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 :)

Christmas Celebrations

Life is really crazy right now! I see how fully overloaded my life has become. The sad thing is that I'll try to organize my life and change priorities around, but once I've gotten rid of something that's taking up too much time, I'll fill that empty slot with something new. I just came to that conclusion this morning when I gave myself about 15 minutes to curl my hair, get dressed, put makeup on, and get the baby dressed. I can fully admit that I spread myself too thin. I can't sit still...it drives me batty, but the moments I allow myself to stop and breathe, it feels really good.
......and that's the explanation for this post being so late :)

Phew...now that I have that off my chest...let's get ready to rumble!

The season was filled with christmas tree decorating....

Gingerbread house decorating.....

School plays.....

School Christmas programs

Snowman building/more gingerbread house decorating.....

meeting Santa for the first time for one and sitting on Santa's lap.....

Shoveling LOTS of snow/making sugar cookies for Santa....

And last but not least..... Christmas surprises on Christmas morning and all through out the day....

It was definitely filled with fun and magic. They're already counting down the days for next Christmas!

Days Gone By

Life just keeps happening all around me. I feel so neglectful to the blog, but it turns from doing a quick post into me being on the computer for an hour! It's what I want though. I love being able to look back on these memories. I've always talked about printing my blog into a book and I finally did it. That in itself takes time, but the results are beautiful!

The kids are busy as ever. Scottie, Savana, and Luke are all in a bowling league on Saturday's. They are really enjoying it. This last Saturday was the first time we all went as a family. All the other time's, either grandma and grandpa took them or Scott, something was always going on. I'll have to remember to take picture's tomorrow and post them.

Lincoln is doing amazing things (as always)! He is getting up on all fours! No crawling yet, but he's very eager to be mobile. He rolls ALL over the house, but no getting up into the sitting position as of yet. The therapists have us working on getting him to go from lying position to sitting position. He gets it, he just needs time to gain more strength. They also want us to have him rock back and forth once he is in the crawling position, so that his body gets the cues of his weight shifting. I'll say "rocky, rocky" and he rolls over and starts rocking on all fours! He'll sit pretty well if we put him there, but that's about it for now. I've seen that I should never limit my expectations with him and just understand it will all take a little extra time. I'll start to introduce vitamin d cow's milk pretty soon. We'll see how that goes!

We were all sick for the span of about two weeks. First the 24 hour flu hit everyone besides Lincoln and myself, then all of the kids caught a nasty cold with the croup. Lincoln decided he didn't want to eat any baby food when this all went down. I was a bit worried about him. He was still nursing and taking bottles so I knew he wasn't in any real danger. His poor gums have been swollen for about the last three weeks and yesterday one of his upper front teeth finally cut through his gums. Even having to go through all of this yucky stuff, he was still a little angel.

I never mentioned how Lincoln's latest neonatal follow up clinic went. It was a loooong day. We didn't even see everyone that he qualifies to see. First up the pediatrician, Dr. Bybee. He took his time assessing Lincoln and had nothing new for us. He took note that Lincoln is behind in size as well as with his gross motor development. He's still amazed with Lincoln. I love Dr. Bybee. There's something about him. He's so gentle and soft. Lincoln takes to him very well. Next we saw the nurse...she got all of his stats :S wish I had written them down! The nutritionist was next, she noted he's on a steady growing curve, but is still at the bottom of where he should be. She suggested that I add 1/2 tsp. of olive oil to his baby food to help plump him up. I've been doing that and it's not bothered him a bit! She also suggested to make sure we get in at least one bottle of 24 calorie formula a day. I've been trying pretty hard to make it two...just to be safe. I think I heard someone once describe the 24 cal diet as stuffing a bunch of donuts in his bottle (something like that). Last but not least, the highly anticipated, Dr. Larson. I had a bunch of questions for him about Lincoln wearing his glasses. I was a bit confused between the three different people we were working with, Dr. Hoffman, Dr. Larsen, and our vision therapist Terry. I learned that Lincoln wears his glasses more to correct his alignment rather than to correct his vision. That was comforting. He said as long as we're persistent in keeping them on, that would rule out any probability of surgery. It's so very hard to keep the glasses on him. Besides the fact that he tears them off constantly, I don't trust myself with them. They weren't cheap and I'm afraid it would be so easy for me to lose them! It's more of a habit, for both of us, than anything.

Life keeps evolving. It's almost Christmas and it will be a special one. This time last year, we had a little piece of us missing.....Lincoln was in the hospital. He'll get to experience his very first 'real' Christmas at home with his family.