Answers and the Ward Family Band

Sooo, apparently the game was much easier than I anticipated.  Everyone who guessed got the answers correct.  And I even tried to pick the pictures where they looked the most alike!  :)

I've been working on uploading videos to Youtube.  We have quite a backlog, so I'll try and link to a few a week to catch up.  First up:  The Ward Family Band, featuring Lincoln on drums and Lucas on guitar.  Watch and you can say "you knew them when..."

Lincoln's Debut!

Some Thoughts

• I remember the days of being able to vacuum and clean the floors (in the whole house!) in about an hour. Today, I made it about halfway down the hall and through about half the rug in the living room in an hour. A toddler that insists on "helping" by turning the vacuum on and off every few inches tends to slow things down...
• In addition, I tried to clean the kitchen floor today. (angry side note: WHO PUTS WHITE TILE FLOORS AND COUNTERTOPS IN A KITCHEN?? How in the world am I supposed to keep those clean? It is near impossible, friends). I made it about 3 feet. Would you like to know why? It is actually pretty cute (although, maddening that it has turned into a 2 day project...). I had my cleaning rag and floor cleaner (oh yes, this was a hands and knees scrubbing--did I mention the floors are white?!?). Lincoln wanted to help, so I gave him a spray bottle filled with water. I scrubbed a tile, then moved onto the next. Lincoln followed and sprayed my previously cleaned tile with his water bottle. When I finished the next tile, I had to go back and dry the tile he had sprayed so no one slipped and fell and added an ER trip to our day. As you can imagine, we spent most the time going back and forth between 2 tile squares. And the wall. And maybe the pantry.
• I have eaten nearly half a jar of Nutella in the past 3 days. I would eat the whole jar, if only they didn't print the nutritional information on the side.
• I have also eaten about 3/4 of a bag of mini Heath bars. Lucas and I have recently become huge fans of toffee. Remind me to share my super easy homemade toffee recipe with you. I can vouch for its awesomeness because my friend's daughter used it to enter in a baking contest and won first place!
• Lincoln started swim lessons this week. He cried the first day, but did great today! I think by the end of class, he will be able to dive down and get those diving rings we bought. Kidding!
• I switched to soft contacts after 15 years wearing gas permeable lenses (if you aren't familiar, they are hard plastic). I am getting much faster at getting them in and out. It was quite a change from putting in hard lenses! However, my main complaint is why I didn't switch sooner. I was always told I would hate soft lenses because my vision wouldn't be as crisp. Well, to me the difference is negligible and well worth the thought that I won't have a spec of dust fly in my eye just from thinking about going outdoors.
• I am tired. And rambling.
• I can't find our battery charger, so our camera currently has no batteries. I've taken some pictures with my phone, but they aren't uploading on the computer yet. I will try to find a picture from my archives to share. I hate posting without adding a picture...

How about a video? This is Lincoln chasing his favorite animal (ducks) at a local park. If you stick it out till the end, you get to hear him say duh-k! Also, it was a really windy day, so there is kind of a lot of background noise...

A video: Lincoln "Amadeus"

Lincoln wrote a song for you. It is about birds; specifically, ostriches (vooom-kahs) and owls. And also the chorus from All the Single Ladies. Lucas taught him that last week, and apparently, he liked it enough to include it in his own composition. Please don't tell Beyonce--we can't afford to pay royalties : )

Video: Tire swing at the park

I have quite a backlog of videos I have been taking with my phone, so I have decided to get with it and start sharing them here. Once, maybe twice a week. I can't imagine how I got by without a phone that took video. Sure, it only records a minute at a time, and the quality is pretty crappy, but I've been able to capture so many cute moments from Lincoln's life that I wouldn't have otherwise. I mean, we have a nice, HD video camera, but really--who hauls that thing around with them daily? And with the phone, I can instantly upload to Youtube. With the video camera, you have to import to iMovie, edit, export, blah blah blah. Someone needs to come out with a phone that takes HD video and has instant uploading capabilities to Youtube. When my phone contract is up in a year, I will be your first customer.

Today's video: Lincoln on the tire swing at the park

More posting tomorrow!

It's Birthday Time.

Today is my birthday. Another year older. 29, in fact. No, really. I know, I apparently only age from the inside and will forever look like a teenager (I know, I know, it's a blessing, I'll appreciate it when I'm older, blah blah blah). As nice as I'm sure it will be when I'm "older", it sometimes can be a bit annoying "now." Take, for instance, the airline pilot who asked me if I was on a break from school. (I told him yes, but because I worked at a school, not because I was a student...he turned bright red...). Or the customer at Border's where I was working as a barista in grad school who asked why my parents would let me work so late on a school night. Or the door-to-door salesman who rang the bell and asked if my parents were home (oh wait, that wasn't me...that was Lucas. ahahhahaha!) : ) To illustrate my point, here is the birthday card my parents sent this year.



Anyway. That wasn't where I was going with this post.

But, I ran out of time to write what I was going to, so instead here is an awesome video of Lincoln. My birthday present to you on my birthday. Enjoy!

6 Months?!!

Today, Lincoln in 6 months old. I can't believe a half a year has gone by so fast! He has changed so much and I feel like I can't video tape him enough to capture all the changes (but don't worry, I still try! We have hours upon hours of Lincoln sitting, rolling, smiling, laughing, etc. to edit!). We are planning the big excitement for tomorrow--Lincoln's first food (ok, first REAL food. As evidenced by the video below, he has tried eating before--but we don't count that as REAL food). I am so excited--and even if he doesn't eat it, it will still be a glorious, colorful mess! So, for today, I have some pictures from the past month and two videos to share. Tomorrow we will post the big food adventure and his 6 month photo shoot!

But, let's not forget those milestones! Over the past month, Lincoln has:

• Started to recognize our voices--if he is waking up from a nap and is upset, we can start talking in the hallway and he will calm down when he hears our voices.
• Become bashful.  When he is being held and someone comes up to him, he will give them a big smile and then bury his face in our shoulder.  This is so stinkin' cute.
• Commenced teething--and just yesterday, the sharp and pointy corner of his first tooth pushed its way through his bottom gum!  It hasn't progressed any further, but when you run your finger over his gum you can definitely feel it!
• Went on his second road trip up to Dallas to visit Lucas' parents, sister, and extended family.  On his first road trip, he slept much of the way.  This time required some extensive creativity on mama's part to entertain an awake baby for 5 hours in a car seat (minus his 1 hour nap, that is....).
• REALLY started to enjoy his jumper!
• Has become super interested in Wembley (our dog).  Wembley has had his ears, neck, collar, tail, and feet pulled and always responds with a yelp and then proceeds to lick Lincoln's hand or feet.
• Has also become super interested in the computer.  He likes to push on the keys and go after it if we set it on the floor (it is a laptop).
• Had a horrible run-in with some mosquitos and ended up with 11 bites on his face alone (there were others on his arms and legs).  After that experience (and the sleeplessness that followed--poor itchy guy!) we stopped going on our morning walks around the lake. We are now in the market for a mosquito net for the stroller....
• Sat in his high chair for the first time--and, sat in a high chair at a restaurant (note:  will be investigating those cloth covers for high chairs after discovering Lincoln likes to use them as a teether...) for the first time!  It was so nice not to have to guard our food while Lincoln sat on our laps.  He has been known to toss a hamburger, rice, and salsa on the floor if he can get his hands on it....
• Responded to things the Grandparents did on the computer screen while talking to them on Skype--so now we know he actually sees them and pays attention to what they do!   
• Going along with the above item--now that we know he can see and pay attention to what goes on on a screen, no more CSI for Lincoln.  
• And the BIG news--he is on the move!  In the past 2 weeks, he has gone from ever so tentatively going up on his hands and knees, to rolling across the room, to making a bridge, to rocking back and forth on hands and knees, to rocking and flopping, to his current level of rock and launching!  Using the rock and launch technique, he can cross a room in about 30 seconds flat.  Remember when I said we needed to get on that baby-proofing?  Yeah, it's time. 

I feel like I am missing things, so I may add to that list if I think of more.  As promised, here are my favorite pictures and videos from the month.  You may notice there is no video of the rock and launch yet.  We are working on a video combining his progression from rolling up to crawling (should he decide the rock and launch gets to be too much work) and will post that soon!  Remember to come back tomorrow night to see his first food experience and 6 month photo shoot!  

Aunt Breanne and Lincoln 

Lincoln still likes to curl up, even though he is getting so big!  I love his little hand holding his foot in the sling--so cute =]  On another note, I look like I am about 12 in this picture.  

Lincoln and Great Granddad

A couple experiments with silhouettes (inspired by i ♥ faces)

Lincoln is really starting to like the back carry in the Beco--he especially likes to chew on the straps.  If you look hard, you can see the drool outline.  I made this picture black and white to hide all the bright red mosquito bites on the poor guy's face.  In full color, this picture is a site to behold!

And, of course, the as promised video clips (trimmed to a very watchable length, I might add!)

Ice Cream from Lucas on Vimeo.

Jump! from Lucas on Vimeo.

Happy 6 months, Lincoln!  We love you so much!

Movie Monday?

Eh, who knows if it will stick, but here goes my best attempt at a Movie Monday theme.  We got this video of Lincoln yesterday--he is dangerously close to crawling.  Although he doesn't do so in the clip, he has been up on his hands and knees more than a few times in the past few days.  Our original guess was he'd be a crawling pro in the next 2 weeks.  Tonight, Lucas has moved his guess to within 1 week.  Eek!  Baby proofing commences this weekend!

Be sure to stick it out to the end of the video.  Lincoln will demonstrate his newfound computer skillz.  When his face lights up (literally), he has deactivated the screen saver (this would make more sense if I told you that the movie was filmed on our MacBook and he was moving himself toward it...).

Enjoy!

A New Discovery

Lincoln has recently become aware that there is more to him than just hands and feet.  This video is actually about a month old and shows off the first of his new discoveries:  his tongue.  As soon as he found it, he made these smacking sounds for about a week straight.  We still hear them once in awhile, but seems his ears are much more exciting these days.  Last week he found his head, which was quite amusing as he would drag his toys and blankets across the top of his head to see how they felt.  Smart kid, I tell you!

This video was made with the camera on our MacBook, so it is not as good of quality as with our camera.  We are still working out memory card issues (by the way, thanks to all who have sent ideas to help with that!  We are in the process of saving every file to our hard drive, then clearing and reformatting the card.  But, at least we won't lose all the videos!).   Enjoy!