Logan's Super Hero 4th birthday party!

Logan's 4th birthday party was this past weekend and it was great!

Logan has been into super heroes for a long time and picked out his birthday theme this year so we went all out. Logan decided he was going to be Batman, Mason was "little batman", Mommy was Wonder Woman and Daddy was Superman. Halloween costumes this year.....check.  Most of the kids came with their favorite super hero gear and it was awesome!

It was pretty low key.  Snacks, cupcakes and a bounce house.  The weather stayed overcast all day but did not rain.

I really enjoy (well, the end result) decorating and letting my creative side come out.  I had lots of fun with this party.  Months of making decorations, they are up for a few hours and then they get thrown in the trash! Oh well, they turned out better than I thought and everyone loved them. For snacks I made:
"Thor Hammers"-pretzel sticks with cube cheese
"Fruit KaPOWS"-Fruit kabobs of pineapple, strawberries and grapes
"Krunch"-Chips
"Pop"-Popcorn
"Hulk Power Punch"-Lemonade with green food coloring

We were going to do a piñata but opted for just goody bags instead.  The new Avengers movie comes out soon so I found lots of super hero things! Sheets of stickers, fruit snacks and a candy bracelet and the bags were good to go!

We had masks for all the kids and their cups had different super hero names on them.  They thought it was fun and played like they were super heros the whole time.

Everyone had such a fun time and after everyone left Bryan said it looked like an explosion of fun happened in and outside of our house.  That was about right! Logan said it was the best party ever! That is all that mattered :)

Logan is 4

My first born turned 4 on 4-4! He is such a big kid now.

WHY does he look so BIG here?! 

We blew up some balloons and put them in his room and he got to open up his present.  The movie Big Hero 6.  He loves Baymax and was very excited!

Since the next day was Easter, we decided to have his Super Hero party (per his request on the theme!) a few weeks later.  Saturday was all about Logan and we let him pick all the meals that day.


Breakfast: Pancakes.  This boy would eat pancakes everyday is we let him.

Lunch:  Chi-Fil-A! That's right.  He pronounces it without the "ck" at the end of "chick" and his favorite are the "bumpy" nuggets.  I have no idea why he calls them bumpy nuggets.

Dinner:  Pizza.  Nothing better  cheaper than a $5 Hot N Ready!

I made him a Funfetti cake which he "helped" me make.  Needless to say, we did not eat great on Saturday, but Logan felt special.

Daddy took him to a car show that night, he had fun.  That little boy loves him some race cars.

Logan is the funniest kid.  This is by far my most favorite age.  He is so imaginative and loving.  But stubborn and knows how to push his boundaries as well!
He loves to watch movies.  He loves his little brother.  He loves to play with his trucks and reading books.  He loves to "help" me clean.  He does not want our help with anything, wants to do everything himself.  He is not a risk taker.  It takes him a while to warm up to strangers and new situations.

Food: He still loves all "kid food" Hot dogs, corn dogs, chicken nuggets, peanut butter and jelly and macaroni and cheese. He likes "square cheese", poptarts, eggs, bacon, golfish crackers, fruit cups.  He has also expanded his pallet to grilled chicken,sausage, beans (some), and still no green ANYTHING. His all time favorite breakfast is pancakes.  He requests it every morning.  And I think the kid would eat bacon at every meal.  We are going to try really hard this year to get him to eat more veggies or at least try them.  We will see how that goes.  His favorite places to eat are: Chick-fil-A, Whataburger and McDonald's (which he calls "Old Macdonalds).  He will always say he wants a happy meal, not a sad meal from that place.

We headed to the doctor for his 4 year check up.  He has NEVER been a fan of the doctor.  He was in and out of there so much when he was little.  At his 3 year check up, he was better, but still leery.  He got no "owies" at that appointment so that was great.  However, not the case when they turn 4.  We did not tell him he was getting shots either.  He would have had a full blown meltdown.  He weighed 38 pounds and is 3 ft, 6 inches tall.  He is going to be a tall boy! They checked his hearing and vision which was perfect, he thought it was fun to put the headphones on.  He did very well talking to the doctor.  Then she left and the nurse came in and he knew what was happening.  He cried of course, but all was well in the world when the nurse came in and gave him a sucker and a superman sticker.  Then afterwards we let him pick where we would go eat lunch.  He picked "water-burger" and got his favorite, a bacon cheeseburger!

I really cannot believe he is 4.  One more year at daycare, then he goes to kinder! Which we have to figure out soon.  I have some schools in mind that I want him to go to and it is not the one we are zoned to.  So we might be putting our house up for sale like the end of this year.  Fun.  But that is another blog post some other time.

Logan, buddy, you are such a sweet and caring, yet stubborn and silly boy! We love you so much!
Super-hero party is on for this weekend! Can't wait to hang out and celebrate with friends and family. We will be taking him to see a Monster Truck jam in Austin next weekend, so that will be fun!

Mason is 4 months!

Ok seriously time needs to slow down!

Our roly poly man is already 4 months old! We went to the doctor with the 2 kids in tow, Logan for his 4 year and Mason for his 4 month check up and shots.  Mason weighs in at 14 pounds, 9 ounces and is a strong healthy boy! He does have a flat spot on one side of his head, just from laying in the same spot and not liking tummy time.  The doctor assured us it would round out.  We try to move his head while he is asleep to the other side, but nope, he will move it back.  Working on more tummy time and putting him in the jump up will help as well. He took his shots like a champ! Cried for just a bit and then was over it and back to smiling!

Eating: 5 ounces of breast milk every 3-4 hours. Sometimes he will take 6 or 7 ounces on occasion. My goal was to pump for 4 months! YAY! Now on to my next goal of 6 months, I can do it! We gave him rice cereal the other day and he was pretty much over it and was like give me my bottle already! So I am going to send some to school and see if he will take it there.  And the rolls.  They go on for days! I love all his chubbiness!

Sleeping: Like a champ! He HAS to be swaddled though.  Our routine is bath, bottle, bed.  Sometimes this means he is swaddled in the crib at 7:30pm.  He does still wake up around 4:30am, (he wriggles out of his swaddle) and I put him in the bed with us.  Sometimes he goes right back to sleep.  Other times, he is hungry.

Likes:  He likes to be held still and rocked.  I love it, but sometime we have to put him down and he hates it.  We have had a few "cry it out" nights and boy does that hurt my heart! He eventually calms down, but that boy has some lungs on him! He likes mirrors, as all babies do.  He will smile so big if he is looking at a mirror.  He loves big brother.  Logan is usually the one that can get him smiling big. He is smiling ALL the time! He has been dubbed by Bryan as our "smiley guy" We would hardly get any smiles out of Logan at that age. He will coo and make noises and blow bubbles and we have heard a few giggles but no laughing out loud just yet.  He enjoys his bath and kicks and splashes.  He likes the swing when he is sleepy.  He likes to pull his blankie up right by his face.  He also has a little bear he has grown pretty found of when he is sleepy.

Dislikes:  Being put down on his back.  He always wants to be sitting up like a big boy.  He still has a love hate relationship with his pacifier.  It will sooth him, but if he looses grip....his world has ended and he lets us know about it! He does not seem to enjoy the bumbo at home, but they tell me at school, he likes it.

Mason, Buggie boy, you have completed our little family! We love you more every day, keep growing!

Mason is 3 months!

This happy chubby baby is 3 months old!

Doing:
SMILES! He has been giving us the biggest smiles and it melts my heart! "Taking" more and more, little coos and noises here and there.  I am waiting for him to laugh, it is coming soon, I can tell! Holding his head up pretty good, but it is hard work.   We put him in the bumbo chair to see, but he did not last very long.

Likes:
He loves when we change his diaper because we have a mirror over the changing table.  He loves laying there and smiles big.  Eating! He is still eating every 3-4 hours, 5oz. I am still exclusively pumping (I honestly do not know how I have made it this far!) so I have to keep up with his demanding eating habits. But so far, we have not supplemented any formula.   He is now sleeping through the night.  And by that I mean we can feed him at 11pm and he will sleep until 5:30am.  The other morning he woke up VERY hungry and gulped down 7 oz! My big boy! He loves riding in the car. He has a little mirror and he will just look at it and make funny faces and stick out his tongue.  Logan laughs all the time at his "silly face" brother!

Dislikes:
Not a fan of tummy time.  We try, and he can stand it for a while, then gets mad.  Sleep.  I mean he likes to sleep, but when we put him down at night, he will fight it. We have swaddled him a few nights and that seems to work. He will wake up around 3am and be fussy, so he snuggles with Mommy.  He is also in a love-hate relationship with the paci.  It seems to soothe him, unless it falls out, then his world has ended! He gets so worked up about it that it is very hard to put back in his mouth.  So maybe Mommy and Daddy have a love-hate relationship with the paci!


We put away all the 3 month clothes and have moved up to 6 month ones.  He seems to be growing very fast! We think he maybe weighs about 14 pounds. He is still in a size 2 diaper.  His hair has all fallen out, except for the back part (which just looks like old man hair!) and it seems to be coming back in, but very light, peach-fuzz.  So we have another little "baldy" and that is ok with us! He looks more and more like Logan everyday, just more round and rolly. He got a nasty cough this month from big brother of course and all the nasty daycare germs I am sure.  Other than him coughing, he is pretty happy!

He is getting so big so quick, we love you Buggie!

The Name Game

A few days ago an article came out about the most popular baby names of 2015.
Top baby names of 2015

I was shocked to see both my boy's names in the TOP 5! We never wanted to name our babies "popular" names, but, yep, there they were.  Mason at number 3 and Logan number 5.  I guess I will have to come to terms with there will probably be kids in their class named the same as them. However, in 2011, Logan was #10 on the list and in 2014, Mason was #6.  Still in the top ten.  
People probably assumed we got their names from a baby name website, but we didn't.

When I was little, I used to play with a little girl down the street from us named Lindsey.  She had the cutest, blonde, blue-eyed baby brother named Logan. He was seriously the cutest baby ever. I mean up until I had my babies, of course.   I made up my mind right then (I think I was 6 years old!) that if I became a mommy to a boy, his name would be Logan.  Fast forward to the year 2010 and we found out we were pregnant.  In my heart, I knew it was a boy and so did Bryan.  We were eating at a restaurant and I wanted to have names picked out.  I told him I liked the name Logan and he agreed. He also liked it because that is the name of Wolverine (and if you ask Bryan, he will tell you we named him after Wolverine....NOT true.) We decided it would be Logan.
Not long after that, we went out of town to Houston.  We saw the "Mason Rd" exit. I immediately said, that I liked the name Mason too.  Bryan did too.  But we liked Logan a little bit better.  But we both agreed if we ever had another little boy, his name would be Mason.

So there you have it, that is how we came up with the names of our boys.

We never had any girl names picked out that we could agree on.  We tossed around a few:
Victoria--Bryan;s favorite, I did not like it.
Katelynn
Vivian
Lillian
Madelyn
Ellison
Karleigh
Kamryn
Cora
Bella
Quinn--this is my absolute favorite.  If I EVER have a girl (yes, we are SAYING we are done having kids, but things can change!) this would be her name.  Now getting the husband to agree on it would be a different story.

Adjusting

Wow, I have not blogged in quite a while.  Not that I have been busy or anything....

We are adjusting to life as a family of four and it is going great! We finally have a routine down and Logan is helping us so much with little brother.
Speaking of Logan, he still is pretty obsessed with his little brother.  It melts my heart to see him so excited to see his brother.  He always wanted to hug him or kiss him.  I am crossing my fingers that will last for as long as possible.  Logan has never gotten annoyed or angry when Mason cries he will just rush over to him and try to soothe him.  Logan loves his big brother status and wants to tell the world about his little brother.  I was not sure how my heart could make more room to love another one, but it filled up quick!

Mason is 2 months old! How did that happen?  He is a lot more rolly than Logan was.  I just love all his chubbiness....even his lack of a neck.  We went to the doctor and Mason weighed 12 pounds, 3 oz. and was deemed "perfect" by the doctor. He got his shots and screamed for a while, but calmed down pretty quick.  When Logan was that age, we would be driving home and Logan would still be screaming.  He is my diva child. Mason has started to smile too! So sweet...even if it is just gas! Mason has been eating 4 oz every 2-3 hours since he was 4 weeks old.  He is finally starting to sleep in longer stretches.  We will feed him 6 oz (yikes) around 9:30pm and he will sleep until 2am.  Then he will take 4 oz at 2am, then sleep until around 6am when we are getting up for work.

Can you find my neck? 

Speaking of work, I am back! It feels good to be back. Just playing catch up and remembering what I am doing! My brain has been on "baby mode" the last 9 weeks, so I needed to retrain my brain to get into "work mode". It was nice being home with him for those 2 months, but reality is, we need money, so back to work I go!  I knew dropping of Mason at daycare would be hard and I would cry (which I did all the way to work) but it is better now and I am only a week in! And I am proud to say, for the most part, I have dropped off 2 kids and I have gotten to work on time.

First day of daycare for Buggie 

With 2 kids, I come home to a messy house.  There are pacifiers in every nook and cranny, Logan's dump trucks fill the living room, bottles and sippy cups are on the coffee tables.  While the OCD in me wants to fix all this, I don't.  I think after you have second kid, you are a little more relaxed when it comes to "that stuff can wait".  I want to, just for the moment, hold both my boys in my arms, because I know, all too soon, they will not fit in my lap. They won't need me anymore.  So I am hanging on to these moments.  And our life as a family of four completes us.