Preemie Reunion 2011

I'm sure I'll find plenty more photos in the next little bit, but these were the ones I was really keeping my eyes peeled for. We love going to the preemie reunion and showing all the people we grew very close to, how their hard work has paid off. I love to see them drool over Lincoln and watch his gaze as if he truly remembers each one.

This cute little lady holding Lincoln was one of the first angels to take care of him.  Not only did she take care of him, but she took wonderful care of us as well.  We have fond memories of Heather and could never thank her enough!!

And to be honest, the photo/post overload is due to me slacking a little too much.  I looked at one of the past comments from a friend on the last post I did. She asked for an update....that was July 10th and the post was dated April 14th.  We just recently moved and because of the distance, we were assigned new therapists.  It's always a good and bad thing.  Good because we can go outside of the box with the therapy we were receiving before and have a new set of eyes and bad because we loved our old therapists and will miss them dearly.  We'll being doing an assesment in the next couple of weeks again to see where Lincoln is and where we need to go.  The funny thing about both of our new therapists is our PT is actually one of our friends.  We didn't put it together until she got here and we all recoginzed each other.  Her hubby and my hubby worked and played softball together in the past.  Now with my OT, I was told that she's good... really good....like Annie Miller good.  Annie Miller was one of our therapists while Lincoln was still in the NICU at Utah Valley.  We LOVED her and she LOVED Lincoln.  We were so sad to have had to move on from her, but we still get to see her from time to time and hear about her.  We've met with our new OT, Chris, once and so far she is wonderful.  Now that I've caught you up just a teeny on Lincoln, I have a bit more detailed blogging to do on our family blog! .....maybe another day!

My Buddy

These two are great buddies. Lincoln was happy to accompany Luke to his first day of Kindergarten.  Given the opportunity, I bet Luke would have had Lincoln stay with him the whole day.  They sure are cute together.  I love to see the sibling love between them....cute boys!!

Moab 2011

I think the only time I pulled out my camera this entire trip was for these pool photos.  I was happy to capture the genuine fun Lincoln was having in the pool.  It got a little chilly so he didn't last long, but he loved it while it lasted!

Memorial Day

Love the opportunity we have to go down and visit our baby Colten. Lincoln is getting to that stage where he's pretty curious and was a bit interested in the headstone. Isn't amazing how close babies are to the doorways of Heaven. I often wonder what they see...what they know. I'm sure Colten was one of the last angels Lincoln saw before he made his presence here on earth. I'm sure Colten has been Lincoln's guardian angel through out all of his struggles. How wonderful it will be to see these boys reunite! And really all of us for that matter!

o

Fourth of July 2011

I'm so bummed! I took a ton of cute pictures with my phone of us at the derby, but a few days later I had to reset my phone because it was frozen. I lost all the photos I had on there. That's why it's good idea to back everything up ASAP! Here I go again being a Debbie Downer. Makes me sad I haven't had my camera in hand as often lately. I am a tad busy with school, but I don't want too many memories to pass by! For some reason these photos aren't the best quality, but they're better than nothing!!

Collage

I rummaged through all of Lincoln's miscellaneous photos to see if there were a few random ones I could add.  And as you can see, they are very random!! Man..... I need to start taking photos more!  I'm pretty good around the holidays, but I need to get better at taking more candid shots!

I think this was one of the last pictures with Lincoln in my belly.  Savana snuggled right up to me and Lincoln and posed for the camera :)

In a Pickle

So, how do you get your mom to not feed you a pickle when you're just not lovin' it?  I think he gave in with that old saying...."if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!"  It was too funny watching all his sour faces.  He wasn't sure about the pickle at all, but one thing's for sure....he loves to humor us.  We tried this the other day with a lemon.  He didn't love the taste, but seeing that every one of us giggled with delight, he kept doing it just to get us to laugh and get our attention.. 

Oopsies....

Found this one in my drafts.  Somehow it slipped right past me and I never published it.  I'm not sure what my journaling was meant to be, but I do know I was trying to document how much he loved banana's (hence the immensely messy banana face) and how he was starting to pull himself up in his crib!

Easter 2011

This was Lincoln's first camping trip!  We have a family tradition of camping for Easter.  It was MIGHTY cold.  Luckily we have a trailer and so do my parents!  The kids had an egg hunt around the campsite and then when we wrapped it up there, we had an egg hunt at Scott's parents house.  Aren't traditions fun?!?  What do you know....no pictures with mommy :( Some day I'll get it!

He Crawls!!!

He's doing it!!! Did it just click?? Or did it help I had him in a diaper only on the cold kitchen tile floor?? Either way....he did it!! Let's just hope he keeps it up!

Keep on Keepin' on

I may be jumping ahead of myself here, but I think we're on the brink of a major break through. Lincoln has been able to get up on all fours for about six months now. Initially, that gave me a false sense of hope thinking he would crawl not long after he figured that out. I've seen some great progress from him and my expectations have been high. I felt a little discouraged after one of his PT sessions. We discussed what could be holding him back. He has some tone in his hamstring & hip muscles. Its something we're working on & keeping tabs on. BUT the last couple days, he has been making small moves in the crawling direction! I feel like if I can concentrate on giving him that extra attention a little bit everyday ..... It will happen!!
In other news, his eighth tooth just broke through, he is self-feeding really well, he's signing AND saying more, he's completely on a bottle, and the sweetest of all... He's started to give kisses when I ask for them!! He's sitting in a highchair and loving it!
Update from the follow up clinic: The only doctor we had to see was the opthamologist. It was a record-breaking follow up clinic visit. We were in and out of there in less than an hour. I let Dr. Larson know I honestly wasn't having Lincoln wear his glasses very often. I let him know it was very difficult with the stage he is in. He's not really sitting, he's not standing, so he's either always on his belly or occasionally on his back. Dr. Larson actually informed me if he wasn't really ever crossing his eyes there would be no need for him to wear his glasses. I let him know that I rarely, if ever, see him cross his eyes. He then examined Lincoln and then lifted a ton of bricks off of my shoulders by telling me he doesn't have to wear them anymore!!! YAY!! It's really hard to understand until you have experienced it yourself, but when they say having a preemie means your baby stays in that baby stage forever, it is SO true. It's been hard in some ways to see other babies surpass him or to not notice when he doesn't reach those milestones in the 'normal' range of time. But I'll tell you what, Lincoln is the most sweetest, most gentle, most loving, precious little soul. He is so patient, easy to humor, and so easy to love. The progress will come, the time will pass, he will grow and life will be good!

One Year of Pure Bliss!

One year ago today we brought Lincoln home from the Hospital. I still can't believe everything that we went through. When I read through all of our experiences it truly sounds like it's straight out of a novel. I don't know if some people could even make these things up if they tried! With that said, I'm glad it's over. I'm glad it's a year behind us and all we have is the future. Lincoln is such a wonderful baby. He still sleeps all through the night, is trying SUPER hard to crawl, drags himself around the entire downstairs by means of the army crawl, finally has more hair sprouting all over his head, has seven teeth, and enchants me with his blue blue eyes! The kids call him baby blue eyes and it just melts my heart. He has them wrapped around his little finger about as much as he does me. He simply adores his daddy. I love to see his eyes light up, accompanied with a sweet sincere smile, as his eyes meet with his daddy's. And above all, I'm SOOO extremely grateful for a year of good health and no scary visits to the hospital.
We Love You Lincoln!!!

Busy Bees

Life just keeps getting busier and busier and it's not even the peak of our sports season :(

Some things that keep me smiling and my heart thumping:

• Lincoln is exploring ALL over the house. It used to be that he would just roll all over the living room, but he's definitely broadened his horizons. First it started with him making his way into the kitchen. While most parents dread the stage where their babies become mobile and find the dog food, we were elated! His other favorite place to play is the bathroom in our master bedroom. I don't see where the fascination is LOL. Note to self (and everyone else for that matter): keep bathroom door closed! He is not quite crawling, but has mastered the army crawl. He loves to get up on his hands and knees, then rock back and forth. We're gently encouraging the crawling...it will come! He now has five teeth and the sixth and seventh have broken through the gum! We made a visit to Dr. Berry for Lincoln's 15 month well-child check up. Things are looking good. We talked about how he is definitely behind in a lot of areas, but he is making progress and that is all we can ask for. Funny story, when Dr. Berry was doing the "diaper-area" check, Lincoln peed on him! I died laughing because it's one of those embarrassing things that is totally uncontrollable. Lincoln RARELY pees when his diaper is off! Tomorrow we're off to another neonatal follow up clinic. We'll get a better idea of where he is in general.


• Scottie is busy with basketball, scouts, and after-school art. His last basketball game of the season is this coming Saturday. His team is undefeated and he often tries to emulate Jimmer of BYU..... I kid you not! He is doing well in school and was just signed up with another super-league baseball team.


• Savana is also involved in an after-school art class. This is her cup of tea! She is constantly drawing pictures and writing stories. I just recently bought her a huge three ring binder along with a three hole punch so she can store and save all of her favorite stories and pieces of art. Her seventh birthday is coming and I'm feeling the pressure of preparing for photos, invitations, party and presents. She has mentioned a few ideas, but I'm the culprit for having the big ideas!


• Luke is my little buddy! If he's mad at me, he'll threaten to withhold his kisses. He's become a little Wii addict and I occasionally have to take some time to sit down and play it with him. He loves to talk my ear off about it as well. He's pretty good and puts me to shame! We're trying to prepare him for kindergarten this fall. I'm really nervous and hoping it's the right decision! He will be five in July, so that will make him one of the youngest in the class. I had previously decided I would hold him back a year, but with me going to school, this seems to be the best fit! He gets to spend a couple of afternoons with grandpa through out the week, while I'm at school, and they are becoming pretty good friends!


• Scott loves the Utah winters....not! No matter what, he gets a lingering cough & cold and it seems he can't ever nip it in the bud! That is definitely one thing he loved about AZ, he never had to deal with these nasty colds! He's actually not too busy with sports right now, surprise surprise. He has his weekly bowling league going on and then once in a blue moon plays a basketball game at the church.


• I don't know if there's enough room on this blog to fill in all of the things that are keeping me busy! A few of which would be, school, kids, photography....life. I decided to go back to school because with Lincoln's situation, we desperately need good health insurance. Because Scott is self-employed, private health insurance is horrendous. I have thought strongly, for quite a few years now, about being an Ultrasonographer. There aren't very many places at all that offer the program. I have two choices: a) outreach program for Weber State University (Which you have to be a radiology tech before even applying to the program....not an option for me right now), or b) Salt Lake Community College who also offers the program. I was working on my last class for my associates degree when my water broke with Lincoln. Luckily it happened early enough in the semester that I was able to withdraw from the class. The pre-req's for the program are: 1)High School Diploma or Equivalent...check, 2)COMM 1010 or 1020 Communications(public speaking)....check, 3)MATH 1010 Intermediate Algebra...not checked...not so sure what I'm going to do with this yet, possibly test out:( (so sad because I completed Math 1050 in high school, but because it was over 5 years ago they won't take it!), 4)PHYS 1010 Elementary Physics....not checked I will be registering for this in the fall, 5)BIOL 2320/2325 Human Anatomy....not checked, but registered for summer semester at BYU, 6)BIOL 2420/2425 Human Physiology....not checked, but registered for spring semester at BYU. Other preferences, but not requirements patient care experience and a degree. The insane thing about the whole program is that it is only offered every other year with 16 spots available, 16!!!!
  Along with having my degree by this fall, I am now enrolled in a CNA program and will hopefully have patient care experience to put on my resume. I have a lot to do in very little time. If I don't complete all of these things by this next coming winter, I won't be able to apply for the program for another two years. Wish me luck!!! In the meantime, besides my daily responsibilities that come along with being a wife and mother, I am still doing a few photo sessions here and there. I sure hope I don't get burnt out anytime soon!

We've been trying to keep it light around here with taking silly photos and, if needs be, recover with laughter therapy.

Thanks Hayley for the inspiration and the app! As you can tell, we'v been having a lot of fun :)