B-I-G

Logan turned six months on October 13th and we had his doctor's appointment a few days later. I had a sneaky suspicion that he was going to measure on the large size since he is currently wearing 12 and 18 months clothes. The kid did not disappoint! Check out his numbers...

Head- 18 1/2 inches (off the charts)

Length - 29 1/2 inches (off the charts)

Weight - 20 lbs 4 oz (90%...slacker!)

With working at the Y, subbing more, and keeping up with the boys, the days are going by so quickly. I've been wanting to write Logan's six month update for two weeks and finally I decided to let the clothes stay unfolded for another day so I can write about life with our sweet baby boy.

After only six months, it's already hard to imagine a time without Logan. This guy is not only big in size, but also in personality. All you have to do is look at him and you will see his big round cheeks turn upwards as he flashes his great big smile. Here are some of his current favorites: eating in his high chair (not a fan of peas though), reaching for toys, rolling over and over to get to something fun to explore, drinking milk, being tickled, and watching his big brother play.

There are so many amazing things about having two kids. I absolutely love watching then interact with each other. Henry gets so excited when he makes Logan smile. And I can already tell that Logan thinks Henry is he coolest thing on earth. But the one thing I didn't anticipate about being a mom of two is one feeling in particular...GUILT. I don't think I really knew what the word meant until just recently. I've always been very good at time management, but now I struggle with balancing my time between the two and giving Logan the same opportunities I was able to give Henry, which I know is somewhat impossible now. Working part time is great for the extra cash, but not so much for my feelings of guilt. To feel better, I remind myself that Logan is lucky he will always have his big brother around to play with and learn from.

Logan has grown so much (developmentally and in size!) over these last six months. I'm excited to see what these next six months bring and I'm hopeful they won't go by as quickly as the first six!

(sorry no picture tonight. I'm writing this on the iPad and I'm not sure how to post one from here and I think I've exceeded my "free time" so I'll figure that out another day).

Birthday Bash #2

September 4th Henry turned three. I'm not sure how that happened. Just the other day he was learning to crawl and using baby sign language to communicate. Before having kids I would hear parents talk about how time flies and how their kids are growing up before they eyes. I didn't truly understand this until a few weeks ago. It really blows my mind that my baby isn't a baby at all anymore. I'm absolutely having a blast right now watching Henry's personality really come out. I just wish we could slow down time a little.

Henry is a very sweet three year old. Occasionally he needs a time out here and there, but for the most part is really well behaved. He LOVES books and to be read to before "quiet" time and bedtime. Henry can play independently especially when cars or Buzz Lightyear are involved. I love watching him play and hear what his imagination comes up with next. Each day he is more loving toward his little bro. Watching that relationship grow is such a thrill.

Here are some pictures from Henry's birthday. We had "Pizza Planet" cater lunch and I made my mom's famous mint ice cream cake (Henry's choice, of course). He partied so hard all weekend that on our way over to my parent's house for dinner, he fell asleep and was out for the rest of the night. Poor guy didn't even eat dinner on his birthday, but I think he still had a good day and felt special so my mission was accomplished!

PreParty

The day before Logan's baptism we had a pre-party for those who came in town that day. After dinner we enjoyed another night around the fire pit. Henry wasn't too sure about the flames, but he eventually got close enough to roast a marshmallow or two. He still needs a lot of practice before he masters the art of roasting the perfect marshmallow. His attention span is great, but not quite great enough to be still long enough for roasting. I'm not complaining about more roasting marshmallow time!

Logan's Baptism

September 3rd we celebrated Logan's baptism. We had family and friends in town to help us welcome Logan into the Catholic church. Somehow Logan squeezed into the same outfit Henry wore on his baptism (not buttoning all most of the bottons helped out). Logan's godmother is my sister, Kathleen, and his godfather is Todd's friend, Mike. Although Logan won't remember the ceremony or the after party, we'll be sure to tell him how much love surrounded him on that day. Thank you to everyone for coming to help us celebrate!

Birthday Bash Part 1

We have been doing a whole lot of celebrating lately. First, we had Henry's friend birthday party and then last weekend we had a baptism party for Logan and a family birthday party for Henry. Here are some pictures from party #1. I had a lot of fun putting it together for Henry. This year I asked him what kind of party he wanted. For the longest time I thought he would want a truck party, but when I asked him he requested a "Buzz Lightyear" party. Soon after Logan's arrival, my first guilty feelings of sharing my time with the two boys really hit hard. To do something fun with Henry (and still stay close to home for Logan) we started watching the Toy Story movies together. And that is when Henry's love all things Toy Story began.

Fabulous Four

Logan turned four months on the 13th of August. We have definitely hit a turning point. Those hard first few months are behind us and we are left with the most adorable laid back four month old. Logan smiles a lot these days and has already rolled over from both his belly and his back. His favorite things include putting his fingers in his mouth, watching his big bro run around the house, and play with his cute little "toesies." Considering his massive growth in just two months, eating is on the top of his favorite things list.

Here are his numbers:
Head: 17 1/2 inches
Height: 27 1/2 inches (up nearly three inches from 2 months!)
Weight: 16 lbs 7 oz (over three pounds more than at 2 months)

No surprise that he is in the 90% for all three areas.

Here are some pictures from the past few weeks.

Our Number One Fan

Since Todd's last post about the Reigh's visit and Dutch Wonderland, our site has had some major traffic. Well, really there has just been one sweet little girl who just can't get enough of watching Henry going around and around on the rides. In honor of our blog's number one fan, here are some pictures of Henry with his favorite NC gal.



PS Christine, we'll try to limit all other super fun videos of Henry to under 5 minutes for your sake! Miss you! And hope we can get together soon! I have a feeling Santa might bring Elly a trip to Dutch Wonderland this year (feel free to not read that last part aloud to Elly).

A visit from Alaska!

Jenny's sister recently visited from Alaska. It was a great couple weeks of fun with family and Henry really enjoyed playing with his cousins. Watching them all interact made us really wish they were closer but we know they love it up in Alaska. Between playing in the yard, tackling uncle Todd, running around at Dutch Wonderland, the kids all got their share of fun over the last couple weeks. Enjoy the pix and video.

Help!

For the past few months (yes, months!) Henry has been resisting his nap. It started off as him just quietly reading a book in bed or playing with his blanket for the duration of "nap time," but has recently become a battle to keep him in bed for even just a "quiet" time. He has become quite good at procrastinating as he often asks for "little bit of water" or he says "Mommy, come get me" and he knows I can't ignore "Mommy, come change my diaper."

At first I thought I should push back nap time, nope that didn't work. Then I thought, ok, I'll make sure he is really tired by taking him outside to play, nada. Lastly, my thought was he must be out growing this nap thing. Well, once dinner rolls around and he is literally falling asleep at the table, I know his little body still needs some day time sleeping.

This afternoon around 5:00 he was eating a snack (and falling asleep). I tried to wake him up by switching to another activity, but when he was still falling asleep I asked if he wanted to lay down on the couch for a little bit. Surprisingly he said yes and even more surprisingly he fell asleep immediately. I really don't want him sleeping now (bedtime should be interesting), but I just can't figure out how to make him sleep at the right time these days! And what is even more frustrating is if I was given the chance to sleep everyday for two hours, I would take it! I sure do miss my sleep these days!

Any suggestions would be highly appreciated!

Two Months

It's hard to believe Logan is two months old! I took him to his two month check up today. He is doing right on track with his cooing and smiling. His slightly lopsided head shows his preference to one side so our homework is to give him more tummy time. Hopefully Logan won't start resisting homework this early on in life.

Here are his measurements this month:

Head: 16 1/3

Height: 24 1/4

Weight: 13 lbs 4 oz (same as Henry at two months)

Not surprisingly, Logan is in the 90th percentile for all three measurements.

Photo Shoot

One would think with a toddler and a newborn, there would be plenty of adorable pictures of the two together. Well after two attempted photo shoots with my fellas, I have realized getting them both to look on camera as cute as they are in real life, is not an easy task. One that I will be leaving up to the professionals in the future. Here are a couple of the best of the worsts (and believe me, there were plenty to pick from)!

Thank you Aunt Kathleen!

Two weekends ago, my sister, Kathleen pretty much saved my sanity. I can't thank her enough for coming up here to help me with my two boys and Riley. I'm not sure if it was pregnancy brain or lack of a brain with a newborn in the house, but I gave Todd the go ahead to travel to Jamaica for a friend's wedding just three weeks after Logan's arrival. So I was home alone with the boys Thursday and most of Friday (until my savior arrived at around 8:00). While I was dealing with lack of sleep, crying, diapers, and a toddler who needed more attention, I completely regretted my decision to let Todd go (He insisted he would stay behind, but I was the one who kept saying to go...crazy me!), but as soon as my special helper arrived, I knew we were going to survive the weekend and I was glad Todd wasn't going to miss out on such a special day for his friend, Clev. In fact, we more than survived the weekend. We had our first public outing with Logan which was to Target, of course. It was a wonderful visit with "Aunt Kafleen" and I hope she comes up again to hang out! One bonus to letting Todd go on a tropical vacation without me and the kids (on Mother's Day weekend no less) is I should be able to win any discussions about what we want to do for the next several weekends or better yet, months! Plus, I'm planning on a trip with all my friends to St. Lucia for Father's Day weekend. well, not really, but a girl can dream!

Clev and Jen, sorry I missed your awesome wedding weekend! Believe me, wish I could have been there! But can't wait to celebrate with you sometime soon!

One Month

We had Logan's one month appointment today. He only had one shot which he was not a fan of. I'm already dreading his two month appointment where he will get more shots. Logan came into this world at 8 lbs 11 oz and one month later he is weighing in at 11 lbs 5 oz. I'm quite proud of this accomplishment since it seems all I have done for the past thirty days is feed Logan (and change many diapers). He was 20 1/2 inches at birth (although the nurses measuring didn't agree so we aren't too confident that measurement was accurate) and today he is 23 1/4 inches. Logan is in the 95% for height and weight (no big shocker there). Now that Logan is getting bigger I am hopeful that he'll start sleeping more at night!

Easter 2011

So far Logan and I have left the house twice. Once for his first doctor's visit. At the visit we were thrilled to find out he has already passed his birth weight and I was even more thrilled to hear I didn't have to wake him at night to feed him anymore. Although he is waking up about every three to four hours on his own. I love the newborn snuggles, but not the newborn feeding schedule :)

The second time we left the house was to spend Easter day at my parents. It was a beautiful day and if felt great to enjoy the fresh air and the wonderful meal was a big bonus, too. Before heading over to my parent's house, Henry followed a trail of hershey kisses. He was giggling as he picked up each clue, but when he got to the end of the trail that ended in front of a closet door, he was very afraid to open the door. He thought he would find the actual Easter Bunny hiding in the closet. Eventually I had to pick inside to assure him there wasn't a bunny, but instead a basket just for him.

Here are some pictures of our first holiday as an expanded family.

Henry and Logan

A lot of people have asked us if we think Logan looks like Henry did when he was born....

We'll let you decide...

Henry

Logan

Henry getting ready to go home

Logan getting ready to go home

Logan Todd

On April 13th we welcomed our newest member of the family into the world. Logan Todd arrived three days past my due date at 1:13 in the afternoon weighing in at 8 lbs 11 oz and 20 1/2 in. Now each April 13th we will be celebrating both Logan's and my brother's birthdays. After waiting for him to arrived which seemed like forever, it was so amazing to finally meet him. Those first moments of his life are just too surreal to put into words. This time around we were more in the moment which meant less pictures, but I think we still were able to capture the magical time with some photos.

During the first week home we were so fortunate to have a ton of help from our family. Todd's parents were with us for our first weekend home and completely took care of us. I felt so spoiled to be able to solely take care of myself and little Logan. Also, it was so wonderful for Logan to meet his cousin and aunts and uncle. I'm finally able to write this post thanks to my parents who are watching Henry for me today. He has been so wonderful while we all adjust to life with a newborn. I'm pretty sure he was thrilled to get out of the house and spend time with Nonna and Pop without a screaming baby.

Here are some of the pictures from our first days with our expanded family.

Chef Henry

Lately Henry has really enjoyed helping me to cook. We recently made a carrot cake for Valentine's Day and Henry especially loved putting the cream cheese frosting on the cake and loved licking the frosting off the spatula even more (don't worry, the licking occurred after we were done icing the cake).

Didn't look the prettiest, but it was tasty!

Today Henry's specialty was Belgium waffles for breakfast and smiley face pizzas for lunch He has been wanting to try out the new pizza recipe ever since checking it out in one of his High Five magazines. Today was the big day and he had a blast making the faces and piling on the mini pepperonis.

Before

After

Time for Travel

As we get closer to "Duece's" arrival, we wanted to visit with friends and family before we are officially in the no travel zone. A few weeks ago, we traveled to Brooklyn to spend some QT with Uncle Clev and Jenn. Henry loved seeing the city and even got to bowl for the very first time.

The following weekend, we traveled to D.C. to see Uncle Mike, Aunt Jeannine, and cousin Colin. We had hopes to see my cousin, Tracy, from California, but the airlines had different plans. Bummer! I hope Henry's uncomfortable look below isn't foreshadowing how he'll feel when his baby brother arrives. He is actually really into his cousin and hopefully next time we visit he won't have the sniffles so he can actually give the little man a hug.

After D.C. we drove up to Baltimore to see Aunt Kathleen and check out the aquarium. As you can see Henry couldn't take his eyes off all the fun sea life especially the dolphins!



I'm not sure when or where our next road trip will take us, but we will be a family of four (five, really when you count our first born, Riley, the best dog ever). And I couldn't be more excited about that!

Thank you, Dr. Seuss

We had a moment tonight in the McDannell household. Each night Henry cleans up his toys before heading upstairs for "night night" time. Tonight Henry decided after putting his toys away, it was time to read a book. As Todd and I left the playroom, we heard Henry say, "Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss." I peeked back into the room and saw Henry sitting on his little stool and flipping through the pages while he "read" the book. Todd and I both looked on while Henry turned each page and "read" Dr. Seuss' rhymes. I'm not sure if it was the pregnancy hormones, the fact that my favorite part of teaching first grade was teaching students to read, or if it was seeing my baby act like such a big boy, but tonight's moment made me more proud than I could describe. While Henry was "reading" he knew he missed a few pages and even said, "I missed a page" and then went back to look for his missing page. Eventually, Henry noticed he had an audience of two parents with very big smiles on their faces. We told him how proud we were of him for reading his book. Then Todd reread the book to Henry while I wiped the tears of happiness away. Thank you, Dr. Seuss, for making such wonderful books that inspire even the youngest to pick up a book and read!