Gage's baby blessing - December 31, 2011

New Year's Eve. I have to work until 9 tonight for month end / year end, so I am grateful we got to have an event to celebrate with family.  My cousins, Alan and Michelle, blessed their son, Gage. They booked their church and planned a soup buffet for afterwards.

Alan and Gage


Michelle, Gage and Alan

The under one crowd. Kelley and Phoenix (9 mo). Jessi and Lincoln (3 mo). Michelle and Gage (2 mo). Ariana (due June 2012)

James and Lincoln disappeared during the lunchtime visiting. I found them playing Around The World with Chad.

Chad won.

Moving makes me tired. December 30, 2011

Moving has been an adventure.  I emailed our apartment's management in early November to ask about any potential rent increase.  She emailed me after Thanksgiving with a $90/mo increase... or only $60/mo if we wanted to sign an 18 month lease.  Ha! Neither of those options are within our budget - especially while James is in full-time classes.  So we emailed her our 30-day intent to move and went apartment hunting.  We found an apartment in our budget in Holladay and began the process of packing, cleaning, moving, unpacking, etc.

Lincoln supervised everything, from packing up the old apartment...

to unloading boxes in the new apartment.

We're so, so, so, so grateful for the help we had.  My visit teacher, Mandy, helped pack, James' friend Neil from SLCC brought his truck and trailer and brought two loads of stuff and helped haul up and down stairs.  Kristen and her girls helped with packing, cleaning and unpacking and playing with Lincoln.  Jessa, our neighbor and in our NSL ward, came to help clean the kitchen very last minute and Aaron, our NSL ward 2nd counsellor also helped wash windows. (Neil and James)

Emma, Kristen, Lincoln and Aspen

Also THANK YOU Kristen and Clay for letting us use your fireworks boxes (Emma helping take an empty box out to the car).  And for the use of your carpet shampooer.

Emma is a huge help with Lincoln.  He loves to be 'bounced' and she is really patient with him.

Aspen loves to hold Lincoln too!

We got the old apartment empty and clean and turned back over to the apartment management, we will hopefully get our entire deposit back in the next month.  We're unloaded into the new apartment and trying to find places for everything.  I'm having difficulty getting motivated to empty boxes.  When Lincoln is taking a nap, I usually take a nap too.

Some Videos from Christmas - December 29, 2011

I cleaned off my phone's SD card and had such fun watching little videos from Christmas.  Enjoy!

"Jingle Bells" on Christmas Eve (:55 sec)

The Nativity (Mary swaddling Jesus) (:19 sec)

The Nativity (Joseph, an Angel and a star) (:38 sec)

Christmas Morning (:24 sec)

Dance Party 1 (:32 sec)

Dance Party 2 (:30 sec)

Nerf War 1 (:47 sec)

Duel 1 (Carter) (:32 sec)

Duel 2 (Deven) (:13 sec)

That was fun!  Let's have Christmas again!

Christmas in Idaho - December 23-28, 2011

Merry Christmas! We had so much fun in Idaho for Lincoln's first Christmas:We drove up to Eagle on Friday afternoon and got to Oma and Opa's house at bedtime (it takes a long, long time to go anywhere with a small guy).

CHRISTMAS EVE
Opa, Lincoln and McKayla model Santa hats

Bree and Lincoln (Take my picture with Baby Lincoln!)

Lincoln and Bree again (Can I hold Baby Lincoln?)

Lincoln, Bree and Ellie (Take a picture of all of us! Can I see the picture Aunt Jessi?)  Ellie told me several times over the weekend that she was going to teach Baby Lincoln how to talk, because she's such a good talker.

In the afternoon, Jed's family came over and we had a short program of Christmas songs - Hannah and McKayla sang, "I'm gettin' nuthin for Christmas".  They were going to enact "Twas the night before Christmas", but most of the reindeer escaped out the back door and finally Oma read the story without pageantry.

And we opened cousin presents.  A couple months ago, names were drawn and each cousin had another cousin's name to buy/make a Christmas gift for.  Oma, Opa and Ellie watch Hallie open her gift.

Hannah modelling the sweet socks she got from Emma.

Bree had Lincoln's name this year.  She picked out an electronic "remote control" that makes noise and sings songs when you push the buttons and a rubber ducky.  Lincoln really enjoys playing with them - the picture was taken at a sad moment.   Lincoln had Tyler and got him a Lego helicopter to put together.

James was determined to get some reading done on our visit to Idaho.  He brought an anthology of James Bond books and even got it out a few times.  But every time he tried to read, he inevitably got interrupted.  Here is Ellie and James discussing colors.  What color is this?  Blue. What color is this? What color is an orange? Orange.  Then it is orange.  What color is this?  etc. etc. etc.  He didn't read a single page.

Christmas Eve dinner is another fun tradition.  When we were young, we wanted to go skiing on Christmas Day, so having a formal Christmas dinner was difficult.  Instead, we have a formal Christmas Eve dinner and feature a Mediterranean menu.  This year we had beef and chicken kabobs and couscous.

The kids enacted the Nativity Story for us.  Here are Carter (Joseph), Bree (donkey) and McKayla (Mary) surrounding the baby Jesus (Lincoln).

This picture makes me laugh, even though I missed the primary action.  Carter and James are playing with Lincoln on the couch and Mary is attempting to ride Bree the donkey without actually sitting on her.  So funny.  This was after we were through reading the scriptures, Bree was sad that her part as the donkey had been skipped and McKayla was being a wonderful big sister and having a slightly difficult donkey ride.

CHRISTMAS
Santa left all the stockings in the kitchen because he knew we had early church. So we got breakfast and got to open stockings and run out the door to church.  Then home again to open presents.  Lincoln, Carter, McKayla, Ellie and Bree.

We played speed scrabble. How many points for "Lincoln?" He's wearing his Christmas pajamas.

MONDAY
James took a picture without a flash...

And with the flash...

Bree Lincoln and Carter.

Deven, Carter and McKayla each got a Nerf dart gun for Christmas, so there were some epic dart gun wars (please forgive the cell phone picture quality).

Carter and Deven face prepare for a duel.

In addition to cousin gift exchange, each family has another family.  I've been crocheting hats for our family each year and this year we had the Davis'. We gave them a couple kid sleds shaped like a penguin and polar bear to go with their hats. I still didn't get Kim and Deven's hats done, but I think the kids' are cute!  (Dotys had us, we got a fantastic little train set that we'll really enjoy when Linc gets a bit bigger.)

We also had a movie date (thanks Deven and Oma) and visited with Jon and Leah and family and left for Utah on Wednesday afternoon. As always, super fun and way too fast!  Merry Christmas!!

Playing with Lincoln - December 27, 2011

Cleaning off the cell phone and came across some fun videos of Lincoln
December 14, 2011 - backward somersaults (:18 sec)

December 20, 2011 - playing with Bear (:22 sec)

December 24, 2011 - overhead lifts (:33 sec)

December 27, 2011 - trying to make Lincoln laugh (:32 sec)

Love to see my guys playing together!

Smart Phones - December 27, 2011

Just before Thanksgiving dinner last month, Lincoln fell asleep and we put him down for a nap in the bedroom that James and I use (thanks McKayla!) when we stay at Oma and Opa's.  We were enjoying dinner when Tyler came back from the bathroom (which is near our room) and told me that he could hear Lincoln crying.  So I ran to rescue my poor baby.  There was no way to hear him over the noise of 10 adults and 7 kids in the dining room.  I had no idea how long he'd been crying (he hadn't been asleep for very long, so I wasn't anticipating him to be awake yet) and I was so sad, thinking that he'd been crying for me and I didn't hear him.

During our Christmas visit, I didn't want a repeat.  I looked for a baby monitor application in my phone.  And I found one!  I could leave my cell phone in the room with Lincoln and it would monitor the decibal level in the room.  When it got noisy enough, the phone would send a text message or make a phone call to a designated number. 

I got to set the sensitivity level - if I set it too low, it would go off because kids were playing loudly just outside the door or go off when I clicked the door shut.  That was a bit of trial and error, but the app has a 'test' mode so I could play with the sensitivity level and see what might work.  I set it up to text James' phone when Lincoln woke up from his naps and that worked out perfect.  As long as James had his phone with him.

Another feature of the app is that you can set up your phone to take a picture when the monitor goes off.  I thought that would be fun, so I'd prop the phone fairly close to Lincoln's head with the camera pointed toward him.  And it took a picture every time the monitor went off.  It resets after 30 seconds, so if we were downstairs and it took a minute to get to Lincoln, James might get 2 or 3 text messages and it would take that many pictures.

Here's a sample of the pictures...
Trial and error on setting up the camera in a good position for pictures.  I want a little tripod or something to get better pictures!

I love this picture.  I came in to get Lincoln and was talking to him before I picked him up.  The monitor went off because I wasn't whispering and the phone took this picture of Linc smiling at me.

Lincoln is still partially swaddled for sleeping.  I think it is warmer and he's less likely to startle as I'm laying him down.  Here he's trying to get his arms free.

This picture (and the next) make me so sad!  We were downstairs while Lincoln napped and he was revved up crying pretty hard by the time I got to him.  Poor kid!

The camera is a bit delayed behind the trigger, so Lincoln must've cried a bit and was just waving his arm around when the photo was taken.  Such a good boy!

I do need to figure out how to prop the camera up and get a better angle on his cute face.  But now our trip to Idaho is over and I won't need this app for a few months.

Isn't technology amazing!

Christmas Party! - December 20, 2011

We invited Emma (9) and Aspen (5) to spend an evening at our new apartment to play and do some Christmas activities.  They helped me make haystacks for dinner and then we made graham-cracker houses.  Oma recommended using hot glue to make the houses fairly sturdy.  Then decorate with icing and candy as desired.
Aspen decorates

Emma decorates

Aspen's finished house (she's licking frosting off her hand).

Emma's finished house

It is tradition at Oma and Opa's house to get Christmas pajamas during the Christmas sleepover, so Oma sent pajamas for Emma and Aspen.  (Lincoln will get his pajamas on Christmas Eve at Oma's.)

We also made a snowman Christmas Ornament, a bunch of Christmas cards and Aspen helped me to decorate our front door with wrapping paper and her paper snowflakes.

We had so much fun!  I want to do it again next Christmas!