Happy Valentines Day, Teacher

Thanks to Logan, who rescued us from our snowy Saturday with a super idea to write Valentine's cards.  My favorite was the one he did for his Kindergarten teacher.  Please note the finger-painted background to a "snowflake" style heart (his idea born from a very old craft book I inherited from my Mom), along with the very tall "heart ice cream cream cone".

 "To Mrs. H.

Your are nice!  You are nice! You like to trick people.  I love you.  

Love, Logan A."

Blanky in the Bathtub

Morning Routine

• Stockton wakes up and calls "Daddy! Daddy!", his universal term for both parents.

• He picks up his blanky and empty bottle (loves to carry them around), and we head to the tub to play and read books.  

• I make the same mistake every morning of setting his blanky in clear sight on the counter, while I undress him and put him in the tub.

• After he gets in the tub, he points to his blanky and cries because he wants to hold it.  

After weeks of this, I finally gave him his blanky to hold in the tub.  I thought he'd see how uncomfortable it was to cuddle with a wet blanky. 

 

My plan didn't work.  He loved the blanky in the tub, and cried when I wouldn't let him carry it around the house soaking wet.

Cute little baby.  This morning I am going to try and convince you to leave your blanky in your bed.

Beach Moments

We made our annual pilgrimage to the beach this year.  Our holiday was filled with cousins, campfires, and cuddling in a tent to stay warm.  I'm so grateful to be part of such a wonderful extended family.  A few of our best beach moments are highlighted below. 

 Prestley and Logan in the campground.

Get used to this freezing cold water, Little Buddy.... 

 ...you'll be spending lots of Decembers in it.

 George, Andrew, Logan, Braden and Pearl walking to the amphitheater on Sunday afternoon.

 Lisa and Lizzie watching the sun go down over the water.

 Logan and Lisa watching the sun come up after our car alarm went off at 6 am and woke up the entire west end of the campground.   

 Logan digging for sand crabs.

 Daddy and Stockton heading for the waves.

 I'm so grateful for these two!  Grandma and Grandpa Wainwright started our beach tradition decades ago. 

 

Mom and Greg before dawning wet suits and venturing into the waves.

 Here are all of the one year old cousins at the beach this year.

 Here I am with my two crazy cousins in the water.  The temperature is at least 15 degrees colder than it was when I was a kid.  No wet suit.  Brrrr!!!

 Ashley and I are hugging to warm up after getting out of the freezing water.

 John telling stories to Grandpa Wainwright and Greg.

 Crab Grabber.

 Octopus Hanger.

 Octopus in the tide pool... can you see it?  It is nearly impossible!  It is suctioned on the large rock.  If you look closely, you can see it's tentacle.

 Stockton eating a delicious seed he found on the ground.

 Football champs walking back to their end zone after a touchdown.

 Watching the sunset on the lifeguard tower with my Stockton.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!  We'll miss you until next year, Beach.

Fall Fun

 Fall really delivered this year.  We took a weekend trip to Albequerque, NM to see some friends, some balloons, and a few sites along the way.  Here we are at the Monticello, UT temple.

 Daddy and Logan were in 4 states at once in this pic!

 We found an absolutely incredible children's museum called Explora.  Wowzer! Hands-on exhibit after hands-on exhibit brought delight to kids and parents alike.   I'd make the trek again just for another day there.

 Some of our besties from down south met us.  They have 2 (that is right... I said 2) sets of fraternal twins, with another baby on the way.  We didn't get a great picture of the whole group... shocker.  We spent the time chasing all 6 kids under 5.

 This was a great bubble exhibit where we caught a shot of most of the group.

 We woke up very early Saturday morning to see the Balloon Fiesta.  Logan and I are pictured above with the "dawn patrol" balloons.

Stockton was exhausted and mezmerized all at the same time.

 We were told there were about 5,000 balloons participating. 

 The owner of this nice stork balloon decided to take some kids up on a tethered ride.

 Logan jumped right in line!

 After getting home from our trip, Logan held his annual pumpkin sale.  We get mileage all year long out of this big day.  Logan plants, weeds and harvests his own pumpkins.  This year he sold about 80, and made a bundle.

 Here are two of his admiring customers, Grandma and Grandpa.  Note his darling homemade price list.

The evening after last year's pumpkin sale, I went into labor.  We thought it appropriate to celebrate Stockton's birthday at the sale again this year.  Happy Birthday, little buddy.

September Happenings

 Congrats to our big kindergartener, who was nominated for the first Jr. Husky award in his class. 

 His award was for learning all of his letter sounds and for being a kind friend.  Way to go, Logan!

 Logan loves science!  Lucky for him, his uncle John is a biologist, and I work in the science department of an online university with access to a bunch of smarty-pants science Ph.Ds.  Whenever he has questions I can't answer (or that he does not believe I know the answer to), he writes emails to his "Scientists".  Pictured above is one such scientist, Dr. Brenna Gillman (physicist).  She kindly invited Logan on a personally guided tour of the Utah Museum of Natural History to teach him all about the exhibits.

 

 Here are my two little buddies on the last irrigation day of the year.  Despite increasingly chilly temperatures of the water and air, Stockton decided to take a dip.

 After swimming, Stockton took off toward the garden, ate some dirt (one of his favorite past-times), and crawled into the strawberry patch.

These boys love mowing the lawn with their dad.  Logan often rides a-top, sharing the headphones with his Dad.  When I'm unavailable, or when he gets jealous, Stockton climbs on too.

More fall fun coming soon...