Pumpkin Carving!

Tonight for FHE I had a coming of age moment. Like most of the LDS world (I assume), we carved pumpkins but mine was for the first time. Now I have attended ward activities where pumpkins were carved, and it's even possible that some carving happened at home while I was growing up but I can assure you that I never carved one (I am more of a spectator kind of person)

It turns out that the Logan clan are big into the carving tradition and so Jake planned FHE and hence, pumpkins.

We went to the store and picked out our pumpkins- I changed my mind a few times- Mikey got a little baby pumpkin that he seemed pretty attached to. We decided that a standard jack-o-lantern was a good idea for him so I drew it, Jake carved it, and Mikey tried to eat it.



Mikey licking his fingers after repeatedly dipping them in the pumpkin guts




He got a little more intense about the eating and stole the spoon we used to clean it out.
Isn't he just so cute?



Here are the finished products- sorry the picture is junky. Mikey's is the little one, Jake carved our family, even down to little baby #2 but you can't really tell at all and mine says the Logan's with a witch hat- not the most creative carving but come on now, it was my first time

 

Here they are unlit- not a bad group I'd say.

This Halloween has been the first one I have really embraced in years and I am so happy that we carved pumpkins! What a fun family tradition to have. Granted, unless Jake is opposed, I will probably retire my knife and go back to being a spectator with my camera instead- but still, it was one more thing to cross off my bucket list. ;)

A Job! A real grown up job.

Jake got a job!


We are very excited about it.
Jake calls it his "big boy job".
I call it a real job- basically means the same thing though.
It is called Moki Networks.
It is in Thanksgiving Point.
It is part time and when he graduates it moves to full time.
It is basically the same thing he was doing on campus but the atmosphere is more fun (or way funner as Jake says) and the pay is better- way better in fact. (we will get to have a Christmas! Wahoo!! ;])
Jake says the people he works with are really cool.
It is such a relief knowing that Jake won't be unemployed when he graduates (in 8 weeks- holy crap) and we are so grateful for the opportunity.

I love Canada

Did you know that I love Canada? (just not always Canadians)

I think that it is just the greatest place ever (keep in mind my extremely limited and unexperienced world travels and views)- I really mean that I think Alberta is... haven't spent much time in any other province haha

It is a beautiful country.

Our national animal is a beaver- truly what is cooler than that? (I might concede that Afghanistans is the Kuta- those are pretty cool)

We have colored money.

We acknowledge the Queen- I think that is pretty awesome.

Two national languages- granted I don't like French but yay for diversity haha

It's huge which is cool.

I love winter- everything about it so that is fun

I love wearing sweaters in the summer and drinking hot cocoa with my breakfast on July 1st.
I love the people that I know there- I have a great family and friends.
I love that I have had roommates that judge an entire country by me and the handful of other Canadians that they have met (I had one roommate tell me that all Canadians were attractive and nice people- I can confidently deny that statement)
I love that we have a Prime Minister and Premiers- especially since Alberta's Premier used to be a drunk- and unless I am seriously mistaken he was considered to be a pertty good one- yay for politics!
I think its hilarious how people can be so ignorant about a country
I love that we have different words for certain things- pencil crayons, garburators (how on earth do you spell that?), washrooms, scribblers, Kraft Dinner, soothers, and so many more that I can't even think of because they are all so normal to me- and that so many people get so confused by them.

But! You know what I don't love?
I don't love that Canadians get so worked up about the fact that Americans don't know everything about our country. Do I know everything about China? Or Mexico? Or France? or even Canada? No- isn't it a tad bit unreasonable to expect others to know what we ourselves don't know?
I don't love when I meet people from Canada and they expect me to have the same intense ego driven belief that Canada is leaps and bounds above any other place in the world when I haven't experienced enough of anywhere else, or even Canada to make those judgments.
I especially don't love when people get into arguments about how we are better. Remember how annoying it is to argue about things that can never reach a conclusion? Well I certainly do.

So when I get crabby about Canadians that are too intense for me, I remember all those great things that I love and I remember that even if some are annoying there are some pretty kick-a Canadians- like me. ;)

Great Weekend! I love October

What a fun weekend!
Malcolm, Val, Alicia, James, Arianne, and Shelly all came for the weekend and it was delightful.
On Friday night we (we being Malcolm, Val, Jake and I) went to the football game and it was beautiful- the weather was actually so nice and eventually even once it got colder I had hot cocoa so what could be better. Shelly watched Mikey and Alicia for us which was really nice of her. James and Arianne stopped on their way down from Rexburg to pick up Shelly and the traffic was so bad it took them like 4 hours or so to get to Provo from Logan- nuts! Jake was late for the game because he waited for Shelly to get there and we decided everyone didn't need to be late and then he had to park really far away. I thought I was going to die walking all the way to the car from the stadium and truth be told, I am still feeling it. (I hate being pregnant- in case I haven't made that clear. Being a mom- awesome but if there was any possible way for me and Jake to have our own kids without me being pregnant I would jump on that so fast. I understand adoption is an option but Jake doesn't want to do that so here I am, stuck being pregnant forever haha) 
On Saturday we watched Conference which was great. I really enjoy how they seem to talk about parenting and families so much. This conference especially I loved the talks about children. My favorite talk was Elder Oaks. I am sure that it won't necessarily make him that popular with everyone but I love him a little more for it.  Mikey and Alicia were so good during conference which was wonderful and they just love to play together. Seriously. When one goes down for a nap, the other one cries. If one cries for whatever reason, the other one tries to comfort them. It's so great to see and I hope that they will be able to be good friends forever and with Scarlett too. Jake and Malcolm went to the Priesthood session and Shelly and Val went shopping and I stayed home to watch the babies. It was great. It reaffirmed my desire to not have twins, especially ones that are 14 months old but it was great to play with them. It's nice to have the kids around without other people because then they like me! (I think I am probably the least favorite aunt but that's okay because Mikey likes me)
Sunday we watched Conference again and James and Ari came over for Canadian thanksgiving! Wahoo! I love Thanksgiving so much! Definitely my favorite holiday. Who doesn't love a holiday that is celebrated by just eating and focusing on the good parts of your life? After Conference Jake, Mikey and I went and met the newest addition to the Logan family. Jake's sister had a baby and she is just a doll. But sadly, I cannot say her name. Literally. I cannot pronounce it. I practice and Jake is like yeah that is good and I say Really? (All excited because I mastered it) and he says well no not really but it was close. Gah. Don't worry though. I'll get it eventually and if I don't, then I will just call her a nickname or something... or nothing at all. Haha. And to end the weekend, we went to Mal and Val's hotel and played games.

By now everyone is home safely and hopefully they all enjoyed the weekend as much as I did. It was great to get to celebrate so many of my favorite things in one weekend and I cannot remember a more appropriate weekend for Thanksgiving.

(sadly, I barely took any pictures and the ones I did take were of Mikey and Alicia climbing in between our shelves which I would post but I cut Mikey's hair and it looks... not great so I am not emotionally prepared to show it off. Yay for being pregnant.)

Nauvoo and an Update- Plus two pictures. Lucky.

 The past few months have been crazy. We had that insane week in August when everyone was here and then right as things were calming down, school started and then we made a quick trip out to MO for my grandpa's funeral :( It was great to get to see so much family and I am so grateful that Jake finally got to meet more of my mom's family but I wish it could've been under better circumstances. Amazingly enough, my whole family managed to get out to the funeral which is quite the feat- our family is getting so big and it just keeps on growing. We are now at 6 kids, 5 in-laws, 4 nieces/granddaughters/daughters and 2 almost 3 nephews/grandsons/sons. It's pretty fun, but at the same time extremely tiring. Hopefully we are going to be able to have a family reunion next summer and who knows how many people there will be then! Things change fast in this family.  After the funeral Jake, Mikey, Shelly, and I went to Nauvoo! It was so fun! I love that place- it's like my Disneyland. I love all the history and senior couple missionaries and the temple and the buildings and the church and everything! This time, for at least the first time in my memory, we got to do a tour of the Community of Christ properties- the Homestead, the Mansion House and the Red Brick Store.

Our little family in front of the Red Brick Store

I have way more pictures from Nauvoo but I can't pick which ones to put up so I am going for a minimalist approach. Besides the tour, we went to the Temple (just outside, we didn't have time to go in or have someone to watch Mikey), the Blacksmith shop, the Visitor's Center, the Family Living Center where we made a rope- Jake thought it was pretty awesome, took a carriage ride (and the senior missionaries driving were from Cardston- that was pretty fun, they knew Grandpa Reed and Uncle Mark), the Post Office, Rendevouz in Old Nauvoo, Brickyard and the Bakery. It was a very full day and poor Mikey was pooped by the end but he played it like a champ.

And here is my little update on each of us
Jake: is looking for a job and getting lots of interviews from going to the job fair, we are still just waiting for some more offers, working hard to finish school- only two classes! Wahoo! He is still working at his campus job as a web developer for Learning Suite and thankfully he enjoys the work. Imagine getting all the way through a program and realizing you hate the work? Wouldn't that just be awful, I know it happens to some people but I am so grateful that its not the case with Jake. He finished my photography website: www.nitelitephotography.com which I am extremely excited about. And he is just so excited to have a second son and likes to play with my belly (which drives me nuts but how can I say no when he says 'I am playing with my son'?)

Me: school and Mikey and being pregnant. That's my life. I hate school this semester because I am completely overwhelmed. I am taking 9 credits on campus and 6 independent study classes and the IS classes are so stupid. I cannot discipline myself to work on it because there are so many other things I would rather be doing. A while ago I started to make weekly menus but I sucked at following it so about 2 weeks I sat down and made a 4 week menu and have been fairly successful at sticking to it. Some times I switch days but I do pretty good and to make things better Wednesday is Jake's day so I get a break! The pregnancy is hard- still sick and have lost a grand total of 12 pounds. I am almost 29 weeks and so incredibly uncomfortable all the time. I can't sleep through the night and am typically awake for at least an hour around 2:30. Awesome. I have done one photoshoot recently and it was wonderful but I have learned that its harder when pregnant because all the crouching and adjusting and such pulls weird on my stomach but I still just love taking pictures.

Mikey: He is running all over the place- and yes I mean running. He walked for about a day and then decided that wasn't good enough. He is constantly covered in bruises but he handles it well. Cries for a minute, gets a hug from me and Jake and then he is good to go and discover a new body part to bruise. He likes to chase Jake around the apartment and is currently working on mastering the fake out- its hilarious, I need to film it and put it up. He has big personality and gets so excited when Jake gets home. We normally pick him up from school and when we pull up to the spot, every day Mikey goes Dada? And gets confused if anyone besides Jake walks by. He says mom and dada and nods yes and no which makes life so much easier, as well as his pointing- thanks to his cousin Scarlett for teaching him that! He is 29.5 inches and just over 21 pounds as of a week ago. He loves music and dances to just about anything he hears, and is the king of car dancing (a skill we mastered on our long road trip out to MO) and he also loves bathtime and by the time he is done we are typically as wet as he is and he is just as proud as can be.

 

 

Baby #2: growing well and kicks like a soccer player on steroids. (I think that my placenta is in a different place from last time because sometimes it hurts a lot more) He has a really strong heartbeat but is causing some health problems for me but that is just the nature of being pregnant I suppose. According to his ultrasound from a few weeks ago he is just as healthy as can be and we just cannot wait to be a little family of 4! Just over 11 more weeks to go! Merry Christmas to us!

Look at this little man. He is looking like a little boy now, not a baby and its so fun! Especially since I have another little boy on the way so I don't even have to miss newborns!