Meetup.com Mom's Group

Recently I was looking to meet other moms in this area, so I just googled "mom's groups in Fairfax" and found this awesome website! It is called meetup.com and seriously you can find a group for any and every interest imaginable! I found running groups, mom's groups, book clubs, etc. It is completely free and a very cool website. Anyone who just moved to a new area, or are just looking for other people to meet up with, I would definitely recommend it!

Anyways....one of the groups I joined is called Moms in Fairfax County and I have been to a few events now and have just had a great time! Sometimes we will meet for coffee and all park our strollers at the Starbucks in the mall (usually in the larger, open areas), or we will meet up somewhere for lunch. Last week we had a potluck brunch at one of the moms' houses and we had so much fun! Last week we also had "Mom Movie" day. It is such a good idea and if you are a mom reading this you should check into it! Once a month one of the local movie theatres does a "Mom Movie" day (I don't think that's the official name, but it is something similar). Basically, they just play a regular movie and pay a regular matinee price but it is all moms in the theatre. So, everyone brings their babies and parks the strollers outside the theatre. It is great because there usually is a baby or two crying, but it's not a big deal because everyone in the theatre has a baby! There were a ton of moms there and it was really nice to get to see a movie in the theatre too!

Here are a few pictures of the lunch we had earlier today. There actually were about 20 moms there, but I just got a picture of a few of us. Look at all the babies!


Next week we are doing "Mommy and Me Rollerskating" where we rollerskate and bring the strollers on the rink! This sounds like so much fun and I am sure I will have some funny pictures to post.

Lincoln's First Experience with a Dog

Our friends Josh and Elizabeth invited us to their house for dinner this weekend! They BBQ'd these delicious steaks and we had such a great time! Although you can't really tell by this picture, it was actually pretty nice out (comparatively speaking) so Josh and Sheridan went out and threw the football before dinner.
This was SO cute!! Lincoln has never really seen a dog before and our friends have the sweetest dog, Bean. Here Lincoln is trying to figure out what this thing is! PS...his pants look like major highwaters here - they actually do fit him I swear! They were just all bunched up at his thighs :)

My FAVORITE picture! "Mom, this thing is trying to lick me!"

"I can't tell if I like this or not"

Thunder Thighs!

I just love these pictures so much. Lincoln is getting BIG!!! I feel like he has put on so much weight the last two weeks. He has got these adorable fat chubby thighs. I wish so badly it was warmer outside so I could show them off! :) Anyways....we got some cute diaper shots after his bath the other night.
Dad is home!

What a chunk!

Lincoln's First Hair Cut & Valentine's Day

Lincoln had this little patch of hair (and by "patch" I really mean about 15 hairs) that was really long and always stuck up on the top of his head. Whenever I would put lotion on his head, that little patch of hair would always get crusty and caked with dried lotion. So Sheridan and I decided to give him his first haircut!

First we put on the music that he loves and got him in a good mood. Here is a shot before we cut it. If you look closely you can see his hairs sticking up.
Lincoln looks so confused here! "Mom, what is Dad doing to me?!"

Oooh....you can see the hair we cut off on the right of the paper towel!

Clean cut!! Look at that handsome boy! :)

On Valentine's Day we all went out as a family for a steak dinner. We had a great time and Lincoln was really well behaved. He was actually really cute! He kept craning his neck and was trying to take everything in! My Grandma Hatch got Lincoln this adorable sweater for Christmas and we were cracking up when we opened it because Sheridan has almost the exact same sweater. My Grandma picked this out without even knowing it! Now that is talent :) I absolutely love these pictures of the two of them in their matching outfits:)

Look at those great smiles! Like father, like son :)

Fat Lincoln and John Mayer Concert

Sheridan thought it was hilarious to scrunch up Lincoln's neck like this and make him look CHUBBY!!

Chubby Cheekers!!

Uh oh...not a happy camper

Sheridan was able to get tickets to the John Mayer concert through his work. We had a really good time and Eli and Katie we SO nice and offered to babysit Lincoln for us. It was great to actually have a real date with no baby! Here is a picture of us in the hallway trying to make it to our box.

The view of the concert from the suite. I am pretty sure this was the band Spearhead performing. I only actually recognized one of their songs, but they definitely had a group of teenage girls screaming in the front row!

At the show....

John Mayer

A few of Sheridan's coworkers who were there with us.

A few videos of Lincoln at four months

Lincoln gets so mesmerized by the camera that he never smiles when he sees it! But, I love how he starts laughing in the last few seconds of this video. Of course I am being silly trying to get him to laugh.

Ok I know you can't see Lincoln's face very well here but I was trying to "hide" the camera so he would actually respond to me!! If you listen you can hear his sweet little laugh, it is so cute! ps....we had the Verizon guys at our house all day installing Verizon Fios which explains the big hole in the ceiling!

Video I Forgot to Post!

I forgot to post this cute video in my last post! :)

Lincoln at 4 Months

Here are just some random pictures of Lincoln at the first part of 4-months. He is so funny...whenever a camera comes out he just gets so shy! All he wants to do is stare at the camera....I have to "sneak" the camera out to get a picture of him smiling! :)

Sad face!

Mooommmmm.....get that camera out of my face!

Happy Baby!!! It is so fun, Lincoln is figuring out that if he hits the rattle it will make a noise, and if he tightens his fist he can grab something. The other day I caught him just staring at his hands for about 20 minutes! He kept making fists, opening the fist, making a fist, opening the fist...too cute!

That yellow ball with blue ears is a "bee" that plays music. He loves that bee!! I bring it with us everywhere to keep him nice and calm (especially when we are in the car). Here he is making a silly face at himself in the mirror.

He was cracking himself up with that mirror! Too cute!

Lincoln's 4-month Checkup and a Sick Baby!

This post is a little late but Lincoln had his four-month checkup earlier this month. It went really well! He is 27 inches long (95th percentile) and 17 lbs 9 ounces (91st percentile) and his head circumference is in the 80th percentile. His weight gain curve slowed down a little, but Dr. Lurie said that is probably because he is more active than mose 4-month olds. He was really impressed with what Lincoln could do! He was grabbing and laughing while we were there and also was able to push himself up on his arms while he was on his stomach. It was a pretty quick appointment but it went well!

About a week after that appointment Lincoln got his first cold. It was so sad! He just woke up one day and his eyes were full of goop and he had a stuffy nose. Of course he got over it, but I just felt so bad for him. All he wanted to do was be held and cuddled with all day.

Look at those swollen eyes! Poor baby...
Still having fun with Dad though!
So sad with his swollen and red eyes!

Blizzard Part Two & The Superbowl

Here are some more pictures from Day 2 of the huge snowstorm! Here is a picture of all the snow on our front porch and BBQ! Compare this picture to the first picture from the last blog!
This was pretty funny. As I had mentioned before, we didn't have a snow shovel and all the hardware stores within 100 miles were completely sold out. In fact, I called Home Depot and this is what their greeting said, "Hello thank you for calling Home Depot. We do not have any snow shovels or ice melt. If you know your party's extension please dial it now..." SOO we had to improvise! We had these boogie board things in our storage room and I went out to try to clear our walkway and ended up using that to shovel the snow away. Sheridan thought this was hilarious and took about a million pictures.

Working hard!

I got a pretty good path cleared!

Sheridan wanted to go work out and so we spent a long time trying to dig our car out of the snow. I started to hit the snow off the top with a broom, but you can see how high it was piled!!

After we dug out he snow between the tires, I was trying to reverse the car while Sheridan pushed the front. It took about 5 tries (trying to reverse unsuccessfully, digging out more snow, trying again, digging more snow, etc) but we finally got the car out! It was hilarious...people were "marking" their spots with folding chairs, parking cones, etc. One car even had a handmade side written on a piece of cardboard box that someone had stuck under their windshield wiper...it said, "Don't park in my spot. Dig out your own spot!" So much for a public parking lot! :)

Look at all that snow!

The next morning the weather was actually surprisingly very nice. We finally got to meet all our neighbors!! Everyone was out trying to dig their cars out.

I thought this was so hilarious. We didn't have a shovel, so Sheridan was out here with a hammer and a dustpan trying to get the hardened snow out from under the tires. It took us about an hour but we finally got the car out!

We kept Lincoln inside for most of the second day because he was starting to get sick. Here are some cute pictures of him on the day of the Superbowl! My dad and Teresa got him this cute outfit for Christmas and we were able to get him dressed up. Lincoln is so squirmy these days that the hat didn't stay on too well but he sure looked cute! I love those dimples!

SNOWED IN!! Literally...

We are having a HUGE snow storm right now! It is still snowing, but we have about 25 inches right now and it is still coming down hard. Here are some fun pictures.

I took this one at about 11pm last night....we had about 12 inches at this point.
Sheridan and I decided to walk around for a minute - it was hard to take pictures though becuase the snowflakes were coming down so hard!

Haha, here I was throwing a snowball at Sheridan (payback for when he brought a snowball into the house earlier. Can you believe that!!! If I am not all bundled up I really don't like the snow and I especially hate being cold so I was not a happy camper.)

This morning we took Lincoln outside - it was so funny! At first he was taking quick, short breaths - almost like "snorts". Then he got used to the snow and was laughing!

The snow was all the way up to my knee - look at the cars!

Look at that snow!!!

Lincoln was loving it! As long as his face wasn't directly into the wind/snow he really liked it....this meant I had to walk backwards sometimes to protect his cute little face :)

The branches were all completely weighed down from this snow!

We walked out to the main road by our house (Gallows Road).

I was trying to get a shot to show the snow on the cars. If you didn't have a snow shovel you are completely trapped in!! You can see the windshield wipers on this one car (someone propped them up last night) but the snow is completely blocking the cars in! It is funny, we went to go get a shovel at Home Depot two days ago and they said that every store within 100 mile radius was sold out of shovels!

You can see how deep the snow is here....and we didn't even dig all the way down to the ground!

More pictures to come later....we are going to build a snowman after it stops snowing!