One month old!

I can't believe Lincoln is a month old already.  He turned 1 month on Tuesday.  I just love him so much and can't imagine our family without him now.  Ann said a few weeks ago that having him here just seemed to complete our family and I couldn't agree more!  His older brothers are so cute with him.  They are always wanting to hold him and kiss him and will do just about anything to help me with him. 

Lincoln 1 month highlights:

• He's starting to smile.  It's the cutest thing in the world.  He opens his mouth really big to smile.
• He listens to us.  If you talk to him most of the time he'll hold really still and look around.  You can totally tell he's listening to you.
• He's starting to move his head to look all around purposely.  He likes to look up at the fans and out the windows toward the light.
• He's graduated from his car seat at night.  When we first brought him home he'd only sleep at night if he was swaddled up and in his car seat or swing.  Then only the car seat.  But this week he finally started sleeping in his pack and play that's set up in our room.  We still swaddle him up and he sleeps pretty good that way.
• He's finally starting to chub up a bit.  His legs and arms were so skinny and they're getting a little meat on them...or fat!  And his cheeks are chubbing up a bit too.
• He still wakes up 2-3 times a night.  He usually eats around 10:30 then gets up at 2-ish and 5-ish the third time would be around 7 or 8 and I usually don't get up then because I'm lazy and like to sleep in :)

I hope to take better pictures next month!  Tracen and I bought Lincoln this giraffe when we were up north in December.  The plan is to take his picture with it every month. 

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Summer activities

We've had quite a busy summer already!  My mom has been in town the past two weeks and has had David and Jacob with her.  So the boys have spent two weeks hanging out with their cousins.  They've had a lot of fun.  We've gone swimming, they've played outdoors doing all sorts of boy outdoor stuff, we made them help us plant the garden, gone to the movies etc, etc...but the highlight of the two weeks was art class.  Parowan has a summer recreation thing and Ty really wanted to take oil painting and watercolors.  Originally only Jake was coming so we called grandma to see if she thought he'd want to go with Ty to art class.  Before it was all over we'd signed up Ty, Jesse, David, Jake AND Grandma.  So two weeks ago they took oil painting and this past week they did watercolors.  I think everyone had fun but Ty and Jacob had the most fun (and probably grandma too)  I still need to take pictures of them with their paintings but they all did awesome.  Ty LOVES painting and wants to continue.  He brought home some extra watercolor paper and I found some watercolors grandma had given me a few years ago.  This morning he and Jesse did some painting.  Jesse's done, Ty's still working on his.  He's really into detail and doing a good job.  We're going to get him some painting stuff and grandma has said she'll help him this summer while she's here.  I can't wait to post his paintings he's done...they're really good!  Here he is painting this morning

Tracen is still being his fun silly self.  The other day he tried on Lincoln's "sunglasses" that he wore under the bili lights.  It was hilarious.

Last week we got plums in our basket.  We discovered Tracen LOVES plums. this was like his 4th one in 10 minutes.

It got a little too quiet for comfort in this house this morning.  I asked the boys "where's Tracen?"  We found him in the boys room, sitting on this table playing with legos and coloring himself with a pen.  I didn't get mad thankfully, I just ran for the camera.  By the time I got it he was standing. Don't mind that he's dirty, he got in the bath right after this!

And in other exciting summer news I had my umbilical hernia repaired on Wednesday.  We were scheduled for Monday but my insurance company drug their feet until Tuesday.  I fasted, handed my kids out to their grandmas, showed up at the hospital, changed into a gown and started answering questions before we found out.  Josh took me to lunch at Costa Vida because I was starving and not operated on.  Wednesday thankfully it all went smoothly.  I went to sleep they fixed me up, I woke up then slept until Josh said k let's go now (I hadn't got much sleep the night before) and we went home.  I took my dressing off today and it's not bad, but you still don't get a photo of that.  My kids are cuter to look at anyway :)  I'm sore but getting better everyday.

Jesse's baptism and Lincoln's blessing

We had a double event the other night.  Jesse was baptized and Lincoln got blessed.  We originally thought that stake baptisms would be on the 5th, so when we found out that Lincoln was due that day we told Jesse he was probably going to have to wait until July to get baptized.  He was ok with it but really didn't want to wait.  When we found out it was on the 12th we told him maybe...we'll wait and see when the baby comes.  SO, since Lincoln was 3 weeks old and in Josh's words...he was going to be there anyway, we decided to do his blessing at the same time.  I am so glad we did!  It was fun for Jesse to have Lincoln blessed the same time and it was great to have all the family and friends there, just us, and for everyone to not have to make more than one trip.  I would definitely do it that way again.  Afterwards we had some yummy treats at our house and visited.  Thanks to everyone who came, especially those who drove, we love you!    You get lots of pictures because someday this post will be in a book and so I have to include them all!

I thought this picture was so cute!  Jerry loves Tracen and Tracen loves Jerry...and Tracen is driving a car on Jerry's head!

Jesse, bless his heart, kept running off and changing out of his suit.  We had to make him go put it back on twice for some pictures.  He was not impressed, just wanted to open his presents and play.  He has on a red striped shirt under his church shirt.  As you notice Ty isn't in any pictures...he'd already escaped to the wash.

Tracen was jealous of all the gifts so we let him open Lincoln's.  We figure he wouldn't mind! 

Lincoln and dad

What we've been up to

It's been awhile since I did an update.  I guess time flies when you're having fun!  Saturday Lincoln will be 4 weeks old!  I can't believe it.  The sad part of that is that it means my maternity leave will also be half way over.  Lincoln is such a sweetheart!  He is seriously a good baby.  He rarely cries unless he's hungry or his belly hurts.  The last few nights he's had a yucky belly in the evening but other than that he's pretty mellow!  Today he took his first bath in the tub.  He usually showers with his dad or I bath him in the sink while Tracen baths.  Tracen likes too much water for Lincoln.  My tub is so big I had to roll up my pants and climb in too.  He's started to try to give us smiles, they're mostly his mouth wide open and not really smiles yet but he's getting there.  At his 2 week appointment he'd made it up to 8 lb 2 oz.
Lincoln at 2 weeks

Jesse begging mt to take his photo with LincolnKissies

We got this out for Lincoln..he had to wait to try it out Tracen's not the only reason!

An almost smile

The end!

chicken coop

  I'm so not in the mood to figure out why blogger is insisting on putting the photos at the top so you got them first! We got baby chickens this year.  They were really cute as baby chicks are and then they grew up like baby chicks do.  Then they started to stink.  We had to get this chicken coop built.  It took way longer than we thought it would.  We started when I was still pregnant...it ended when I wasn't.  I still need to get a picture of the finished product.  Before it was painted I told Josh it looked a bit like a church.  He thought we should hang a bell in it and call it the chicken church.  We didn't do that.  These pictures aren't really of the coop anyway, they're of Tracen building the coop.  He loved helping.

Baptisms, blessings and baby announcements

We are baptizing Jesse and blessing Lincoln on June 12th at 5:00 p.m.  We'd love for anyone who would like to come.  We'll even feed you treats afterward.

It will be in the 1st & 2nd ward building. Both church buildings in Parowan are on the same lot on Main so if you find one, you find them both. It will be in the red building that's toward the back of that block.