Monday, April 28, 2008

Beautiful Baby Boy

Yesterday at church I had 4 different women tell me that Logan was "Beautiful". Normally this would kind of bug me because a boy isn't supposed to be beautiful, but handsome, rugged, or cute etc. To me, beautiful has always felt like a word that should be reserved for girls. However, after the pictures I got of him the other day, I can only agree that this little boy is indeed a beautiful baby.

Slap a bow on his head and he very well could be a little girl. :)



This just means he is going to be an extremely good looking young man right?

Bowling

Last Thursday it was Trenton's birthday (Korben's cousin). We all went bowling together and had a really good time. Korben loved picking up his ball and rolling it on the little bowling assister thingy (I don't know it's official name).


Getting his ball...




Lifting it into position...


Sending it on it's way...

No Naps

Lately, Korben has been refusing to go to bed at bedtime because he has been taking naps. This is quite a 360 from his usual routine of taking a good 2 hour nap and then going right to bed at 8. To fix our problem, we decided to take away his naps so that he would be tired enough to go to bed at night. So as you can imagine, around 6pm he is an extremely tired and cranky two-year-old.

A few nights ago I was making dinner and found him snuggled contently on the dining room floor...


And a few days later, after a long day of running errands, he very dramatically crawled up the garage steps and laid just inside the door and immediately went to sleep...


I guess it's still a work in progress. :)

Boys Will Be Boys

Korben and I decided to build a hot air balloon out of his fort supplies (I didn't come up with this on my own, the set comes with instructions for a few different things). He is so helpful and will put all of the pieces together all by himself as I show him where they go. It's fun to see him figuring out how the pieces work together to make cool things.


At first he is very proud of his accomplishment and wants to grin for some pictures....


Then, as any boy, after only a few minutes of having a cool hot air balloon, it became much more fun to destroy his newly made creation.....















So I suppose the saying is true; Boys Will Be Boys...

Friday, April 18, 2008

Food, Toes and Eyelashes

This is Logan's update:

1. Logan's world simply revolves around food right now. I started him on baby food a while ago and it seems like now he is constantly eating. The second time I tried baby food, he ate an entire bottle of sweet potatoes, half a bottle of bananas, and half a bottle of rice cereal...and then topped it off with 6 ounces of milk. The kid LOVES food. He will eat practically anything I give him-even his greens, YAY!

I didn't have a recent picture of him, but this is when we first started feeding him rice cereal...
















He is also really cute because after each bite he says, "MMM" (2nd Picture)

2. We decided to try out the Costco formula because it was so much cheaper than the formula we were using. However, after having a fussy baby for 2 straight weeks now, we have decided to go back to the Enfamil. So far it seems to have cured the fussiness, so it is worth paying the extra money.

3. Logan loves to play with his toes. He is constantly grabbing them and trying to eat them.














Nothing like doing pilates and watching tv at the same time eh? :)

4. This week Logan learned to roll from his back to front. I don't have a picture yet.

5. Is it really stupid to be jealous of your son's sickeningly long eyelashes? Because I am. These pictures don't really do them justice but at least give you an idea of the absolutely beautiful eyes and eyelashes I get to look into each day.













Here he is -mocking me...



Games, Forts and Pudding

It's been a while, so here is an update on the Korbenator...

1. Games, Games, Games: I am so excited that Korben is now old enough to play games. He doesn't really get the whole winning thing yet, but it is still fun to just play together. He is learning to take turns, and is getting good at matching with Zingo, and counting with Hi-Ho Cherrio. If any of you are interested in an extremely fun game for kids, I would recommend Zingo. It's basically Bingo with pictures, and is simple enough for young kids, but fun for older ones as well.


















2. Our Toys R Us is closing to do some remodeling, so everything in the store was at least 40% off. I was able to get both Korben's and Logan's birthday presents taken care of! We also got Korben some fun toys to use now, his favorite being the Super Fort. It is easy for him to put the pieces together because they are magnetic. We spend many hours making and taking apart forts now.







3. Korben's favorite snack right now is chocolate pudding. He is usually pretty clean about eating it, but it must have really tasted good on this day because he ate it so fast he ended up getting it all over his face...






4. I have finally found a good way to distract Korben from wanting to watch tv. I go to the PBS and Disney websites and print pictures of his favorite tv characters for him to color. He is now so excited to run to the computer to choose his pictures for the day that he doesn't seem to miss the tv (this isn't foolproof, but is helping). This is also a huge step because Korben has never liked to color but will now spend lots of time doing it.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

The Eyre Affair-Family Book Group

Like most of you, I had a tough time getting into the book. However, after about chaper 11 it started to pick up and I found myself wanting to know how it was going to end. It wasn't a book that I just couldn't put down, but I didn't dread reading it either.

I think it would have been a lot more enjoyable if I had read Jane Eyre (and the other books mentioned) more recently. They give a good enough summary of it in the book for those that have never read it, but I think I would have gotten more from the book if I was up to date on all of the books that they mentioned. Also, I am completely clueless as far as the Crimean War is concerned, so that plot line didn't hold my interest very well.

All that aside, I think the book was very well put together and I can understand why it was on the New York Times Bestseller List. The writing was...intense. That's really the only word to describe it. I'm sure for anyone that is current on English literature this book was incredible.

Things I liked:

-I liked that the characters from the books could come into reality and visa versa. I really enjoyed the whole Rochester part and the relationship he had with Thursday.

-I liked when her Dad would come to visit and the silly things that he would say.

-I like the ending (I won't expound because I don't want to spoil it), but I'll just say that I liked how Rochester helped Thursday in the end.

-I liked the loopy uncle and the book worm invention.

Things I didn't like:

-I was really annoyed with the language, especially the completely unnecessary F-Words found in chapter 10 (I think that's the one). The language dies down by the end of the book, but come on, did he really need to include all that?

-The whole Vampire/Werewolf/Silver bullet thing. Again this is a spoiler, so I won't expound, but I think that there could have been a better way for Thursday to get a silver bullet other than the wasted chapter with the vampire. It seemed like it was just one more oddity with the world to add, and for me, was overdoing it.

-I got bored with all the different ways they tried to make Shakespeare a fake. Again, I think for Enlish Lit. majors, this was probably a great debate, but it really just left me bored.

Kellie's Questions:

1. I liked the idea of the importance of literature, but honestly, I'd like to think that the whole world wouldn't crumble if one book was changed. :) I think the murders of real people would have been a bit bigger issue than the possible elimination of a fictional character.

2. The writing wasn't that big of an issue for me as much as the topics. (Crimea and Shakespeare)

3. I would read more of the Thursday Next novels, but first I would want to read the books that are going to be spotlighted in them so I knew the characters better.

4. I agree with the play on names...kind of silly.

5. I imagined Thursday as someone in her mid-twenties (probably because Mike and I have been watching Buffy). This became a problem when she talked about the Crimea War and how long she had been ignoring Landon. That bit made me really sad. What a waste of years...

6. I liked Thursday and Landon a lot. I think Hades was a perfect bad guy and his dialog with others kept me laughing. I liked the Dad but think he was too small of a character. The uncle was funny, and Rochester made me want to read Jane Eyre again.

So in a nutshell, I'm not jumping up and down for the novel or anything, but I would say it was a very well put-together book and worth reading for sure.