$8.99 - Priceless

Logan cashed in his allowance money tonight and bought a 8500-piece bucket of Perler beads. Have to admit that I have never heard of them. I guess daycare has been using them as project submissions for the annual county fair. As soon as we got home, Logan sat at the kitchen table for over an hour diligently working on his sail boat. He would have stayed there longer if we didn't make him go brush his teeth. Who knew it only cost $8.99 for an hour of silence for a 5-year-old :-)

Here are a couple of pictures of Logan's campout in the backyard....

Camp Kanabec Trail

Quick update on the camping adventure last night in our backyard. Remember, our concern was Logan waking up in the middle of the night screaming.....not Carter (he was in his crib inside with Dad).

After months of sleeping through the night without incident, Carter decided to take advantage of Dad and decided to wake up twice (midnight and 1am) in the middle of the night for some juice. Then to top it off, our house must have had a power surge b/c at 3:10am one of our fire alarms started going off for about 45 seconds. I promptly decided there was no smoke, the windows were open so there was no CO2 issues, and went to bed....only to wake up at 5:10am for work.

Oh yeah....and the camping duo - they went to bed at 7:45pm and slept all night.

A Tribute to Michael Jackson

I have to be sentimental here for a minute - Michael Jackson was the first cassette tape I ever received....back in the 3rd grade. I still remember girls writing on their desks, "I love Michael." And who could forget the days of wearing red, leather zipper jackets and the occasional white glove. So long to the King of Pop! I do have to admit that I always thought everyone needed to at least see one Michael Jackson concert in their lifetime, I guess that didn't happen to us. Ok - I am over it now. Time to move on.....

We may not have the King of Pop in our house, but Carter is taking after his big brother and signing, dancing, pounding on the drums and playing the guitar like an Elvis impersonator. As cute as it is, there are times we are driving down the street and I feel like my ears are going to explode. This morning on the way home from church we told Logan we were turning down the music and he threw the CD case at us from the backseat - let's just say the "time out" chair was waiting for his little butt when we pulled in the driveway.

Other happenings since our last post in the Mayfield house:
-We went to the cabin last weekend and caught more tangled fish line then fish
-Enjoyed an incredible wedding for one of Shawn's former youth group kids in Forest Lake...Ashley was only 12 when Shawn was her youth pastor - now she is married. Yes, another sign we are getting old.
-Spent oddles of days over the past week enjoying the waterpark at the health club...sometimes it feels just like being in the Caribbean sipping smoothies (for those out-of-towners on our D list - it was 90+ and humid all week)
-We ordered new carpet for our upstairs, dining room and study (old stuff was getting a little worn)
-Helped grandma closer with a very successful garage sale (let us know if you need baby stuff - it is going to the church close closet next week)

Things to look forward to this week:
-Only 2 days of work!!!! And no travel for Shawn - FINALLY!
-Logan is getting tubes again on Wednesday (keep him in your prayers)
-We will probably go to the cabin a couple of days (Shawn may stay home and stain the deck and paint the bedroom)

Logan and Sara and camping out in our backyard tonight. I think Logan dragged down his entire bedroom into the tent. Hopefully they will sleep well as tomorrow Sara is bringing they boys and one of Logan's buddies to the zoo all-day.

Gender Identification

For the past several weeks we thought Carter was constantly saying, "I'm a boy!" Being the supportive parents that we are we would affirm his gender identification - of course his big brother just laughed at him. HOWEVER....this weekend the light bulb went on and we realized he has actually been saying "All aboard." I know - amazing....how could we have been confused. I guess he must have picked up the saying from his Thomas books. Who knows!

Logan started gymnastics this week with 4 other boys. He is the only 5 year old in the class and thinks it is pretty cool that he gets to be in class with the 6 year olds. After his first session tonight, he talked to Shawn on the phone (in San Francisco - AGAIN!), and talked a mile a minute about everything he learned.

The other exciting news in our house is that we are taking advantage of Shawn's mom who is having a garage sale in a couple of weeks. We didn't think we were the collection type, but so far we have unloaded (2) SUV loads of stuff to sell. It is amazing how much stuff you accumulate with kids. We are selling all the baby stuff - read between the lines on that one if you are curious about the stork visiting our house again - as well as tons of nick nacks. We figure if the State Dept comes calling we will need to downgrade our belongings anyway - mine as well do it now. Most of the stuff has been collecting dust in the basement. Sara was even able to FINALLY talk Shawn into throwing his undergraduate text books in the recycling - figure 17 year old text books don't have much value anymore....YES - 17 years ago we started our first year at GAC! Yikes!

It is only Monday, but we are already looking forward to the weekend. Our plans this weekend include: dinner with friends on Friday, a wedding on Saturday (one of Shawn's former youth group kids in Forest Lake is getting married - she was only 13 when we first met her - YES, we are feeling a little old), then we may go to the cabin on Sunday/Monday before Shawn flys out again to Denver next week.

Happy early Father's Day to all the dads out there......

Pictures are Worth a Thousand Words

We made it home safe from our vacation in Myrtle Beach. Everyone had a great time and enjoyed visiting Grandpa Bob and Hannah; as well as playing in the sand on the beach. Here are some pictures that provide a synopsis of our trip.



Logan loved to boggy board - or however you spell it!



Picture or our condo - per our last post, highly recommend

And a couple more random photos.

Myrtle Beach - Part I

We apologize for neglecting our regular blog followers and not submitting a post for the past couple of weeks. It has been a hectic time getting ready for our week vacation to Charlotte and Myrtle Beach. Once we thought everything was in order, Logan decided to have his first major bike wipe out the night before we left. We are not really sure what happened as we were about 20 ft behind him. From his personal account, it sounds like he was riding on the the paved path through the woods with his 2 buddies when he turned around to watch them. When he turned back around the path curved and he over-corrected and went over the handle bars. Some how he landed on his face. Luckily it looked a lot worse than it was. At first we thought maybe he lost a couple of teeth as he was bleeding pretty bad from his mouth, but in the end he ended up with a nice "sole patch" and "moustache" which have scabbed over nicely; as well as a fat lip from biting on it.

The next morning the boys did great when we had to wake them up at 3:45am to catch our 6am flight. Our flight to Charlotte through Chicago was uneventful - which is exactly what you want with 2 kids. I think the Starbucks stop in Chicago gave them the java boost they needed to make it to Charlotte. Both punctually fell asleep as soon as we got the rental car and started the 30 minute drive to Grandpa Bob's.

The boys were so EXCITED to see Grandpa. The both ran to him and spent the afternoon chasing him in the pool and talking, talking, talking. I think Grandpa needs about a week to recover. We spent (1) night with Grandpa Bob then drove the 3.5 hours to Myrtle Beach. We have been here for 4 nights so far and the weather has been terrific - sunny and hot (85-90 degrees) each day. We are staying at the Anderson Ocean Club - highly recommend if you are looking for your next vacation. We have a 1100 sq ft. 2 bedroom/2 bathroom condo with full kitchen, dining room, living room, and 2 balconies. The property is only about 18 months old so everything still smells new. We have a great ocean view and the kids have been spending all day at the beach or one of the 6 pools.

http://www.oceanaresorts.com/myrtle-beach-resorts/anderson-ocean-club/default.asp

Outside of playing in the sand and swimming; the boys have been playing lots of mini-golf, watching the fishermen on the pier, and Logan learned how to boogy board. Tomorrow we will head back to Charlotte for another night at Grandpa Bob's. We will post some pictures after we get back home later this weekend.