Happy Birthday Kenzie!!

Friday Hannah went to her good friend Kenzie's birthday party. I think her actual birthday may be today. She is 3 years old!! Happy Birthday Kenzie!! She and Hannah were born exactly 2 weeks apart. They have been such good little friends ever since--much like their moms. Kenzie's mom, Stacey, is a very good friend of mine. It has been fun seeing our little girls grow up together.

Kenzie's party was at Chuck E Cheese, Hannah's new favorite place! There were lots of kids there! They seemed to have a blast!

Dawn Nahlen and Sean

Emma Dyniewski

The birthday girl eating her cake! She ate the whole piece!!!

Hannah loves music! When Chuck E Cheese started singing, she went over and started dancing! All the other kids joined in! It was really cute!

Of course, Linc was too little to play, but he had fun just a watching everyone!

Lincoln is 8 months old!!

Yes, Lincoln is already 8 months old! I can't believe it. Here are a few things he is doing:

Still trying so hard to crawl. He mostly lays on his stomach and flaps his arms and legs really fast thinking he's going to move toward the object in front of him he is trying to get. Here he is on all fours. He can get on his knees sometimes, but hasn't figured out what to do after that. He is actually moving all over the floor by rolling, turning, and scooting.

He has started eating some table foods like mashed potatoes, baked beans, bananas, Ritz crackers, and gold fish crackers. He hasn't quite gotten the pincher grasp down yet, so when he goes to grab the Gerber puffs, he grabs it with his whole hand and shoves it in his mouth the best he can. He gets it in most of the time! Lincoln loves to eat! He starts grunting and moving his fingers back and forth if he's at the table with us and we don't give him something. We have been working on the sign language for "more". Sometimes we think he may be doing it cause he starts kind of clapping his hands. You can tell he wants more food. We gave him some 3rd foods spaghetti the other night. You would think that he liked it by this first picture....

but he didn't. Here he is gagging!!!

Lincoln has his two bottom front teeth and is working on his two top front teeth. You can see one of them under the skin. It just hasn't broken through yet. We've had a few bad nights lately, probably due to teething. I wish they'd just break on through!

He has been jabbering a lot lately. He makes all kinds of sounds. Sometimes it sounds like he is really trying to talk. When he gets upset and wants me to pick him up, he starts making a "mmmmm" sound. It may be wishful thinking, but I think he's trying to say Momma!!!

Another thing he has learned to do is clap his hands. This is so cute to watch. If you say "Yeah, Lincoln", he'll start to clap. He loves to bang his toys together too. He plays really well by himself just sitting in the floor with his toys.

Lincoln is such a joy! He is really a good baby! I thoroughly enjoy watching him and just laughing at the cute things he does. He is so special and I thank God for him every day!

First Haircuts

Well, we've had our first bath, our first trip to church, our first time to roll over, our first tooth, etc. Friday night Lincoln had his first haircut! Our FAVORITE hair dresser, Jennifer Bland, cut it for him. She did an awesome job--as usual! He was such a big boy. He did really well! I'm sure he had no idea what was going on. He just kept trying to eat the cute little cape that she put on him.

Before the haircut...

during the haircut...

and after the haircut.

We have decided to embrace the spikey hair. It just naturally wants to stick up, so we've been putting gel in it and really styling it up!!! He's such a cutie!

Hannah got her hair cut too. She's an old pro at it. In fact, she gets excited about having her haircut. Here are a few pictures of her from the other night.

Now, I couldn't end this post without posting some pictures of Hannah's first haircut. She was 9 months old. Jennifer cut her hair at our house while she sat on our ottoman. She did great! I look at these pictures and can hardly believe how big she has gotten. Kind of makes me sad. These "first" moments are all SO special. The cool thing about them is that they don't end--first day of school, first day of junior high, first day of high school, first boyfriend, first date.....yikes! It all goes by way too fast!!

Lots of Pictures From This Week

Here's a picture of the double stroller I got this week at Rhea Lana, a consignment sale. Yeah!!! Thanks Pappaw and MeMe for helping with it! Both the kids were excited to go for a stroll. I think I may have to put Lincoln in the front, though, because he kept trying to pull Hannah's hair! He just laughed and laughed while we went for a walk!

Hannah had to bring her phone along for the ride (and her purse and her baby). Here she is "talking to Pappaw".

Last night at Life Group, Hannah asked if she could hold Benson Bland. Nathan and Jennifer have a similar picture of her holding Benson on their blog. She asked me if she could hold Lincoln this morning. I thought it was hilarious because Lincoln is almost as big as she is!!!

I promise she's not trying to choke him here.

Trip to St. Louis

Last Thursday we took a trip to St. Louis to visit Kris' brother, Les, and his family--Carol, Logan, and Lindsey. We left at 6:30 a.m. Thursday morning to drive to Trumann, AR where Kris had to do an installation for work. Jonesboro is only about 15 minutes from there, so I headed there with the kids to try to kill the day while Kris worked. My plan was to take them to a movie. However, the movie theater didn't open until 3:30 p.m. So, I decided to check out the nice new Target they had which was connected to their new mall. There was a Chuck E Cheese right next to the mall, so I decided to take them there for lunch. We ordered our pizza and got 40 tokens to play with. Hannah was fascinated by Chuck E Cheese, but she did not want to take her picture with him! She would dance while he sang. I put Lincoln in a high chair that I could push around so he could go with us while Hannah played. After a while, he got fussy, so I held him. My arm was about to fall off! That boy is HEAVY!!! Anyway, we stayed there for a couple hours. Then, Hannah took about a 30 minute nap while I fed Lincoln in the car.

Hannah dancing to the music.

We spent the rest of the afternoon (till about 5:00 p.m.) at the mall. I don't have a double stroller, so I'd either have Hannah in the stroller and be holding Lincoln or have Lincoln in the stroller and be holding Hannah (if she wasn't walking). Any of you soon-to-be moms of 2 out there, I highly recommend a double stroller! I was worn out by the end of the day. I couldn't have asked for better kids though. They were little angels! We had a blast together!

We got to Les and Carol's house around 10:30 p.m. that night. I can't even remember what time we went to bed. All I know is that the next day, Hannah put herself down for a nap at 10:30 in the morning. She was so tired. She was so excited to see Logan and Lindsey. She LOVES them! They are so great to play with her and were EXTREMELY helpful with taking care of her and Lincoln while we were there.

Kris' parents came up on Friday. It was good to see them. On Saturday, everyone except Carol, Lindsey, Lincoln, and I went to the Transportation Museum. The four of us went and did a little shopping. Fun stuff!

I think Hannah wished she was shopping!

Sunday after church, Kris' other brother, Kurt, came up from Kansas City with his wife, Alexis, and daughter, Isabel. Isabel is about to be 2, so she and Hannah can kind of play together. Isabel is a ball of energy. She is fun to watch.

Monday we all got up early to try to go to the St. Louis Zoo. It is free and a really good zoo. I'd highly recommend it. Hannah was so tired and EXTREMELY cranky, so after being there for an hour, we left. We needed to be back that evening by 5:30 anyway, but I was very disappointed that she wasn't able to enjoy it more.

Anyway, it was a very fun trip. Thank you to Les and Carol for putting up with us for so long and feeding us so many GREAT meals! We had a blast!

Here are some more pictures from the weekend.

Lincoln LOVES to play with his big sister!

Grandma tried and tried to get Linc to go to sleep. He loves to grab your face.

Les and Kris

Granddad riding a bike???

Lindsey, Lincoln, and Carol

Hannah & Logan

Just horsin' around.

Hannah & Isabel (a.k.a "Ibazel")