Birthday Party - 12/17/08

On the 16th some of our long time family friends invited me over to their house for dinner. It was so fun to catch up! I am so sad that I didn't get more pictures, but here is one that I took of Jodi holding Lincoln.
Here are my Grandma and Grandpa Triplett with Lincoln before we went to get his pictures with Santa. Look at how chubby he looks!

My dad aka "Grandpa" with Lincoln. Look how happy Lincoln was!!

Megan and I made these adorable tutus for the twins' 4th birthday.

My Aunt Andrea aka "The Baby Whisperer"!! I swear she can calm any baby right down :)

The twins love cheese puffs and my grandparents got them this HUGE case of them :)

Megan turned 21 and got Mrs. Cullen lipstick. There are lots of other funny New Moon photos yet to come...

Megan loves oyster crackers and so Grandma and Grandpa Triplett got her oyster crackers and cash for her birthday.

Boozin' it up with the Martinelli's ;)

How cute is my Aunt Melissa here with my Grandma Hatch?! She is 7 months pregnant and just adorable!!

My cousin Alexi whom Lincoln loved to be held by! Look at Lincoln's chubby cheeks!

The Birthday Girls!

This was cute. Anya kept blowing out the candles while we were singing Happy Birthday and so Megan had to cover her mouth!

This was cute too! Someone told my cousin Emilia to make a funny face, but I think she was more interested in the icing on the cake!!

Lincoln and his great-grandma were talking away!! There is a video at the end of this post, it was so fun

Look how darling my little cousing Gunther is. He was showing us how he could lick the icing off his nose with his tongue!! The most stylish kid ever!

LOTS of Christmas posts and pictures

Ok I just got back from Idaho/Utah today and boy do I have a LOT of pictures to post!! Since I am using this blog as my scrapbook as well, I am going to try to post on most of the things we did. It will probably take me a while to get everything posted, but I will try to get a little bit done each day!

This is everything I had to carry with me!! I checked my car seat and suitcase though so only had to bring the stroller, diaper bag, carry-on and, of course, Lincoln!! I felt like Supermom walking through that airport!! I was soooo nervous for the flight, but it really wasn't bad at all. The plane was pretty empty so I was able to move to the back of the plane where I had three seats all to myself so I was able to put a blanket down and Lincoln slept almost the entire way. The hardest part was changing his poopy diaper in the teeny tiny airport bathroom. It was hard!
Lincoln had a huge blowout before we got on the plane, but the restroom didn't have a changing station so I had to lay everything out near the sinks. Now that I have been out-and-about for the last two weeks, this doesn't seem like such a big deal. But, this was the first time I had ever had to change him in public so I was kind of freaked out!!

It was so sweet, my dad and grandparents met me at the airport with balloons! It was the first time they had met Lincoln so it was a lot of fun! 4 Generations here!

Grandpa Hatch!

Great Grandma Hatch!

Michael and Melissa were so sweet to let us borrow their swing. Lincoln loved it!!

My cute brother Jacob and Emma eating ice cream for Megan's birthday.

My sister Megan turned 21 on the day I flew in!! We celebrated with ice cream and had a family party a few days later.

Some Videos

Lincoln is getting so big I just cannot believe it!! He is so cute....his new thing is to slouch out of his bouncer. He really likes hitting the toys on his bouncer, but it is easier for him when he is slouched directly below them. So, he kicks his feet until he moves down, but then will scoot too far down and be halfway on the floor! He fell asleep like this last night, too cute.

Here are just a few videos of Lincoln doing tummy time. He is getting better, although he still doesn't like it.

Here is Lincoln mad that we were doing tummy time :)

I am heading back West on Tuesday, so I am not sure how consistant my posts will be the next two weeks :) I am excited to see my friends and family though!

Thank You Great Grandpa Rudd!!

We received a great package in the mail two days ago from my Grandpa Rudd. My grandpa was the postmaster in Emmett, ID for many years and worked for the postal service for over 40 years. He is incredibly talented in many ways, and has a great skill with woodwork. He made this beautiful bank for Lincoln from a post office box that was manufactured in 1907! This is such a special gift, and will be a great family heirloom for Lincoln.

Here is the letter we received with the bank...
Top of the bank...

You open the bank using this dial and a combination of left and right turns.

Lincoln saying, "Thank you Great Grandpa Rudd!"

Can you believe he is only two months old?? He is getting so big!

This was such a neat gift. Thank you Grandpa!!

Your Baby Can Read Program

While I was pregnant I found this incredible deal on Craigslist. I got the entire Baby Einstein collection (26 DVD's) and the Your Baby Can Read program for $100. They were brand new and in sealed packages and I was so excited about this good deal! I hadn't heard much about the Your Baby Can Read program, but went online and found that it had really good reviews and worked for most people. It is a program that you can start as early as 3 months and on through five years and through repetition teaches your child to recognize the letters, sounds etc. Well, I have been feeling lately as though I should be spending more time with Lincoln on development. I know he is only two months old, but I don't think it can really hurt at all to work on his development early. So, this week I pulled out the Your Baby Can Read program and started the first dvd and the flashcards with Lincoln. I made sure to do it right after his nap, because that is when he is the most alert and calm. He paid attention to the DVD for about 15 minutes and we did flash cards for about another 10 minutes or so, and then again in the evening. I am sure he is more attracted to the bright colors than the actual word, but it is a program that works by being consistant. Here are some cute pictures I took of him.

On another note, he is sitting in his Bumbo all by himself! I still am sitting next to him when he is in it, because he occasionally looses some head control and droops his head down. Plus, I put the Bumbo on an ottoman and was nervous he might wriggle off...I probably am going to stop putting him on that, it makes me too nervous, but it was a good height to see the tv at.

Looking at the TV

Sitting in his Bumbo all by himself!! He loves those socks too...they have little bells inside the feet and he likes kicking his feet to hear them jingle.

Some of the flashcards we were working on...

I love his face here!! He was trying so hard to keep his head up! :)

With a little head support from mom...

lol, this was so cute. I have this book of Old McDonald that he really likes to read! We will sing the song and he always pays attention to the pictures in the book. Well, I thought since he likes that book so much that he might like the Baby McDonald (Baby Einstein) DVD. I put it in and the first animal to show up was a puppet rooster and it SCARED him really bad!! All of the sudden his lower lip started to quiver....

And in a second he was screaming! I couldn't help but laugh though because he is so cute!

Love this face!

Chubby cheekers!!

Here are some more tummy time pics. Lincoln hates when we do tummy time! I usually only get about 2-3 minutes before he starts getting mad :)

Starting to get upset

I rolled him over and this was the face I got

Which quickly turned into this!!

Here is a cute video of Lincoln "talking" to me while I was making dinner

Another cute one of Lincoln being really smiley!

Temple Christmas Lights

One thing I learned about Sheridan this year....he has NEVER been to Temple Square in Salt Lake at Christmas time to see all the Christmas lights!! I couldn't believe it. I was trying to show him some pictures online of how pretty it is and realized that the temple here in DC puts lights up too! The grounds aren't nearly as big, but they had over 100,000 lights, many beautiful Christmas trees and some really neat nativity sets. So, we decided to head over there last night (about 30 minutes away) and see the lights. It was almost exactly halfway between our house and Eli's house and so they met us there too! It was a lot of fun.

Here are some pictures from Lincoln earlier in the day. I know I always say he loves his swing, but he is so cute when he gets so smiley in it! Sheridan took these ones. This is a little blurry but you can see the "quivery lip" he gets sometimes. Too cute!
Happy boy!!

He really loves those bears

As we were headed out the door. Anyone who knows me knows that I am really terrible with hair. So, I was asking my sister for some tips and tried to get my hair curly!! I ended up using curlers and it worked out ok.

The DC Temple.

Nativity scene

We had Lincoln all bundled up! At first he was a little fussy but after a minute or two he calmed down and was trying to figure out what was going on.

Some really nice Japanese tourists took this picture for us.

Pretty!

This was so cute! They had a camel in front of the nativity scene so we put Lincoln on one of the humps. The bystanders were getting a kick out of watching us position him on the camel so he didn't slide off :)

Sheridan and Lincoln inside the visitor's center

They had one room that was full of nativity sets from around the world. It was so neat! There were probably around 50 different sets or so. I took a few shots of some of them.

Another shot of the temple as we were leaving.

It was a really fun night. Hopefully we can get a chance to see the SLC lights when we are there this year.

On a seperate note, Lincoln has slept through the night the past three nights!! It has been great! He has stopped fussing at night too. I'm not sure what made him so fussy last week, but I am glad it is over. Lately, he will fall asleep between 11 and 12pm and sleep until 7! Then he usually wakes up to eat and then goes back to sleep until 10 or so. It is awesome! I have been able to get a lot done in the mornings and also get sleep at night! The first night, I woke up at 5am panicked that he wasn't breathing or something terrible had happened. Of course, he was fine...just sleeping!