Happy Patty

Happy green day!  Everything we did that was St. Patty's-related was centered around food, though I did go down to Haymarket yesterday morning (which I guess is also food-related), and even at 10:30am, the city was preeeetty crazy with drinkers.  We thought we'd stay indoors.

A. Green waffles & banana coins

B. Shamrock Shakes

C. Normal deviled eggs (I got a little too excited about using my new shamrock plate, that I totally forgot to dye the filling green)

D. Jason brought me home a gorgeous St. Patrick's green bouquet of flowers on Monday to enjoy all week!  How perfectly seasonally thoughtful to a girl who loves the holidays so much!

E. Zucchini muffins (which look green when you bite into them)

F. Key lime yogurt pie

Can You Find the Baby?

I found a place even more trashy and more fun than a thrift store!  The Garment District in Cambridge opens a bale of clothes every day, dumps it in a big room, and you get to climb and swim in the mounds of junk and pay only $1-a-pound for what you find.  Seriously.

Lincoln seems to think its the greatest place in the world!  I usually leave with a big bag of things I rip apart for the fabric, trim, and buttons for under $2.  And for the entertainment of watching a rolling, tumbling toddler playing in a room of laundry?  Priceless.

Hockey Mom

This commercial came up during one of our latest guilty pleasure Castle episodes.  I kept thinking "That's going to be me!  Oh my gosh, that's going to be me!"

 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xfwk5y_subaru-trailer-hockey-mom_auto

31 Weeks

Have a Seat

 

In junior high, I remember taking some career test and based on my interests and skills, my results said I would become a "Furniture Upholsterer".  How odd, I thought, because I was mostly thinking musical theater or nursing at the time, but lately, how strangely accurate.  These are some dining room chairs I took apart and re-covered with my trusty staple gun.  The previous orange did look pretty hideous in my client's $6000/month rental.  I didn't feel bad charging the rightful $500 for doing six chairs and three 10-foot long sets of curtains and window seat cushions.  It took me freakin forever while I was in the depths of morning sickness. 
These window seat cushions seam to be my business niche lately.  Since October, I've made 8 different cushions for clients.  I feel like a piping professional.  And a furniture upholsterer.

My Doggy Does Tricks

Little Link FINALLY walks!  He tries a few more steps and longer distances every day and he seems to love his new skill.  Way to go, little one!  Just in time, because I was getting a little worried that I'd be carrying 2 babies around everywhere I go!

Our Lincoln may be a little behind on some things (crawling at 10 months, walking at 16 months, still not talking), but he always gets there eventually!  He's just been workin so hard keeping up his 29-pound, 95%ile body figure!

PS--Carla, thank you for the darling leather shoes (from my baby shower a year and a half ago) he is now finally able to wear!  They're perfect!

Super Model

 I decided Jason needed a stress-reducing hobby to play with after long hours at work. For Christmas, I got him a model car, and I can't think of anything I've seen him enjoy more than putting in the 20+ hours on this little guy. He meticulously hand-painted every piece of the engine, dashboard, headlight, etc., coated pieces with shiny pearl gloss to make them look "chromy", and sent me on a special mission to get the perfect shade of tan for the seats. Ya, he's a nerd, and I love him!  I really hope our boys will get excited about putting model cars together someday, because their Dad will certainly have a ball helping them.



Dinner Date

Our McD down the street has $.49 McChickens on Tuesdays, and lately this cute boy has been taking me out for dinner.  We spend $1.05 for our two sandwhiches and a water, then we get a quiet table in the back.  We make small talk, play footsie, and sometimes we share the same straw.  I think he's a great guy and really cute, and we'll probably go out again, but he makes me drive every time.



Auntie Janae

Sister-lister came to visit for a few days!  We've had SO many visitors come to Boston!  In less than a year, we've had my family come for their Spring Break, Derek & friends for a Senior road trip, my dad, Jason's mom for a week, my friend Natalie, my mom for a week, and Janae!  I mean this in the kindest way: please no more house guests for a while.  I'm exhausted!

We, of course, hit up the Freedom Trail, and this time we found Mother Goose and Elizabeth Payne, the real Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, which Janae got really excited about because she's reading it in English class right now.

Saturday we went to the New England Aquarium!  Tickets are something like $25/adult, $13/children, but we got a 4-person free pass from our library!  Being a Boston resident has its perks.  I wish you all could have heard Janae squeal in delight and run over to the tank to see a giant turtle. 
(She has somewhat of a turtle obsession).

We got to touch star fish and sting-rays in the touch tanks!

We made Boston Cream Pie desserts and earrings out of buttons.  We ordered pizzas and got Mike's Pastry cannolis.  Most importantly, we took a big trip to the fabric store and have been tackling some Prom dresses!  Janae wanted some help designing for her lime green dress and I'm making a lovely purple one for a cute girl named Nancy.

Because Hancocks love all things peanut-butter, we made homemade Peanut Butter Cup ice cream for Janae's 17th birthday!!  How great that we got to celebrate it while she was out here.  Thanks for coming Auntie Janae!

Hearty Party

And what's a holiday without a party!  These are the other LDS couples in East Boston we had over last weekend for treats and games.

...brought the 'wine', cheese, and crackers,

 

...made crepes, (Rebeckah is due just 3 days before me!) and

did chocolate covered pretzels and banana splits with our super cool ice cream maker! 

Happy Valentine's Day!

A Banner Day

I'm a sucker for holidays.  If I had a spare $10/month, I'd spend it all on holiday decor and not regret a single purchase.  When my mom came to visit last week, she brought some extra scrapbook paper and we made a Valentines banner with all the sewing scraps I have!  The Valentine Loofahs were the project two years ago. Mom talked me into laminating the letters so they'll last longer, because this will indeed be seen up in our house for every February as long as I live.  That's the great thing about holiday decorations--they get used again and again!  I liken holiday decor unto baby clothes.  So fun to buy and make, but then almost equally wonderful to pull out the next year and reuse!

 

Heart Art

 At play group this week, we had a Valentine's Party!  Oh how I love a good holiday!

What an artist!

When I've Grown a Foot or Two

For Christmas, Lincoln got a "Future Missionary" tag (along with his little brother) to wear to church, and he was too cute to not take a picture of yesterday. 

House Rules:


1.  Always check the toaster for objects before you toast anything.

2.  Don't bother putting a new roll of toilet paper on the dispenser, L will only unroll it as soon as he sees it.

3.  Only feed L vegetables that are frozen.  Soft and warm veggies will be immediately thrown on the floor.

4.  Do not open the fridge when L is within 5 yards, unless you can 'throw in and shut' in under 2 seconds.

5.  Kitchen chairs must remain facing away from the table to avoid toddlers falling off of said tables.

6.  You have exactly the time it takes L to drink 4 ounces worth of milk to change and dress him for bed and throw him in. When the bottle is gone, time is up and you lose.

7.  Do not eat anything between the hours of 6am and 7pm that you do not want to share atleast half of.  Eat special treats as fast as you can. Once the frosted flakes are in view, game over.

8.  Do not touch the computer unless you are willing to let L sit on your lap and watch Elmo at the same time.

9.  Use the following words cautiously as they will elicit positive results, but you must follow through with your offer: 'bottle', 'brush your teeth', 'orange', and 'go get in the car'.



Grandma Hancock Comes to Town

 This post is brought to you by the letters M, H, L, G, and P.

 My mom came to visit us for a few days!  

We had a ball lounging, eating, chatting, crafting, and speculating :)

We went out for my favorite soup & breadbowls and stopped by Haymarket for some weekend produce.

 And came across the biggest live lobster we've ever seen!  Speaking of big lobsters, perhaps my favorite moment of the week was at church--when we arrived I ran to the bathroom first, so my mom & the boys walked in and everyone was asking if I had had the baby.

 Thanks to Groupon, we had another lovely lunch downtown with Jason at Casa Razdora.  I love Lincoln's food faces.

If you've visited us before, you know how we take visitors on a walk out on our Piers Park to see the view.  Thank you mom for coming to visit!  Thanks for all your help with grocery shopping, baby gear hoisting, and playing with Lincoln all weekend!  See you here again soon!

26 Weeks

Museum Schmoseum

We spent some holiday time today at the Boston Museum of Science!  As residents we can get free passes from our library.  We were saving up a museum for a cold holiday, so today was perfect.  So much to see and so little time; we are definitely coming back!

Wingtip Saddles

I was thinking about all the things I want to get done before the newbie comes, seeing as most of my friends with two children say not to have any big expectations or plans of getting anything done for the first couple months.  Since I'm not making a blessing dress out of my wedding dress, and the blessing tuxedo is already made, I wanted to make this little one some wingtip saddle shoes like Daddy's shoes on our wedding day!

 I felt so smart cutting up a pair of $1 shoelaces and finding the ivory scraps from the tux.  (The inside soles might be a polka-dot print :)

They're so tiny!  I feel like with every pair of baby shoes I make, its a rush to get the pictures taken before the boy busts out of the shoes.  Another reason I need a regular-sized boy.



15 Months

...is so close to nursury-age!  It looks like we'll get to drop Link-Link off in nursury and be child-free for a couple hours of church for a maybe two weeks, at best, before we add another little guy to the picture!  Lincoln is a hand-full, but so much fun! 

Crawling and pushing chairs are the prefered mode of transportation around here.  I think he could totally walk if he wanted to, but its just a confidence issue. 

This little guy warms my heart!  He gets comments that he has a 'cartoon happy' look to him, and that he is every bit just like his daddy.  I think Lincoln's hair is just about the exact color and texture of Jason's.  He's a great shopping buddy, listener, and pasta-eater.  He's into taking things apart to find the batteries, and will finally sit through a book without grabbing it out of our hands.  We haven't gotten any words out of him besides "dada", and unless he steps it up before his 15-month appt., he's gonna get signed up for speech early intervention!  "Why speak when Mom already interprets everything I grunt about?"

Only when I'm watching him very closely does he get to play with the money jar.  Oh the fascination with tiny shiny objects.  Or maybe he just wants to be like Dad who gets to play with money all day too :).

Introducing...

Our dear bird Edna Mode had a rough Thanksgiving.  Did I mention she had this dangerous habit of squeezing her head through her cage bars?  Well, I guess she was a little too lonely for the two days she was left with our friends, squeezed out of her cage, probably couldn't get back in, and...Edna is no longer with us.  Rest in peace, you silly bird.

 

 Saturday we field-tripped to the pet store! 

 After a long look-over, we picked the youngest and prettiest one!

Isn't she lovely?  Jason thinks its a boy and should be named Studebaker, Sparky, or Stu.  I'm deciding that she will be a girl because I need a female friend in this very-male household.  And so I'd like to introduce, in honor of the pageant broadcast this Saturday, there she is, "Miss America"!  After working with her just over the weekend, she'll already sit on our fingers and let us stroke her.  She has a beautiful tweet and I feel so cool having a pageant girl as a friend!