6 months

I can't believe I'm writing about Lincoln being 6 months old. 

6 months! How did that happen so fast. 

In the blink of an eye, he's half a year old. 

He's a bundle of joy (albeit a BIG bundle), bringing so much love to our hearts. 

 His smile and laugh are contagious. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, he giggles when he sees the girls. Then they start laughing at his sweet giggles, which just makes all of us laugh harder. Click HERE to hear him yourself. 

He has some scrumptious rolls. Like Michelin Tire baby rolls. Those puppies are big, and thick and adorable. There's actually a roll mid-calf. Have you ever seen something so cute?! 

He was attacking a new bath toy tonight, going at it like it was the best chew toy he's come across. 

I love it!

At 6 months: 

* We moved up to size 3 (Pampers), but he continues to blow out. We bought a box of Huggies Movers size 3 and realized they are smaller than the Pampers so now it's a mad dash to get them all used up before he grows out of them altogether. 

* Wears 9 month clothing, and even some of that is tight. The pants are either too long or too short depending on the brand; rarely the perfect length. Where oh where are you summer so we can move onto shorts!?

* sleeping about the same. He would prefer to nap either in my arms, or in his crib. Less and less he wants to spend time in his swing. Because we are a family on the move, he has to go with the flow sometimes so keeping his ability to fall asleep anywhere is important. 

* is in LOVE with his Johnny Jump Up deal. I'll have to post a video of that soon. He just goes nuts jumping around in that thing. 

* favorite toys are ones he can get into his mouth. He's mastered the hand-to-hand switch up of toys and grabs them with either hand equally. 

* has rolled over in both directions, but doesn't prefer to show off this new talent. He's content to lay on his back....let's be honest, if he hollers long enough, someone is bound to hand him whatever it is he's wanting. Why would he want to work for that toy?, he's got big sister's to help him out :) 

* has been able to enjoy lots of outside time and really enjoys taking it all in. I think the fresh air exhausts him because he sure falls asleep quickly after being outside. 

* Ryan swears that hockey is Lincoln's favorite sport. Together they sure have logged a lot of hockey time on TV. Ok, so Lincoln sleeps through most of it, but we won't tell Ryan that. 

* has had 3 ear infections and now has 2 teeth. We think ear infection #4 is brewing; it's already fluid filled and today he started tugging on them. Doc wants to wait it out a bit before tubes, so we shall see. 

* he loves to blab and "talk". He says "mamama" most often, otherwise it's just squeals and screams. 

* recently switched up his feeding schedule to add in more baby food. Currently takes about 5 feedings/day (breastfeeding or bottle with breastmilk) and then eating cereal at lunch plus a veggie or fruit at dinner. He's tried many veggies and the list continues to grow. He's very interested in table food and simply loves his sippy cup of water. Too bad I have yet to find one that doesn't leak. I had hoped that problem was fixed by now....it's been 8 years of leaking sippy cups around this joint! 

* Stats: weight is up to 22 lbs, height is 28.4" putting him in the 98th percentile for both 

And tonight, I look down into my arms and stare at this adorable face with beautiful long eyelashes as he dreams in my arms. 

My heart just melts.

We love you Lincoln Ryan! 

Swim meet

In a quick last minute kind of way, the girls signed up for a swim meet Sunday. They were both a little nervous for their events, Sid's first experience and Reg entering 4 races. 

It's a fun meet and not a competition, but boy are these two competitors once it starts!

Here is Sidney in the backstroke, working hard! 

Below is a video of her:

Regan did freestyle, backstroke, breastroke and butterfly! She was pretty tired especially since some events ran back to back. Unfortunately, her longest event (4 laps) was one of those back to back events.  

Click HERE for a video of Regan's butterfly.

In the end, Sidney walked away with two first place finishes and Regan with two firsts and two seconds. We are so proud of these two girls! I think they might feel even more proud of themselves, and as a parent, that is such an amazing thing.

Harlow's 2nd birthday party

We traveled to New Ulm yesterday to celebrate our youngest Godchild's 2nd birthday. 

Happy birthday Harlow!

These 4 always have a great time playing, chasing and screaming. Our girls slept a little later this morning after all that excitement.

We can't leave their house without doing the traditional stair picture. The crew is getting bigger and forced us into the front doorway to make sure we got all of them in our picture!

And he sits

I have started bringing out toys for Lincoln that require sitting. By golly the boy can sit! On this particular day he sat for probably 3-4 minutes before toppling over. It's not always that long, and let's be honest, some pants are tough to sit in with that big belly. 

We are all so excited to walk this journey of "firsts" with him!

Sid says...

Earlier this week it was just me/Sidney eating dinner. I warmed up some leftover Easter ham for her and she eagerly started eating. Then she asked:
"Mommy, what's ham?"
Knowing what she was asking, but trying to avoid the subject I responded with "pork".
Smarty pants then says "so what's pork?"
I don't lie to the kids to I held my breath and replied "pig"
Sidney paused for a moment, looked up and said "so I'm eating pig??!"
CRAP what did I just do?! But I just smiled.
She stabbed her fork into her ham, looked up and said "pig is yummy!!!" as she jammed it in her mouth.
Yes dear....I'm happy you think so.

Easter 2014

Easter 2014 has come and gone. We are so lucky to have 3 beautiful children to call our own and couldn't be happier to now have Lincoln to share in this Easter. 

The girls scored lots of fun gifts from the EB including a barbie walking an animal that eats and poops. Let me repeat that, it poops. Silly girls and their toys. Glad Mr. EB was able to find that toy cuz it's a hit in their eyes. Not to leave out Lincoln, he got sippy cups and balls....he does enough pooping on his own.  

 Sadly we took this family picture after church. After a very nice service. But also after Lincoln blew out his diaper at the very start of church and messed up his adorable kahki pants. Digging through the diaper bag, his only pair of pants were sweats. I promptly changed him into some cute jeans when we got home. 

 (yes, I totally coordinated our outfits, because I'm kinda silly like that)

We adore hosting Easter each year (let's just say it's nice to spend one holiday/year without having to travel). This year, we welcomed all 4 grandparents and one of my great friends for an amazing lunch cooked by my dad. Thanks Dad!!

That sneaky Easter Bunny came and hid almost 90 eggs while we were at church too! How he does it every year, the girls sure haven't figured it out!? He's getting sneakier took....we're still missing at least 1 egg. That's bound to be a melted mess by the time we do locate it. 

It was a perfect day to be outside enjoying the sunny spring temps. We sat around outside and soaked it in all afternoon. Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

Egg dyeing 2014

While Easter egg dyeing is a lot of fun....

Ryan has reminded me to NEVER buy the sparkle kit again!

We now have glitter everywhere, and I'm afraid our guests ingested their fair share in the form of deviled eggs today. Sorry folks, it might still be glittery during the exit too :) 

Easter egg hunt 2014

This great place, not too far from home, hosts a pretty fun Easter egg hunt each year and the girls look forward to it for weeks in advance. There's music and trinkets, Easter Bunny's and exercise stations all to go along with the big Easter egg hunt. 

First we said "hello" to the super freaky talking bunny!? Yea, that made me a bit weirded out to hear him talking!

And through all the local display booths about hand hygiene, safety in the community and home as well as fire trucks. The girls were eager to get to their respective egg hunt locations. There were 9,0000 eggs in this event! They divide the kids out by age and this year, Regan was in the older group with an actual "hunt" for eggs. I took Sidney to the pre-k area and we waited for the countdown. 

The girls waited patiently and promptly at 11am, heard the signal to start the hunt! It was a mad dash and kids were screaming with delight. Regan was so scared of rattle snakes coming to get her, but she ventured into the forest and seemed to quickly forget her fears. 

It was like playing a game of Where's Waldo. Eventually, I had to follow her beyond the caution tape for fear I was going to lose her. Within 60 seconds, it was all over and the eggs had all been 'found'. Her basket was over-flowing with jelly bean filled plastic eggs and she was so excited for her finds. 

I love these fun family events that get us in the spirit for Easter. It's one of the best times of the year!

Tooth #2

Lincoln sprouted his second tooth this weekend. Friday was a "family day" with everyone off work/school and we had the day to have fun together. Ryan was playing with Lincoln and called out for me to check out his gum-line. Sure enough we could see it (still under the gums), waiting to erupt. Saturday morning, it made it's debut. Lincoln was a champ and his happy self for the most part. He's still on antibiotics from the last ear infection so hopefully we've avoided any problems with this one. 

We put him into his Easter jammies Saturday night and his little legs with moving a mile a minute. I had to laugh after I took this picture, because his feet looked like they were going as fast as the little rabbits on his feet! 

 We helped him roll onto his back (stinker still doesn't much prefer to roll, but would rather scoot around on his back, or while on his tummy). But that little bunny tail was so cute on his bottom.

These PJ's have me giggling as I think the feet sort of resemble the pink bunny PJ's worn by Ralphie on A Christmas Story. And then I just start reciting lines from my favorite Christmas movie :) 

See that little hand in the mouth?, it never seems to leave for very long....

Tooth!

As I mentioned in a previous post, Lincoln cut his first tooth last Saturday. 

And I finally snapped a picture of it :)

That smile, it just lights up our lives!

A little vegetarian

Back in high school, I made a decision that I wasn't going to eat meat anymore. It wasn't that I thought killing animals was inhumane, or that meat was unhealthy. Nope. I was simply grossed out about the process. I still can't handle raw meat, but have figured out how to creatively get it from package to pan/skillet/pot/grill without touching my hands. Sometimes I'm a magician :)

We've always fed the girls meat, because in all reality, I don't want them to follow my footsteps. It's just so limiting. Unfortunately, Sidney would just rather skip that section of her meal. That girl loves her veggies and fruit. She will gobble down almost any veggie, and is in heaven when we have a veggie tray or fruit platter during a party. Fruit by far, is her favorite. She'd live off it. When we offer the kids a snack, she almost always requests whatever fruit we have on hand. And she adores herself a good honeycrisp apple. Like down to the core, see that?! She has asked me if we can eat the core...

 This girl is going to be my vegetarian I just know it.

A little late

I'm a little late with my posting, things just seem to be happening faster than I have time to document them. We're busy with all sorts of fun things this spring, and just wishing that spring weather would actually stick around. So it goes in Minnesota.

I don't typically stock the kids' closets with spring clothing, because really there's no point.

This was taken yesterday...April 15th. Sad 

 

With this time of year, comes the wrap-up of all sorts of activities. The girls just finished skating lessons and I couldn't believe my eyes as I watched their progress last night. At the beginning of the season, Sidney couldn't skate without a "walker", now she is going forwards and backwards, doing "swizzles" and such. Regan is working on cross-overs and form. Amazing.

 

We are prepping for a dance recital, one in which Regan will perform in tap, jazz and ballet. She took pictures in her costume the other night and my oh my has she grown this year. Before she's ready to perform on stage we have another month of classes and a big dress rehersal.

 

There's a gymnastics meet in her future too, and she's busy working on several routines. This girl is busy I tell ya.

 

There's swimming lessons for Sidney and she can now do a front crawl with a side breath and a back crawl (though still kinda sinks like her daddy on his back because she forgets to show a "giraffe neck"). Work in progress. Regan is gaining endurance on the swim team and has really gained form in the butterfly. That thing is tough! Her 'coaches' have been amazing and she just glides across the water.

 

Regan will also make her first communion in just a few weeks, so we've been running back and forth to our beloved church as she does weekly lessons and then more worksheets at home. Here's a sneak peak in her dress, one that took us all over town shopping only to go back to the first store. She loves it, and so do I.

 

She's getting ready for the upcoming MAP testing at school (reading and math proficiency) and has been invited, nominated by her music teacher, to try out for a local choir. I honestly can't say we have room in the schedule to add yet one more activity next year. Something's gotta give.

 

Our peanut, er, should I say chunker, of the bunch is the definition of the "take along" child. Because we just have to "take him along". He enjoys the music at dance classes, adores watching the kids flip around at gymnastics and likes getting splashed from the pool. He's happy as a lark and for this we are grateful. We're working on sitting and it's coming right along. He has "found" his toes but can't exactly grab them....let's just say his belly gets in the way. He still doesn't consistently roll over. We keep busy by playing with toys, reading book after book and singing lots of songs. The girls are amazing with him, and it's common place for someone to cry out "oh no! help!" and you know it means they just got spit on.

Lincoln also cut his first tooth over the weekend and I'm still trying to get a picture of it; he can't seem to take the toy/hand/blanket out of his mouth long enough for me to capture the picture. With the tooth came a slight runny nose and, of course, another double ear infection. That's #3 if you've lost track. Poor guy. Lots of cuddles, some Tylenol for the teeth, another antibiotic and hopefully he's on the mend.     

 But through it all, he's still our smiley boy!

I hope to get better with these posts, but as I see it now, I spend my evenings helping with homework, chasing around to activities and snuggling Lincoln. And I just know that the time will come, all too soon, when my nights are free.

Snow day fashion show

This extended winter and most recent snow fall at the end of our Spring Break called for some creativity on our part. And so these two fashionistas gave me and Lincoln a bit of a show yesterday. We had some good laughs and I managed to bust out the video camera which they welcomed instead of ran from. 

Love that these two are the best of friends

Honesty

I'm pretty good at feeling  the mommy guilt. Sometimes things are tough and other times I'm just tired. But in true reality fashion, here's an honest rundown of life in our house:

This morning I took the kids to a bakery for donuts. For breakfast. Pure sugar with chocolate glaze. Big ones. And they both ate every last bite.

I've been known to not change a onsie that might have been dribbled on by pee. Sorry Lincoln....but it will dry.

There are times when I crank up the music in an effort to drown out the nagging whines from the back seat. Doesn't usually work but it gives my ears a well needed break

Sometimes we will say "no" to the girls' request for dessert....but then I go ahead and sneak a cookie :) In all fairness, I have seen Ryan do this too!

I once forgot to bring Lincoln's carseat at pick up. Which meant he had to sit in Sidney's carseat and she in Regan's until we could get home. Oh but let's face it, he's big enough. Right?! Not exactly, but Sidney did reach across and help him stay upright as we drove. HUGE mama guilt on that one!

And lastly...

I've been known to hold my baby while quickly using the bathroom. Yes, I've had to do this with all 3 at one time or another.

So there you have it. It's not always roses around here. It's fun and full of life. As long as we're all healthy, happy, and safe, my prayers have been answered.