Shadows

One of Lincoln's favorite things to do now is turn off all of the lights in the house and use flashlights to see.  Everyone gets a flashlight and then every few minutes Lincoln switches them around so that you get to use the regular light, head lamps, black light flashlight, etc.  Previously, on a night I was gone, Ricky had shown Lincoln how to do shadows on the wall.  They wanted to show me so I was sat on the floor of the living room not knowing what to expect.  It was so cute!  It took me a second to realize that I had my phone in my lap and that I could take pictures of this fun time.  We all giggled and laughed for a good 30 minutes when they did this.  I'm so glad I captured the moment.  It was a really fun activity.

Lincoln

 Lincoln showing us how it's done.

 Lincoln and Logan

 Logan

 Logan getting bigger. 

 Lincoln running.

 Logan and Lincoln big version.  

 Logan with his hands up and Lincoln watching.  It was so cute to see Logan's face as he realized that he was making that shadow.

 Lincoln and Logan.  As I watched them when their shadows were big, it gave me a glimpse into the future and made me realize I am going to have two big tall boys here pretty quickly.  They are growing so fast!

 Getting them to hold hands is not always easy but I think because they were having so much fun they didn't think about it much.

 Lincoln on Rick's leg and Logan.

 They loved watching themselves getting smaller as they got closer to the wall.

Adorable brothers - even in shadows.

 Thank goodness for daddy teaching them this cool trick!  

Lincoln's School Work

Every week Lincoln brings home multiple writing samples, art projects, crafts, etc from school.  We normally hang them on the refrigerator for a week and constantly rotate them.  I pick a few select things once a month to file and the rest we let go.  If there are cute things I've scanned them and he has a file of his art work.  This time I just took pictures of them - it's a little easier.  Here are a few of the things he's done recently.

 He only likes to write with markers - not crayons. 

 Glitter snow flake for Christmas. 

 Star with feathers. 

He's not big into coloring.  The blue dinosaur is a good example of what he would do. He's not interested in taking the time to do more than a few squiggles  - although I noticed he also made a line on each leg.  Cute!

He's getting so much better with all of his letters. 

I wish you could feel how soft these feathers are. 

This is a picture his teach took at school during an art project. 

Conversations With Lincoln

This conversation took place first thing in the morning.  Ricky went into Lincoln's room to get him ready for school and this is the conversation they had.

Lincoln:  "Do you want to see a jump?"
Daddy:  "Yes."
Lincoln: " Do you want to see a bigger jump?"
Daddy:  "Yes."
Lincoln: " Do you want to see the biggest jump?"
Daddy:  "Yes."
Lincoln: " Do you want to see the biggest jump in the whole world?"
Daddy:  "Yes."

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The weather here has been really cold lately.  Yes, really cold to me is in the 50's.  I moved here because I want the warm weather.  It has also rained off and on over the last couple of weeks which is good for the plants and soil but not good for being outside.  This conversation took place last weekend on a dark gloomy and rainy day.  We were in for the morning but we had a fun evening planned.

Ricky: "Today is a bad day." (referring to the dreariness of the day.)
Lincoln: "Today's not a bad day. It's a good day."
Ricky: "Tonight's gonna be good night."
Lincoln: "No, today is gonna be a good day."
Ricky: "Tonight's gonna be good night."
Lincoln: "No, Dad, stop saying that.  The Black Eyed Peas sing that."

About the Boys

A few things I want to remember:

Lincoln:

• Favorite Foods: wheat thins, gold fish, daddy's myoplex, grilled cheese sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, mini pancakes, chocolate milk, freeze dried fruit, 5 guys and In-N-Out cheeseburgers.
• Clothes: wearing size 5T shirts, 4T pants (he needs the length) starting to pick his own clothes to wear for the day.
• Activities: soccer tots, primary, school, gym and the park
• Room decor: Star Wars
• TV Shows: Upside Down Show, Little Einsteins, Team Umizoomi, Dino Dan
• Favorite Movies:  loves to do movie night and see new movies, Loves Star Wars Clone Wars
• Favorite Toys:  Duplo Legos, Lincoln Logs, light sabers, train tracks, flashlights
• Sleep habits: Lincoln goes to bed fairly late.  He is normally in bed between 9:00 - 10:00 pm.  He will sleep through the night and get up between 8:00 - 9:00 am. He naps several times a week for a couple hours each.
• Weight: 31.5 pounds
• Personality: he's way over the terrible two's  (yay!!) and fun to be with (most of the time).  Still learning to adjust to little brother and having to give him space.  Still amazes us with how smart, clever, creative he is and he's quite the little comedian.  He makes us laugh all the time.  He is a busy body but loves to relax and listen to music. We definitely feel like his getting to that "big boy" stage.  He is totally potty-trained, except through the night - but we're getting there.  He is very friendly and will talk to anyone anywhere. We love and adore him!

Logan:

• Favorite Foods: grilled cheese sandwiches, blueberry nutri-grain bars, fruit loops, mini pancakes, soy milk, ice cream, raviolis, Nilla wafers, freeze dried fruit. 
• Clothes: wearing size 2T shirts, 18 month pants (he needs the length) and he doesn't like to keep socks and shoes on.
• Activities: he gets to go to nursery with me, the gym play area, playing with daddy
• Room decor: alphabet and animals
• TV Shows: TV only holds his interest for a few minutes.  He will sometimes watch Little Einsteins or Team Umizoomi with Lincoln but he really isn't interested. 
• Favorite Toys:  learning bear, his pretend kitchen, Lightning McQueen sit on car, his push shopping cart and whatever Lincoln is playing with.
• Sleep habits: Logan is early to bed and early to rise. It makes Rick and I tired.  We are NOT morning people.  Logan is down between 7:00 - 8:00 pm and up by about 6:30 am.  He still wakes up for a bottle once a night but the last week he's slept all the way through.  Naps are twice a day still.  Once in the morning from about 9:30 - 11:00 and again in the afternoon from about 2:30 - 4:30 pm.
• Weight:  24 pounds
• Personality: Logan is definitely attached to mom and dad...mostly daddy.  He isn't really interested in much except doing whatever we're doing. He has an adorable little laugh and he's starting to talk. He says a handful of words and the first word he signed was "more."  He LOVES his brother. He watches Lincoln's every move and wants to be around him all the time. Logan loves to be in the truck, stroller, shopping cart, etc.  He loves to be out and about.  He's normally a very sweet little guy.  He's had a touch time with teething though.  The poor little guy had 7 teeth coming in a one and he isn't into teething toys.  I look forward to when he is part that stage.  He is getting cuter everyday (I didn't think it was possible for him to get any cuter) and we love to snuggle and kiss him.  He is the perfect blessing to our little family. 

I only had the single stroller and thought Lincoln would love to walk next to me like he normally does.  Next thing I know he's telling me to stop and he jumps down in the basket. Pretty clever.  If I knew he would sit down there then I wouldn't have bought the double stroller.  Just kidding. 

Yesterday Logan started to stack blocks for the first time. He was setting the little yellow rectangle on top of the legos tower that Lincoln built. 

Logan Found...

His bellybutton!  It's adorable.  I was mentioning to Rick last week that I'm surprised that Logan hadn't found his belly button. Lincoln thought it was the funniest thing to show his off.  We joked that Logan's belly is a little more round and I wasn't sure he could see it.  Sure enough - he did.  Yesterday when I showed him his eyes lit up and he has a smile from ear to ear.  I asked him where his belly button was and he lifted up his shirt, pointed to it, looked at me and giggled.  So precious.

It's not the best picture but it's something to remember!

What We've Been Up To

Our days are filled with everyday normal life activities.  Here is a few quick highlights of some things we've been up to.

Soccer Tots

 Daddy is a great assistant coach.  (Not officially but it's a parent involvement class)

 Lincoln is really good with soccer. Last we he told Rick in the middle of practice that he was bored.  I think because it's slower paced for the younger kids it's hard for him to stay focused.

 Practicing being goalie. 

 At the end of class they get to go in the parachute.  The parents spin and lift the kids and they love it. 

 After class the coach gives the kids stamps.  Lincoln loves to show them off. 

 This adorable creature is starting to sleep through the night.  He goes down about 7:00 pm and is up by 6:30 the next morning.  A couple nights a week he will get up between 1:00 - 5:00 am for a bottle. Now if we could get him to go down later and sleep in longer we would be really happy. 

 Lincoln loves to explore.  He got new binoculars for Valentines day.

 He has a great imagination and it's fun to listen to him as he "Goes on a Bear Hunt."

 We had date night and went to a friends house to play Minute to Win It. We started out the night strong but by the end we weren't doing to well. 

There were six other couples there so it was fun to just visit while playing crazy games. 

Craft Projects

I've been on a project kick lately.  I think if I didn't have a career or kids I would just do crafts, projects and baking all day.  There's something great about being able to accomplish little projects that I love.  Not that I don't have accomplishments with work or raising kids, it's just different.

I decided that this year I wanted to make birthday cards.  I ended up making close to 50 cards.  I have a ton of scrapbook materials and thought this would be a good way to use it up and save me from buying cards.  There are a lot of pictures but I intend to send them all out this year so I wanted to remember them for future card making sessions!

I haven't hung anything on the walls of my office yet.  I've been trying to decide what I wanted to do.  Right now it has a lot of my old Disney memorabilia from my years there which is why I went with the color scheme of red, black and white. I got an idea from a frame I saw and decided to make my own.  It turned out to be really neat and quite simple to make.  The hardest part was picking out the pictures I wanted to use.  I got the art online from Leo Reynolds.  I had Michael's make the mat to fit the frame I wanted and will have my super sweet husband hang it.

Lincoln and I tried a new recipe for cut out sugar cookies and they were delicious.  I got a couple new cookie cutter so Lincoln and I put them to use.  Lincoln and Logan like cookies as much as their dad.  Sugar cookies are Rick's favorite.  These didn't last long.

 Rick likes the plain ones.

 I liked the m&m's on top.

Lincoln likes the sprinkles and Logan will eat any of them.  It was fun to try a few different decorating styles.

It's All in How You Say It

I often tease Ricky because over the years his sense of humor has become more like his dads.  Not that it's totally a bad thing, but it's definitely where he gets it from. He has one liners for people that are quite corny, not as funny as he thinks and sometimes embarrassing.  Again, not that it's bad but they're definitely not things I would say.
Last night his little comments finally paid off.  We went to dinner and a movie.  It's been a while since we had been to the movies. We didn't realize until we were in line that it was now $12.50 for a regular priced ticket.  As we stepped up to the counter, I told the man that we wanted two for Just Go With It.  (By the way, I thought it was cute and a typical Adam Sandler movie.) The employee asked us if we had any discounts like student or military.  I sort of rolled my eyes (nicely - not directed at him personally) then sighed and said, "I wish."  Ricky says, "We love the military, does that count?" I think at first the employee didn't know what to say.  Next thing I know he said, "Sure.  It will be $17.50 total."  I couldn't believe it.  Ricky's comment saved us $7.50!  Of course, he made sure that I knew it.  I admitted that it was pretty cool and said I would try not to tease him so much next time. Lesson learned.

Conversations With Lincoln

Yesterday we were out running errands and Lincoln was in an especially happy and talkative mood.  I was sitting in the backseat of the truck with the boys and leaned forward to give Ricky a quick kiss.

Me to Rick: "I love you."
Rick to Me: "I love you, babe."
(I leaned over and gave Lincoln a kiss.)
Me to Lincoln: "I love you."
Lincoln to me; "I love you too, babe!"

On the car ride home from Costco Lincoln wanted to practice words.  We hadn't really done this before so we just made it up as we went.  I said a word and then he would copy me.  I was selecting words of objects around us like, cars, signs, road, stores, lights, etc.
I said cactus. Lincoln immediately repeated the word as he had done with the others and then interjected - "eww, pokey!"
He also decided that he wanted to come up with some words on his own.  The first word he said was dark. It doesn't seem like a big deal but I was impressed.  I had only been saying objects.  He started using adjectives.
Later Logan started to get fussy. I then said words like, Logan, grumpy, crying, mad, tired and then Lincoln again interjected (trying to copy my same tone) and said, "go to bed."  It was so cute that he caught onto the fact that I was using words to describe Logan and he knew all of those things meant that Logan needed to go to bed.
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A couple weeks ago I went into the downstairs bathroom.  I heard Logan's little feet following me but my thought was to quickly get to the bathroom and close the door before he could catch up. Next thing I hear is Lincoln yelling, "Mom, incoming!"  I just busted up laughing.  Ricky and I say that to each other about Logan because he insists on being right in the middle of everything.  We often prepare for his arrival so most of the time it means, hurry put up whatever he will destroy, close the door so he doesn't go out, etc. It didn't take Lincoln long to pick up on that.
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Lincoln loves stories at bedtime.  Normally I tell him a couple stories and then we sing songs.  Recently he's been wanting to tell me the stories.  We picked Noah's Ark - one of his favorites.  We get through the story and I mention that after it stopped raining the ark landed on a mountain.  Lincoln quickly responds, "no mom, not a mountain.  It was a volcano!"
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I'm always amazed and how quickly Lincoln puts things together.  He can quickly pick up on what we say and he relates objects and ideas to other things.  String cheese is normally an on the go snack for us.  It's something we grab on our way out of the house before school or errands.  One night, I was listing off options for bed snack.  It consisted of the usual wheat thins, gold fish cracks, popcorn and then I added string cheese.  He looked at me with such a confused look and said, "String cheese?  That's a wake up and eat it now snack.  Not a bed snack."  Ricky and I laughed.  It was adorable. He understood that string cheese was typically a breakfast food for him and he was doing his best to explain it.

You Tube

Giving my three year old an ipod touch (really my old iphone) to play games and listen to music sounded like a brilliant idea...and in many ways it still is.  However, I didn't think he would discover You Tube - but he has!  And he is addicted to it!  The Star Wars clips seem to be endless and he manages to find random Japanese ladies yelling crazy things that he finds hilarious and entertaining. We now have to limit the amount of time he can be on You Tube.  Really!?!? My three year old can't get enough of You Tube!?!?  Who knew I would face this so soon.

Valentine's Day

Our Valentine's day was a nice one.  Unfortunately I am/was sick but we still managed to enjoy ourselves. We are actually going out this weekend but I still wanted our actual Valentine's day to be nice. A few years ago we started the tradition of making dinner on V-day because the wait at restaurants is ridiculous.  Ricky made us a delicious chicken dinner.

I put a little treasure hunt together for Ricky that included clues from the last seven years of marriage.  Along with each clue was a gift and the clue to the next treasure. He got new T-shirts, books, itunes card, his favorite candy bars, and an battery powered pet spider. I got want every girl wants - diamond jewelry and chocolate covered strawberries! I also gave him a heart-attack.  Not literally.  I decorated Ricky's office with tons of pink and red hearts with all the reasons why I love him. In typical man fashion, it took Logan pulling hearts off of the walls and walking around with them before Ricky realized that they were in his office.  It was cute.

Our evening consisted of me going to tennis practice, Golden Spoon frozen yogurt and watching one of our favorite TV shows, House. It was an enjoyable day spent with the three boys I love most.  I'm truly blessed to have such a loving, supportive and wonderful husband and two precious sweet little boys.

 I'm a lucky girl!

Lincoln happened to be learning the letter "V" the same week as Valentine's Day.