Christmas Morning

Here are some shots of Christmas morning at the Higgins house!

Christmas Eve

We went to Greg's Aunt Donna's house in Washington, MO for Christmas Eve with the Schmitt family. We ate a lot (Logan only ate pickles and chocolate cake...lovely), sang some Christmas carols, and played games. Greg and I played a dice game and apples to apples with some people in the dining room while Logan played wii bowling in the living room. Well, he didn't really play. He a remote control car and he must have thought it was a wii controller because he stood off to the side of the TV and he pushed his buttons and watched the TV very intently. If "he" missed, he would say "Aww, man!!"

He got to stay up past his bedtime and had a good time with all of his cousins!

Happy Birthday Jesus

Tonight we had Jesus's birthday party. We sang to Jesus and Logan blew out the candles and we ate cupcakes (and Christmas cookies). Then Logan got to open 2 presents one from Grandma and Grandpa Bradley and one from Grandma and Grandpa Higgins. He got a candy toy thing from G-ma/pa Bradley. It has Santa in an airplane and when you push a button, the propeller rotates. He played with that thing for 30 minutes straight. It was a fun activity and helped us focus on Jesus- the reason for the season.

The little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay

This week Logan is learning about Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus. So I gave Logan a baby doll, some "hay" and a box for the manger. We had to borrow the baby from my mom because all I had was a cabbage patch kid with pigtails-- not so baby Jesus like. Greg suggested we just use the stuffed Garfield or Curious George. Somehow that seemed wrong to me!

Logan LOVED playing with the hay. (It was actually a cut up hawaiian skirt from the dollar tree).

We put the hay in the box... and he pulled it out multiple times...

I showed him how to wrap up the baby and told him how Mary wrapped up Baby Jesus. I asked him if he wanted to put the baby "Night night" in the hay.

He said, "NO!" and threw the baby on the ground. Such a boy.... but I did get him to kiss the baby night night after a while.

He put the baby in the hay... and wanted to put the hay on top of the baby.

We also put a bow on baby Jesus to show that Jesus is a gift from God.

We read a few picture books about Jesus's birth. I pointed to Mary and said, "That's Jesus's mommy, Mary, can you say, Mary?" He said, "Mary" I did the same with Joseph, "Can you say Joseph?" He said, "NO!" At least he knows his limitations!! I showed him the picture and pointed to baby Jesus and he said, "Jesus!"

Making a Mess

Logan's new favorite phrase is, "What a mess!"

He still doesn't seem to understand he is the one making all the messes!

Wrap up

We finished making wrapping paper last week. We just needed these supplies:

a snowman stamp, tempera paint, tape, and a paper plate to hold our paint.


Of course, Logan also needed a paint shirt. I decided to donate my Centrikid shirt from 2000. Seriously, that's embarrasing that it was still in my drawer.

Logan did a good job stamping the snowmen onto the wrapping paper.

He did walk in the wet paint but no worries, it was tempera paint.

Here is his final product!

We also made ornaments for Logan's grandparents and great-grandmas. We took plastic ornament balls, put glue on them and then put them in a shoe box with glitter and Logan did the shaking.

His favorite part was throwing the "balls" across the room! They turned out less than beautiful but Grandparents like anything, right? I thought I had a picture but I don't... oh well, don't want to spoil the Grandparent's suprise.

Logan's cousin

Sweet little Jacob. He kept makin funny faces at me! We can't wait for Tyson to join to gang of boys!

Logan being Logan

Logan insisted on wearing this hat to his doctor appointment on Monday.

'Advent'ually it will be Christmas

I wanted to use Advent this year to sort of introduce Logan to the cast of characters in the Christmas story. This week we're learning about the Angels that told the good news that Jesus would be born.

We made a shape angel.

We started with 3 pre-cut shapes (triangle, big circle, little circle).

Logan colored the triangle and the big circle. I tried to tell him the names of the shapes, "Triangle and Circle." He replied, "NO, Moon." And insisted on calling the circle "moon." Ahh, the independent 19 month old :)

Then I put glue on the triangle and circle and we sprinkled glitter on them.

There are no pictures of "glittering" I hate glitter. Eight years of teaching elementary school made me hate glitter. But I also learned that no matter the age of your child, they will still make a mess with glitter. Fourth graders are just as bad with glitter as first graders. And 19 months old, they use glitter just like fourth graders-- way too much and it doesn't stay in the glitter box. But since it's always gonna be a mess to use glitter, we might as well have a little fun! Ok, enough of my rampage on glitter.

We folded the big circle in half for wings, and I glued the pieces together while Logan played in the sink and cleaned up.

We also sang a song: (Tune: The Farmer in the Dell)

The Angels told the news

The Angels told the news

The Lord has come for everyone,

The Angels told the news.

AND JUST WHEN YOU THINK THEY'RE NOT LISTENING...

After singing the song we had this conversation:

Logan: What the news?

Me: (super long pause while I try to figure out how to explain this to a 19 mo old) ummmm..... the good news is that Jesus is going to be born!

Logan: Oh, I love news!

It's beginning to look a little like Christmas

We aren't doing much in the way of Christmas decorating at the Higgins house this season. Mostly because I'm scared that I will go into labor before I get my Christmas tree and decorations put away and they will remain up in our house until June.

But on Sunday, Greg did put up the Christmas tree. It's a prelit. It only has 2 pieces. It takes about 5 minutes to put up and take down. We're not going to put ornaments on it. We're just going to enjoy the lights this year.

Logan loved the tree. He walked around it kissing it and saying, "I love tree." He also hit it a few times. And on Monday I did find a toy dinosaur stuffed in the tree but all in all he's doing a good job with it.

He also loved the tree skirt that Grandma Bradley made. A few of the quilt blocks have tiny little trains on them and he loves to lay on the tree skirt and look for the "choo choos"

Also on Sunday the three of us made our first batch of Christmas cookies. We needed some to take to church and also to Aunt Pam and the new baby!

We gave Logan his own mixing bowl with chocolate chips and powdered sugar in it and let him stir and eat the sugar and chocolate chips.

I also let him eat raw cookie dough. I know. Bad mommy. But you gotta let your kids live a little, right?

It was a fun day and it got me into the Christmas spirt.

19 months old

Logan turned 19 months old on December 1st!

He also got a new cousin on December 1st, Jacob Donald Penning. That puts him up to four BOY cousins and one baby BROTHER on the way!!

Logan continues to grow and change each month.. developing more independence, more personality.

He is starting to use sentences. His favorite is, "I love (juice, wee vee, blanket, fish)" This is translated as, "I want (juice, tv, blanket, fish)." He says it in a loud, fast voice and sounds a little like a new character for a Will Farrell or Adam Sandler movie!

He loves to play ball. We've been throwing balls, kicking balls, rolling balls, shooting balls into the laundry basket, and bowling.... all ideas provided by the PAT educator. Here's the ridiculous part, Logan has surpassed my athletic ability already.

He loves to dress (and undress) himself and he loves to pick out his own clothes. He also is way into dress ups... especially hats!

He's begun to test the limits some. Generally we know he's doing something he's not supposed to do because we hear him in the other room telling himself, "no, no" before he does it! He does love to climb up on the table and since I'm bad about leaving out cups of water and the computer, it's better that he learns NOT to climb on the table. The other day I put him in time out for sitting on the table. He cried. Then afterwards, I picked him up and gave him a hug and he told me, "I love dada." Of course, when Greg put him in time out and then gave him a hug and said, "I love you." Logan said, "No, I love YOU." STINKER!!

Feeling "Advent"urous?

If so, then you should totally do some Advent activities with your one year old!

Logan and I started our celebration of advent this week with a few very simple activities. He actually did really well -- for having a .2 second attention span lately!

This week we focused on Jesus is God's gift to us. I gave Logan some gifts-- they were his own toys wrapped up-- and let him unwrap them. He really prefers the gift bags and tissue paper-- you can get to that toy so much faster.

As he opened his gifts I would tell him, "Jesus is our special gift from God." or something simple like that. I know it sounds trivial, but I think if he hears that A LOT at a young age, maybe it will sink in and he'll begin to understand the reason for the season!

We also made wrapping paper to wrap his gifts to his grandparents in.

First, we colored (scribbled) with crayons.

Next week we're going to try sponge painting the same sheet of wrapping paper. (We were going to do it this week but pregnancy sometimes makes you too tired to sponge paint!)

Today I am thankful for my "baby daddy"

So, I always wanted to use that term in a blog post. But I am truly thankful for my husband Greg. While he is my babies's daddy (did I do the plural possesssive right? I just want to clarify he's the daddy of all my babies). He's so much more than that... He's also quite possibly the best gift God has given me!

Before I met Greg, I felt like an old maid. Looking back, I wasn't THAT old.... and looking back, I now realize that Greg was just the right person at just the right time. I am so thankful that God really did know what he was doing! Greg is a very thoughtful husband. He always knows when to pitch in with the laundry or cleaning up the kitchen... and when to stay out of the way and let me do it... like the cooking, for instance. He even arranged for me to get over 20 cards in the mail for my last birthday!! He's also super handsome and sexy but I won't give you tmi...

One of the best things about Greg is that he's a great daddy. He gets home from work and wrestles with Logan. He entertains Logan so I can get dinner done or dishes done. He reads him books, he plays ball with him, he wrestles him, he spins Logan around until he's dizzy and can't walk and then laughs at him, he changes diapers, he wrestles with Logan (yes, I know I've mentioned that a lot but if you have a boy, you understand the importance), he cleans him up after dinner, he gives him baths-- he really puts a lot of time and effort into Logan and I am so thankful for that!!

Thankful for my healthy kiddo

Logan's parent educator came for a visit last Friday and did his yearly evaluation. He scored really well right at 18 months (and a little higher in language and gross motor). It was neat to just sit back and observe him. There were things that I didn't know that he could do. He got distracted a lot and there were a few things that I knew he could do but he didn't do for Tracy-- but the last thing I wanted to do was be the crazy, pushy parent who insists my kid can do it all :)
One of the things he had trouble with was pointing to a picture when it was named. Of course, he does this like 5,000 times a day when we read books but our parent educator sometimes talks funny and I think Logan couldn't understand her. So when Greg got home I was telling him about it-- well, I'll let you in our conversation--- it went a little like this:
Me: Well, Logan couldn't point to the picture of the cat. But the lady said, "Point to the kitty cat." Except she talks funny so it sounded like, "Point to the kit-a-cat."
Greg: Did you tell her "we say cat"?
Logan: We say "meow".
It was one of those shocking moments that you're not ready for.... when your BABY joins in YOUR conversation with a complete sentence. We're really going to have to start watching what we say around him-- if he's going to be throwing in his two cents!
Anyway, I had an "ah ha moment" (that one's for you, Oprah) when I looked at Logan's paperwork later that evening. I realized that he is healthy and smart and I need to stop and be thankful for that! I looked at the skills he should be doing next, "dress and undress self, wash and dry own hands, jump with both feet off the floor" and I realized that I taught some students who were very developmentally delayed and were working on the same skills in fourth grade!! I am so thankful that God has given Logan the ability to learn and grow and develop as a normal, healthy child!

Turkey Baster Ball

Logan has invented a new sport (I think) just in time for Thanksgiving. He found the turkey baster in his drawer of "stuff" in the kitchen. And he made up a new game. You put the ball on the floor and then swing the turkey baster and try to hit the ball. You can play with large balls or tiny bouncy balls.

He loves to play ball and is getting better at entertaining himself for short periods of time while I do other things. Unfortunately, he is also good at dragging everything out of the drawers while I am doing other things!

He also likes playing dress up with his firefighter hat. I guess I'll have to get him some more dress ups and hats!

Do you see what I see?

So this week, Logan and I are learning all about... (drum roll, this is exciting stuff)... EYES!

Logan loves eyes! He loves to poke people in the eye while he says, "eye, eye, eye." He loves to take Daddy's glasses off of his eyes. This week we are expanding the knowledge of what eyes are to what eyes do!

So of course, we're singing the hokey songs... "I use my eyes to see."

AND, once again we stole some ideas off of Hubbards cupboard unit on Five Senses (Joyful Learning- November). Except I had to adapt it for his age.

The book that was recommended for this week was "The Look Book" by Tana Hoban. Great book. Great author. Probably great for 2 year olds-- for which the curriculum was written. Not so great for an 18 month old. So we did some other books in place of it. We read "Brown bear, Brown bear, What do you see?" (And the Panda Bear version too). I also made Logan this book on Snapfish (Which I scored for FREE! Thanks to stlmommy.com and all of her great free deals she posts)

It's called "Logan, Logan, What do you see?" And it has all of his family members in it. He loves it!

And this is the last page.

The coolest part of these activities is that Logan now "reads" Brown bear. He turns the pages and says, "I see duck" He even knows the color blue and says, "I see blue horse."

Oh yes, and since we were seeing with our eyes, we also worked on colors this week. Logan loves to color and he knows right where to find the colored pencils and crayons!

We also did this art project from Hubbards cupboard. We finger painted without a mess. Logan had trouble isolating one finger and marking with it so I showed him how to make handprints in the paint and then I gave him lids and cookie cutters to press into the finger paint. The best part? There was NO CLEAN UP!!

Next week is Thanksgiving and I'm going to take a break from the Five Senses to do some turkey art with Logan. I'm still looking for some projects so if anyone has a cute one, please share!!!

A walk down Memory Lane (and Dink Marler Lane)

So, Logan officially has an old momma. I turned 32 this weekend!! Seriously, how did I get this old? Greg was out deer hunting so Logan and I spent the weekend Christmas shopping and hanging out with family. He was a really good boy all weekend but he really missed daddy. Greg still found a way to make my birthday special. He somehow arranged for me to get a TON of cards in the mail from friends and family. (He won't take credit for this act, but I know he was behind it somehow...) And, he hid birthday cards from him in different places. Then when he would call, he would tell me where to look to find a card! Sweet!
Greg spent the weekend sitting in a deer stand-- even getting rained on a bit! Of course, the deer came to ME... literally, this one walked right in front of me when I was visiting my alma mater, Missouri Baptist University. For the record, I wasn't wearing deer pee, camoflauge, or being quiet. I think deer know who is after them!!

Also, while Greg was sitting in a deer stand (Which he loves but I am SO not jealous of that), I got to go with my family to Mobap homecoming. It was nice of Mobap to plan a party for my birthday! My sister and I realized we hadn't been back to homecoming- well, EVER. I graduated almost 10 years ago. Mobap had a free carnival for kids on Saturday afternoon so we thought we'd take the boys to that and stick around for the chili supper. The carnival started at 2 but we had to kill time until the chili supper at 5. So we got to the carnival a little before 3--it was over. Ooops! BUT, they still had all the free food, and they just gave the leftover prizes to the boys, and the bounce house was still set up so the boys were happy.
We also took a tour of the campus. Here we are in front of North Hall where Julie and I were roomates during my freshman year. I also lived here with Holly, Jessica, and Kate my junior year. Lots of memories of this place! I never thought I'd be a fatty mommy pregnant lady posing in front of this dorm but alas, I am!

Then we went over to Pillsbury-Huff. The home of the former "Pink Palace". My mom, who can talk to anybody, had struck up a conversation with a college guy and he said PH is an all boy dorm now. BUT, he had a high school teacher who told him a story about when it used to be both boys and girls in that dorm... he made it sound like she told him about it on the same day they learned about when dinosaurs roamed the earth. I felt super old!

Then we took the boys to the rock at Dink Marler Lane. Look how good Logan's big cousins are protecting him! (OK, well Alex looks like he just climbed Everest and is very proud, but Nick is paying attention to Logan and has a protective arm around him!) I just wish Nick had been closer to Logan later in the evening. When we went to the chili supper at The Perk, Logan somehow fell backwards in his chair and landed face down on a concrete floor. I saw him falling but couldn't stop him in time. He busted his lip open and there was blood everywhere. It was pretty scary but luckily he is a super fast clotter, just like daddy, so the blood dried up and he was happy again. I think my heart beat at quadruple speed for a few minutes. (Sorry, Tyson!)

The food was great, it was a beautiful day for walking around the campus, but homecoming was seriously dead. Julie and I saw three alumni that we recognized but we couldn't even remember their names... ooops! There were hardly any students out and about on campus. It was kind of weird.

After homecoming, we came back to my house and ate cake and opened presents. Then I attempted to put Logan to bed after a giant sugar rush (actually he went down easily).

I had a good birthday but was happy when Sunday came and daddy came home!!!!!