Some Random Happiness

Here's a short video of Logan rolling over at Brittany and Neal's house the day we ate pizza with them. Whether or not his last "rollover" counted, this time there were multiple witnesses and it's been reproduced. :)

A little bit of everything

Wow, brace yourself for a pretty random, scatterbrained post. :)

One goal Eric and I set for this summer was to try and go on a picnic every Friday for lunch since Eric doesn't have Friday classes and the weather is so nice. We've tried to explore different local parks each time and thus far my favorite is located by the Scera outdoor theater in Orem. It has a nice playground, lots of shade from beautiful old trees and it's kept up really well.
Watching all the little kids playing on the toys got me real excited for Logan to be big enough to at least go down the slide. As you can tell from the picture above, he has yet to grasp the excitement of going to the park. :)

Logan has definitely become more interactive and now loves putting everything in his mouth and standing up. He'll grab things like toys, blankets, clothing, etc. and try to eat them but he has yet to actually grab his binky and put that in his mouth. The day he learns to do that on his own will be a beautiful day indeed.
Look, he can even stand on his own!
Okay, he's actually leaning against the chair, but it looks pretty real to me. ;)

Last weekend we hung out with Brittany and Neal again and challenged them to a friendly game of bowling. Last time we did this Brittany and Neal royally kicked our trash, courtesy of my terrible score dragging our team total down. Miraculously this time we actually won!
Better yet though, Brittany and I both creamed the guys. That was certainly a highlight for me. :)
Here's Neal attempting to bowl Logan down the lane:
And Logan trying those fabulous bowling shoes on for size:
Afterwards we went back to Neal and Brittany's apartment to eat their amazing homemade pizza and watch Valkyrie, which was pretty sad and depressing. If only we could actually change history.

Lastly, we played our last intramural soccer game of the spring season this past Tuesday. Our team did pretty well, making it to the semi-final game in division one where sadly we lost, but still had fun and finished 4th. The crazy thing is that by our last game, I swear that nearly half of our team was either recovering from sickness (mainly the flu) or just coming down with it. Now that the season's over I hope everyone will have the chance to recover. Here's our team picture taken right after the game (so everyone would look amazing, of course! ;) GO WOMBATS!

The Game of Life

We recently had our cousins Brittany and Neal over for a fun evening of dinner and games. After a delicious meal of hamburger pie and biscuits, we busted out one of the few games that Eric and I actually own: The Game of Life. Before this occasion Eric and I had played the game a handful of times before, but generally with just the two of us (yeah, we're lame like that). It was a lot of fun, especially since there was a lot more "strategy" playing with four people and funny things kept happening. Like the fact that Brittany and I each hit almost every "It's a boy", "It's a girl" and "Twins" square on the board. Our little cars couldn't even hold all our kids but we tried valiantly to seat them all. Neal ended up with a lot of kids as well and somehow Eric didn't end up with any. The funniest thing is when we started the game, we joked that the point of the game/winning should be based on who has the most kids, not on who gets the most money (what a good moral this game has). Here's a picture of cars at the end of the game:
Another fun aspect that came up with more players was fighting/competing for the salary cards. We had both the highest salary ($100,000) and the lowest ($20,000) in play and they changed hands so many times it was ridiculous. We thought it was particularly funny that Eric who was the only one NOT to go to college kept rotating salaries between $90,000 and $100,000 while us poor college grads were getting our trashes kicked. And the fact that Brittany hadn't even graduated from college yet and she'd already won the Nobel Peace Prize. Yeah, she's good like that. :)
On another note, in our actual lives Logan just hit a milestone: he rolled over by himself! Okay, Eric doesn't actually think it counts because it happened while Logan was laying on our bed and he thinks indents helped him out, but I can't discredit Logan's achievement. He started on his back and slowly ended up on his stomach and that counts as rolling over in my book. Sadly his left arm was caught under his body and he couldn't pull it out so he decided to try and gnaw it off... ;) Here's Logan moments after the event:

A Month of Celebration

In the past couple of weeks, our family has celebrated a number of occasions. About two weeks ago we attended a surprise party for Adam who was preparing to leave to Shanghai, China for a law internship. It was a fun party and it was nice to see him before he left, but we more or less totally blew the surprise. We came late to the party and thought Adam was already there but he drove up while we were standing in the driveway. I felt terrible but luckily his girlfriend Chelsey who was hosting the party was able to smooth over our untimely appearance so he was still surprised by the large group of people inside.

A week later we helped my cousin Brittany pull off another surprise birthday party for her husband Neal who turned 24. We decorated their apartment, made a cake, provided an alibi for their return at a certain time, etc. Unfortunately, we kind of blew the surprise again; when Neal and Brittany pulled into their parking spot they noticed our jeep in the visitor parking. Neal was a little confused but just assumed that we had just beat them home to hang out with them. Luckily, he was still surprised by the other people there and we had a good time. We ate cake and buffalo wings, sang to Neal, played Guitar Hero, stayed up late talking, etc. Overall it went really well.

Here's a picture of Neal, the birthday boy with his chocolate cake and a picture of Eric, Andrew and Andrea playing Guitar Hero.
Just a few days later we celebrated Logan's 3-month-a-versary with a cake, candles and everything. Okay, I'll admit it, I was more or less just looking for an excuse to bake another cake because I had a lot of frosting left over from Neal's cake, but it was fun none the less. The cake was good, but really unnecessary health-wise.
I'll admit it, I have a baking problem. Less than a year into marriage Eric had to ban me from making cakes for a good six months or so. It's not so much that I crave cake (though I do like it), I just get really excited about some decorating idea I want to try out so I need a cake to decorate. It's a hobby I'm not super great at but I really like doing. The problem is I don't always have an occasion for the cakes so Eric and I end up with a full-size cake in our house and no one else to eat it. That's the biggest problem. Nothing spectacular, but here are some random cakes I've decorated.

Eulogy for my hair

Okay, I gave in to being a stereotypical new mom and I chopped my hair! Logan has finally hit that "I thoroughly enjoy tangling my hands up in mommy's hair" phase and after only a week of it, I decided to cut my hair. Now understand, I've had long hair almost my entire life. My mom always encouraged me to keep it long, and I've liked it that way most of the time, but I've always been curious about what short hair would be like. Like above my shoulders short hair. I cut it just below my shoulders my junior year of high school but since then it's only grown longer. Until today. It now barely touches my shoulders and I'm pretty sure Eric is in shock. I was real excited to try something new but Eric's only known me with long hair. We looked at pictures of short hair online the other day and Eric came up with three rules for me before I went in to the salon. Number one, no spikes. Number two, it has to be able to touch my shoulders. And number three, no A-line haircut. Personally I think there are some really cute A-line haircuts out there but I agree with Eric that I would not be able to pull one off. I stuck to his "rules" and here is the finished product before and after.
I was excited that I got to donate my hair to locks of love, but now Eric and I have to come to love it. I'm still kind of excited, but slightly sad too. It's bittersweet.

Sleeping baby = time to blog

So a ton has happened since I last wrote (which is bound to happen in nearly 3 months…) so I’ll try and summarize. First and most importantly, our happy little family of two has now grown to a happy, though slightly sleep deprived, family of three. Logan is coming up on three months old and though there are rough moments every now and then (normally during feedings that fall between the hours of 3-5 in the morning), I can honestly say that I love being a mom. I feel like a mom riding an emotional roller coaster, but it's worth it. Before Logan's birth, I couldn't even imagine how happy he'd make me. Seriously. I can’t see him smile without breaking into smiles myself and I actually cried I was so happy watching him hold and shake a rattle for the first time. I’ve traded my heartburn for the pains of breastfeeding but I know that overall I’ve been really lucky. Logan's been a healthy, happy baby and I couldn't ask for more. He's relatively mellow and I have a feeling Heavenly Father knew I wouldn’t be able to handle much more. I’m pretty sure I would have cracked mentally and emotionally if Logan was colicky, which I was really scared would happen. I tip my hat to moms who’ve survived colicky babies.

In the past months, Logan has made a number of changes. He started out as a baby that frequently slept, was content to just be cradled in anyone's arms, could lay for long periods of time just watching a ceiling fan and rarely made noise. He still sleeps a bit, but unless he's really tired he doesn't want to be cradled because he always wants to be able to look around. He's a fan of people singing to him, especially the little bit of the "Elmo's World" song that we know which makes him grin every time. He also enjoys holding his right fist straight out and staring at it. It's kind of strange, but funny to watch and we assume it's a developmental thing.

It's been neat as well to watch and listen as he's become a bit more active. He makes quite a few noises, including the "oo" sound and a goat-like laugh. Hopefully he'll outgrow the latter. He's always liked to swing his arms and legs around, but it's starting to get a little more coordinated as he's grabbing items that we hold out for him. Lastly, I think he's turning into a flirt. He's got the cutest smile and he's definitely learned how to use it. He just flashes his big blue eyes and that adorable smile and it doesn't matter how frustrated I am with him for not eating, I just melt. Logan even uses it on Eric when Eric's frustrated trying to get him to fall asleep. It's a serious weapon. ;)

Here are some random pictures we've taken over the past few months, mainly of Logan (no surprise).

On another note, Eric's internship in Boise these past couple of months with KPMG went well and we've happily accepted a job offer there so we'll officially be moving to Boise permanently in a year or so. When we left I was just starting to get to know my way around so it'll be nice to be able to use that knowledge in the near future. We had a good time living with Camille, Jacob, Jack, Mike and Nate and we're excited to visit again coming up in July, especially since Eric's parents and Emily and Aaron will be back from Mexico that month.

From about mid March to mid April we got to live with my parents and brothers in Washington which was really neat. My mom and dad got to spend some time with their first grandchild and my mom taught me how to better take care of Logan, especially in the bath department (Logan didn't like baths much before my mom helped me out, but now he loves them!). It was fun to watch my two youngest brothers interact with Logan since they've never really spent much time around babies. They got the "opportunity" to change diapers for the first time and they really seemed to enjoy holding him. During our time in Washington, Eric kept busy helping my parents remodel/finish our garage. He helped build cabinets and shelving, install drywall, wire lights, paint and texture the walls, seal the concrete, etc. Here's a picture of him during lunch on the day they were preparing the drywall to be textured and painted.

Here's also a quick video of Logan eating his first Popsicle while we were in Washington.

All in all we had a really good time both in Boise and in Washington, but it's nice to finally be back in our home in Provo. We've really been looking forward to bringing Logan to the house that was our first home together. We've been hanging out with friends, playing intramural soccer together again and hitting up the public library multiple times a week for free movie rentals and kids books. We've only had one soccer game thus far and we've realized that we'll need to hold some practices to get me back in shape a bit so I won't make quite as big a fool of myself in the following games as I did in our last. Oh well, I embrace and need the exercise after many months of near inactivity. Besides that, Eric's just taking a couple of classes and I'm just chilling at home with Logan. Life is good.

Logan William Channer

Quick update: Logan William Channer was born on Thursday, Feb. 19th at 2:00 pm. He weighed 8.0 lbs and was 20.75 inches long. Tasha and Logan are home and doing great. Per request from some family and friends, here are some pictures of our new addition. We will post some more later.

-Eric