Filling in the gaps

I thought that I would post a few things that I happened to leave out. For those that know me well enough, this kills me to post out of order, but oh well, they are things worth mentioning.

We have been trying to find our dog a new home. She has "issues" way too complicated to expound on. Unfortunately, she really needs to be gone before baby #2 gets here, so if anyone knows of anyone that would like a small chocolate lab please let me know. Here is a picture of here and Lincoln (one of the few since he's gotten older). See how stressed out she looks because she has to sit by him, that is one of the main reasons she has got to go. He loves her but she does not reciprocate the feelings.

The next fun event was the celebration of the final year of my twenties. Yes, the countdown to 30 begins. I'm not quite where I pictured myself at this point in my life, mainly with more kids, but other than that I have no complaints. My life is good and it can only get better from here, minus all the effects of gravity! This is a video of Lincoln singing me Happy Birthday, but he kind of changed the words a bit. It was still nice of him to sing to me or himself?!

Lincoln loves to blow out candles and everyone time he sees one he tries to blow it out and sings Happy Birthday. Knowing this, Ryan brought out a candle so that he could trick Lincoln into singing to me. If you watch the video, notice his hair and the fact that the candle is not going out very quickly (pardon the shakiness too, he was sitting in my lap).

Okay, last but not least, we are now to Valentine's Day. Lincoln and I decided to make some cookies to send to Nana's house for his Valentine's Day party. Here is my little helper. I was not quite adventerous enough to let him ice the cookies so he just sprinkled.

And sprinkled, and sprinkled some more.


Here were his finished hearts. I advised Nana to avoid the ones with the fingerpokes in the icing. She just sweetly replied, "I'm sure his hands were clean." Don't you just love Nanas!

Here is the crew from Nana's house enjoying their treats.


Like the boy needs any more sugar, if we could only bottle his energy and sell it, we'd be rich!



They all exchanged Valentine's, too cute.


I think that catches us up to present day, at least what I have documented in pictures. Until next time, enjoy all this crazy weather that we have been having.

Pat Pat Detox

Lincoln has had one best friend since birth, and that is his pat-pat. We have seen a lot of this because he usually only gets it when he goes to bed. We do always have one for public emergencies (in other words, an easy way to get him quiet). I have always wondered how we were going to break this habit. Well, we ended up without a plan because we lost them all and I wasn't going to replace them.


He asked for it a few times but we just kept telling him that we couldn't find it. He would say, "Find him please". We then went 2 nights without it and on the 3rd night he was sitting on my lap and sighed, "I miss my pat-pat", and that was that. His nana said that he had told her that day how much he liked his pat-pat. I thought to myself, this was easier than I thought.

Oh the horror of nights 5 and 6. It didn't help that he wasn't feeling good and he kept asking for it. When we told him that we couldn't find it he just kept pleading with us to find it. He then decided he would go and find it with no luck himself. It was pitiful but I stood my ground (meaning I didn't run out and buy him some more). We'll see how this continues but I am hoping the worst is over. Pat-pat detox has not been quite as hard as I'd imagined and hopefully it doesn't get any worse. Now if we can just get him to sleep in his own bed...........

Short little Branson getaway

A couple of weekends ago we decided we would take a short weekend trip to Branson, just the 3 of us. As our luck would have it, the ice storm hit about 3 days before we were supposed to leave. We had no idea that Branson had gotten so much snow. Here is a picture of the Thousand Hills golf course that was right next to our condo. It was very pretty to see the mountains covered in snow.


We were also not aware that Branson shuts down from Jan-Feb, which included the shows and some of the local restaurants. The stuff that was left open was on winter hours which meant that everything closed at 8:00. We were really feeling like Branson old-timers at that point. Fortunately, the shops were open. We went down to Branson Landing and let Lincoln make an animal at Build-A-Bear. He chose a tiger and liked listening to all the sounds that he could stuff inside.


He got to step on the pedal that filled his tiger with fluff and then we gave him a bath. He gave his tiger a very unique name, "Rah", like the sound a tiger makes. This was pretty much the highlight of Lincoln's trip.


We ate at one of our favorite Branson eateries, The Pasta House. I had to take a picture to show how dead it was. This was 7:00 pm on a saturday night and we were the 5th table in the place.



So we pretty much shopped, which I can't complain about because the outlet malls were completely empty so there was plenty of good deals to pick from. We headed home on Sunday afternoon and our little car rider decided to snuggle in with George, Rah, Mojo, his pat-pat, and his Thomas blanket, too cute. He fell asleep about 30 minutes into the ride so it was a peaceful drive home.

All in all, despite the lack of activity, we had a good time. If you ever want to go to Branson to just shop and not have to sit in traffic, January is the time to go.

Snow days

I'm not sure if the rest of you have noticed, but it is REALLY cold outside. At least I was able to enjoy the day with my sweet boy and my hubby. Let me back up just a little. We went to Chuck E. Cheese on Saturday to celebrate my nephew, Mason's, 4th birthday. That place was so crowded and I am still wondering how they manage to keep it clean. Way too many hands and fingers all over the soda fountain and salad bar. I forgot my camera so no pictures, sorry.

We went out Saturday night with our good friends Dave & Sarah. I love them because even though they don't have kids they always want to be able to include Lincoln in our plans (even though sometimes we'd rather not). I had to share this picture of Lincoln, the hair and the shirt, this needs no further explanation.


Okay, now back to today. We were fortunate enough to get to stay home and avoid all the bad streets. We decided to take Lincoln out and let him play in the snow for a little bit. I bundled him up in a 12-month snowsuit (it was all we had) and we set out. The suit was a little small but I hope that it kept him warm.


He loved the snow, so much in fact, I couldn't keep it out of his mouth. I just gave up and steered him away from anything that wasn't white.


Ryan and Lincoln decided to try sledding down our driveway. It didn't work out that well but I think that he had fun.


Here is a picture of the two of them. He was also enthralled with icicles and kept on wanting to eat them. I know, not the most sanitary, but I'm sure that we have all eaten them and we're still here.

I hope that everyone was able to enjoy a little of the snow. We actually ventured back out 8:00 p.m. at Lincoln's request. He brought us all our boots and asked that we put them on to go out in the snow. He was so cute that we couldn't resist and we all went out for about a whole 5 minutes. I will say that it was very pretty out because everything was covered in snow and it lit up the night. I am now definitely ready to get in bed and warm up so I will say goodnight and happy winter!

Growing up and out

I hate that it has been so long since there has been a new post, but our lives have been fairly calm and uneventful. We have had and will have multiple cousin birthday parties to attend. 5 of my 9 nieces and nephews all have January birthdays. What a way to follow up Christmas!

I decided to spend some of my Christmas money on a new lens for my camera. What an exciting investment. Here are a few pics of Lincoln with the new lens.





He is getting so big and talking up a storm. He has recently decided to refer to us as "mom" and "dad". I guess he has outgrown "mommy" and "daddy" for now, how sad! I think he will eventually revert back. Let's see what else, we are still terrified at the thought of sitting on the potty without our britches on. He will sit on fully clothed and say "I poop" and hop off proudly, too bad that doesn't count.

I bet you thought by the title that I would be posting an image of my ever expanding waistline but you aren't that lucky today. We are doing well and we have reached the halfway mark. I won't say that I am huge but let's just say I do need to make sure I have ample room to get out of my car in tight parking lot situations.

I hope that we have more exciting things to keep everyone up to date on. We are going for a short weekend trip to Branson in a few weeks so that should be interesting and will provide with more entertaining pics.

Christmas, New Year & Other Things

The lights are down and the tree is put away so I can finally get down to business. It's hard to believe that the holidays are here and gone, but I'm kind of glad that's it's finally all over and I can sit down and just breathe. Let me walk you through a quick run-down of our last 2 weeks.

We had a Tiem family Christmas the weekend before Christmas so that we could celebrate with my brother's kids from Texas. It was nice and small and we had bbq, yummm, a small break from ham and turkey.


We then spent Christmas Eve with the Gambill's. This year was just immediate family because most of his other relatives moved away. This is our infamous yearly picture. Not too easy to get that many people to cooperate, this was the best we could do.


Here is Ryan's dad, Pa, with all of his grandkids. Nana always makes sure that they have Christmas pajamas to wear. It's getting harder to get them to match now that they are ranging so far in age.


The amount of gifts that get stacked under that tree is just insane. Here is Lincoln enjoying his new Thomas book. He got lots of Thomas the Train stuff, probably more than we will ever need.



So at 11:00 pm, all the festivities were over and we headed home to be Santa for the first time. We actually had something to put together and Ryan, I mean Santa, did not appreciate that it had lots of little screws and it took him until 1 am. I, on the other hand, was nestled all snug in my bed.

It was well worth it, because when Lincoln saw his new "crashie" track, that was all he wanted to do. He did not want to open up any other gifts. We actually had to coerce him to keep going.


He didn't quite get that the stocking was filled with things all the way to the bottom. He would pull out one thing and try to go back to the track.


This is about the only really cute picture that I got of him on Christmas morning. This is a little Ashley Ann style. I am learning.


We headed out to Rhema on Friday night because the weather was so nice. We didn't even have to wear coats, there is something wrong with that on Dec. 26th. He loved it. I unfortunately could not manage a good shot so here is one of him enjoying some ice cream from Braums after our outing. This was his first time to be independent with a cone, he didn't get the rotation so I had to help him out there.


A few days back at work and we were back to another holiday. We ate dinner with Ryan's family at Lone Star. We should have eaten at Outback but that's a whole other story. We then went to Ryan's brothers house to ring in the New Year. Lincoln enjoyed the blowers (or at least just being allowed to make so much noise). He's not wearing pants because he pooped out in his jeans (I won't miss that).


You can't ring in the New Year without a kiss from someone you love!

Well, that catches us up and brings us to today. I went in for my monthly appointment and things are going well. I was a little concerned because this little guy hardly moves, but Dr. W says that he looks picture perfect and seems to be growing about a week ahead of schedule. He is approximately 11 oz. and still very much a little boy.

You will have to check Tulsa Women's Healthcare website when it is up and running because they asked if they could photograph my ultrasound session. I agreed but realized that I just said yes to having a picture of my bare belly displayed to half of Tulsa. I say about half of Tulsa because I think that almost all pregnant women I know go there. This wasn't how I wanted to break into fame.

I am now caught up and I hope that you all enjoyed the recap. Sorry that it was so long but that's what happens when life seems to speed right past you.

Merry Christmas!

We want to wish all of our dear friends and family

a wonderful and merry Christmas!

Although this year has had it's share of heartbreak,

we are still very grateful for the blessings

that it has also brought to us.

We are so thankful for all the love and support

that we receive from everyone year round.

May God bless you and yours this Christmas and New Year!