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!

Happy Sporty Halloween!

This Halloween, I was all about throwing on a shirt for my costume, while making my boys look good. This is what we came up with:However I made the football outfit this summer, when I figured I'd have a tiny newborn just a few days old. Not a 9 lb. 3-weeker by Halloween! We took the outside pictures right when we came home from the hospital, and you can tell how he barely fits in the pictures from last night, the little chunk!

Birth Announcement!

The day after we brought Lincoln home, mom and I set up a little photo shoot in our living room! We made sure he was well fed and set up space heaters so he'd be cozy. Thanks for being so compliant, little one!

Beautiful Bride

Here are some of Kristi's pro pictures of the wedding dress I made! Isn't she darling?!

Linkers

Its been so fun getting to know Lincoln! A little more about the little guy:

• He always has to have his hands up by his face (in fact he came out with hand on his face, thanks kid :)
• The poor boy gets hiccups just as much outside the womb as he did inside--atleast once a day lately. The worst is when I finally get him to sleep, then his hiccups wake him up again.
• He loves his swing and calms down to almost any kind of music I play
• He loves car rides and stroller rides!
• He is the noisiest sleeper. I can't keep the bassinet in our bedroom because of his sighs and moans and grunts all night.
• When you sit and have a conversation with him, he pulls out some great facial expressions and great big wide eyes
• He's so loveable!! I want him to stay this small forever!

I win!

Hurray I won 2nd place! Thanks to everyone for voting! $200 cash, and I think I'm putting my $100 towards a new sewing machine! I've been working on an 11-year old beginner's Kenmore since freshman year of high school!

Getting to Know You

Little Lincoln sure is our pride and joy! He performs so well for visitors, is eating like a champ, and never spits up. He seemed to actually enjoy his bath yesterday, is sleeping longer every night, and we even made it to church today! He fills our house with so much happiness! I'm sure its the crazy hormones, but I find myself in tears constantly just thinking about how perfect he is and happy I am that he's here!(This is the outfit my brother Travis wore home from the hospital 22 years ago)Grandma MillarMy Hancock grandparents, who are now Great-Grandparents!

He sure loves to yawn!