Happy Birthday, Dear Daddy-O

Well, yesterday was Eric's birthday, and it was an eventful one, to say the least. I had made plans to meet a friend for breakfast, but I got up in time to make Eric breakfast. Turns out, all he wanted was the cupcakes I bought from Sweet Dreams, a delightful little bakery with the most heavenly cupcakes on earth. So I served up some coffee (milk for Logan) and two cupcakes with a candle in each (because Logan had to blow out a candle, too) to my boys and went out to walk to the diner in downtown DeKalb.

As I walked down our driveway, though, I was stunned to see a gigantic branch had fallen from the locust tree in our parkway into our front yard. Now I've been getting up pretty frequently through the night, thanks to the four-pound bundle of joy sitting on my bladder, and I didn't hear a storm at all, and I certainly didn't hear the crack of the tree branch. Anyhow, I told Eric about it, just for entertainment's sake, and by the time I had gotten back from breakfast with my friend, he had cleared the whole mess up. What a way to spend your birthday, right? And I had to laugh because when I arrived home, Logan started picking up twigs and putting them on the pile, "just to make himself look good," Eric said, because he only did a lot of spectating and riding his bike while daddy did all of the work.

Later that afternoon, a huge storm blew up--heavy winds and a little rain. Fortunately for us, no more branches came down, but there was quite a mess for the city to clean up after the storm had passed. All of downtown DeKalb had lost its power, so we couldn't go to the restaurant Eric had wanted to go to, but we went to the sushi place in Sycamore and had a lovely meal. Logan was an angel--he decided he finally liked miso soup, and he tried some of my avocado roll and tamago (egg) sushi; as always, he ate plenty of edamame.

When we returned home, our power was out, and it was getting dark, but we still hadn't begun to pack. So, we lit some candles, found the flashlights, and got our stuff together for our trip to NC. All in all, Eric had a pretty good day, methinks, despite the wreckage he had to clean up yesterday morning. Happy Birthday, Eric!

Daddy's Pride

Logan can pedal his mean ol' tricycle all by himself now. My boy is getting all grow'd up!

Weekend at Grammy's

This weekend we went down to visit the fam, and we had a really nice time. Logan showed his first signs of liking to travel when we left Saturday morning. After we had packed everything up but still had to get out of our PJs, Logan was running around the house proclaiming "I'm ready!"
My mom has bounced back pretty well from her hip surgery, and Logan had a blast playing with the puppies--Ginger was newly shorn, which was hilarious! We also learned a new game, Farkle. Funny name, but it's a pretty addictive dice game we had fun playing.
We went to my grandma's on Sunday, and Logan set off his first model rocket in the field. Eric, my dad, and Greg set up the rocket and Logan pushed the button to launch it. I hope Logan's fear of loud noises is only a phase because boy, did he freak out when that rocket took off. And more loud noises were to come...My brother took out his four-wheeler, then the tractor, both of which Logan abhorred. Soon enough, Eric and Greg tired of their gasoline-induced fun times, and we played inside for a while.
On Monday, we went to the Missouri Botanical Gardens. Even though we saw only about 1/3 of the grounds, we had a great time in the children's garden and the koi pond. Logan climbed the rope ladders like a pro and had fun in the water park, and then fed the gigantic goldfish at the Japanese garden.
We were sad to go--the whole way home, Logan was saying "Wanna see grammy," Wanna see Papa George, Greggie." But we're looking forward to the next trip!