9 Months

Logan turned 9 months on December 18th. He had his 9 month checkup on December 22nd. He didn't have to get any shots, but did have his finger pricked to check his iron levels (something they routinely do at 9 months).

His stats:

Weight: 21 pounds, 5 ounces (70th percentile)

Height: 28 inches (30th percentile)

Logan at 9 months:

*Crawls like an elephant with his bum in the air and both feet on the ground.

*Can move fast when he has motivation to get something he wants.

*Is always saying, "Blah, blah, blah..."

*Hates having his diaper changed and getting dressed.

*Is always pulling his socks off.

*Just started clapping.

*Can climb up stairs (definitely not unsupervised).

*Likes to affectionately claw faces.

*Has discovered the toilet and the dishwasher.

Logan's 9th month in pictures...

He figured out how to climb up stairs on our drive to Colorado for Thanksgiving.

And got his first taste of ice cream on our way home.

The day after I did his 8 month post (and said he hadn't discovered the toilet yet), I got out of the shower to find this. Careful what you ask for...

We can't keep socks on this kid! One day I had to run a quick errand to Walmart and I absolutely couldn't find the other one, so I was that mom walking around Walmart with only one sock on my baby!

The day before we left for Disneyland, Rog took the older two kids on errands and left me home with Logan to do laundry and pack. It was like I had gone back in time to when it was just me and Corbyn hanging out all the time. 

Here's that affectionate clawing I was talking about.

He loves to climb up on the dishwasher and unload the silverware.

This is one of his favorite places to hang out - standing up on our entertainment center. 

The best thing about this picture is we have an almost identical one of Peyton at about the same age!

We love our busy little guy!

Our Fellowship Journey

After graduating with a degree in healthcare administration, you can either do an administrative fellowship at a large hospital or take a job in healthcare at a hospital or clinic. Fellowships are generally 1 year and don't pay very well, but they give you a lot of valuable experience and they usually end in an offer for a job that does pay pretty well. Rog had a hard time deciding if he should pursue a fellowship (lots of prayer, fasting, and asking advice from mentors), but ultimately decided he would. The fellowship application process is very intense and very competitive. I'm grateful Rog took a light class load this semester, so he could have plenty of time to focus on fellowships.

For each fellowship he created a folder like this one to send his application in. 

Included in each folder was his resume, cover letter, letters of recommendation, and essays specific to each fellowship.

Most of the applications were due in September and early October. Early in the process he wasn't getting any interviews. He doesn't necessarily stand out on paper, but he interviews extremely well, so I knew if he could just get some interviews he'd be golden. It was just getting those interviews that was challenging! He asked for feedback from those early applications and refined his resume and cover letter as he continued to apply for more. He ended up applying all over the country (mostly on the east and west coasts) in Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Oregon, Washington, California, and Colorado (for multiple fellowships in each state).

After those first rejections, he started getting phone interviews and from there he got fly-out interviews with Kaiser in Oregon, Johns Hopkins in Maryland, and Centura in Colorado. His first fly-out interview was with Kaiser in Oregon. That was his first choice and although the interview went extremely well, he wasn't chosen. (One of the applicants was chosen because he had specific experience with something they were looking for and the other applicant was chosen because he was from the University of Minnesota.) He asked for feedback and they couldn't really give him any (because he did so well) which was frustrating.

However, one of the interviewers really liked him and asked if he would interview for a full-time position. He interviewed for that position (while he was also doing the fly-out interviews in Maryland and Colorado) and was offered a job as a project manager. About the same time, he was offered two fellowships in Colorado (one in Denver and one in Colorado Springs) and was also waiting to hear from Johns Hopkins. They were all good options (with pros and cons to each), but we ultimately decided to take the job with Kaiser in Oregon. He turned down the fellowship offers in Colorado and turned down Johns Hopkins before they even told him if he was selected (so we will never know if he got that one or not).

I've never lived outside Utah and I've never even been to Oregon, but we've heard nothing but great things about it. We are excited for the adventures that await us there! We'll be in the Portland area, but we don't know exactly where yet. Rog doesn't start his job until June 13th, so we have a lot of time to figure it out. We'll be flying out there sometime this spring to check out different suburbs of Portland and look at houses.

We have some family in the Portland area, but none that we know very well. (I'm sure we'll get to know them!) And I'm grateful to know we'll have a ward there to take care of us and become our friends. (I don't know how people make friends without the church!) I'm also excited to know we'll have a temple close by - the Portland Oregon temple.

Even though we started this journey with the goal to get a fellowship, we feel like this is the right opportunity for us - especially since we likely wouldn't have found this job otherwise. Oregon, here we come! 

8 Months

Logan turned 8 months on November 18th. 

Logan at 8 months:

*Is a busy baby - he crawls everywhere and is into just about everything (although he hasn't discovered the toilet yet).

*Loves to eat and growls at you if you aren't feeding him fast enough. We're still doing a lot of pouches mostly because they make mealtimes quick and they keep him clean (for the most part). These refillable pouches were a wonderful discovery! He is also doing great at feeding himself finger foods (like Cheerios). 

*Makes a beeline for the front or garage door as soon as one of them opens.

*Slaps his tray or any solid surface in front of him.

*Pulls himself up to standing just about everywhere he can.

*Loves to pull the nightlight in our hallway out every morning.

*Is constantly trying to get our cords into his mouth and knocking over our surround sound speakers.

Logan's 8th month in pictures...

Eating leaves on a fall picnic.

Loves being pushed around on this toy - especially when Corbyn or Peyton do it.

Every time we turn around he's pulling himself up on something new. This time it was under the table. 

If I try feeding him something off my fork, he'll steal it from me every time.

The ladder in Corbyn and Peyton's room is one of his favorite places to stand.

He loves tomatoes! He may look like Rog, but he definitely doesn't get that from him. 

I saw this bear snowsuit online at OldNavy.com and I had to buy it. It turns him into the softest living teddy bear and I just love to snuggle him when he's wearing it!

Grandma Dixie bought him this shirt. Too funny and it couldn't be more fitting.

Another side-by-side comparison with Corbyn. Same swing, same bear jacket, both at about 8 months. (Corbyn on the left, Logan on the right.) 

Doesn't seem to mind his cage too much!

We love this happy little guy!

Five on Friday

Five of my new favorite fall recipes...

1. Slow Cooker Butternut Squash Tortellini. Logan and I are butternut squash lovers while the rest of our family are butternut squash haters, so I was taking a huge risk by making this for dinner. But let me tell you, that risk paid off big time when they all ate it without a word of complaint. And then I had to hold back my laughter when I asked what they thought was in it and their answer was cheese. Warning: While wonderful the first day, this is not one of those meals that is just as good the next day, so make it when you're serving a crowd.

2. Pumpkin Apple Spice Muffins. This muffin just screams autumn with pumpkin, apple, and pumpkin spice. It's practically a dessert, but because it's called a muffin you can justify eating it for breakfast. What's not to love about that?!

3. Pumpkin Spice Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Glaze. Cinnamon rolls are one of Rog's favorite foods and he's kind of a cinnamon roll purest in that he thinks they shouldn't be messed with. So I've always stuck with good old regular cinnamon rolls, but just in the last few months I've gone a little crazy trying every version out there. This pumpkin spice version was a winner. And the maple glaze was the perfect finishing touch - even my dad thought so and he is the biggest maple hater I know!  

4. Apple Fritters. Making the dough for these could not have been easier. Frying them was a little more tricky and I ended up with quite a few doughnuts that didn't exactly get cooked all the way to the very center. That being said, after popping them in the microwave for a few seconds the middle cooked right up and they were pretty close to perfection.

5. Apple Pie Cinnamon Rolls. I'm going to have a really really hard time going back to regular cinnamon rolls now that I know these babies exist. I don't know what else to say except these are amazing and you should really make them ASAP!

Halloween

We had some fun Halloween FHE activities the weeks leading up to Halloween. One week we played Halloween Bingo.

And had dirt and worms for our treat. (The Oreo was supposed to be a tombstone, but it didn't end up looking like I had imagined.)

The next week we carved our pumpkins. Rog and the kids cleaned them out.

And then I carved them. We did a Wizard of Oz theme this year for our pumpkins and our costumes. Logan's pumpkin was the Lion, Corbyn's pumpkin was the Tin Man, and Peyton's pumpkin was Dorothy and Toto (although she dressed up as Glinda).

I had to take pictures of the kids in their Halloween pajamas - one mummy and two skeletons.

And their Halloween outfits too. 

Logan is so much easier to photograph than the other two (for now).

After doing our ghoulish feast the Sunday before Halloween, I decided to do some fun Halloween lunches. It's so easy to turn a normal lunch into a Halloween lunch with some cookie cutters. I cut out quesadillas, apple slices, cucumbers (they didn't eat them, but it was worth a try), PB&J sandwiches, and cheese sandwiches in fun Halloween shapes. We also had mummy pizzas, candy corn pizza (for dinner one night), swamp yogurt, and jack-o-lantern tangelos.

Peyton got to dress up for dance on Wednesday and for preschool on Thursday. Friday morning we went to the Halloween parade at Rees Elementary. It was so fun seeing Corbyn walk by with his class.

Friday night Cailey invited us to the Qualitrics Halloween party. Since Rog was in Baltimore on another fellowship interview, I gladly accepted. They had dinner, dancing, face painting, balloons, and so much candy. Peyton got her face painted like Minnie Mouse and got a Minnie Mouse balloon.

Corbyn got his face painted half Spider-Man and half BYU and got a monkey balloon (not pictured).

Saturday morning I was frantically finishing up my costume. Because I was in such a rush at the end, I did a terrible job on the zipper. I was able to cover it up by wearing a cardigan, but I'm going to have to go back and fix it because I know I can do better.

 

I had planned to do a dinner in a pumpkin for dinner, but ran out of steam after spending every spare second that week sewing my costume (Rog says I'm not allowed to sew my own costume ever again). So we had mummy hot dogs and Caramel Toffee Fruit Dip (with Halloween sprinkles) instead. (And we had the Dinner in a Pumpkin a few days later after I'd recovered.)

I think Corbyn enjoyed getting his face painted gray for trick-or-treating.

Grandma Lori was a good sport and dressed up as the Wicked Witch to complete our Wizard of Oz theme. (We tried to get Papa George to be the Wizard of Oz and Jared and Cailey to be flying monkeys, but they wouldn't go for it.) I made sure we got a picture before going out trick-or-treating. Some parts of our costumes I made and other parts I bought, but I feel like they all came together perfectly.

I'm so grateful Rog will dress up with me. He even let me paint his face.

We went to a few houses in our neighborhood, but then went up by my parent's house for the majority of our time since no one is ever home in our neighborhood.

While we were out trick-or-treating we saw a Toto dog running around. I had to pick him up for a picture. He nearly bit off my hand, but it was worth it.

Logan the lion was more interested in the scarecrow's straw than getting candy.

Cutest little Lion ever!

The kids decided to sell most of their candy to a dentist in Springville that was buying it to send to the troops. They each got $1.50. We matched that, so they each had $3 to pick out a little toy. Corbyn got a Transformer and Peyton got a Little Pony. It worked out perfectly - they got to enjoy some candy, but then it wasn't sitting around the house for weeks!

It was a pretty great Halloween!

Ghoulish Feast

Another year, another ghoulish feast!

For our menu, I modified one I found here.

Jack-O-Lantern Juice (I saw this on Pinterest, but didn't pin it, so I can't link to it. They were actually really quick and easy using my Silhouette to cut the vinyl faces and then using transfer tape to stick them on.) 

Sinister Chips and Salsa (I put some black beans in the guacamole to make it sinister.)

Haunted Salad (I do this one - and the Spooky Squash - every year now.)

Rice and Blood with Devil Tail Meatballs (Our favorite sweet and sour meatballs with devil tail toothpicks stuck in them - I just put some toothpicks in red food coloring for a few days, cut out triangles with my Silhouette, and glued them on with my trusty glue gun.)  

Eyeball Cake 

I think it turned out to be a pretty fun Halloween spread!