Photos with your kids

I'm sure it is no shock to anyone who reads here that I take a lot of photos. Especially of my kids. I love capturing their personalities and the stage they are in... because if you have ever seen kid grow... it is always changing and goes by so so fast. I look back lovingly at professional photos, fun faces, big messes and even first tears. I try and keep anything that could embarrass them off the Internet and for family eyes only but it's so nice to see baby rolls and double chins and to find it so cute and lovely.

I've noticed in the past two and a half years (since having Logan) that I also take a lot of Geoff and the kids but have a quarter of the amount of myself with the kids. When he does snap a photo or two of us, I am always picking myself apart in the photos. I think... I would never share this one... look how fat I look. Or I look so tired and my hair isn't done. It's awful.

This past 4th of July we were playing outside. Logan and Quinn were decked out in cute outfits while Geoff and I had managed to shower that day. I was in a festive t shirt and leggings with my hair barely brushed and no makeup on. The light was beautiful as the sun was just starting to set and I ran out to get my camera to get a photo of the kids. I promised Logan a Popsicle if he held Quinn for a shot (which he did and then proceeded to eat his, mine and Geoffs). Afterwards I snapped some shots of Geoff and Quinn and then he asked if I wanted a few photos of myself.

At first I thought, no. My hair is a mess, I'm in leggings... but then I figured that this is life. This is my real life. Not the cream of the crop shots that look so perfect and put together. I need these photos to remind myself what life was all about in this stage. That we were living life and having fun. That some days are messy and I'm in pj's all day. That most days lately, my make up is sunscreen and chap stick and I have bags under my eyes. But that I am loving my kids and enjoying it all. (Well most of it... potty training and toddler beds are a little dicey at times)

I still like to have lovely staged shots to hang in the house and send to family but this season as I try and get the rest of the baby weight off me and I don't remember the last time I really felt rested... I am going to say yes to photos and try and see all the love that is in them. These are the days that everyone says I will miss later on so I want to hold on and remember them all the ways possible. And that includes photos like this... just me with the little loves of my life.

Big Brother

I know that things around here have been pretty quiet this summer. Well, there has been a good reason for that...

Our family is growing by one. He/She will be joining us sometime in January!!!

We are thrilled to be adding a squishy little winter baby to our clan and I am very happy to say that I am finally feeling better.

I am 20 weeks! Hooray. 

I am one of those people who pregnancy is very hard on them in the beginning. I have really bad morning ALL DAY sickness and have trouble keeping a lot of foods down. These first few months were all about survival over here... and let me tell you- second time around, the exhaustion is out of this world!

15 weeks I finally started feeling better, most of the time. :)

16 weeks I felt baby move for the first time.

19 weeks Geoff felt the baby move as well. 

Tomorrow we go in for our ultrasound and find out if we are adding another Boy or a little Girl to our family. 

Anyways, I hope to start posting again more often but I am not going to stress myself out over it either. Thanks for anyone still reading along for hanging in here with me all this time. :)

Cincinnati trip

A few weeks ago, Logan and I packed our bags and headed to Cincinnati for a week.

The big reason we were going was my BFF Courtney was turning 30 and a few close friends threw her a huge surprise dinner and party in Columbus. Obviously I could not miss it. From being my maid of honor, throwing me showers and parties, coming to visit and shooting our maternity photos... it felt was so great that people were all getting together to celebrate her life!

Anyways, Geoff was working so Logan and I headed to the airport to fly home. While this was his 15th and 16th flights (i think... haha too many to keep up with) and I felt comfortable traveling with him... a toddler is a whole different beast than a baby! We were so lucky that both flights we had an open seat next to us. The flight is a quick 2 hours and I had my ipad ready to go with a few episodes of Sesame Street and Paw Patrol, a few new toys, a matchbox car and more snacks than you can imagine. Logan did fantastic on the flights but by the time we landed, I was exhausted by constant entertaining to keep him happy.

(he is not too happy about posing for a selfie with me, haha)

When my friends with newborns ask my advice on traveling... I tell them to go on trips as soon as possible. Hahaha. It is so much easier to fly with a newborn than a toddler. However, I think toddlers are much more fun at this age... always a trade off.

Anyways, once we landed and my dad picked us up, we headed home for Logan's nap which he completely refused. One look at the crib in my old room had him totally freaked out and crying non stop. This would be something that we battled all week long until the last 2 days of our visit. We don't co-sleep at home. It just doesn't work out for us... Logan sees us and thinks it's time to play or climb on us- no matter what time it is. For some reason this week... the crib was not where he wanted to be so if I laid down in the bed with him, he was out. Because of this, I took a lot of naps with him and enjoyed the extra snuggles. :) The last 2 days, we finally got him to sleep in the crib. (I credit it mostly to my dad who after I tried a few times to get him to re-settle, would go up and sing to him. Eventually he laid down on the ground and pretended to sleep until Logan laid down and went to sleep himself. He's awesome!)

 After my mom got home from work, we headed to one of our favorite places for dinner- Wild Mikes for some wings. There are a few restaurants that we always visit when I am home and this is our top one.

Wednesday during Logan's nap- we headed into the car and drove two hours to Columbus. I timed it that way hoping he would sleep and thankfully he did. We arrived at Cosi a little after 2. We didn't have to be at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse for Courtney's surprise dinner until 6 so we had some time to kill. I had looked up kid friendly places to take Logan to run around for a few hours and Cosi was amazing. It was $5 to park, $18 for me to enter and because Logan was under 2, he was free. We went straight to the kid zone and stayed there until they closed at 5. It was amazing. (I apologize for the photo explosions.)

After I drug Logan out of Cosi (literally) kicking and screaming... we got to the car and headed to dinner. I knew we might hit some bad traffic and I was glad to have the hour to make our way over.
The surprise for Courtney went well and hopefully she had a blast surrounded by friends and family that love her.

We left around 10 (way past Logan's bedtime but he was having a blast running around with the other little girl there) and luckily he slept all the way home to Cincinnati and I just put him in bed with me once we arrived at my parents and we were both out like a light.

The next morning, my mom and dad were both off work so we headed over to Newport on the Levee. We had lunch at Tom + Chee which is a grilled cheese restaurant (if you watch Shark Tank you may remember them from the show) and it was so so so good!
We then headed almost next door to the Newport Aquarium. This place rocks! We had so much fun showing Logan all the fish, turtles, sharks, stingrays... he stayed in the stroller for the first bit and then ran around pointing at exhibits the rest of the time. Eventually he passed out in the stroller right before we saw the penguins. I'm pretty sure we all had a blast.

Friday was pretty low-key for us all. We met my friend and her son at the mall to run out some energy, came home to nap and then met another friend with her kids for dinner. We also took a walk to the park at the top of my parents street. This was one of Logan's favorite things and he never forgot about the park. When we would get out of the car, he would always start walking up the street. Silly boy! We even got him to go down the slide all by himself.

 

Saturday we woke up to a visit from my uncle and then I got ready, said goodbye to Logan (he had the whole day with Grandma and Grandpa) and drove to Columbus for the second time. I headed over to my good friend Audra's house to visit with her for the afternoon.
Then around 4, I got ready to leave and drove back into Columbus for the party for Courtney's birthday. This time she knew about the party but that was it. There was catered food and a great band all for us to enjoy. They even had a gluten free cake for her.  It was a really great time and even though I missed Logan, I enjoyed an adult night out. :)

I still had to drive home that evening (left around 11 so got home around 1am- which is super super late for me) because Sunday we had more fun planned. The majority of my girlfriends who I have known forever, got together at Julies house for brunch. There were so many kids running around- I think it was something like 10 girls and 17 kids (with 6 additional babies due to be born this year and next). It was chaotic but so much fun. Logan had only met most of the kids and adults once or twice in his lifetime so it was interesting to see him interact. He wasn't shy like he normally is when we go somewhere new and he was sure to give a lot of the younger girls and boys his bear hugs where he doesn't let go (we are working on it), resulting in a few tears... it's not a party until someone cries from being hugged. haha. I found out later, my parents let him stay up way too late the night before so that may have had a little to do with it too... ;)

All in all we had a fantastic visit home. It flew by and felt way too short but I felt like we got a lot in while we were home. Our next visit will be around late September/early October to snuggle all of the new babies my friends will have had. :)

Christmas 2013

Wow, another Christmas has come and gone and 2014 is right around the corner.

Before I get into New years resolutions and the excitement that a fresh beginning brings... lets recap Christmas. :)

Christmas Eve is my birthday so we spent the morning lounging around in our PJs and eating cinnamon rolls, making cookies and watching Christmas movies. Geoff made me a wonderful birthday dinner with Lamb chops, Scallops (our weird version of a surf and turf for the night) asparagus and quinoa. We had brownies with (Coldstone) birthday cake remix ice cream for desert. Yum!

Before Logan went to bed that evening (way to late) we gave him an ornament to put on the tree and took some photos that turned out really cute.

 The next morning, Geoff and I woke up before Logan did. When we heard him stirring, we went in and got him... excited for Christmas morning. We probably got him up a little too early. He seemed sleepy all morning and didn't really become his happy/smiling self until after his nap. Oops.

 We opened our stockings first before having breakfast. Bath toys are always a hit.

 Family photo.

 For breakfast, I made a Christmas tree out of pears/raspberries (which wasn't as pretty as I imagined) and then some pretty awesome Santa pancakes! :)

 After we were all cleaned up, we Face Timed with my family while Logan opened his presents from them. It was fun for everyone to get to be a part of his Christmas, even though they were all the way in Ohio. Logan now has more toys than we know what to do with. :) Guess that is part of the fun of having kids. (We are thinking about starting to rotate them out... right now we have them in a few different rooms and rotate them between the rooms... anyone have a good system to share?)

 We spent the rest of the day playing, putting up gates and cooking dinner.

Christmas dinner this year was
Glazed ham
Mashed potatoes
Brussel sprouts with pears/apples
Dinner rolls
Cinnamon butter
and Apple pie for desert!

We had a wonderful, low key holiday and hope you did as well!

Columbia, SC

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and start to December!!! We traveled to visit family over the holiday weekend and once we got home, we were in full party planning mode. The whole week was spent prepping cleaning and decoration making! (I'll recap our party next... trying desperately to get caught up before the holiday madness)

Thanksgiving morning, we all got up to finish packing and head straight to the airport for our flight to Charleston, SC. I was hoping that the flight would be fairly empty, but it was full with only 5 seats to spare. Lucky for me, we were able to all sit together since Logan no longer sleeps during flights and takes a lot of work to entertain. It is so so so much easier to have Geoff sitting right next to me than it was on my flights to Cincinnati all by myself. It was also so weird to be able to have my phone on the whole flight and made me realize that a lot has changed since I have been out on leave. (Reality is starting to set in that I'm going back to work in a few short weeks... eeek)

My Dad and my brother Kyle were there to meet us when we landed and we all piled in the car for the drive to Columbia. My Mom and Dad were very thoughtful and brought a car seat & stroller with them so we were able to travel very light.

That night we went to a restaurant that was serving up some Thanksgiving grub! Even though we had already made our family Turkey feast (and eaten left overs)... I couldn't pass up another helping. It was really good. Geoff went a different route and had scallops. Boy oh boy were they perfect! We ended off the night with some apple pie and headed home to put Logan to bed.

This trip, we were all staying at Kyle and his girlfriend Amanda's two bedroom apartment. Learning from the disaster of room sharing with Logan back in Cincinnati, we came up with a fun solution. We stuck the pack and play in the closet of the guestroom (where Geoff and I were staying). He was able to have his own little space, with white noise, his lovey and blanket and we were able to sleep in our room with NO problems!!! Woo hoo.

The next few days were filled with sight seeing, tours of Amanda's work, eating (and more eating) and hanging out. It was so so nice for us all to be together for once and it made me remember once more how much I wish that we all lived closer to each other. What we saw of Columbia seemed really nice and I will be excited to come back and explore more!

It was great to see Logan interact with everyone. The last time Kyle saw him was back in March, and Amanda had yet to meet him. He is at a GREAT stage right now where he is sleeping well (knock on everything wood) and so much fun to play with. He pretty much is in a great mood 90% of the time and it's great for everyone to get to see this fun time in our lives.

The last night, we were lucky enough to all have tickets to the SC vs. Clemson game. I strapped Logan in the Boba and we hit up a tailgate for an hour before the game. It was a much different experience to be tailgating with a baby vs. what I did in college. I guess we all underestimated the chaos that college football games are... (esp big games such as this one). I must have pushed all of that out of my mind and while we fought the crowds to get in, I highly regretted not passing and watching the game from their apartment. We ended up sitting outside for the first 10 minutes of the game and then heading to our seats. Logan wasn't really sure about the crowd and spent the majority of the first half with his head snuggled into my shoulder and taking peeks at the crowd, lights and field.

For the second half of the game, Geoff wore Logan with our Rosk (which is a blanket that attaches to the the carrier) while we walked around and got hot chocolate. Logan fell asleep (since it was bed time) and we finished out the game standing in a section where we had a great view of the field with no crazy crowds around us. It was really fun, but I felt slightly bad for putting Logan in a situation where he was clearly overstimulated. We are lucky that he is such a trooper and has a great attitude even when we make mistakes. This whole first year of parenting is such a learning experience and I will be the first to admit that I am not perfect, and have made mistakes along the way. Someone once told me that it's ok because at this age, they wont remember... which I guess is a blessing. :)

Anyways, we had a wonderful time and I can't wait to have everyone come to visit us once the weather up north is a little warmer.

I know this is a very delayed recap, but I really hope everyone is enjoying the holidays! Cheers.