Thanks Provo.

Its been a rockin 6 1/2 years. I've lived in 7 different apartments but all with a Provo zip code. I was thinking about how I was raised with big expectations for Provo. I needed to get here, go to school, choose a major, graduate, and find a husband in the time I'd be here. And I did everything on the list! (Including get a job, actually use my job, and have a baby!) So I guess its only fair to other planners and dreamers that I leave this cute little bubble and let another girl in to do her thing. Everyone's got to leave sometime!

Time to join the masses of people all over the world who shared a little Provo love when they were young. Thanks again Provo, you were good to me. Now let's see what Boston brings!

T + E

Glory be, my brother finally has a girlfriend he's willing to claim on facebook! Her name is Eliza and she's adorable and Travis' match in every sense of the word. And she's his girl #103. Time to end The Great Hunt, Travis :) We had fun getting to know her before we leave Provo. Good luck!

Ho Ho Ho

Everyone loves a ward Christmas party! Can you tell which Vegas casino (the one robbed of 1.5M today!) we patterned our gingerbread house after? Candy in one hand, Santa's beard in the other :) Good boy, make sure he knows who's in charge.

Even Better!

So plans have changed a little! We're still moving to Boston, but instead of going for an internship, we're going for a real job!! Jason got the call yesterday that Cambridge Associates would like to hire him starting January! (He was able to give the internship to another colleague) We're legitimately employed! With benefits, a salary, and 3-weeks vacation (4 next year), like a real grown-up job :) We're so excited that we'll be able to stay in Boston longer than a semester. We'll get to be real Bostonians. Come visit and we'll have tea parties!

Jason's Blurb: Here's the "About Us" section from their website: "Cambridge Associates is a privately held independent consulting firm that provides consulting and investment oversight services to more than 800 clients worldwide. We strive to help global institutional investors and private clients meet or exceed their investment objectives by offering proactive, unbiased advice grounded in intensive and independent research.

At Cambridge Associates, we don’t believe in a “one-size-fits-all” approach to investing. Our philosophy focuses on identifying the individual objectives of each client and applying time-tested investment best practices to achieve successful results.

Widely recognized as a leading investment consulting firm to sophisticated investors, we place a special emphasis on avoiding conflicts of interest and maintaining complete independence from money management firms. " So Cambridge focuses mostly on non-profit organizations, endowment funds, pension funds, museums, private investors, etc. I believe their large focus is the endowments, pension funds, and non-profit organizations however. Anywhoo, Thought we should let all know our news. Thanks for the prayers everyone! It really does work out in the end.

The Accessory

I am so attached to this little boy! I call him 'my favorite accessory' because he is with me wherever I go. I love him more and more every day! (Just like I do with Jason :) Its everything I could wish for, being able to stay home with him and just be Lincoln's Mom.

Some adorable things:

• He seems to really enjoy diaper changes. As soon as I start freeing him from clothes, he cheers up and gives me immediate smiles! I really want to buy this onsie at Target that says, "I'm happier naked".
• If you put a shirt over his head to dress him, he totally freaks out like he's being suffocated.
• He is quite cuddly. He'll let me spend all the time I need checking email, writing in my journal, blogging, etc. as long as he can lay on my shoulder. I'm getting really fast at typing with one hand--I feel for you Evan.
• His new trick lately is wiping his nose all over my shirt. He loves it.
• He used to take about 10 minutes to really wake up, but nowadays, he will pop his eyes open out of no where and be completely awake with no warning. It kindof startles me sometimes!
• He loves loves music. I recently won a giveaway for this "Cradle Rock" CD of Michael Jackson lullabies! (Thanks Crissa!) I can't wait to get it so Lincoln doesn't have to listen to me sing nothing but showtunes all day.

• He has chosen a bedtime of 8pm and wakeup at 6:30am sharp. He still needs to eat 2-3 times in there, but he'll go right back to bed, which is absolutely wonderful.
• During the day, he's a total cat-napper. 5-10 minute naps are his thing. It makes for speedy showers.
• My favorite cry of all is when he puts his head back and whines "mmmBahhhh" up in the air like a baby bird begging for worms :)

My Hungarian Brother

Lincoln and I got to see Travis perform in matinee of Christmas Around the World! (Well, actually Link slept through the whole thing). It was a great show, and Travis is quite a talented dancer! Who knew!? He has some crazy stick-swinging skills. Throw him a broom and watch him go to work.

Round 2

Jason got a scholarship to pay for him to take the 2nd level of the CFA! He'll take it in June. Let the studying begin! Here are his 8 inches of study material. I can't wait to cover them with sharpie grafitti.

Christmas Photoshoot: Fail

How Did This Happen?

Lincoln's 2 month stats are as follows:

• head circumference: 50th percentile
• height: 75th percentile at 23.5 inches
• weight: 90th percentile at 13.4 pounds

Suspicions confirmed. Some mothers feed their baby milk, and I feed mine Haagen-Dazs.

Defined

I got to hear Noteworthy's 3rd CD last night at the release party, and it sounds amazing! I was the oldest alumni there, it was so weird! Time to leave Provo, right? If you don't want to wait for an ordered copy, you can get it on iTunes starting today! Go listen!

Dresses for Betsy

Finally, a non-baby post, right?! Lately I've been doing some remakes for my Aunt Jenni. She had a bunch of dresses from high school and college that I re-fashioned for her cute daughter Betsy. How sentimental, yes? I love doing remakes! Especially going from big to smaller because I could pretty much cut each dress apart, make the pieces smaller, and sew it all back together, redo zippers, blah blah blah, add some ribbon or a ruffle, etc. What fun. Here are my favorites:

Maybe someday I'll have a girl and I'll remake my prom dresses into Easter dresses :) Lincoln will have a matching vest, just kidding. Not really.

Even the Toys get Smiles

We have a bouncer in our kitchen that I set Lincoln in while I eat breakfast or make dinner, and I often turn around to see him beaming at the smiling animals :)

Beefy Boy

We think our boy grew a few inches overnight. We came back after being away for almost 2 weeks for Thanksgiving in Ohio to find that he barely fits in his bassinette anymore!

I think I pulled out his 3-6 month clothes just in time. (He'll be 2 months old on Saturday) I'm pretty sure he won't have to wear the same outfit twice for the entire 3 months! Somehow he ended up with quite a large and stylish wardrobe just this size!

Blessing Day

Jason gave a beautiful blessing! Lincoln loves being bounced by his dad, so he was an angel through the whole thing and even sat through some pictures. What a handsome boy in his 3-piece tux!

(The rings on his fingers were worn by my dad and grandpa on their blessing days!)

So Happy!

The "After" Picture

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Us

Happy 2 Year Anniversary to us last Sunday! What a wonderful two years it has been! Look what we have to show for it!

This little tux has been worn by all 7 of my brothers as newborns, and it looks like the tradition will continue with the grandbaby boys.

Derek Wins

We're in Ohio for Thanksgiving! My Dad got to meet his grandson for the first time, and all my siblings are loving thier nephew! On Sunday, Derek was getting the biggest smiles and seems to have won the contest for 'favorite Uncle'!

Another New Home

Jason found us a house when he was out in Boston on Monday! We're going to be living on the bottom floor of this cute 2-bedroom house in Somerville. I don't even want to talk about how much we're going to be paying in rent; just keep in mind that Boston is considered the 3rd most expensive city for housing in America, next to LA and NYC. I was feeling so sad about leaving our beautiful Provo home, but my tender mercy is the wood floors in our soon-to-be home! We have a park directly across the street from us, a cheap grocery store around the corner, and the library less than a mile away! I think the 3 of us will be very happy in our new little world!

We're Moving to...

BOSTON!!! Jason has a payed internship with Westwood Global starting in 6 weeks! Ahhh! We're so excited and I'm so overwhwelmed and its going to be wonderful!

Smiley

Lincoln gave Jason and I a couple adorable smiles for the first time today!! Oh how rewarding! All we've been doing today is trying to make him smile again; we probably look ridiculous.

I always thought it was so lame when married friends of mine would have a baby and suddenly their blog was nothing but posts of their child. 'Oh she did this today', or 'oh he said this today', or 'oh, she pooped in the toilet for the first time today'. And yet, I find every single post of ours lately being solely about the little man. Its true, he's the only interesting thing about us now! We've become the stereotype of a 'boring married couple with baby'!

ZZzzz

Jason is a pro at getting Lincoln to sleep. He has a system down of sqeezing him tightly and shh-ing into his ear. Works every time, and I love how much Jason helps me out when he's home! My favorite time of the day: mid-morning when we get in a nice 2-hour nap on the couch together, and I catch up from a much interupted night. He sleeps so well with some sort of body contact, and we think that sure makes him a 'needy' baby, but its so cute!

Growin'

Happy 1 month birthday Lincoln! You're not a 'newborn' anymore! You're growing up so fast--you grow out of a newborn size outfit every day now, you chunker.

What I Love about Being a Mom:

Absolutely everything! I think I had such realistically low expectations about things like recovery, sleep deprivation, baby fussiness, getting the weight off, the potential of getting an ugly baby, etc. that I'm pleasantly surprised about everything! Freak, according to my scale, I'm already 5 lbs. below my pre-pregnancy weight!

However, I guess I wasn't warned and didn't realize that I'd be nursing absolutely ALL the time! Honestly, I should have thought about all this time that I'd be immobile, just sitting for 45 minutes 8-10x/day, especially during night feedings when I'm trying to keep it dark and quiet. He's a champ about going right back to bed during the night, then 8 am hits, and he will absolutely not sleep in his crib anymore, smart boy. I'm amazed how great I feel for not sleeping more than a 3-hour stretch in the last 3 weeks! Lots of short REM cycles = lots of crazy dreams, is that right?

So I've talked with new mothers who absolutely dread being pregnant again, and the thought of another pregnancy and childbirth is just exhausting to them, yet after having this little one, I find myself constantly thinking about the next one! I really loved being pregnant, and the delivery wasn't terrible, thank you epidural. I get sad thinking about how quickly this adorable newborn stage will go by, and then I remember that I can just have another one and experience it all over again! I can do this whole thing over and over again, the planning, the waiting and anticipating the next pregnancy test, the joy in a positive, the first heartbeat appointment, the gender ultrasound, the name picking, the excitement for the day I get to meet him/her!! Oh, I think I was just born to be a mother!

What's Not for Dinner?

We've discovered that Lincoln is definitely sensitive to what I eat. We can certainly tell the nights we have garlic, onions, peppers, or anything weird for dinner. He's up ALL night with colicky symptoms (but it makes for an exhausted and cuddly baby the next morning), so it looks like 'bland' is the menu for me for the next few months.

And now as I write this, I dreadfully realize I just ate Papa Murphy's with the garlic alfredo white sauce, darn it. Its going to be a long night!