File Folder Games

This past month I was put in charge of creating tons of file folder games for a ward humanitarian project.  After figuring out what these were, I fell in love with them!  They are compact, simple, and Logan loves them.  They inspired me to make some family home evening file folders.  Here are the results:

(I used a friend's Cricut to cut out the characters, I cut out the backgrounds by hand, and used a laminator to Logan-proof everything.  Then I put velcro on all the pieces. )

The tree of knowledge, Heavenly Father, Satan the snake, the apple, Eve and Adam

Heavenly Father, Jesus,  The Angel Moroni, The Book of Mormon, and Joseph Smith

Daniel and the Lion's Den

Jesus and Lazarus

Noah and the Ark (and Noah's wife)  I actually have tons more animals, but Logan stole them before I could take the picture.

Baby Moses, Pharaoh, Grown up Moses, Ramses

David and Goliath

Nephi, the gold plates, and Laban

Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors

Sheep, Abraham, Isaac, Sarah, and Abraham's first wife and her  boy
I don't remember their names... :)

The Nativity

Shadrach, Meshach, & Abednego with the Angel in the Furnace
Also shown are the king and his idol

Closed up in the furnace. :)

Summer time

Summer is here!

Logan doing one of his favorite things in the whole world... swinging!

Daddy and Logan on our date to Salt Lake Pizza and Pasta.  Yum!
And just look at those handsome men of mine. :)

Logan riding a trike at the village.  This is where most of the med student families live,
and Logan loves to come and play with all the kids.

Our little monkey

I think we know what we will be getting him for his second birthday....

Nakie boy in the backyard waiting for his pool to warm up

Enjoying a corn dog, because his raviolis were apparently full of "poop"

Mommy and Logan at one of the coolest places EVER.  At Liberty Park there is this
area called Seven Canyons, and it is this cool miniature model of all the canyons and rivers in the area.
There are fountains and splash pools, and the water is treated, so little kids can play in it.  The water never gets more than a foot deep (In the little miniature lakes) and the rivers are only a couple of inches.  There is grass everywhere and lots of shade and rocks... Logan was in heaven!  We stayed here for about 2 hours.  This is the coolest park, with a duck pond with paddle boats, a mini carnival, a giant playground, a pool, seven canyons, tennis courts, bbqs, an aviary, and a big green lawn.  One website called it the Central Park of Salt Lake City.  

Logan in a wading pool "jumpin"

Trying to float leaves

Our sweet little man

So, this was at the highest little splash pool.  It was taller than me, and
when I tried to get Logan down he climbed up onto the rock where I couldn't reach him.
So naughty

Hiding out on the rock

After taking a dunk.. he told me he "fell down in the water"

:)

Us!  We came to the park with the intention of swimming in the pool,
but found it closed when we got there.  (Luckily, we discovered seven canyons around the corner)  About a month ago Logan was terrified of pools.  But, this last Thursday we went to our Bishop's house to swim in their pool.  They are nice enough to have neighbor day every Thursday.  After a little bit of coaxing, Logan turned into a fish.  For an hour we kicked our way around the pool, and when he finally wanted out, he ran to the slide and I had to tear him off of the second ladder rung. :)  I also caught him trying to bounce of the diving board.  Swimming lessons, here we come!

:)  A few nights ago he tried to tell me that there were "scary dinosaurs" hiding in his closet.  

Liberty Park Duck Pond

My guys.


Summer has been wonderful to us so far, and is flying by too fast!  Ryley is really liking his research, and frequently volunteers for different studies going on at the VA to earn us date money. :)  I'm still training for our half marathon in August, and am staying busy with the primary, a humanitarian project, MSA, and keeping up with my silly men.  Logan is growing more every single day.  He loves to give us BIG hugs and kisses.  He also loves to run at us and jump into our arms when he hasn't seen one of us for  a while... a while can be 2 minutes. :)  He talks constantly now, and we love hearing his little thoughts and sentences.  Logan's so polite, and almost always says please, thank you, and 'scuse' me.  At prayer time tonight I told him he needed to fold his arms, and he said "and bow head and close eyes." At his doctor appointment he weighed in at 21 lbs and is about 34 inches tall.  Tall and scrawny. :)  During the day you can usually find us at the park, at the zoo, swimming, or baking cookies.  Hooray for summertime!

Here are some videos of Logie squishing bugs, jumping in water, and climbing up a slide.  He can climb up just about any slide out there... but he always has problems with the coming down part... :)

Missions, Memorial Day, and Marshmallows

These past two weeks have been packed full of fun and family... here is a little bit of what we have been up to:

Logan is the olive kid.  This is him asking for more of them....pretty sure he ate the whole can that night.  We were in Ely for Memorial Day weekend, so whenever his mean parents told him no, he had a whole mass of grandparents/aunts and uncles ready to bend to his every whim.  :)  (He is also wearing the shirt that his Grandma Enz brought him back from Ireland.)

Here's my brother, Danny, opening his mission call.  We are so proud of him!  He has been called to serve in the Mexico, Mexico City East mission, and will report to the MTC on September 14th.  Yeah!  We are so excited to write letters. :)  Also in the picture is my Grandpa Beckwith, holding up the phone with one of my aunts (Amber) on the other line, a phone on the table next to the plant which would be my aunt Summer, and my other naughty little brother, Aydan.

Logan has a new hero.  Ever since we left Ely all I hear is "Aydan, Aydan, Aydan....?"  I tried to tell him that Aydan is in Ely... Now I hear, "Open Ely? Open Ely? Open Ely?" :)  I love how his little brain works.

As usual, it snowed in Ely on Memorial Day.  I don't know why we are always so surprised....

Cammi's snow family.  She's such a creative little girl. :)  My favorite is the little snow-dog.  Shortly after this picture was taken, Logan licked all of the snow people until he got a brain freeze, and then Aydan knocked off their heads with his bat.  

I put a cup of water outside on our balcony so I could water our plants.  Then I went inside for about 2 seconds.  I came back out to find this.  The blue pot used to hold our money tree that Logan is now stirring the mud mixture in the cup of water with.  That pretty much sums up my life right there. :)

One of the books that we have has a little boy with a sack over his head in one of the pictures.  Logan wanted a "hat", and wore this around for about half an hour.  He thinks that golf cart he is holding is a vacuum cleaner, and will battle my actual vacuum cleaner for all of the crumbs in the house.  Sometimes he can get brutal. 

I love this little guy.  Later that day we went on a walk, and every time we would see a bug Logan would crouch down, wave, and say, "Hi! What doing bug?"  It really is the cutest thing ever.  Then he flicks the poor roly polies until they curl up into balls.  He's always so proud of himself... I mean, how many people can turn their favorite thing (bugs), into their other favorite thing (balls)?  

Logan at the neighborhood pool party.  He was so not impressed with the water.  He just liked the toys and the chickens in the back of the house.  He woke up the next day bawking.  I guess he dreamt about the chickens. :)

Logan and Daddy making smores on our deck tonight.  I don't really know what we were thinking... it was like 90 degrees on our deck.  Plus, Logan and Ryley really just wanted to torture the poor marshmallows.  They liked to drop them in the fire and watch them burn.  Then they would smear them around with sticks.  Oh boys. :)

I always forget to aim the camera the right way while videotaping... but here is a sideways video of Danny opening his mission call.

Rainy Days

Coming from Nevada, I have always loved the rain.  All day drizzles, not so much, but full out thunderstorms with lots and lots of lightning. :)  I remember when I was little, a weird, really low street corner by my house would fill up with water and we would practically go swimming in it. But rainy days, like snowy days, are much, much different with a toddler.  The incessant "outside, outside, outside, outside....?" or "walk, walk, walk, walk?"  are driving me a bit crazy. :)  But, luckily, I have a rain cover for the stroller, so as long as I don't mind getting wet, we can get out for a bit.  

• These rainy days have led to lots of crafts which have mainly resulted in a very happy baby and a very disastrous mess.  
• Ryley and I are making some headway in training for our half marathon, and can run a little bit further up the gigantic hill we live on every day.  
• Ryley is really enjoying his research internship at the VA hospital where he is studying ectopic fat deposition in the skeletal muscles and livers of mice, and how this is associated with diet, disease and aging.  I am a little bit jealous that he is working in a lab, but then again, he is cutting up mice all day while I am playing with play dough and eating chocolate. :)  
• Saturday it was finally sunny, so we went to the park to BBQ and feed the ducks.  While we were barbecuing, Logan filled his diaper.  So, I took him into some trees and changed him.  Much to my surprise, his poop was very shiny.  Upon closer inspection I discovered 5 pieces from my Italian charm bracelet.  My son pooped out half of my Italian charm bracelet.  We are still looking for the other half.  

The aftermath of our paper mache adventure.
That balloon was covered in several layers of flour/water
soaked newspaper goo, but as soon as we were finished
(and I turned around)
Logan decided that he preferred the balloon this way.
Oh well.

I really wouldn't have minded the bald balloon, but quickly
after stripping said balloon, he ran into the living room with it.
The balloon was still dripping with the flour and water goo,
and somehow he managed to cover at least 50% of the surfaces
in my living room.  Unfortunately, this goo dried like it is supposed to,
and my living room (including my couches) are now paper mached.
Here he is blaming the whole mess on his imaginary friend, Bobby.

On our way home from Ikea.  I't's a pretty good thing
our little man still has those cheeks.  Otherwise he might not
have anywhere to rest his head!

Last night about 10:30 I decided I needed a fish for my Primary lesson.
My sweet and amazing prince charming of a husband
went to Walmart without me even asking him and
picked us up a beta fish.  Logan took one look at him
this morning and promptly named him "Yummy Yummy."
I hope this is not a sign of things to come for this poor fish.

What happens when you ask Logan to smile.  Sometimes growls accompany it.
And the red stuff is strawberry... this kid has eaten almost 2 boxes of strawberries
in the past two days.

Logan loves to watch himself on video.  I took a little video of him talking, and after it was done, he wanted to watch more.  He calls himself "baby."  This is a video of him wanting to watch more video.  It was actually a pretty funny cycle, where he would watch this video, say all this again until we turned it on again for him, and then start in again with his "baby, baby, baby?" :)

The End of Year One

Thought that is was about time to update the blog again. :)  Ryley officially finished up his first year of medical school on Friday, and starts his internship with the VA hospital on Monday.  Yeah!  We are so proud of him!  

Here is some of what we have been up to the past month:

The morning of Ry's 26th birthday we ran a 5k part of a triathlon for the  4th Street Clinic.  Ry volunteers at this clinic for the homeless on Saturdays and helped to organize the triathlon.  Logan was a trooper, and stayed in his stroller for the whole thing!  Next year we hope to be able to do the whole triathlon.

Logie has figured out how to take his arms out of his shirt.  And how to get his arms out of his car-seat.  Naughty little thing.  Don't you just love his ragamuffin hairdo here? ;)

Double Chocolate Mousse Torte from Melskitchencafe.com
Most amazingly delicious cake ever.
Yeah for Birthdays!

My sweet husband is 26 years old!  This was the 5th birthday of his that we've celebrated together.  I love this man with all of my heart, and thank the heavens every single day that we are married for time and all eternity.  I am so grateful for the love he shows Logan and me every day.  I never have to question who or what comes first to him.  We fall more and more in love every day... and we still haven't figured out why people say marriage is hard.  It's the most fun thing either of us has ever done! :)

Logan got stuck while trying to climb up onto his high chair to get to the egg coloring stuff. :)

At the end of this fiasco all of us were dyed varying colors and we had a total of 2 eggs that were not broken.

Our sweet little man. :)  He makes me so happy every time I see his little face. :)  He is growing up so fast!  When he wakes up from his nap he now yells, "Peekaboo!" until I come get him.  Logan also loves to read stories, and knows some of them by heart, so he can read them to me!  He can use a fork and a spoon now, and is always trying to feed us his food. :)  He's always skipping around the house, bouncing off the walls, and destroying everything I am constantly trying to make look nice.  The other day I went to the mall.. got all dressed up, tried to look put together.  The whole time I spent dragging Logan out of clothes stands, putting back things he tore off of shelves, chasing him across stores. Needless to say, I did not look put together by the end of the trip.  This little boy has completely turned my life upside down, and I am so glad!  I wouldn't have it any other way.    

He's a tree hugger!

On Mother's Day, being chased by dad right after church.  We also found out this month that Ryley's brother Chad and his wife Chelsey are having a little girl!  Logan is going to be surrounded by little girl cousins. :)

He loved my Mickey pajama pants so much that he made me take them off and put them on him.  He was only satisfied when they were pulled all the way up to his neck.  Silly little man.

Our boy loves his olives!

Logie's "Purple Egg

















Logan and his bubbles. :)