Oh What a Laugh!

Mr. Logan decided to actually chuckle today! It was like music to my hears. I miss that from when Olivia used to do it. Of course he did it for his father who was only imitating his hiccups and he thought that was so funny. So needless to say, Rich went around the house all day hiccuping?? Seriously, Olivia came home from school and she's like "dad, what are you doing?" So, the hiccuping has ended, from Logan and rich! I'm glad he got a kick out of Logan thinking he's so funny.

Olivia got her report card today. She scored a 140/142. Apparently something happened with the tying shoes, cause she got a 0 on that. I will have to investigate. The other lost point was writing her numbers backwards. This child can write numbers and letters backwards better than anyone i know. I know the teacher says it will go away, but it's difficult to do and she can do everyone wrong! TALENT??? Going to have to work on that, it drives me nuts.

So tomorrow is Rich's b-day! Me and Liv are going out to get a cake and card. Yeah, haven't done that yet. Actually today was the first day I have drove my van in like 2 weeks. I decided today I should make a Avon delivery and get the stink blowed off of me! It looked nice out, until i got in the van and it said it was still only 20 degrees. I have had this "foreign Asian flu" (OK, that's what it feels like cause it wouldn't go away) and just when i thought it was going away, i would be back on the couch again for hours sleeping and just plain miserable. I think it has finally left me and found someone else to bug. Thank goodness Rich was here cause i could not function with the kids. (He did admit to his mother last night, that he was thankful i was feeling better cause he couldn't do it anymore)! I think it's good for the men to have the household responsibilities once in awhile, reminds them it's not so easy!!! So I was thinking today on my drive how Olivia will be turning 6 in April........well this lead to "oh my gosh, my little girl who was once as small as Logan will be 6". Gave me flashbacks at how fast they really do grow up and how sad it is. I have no new pics as my camera has collected dust in it's case for 2 weeks, so i will try this weekend.

11 lbs. and Growing

Mr. Serious

My two new best-friends!

Yes, Mr. Logan now weighs 11 lbs.!! That weight 3 months ago seemed soooo far away. He's getting so big and trying super hard to hold his head up on his own, cause you know, mom don't hold him the way HE wants to be and look around, so he's determined. He has started to rub his eyes when he gets tired and it's the cutest darn thing ever to see those little fist rubbing those eyes and sometimes he misses and gets his nose instead and there's a halt and then he continues to the eyes!! Olivia is spoiling him by rubbing his belly when he cries and he just grins at her! Yeah, he's thinking, I've got mom eating out of the palm of my hand, now my sister! She thinks it's wonderful he stops crying for her.

Other than those things, not much has been happening here, or at least that I have paid attention too! I've been fighting this flu/whatever virus that just won't go away. *Take note, the doctor suggested we all get flu shots, Olivia did.* So, I'm to the point that I am frustrated and worn down from being down! I'm pretty much doing what I have to to get thru the day. Rich is helping, but I think I'm probably bouncing on his last nerve, yes, I am admitting that. So I have to ask the question.........Who the hell's idea was it for me to move 3hrs. away from my mother??????? Did i feel that I would never get sick and need her to entertain my children for a couple of hours/days!? No, apparently not a well thought out idea on my part. After all, mom is good for some/a lot of holding/rocking Logan (this leads to me getting him and him not liking the fact that I don't do that),no grandma holds and rocks me all day! Michael is good for some rock band entertainment with Olivia, Jimmy is good for some electronic gadget time, Nicole is good for some "holding Logan" time until he cries and she realizes this is what motherhood would be and runs for the hills!, Grand pap, well he's good for snacks, lots of goody snacks and some Pa. slang that Olivia just loves to correct! After all, it's not a "winda" it's "window" pap!!

See the entertainment and the valuable learning experiences they are missing out on??!!

Learning to Write

Olivia has learned to sound out words and they encourage them to spell them right now the way they hear them. Here is a day in the life of Olivia at school, wrote thru a 5 yr. old:

Muv your clospin
Put your clam to the loch menyou and put your blloc.
Then put fldr in the holdr.
Yus the resroom
do summr roting and then luch tom.
Then reses for olof
The cis then go inn the bilding and rot sommor. Then go hom.
Love Mis Olivia Nagle

Let me translate:
Move your clothespin(to here or absent)
put your clam to the lunch menu and put your block.
Then put folder in the holder.
Use the restroom.
do some more writing and then lunch time.
Then recess for ?.
The ? then go in the building and write some more. Then go home!

I thought it was pretty cool, she wrote that one night after school and showed it to me and when I couldn't read a word(didn't want to discourage her that I couldn't read it) she would tell me to sound it out! Yeah mom, get it together.

So much for Logan sleeping during the night. He has one or two days since I wrote it last, but other wise he's up. But he has begun a very nice routine during the day and evening. So we will take baby steps and continue to go forward. Does anybody realize at the end of this month, I will have been getting up for 4 months with this child during the night!! Isn't there some kind of award you get for that! Maybe it's the first night's good sleep you get. He has found his arms and hands. He will stretch them out in front of him and look at them, it's so funny. He's like, oh, you are the "things" that I've been playing with". He also wants to reach for stuff and of course he's "off target" when he tries, but trying is good. He loves watching the dogs and sister is still pretty interesting.

Me and Rich are still living. He's on my last nerve. He had a class to take today for work, so I'm starting to like him again! LOL That's what it's like when you spend day and night together! I wonder if he's going to drive me this nuts when he is able to retire? You know how you have a way of doing things and they do it and it's not close to being the same. I am a very routine person, my kids live on routine, that is how I function, Rich has no routine and likes to squash mine when he is home and it messes me up for the whole day!! I'm so routine, I'm like a robot. Hopefully one more month and he will have work again. I'm sure I am getting on his last nerve also!!

Logan loves watching the animals on his swing!

Back To Normal

What exactly is normal? Well around here, I'm not sure. It will be hard to get moving in the morning again, I've really enjoyed sleeping in a little and not "having" to be somewhere or having someone be somewhere at a certain time.

I actually took the head support out of Logan's car seat yesterday. He was getting too cramped in it and he does not need one in the swing anymore either. A little depressing for mom I must say. Although always a good thing he's growing. He is so funny when he's putting himself to sleep, he will toss his head from side to side and close his eyes for a bit and start the process over. It is really cute to watch him.

Once again Olivia is being a pack rat. She is hoarding the stickers off the fruit for something. I can only imagine what she has stashed in that bedroom. I heard her the other night telling her dad that "mom made me leave this pre-school magnet in the garbage, but i took it out and put in some Rudolph thing when she wasn't looking and she never looks in there, but don't tell her or she will make me throw it away again!" Seriously, she has issues and I swear she is far from deprived. It's a magnet from pre-school with a 2007 calender on it and I thought I convinced her to leave it in the trash!!!!! Apparently not

Here's a tip for the day: Keep some marshmallow's in your brown sugar to keep it from hardening.

1 More Day....and Counting!!

Olivia has one more day to go and it's back to school. I think she is somewhat excited to go back, maybe boredom has set in at home. Never mind the fact that the weather has been pretty much either freezing cold, or dark and rainy.

Logan has been making his own schedule lately which has been so nice. They say that preemie's are hard to get on a schedule but he seems to be doing very well with it. That makes life easier for everybody, especially me. He is actually sleeping thru most of the night!! He eats like crazy in the evenings and then his last bottle being between 8 & 9 and then not until 5-6am! I can live with that! I think he is actually going to be a pretty easy kid, he's mostly laid back unless he's really tired or hungry. The girls from Help Me Grow where here on Friday (yes, I forgot to ask them about weighing him) and they were pretty impressed with his development. He wouldn't qualify for it otherwise, but his birth weight keeps him in.

Well I'm off to figure out my camera. I vowed to really sit down with it after the holidays and take some good pics. Oh ya, I also accomplished teaching Olivia to tie her shoes. Didn't take very long, I think she was being lazy about it the whole time.

Packing away Christmas

I finally got all the decorations put away today and of course the house is looking pretty plain, but it's refreshing to have the room back and be able to move around. It took awhile to find places for all the new "stuff" and reorganize the old to fit everything in. I had to go thru a lot of drawers and such when Olivia was sleeping so I could throw papers and used up coloring books out. To know Olivia is to know that she keeps EVERYTHING, one example: we had to bring the Rudolph wrapping paper from Pa. to here and still cannot throw it away! That's just one example! (note to self: we need a bigger house some day) I feel pretty caught up at this point, don't know how long it will last though! Olivia has been busy at her new table and chairs Santa brought. I don't know if it's b/c she has her "own space" at this table or what, but she hasn't left it since we put it up for her. I was getting tired of never having my kitchen table to do anything on and her little projects were everywhere on it, so I have taught myself to leave her table alone and it's OK if it's messy! She has done a good job of keeping it cleaned off and wiping it down.....wonder why my kitchen table never got that treatment?

Logan is still Logan. He laughs sooooo much and i was finally able to catch him ,although not without movement to blur the picture. Help Me Grow is coming in on Friday to do a evaluation on him so I should find out how much he weighs again. My cousin Chad got to see Logan over Christmas (he was studying to be a Dr. and did some time in the NICU) and he was very impressed with Logan and how well he looked and how VERY strong he is. That made me feel really good from someone that knows about preemie babies and has seen some of both sides of outcomes. (another note to self: take camera next time to aunt cookies and get pics of the cousins together before they are driving! LOL) I have also noticed Logan trying to reach for toys. He will grab hold, and then that's it, so he's really not doing it to play, but it's a start. Gotta start somewhere!!

I figure these pics are reason enough to have another!! (mom, if you are reading this and want to show dad the pics, don't let him read that part~LOL)

Do you think Olivia likes to pose?!!

Happy New Year

Another year......where does it go? I'm ready for a new year, not that I am not scared of starting a new year. After all, who would have thought the things 2007 brought us! Not all bad of course and a huge delightful surprise addition to our family, but really, had someone told me that at the start of the year..........I would have thought they needed to be in the loony lock up! LOL So I know for sure some things that it will bring, like, another year older, a first grader (so hard to believe), Logan walking by the time I write this next year (another hard to believe), and who really knows what else. I'm sure it will be a good one, they only get better, right?!

Christmas was very nice. It's getting harder to get out of the house early as Olivia gets older. We used to leave by 8am for Pa. , now it's more around noon or better! I think she was disappointed x-mas morning but didn't want to let on too much. She wanted Clarice to go along with her Rudolph from build-a-bear.........well, she was in Pa. waiting! She didn't say much except after everything was opened and she realized she wasn't there, but Olivia was a trooper and played along. Needless to say, Christmas was saved when she opened the reindeer at grandma's house! She was fun this year with her expressions when she opened stuff. Olivia was also very glad Logan decided to sleep all night so Santa could come(unfortunately for me, he really didn't, but she thought so).

Logan is still trucking along. He did roll over on Christmas Eve as I was getting ready to bath him! Now of course he hasn't done it since then, but I wouldn't call it a fluke, he did it twice and Rich was there to witness it! He just keeps getting bigger by the second, and continues to be a very happy baby. Surprisingly enough, he doesn't like his binky that much anymore and will "scream" at you if you give it to him and he doesn't want it! Baby with attitude! He DOES like his fingers a whole lot and you know what they say.......you can take the binky away but not the fingers, so we will hope he doesn't become a thumb sucker!

Santa bringing the DVD player for the trip to Pa........Now that is absolutely PRICELESS!!

This was Christmas Eve at the Nagle's. Olivia was so tired by the end of the night and Logan was just plain cranky all night, must not like to be out of his element!