14 months old

Getting this month's picture was quite the workout.  I took over 25 shots in two separate attempts.  Lincoln kept wanting to turn around, stand up or climb down from the chair.  I guess that's what you get with more mobility!  The picture above fits the pose of all the other monthly pictures.  The pictures below are cutest pose and the one that shows his 3 teeth (click to zoom in).

He actually has another tooth poked through on the top, and I suspect is working on a 5th based on the amount of gnawing he does on one side.  In other development news, Lincoln is definitely making the transition to one nap a day.  He has only taken one nap for the last week, but with the trip to G&G's house in there we're still working on establishing a new regular schedule at home.  The good news is that he falls asleep right away at night and sleeps in until 7:30-8:00am.  As long as I have enough time to take a shower without having to get up too early I'll be fine. :o)  I have also transitioned Lincoln to only having a pacifier in bed or on long road trips.

In the mobility department Lincoln continues to become more sure on his feet every day.  He still does the "monster walk" with his arms up in the air, but he can "run" more smoothly and not face-plant quite as often. ;o)  He has also pretty much figured out how to climb down stairs and off of other objects in addition to climbing up.  The baby gate on the stairs is still staying up for awhile, though!

Although Lincoln is not saying any more words, his sounds and "language" have become much more animated.  He is able to communicate wants and displeasures.  The most recognizable gestures are involving food.  He knows when somebody has something that he doesn't and lets you know he wants it.  Especially dessert items.  He also indicates he is done eating any or all of the following ways: pulverizing remaining food with sippy cup, dumping food or sippy cup off of tray, violently spreading food around tray, smearing food on face and/or hair, ripping off snapped bib, turning around and standing up in high chair facing backwards even with tray pushed in all the way, vocalizing he is finished.

One big milestone Lincoln reached is breaking 20 lbs. on our bathroom scale.  Therefore, I finally turned his carseat around to be forward-facing.  I think he's enjoying the new view!   

Maybe it's his smaller stature or language delay.  Or maybe it's just because he's my baby.  Whatever the case, I'm having a hard time making the mental transition of thinking of Lincoln as a toddler rather than a baby.  While I was always looking ahead to the next thing I could try with Emily, I have to keep reminding myself to maybe try something new with Lincoln.  I guess that's what happens with a second child.  Regardless, we love him to pieces!

Kansas City

Today (July 19th) marks 7 years of marriage for Austin & me.  To celebrate, Austin took me on a weekend getaway to Kansas City.  He planned everything.  He was already there for work all week, so I dropped the kids off at his parents' house in Waukee and met him after work on Friday.  After touring his office in Overland Park we headed to the company condo a few blocks from the Plaza District. 

Dinner was an amazing meal at Fogo de Chão, which is a Brazilian Steakhouse.  There is no menu.  Your meal consists of a large gourmet salad bar and a flurry of waiters continuously offering you 15 amazing cuts of meat straight from the grill until you tell them to stop.  It's a carnivore's dream come true!  My favorite by far was the filet mignon.  We saved just enough room for some superb Crème Brulee for dessert with a special message from the chef. :o)  After dinner we took a loooong, much needed walk around the Plaza District.  Then we stayed up late watching the latest Harry Potter movie on TV, which I hadn't seen yet.

After a lazy morning we enjoyed lunch at the most famous BBQ place in Kansas City, which is saying something for a city famous for its barbecue!  Anthony Bourdain from the Travel Channel listed Oklahoma Joe's as one of the 13 places to eat before you die.  It is literally located in a gas station convenience store.  We waited in line for 45 minutes for the best pulled pork & beef sandwich and bag of fries I've ever had--complimented by a large glass of strawberry pop. :o)  By the time we left at 1:15pm the line was even longer and was all the way out the door and onto the blazing hot asphalt parking lot.  Crazy!  It was worth the wait, though.

After recovering from lunch with a nap, we headed out into the sweltering heat to walk around downtown KC.  We browsed through some of the specialty shops at the Crown Center.  Then we walked around Liberty Memorial Park, which is the only national monument dedicated solely to WWI.  It was quite the workout and very impressive on the outside!  We didn't go in the museum or up the tower because it was almost closing time. 

There were also some great views of the Kansas City skyline from the memorial.

I learned the Kansas City is known as "The City of Fountains" and boasts over 200 on the official registry.  This is the one in front of Union Station and the Science Museum at the foot of the Liberty Memorial.  It is a programmed fountain that uses gun powder to shoot extra high at points during the sequence.

This is the one kids play at in front of the Crown Center shops.  During part of the sequence it is set to music.  With the heat index nearing 110 degrees that day it was a very popular spot!  The picture does not do justice to the fountain or the number of people there.

I think we each sweat off about 3 lbs. in two hours!  I also did not realize that Kansas City was so hilly.  I have apparently grown soft with our flat neighborhood in Waverly because my calf muscles were absolutely killing me all weekend.  I guess I better start taking more walks around the hospital at home again!

Dinner on Saturday night was at the Brio Tuscan Grille back in Country Club Plaza.  I don't know if it was the BBQ for lunch or the heat in the afternoon, but I wasn't even hungry until after 8:00pm, which would shock people who know me well.  It's a good thing, because there was a long wait list, and we didn't even get seated until 8:30pm.  While waiting, Austin & I went to the Apple Store around the corner and played with the iPads and MacBook Pro laptops.  I think Austin sold me on one of those for our next computer. :o)

I did not even get out of bed until 10:30am on Sunday and it was glorious.  Furthermore, my wake-up call was not a little voice saying, "Mommy, you need to get up and get me some bres-beck!"  We ate leftovers for lunch and reluctantly packed up to head back to reality.  We arrived in Waukee to pick up the kids at 4:00pm.  We had supper with Austin's parents and then headed home. 

By all accounts the kids were fabulous for Grandpa & Grandma Lorenzen.  They had fun swimming at the pool, playing at the park and even survived a big thunderstorm.  This was great news since it was my first time leaving Lincoln overnight and the first time Emily stayed overnight away from home without me.  I guess it's a good thing that I rarely thought of them at all and only when I was being grateful for the fact that I was not dragging kids along with me!  Instead, it was a wonderfully relaxing time where Austin & I felt like newlyweds again without a care in the world.  It was also fun to see the places Austin spends a lot of time working, including a drive-by tour of the office buildings of a lot of clients.  I look forward to more fun trips to KC together!

Bathroom rehab

Austin was out of town all of last week for work.  Thankfully, my mom was able to rearrange her schedule to come visit and help out with the kids for three days.  This allowed me to work on a big project to surprise Austin.

This is what our master bathroom looked like when we moved in:

I thought I had taken better "before" pictures.  You can kind of see the extremely dark floral wallpaper that covered all surfaces not tiled or painted in pepto-bismol pink. :op  What the pictures don't show is the popcorn ceiling.  Because the bathroom does not have any kind of a vent fan, mold started growing on the ceiling above the shower/tub and the wallpaper this spring.  How this did not happen in the prior 60 years I have no idea.  Anyway, I forgot to take a picture of the ceiling, but it was gross.  Luckily, underneath the popcorn texture and behind the wallpaper was the original plaster board.  Therefore, the mold had nothing to feed on and didn't damage or spread behind the wall.  All it needed was a surface rehab. 

So I covered all the surfaces in plastic and began the extremely messy job of scraping off the popcorn ceiling.  Then I moved on to the wallpaper.  Thankfully, the wall had been properly primed and the wallpaper came off easier than any I'd ever experienced before (and I'm pretty experienced).

The next step was washing it all down with a TSP solution.  Then came two coats of Kilz primer.  Emily caught an action shot.

Even without a topcoat color the improvement is dramatic.  It doesn't feel like a cave anymore.  You feel like you might really be able to get by with just the overhead light on rather than all four fixtures in order to see what you're doing.  You can even tell the difference between the black and maroon washcloth in the shower with the curtain closed!

We're still working on the full rehab plans.  At least it's a step in the right direction.  Thanks again to my mom for making it possible!

Oh, and I got to mow the lawn for the first time on the new riding lawn mower, too. :o)

And the winner is...

Thanks to everyone who played along and guessed how long it took to write my Random Facts blog post.  Obviously, my family knows me best.  My sister guessed 192 minutes (3.2 hours) and my mom guessed 243 minutes (4.05 hours).  I didn't keep exact track of the time, but it was somewhere between those two.  Whew!  Now you think I'm even crazier!  I will admit that for at least half of the time at least one kid was awake, so there were some distractions.  The sad part is I was pretty organized and had most of it outlined on a piece of paper before I started, and I didn't count that part.  It was that crazy near-perfectionistic tendency and the little online research tangents.  Anyway, I guess I'll be bringing some cookies back to NW Iowa the next time we visit! :o)

Puzzle note:  In case you were wondering what happened after the little puzzle pile we had the other day, it only took about 20 minutes to sort the pieces since I had put all the puzzles together at some point and some of them were different sizes.  However, since then we have put almost all of them together to complete the sorting and labeled each individual puzzle piece with the corresponding puzzle number.  Now if when this happens again, I can just hand over the bags labeled 1-10 and smile. :o)

Track star

As some of you know, Austin bought the P90X Extreme Home Fitness Workout Program with Christmas gift money.  He made some pretty drastic changes in his diet, lost a fair amount of weight, and although he'll never be as ripped as the guys in the commercials because of his natural body build, he looks great and feels a lot stronger.  After making it all the way through the video series he took up running again this summer.  Sometimes he goes to the WSR High School down the road to run on the track and up and down the bleachers.  On Sunday we followed him in the stroller to watch.  Emily insisted on wearing her swimming suit and her too-small, covered-toe Croc clogs.  She actually ran about four of the blocks to the track "like Daddy".  Once we got there she decided to go chase after Daddy.  To my amazement, she made it all the way around the track and ran all but about 50 meters of it.  That's more than I could do at this point!  I was a sprinter (more specifically--a hurdler) when I was in school and 400m was torture to me.  Maybe we have an up-and-coming track star?!?  Of course, as soon as she was done she decided she had to go potty bad, so we had to hurry on home.  At least she made it! 

Above is a video montage of our visit to the track.  Please excuse the bouncy picture as I was trying to record one-handed in the wind with a squirmy Lincoln on my hip.  Also, after literally losing a lot of sleep over it last night and making my head spin with technical jargon I really don't understand, I have determined that we currently do not have the software or hardware capabilities to edit and/or view HD video on our PC.  Therefore, most of the videos in the video player will be of the same quality as before.  A few might be uploaded to YouTube in HD, but you have to manually select that when viewing (change from 360p to 720p at bottom right of picture).  We will have all the HD files on the computer, and someday when we catch up with the technology we can put them on DVD's.  Probably the same day the blog and photo books are done. ;o)

Pretty in pink

Emily decided to haul out her Easter dress to wear to church yesterday--complete with white tights and shoes.  She's wearing it again this afternoon.  :o)

Emily's photo tour

While I was messing around with the new camera I gave Emily the old camera to play around with.  After adjusting the pixel setting down to make more room on the SD card, she snapped 116 pictures in less than 20 minutes.  Below is a condensed slideshow of a tour of our house from her point of view.  I didn't include the unrecognizable shots and all of the 30+ pictures of her I Spy puzzle. ;o)

New camera

I chose to spend my birthday gift money on a new digital camera.  I have really liked the Canon PowerShot SD600 we got just before Emily was born, but I felt it was time for an upgrade.  As fun and as interesting as it sounds, I do not have the time or energy to delve into the world of semi-professional photography right now.  Therefore, I was not willing to spend a lot of extra money on a fancier & bulkier DSLR-type camera.  What I really wanted was another compact, point & shoot camera that is easy to use and takes relatively high-quality pictures.  I like having something small enough to fit in my pocket and that can live discreetly in my purse so I always have it with me to capture the moments of life without having to lug around yet another bag of stuff. 

After spending several hours researching and educating myself on digital cameras (I could have spent days and days), I finally settled on this little baby: Canon PowerShot SD780IS in bright red.  I chose it because I'm familiar and happy with the Canon PowerShot set-up and design.  It is very similar to our old camera with some additional features, more mega-pixels, an even slimmer body and it's a really cool color. ;o)  The thing that made me choose this one over the other PowerShots currently on the market is the capability to shoot video in HD.  Of course, that means I had to buy a new 8GB SDHC card to go with it!

I've had a lot of fun messing around with it the last two days.  There are a few things that are going to take some getting used to in the downloading/editing department, but overall I'm pleased so far.  The only bad thing is that I'm quickly finding out that it would be really nice to have an upgraded computer to handle the images/video coming off the camera.  Since that's not very high or even on the priority list right now, it might be slow going for awhile in the editing phase--literally.  I'm working on figuring out an easier/faster way to get the videos edited and posted.  I'll let you know when I have some to share.  They should be fabulous. ;o)

Stuck on a stool

This is Lincoln's new favorite hang-out spot.  If I can't find him, he's probably here.  The only problem is he hasn't figured out how to get down.  So he just starts whining until someone comes to "rescue" him.  One day he was pitifully peering over the edge at his pacifier that had dropped into the sink just out of reach. :o( 

The step-stool lives in the bathroom so Emily can reach the sink.  It also serves as a nice blockade to the under-sink cabinet, which contains a lot of trouble for Lincoln.  (I'm pretty sure he had a lick of hand lotion last week, but since the bottle didn't list any hazard/poison warnings, I figured he was okay.)  He hasn't figured out how to move the stool to get at the cabinet--yet.  All in due time.

Random facts about me...

Due to a somewhat un-blogworthy week, I thought I'd share a post full of random facts about myself that I have been composing in my head and jotting down on scratch paper for weeks.  You know, so years from now my kids can confirm the fact that I really am the crazy mom they think I am! ;o)

1. First and foremost, I am a stereotypical firstborn.  And I married another stereotypical firstborn.  Emily is already starting to exhibit strong firstborn characteristics.  The poor girl never had a chance! ;o)  If this doesn't mean anything to you, you should read Born to Win by Dr. Kevin Leman.  It's good.  And it explains a lot.  Especially if you are, or act like, a firstborn.
2. I am a bit of a control freak.  It has taken me years to admit this, but I'm starting to come to grips with it.  The turning point was when I read about myself in Born to Win.
3. I am also a maximizer (which is closely related to, but not exactly the same as a perfectionist) and a conflict-avoider.  These are both strengths and weaknesses.
4. I am really okay with silence at home (which is often hard to come by). I don't need background noise like the radio or TV.  It often distracts me from the task at hand. 
5. The "tupperware" (i.e. plastic container) drawers in our kitchen are amazingly still organized and look almost the same as they did when I re-organized them in February. This is thanks to Fact #1, a husband who is even neater and more organized than I am (refer to Fact #1) and children who generally leave them alone--opting instead for the cupboard of pots & pans.
6. I think capris have been one of the greatest fashion items of the last decade. I wear them almost every day in the summer. However, I'm having a hard time with Bermuda shorts. I just don't feel like I can pull it off.  Not sure why.

7. Up until 4 years ago I refused to wear flip-flops because I hated the way the strap felt between my toes.  So I only wore slides.  I got over it when my feet got too puffy while pregnant in the summertime, but I'm very particular about the type of material the strap is made of.  I don't do cheap Old Navy flip-flops.  I do, however, absolutely LOVE the Crocs Prepair flip-flops I splurged on and bought myself this summer.  I live in them, both indoors and out, and have the sandal tan to prove it. :o)
8. This is my current favorite shirt--maybe ever.  I am almost embarrassed to admit that I own it in 5 different colors/patterns.  It is dressy enough to make it look like I tried, casual enough for everyday and minimizes my [perceived]* figure flaws better than anything else. *Note: Courtesy of Google (which very well may be the best web site ever invented), I actually spent 5 minutes skimming an online article on the correct usage of punctuation in the English language in order to determine whether or not to use brackets or parentheses in this instance.  I'm still somewhat unsure and this bothers me (refer to Fact #1).  However, in the name of humor I am okay with foregoing the rules about complete sentences in this blog post. ;o) 
9. On a related note, I am probably part of a very small group of people who compose, edit, read, reword, spellcheck, read again, post and then read the posted version of a blog post almost every time just to make sure I didn't make any blatant grammatical errors and the body flows nicely from one paragraph to another with visually appealing formatting of words and pictures.  The same is true for most emails I send.  No wonder it took me days to write two-page papers for school! (refer to Fact #1)
10. I have issues with the way people misuse and mispronounce the words yeah/yay/yea.  I just finished another mini-research session courtesy of Dictionary.com (another very useful web site) and confirmed that I'm pretty much correct on this one.  You're welcome for the following lesson in linguistics (blame Fact #1):
1. yeah (yě'ə, yā'ə) adv. Informal. Yes.
2. yay (yā) interj. Used as an exclamation of pleasure, approval, elation, or victory
3. yea (yā)
   
   –adverb
   1. yes (used in affirmation or assent).
   2. indeed: Yea, and he did come.
   3. not only this but even: a good, yea, a noble man.
   –noun
   4. an affirmation; an affirmative reply or vote.
   5. a person who votes in the affirmative.
11. I think I'm one of the very few people who use "o" for a nose in my emoticons. :o)  This probably drives other people nuts. If you're really bored, you can find an extensive history on emoticons here courtesy of Wikipedia (another fun web site).
12. I am not a morning person. I don't do life well before 7:00am and almost flat-out refuse to do it before 6:00am if I have any choice. My most productive time of the day is from 8:00-11:00pm. That is why my children are almost always in bed by 7:30-8:00pm.
13. I need my sleep. I can barely function on 7 hours. I normally get closer to 8 hours. Nine hours would be ideal. Ten would be luxurious.  Thus, the baby stage of child-rearing is very hard on me.  I try to take naps to make up for lost time when desperately needed (see Fact #14, #15 & #17), but I often spend more time trying to convince myself to get back out of the bed/couch afterwards than actually napping.
14. I have a built-in weather radar and a fascination for weather in general, which I somewhat blame/credit to growing up on a farm.  I find it nearly impossible to sleep through a thunderstorm.  I usually wake up in just enough time to get to the computer, check the radar and run around the house shutting windows before the rain starts.  Then I lie awake until everything has blown over.  This has saved many things from getting wet but has cost me a lot of sleep the last month or two.  I recently purchased a weather radio to put by my bedside.  I'm not exactly sure why I would need one given my innate ability to sense bad weather and the plethora of weather web sites in my Favorites menu, but I've wanted one ever since the Parkersburg tornado when we didn't hear the sirens going off in Denver because the rain/hail was too loud.
15. I also have an incredibly sensitive "mommy radar."  I can wake up in the middle of the night from the slightest child's cry or the faint *tink* of the toilet lid in the upstairs bathroom.  However, I rarely hear Austin's alarm go off two feet from my head.  Weird.
16. There is at least one clock in almost every room in our house.  In fact, at last count I had to manually change 21 clocks for daylight-savings time.  That doesn't include the electronic devices that update themselves.  I am almost lost without a watch.  I blame this on Fact #1.
17. I admit to being a Facebook addict at one point but have since broken free.  I still log on, and even occasionally share something, but I don't keep up on others like I used to.  I have also cut in half the number of blogs I follow, although the ones I do read, I follow very closely thanks to Google Reader.  I am now addicted to blogging myself, which is good news for you!  I look at it as my main hobby (of which I have very few) and a stress reliever.
18. I hope to one day get this blog published in a bound book format.  I've casually looked at a few web sites that do this, but haven't actually delved into it.  Someday.  You know, as in, "Someday I'll get the kids' photo albums updated." ;o)
19. Speaking of which, I do have printed photo albums (courtesy of Winkflash) for Emily up through age two and Lincoln through 5 months.
20. Growing up I traveled all over the country.  In college I did a semester abroad in Hull, England, and spent three weeks traveling the European continent along with other smaller expeditions.  In the 4 1/2 years since I got pregnant with Emily I haven't set foot in an airplane.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I haven't even left the state of Iowa.  I've only spent 3 nights in a hotel (all without kids--the only nights without kids), and it was only in Cedar Falls and Cedar Rapids.  That is about to change.  Austin is taking me to Kansas City for our anniversary next week, and I'm planning a day-trip to the Twin Cities later this summer.  Plus, Austin has promised to take me somewhere warm next winter.  I can hardly wait!
21. It's no secret that the last two Iowa winters have been especially harsh.  As a result, I have felt the profound effects of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder).  I never realized how much it affected me or how common it actually is until this year.  As long as I live in Iowa (which I plan to do for a long time, if not a lifetime) I will have to deal with this.  At least I understand what's going on now and can develop a game plan for trying to combat the symptoms.

Congratulations!  I'm impressed that you made it all the way through this rambling post.  I'm sure you think I'm kind of nutty by now.  Or as one of my favorite authors, John Ortberg, has penned a book, Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them.  As a reward (and test), I'll send a dozen cookies of your choice to the reader who leaves a comment with the closest guess of how much time it took to write this post.  For firstborn clarification, this includes actual time spent sitting in front of the computer but not time just thinking about it away from the computer.  Good luck! :o)