My New Love

I guess I should have seen this coming, but I've found a new love and Eric actually approves... SOCCER! Seeing as I married a soccer loving/playing enthusiast, I guess it was only a matter of time. I assumed that one day I'd be a soccer mom, but I didn't really think I'd be a soccer playing mom. I took a beginners soccer class back at BYU in 2008 right before I got pregnant with Logan and played two coed intramural seasons with Eric around that same time. While I really enjoyed playing, I assumed that leaving BYU and their intramural program meant my "budding soccer career" was over. Lucky for me a couple of friends from my ward volleyball team here in Idaho started inviting me to sub on their indoor soccer team. I was hesitant at first and didn't actually take them up on it until about March and since then I can't get enough of it. I now play on a coed indoor team and sub for a women's team and it's been such a blast. I come home from games bruised, winded and as happy as can be. I normally play (and prefer) defense since I lack a lot of ball handling skills, but recently my teams have been pushing me up on offense since we've had a lot more girls who want to play defense than offense. Part of me is terrified to play up top because I feel so inadequate, but it really has forced me to grow and I think I'm slowly getting better. Playing offense actually gave me the biggest high a few days ago when I scored my second EVER goal. It felt like a miracle because I barely beat the goalie to the ball and chipped it up over their head to score and I still feel all warm and fuzzy inside about it. :)

Here's a picture of my coed indoor team.

It's pretty fuzzy but they sure are a great group of people. :)

Cuteness Update

My goodness, how time flies! I feel like these last few months have just blown by and suddenly Summer is here and Claire is huge! Okay, so she's not really that big, but I just feel like she's growing up so fast. :) She's seven months now and full of smiles, especially for Logan. She absolutely lights up around him and he can get her giggling and laughing out loud more often than anyone else. Logan is so cute around her too. When he wakes up in the morning, if I don't catch him in time the first thing he'll do is run into the bedroom to wake her up with an enthusiastic "Hi Claire! Hi Claire!" He's also starting to recognize/place names to different emotions so he'll say things like "Baby's happy" or "Claire crying". The funniest is when he wants something so he'll start fake crying and if we ignore him he'll come up to us and tug on our pants and say in a completely controlled voice "I'm crying!" He makes it pretty hard to keep a straight face. :)

So our little family survived Eric's first "Busy season" out at work and we're SO happy to have him back. While talking with a few wives of other KPMG auditors this past week I heard them use the term "audit widow" for the first time in reference to the busy season and I had to laugh knowingly. It's only been a few weeks since its been over and we're trying to take full advantage of our extra family time. A few Fridays back we went to the MK Nature Center where we had a blast looking at fish, bugs, birds and plants with Logan. It was so fun to watch how excited he got over all of the fish (big and small), ants on the sidewalk, birds randomly flying by, etc.


Maybe he'll end up with an interest in science like mommy. :) Afterwards we headed to an adjacent park and got our fill of wood chips, slides, swings and sunshine.



Here are some cute pictures of Logan and Claire to catch up on the past few months. Enjoy!

A Haircut... Finally!

Not that he didn't need it sooner, but we waited to give Logan his first haircut until he turned two. We wanted to wait until my mom was in town so she could help us both do the cutting as well as hold him still if needed. He actually did really well and didn't need held down, thanks to a high chair and the movie Cars. Here are some before and after pictures of Logan's hair.

When we parted it we kind of had to tuck/comb it behind his ears so it wouldn't look so long.



Yes, on top his hair was nearly six inches long and you know I styled it like this all the time... ;)


Looking sharp :)


It took less than 24 hrs for me to go into shock over his haircut. The change seemed so dramatic to me, it felt like my little boy grew up over night. It was good though because if we'd waited much longer, he may have been mistaken for a little girl... ;)

Logan's 2nd Birthday

Just over a week ago we celebrated Logan's 2nd birthday, which fell nicely on the long President's Day weekend, making it possible for some family from both sides to come in town to celebrate with us. My dad lent us his handy man skills while he was here and helped us build one Logan's gifts, a set of PVC pipe soccer goals complete with nets. We were pretty excited to make these for Logan since he really seems to be liking soccer, but little did we know that when pushed together they would double nicely as a fort. It was a pretty exciting discovery for us, especially since it's been so cold outside that we've been spending most of our time indoors. To go with his soccer goals, we made him a matching soccer ball cake which was kind of fun. Among the other gifts he received was the movie Cars, which I love but have now nearly memorized since we watch it on average AT LEAST twice a day. Overall we had a blast playing with family and Logan's new toys. It was a great birthday but we sure miss everyone now that they're gone!

Lunch time... nap time... same thing

My childhood photo albums contain handfuls of pictures of me sleeping face down in bowls of soup or plates of spaghetti. I was beginning to think I was an extra strange kid or something because Logan is nearly two and he'd never once fallen asleep during lunch but it finally happened. A few days ago Logan was eating a pb & j in his high chair when I noticed that things had gone quiet, which is pretty rare with both Logan and Claire. When I turned around expecting something to be wrong, this was what I saw.


I was trying hard not to laugh, afraid it would wake him up, but he was out cold. He hardly even stirred when I wiped up his hands and face with a wet wash cloth. When I pulled him out of his chair, he woke up just enough to curl up on my shoulder and fall back asleep. I wish he was always that willing to take a nap. :)