Future Environmentalists!

I'd say that I am pretty "green".  I recycle, I use the reusable grocery bags (when I remember them), I try to buy organic when I can.  Addison and Alyssa take it to a whole new level.  Not only do they love to add things to the recycling bin as we talk about why we do it, "to save the earf Mommy", they are gardeners as well.  I have to give the credit of their love of gardening to Jenn, our amazing nanny.  She planted flower, tomato plants, and grass.  She taught the girls to water them and take care of them.  Thanks goodness because I don't have a green thumb at all.  The latest project was a mini butterfly garden.  We had milkweed that was covered in eggs.  The girls waited and watched and waited some more.  Until finally, we had caterpillars!  Lots of them!  At one point we had about 8 big fat ones.  Well big + fat = lunch for some neighborhood birds.  Brian and I were more sad about the loss of these guys, so we decided to move one inside and see if we could get him to hatch.  He crawled up to the top of the screen, formed a "j", and went to work.  We were gone for one afternoon oat Disney and we we got home, we had a fully formed chrysalis.  After about 2 weeks, out came a gorgeous Monarch.  We gave him time for his wings to dry and then took him outside to release him.  Addison was a little sad and said "if we let him go, he will be lonely, he needs butterfly friends".  I explained that he would fly off and find plenty of friends.  That went over well, but she waned to stand there and wait for him to leave before she left his side.  It was a fun experience for all of us!

Watching the newly hatched butterfly!

Addison's photography skills- she had to take Jenn's picture

Watching closely!

He certainly was pretty!

I will stop pretending I am good at this.....

I really had good intentions, but the reality is, I will never be good at keeping up with this blog.  So let me move on and give some updates....  I never went back and updated about the holidays this past year and I think it just comes down to the fact that I want to forget them.  It was a tough, tough year for the Logsdon household.  We had to put our first, furry baby to sleep on New Year's Eve day.  It was the most heart-wrenching, saddest day.  Luckily Alyssa was young enough to not know what was going on, but Addison cried.  A lot.  Brian and I cried, even more.  Even after 5 months, Addison will still randomly say she misses Oliver.  She says "God Bless Oliver" every night after prayers.  So sweet! A puppy is not in our near future as having 2 toddlers keeps us busy enough.  However I will say that the Logsdon household will eventually grow to a family of 5 again.  We all miss him tremendously, but we know he is running around in heaven, watching us, and waiting for the day we will meet again.

Now about the 2 babies who are growing faster than I can keep up with!  Addison will turn 4 in July and we are busy planning her "Hello Kitty" party.  We can not figure out where this obsession came from, but it is a pretty intense one.  Wait until she sees the BIG surprise we have planned for her party!  It will be an extra special party since her Godmother, Aunt Noelle, Uncle Dave, Matthew, and Aunt Lenore will be in town from NJ for the celebration! Another huge milestone that is inching it's way near is the start of Pre-K!  I can not even believe that she is going to start preschool.  Before I know it, she will be going to Kindergarten and I am certain I WILL be needing tissues that day!
Alyssa is 20 months old and has quite the personality.  She is building a vocabulary that would make any teacher proud.  She repeats everything- including wine, beer, and any other words she hears Mommy and Daddy say.  Simple words like milk are not party of her daily language but broccoli, butterfly, and outside are as clear as day!  She is as sweet as can be and LOVES her big sister more than she can express.
We are counting down the days till my summer vacation.  17 days till I get to be a stay at home mom for 1 month.  Hoping to get a little vacation in as well as some good quality time with my little girls.  Here are a few recent pictures of the girls,  As you can see Alyssa is finally getting some hair and Addison has hair- finally!  Although I think we were better off when she was bald as she has some unruly curls!  Until next time..... I won't even pretend that will be soon! :)

Some Catching Up To Do....

Again, I am super behind... so much to write about! I will go back and update through the holidays.  But for now, I just wanted to share a sweet moment.  Tonight, Addison got to go to her first Magic Game.  Not only was it a night out with her Daddy, but Uncle Adam and Uncle Brad joined them.  Addison was really excited to be one of the guys.  Mommy was a bit sad, feeling like I missed out on a "first", but next weekend, I get to take her to see her first play, Pinkalicious.  She is really excited about it, especially since Natalee & Sandi are going with us.  I do have to admit that the guys were really good sports about posing for this picture before they left. :)

Every 6 weeks......

So it seems as if I will never keep this blog going.  Perhaps it can be my New Year's Resolution.  It's pretty sad because these girls keep us laughing every single day and I want to be able to share all of their funny antics, but somehow the nights just get away from me.  So here we are mid December and I have missed Halloween, Thanksgiving and in 2 weeks Christmas will be here- what on earth?!  Where can I find the pause button? So a little recap.......
Halloween was a blast!  Macy, Mike, and Brandy joined us for Trick Or Treating.  Alyssa and Macy were fairies and Addison was Tinkerbell.  They were hands down the cutest babies out in the neighborhood. Addison was really excited about the amount of candy she received even though she hardly ate any of it!

Thanksgiving was full of family and food.  We ate till we couldn't eat any more and I think we had the prettiest and tastiest turkey we had ever cooked. We took our traditional turkey leg picture.  Addison was her usual self- eager to take a picture.  Alyssa on the other hand not even close.  She cried and cried.  You would have thought we were trying to make her hold a live turkey.  She was scared of it!

 Apparently Alyssa is going to be our scaredy cat.  When we went to pick out our Christmas tree, same thing.  She was terrified. Thank goodness this seems to be passing.  She walks by ours and says "tree" and points, but won't go near it.  That has definitely worked in our favor.  No worries about the ornaments. :)
Addison is still amazing us with her ability to retain stuff and learn things, often just by observing.  I am a super proud "teacher mommy" as I hear her count, recognize letters, colors, and tell me that when she is 5, she will come to my school.  It makes my heart smile!
Alyssa is walking- EVERYWHERE!!  She loves climbing and standing on things.  She loves pushing her baby in her stroller and holding her and saying "awww" while patting her back.  She has a handful of words"light, tree, dog, dada, and mama".  She is one of the sweetest, most lovable kids I know.   She LOVES Oliver.  She often says "dog" and walks over to him, pats him, and loves on him.  Oliver get a lot of love from Alyssa and the old guy deserves it.  He is such a great dog and takes all of Alyssa's "love".
Last, but certainly not least, we got our pictures back from Amy Smith Photopgraphy and as usual, she did not disappoint. She is amazing and we can never thank her enough for capturing these special moments.  If you want beautiful family pictures- she is your lady!  Check out some of the previews! 

Our Little Sea Turtle

Yesterday was a fun filled day starting with a visit to the wonderful Dr. Norton.  The girls had their 1 year old and 3 years old check ups. Their stats are as follows: Alyssa- 19.6 lbs. (25th percentile), 29 1/4" long (50th percentile) and her head is 18 3/4 (97th percentile).  Addison- 28.8 lbs. (25th percentile), 37" tall (50th percentile).  Alyssa got her 1 year old shots along with her flu shot with minimal crying.  Addison got her flu shot and didn't even flinch!  I was shocked and so very proud.  I was more nervous than her.  Dr. Norton was extremely pleased with the girls growth and development.  The girls were pleased with the toys in the office and the stickers they received on the way out! It was an extra special trip because Grandma was with us.

After the doctors we headed to IKEA for a day of shopping and lunch.  Addison had a great time exploring and Alyssa had a great time just hanging out in the stroller taking in all the sights.  After a day full of shopping, the girls crashed on the ride home.
That afternoon we headed to Daytona Beach for a photo shoot with the wonderful Amy Smith.  If you have not ever seen her work, I highly recommend visiting her website http://www.amysmithphoto.com/main.php  Amy is a sorority sister of mine from college and is an amazingly talented photographer.  She photographed Alyssa when she was just days old and we were lucky enough to have her capture some more family images this week.  The girls were excited and ready to go.  My dear friend Dawn made their dresses and they were looking adorable!  You can visit her website at http://www.addyandtabby.com/.  As we made our way down to the beach, Amy was working with another family.  As we got closer Brian recognized the mom.  It was Dr. D'Heureux, the doctor who delivered Alyssa!  It was the most ironic thing ever!  We couldn't believe we ran into her almost 1 year to the day of Alyssa's birth at the beach!  It would have made for the perfect picture, but I was nervous to try to impose that on her and Alyssa as we didn't want to upset Alyssa.  She has entered this stranger fear stage.  We chatted for a few minutes, said our good-byes and started our pictures.  The girls started out very cooperative.  Addison was smiling and Alyssa was doing the best she could. Poor Amy had to be exhausted from trying to get Alyssa to look at the camera and smile.  The day was perfect, cool, breezy and overcast, perfect picture conditions! The first chance Alyssa had to get her feet in the ocean, she took it!  She was like a sea turtle!  She crawled as fast as she could straight to the ocean.  I guess we never thought about how intrigued Alyssa would be with the sand!  All in all we think  it went well, we can't wait to see what Amy got!

1 Year Old- ALREADY?!?

So many times you hear, "they grow so fast" and as a new mom, you never want to hear it.  You want those snuggly infant days to last forever.  But no one told me how much FASTER the second one would grow.  I can hardly believe that little sweet Alyssa is 1 year old!  She is sweeter and cuter than ever, but getting bigger and bigger.  Every morning when she wakes up, it seems as if she has grown overnight.  It is such a bittersweet time for us.  We are so thrilled that she is happy, healthy, and growing like she should.  However, with each milestone met, it reminds me of how fast she is turning into a toddler and no longer my baby.  She has 3 words: Dog, Dada, hi, and Ugh-oh (if that counts as a word).  She is waving, trying to sign I love you and using the signs for milk and more. This past week, with the help of our amazing nanny, we transitioned off of bottles completely.  Alyssa had no problems, it took 1 day!  She is drinking only from sippy cups now.  The bottles are packed up and ready for baby Kamden who will be arriving in the next 45ish days. 
Alyssa's first birthday party was quite the event!  She has been our little "chubba-wubba" since the beginning.  When she started crawling, Addison called her a "paterpillar".  She also LOVES to eat and always have, so we decided to go with The Very Hungry Caterpillar as our theme.  The food was themed around the book as well as the decorations and favors.  We had a bounce house, for the big kids. Don't be fooled, Alyssa enjoyed it as well.  All of our family and friends were here to celebrate.  I had the best time planning the party (as I always do).  I know, she will never remember it, but with over 300 pictures taken that day, I will be sure to document it all in a scrapbook for her to look back on.
It seems as birthdays in the Logsdon house always seem to last for multiple days and I have decided that I am perfectly ok with that.  We have so many reasons to celebrate; smart kids, cute kids, and most importantly healthy kids. So on October 3, her actual birthday, we headed to Disney World for the day.  Our day started with a parade, then we had lunch with Pooh and Friends and then rode the rides and celebrated all day long! 
The biggest news is FIRST STEPS!!!!!  October 10th, she took 4 of them and we caught them on video- thank God for the iPhone.  It makes it so easy to have a video camera at our fingertips at all times. Our next big step is moving her out of the infant car seat.  She is still small enough to be in in, but she may be more comfortable in the bigger seat. Mommy is just not so sure she can handle anything more this week
Here are just a few of the hundreds (literally)of pictures that were taken at the birthday celebrations!

All for an Animal Cracker!

Addison took her first steps on the beach for a Cheese Doodle, so it would only be fitting for Alyssa to follow her sisters' lead and do it for food as well. Today we were in the playroom just hanging out and Addison was eating animal crackers. Well Alyssa wants ANYTHING that anyone is eat- no matter what it is. So we gave her a little piece and of course, she loved it. So I stood her up and tried coaxing her with it. Much to my surprise, she took 2 steps. I yelled for Brian and he came running with the iPhone of course. We tried it again and it worked! 4 full steps! At 1 year and 6 days, we can see walking is in our VERY near future!

Alyssa just LOVES her big sister!!! She watches everything she does and is trying to copy everything she does. While it is really cute now, I am sure at some point it will cause some drama for their Momma! Today they enjoyed eating dinner that Addison cooked!