Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Bad Hair Day

A few days ago, Logan had a bad hair day.  Generally we don't pay much attention to his hair.  I don't think we have any sort of comb for him.  We love him just the way he is.  But we love him even more when his hair looks like this:
His hair has not been manipulated in any way

Logan thinks this is a blow dryer, but actually its a razor.  The hair brush  (on the floor) was no use.

Side view.  I think we may have discovered the fourth dimension.
Amazingly, his hair looked pretty much the same at the end of the day.  Whatever product he is using, we need to figure out how to bottle it and sell it.

First Haircut

The middle weeks of May brought a lot of rainfall to the Lazy H Ranch, and lots of rainfall brings a small bit of relief accompanied by long bouts of boredom and ultimately, two stir crazy parents.  What better way to spend a rainy day in May than to attempt to cut Logan's hair?  Fortunately Logan's blonde hair has allowed us to overlook this matter for more than a year, but with random locks extending below his ears, something had to be done.
Logan looking like a hippy
When it comes to sitting still, Logan takes after his father.  He won't let us change his diaper with out literally kicking and screaming throughout the entire process.  Poopy diapers require four hands: two to secure his legs and two to wipe.  So we expected this to be a bit of a challenge.
"Let my freak flag fly Mommy!"

Kate put him in the high chair, and then attempted to distracted him with food.  This worked pretty well while she cut the back, but as soon as he saw the scissors there was no containing him.  Shiny, sharp, dangerous...he had to have a pair of those!

Not sure what is happening, but not psyched, though already looking much better around the ears.
Kate dug through her stash of office supplies and unearthed her pair of kids' scissors.  This was the perfect disctraction, providing the few seconds of calm needed to cut the bangs, more or less.

Logan plays with scissors while mommy...plays with scissors
Kate did a great job and the haircut turned out very cute (everyone says so)  The bangs even look straight in the right light.
Looking sharp: Logan uses his new scissors as a spoon while we admire the finished product.

Friday, May 25, 2012

South Platte climbing

Mark & I have lots of photos like this from ten years ago, but we haven't done a multi pitch climb together in a while.  I don't think Logan would sit in the pack and play at the base of the crag for that long.  This weekend we had the chance to go out by ourselves for the day.  We had nice weather and found a South Platte route just hard enough to remind us why we're sport climbers.   It was fun to be out with just the two of us, and the day was epic-free despite our rusty skills.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Camping

We took Logan camping for the first time this weekend. We almost went a couple times last summer. It always sounded like a good idea at the beginning of the week, and then not so much by the end. We've never really been campers just for the sake of camping-- we just did it as necessary for climbing-- and over the years its seemed less and less necessary as our tolerance for suffering has decreased.

But for some reason I've been feeling like we needed to take Logan camping. Maybe because we live in Colorado, it seemed like every other baby had been by the time they were 3 months old, and I felt like Logan was missing out on his chance later in life to say "I'd been camping X[big number] times by the time I was 1". Although he'll probably need to claim something more impressive than camping... but anyways.

We had a good opportunity this weekend-- we were headed to Penitente Canyon, a climbing area with a nice campground pretty far from any hotels, and we had no major climbing objectives that would be ruined if we did not sleep. And based on the stories from the parents of all those other babies that were veteran campers, we were prepared not to sleep. We went out and got a 4 person tent for the occasion, bought Logan his own kid-sized sleeping bag, packed our car full of s'mores fixings and set off.

Logan, it turns out, is a good camper. He found a stick that amused him for a good while, and when that wore off the buttons in the car and the pots and pans kept him entertained. The weather was not ideal-- it started raining during dinner and kept up most of the night-- but it was warm enough. He slept in his own sleeping bag most of the night, did not suffocate (for some reason my biggest worry), and woke up happy at 7am (and 1am, and 5am... but unfortunately that's normal). The first day we managed to get in some climbing despite not having a 3rd person to babysit, and the second day was a trail day where a bunch of people came to do trail work and replace hardware on the routes. They had barbeques for lunch and dinner, a little bluegrass band, and a raffle where everyone won something. So it was a successful weekend. Mind you I did not volunteer to camp for a second night. But I'm glad we went. 
At the campground

Logan & his stick

Trail day


Friday, May 11, 2012

16 months

At 16 months, Logan has 3 phrases: "Where's Buddy?"; "Where is he?"; and "I don't know", all accompanied by a hands up shrug. These all refer to his obsession, Kendall's dog Buddy. He wakes up in the morning asking about him, so I think he must dream about Buddy. He spends most of his day talking about him too. I'd say 80% of his thoughts are dedicated to Buddy. The other 20% are dedicated to milk and brownies.

Logan brings a lot of joy to our life-- he loves things that are so ordinary to us. He thinks playing frisbee is hysterical, he finds it very fun to walk backwards, and he loves hiding our shoes in various nooks and crannies. On the flip side, he is quite intent on getting his way, and screams-- a lot-- when he does not. Sometimes I think the terrible twos may have arrived early.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Drop it like its hot

Logan has been known to cover his ears in our car when he hears country or classic rock. He's more into pop and rap from what I can tell. Fortunately, he has a hip auntie that knows all the coolest songs-- not just ones from 30 years ago. They get down to "Cutie, cutie, the way you move your booty" and "Drop it like its hot!" Here's a video of Logan on the slide... he's quite amused by Kenny telling him to drop it like its hot!



Sunday, May 6, 2012

Grandma & Grandpa A come to visit

Grandma & Grandpa A came to visit last week. Last time we saw them, Logan had to compete with 4 other kids for attention, but this time he got them all to himself. It meant endless trips around the yard in the wagon and tricycle, trips to the pool, trips to the park, walks around the lake, donuts, brownies, and more brownies, trains, towers, puzzles... it was a fun visit.  As a bonus, we also got to see Janelle, Lucas, and Axel for an evening as they passed through on their drive from Florida to Utah. 

In other news, Logan has achieved a new milestone-- he clapped for the first time.  I realize he should have clapped many months ago.  Apparently he had nothing to clap about.  What he finally clapped for was a pickle.  A baseball pickle-- when a runner is stranded between 2 bases and runs back and forth until he's finally tagged out (in this case).  Kendall tells me this is the funnest thing in baseball, and it doesn't happen that often.  I guess Logan has high standards for what's worthy of clapping. 


Logan & Mark in their Rockies gear

Family picture
Logan calling the bullpen
Giving his orders

Thursday, May 3, 2012

It's alive!

Our aspen tree is officially still alive!  We are pretty proud of ourselves for keeping Logan alive for over 15 months now.  But somehow, keeping a tree alive seems harder.  They don't cry when they need water, or when the deer are eating them, or when... well, really that's all they need.  A fence to keep the deer out and water.  And somehow that was too much for us to manage with our first 3 trees.  But this one made it.