in bed. She even made a little card signed by all the kids saying they "lurve me!" It was so sweet and I felt a lot better after sleeping for 3 blessed hours. I guess it's been a weird blessing in disguise that Sydney has been sick too, because she has slept whenever I needed to. Anyway, I'm looking forward to having my body back to normal and feeling better. I pray that time is soon. :)

Glad it's a new week

We're in a quandary about Mr. Bennett's car. It ended up costing us $900 to repair his Jeep on Friday. Thankfully, he has a car again, but we don't know if we should cut our losses before we really have to sink some money into that car or keep it until it dies. I'm leaning toward selling it now while it's still in good shape to buy a car that gets better mileage. Mr. Bennett really wants to sell it after he saw that his car is fourth from the bottom on some reliability list. We'll see.I bought a new stroller last week and got to use it a lot while Mr. Bennett had my car on Friday. This was my view a good part of the day as we walked to schools to pick up kids, walked to Bennett's to check on the house while they're gone, and walked to the park to meet our ward play group.
I feel like there is a dark cloud over our house. It's keeping all the sick germs in so we get reinfected every couple weeks. I am resolved to do a major, deep spring cleaning starting with the kids room. Bring on some warmer weather so we can get out of this funk.

Here's your funny-punny for the day. Dave was waiting in line to return Bolt at the RedBox (thanks Thompsons!) on Friday night. The guy in the front of the line was taking forever to look through the movies so everyone else in line got to talking. The lady in front of Dave mentioned that she was thinking of renting Milk (coughlameideachoughcough) and turned to Dave to confirm it was a "political drama" when explaining it to another woman. Just then the lady's teenage son walks up with his giant slurpee and Doritos in hand. Mom looks at son and says, "I think I want to rent Milk." Son looks at her with a puzzled look and says, "How do you rent milk?"