Walking

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! Our Christmas or should I say Christmases where great. Logan got so many great gifts! He got a bunch of new clothes which was great cause he really really needed them. He'll be the best dressed kid around. Brian and I didn't exchange gifts, but we bought a new tv so that's our Christmas gift to each other. It's very nice and it seems like there's way more room in the living room now.

Here are a few pictures and videos from Christmas.

This is Logan opening a gift from Grandma and Grandpa Meyer. He was very excited.



This video is of Logan and Stella opening their gifts.







This Happy Apple was Brian's first Christmas gift...Logan loved it too!


Logan and Auntie Christie


My mom and dad got Logan this Corn Popper toy. I remember these from when I was little. Too fun!


"BINGO! Hey, that came from outside."


Tired boy!


Grandma and Logan. Nice bow huh?


For the last month Brian has been saying to me, "Logan will be walking by Christmas" and I would say, "I don't think so." I posted last time that he's taken a few steps, but not full on walking yet. Well Christmas Eve Logan decided to prove Mom wrong and really walk. He took like 10 steps stopped and then started again. Everyone at Grandma and Grandpa Meyer's house said "If that's not walking I don't know what is." So we've called it Logan's walking now. It's SO funny to watch him walking around the house. He'll pull himself up on the couch and take off across the living room and then just plop down, it's so funny. He's got his hands up in the air for balance, put most of the time he's either got his hammer or his bat in one of his hands and it looks so funny watching him wave it around. Of course every time I get the video camera out he won't walk, so I've only got a short clip of him walking. I'll work on getting him walking more this week.



Sunday Mikey, Debbie and Stella were over. Every time they're together they take all the toys out of the toy bin and play with them. For some reason Stella likes to climb in the toy bin and sit on all the toys...well Sunday she taught Logan how to climb in there as well. Here's a few pictures and a short video of them playing together...I think we're in big trouble when they get older...







Friday my mom, Christie, Jamie (my brother Mitchell's girlfriend) and I went to Glamour Shots. It was a ton of fun! My dad, Mitchell, and Logan came with as well. It's at the Mall of America so Grandpa, Mitchell and Logan walked around the mall while us girls were made beautiful! Logan had so much fun! He was laughing and talking and waving at everyone! I figured he'd be crabby after two full days of Christmas and almost no naps both days. But he did great! Grandpa and Uncle Mitchell took him to Hooters...although Logan slept through the entire meal. The Glamour Shot pictures turned out great! I took a few with Logan which were adorable. Maybe once we get them I'll scan a few and post them. But here are a few pictures from the mall.




There was a little motor cycle there so we had to put Logan on it. He really liked it.

'Tis the Season

'Tis the Season to be merry!

As you all know Logan loves to help me unload the dishwasher. Last week I had a wooden spoon in the dishwasher and he found it and pulled it out. Shortly afterward I find him here...underneath our bar stools in the kitchen. Just crawling back and forth as happy as can be. I wasn't sure if he was hiding under there so I wouldn't take his spoon away or if it was his fort and he was playing in it. Either way it was super cute to see him army crawl under the chairs. Boys will be Boys!




Logan's 9 month picture. I tried to get some better ones with the lights from the tree glowing, but they all turned out blurry.


Last weekend auntie Kim came over and helped bake cookies. We did a bunch of sugar cookies which turned out great! Very delicious! When we were frosting them Logan wanted to sit on my lap and help. Which actually wasn't too bad, he just sat there watching me...that is until I stopped frosting a cookie to talk to Kim and he tried to eat it out of my hand! See the picture below! It was super funny and we're lucky Kim got a picture of it. Little stinker!




Then on Sunday was my Mom's side family Christmas. It was really great to see everyone again. Every year Santa makes an appearance at the Christmas party so we had to take Logan's picture with Santa. He wasn't scared at all and was kind of confused by his beard.



Family photo by the Christmas tree.


Then on Sunday night Brian's aunt Sally and cousin Sarah came over to give Logan his Christmas present. He did OK opening it. He needed a little help from mom, but not much. Also aren't his pajamas's super cute! Thanks auntie Christie they keep me very warm!



Let's see other news...Saturday morning Logan found Brian's Screaming Hawk call (used to locate turkey's while turkey hunting). He loves it! I blew into it to show him how to use it and he about fell over laughing so hard. Then he figured out how to blow into it and laughs hysterically! It's so funny!



Last night auntie Kim took Logan for his third hair cut. He needed one bad! Jody gave him a candy cane while he was there. He liked it I guess, but he sure wasn't sleepy when we got home from bowling...the kid was on a sugar high! And Jody also gave me a hard time because I haven't posted that Logan is taking steps now. He's not walking fully, but will take a few steps between objects or people. The most steps he's taken so far is 4. He thinks its a game I think. If you have him walk between two people he'll take two steps and then just fall forward expecting/hoping for you to catch him. Then he laughs and laughs. He's so funny! And if you couldn't tell he's a very happy baby! We're so blessed to have him and I can't imagine our lives without him now!

Anyways I think that about sums it up for the happenings at the Ranch. My sister is coming home today from NY again. Tomorrow we start the Christmas festivities at Brian's mom's house with his family and then Christmas day with my family and then my dad's family. I'll try to post through the holidays, but if I don't have a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

With Love,
The Meyer's

The Soldier's Christmas Poem

I know I sent an e-mail to most of you with this poem, but I found this YouTube video of it and it's just so powerful and it means so much. So I had to post it here. We owe so much to the soldiers that are fighting for our freedom, so please say a prayer that they fight with courage and come home safely!

Meyer Family Christmas

Meyer Family Christmas was last weekend and it's always one of the funniest times of the year! The tradition has shifted from Jack and Karen's house up north to the Lubenow's house in Medina. We're just so fortunate that everyone can get together and it's so fun to watch the family growing, both with great grandchildren like Logan, Jovie and Jaylee as well as with new cousins...congratulations Kim and Brad on the engagement! Here are a few pictures from the weekend. Enjoy!

Josie, Karen and Stella



Me and Al eating Bob's AMAZING Oreo cheesecake!! Good job Bob!


Logan's first Christmas present to open. It was from Great Grandma Meyer. At first he wasn't sure what to do, but once he realized he could rip the paper he was all about it. He loves to rip up old magazines at home (don't worry I don't let him eat the paper) so I know he'll love opening gifts this Christmas. Although I'm sure he'll probably like the paper and boxes better than the actual gifts. :-)


Where was this picture for our holiday cards?


Look how adorable the twins are! Oh and Bob and Carey look great too!


Mom and Logan.


The entire Meyer family including all the aunts, uncles, grandkids and great grandkids. If you're wondering how we took the picture...don't worry we had Shutterbug! She came with to watch Logan, Stella, Lauren and Brooke while we went bowling.


Just the grandkids and great grandkids with Grandma!


aaawwwweeee


I'm not sure if you can see, but you can buy socks from the vending machine behind Al's right shoulder for $3. I almost bought some for Dan for Christmas.

Logan and Stella

Here are a couple of videos from this weekend. This first one is of Logan chasing Stella. She would run around the house and Logan would crawl after her. Whenever Stella would see him she would scream and run the other way. They just love playing together and could do so far hours. Whenever they're together neither one is crabby they just play and play. How cool to have such a good playmate!



We had the gate up in the entry way, obviously to keep the two little munchkins from going into the smelly, dirty garage. They kept going over there though, they wanted out into the garage bad!



Stella didn't even flinch when Mikey gave her the sausage. Too funny!

Is it Tupperware...or a toy?

Who knew Tupperware could be so fun? I mean I know April's got a Tupperware dance, but I didn't realize Logan would get such a kick out of pulling all my Tupperware out of the cupboard. As you can see he makes sure he pulls ALL of them out of the cupboard before he begins attempting to put them all in his mouth. It's so fun to watch him playing with these things. He's so intense concentrating on putting the bowls and lids in his mouth. And if he's not happy playing with the Tupperware then you know he's really fussy. It's his favorite thing to do. And it's covenant that it's located so closely to the dishwasher...his other favorite thing to do. April, the next time you're in town you'll have to teach him the Tupperware dance so he can do that while he's pulling everything out of the cupboard. :-)

For those of you on pins and needles waiting to hear about the scrapbooking weekend...it was a huge success! I'd say the most successful and fun scrapbooking weekend yet! The cabin was amazing! Very beautiful and serene. I got 42 pages done and Kim got like 22 pages done. I'm caught up to the Rascal Flatts concert in October of this year in my book and I'm up to June of this year in Logan's book. I've still got like 40 more pages to do to get to Halloween in Logan's book and that doesn't include Thanksgiving and Christmas yet, but oh well...we live faster than I can scrapbook.

Brian and Logan had a good weekend hanging out. Sunday they boys (Brian, Dan, Mikey, Bob and Jim) butchered the deer from this year. They made some sausage this year that turned out great! Very nice job guys!

Yesterday didn't start out that great....I ran out of gas in the Explorer! Brian had to come rescue me. Luckily I was only like 3 miles from home. Which makes it even worse cause I should never let the gas get so low that I can't get farther than 3 miles from home....the closest gas station is like 5 miles away...Anyways a HUGE thank you to my wonderful husband for coming to my rescue once again!

The other wonderful news we found out this weekend is my sister-in-law Debbie is pregnant again! Little Stella is going to have a little brother or sister around her birthday next year. I asked Debbie if it was her goal to have all her children on her birthday?!?! Congratulations guys that's very exciting!

I've got some cute videos from this weekend of Stella and Logan playing together. Super cute, I'll try to post them on Wednesday, tonight is my last night of class so I won't be home until late. Wish me luck on my final!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Ok, it's not the perfect Christmas Tree...it's our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree!




UPDATE

I was told our tree resembles the Grinch's Tree....what do you think?

Big Boy Car Seat

Logan's making the transition out of the infant car seat. He's just way to big for it and hates when you put him in it. Yesterday was his first day in the new car seat and he really liked it. He's getting so big way too fast....I keep telling him to slow down, but he's not listening! Yesterday he also got in another tooth. His top left lateral incisor, so he's up to 5 teeth now. His top right front tooth is coming in soon as well.

The Meyer boys hunting season ended up a success even after the opening weekend defeat. They got 7 deer total and every one (Mikey, Dan, Brian and even Peter) got at least one. This weekend they'll be cutting them up and cleaning them. This weekend Kim and I are heading to a scrapbooking retreat so we'll miss out on all the butchering action....we're bummed let me tell you. :-) But I'm very excited to get away for a little bit and excited to "catch up" on my scrapbooking.

As for holiday shopping I've only got 4 people left! Yippie! I ordered most of the gifts directly from amazon.com and took advantage of the free shipping. I'm not a huge fan of the crowds at the stores and I knew what I wanted to get everyone so it was easy! Tonight we're going to put up the Christmas tree. There's a blue spruce tree in our woods that was knocked over this summer when the tornado came through so we're going to use that as our Christmas tree this year. I'm excited we're all going to get bundled up and head out to the woods and cut it down. Logan I'm sure won't really care, but when he's older I bet he'll love it. There are a couple other trees that are the perfect Christmas tree size in our woods so we've got trees for the next couple years. And for every tree we take out we're going to plant another one...well actually Brian wants to plan about 100 or more trees this summer...something about deer habitat...all I know is we'll have Christmas trees for sure!

Only 22 days til Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I'll start off by saying that on Wednesday Brian did not get two deer and therefore owes me a date. Although I might have blown it already. He came int he house at 5:15 and told me he didn't get any deer that day. I responded with a joyous, "I WIN!" and he quickly changed the subject by saying, "Do you want to bowl in a 9-pin no tap tournament tonight at 6? We need to be there by 5:30." Nothing like waiting until the last minute. But I said sure, so we headed to the bowling alley. It was fun, but Brian paid for me to enter and I'm worried that he's thinking that's the date. While it was fun I'd like to do something a little different than drinking beer with friends in a smoke filled bowling alley. Although Brian did get 3rd place in the tournament. He bowled a 297 his third game...he choked on the last ball...too much pressure maybe?

I hope everyone got their fill of turkey and mash potatoes yesterday! We sure did over at Grandpa and Grandma Steffen's house. Logan just kept eating and eating. He really likes jello and cool whip...thanks Grandma. :-) It was a very relaxing day hanging out with the family. Logan and I headed over to my mom and dad's house at about 9. I called Brian at about 9:45 and asked him to bring something we forgot. He was just heading into the house from the tree stand and sounded very disappointed that he still hadn't seen anything. Then about 10 minutes later he calls me back. "I just shot a 10-pointer!" He was walking across the field and was probably 100 yards from our house when this deer came bolting our of our woods at full tilt. He had to wait until it cleared the house before he could shoot it and he shot it at full throttle! Yeah! He felt a lot better after that. It's a smaller 10-pointer, but still a nice deer. Nice job babe!

The rest of the weekend we don't have a lot planned. Saturday night we're going to the movies. I might take Logan with me, I'm still not sure yet. Maybe if I stood in the back and was able to stand up with him....I don't know...we'll see...

Here's a few pics from yesterday.

Passed out with a turkey hangover...



Guys playing cards...while


the girls chat in the kitchen


Auntie Christie and Logan...note the Cool Whip on his lips...


Pies


Mom and Me


My brother Mitchell brought his and Jamie's cat home for the weekend. Logan LOVED Moose! He would chase him around the house trying to pet him. Moose didn't like Logan. Logan punched him in the eye and pulled his hair. I can't blame Moose for not liking him. But it was so cute to see Logan get excited every time Moose came around.