Our Little Performer

Our son is quite a performer. He LOVES to sing, even if there is no audience. Every time I pick him up at a nursery or classroom at the different places we attend things together, they ALWAYS comment on how he loves to sing to the little kids and put on a show for his "teachers."
When we visited the Curries in San Antonio, Avery had to ask if we just sing ALL DAY... the answer to that: Logan does!

I've been meaning to get these on video for awhile to share with you all and last night he was in the mood to perform for us.
This first one has three songs...
Holy, Holy, Holy
Baa, Baa Black Sheep (with the "white sheep" verse too!)
and B-I-B-L-E

You Are My Sunshine
He requests this song at bed time EVERY day! At night, he loves for Jeff and me to sing it together and then he sums it up with, "That's a good song!"
For those of you that don't know the middle verse, it is a very special piece to us:
When Logan was a baby, we were in NY visiting my grandmother that was suffering with Alzheimers/Dementia and when I sang the only verse I knew, she added the second on her own, kind of in her own little world. When we asked her to sing it again, she couldn't remember it. I have made a real effort to keep that verse in the song when we sing to Logan... will always be a memory we have of Nanny Joan.



The Lord's Army
The ending that he gives us here is one we have never seen until his performance last night... of course, Jeff and I found this to be hilarious!

A Day with Aunt Rachel

Last week my friend Rachel (Logan's Godmother) had Spring Break and she met up with us at the newly improved Children's Museum in Houston. What a hit it was... as Logan gets a little older, he'll be able to do so much more of it independently! He had a blast... and the place was HUGE! Four floors of learning and fun!

We started in the news room... you could dress up, write scripts and be the anchor, weatherman or report sports; really anything you wanted. Of course, Logan was just interested in seeing himself and Aunt Rachel on the TV. Here he is changing the channels to make her appear on the big screen.

Here he is in the police car... learning how to use the radio!

The diner was a big hit! He didn't dress up as the chef or anything...
just liked pretending to cook and serve.
Here he is sitting at the counter...
I think he may have been putting mustard into his cup?

The vet clinic was very cool. They had cages for all the different "animals" as well as a scale and other "doctor" things. Here he is brushing the cat's teeth.
Taking a puppy dog's vitals...
A look into his future???

The weather wasn't too hot and it was overcast outside, so we headed out to the water area... lots of learning here too, all about water and cause and effect!
Here he is trying to step on the pump to make the water shoot up.
He loved the "river" and taking things up to the top, chasing them as they floated down.
This was a wave machine... lots of work for him, but he liked watching the waves.
Aunt Rachel playing "teacher" showing him how the dam works.
I didn't bring a change of clothes because I didn't know there would be a water part, so here you can see how wet he was by the time he made it to the playground. Thankfully being wet didn't bother him... I actually had to drag him away from the water "shower" area.

Back inside there was an "experiment" area with instructors who helped out. The lady helped him make a "parachute" and then put it in the air machine to go up over and over again!
He could have played with this all day! Something about watching the same thing happen over and over and never getting bored with it... a toddler thing for sure!
Here's a short video so you can get an idea of his excitement!

Here he is in the technology area, most of which was over his head. He like pretending to play the computer though.

On the top floor, there was a "toddler" area for playing and climbing, reading and some exploring kinds of things. There were A TON of kiddos in this area, many of whom were babies, so Logan was very happy! He "met" a little baby... 2 month old girl, and the mother was so sweet about letting him be sweet to her. He was VERY excited to sing to her and get to hug her and when the mom and I pulled out our cameras, he was quite the ham.
Singing to her... lots of songs!
Being a sweet boy!
If this is how he is with a stranger,
I can only imagine what a sweety he'll be with his own little brother!

Well, the children's museum was a great experience... and a wonderul time with Aunt Rachel! He loves her so much and really enjoyed spending time with her. He is a pretty busy boy and she does an awesome job of keeping up with him.

We also went to her new house on Saturday for their house warming party and he was thrilled that she played with him nearly the whole time we were there! Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, but he did a good job keeping her busy! At one point, I believe her words were, "Man, he never slows down, huh?" And my response... NOPE! That sums that up! :-)

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Here's Logan showing off his new "shamrock" shirt. He loved saying "Happy Saint Patrick's Day!" to everyone on the phone today, and getting "green" M&Ms as his after-nap treat.
Showing off his balancing skills...
Ta-da! Very serious about this accomplishment!

We were supposed to get together with family for dinner, but I seem to have come down with a pretty intense cold and now it seems Jeff is developing the same thing, so better to stay in tonight! Gotta watch American Idol anyway, haha!

What's in a Name?

The name for our next addition to the family has been decided on.
Arriving in August is going to be
Ryan Thomas Grace

Ryan is a name that Jeff and I agreed on...
really one of the only ones Jeff liked at all.
Thomas is a family name on Jeff's side (Jeff's name is Thomas Jeffrey) and I believe this will be the fifth generation to have Thomas used in the Grace family. We can't wait to meet the little one and are really enjoying getting to talk to Logan about it. When we told him today he seemed content with calling the baby "Baby Ryan" but then when Jeff asked him a few hours later who baby Ryan was he replied, "I don't know that boy," making us both laugh. This is all probably very over his head, but we are having fun with it!

San Antonio Visit

So, as I stated last week with info about my "fall" we recently visited very good friends in San Antonio, the Curries. Avery is one of my best friends and now in the grown-up stage of our lives we are getting to share in the joy of growing our own families. Our first ones, my Logan and her Brynn, are only 3 months apart and this visit showed us how quickly they have both grown up. They played very well together and both enjoy a lot of the same things, so it was very nice to see them interact well while we got to catch up as friends. Baby Camdyn is just precious, already 10 months old, and Logan LOVED her, always telling us what a good baby she is and how he loves her so! Here are some pics from our visit... now that I'm looking over all of them I wish I had taken more!

On one of Brent's days off, we were able to leave Camdyn home with him and take the older kiddos to a bounce house. They really enjoyed themselves, and so did we! There were huge slides which the kids did with very little fear, blow ups just for jumping and also a couple of obstacle courses. We're gonna have to find a place like this near us because Logan really enjoyed it!

Logan following Brynn into a bouncer

Avery taking the kids up the long climb to the top of the slide

Before knowing how fast the slide would really go, this is how Avery left the two behind her... grabbing their feet as she went sliding so they didn't stay at the top!
On one of the obstacle courses, Brynn is checking out what's ahead.
Here is how we went down after we learned how fast it was gonna be...
The kids always have this truly frightened look on their face and then immediately wanted to go again! I especially loved Brynn's tongue out in this one!
Logan decided he would go by himself... made it all the way to the top and then wouldn't make the trip down. Apparantly it was a scary site from that high up without mommy by your side. After little success in the bribing area, I conceded and followed him up to slide down together.

Each kid climbing by themselves.

The weather while we were there was wonderful. We played outside every day and took the kids to the new park by their house twice.


On Saturday night of the visit Jeff came into town and we went to Trisha and Michael's beautiful wedding. We left Logan at Avery's house... thanks to Avery for the wonderful little date night we got to have. Most of the pics from the wedding are on my mom's camera, but here is one of the happy couple dancing towards the end of the night. It was a great time for everyone and was very nice to see and catch up with people I haven't seen since college.

Some big news... a few weeks early!

This past week, we were in San Antonio for my friend Trisha's wedding and spent 5 days visiting the Curries... so many pics from the fun time that I'll be putting in another post shortly, but before that, I'd like to get out our big news!

Due to a fall down Avery's stairs on Saturday that came with lots of bruises (wooden stairs, with ceramic tile at the bottom) the dr recommended that I come in for an ultrasound to make sure everything was ok. Of course, I didn't argue because peace of mind is kind of important when you are carrying precious cargo! Jeff met Logan and me at the office and after confirming that the baby was fine, heart rate was normal and my blood pressure was fine, we heard the words "It's a boy!"
We are very excited! We don't plan on having any more, so boys it will be for us! I wasn't planning on getting this information until April, so the final pick of a name has not been done yet... I'm sure we'll be talking about it tonight though!! haha!

The only other concern on the ultrasound was the fact that the placenta is low, pretty much under the baby, but there is no way to tell now if that was a result from the fall or if it's just still working on making its way up. They took pics and measurements of it and will compare when I go in April 1st and they do another ultrasound. I'm not worried right now because there is nothing I could do about it anyway and as long as it wasn't separated or torn (which would be major!), they weren't too concerned.

So, that's our big news... pics of our San Antonio trip to come very soon!

Mommy's Bday Weekend

This year, the birthday was a wonderful thing. Logan understood that we were celebrating mommy and daddy was very cute about getting him involved and talking to him about it the whole week before. A lot took place in the three-day celebration, starting on Friday morning with my two sweet boys going to Whataburger and bringing me back my favorite breakfast (and even serving it in bed)! It was so yummy... especially now that I can eat the things I love and not throw them up! Praise God!

After eating, I was given my present... surprise, a new camera! All the pics in this post were taken with my new Canon... something I wanted, but didn't ask for and was very pleasantly surprised. I'm impressed with Jeff's ability to surprise me and am very thankful that he went with his choice of gift and not what Logan had wanted to get me... Logan thought that I would want a bag of rocks... after many suggestions Jeff gave him at the dinner table Thursday night, Logan said yes to the bag of rocks idea and said, "Mommy, you want a bag of rocks?" When I said no thanks he asked, "You don't like rocks mommy?" OH, BOYS!

So, Friday afternoon we went to my parents to celebrate and I got to open more presents... maternity clothes were definitely in the mix (though I'm still wearing my regular clothes at the moment!), along with lots of other little goodies. My brother made my busy life a lot easier with a blue tooth and I am very thankful for that! We had a nice dinner out at Outback (again a place I chose, solely because I was excited about being able to eat normally again and I was really excited about the Aussie cheese fries- yummy!).
On Saturday, my brother took us to Chuck E Cheese's (wondering here if it was mine or Logan's birthday!) and we had a very good time. Logan LOVES Uncle Mike and who wouldn't love the 30yr old big kid with pockets full of tokens for all the fun games!?! Here are some pics of them playing together...

Watching the birthday celebration with a good view from top.

Mike doing some serious concentrating.
He LOVED all the "driving" games this time... so that was something new!
Playing air hockey... as best he could!
High fives for Chucky... no fear here!
And some hugs too. He wanted to follow him around everywhere.

In the afternoon, Logan had a birthday party to go to for my friend's 2yr old Cameron. Logan was THRILLED with the theme of Thomas and had a great time playing with trains and eating a Thomas cake... He was telling me on the way home that he wants Thomas at his next party, but can we please have Percy and James too? I think he wondered if they were left out on purpose and wants to make sure that doesn't happen again! Haha!
Wearing his conductor hat!
Happy Birthday Cameron!

Saturday night I got to go out with some of my friends from church... it just happened to be ladie's night out the same weekend of my birthday and we had a very nice time! We went shopping in Market Street after dinner and I got to spend some birthday money, so no complaints here!
On Sunday after church, Rachel and Joel came up for the day. This was the first time that Logan was immediately ready to see and play with her on one of our visits. It definitely shows how much he is growing up that he isn't needing "warm up" time when we have visitors or when we visit friends. They had a blast playing together and she brought Christmas to us in March... we hadn't had a chance to get together around the holidays, so our holiday was a little late this year! Thanks Aunt Rachel for the wonderful games... I love to watch his little brain work at figuring out the LeapFrog match up game! Here are some pics from their visit.
Jumping with Aunt Rachel.
Making her bounce!
A little time with Uncle Joel.
Getting some serious air!

The whole weekend was a very busy one, but tons of fun for all! We have another busy week ahead with a trip to San Antonio starting early tomorrow morning, so I'm sure we'll have more to update after a visit with the Curries. The pregnancy is going well... I am 15+ weeks and go to the doctor again today. If there is anything to report, I'll be sure to let you all know!