Playtime

The other day Lincoln and I were playing on the floor. It was a warm winter day (what? We have those in Texas), so he was just hanging out in his diaper. This was a few days before he discovered those wonderful things attached to his feet; toes!

He is getting so big that it is hard to fit all of him in the frame unless he is partially curled up.

Daddy passed through the living room on his way to the kitchen to get a snack and couldn’t resist tickling Lincoln’s chubby little cheeks. Lincoln loves it when you tickle him.

That grin of his melts my heart. No matter how bad of a day I am having, that grin always puts me in a good mood.

Happy valentines….umm week

I realize valentines day was Tuesday, so this post is a little late.  But I figure as long as it is in the same week I’m good, right?

This was Fiona’s first valentines day where she got to hand out valentines at school. I saw it as an opportunity to design some cute cards. Yes I know I could have bought some, but where is the fun in that? If I had bought some I wouldn’t have learned that Fiona really likes to play with glue sticks. Something about gluing things together that is alot of fun.

Fiona still love ladybugs (well more precisely ladybug girl). So I decided to make some “lovebug” cards.

I picked up some red heart paper at Hobby Lobby to glue on the back of the cards (1. It added thickness, 2. It made the back of the cards cute as well). I printed the cards (I had to buy a printer just to do this, you would have thought I already had one, but nope. It involved lots of research, multiple trips to the store, the purchase of 2 printers and the return of 1). Fiona was in charge of gluing on the back of the card, a job she loved.  I didn’t want to give just a card, and I didn’t want to give candy with the card (she is in preschool, I don’t think all the extra candy is necessary at this age). Im the not fun mom who thinks every holiday doesn’t require candy… cupcakes maybe. Anyway, so while wandering around the valentine section at Target I found mini valentine playdohs. Sweet, those would be perfect. Fun and not full of sugar. But of course I couldn’t just give out playdoh, it had to match the cards (of course!). So I did a quick wrap around the playdoh container (this actually was a huge pain to do because the bottom of the playdoh containers are slightly angled. Next time I might just do a sticker on the top). But the end result is cute and fun.

Fiona loved her cards. And was excited to give them to her friends.

I hope everyone’s valentines days were full of love. I took part of the day off and spent it with Mark and Lincoln so some time soon there will be photos from our afternoon with the peacocks.

Lincoln say hello to food

I figured it would be an exciting day for Lincoln when he got to try food. I don’t know if you have noticed that he is not a small boy. Lincoln likes to eat, he likes to eat so much that he often over eats and spits up what his little belly cant hold. Its always a wardrobe risk to hold him after he has eaten.

Well I was right about it being an exciting day. Lincoln eagerly held his spoon in anticipation while I got his rice cereal ready.

Daddy captured a photo of his first bite.

Then we swapped so that I could take a few photos and daddy had a chance to feed him. Look at that grin, he loved being able to eat from a spoon.

Lincoln, if your this excited about rice cereal, just wait until you get to try sweet potatoes in another couple weeks. Since he is only 4 months, we will do rice cereal for several weeks before starting on veggies.

Welcome to the world of food kiddo!

The rain came

January weather can be unpredictable in Austin, at least it has been the last two January’s since we moved. Last year it snowed, and this year it rained 6 inches in a few hours. Our community went from having a dry sunken grassy area to having a pond complete with ducks (I think the ducks were just waiting for the rain to come).

We live close to a McKinney State Park. Which has waterfalls, at least it is suppose to. During the summer the waterfalls dried up due to the drought, so when it rained (Im not sure rain is a good description, the torrential downpour is a better term) we headed over to the park to check out the waterfalls. But unfortunately there were still no waterfalls, although this time due to too much water. The bottom of the falls had risen to meet the top of the falls.

But we had a good time watching the roaring river and splashing in puddles. Fiona and I both headed out with our camera’s to capture the falls.

Lincoln of course came along.

There might not have been waterfalls, but there was some impressive puddles! This was the pathway to the falls.

Here is where the falls are suppose to be. You can kind of see the ring where the falls normally are, but there was so much water there was no where for the water to fall.

Fiona had a lot of fun playing in the puddles.

Then she discovered mud, and the puddles were forgotten.

It has continued to rain on and off for the last week or so. Not as much as that first night, but enough to keep our pond full. Hopefully all this rain has put a dent in the drought from the summer.

Cafe Monet

We have been trying to mix up our playdates lately. And thought we would take the girls to paint some pottery at Cafe Monet. Molly and Fiona love to paint and they loved painting a thing instead of just paper.

First we selected what to paint. The girls both decided on cats. Then they had to prep the cats and give them a sponge bath.

After the cats were all clean it was time to get busy painting. They worked really hard, and concentrated on their cats.

The best part is that they loved it. Fiona must have put at least 8 coats of paint on the cats face.

Look at that grin!

Lincoln came too, and even got in on the action. Fiona and Lincoln put their handprint on a tile for me. I am so hanging that up! But mostly he watched (and ate).

All the kids did their hand prints. Why is that the best thing to paint? Fiona will happily spend hours painting or tracing her hand prints. Here is Molly immortalizing her hand print.

Life with a toddler and a baby

Mark and I both work from home. The good thing is we are both always around, the bad thing is that we are both always around. But it does mean that Daddy can take a few minutes of his lunch break to snuggle with Lincoln and make faces with him. Lincoln was trying to copy his daddy.

Lincoln loves when he gets snuggles from his daddy. I know that Mark loves being able to take a five minute break to make his son giggle in the middle of the afternoon.

At the end of a day of working, snuggling and getting stuff done its time for bed. This used to be a time that we would dread. Fiona used to fight us at bedtime (now apparently she saves those battles for bath time), screaming, crying (from all of us), and demanding that we stay and hold her hand. And then once she fell asleep she would get up half a dozen times through the night. With the aid of a sleep trainer we were all finally able to get some sleep. Now she doesn’t fight us. For the most part she is even happy to go to bed…mostly because now her play tent is in her room. We read stories in there and play with flashlights. Many nights I peek into this:

Fiona passed out in her tent with a book and a flashlight. Happy reading sweet one.

Lincoln meet your grandparents; Grandparents, meet Lincoln

Lincoln got to meet his grandparents for the first time in December.  Fiona calls my parents Grandma and Poppa. At first Lincoln and his Poppa weren’t too sure about each other.

But after awhile Lincoln thought his Poppa was pretty cool, and would sit on his lap hearing all about his Poppa’s crazy Halloween exploits. I left Lincoln with his Poppa while I went to pick Fiona up from school one afternoon, and when we got back they were watching video’s of my parents house at Halloween. I love the look on Lincoln’s face, kinda of a “wow, you made that skeleton talk Poppa”, followed by “mmm, this hand is pretty tasty”.

His grandma loved to snuggle him, and make a tired Lincoln feel better.

But Grandma’s favorite thing? Making Lincoln smile. When Lincoln flashes one of his smiles you cant help but smile back and think that all is right in the world.

The kids had alot of fun visiting with their grandparents, maybe this summer we will head to Hawaii to see them (and cool off from the Austin heat!).

The many faces of Lincoln

The other day Fiona took a nice long nap, and Lincoln did not. Its a wonderful, magical moment when both children are asleep at the same time in the afternoon. Since Lincoln was awake we got some one on one playtime in. He sat on my lap and chatted and cooed. He can be pretty chatty when he is in the mood.

And he often cracks himself up. In the mornings he will sit in the pram in the kitchen while we eat breakfast or get Fiona’s lunch together and he will talk and giggle at himself.

Then there is the serious, thinking expression. I love how expressive his lips are (both kids have my lips, one of the few traits I passed on).

There is also his quiet observing of the world look, which also shows off his double chin rather well. Ahhh, sweet, chubby baby cheeks.

All that playtime made for a hungry Lincoln and he nibbled on his fingers until it was time to eat. Sometimes he likes to see just how many fingers he can get in his mouth at once.

Little guy is growing and changing so fast. Sometimes I want to hit pause so we can enjoy this stage for a little longer, but I know the next stage will be just as fun and tiring.

Life with a toddler and a baby

Its hard to believe that Lincoln is 4 months old. He is growing so fast. He is developing a personality and has lost alot of his newborn qualities. For the most part he is a mellow baby. He hangs out, spends his time cracking himself up or chewing on his hands. He no longer hates tummy time and will happily play with his toys (and by play I mean poke at them). He can push himself up with his arms, and when he gets frustrated during tummy time he will push and kick and spin himself in a circle.

He is sleeping better, and occasionally sleeps through the night. Which I know it will all end as soon as he starts teething, but for now Im getting my sleep when I can! He loves bath time, and will probably be a fish like his big sister. Another way he is like his sister is that he is a big talker. When he gets going he will have quite the conversation. Although at the moment its a whole lot of “agoo’s” and “coo’s”.

Speaking of his big sister… she just turned 2 1/2 (the same day Lincoln turned 4 months. Yes they were born the same day of different months. Not done on purpose but it makes it easy to remember!). She is quite the force to reckon with these days. She puts the “terrible” in terrible two’s. One moment she is a pleasant kid the next  she is throwing a tantrum that drives you to want to drink.

She is wicked smart, and learns new things everyday. She still loves to sing songs, and still makes up her own words (took us forever to figure out she was singing the bumble bee song “I caught a baby bumble bee, won’t my mommy be so proud of me” because in her version she tickled it and it flew away).  She will count anything and everything. One of her other favorite things is playing pretend. She spends hours playing with her farm (the swans often get them selves stuck places, and the wonder pets are called into rescue them. Maybe we should watch less tv…), her doll house, and cooking in her kitchen. She also likes to play dr, and gives all her dolls check ups. Her tastes changes daily but right now she hates to eat meals, everything must be a snack. And she wants to stay in her pj’s all day. When ever we tell her that it is time to get dressed she asks “Where I going?”, if we say we aren’t going anywhere then she doesn’t want to get dressed. And when she does get dressed she has a very strong opinion on what she wears; vintage country dress paired with leggings, a puffy vest and her hiking shoes is a typical outfit. Most of the time its just easier to let her pick then to fight her to wear clothes that match. But when she is grown up and wonders what on earth we put her in, I will tell her that it wasn’t our fault! We tried to get her to wear normal outfits, but that she felt ladybug wings were a fabulous accessory to any outfit.

Both of them are growing so fast! I just bought Fiona size 4 shirts, which if your wondering means I have to shop in the big girl section. It made me a little sad. We just got back from their well baby appointments, here are their stats:

Fiona: 90th percentile for both height and weight (37.5 inches tall! and 32lbs)

Lincoln: 80th percentile for both height and weight (Which is a whopping 17 lbs and 2 oz! Oi no wonder my back hurts. And is 26 inches long)

Birth Announcement

Even though Lincoln has been on my blog many times, here is the official announcement that he was born.

The photo was taken just after he turned 2 months old (you may recognize the photo from a few blog posts ago). I used Shutterfly for the design and printing ( hey, they were 20% off!). I had a hard time deciding what photos to go with; cute, fun, bright photo, or a triptych from the day he was born. So instead I went with both. Here is the back of the announcement.

Its hard to believe that he is now almost 4 months old and has already changed so much. He is big boy, and is over 16lbs. I get excited at Well Baby appointments because we get to see how much he has grown and find out his stats (deep down I’m a marketing girl, and I love numbers and charts), his next appointment is next week, I wonder what he will weigh now? At the time of this photo he weighed 13 lbs 14 oz, and was in the 90th percentile for weight and 50th for height.