Signs that Logan is Growing Up

I've noticed this last couple weeks that Logan is definitely in the toddler stage and growing up fast.  He's not quite two but the tantrums have started.  I'm pretty sure we've entered the terrible two's. Here are a few things that caught my eye recently...

 He started picking his nose.

 He picked out his own Little Einstein pj's.

 he puts on everyone's shoes (and most often they're on the right feet!)...

 There's the attitude.  (He still looks sweet though.)

he climbs up and walks across the entertainment center if I'm not looking.  I only got a picture of him sitting.  He also stands on the smallest indentation of the trim on our kitchen cabinet doors and pulls himself up to see what's on the counters. 

Everyday he says several new words. He is a picky eater unless it has to do with sugar. He wants to go everywhere with mom and dad and he tries really hard to play with Lincoln, even though he loves to push his buttons. He also has quite the comedic streak in him.  I can't wait to see what that will bring as he gets older. 

I love you sweet boy!

Conversations with Lincoln

When we change Logan's diaper, recently Lincoln has been very interested in watching, specifically wanting to see the poop.  I'm a little concerned about this so I decided to see if I could get some answers.

Me: "Why do you want to always see the poop?"

Lincoln: " Because I want to see it."

Me: "Isn't it gross and stinky?  I think it's yucky.  I don't understand why you always want to look at it. How come you always want to see it?"

Lincoln: "Because I'm going to be a poop doctor."

**************

Tonight we were out in the backyard and the wind started to pick up as a storm was rolling in.

Me: "Okay, we're going to go inside in a minute because a storm's coming and it's getting windy."

Lincoln: "Mom, you better get Logan or he's going to blow away."

After a few minutes I started to see the lightning and hear the thunder.  

Me: "Lincoln, I see lightning so it's time to go in."

Lincoln: "No, I want to stay and touch the lightning."

Me: (not really thinking about what I was saying since I was trying to clean up the toys in the yard) "No, if lightning touches you it will kill you."

Lincoln: "It will kill me?"

I went on to explain that it would hurt him really bad and he would have to go to the doctors if lightning touched him, etc.

As we were walking into the house Lincoln pauses.

Lincoln: "Mom, quick, come look at this cloud."

I looked up and sure enough it was a dark gray storm cloud. 

Lincoln: "It's gonna kill me."

Okay, I learned my lesson. I have to watch what I say. Everyday I'm reminded of that...eventually I will learn.  After he said that I went into damage control and tried to talk through what that means and clouds won't kill us, etc.

This is a self portrait he had to do for school.  I think his writing is really good for his age but I don't really have anything to compare it to.

A Child's Prayer

This was Lincoln's prayer, all on his own, in it's entirety...

Jesus Christ, thank you for cars.
Please make our car bigger, like a monster truck.

Lincoln's First Day of PreSchool

Lincoln has been going to a structured daycare program three days a week for the last year.  We call it school but it technically was child care, although they have lessons, focus on letters, numbers, writing, etc. Last week he started an official preschool program through our school district.  While his vocabulary and sentence structure is really good, his pronunciation of certain letters has qualified him to be enrolled in the speech program.  He is at age level for all of the letters he is supposed to know but for the ones he can't pronounce properly (sounds for r, l, ch, sh, y, etc.) he doesn't substitute it for the common sound.  Common being the sounds other 3 year olds would substitute it with.  Instead of yep - it's wep.  Instead of Logan - it's Wogan.  Instead of teacher - it's teetser.

We're really excited that he is in a class with 10-12 other students, with two teachers and a speech therapist.  He only goes for 2.5 hours a day, four days a week.  I think it will be a really good transition for him into kindergarten.  It's set up like kindergarten.  They have a structure including, lesson (activities based around the sound they are working on) snack, recess, show and tell, etc.

I attended a meet the teacher night, there's a PTA, the whole nine yards.  It was a little weird to think that he's old enough to be going through this.  Next it's kindergarten, middle school and high school.  He needed to have a full size children's backpack so we went shopping for a backpack and school supplies.  It was a little surreal.  I'm a mom. I have a child in the school system.  When I was young I dreamed of having a family and being a volunteer in my kids classes at school and that time is here.  It's funny to say but sometimes I pause to realize that this is what I wanted for all those year and I'm now living that. I won't say it's been easy or that my boys are angels but it's my life. I have a quote on my office wall that I really love.  It is something that I'm trying to do better at so I posted in it big beautiful letters.

"Enjoy this moment, for this moment is your life!"

 Logan seemed to be just as excited about all of it as Lincoln was.

 The motto in our house is that brothers are best friends!

 The first day he used his old Diego backpack but he later picked out a new Transformers backpack with Bumblebee on it. 

 That smile is precious.  He was so excited to go to his new class. Lincoln has never been afraid to be away from us, to go to a new place or struggled to make friends.

 He's tall enough to look like he's going into kindergarten but it's crazy when I remind myself that he's really only 3 1/2!  

We had to have spikes for the first day.  Unfortunately since I was on my trip the two weeks before school started we never got him a haircut but we've since taken care of that too!

Tucson Trip - Day 10

Our last day of sectionals we played against The team from El Paso, Texas. They were 1-1 so we knew we had a good shot at winning. I struggled quite a bit with my backhand (which is normally my strength) but I was able to play well in the other aspects of the game. The heat had been a big factor the first two days but it didn't seem to effect me as much by the third day. We played our best match and won in two sets, 6-4, 6-2. Our team won again 5-0 which meant as a team we were undefeated for the weekend. We were named sectional champions and will be going on to play for the national title in October.
As a team we grabbed lunch and headed home. I have to admit that it's really nice to get a break every so often and have some time to myself. On the other hand 10 days away from Ricky and the boys was really long and I missed them a lot. I was really excited to get home to see them. It was fun to give them their little "surprises" from my trip that I brought home for them. All in all it was a successful, fun, memory filled trip!

The team before our day three match. 

Stacy and me watching and routing on the rest of the team after we finished playing.

It's hard to see our little trophies because they are glass but they say Southwest Champions!

Tucson Trip-Day 9

Saturday morning we played the Tucson team. They had won their match the day before so it was an important match for us to win. Luckily my partner and I won our match in two sets with scores of 6-0, 6-4. I don't think that they were easier that the first team we played I just think that my partner and I played better. Our team won the overall match at 4-1.
We spent the afternoon at the pool and that evening was a luau for all the players. It was fun to hang out with the girls and dance but I missed Ricky. He is a really supportive husband and kept the boys that entire time.

 Team before our day two match.

 I played with Lenore all three days. We had never played together before so all things considering I thought we made a great team!

 The team after our day two win!

 Lisa and me at the luau. 

 Stacy, Trisha, Deb and Me.

Our team with coach at the luau.  

Tucson Trip - Day 8

I'm now in my third city of the trip, the last leg. I was there because my USTA 3.0 ladies tennis team won our regular season and we were competing against three other teams for the chance to go to nationals.
Our First match Friday morning was against Albuequrque, NM. I elected to play doubles because I had been sick and then on vacation so I hadn't picked up a raquet in two weeks and I was a little nervous about how I would play. I wasn't thrilled about playing in temperatures that exceeded 110 degrees but we had no choice. Our team only has eight players which is exactly the minimum of what you need to compete. I played with a new partner and played the forehand side which is opposite of what I normally play.
We started out doing farely well. We were up 3-0 and then the other team cane back to be us in the first set. By the second set Lenore and I finally got our groove together and we won't the second and third sets. Our scores for the match wer 5-7, 6-4, 12-10. Our team ending up winning day one 5-0.

 This is the team.

 This is the team at lunch after our first win.  

Lisa and me at dinner with the team Friday night. I roomed with Lisa and it was nice to get to know her better.  Our kids are about the same age so we are experiencing similar things with them.  It was nice to be able to get out an have some girl time.

New York Trip - Day 7

We finally took a morning to sleep in A little. We got up packed our bags and checked out. Luckily our hotel had bag check so we left our luggage while we spent a few more hours in the city. The only thing we really had left to do was to go to the observatory in the Empire State Building. We bought our tickets earlier at the hotel which saved us a ton of time. We were able to skip a large portion of the line and our total wait time was about 30-45 minutes with the elevator lines. We enjoyed the beautiful weather and amazing views from atop the 86th floor outside deck.

Looking south.  New Jersey on the right.

Looking Northeast. The gold top building is the Chrysler Building.

Looking Northwest.

Top of the Empire State Building.

Looking south at the Flat Iron district. I loved see the roof top gardens. 

In case you wanted to know what looking down from the Empire State Building looks like.

By the time we finished with the Empire State Building it was time to grab lunch and finish up our last minute souvenir shopping. We got our bags and headed to JFK airport. We had a nice dinner at a restaurant, waiting briefly for my plane and then said our goodbyes. Calee and Talicee were flying back to Southern CA together and their flight departed shortly after mine.

I had a smooth flight back to Phoenix and by the time we deplaned and I got my luggage it was shotly after 11:00 pm. Next stop...Tucson. I was playing an a tournament Friday morning so I had to drive the two hours right from the airport to the hotel in Tuscon. I finally got to my room and was in bed shortly before 2:00 am. I had been up for 21 hours and I was ready to call it a day!

New York Trip - Day 6

I don't like early mornings, especially on vacation, but it was definitely worth getting up early that morning for our first stop...Hoboken, New Jersey. Why Hoboken you ask? To go to Carlos Bakery!!!  If you've ever seen the TV show Cake Boss with Buddy and his family, that's where they film the show.  Calee and I are both fans of the show and we know it's a popular place so we wanted to get there early.  We rode the NJ transit train over to NJ and it was really simple and quick.  We only had to wait in line for about 30 minutes.  Inside the tiny bakery was a mad house.  There were so many delicious pastries and cakes to choose from.  We picked a few things and then stood there for a little bit hoping to see the famous family. Luckily we saw Madeline and Mauro - Buddy's sister and brother-in-law.

Welcome to Hoboken...it was much smaller than I expected. 

Hudson River and New York Skyline

We made it!

 Unfortunately I only got the backside of Mauro.  He is now he point man at this location since Buddy and the others are working at a new larger facility that's not open to the public. 

 Family portrait. 

 This is the famous consultation seating area. 

 This place was packed full and people we spending hundreds of dollars on bakery goods and merchandise.  It was a little wild but very fun to see and experience. 

 We heard Madeline back taking orders on the  phone.  We called her name and she peaked around the corner.  We've seen the sisters working that phone station on the show so we knew what she was doing. 

 When she came out the chaos in the bakery definitely increased. This isn't the best picture but we were trying to be quick.  It because like a pushing match as people tried to get through the crowd to meet her.  She was really nice, sweet and funny.  She spent a few minutes talking to us and then took pictures with a few others before returning to work.  She is Buddy's sister who is married to Mauro. 

This is Frankie's little brother.  He is a baker and makes the pastries on site with Mauro. 

We thought we would be like the crazy paparazzi and see what or who we could find in the back of the bakery. 

We did get a little sneak peak inside but they were pretty good about keeping that door closed. 

This is the closest we got to seeing Buddy - The Boss. 

These cupcakes were SO yummy.  I wasn't overly impressed with the frosting - that was just average vanilla buttercream. 

After picking Talicee up at the hotel we went on to see St. Paul's church across from ground zero.  We also went to the 911 Memorial site and tried to get additional views of the construction.  Unfortunately it started to rain on us so we didn't stay there for long. We went on to see Grand Central Station, FAO Shwartz and ate lunch at Famous Dave's.

This is the transit station that sits below the ground zero site 

This is a model in the 9/11 Memorial building that shows the end result of the area that will open in 2012.

I saw this when I went to NY the first time. It's just as impressive and touching to see it again as it was the first time. It's a lot of the mementos, pictures, badges left on the fence at the World Trade Center site in the days following the attacks. 

St. Paul's church. When I saw it before it had pews but they've since taken those out and put in chairs. The pews were significant because the firefighters working the rescue effort slept on those benches in addition to the cots pictures below.  

Grand Central Station

It's like playing Where's Waldo.  

As you can see it rained on us and we weren't prepared.  It was nice because the rain brought the temperature down into the 70's from the 90's so it was worth it. 

FAO Schwarz Soldier 

We played on the big piano!  

Wednesday was what I called our TLC tour.  Next stop was Kleinfelds.  Made popular by the TV show "Say Yes to the Dress!" I happen to love this show.  even though we are already married I think I'm more into wedding dresses now then I was when I was picking mine out.  We found the store and unfortunately they were closed...but the doors were unlocked!  We made our way in and were greeted by a nice man in the lobby who said we could snap a few pictures. Being my nosey self, I asked if Randy was still around.  He's what makes the show interesting to me.  Unfortunately he wasn't there but he told me that the owner was just around the corner on the other side of the lobby.  I was excited!  Just then the owner, Ronnie Rothstein, ended his conversation to another gentleman and introduced himself to us.  He was so nice.  He spent about 10 minutes with us talking to us about the show, asking our opinions on certain aspects of it and then eventually took a picture with us.  He gave us his business card and asked that we send him the picture and our feedback so he could share it with the producers.  It was super stoked.  I was a little bummed when I realized it was closed but left extremely excited that we got to have that fun experience. 

We ended the evening with a little shopping and some NY style pizza.