Lincoln’s Elephant

Awhile ago I set Lincoln in his chair and gave him his elephant to play with. He loves his elephant. It is the only toy that sits in the corner of his crib (pediatrician said it was fine) and many nights he pulls it to him and holds its trunk or feet.

He thinks his elephant is funny.

Part of me really hopes this doesn’t turn in to a baby and pink situation, where the elephant has to go everywhere with us.

But for now he has a snuggly pal that is unbelievably soft.

Maybe I should see if I can find a backup one… just in case.

This is a face we rarely see. Lincoln is normally a very happy baby. The only time he really fusses is when he is tired and/or hungry. I know most people want to see only the happy baby photos, but I’m glad I caught the rare boo boo face in action. Im sure as he gets older this face will make  more of an appearance, but until then I will enjoy the rare glimpse (enjoy; meaning I snuggle the sad face away, and who wouldn’t love to snuggle Lincoln?)

Playing Pirates, arrrr matey!

Our neighbors had (note that I said had… because some how it found its way to our house) a toy pirate ship. Fiona LOVES the thing. She has spent many hours playing pirates.

The boat opens up to reveal captain quarters, it also has a pirate, a bird that talks, a canon that fires things, a hammock and treasure map. All thats adds up to hours of “arrrr matey!”

Someday when Fiona tires of it, the pirate ship will make its way back to our neighbors house… at least until Lincoln discovers it.

Until then there will be many adventures and treasure hunts. I like how every map has become a treasure map, oh to be two and the world full of adventure.

Lincoln may not be into Pirates yet, but he will be someday. Meanwhile he is happy to play with his hands and feet.

He is growing far too fast. Before I know it he will be playing pirates with his sister.

7 months

Once again another month has sped by and Lincoln you are now 7 months old.You are still a fabulously happy baby, most people who meet you remark on that. You smile and babble at anyone willing to listen, and are attempting to mimic us. If someone waves at you, you raise your arm back at them.

You are a champ at sitting, no tripod for you! You sit and play with all your toys, and you would rather sit then do anything else. Even when you play with and suck on your toes you do it from a seated position (you look funny when you do a forward bend and suck on your toes though!)

You still don’t roll over much. I know you can do it, Ive seen you. You just don’t bother. And why bother rolling when you can sit or stand? Most of your strength seems to be in your legs. You discovered standing and you love to stand and play your piano and dance along to it.

Another first for you this month was the swings. You love the swings, and you love them even more when your sister pushes you.

You adore your sister and smile whenever you see her. You think she is hilarious when she rawrs at you, or plays peek-a-boo with you. My favorite time of the day is when I am cleaning up after a meal and your sister is entertaining you and all I hear is “Rawr!” followed by shrieks of laughter.

Speaking of meals… you got to try lots of new foods this month and have even started feeding yourself. You were so excited the other day when I handed you a piece of my waffle. I often give you toast or puffs to keep you occupied while I make your dinner. And today at a restaurant I gave you peas off my plate (and then wondered how you got to be big enough for me to share my food with you).

Mama had to travel to Orlando for work this month, and both you and your sister got to go too. You are a fabulous traveler and rarely make a peep on the plane. Mostly you sleep (which is what you do every chance you get whether you are on a plane or not). You had a great time playing at the pool for a week and got to go swimming for the first time.

Unfortunately we discovered that the chlorine dried out your skin and you have eczema. Luckily it is easy to treat, but we will have to watch it during the summer.

Your sleeping better at night, and are cutting down your middle of the night snack. And your eating a huge range of foods and like everything…at least you happily eat everything. You are a happy baby and I adore you. Happy 7 months kiddo.

Easter 2012

Holidays are more fun with kids. I get excited about passing along traditions from my childhood, and experiencing them again as a parent. We aren’t religious, so Easter for us has always been about celebrating the arrival of spring. We painted eggs as kids and my Nanna and grandpa would do an egg hunt in their backyard. With everything going on this year we didn’t dye eggs but I did sneak outside to hide eggs  for an egg hunt.

Fiona loved going outside to hunt the eggs. There was lots of excited “I found one!!”

Next year should be even more fun with both kids hunting the eggs. But this year Fiona enjoyed being the lone hunter.

Although for some reason her farm had to go with her, and she put the eggs in her box instead of her basket. That is until she filled the box. Then she wandered around the yard with a farm, a box and a basket full of eggs.

Lincoln sat happily on his blanket in the grass and went through his basket. The Easter bunny brought him a book, a spring rubber duck, and some teethers. And no, the necklace he is wearing is not his, its Fiona’s. But she insisted on sharing.

The best thing about the eggs is that they held goodies. Although the Easter bunny is far more health conscious then when I was a kid. The eggs held mostly gold fish, yogurt covered raisins,  and a lucky few held all natural fruit gummy snacks.

Lincoln, well he kept on hanging out and played with his toys.

The Easter bunny left a pin wheel for Fiona. She loved blowing it to make it spin. She also got a little pink jeep that raced her match box car down the driveway (the jeep won), the necklace she made her brother wear, and a rubber ducky.

She eventually took her necklace back and happily wore it.

Meanwhile Lincoln tried to see how many toys he could fit in his mouth at one time.

Fiona wasn’t feeling well most of the day. She was running a fever, so we spent most of the afternoon snuggled up on the couch watching Hop. Turns out she has pink eye. Poor thing.

Peacocks, and kids

I don’t know if you have seen peacocks, or rather heard peacocks but they are loud. We heard them long before we saw them. The first one we saw was wandering around the parking lot, and it was just a bird with really long feathers. We headed into the park and saw one of the birds fanning his feathers, the kids were really excited when he did that!

“Look mama!” Fiona talked non stop for days about the peacocks, how they have big feathers and big mouths that make a big noise.

We met a friend there and her adorable son. Supposedly he is not much of a hand holder, but he insisted on holding Fiona’s hand. Look at that expression on his face!

The kids were adorable holding hands walking around the preserve. And no Fiona is not older, she is just taller.

The park also has koi ponds that the kids spent a lot of time peering into and looking for fish.

Lincoln had fun too. I plopped him down in the grass and let him play for awhile. One of the peacocks thought Lincoln was interesting and wandered over to take a closer look.

Don’t worry, Lincoln was not defenseless against the peacock, he found a leaf that could possibly be used to poke the peacock… you know if Lincoln had coordination for that kind of thing

The kids found a tree and had a lot of fun playing around on it.

The kids had so much fun playing together. There was lots of giggling and running.

In a couple of months the peacocks tail feathers will start falling out (they grow new ones every year) so we will probably head back to see if Fiona can find a feather .

Visting the Peacocks

On Valentines day Mark and I took Lincoln to Mayfield Park to see the peacocks while Fiona was in school. We walked the trails, looked at the koi ponds and watched the peacocks. After seeing the peacocks I knew I would be bringing Fiona back for a playdate with some friends.

A couple weeks ago that is what I did. The kids and I met some friends at the park. I took an obscene amount of photos of both the peacocks and the kids, so I will do two different posts otherwise you will be scrolling forever.

This beautiful guy met us at the gate. Isn’t he handsome? Actually I think this might be the one who blocked my way into the preserve and I had to sit in the driveway for 5 minutes before he moved and I could pull into the parking lot.

Another peacock was fanning his feathers in attempt to charm the ladies (unfortunately as you can see he recently got into a fight with a wild animal and his neck feathers aren’t looking too good. Not sure if his tail feathers were going to make up for it).

But he tried desperately to charm those ladies and strutted around with those feathers up. I don’t know about the peahens, but I was charmed.

Until he turned around that is….

They are not nearly as pretty from behind.

The peacocks have free roam of the park and are used to humans pestering them for photos.

Orlando – TEAM

I’m wrapping up at TEAM Polycom, and I am looking forward to being done. It has been a fun but exhausting project. I’m glad I got to come to Orlando and be on site to see the event. I watched the keynotes yesterday, and when I was working on the presentations its hard to imagine just how big the screen would be. 150′x15′ is a hard size to visualize. The screen size is impressive.

I didn’t work on keynotes, but I did work on some General Session presentations that were presented on the big screen, unfortunately I did not have time to watch any of those.

I was excited to see some of my work in the keynotes though. See the photo on the screen? Its of Kiosks in China. See the graphic/chart on all the kiosks? That’s mine. I made that graphic about 8 months ago for a different presentation, and some how that graphic has infiltrated the company and I have seen it all over TEAM Polycom. There are a couple of other graphics like that as well. It made me all warm and fuzzy to think that my graphic has made it around the world.

I am officially on vacation for a whole 24 hours before I dive into another project. I am going to make the most of those 24 hours. There will be lots of snuggling and floating down the lazy river. And probably a large amount of photos of kids in swimsuits.

In Orlando

Im currently working on site in beautiful sunny Orlando. Not that I have seen much of the sun, well I do have a couple of windows… Im working on TEAM Polycom, all my hardwork over the last few weeks is almost over. The exhibit opens in a couple of days and then the presentations starts, and I get to sit back (and work) and watch all my efforts put to use. I like working from home, but sometimes its nice to see what is done with my work. Sometimes I feel as if I set my work free out into the ether and have no idea what becomes of it.

Ive managed to take a lot of photos lately, so there will be new posts coming more frequently once this project is over. But meanwhile here are a few more of Lincoln from my trip to CA.

He and Lily chatted, it was very serious baby conversation. It probably went something like this:
Lily: What is your mama feeding you? Your huge!
Lincoln: Milk does a body good, especially my mama’s milk

I think Lily found his rolls endearing

Lincoln got to take baths in sinks while we were there. Our sink at home is too shallow to really bathe him, he had so much fun sitting up and splashing the water. It was a whole new view on bath time.

I still have a few more photos from CA, but I may do a peacock post next week.

Happy half birthday Lincoln

Some how 6 months have gone by and your a half a year old. For the most part you are a happy, laid back, giggly baby. Your a joy to be around. The only times you get cranky is dinner time (if we aren’t feeding you quickly enough), and when you want to go to sleep. Ahhh, sleep. You are a huge fan of sleep and get rather grumpy if you don’t get at least 16 hours of sleep a day. You are so different then your sister in that regard.

You recently discovered the world of toys that you can play with when you sit up.

You may not roll over much, but you will happily sit up (and have been for several weeks now) and play with toys. Its a much better position to bang on things.

Its been a busy month for you. We graduated from rice cereal to real food. You have so far been a fan of most things, weren’t so keen on peas at first but you grew to like them. Tonight you had broccoli and loved it (that is one way you are like your sister, she loves broccoli!). You rolled over…twice. And you figured out the whole sitting thing. All in all a very exciting month.

We just got back from Lincoln’s 6 month check up. And he is doing fabulous. What you don’t take your camera to dr visits? Yep, I’m that mom.

Still growing and progressing normally. The dr wasn’t concerned that Lincoln could care less about rolling over, especially with how well he can sit up. She said some babies are just content. Thats you Lincoln; content. On your stomach; sure I’ll play like this. On your back? Not a problem. I’m not going to complain that your content with your position.

Now on to the stats. 95% for height, which is  a long 28 inches. and 85% for weight at 19lbs 8oz. Its official Lincoln you are still a big boy (which by the way you think the How Big is Lincoln game is awesome! Raise your arms in the air and you giggle).

Miss Lilly

While I was in CA I had lots of meetings to go to. Some Lincoln went with me to, and when he couldn’t go Jill  offered to watch him. Which was a great excuse to visit my friend and meet her beautiful daughter who is a month older then Lincoln.

Isn’t she gorgeous? Look at those eyes!

She was showing off how strong she is.

After all that tummy time work, she worked up an appetite.

In the beginning these two struggled with nursing. But all the work has paid off and Jill is a pro at it now.

I love seeing my friends as parents. The cute snuggly babies, the love in the parents eyes, and the trust in the babies.

Jill thanks for watching my son, and sharing your afternoon with me. You are one heck of a mama! Im so glad I got to meet Lilly.