Photo Friday #69

Yes I do realize that the last two posts were Lincoln's monthly pictures and I have posted nothing in between. Excuse me while I spend all my time in the evenings with this special guy. This week he began rolling over at daycare. Of course the little stinker wouldn't roll over for us at home. I can tell he doesn't like to lay still, he rolls to his side and then back to the other side. I hope this weekend he'll show off of us.

PS - doesn't his hair look much lighter? Lincoln's going to be a blonde little boy.

Lincoln Is Three Months!

Now that we've entered into the fourth month of life, Lincoln is officially considered an infant (as opposed to a newborn). Or so I read somewhere. I find myself starting most sentences with "I read somewhere" or "someone told me." Guess that's what comes of reading about pregnancy and babies so much lately.

Lincoln James at Three Months:

-Absolutely loves to smile and has a great toothless grin

-Shed his first tear thanks to the development of tear ducts

-Rocks post bath crazy fluffy hair

-Master cuddler, loves soft fabric

-Regularly sleeps 7-8 hours at night (thank you!)

-Official left handed thumb sucker

-Happy morning baby... that is once he gets his stretching and eating out of the way

-Making new friends at daycare

Lincoln Is Two Months!

Yes I know this post is very late, but better late than never! We took Lincoln's two month pictures while back home with family (thank you to my Uncle Jerry for taking these pictures too!) Sticking with the double picture, we captured Lincoln at two months of age.

Lincoln James at Two Months:

-Found out how to smile

-Occasional fan of the pacifier

-Still has no idea where his thumb is

-Sporadic daytime eater

-Good nighttime sleeper... eating once per night and sleeping up to 7 hours!

-Mr. Houdini when it comes to the swaddle

-Learning to love tummy time

-Went on first plane ride... and did great!

-First trip to Iowa, he didn't notice the corn fields

 

Oh Lincoln, how I love your little chunky thighs.

Photo Friday #68

My apologies... here I am with hundreds of pictures I've taken lately and I haven't been sharing them. As you can probably understand, I've been a bit busy. We returned from our 10 day Iowa trip last weekend, I went back to work on the following Monday which means little Lincoln also went to daycare (which I have already started referring to as school). Hopefully this weekend I can organize my thoughts, wash dirty bottles, do a couple loads of laundry and write a few blog posts. However, I make no promises. In the meantime, here a picture of Lincoln and I in the airport waiting to board our final flight home. He was an amazing traveler, Joe and I are very fortunate.

Big Boy Smiles

Early on Lincoln would smile often in his sleep. Some would say this was due to gas bubbles or something going on in his tummy. Others said he was just such a happy baby he would show that while sleeping. Either way I loved seeing this toothless grin. Most times instead of taking a nap myself while he slept I would just lay next to him and stare at him. How could I resist?

Then last week Lincoln started smiling for real. I mean smiles with his eyes open and looking at me (or in most cases, the camera). The hard thing is capturing these amazing smiles and not having a blurry picture. He's just so squirmy when happy, he won't sit still. Actually he's a squirmy baby most of the time when awake. Oh well, these smiles just melt my heart. Never stop Little Lincoln!

Photo Friday #67

During my maternity leave it has been important for me to get out of the house every once in a while. The weather has been great so Lincoln and I have taken many many walks. We always made sure to go in the early morning because it gets too warm in the afternoon. Also, we've learned to avoid Tuesdays... that's garbage day and the truck comes around in the morning and makes the sidewalks smell awful. Anyways, we've made Dunkin' Donuts our date spot. For a while there I was getting free coffee the day after a Braves win (just another reason to cheer for them!) Unfortunately that promotion ended, but we still made some trips to get coffee and enjoy the outside patio. Just one of the many things I'll remember from my special time with Lincoln!

 

Family Of Three

I have always enjoyed taking pictures. I have never thought of myself as a great photographer, but I have always loved having momentos and memories to look back on. Since Linoln's arrival I have turned this addiction of photo taking to another level (if you haven't already been able to tell). That's totally cool though, right? I'm simply a proud parent, right? Yes, most of these pictures have been of just Lincoln, but a few have been of our family of three. These are precious pictures in my heart, even if I do look pretty tired in some of them..

Photo Friday #66

Let me start off by saying Lincoln is a noisy sleeper. We've been told most babies are noisy, but I still feel he takes the cake. Most nights go like this... we put him down in the pack 'n play (still sleeping in our room) around 9:00. He usually is ready to eat again around 12:30 or 1:00 and afterwards I put him back in the pack 'n play. Keep in mind he's swaddled each time to keep those flailing arms from awakening him. Then most nights he's ready to eat again around 4:30 or 5:00. At this time he's not sleeping as deeply and begins, what we consider, his "noisy sleepy". At this time I usually put him to sleep in the bathroom so that Joe and I can get a few more hours of shut eye. This probably sounds bad... we have a baby chair in there that he seems to like. Lincoln is not one to enjoy being swaddled once he's starting to wake up. Most times when I get up to feed him he's completely out of the swaddle. On this particular morning he must've had a hard time getting those little arms out. What do you do when you can't get the arms out of a swaddle? You work on the legs instead... Silly baby.

On a side note this little guy slept for a 6.5 hour stretch last night. That's a record! We're making progress. Thank you Lincoln for being such a good baby!

Memorial Weekend And Three Uncles

We spent our Memorial Weekend here at home. But it wasn't just any weekend, we had three special visitors. Joe's brothers all made the trip out to Charlotte to visit us and meet their nephew!

Before their arrival Lincoln and I made a trip to the grocery store. Every time we go he is seriously such a good baby. He must love all the lights and stimulating things around him. He also gets lots of compliments. I suppose he better get used to it, he sure is a cute baby!

Uncle Jed was the first to arrive. Lincoln put on his new Hawkeye gear to welcome him. Thanks to a gift from my college roommate Lincoln sported a sweet Hawkeye tie onesie.

Lincoln also demonstrated his inner John Cena. Anyone a WWE fan??

Then the other uncles arrived. First Travis got to hold our little guy. Trust me, Lincoln did enjoy this, we just couldn't seem to capture his happy face.

Then it was uncle Nick's turn. Again, Lincoln's face shows his hesitation with this stranger, but he warmed up to the boys quickly.

During our 2:00 AM feeding I snapped a picture with my little guy. With all these boys around it was nice to have some quiet time together.

The next morning we lazily got up, ate some breakfast and passed Lincoln around. He seems to be studying Nick closely.

The weekend weather was gorgeous so we took full advantage of being out in the fresh air. Thanks to our new patio furniture we ate most meals outside.

First on the activity list was tennis. We have some pretty nice courts in our neighborhood. With five players we switched out teams and Lincoln enjoyed being outside. Again, he's such a good baby when we do activities like this. As you can see in this picture, he's just one of the boys.

Morning number two brought more baby carrying and Dunkin Donuts. Can you tell which one is wearing Lincoln and who has Carlos? You must be familiar with the movie The Hangover in order to get that joke...

Again the weather was perfect so after borrowing a ball from our neighbors the boys got a few games of basketball in while Lincoln watched. He was probably taking notes for the future when he's right in the action.

We grilled out once again and enjoyed the weather. Looks like Lincoln enjoyed Nick's lap.

All this excitement left Lincoln wiped out. Each night he fell right asleep. I joined him with going to bed myself, but the boys always stayed up. There was either a bonfire to be held or a NBA game to watch.

Lincoln also slept in... like I said, he was tired from all the activity!

The fun weekend had to come to an end. Before dropping the boys off at the airport we snapped a few more pictures. Thank you to Jed, Nick and Trav for visiting. Lincoln loved meeting you all!

Greek Quinoa Salad

We've had lots of visitors lately (thanks to Lincoln!) With visitors brings a reason for lots of good food. Between my mom and Joe's mom I've added a couple excellent recipes to my stash. One of the recipes we tried was found on the quinoa package and we thought it was worth a try. It was one of those recipes where you read through the list of ingredients and already know you'll love it. It's very different than most meals Joe and I make, but we both thought it was a keeper. This is the perfect meal to make and for each of us to bring for lunch during work. On a side note, quinoa is gluten and wheat free, plus is a good source of protein. Bonus!

Greek Quinoa Salad
Adapted from Vigo package (similar to this)

Ingredients
1 cup uncooked quinoa
1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
1 cup calamata olives
1/2 red onion, finely diced
1 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Cook quinoa as directed on package. Set aside and let cool completely. Combine quinoa with all other ingredients. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Memorial Day Hunk

Every holiday this year is a first in our household. Today is this little hunk's first Memorial Day. This past weekend was his first time meeting a few uncles. It was an action packed weekend for our little warrior. Thank you to all that have and are serving our country. We appreciate you!

App Appreciation: MammaBaby

There are plenty of apps out there for use during pregnancy and such. I downloaded many during my pregnancy and stuck with just a couple. One was the very popular What To Expect When Expecting. Others were not as useful or helpful. All that I downloaded were free so I never had to worry about giving it a try and deleting it if I didn't like it. Now that my pregnancy is over I searched for a different type of app to use. The one I found and liked the most was MammaBaby. Indeed I liked it so much I ended up purchasing the full version (after my week trial was up) for $3.99. For me, that's saying something!

 

The app is very helpful for keeping track of Lincoln's feedings. Sometimes my memory is a bit short (does pregnancy brain carry over to having a newborn??) and I can't tell you when was the last time he ate. Sometime it's 2:00 AM and my brain was still sleeping. MammaBaby helps me with this! I love the fact that I can track how long he ate, when was the last time he did eat and which side he fed on.

Yes this app has many other features like keeping track of his sleep and dirty diapers, but I didn't find that worth my time of logging. It even has a feature to help log when he has his bottle feedings. We'll see if we use this app when he begins on solid food, but for now I've really enjoyed having this at my side.

Grandparents Are Great

Lincoln has gotten the opportunity to meet all of his grandparents now. He absolutely loved having them all around. That meant extra arms to hold him, extra lips to kiss him and extra hands for some dirty diaper changes. Lincoln is so lucky to have these amazing grandparents.

Funny enough he met them both in familiar fashion. Of course as soon as his grandmas came through the door they had to get him in their hands. After a few minutes of being in awe they all settled down and I snapped these similar pictures.

We made sure to take some good pictures of Lincoln with his grandparents while they're here in Charlotte.  There were lots of naps taken and walks around the neighborhood. Lincoln kept his grandparents busy while visiting and they all had a blast.

Our parents were promoted to grandparents. Again, grandparents are great!