Logan got to start school today! We are so very happy for him, and we know the program he is in will be a perfect fit!
He’s ready to go to school!
Loving that he finally gets to use his racecar backpack and giraffe lunch kit.
One of his teachers. There are 2 teachers and 2 aides for his little class. All of them seem so very sweet. I just have so much peace about Logan doing well here.
Waiting for the bus to bring Logan home.
Logi Bear is finally home! First day was a success!
Todd has been growing a photography business for many years. I quit teaching when the boys were born, and the photo work has been able to supplement so I could stay home. Goodness, that first year that I was home with the boys and Todd was teaching and doing photography was so hard! Todd has basically been working 2 full-time jobs for years.
The idea of Todd holding up 2 jobs any longer, and me traveling to do photo shoots all over Texas for another year was enough for us to decide to take a leap of faith and for Todd to quit teaching to do the photography full-time.
God has given us so many blessings through this transition! We have been given the accounts we need, and look forward to even more for the coming school year. I’m beyond impressed with Todd. It’s quite the task to run your own business! He is a master at so many aspects of running this thing successfully. I’m just so proud of him, his determination, and his faith in God to provide. We’re just so thankful!
I hope this doesn’t come across as an advertisement, but for those of you who have said you want Todd to take your family pictures, Summer is the time! Our schedule fills up drastically during the school year, so Todd’s availability to do family portraits is best in the Summer. Let one of us know if you want us to work you into our Summer schedule.
Yeah, so it’s been nearly a year since my last blog. And, while I’m sure there may be 2 random people that may be interested in this, I am like most Mommy Bloggeres who just want to document our kids’ childhoods for ourselves.
Today’s big deal:
I think it’s safe to say that Logan is officially potty trained! I know, he’s 3 1/2 and it’s about time, right?! It’s so stinking cute when he takes himself to teetee, then to watch him shimmy-shake trying to pull up his underwear and pants afterwards always makes me chuckle!
~The word “poop” will now be used more than once. You have been warned.
Nathan trained super easily right when he turned 2. During the process of training Nathan, I gave Logan a chance to sit on the potty and earn a M&M like his brother. He sat and pooped, then jumped up, like he was startled, looked in the froggy potty, and started screaming. He didn’t know what he had done! The poop scared him! He’s been dead-set against pooping in a potty ever since.
Anyway, the poop part of training has been the hardest obstacle. Let’s just say, despite the amount of time and effort spend sitting on the potty waiting, he would only use a diaper. But, now that he’s done a classic Logan move, and very suddenly decided that he’s going to poop in the potty now, he’s using it against sleep! Nap time: poop. Night time: poop. Other times: no poop. He’s trained his intestines in a week!
We ended up going to Galveston 3 times this summer.
Our first trip was our annual ‘just us’ trip. We make it a point to take a trip down there for the day. We ate lunch at Willie G’s, then took a boat tour of the bay and got to see lots of dolphins.
This was on the dolphin boat. No dolphin pictures, since I only took video of them. Nathan’s stink face. We skipped nap time and it shows.
We spent the afternoon playing in the water and sand. We were able to let the boys have more freedom than last year, which was really nice and fun to watch them explore.
Logan especially loves the beach. He’s one happy boy!
We got snow cones before we headed home. Nathan fell asleep before we made it to the snow cone stand. I woke him up for his treat, which they both thoroughly enjoyed, but he ended up being super grumpy the whole way home. It was a long, fun day in the sun. We all slept well that night.
Nathan’s out like a light before his snow cone!
Our second trip was a full day with my sister’s family, but without Todd. The cousins had lots of fun playing in the water. I’m so thankful that the boys are blessed to have the BEST cousins in the world! They are so kind, gentle, and protective with the boys. They took such care of them while we were at the beach!
After the morning time at the beach, then lunch, we spent time at the condo pool. Oh my, how the boys loved the pool. They have never had swimming lessons, and we kept their puddle jumpers on them the whole time, but Logan can really move in the water. Nathan didn’t want to move so much, but he was not afraid to just float. Our new neighborhood doesn’t have a pool, and in our area, unless you are part of a community that you pay property association fees to, there is no pool you can visit. The Y and other gyms are options, but expensive ones that I’m not willing to pay. All of this to say… the boys have not had much experience swimming, but they love it!
We headed home after cleaning up from the pool. It was a great time!
Todd’s sister and family vacationed out of our house at the end of the summer and invited us to spend yet another day with them in Galveston. We made an afternoon of it and had a fabulous time! While they pretty much had their own family time, we played in the water, sand, and took a long walk with our little family. It was really nice.
I don’t have any pictures of us at the beach that time, but here are some of us hanging out at our house with the cousins…
My brother thought it would be a fun idea to take all of Dad’s Volkswagen collection to one of Dad’s favorite VW shows this year. Steven spent a few weekends here with a couple of Dad’s VW buddies preparing all 11 to show at the Bug Bash. Getting all of the cars cleaned up was a big undertaking! The guys worked really hard! One of our dear friends drove in from Fort Worth several times just to help!
Dad had so many friends that were in his VW circle, but most of them had never seen his whole collection. Dad usually only entered 1 or 2 VWs into any given show when he went. Steven thought it would be great to give Dad’s friends the chance to see the whole collection.
The show was on a Sunday, so we had a short church service at Mom’s before we headed out. It was really nice.
Here are all the cars ready to go in my driveway…
Several VW friends that volunteered to drive some of Dad’s cars to the show.
Some of Dad’s VWs at the show.
I wish I had more pictures. I think Todd has more on one of his millions of SD cards. I’ll have to raid through those.
The VW community and judges at the show kindly awarded Dad’s collection as Best In Show. I know Dad would be proud of that, and of Steven and his VW friends for all of their thought and work to do this in his honor.
I am currently potty training Logan. Nathan, who has been trained for a long time now, was a complete breeze to train. He doesn’t like to be wet or dirty at all. Even before he turned 2, if I sat him on the potty, he would pee. I gave him lots of opportunities to earn an M&M, and when I figured out that he knew how to get pee out at the right time, we bought him a potty watch. I didn’t do any research on how to train, but I knew he was ready, so we just did it. The Potty Watch was a cheap investment; it’s just a little timer that plays a song and blinks at 30-minute intervals (or whatever amount of time you set it for, actually). I just put him on the potty every time the watch went off. A day or 2 later, I started asking him if he needed to go every other time the watch went off. Then, the next thing we knew, he was trained. We didn’t even use pull-ups with him. It was like we blinked and he was completely day and night trained! See? A breeze, I tell ya!
Nathan: Gee, I wonder how much fun it will be to stand here and pee on the recliner?
Underwear style. Sorry, Son, but I’m your Mama, and I can post underwear pictures if I want to. Especially after you peed on my recliner! :-)
Logan, on the other hand, has not shown as much interest in training. While I hadn’t planned to even try to train the boys until they were at least 2 1/2 (I mean, they’re boys! And twins!), I really want them both out of diapers before they’re 3. If you know Logan at all, you know he’s very smart and precious, but when his mind is on something else, he is not easily disturbed/distracted. So, I decided that I needed more of a methodical approach for training him. I happened across a video for “Potty Training 1-2-3” and went with it. We sent Nathan to Mamaw’s house for the day and focused completely on potty training; just Logan and me. I guess it was kind of a boot camp approach. He got treats for being dry – not that he cared that he was dry. He got treats for going in the potty – not that this achievement was exciting to him, either. All he cared about was the sugary treats and fun drinks. After many accidents and sugar highs, I decided this method was not going to work. Logan isn’t one to tell me that he is dry when I ask. So, I broke out the potty watch and am doing exactly what I did with Nathan. Guess what! It’s working!! He’s not trained, and I don’t expect it will happen quickly for him, but we’re getting somewhere. He woke up dry from his nap today. He sat on his potty on his own (with his pull-up on) and tee teed then jumped up and said “yay!”
I’ll love you forever, my sweet Logi Bear! Doesn’t this picture remind you of that book?
Training Day #1. Such a sweet, cute trainee!
I can’t get over cute underwear pictures! Seriously! They’re wearing big boy underwear! They’re growing up so fast!
