Christmas Day

After the excitement of opening gifts it was back to painting. Austin put a second coat on the half bath and we both worked on the foyer/stairwell. It was quite discouraging. Even after two coats the bathroom is still splotchy--especially around the edges. The edging in the foyer is unbelievably tedious with all the rounded edges. Plus it turned out a very bright Royal blue, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid. Although the color I picked is called "Deep Royal" it's supposed to be more of a darker, navy shade to match my Dutch decor. There is some hope where there are overlaps in paint that a second coat will turn out darker. I don't know if it's because of the dark color in general, the fact that it's different brands of primer/top coat, the fact that the wall has never been painted before or it's just the brand of paint (Behr). Whatever the case, it's not exactly turning out as expected. At least all the white woodwork looks beautiful!

It's probably a good thing we were home all day because Emily had a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad potty day. Dealing with that, plus the painting fiasco, plus Lincoln's increased night-wakings again made for a bit of a tired, crabby rest of the day. At least the snow storm turned out to be a dud for us--mostly rain with only a dusting of new snow. We have rescheduled or altered our family Christmas gatherings, so we still have something to look forward to. :o)

Christmas Morning

It was fun to spend Christmas morning at home, too. Emily was up at 6:30am, but not because she knew there were presents. Those didn't come out of hiding in the basement until after the kids were in bed last night. She had her Christmas dress on again before she even made it down the stairs. (We have been alternating between two of them for three days now.) She eventually noticed the presents under the tree and started jabbering about them non-stop, but we distracted her by letting her help make blueberry pancakes for breakfast. Then she put together puzzles with Austin until Lincoln woke up.

Watching Emily open her presents (and narrate the process) was such a joy. Christmas is definitely more fun with kids! Lincoln was pretty much only interested in pieces of wrapping paper and the ribbon that tied up his new pajamas in his stocking. Emily made up for it, though. The dollhouse we got her was a hit, along with a beanbag chair for her room, the tent/tunnel combo that was technically Lincoln's gift and a few other small things--including new pajamas. :o) There is a long video montage in the December video player.

Christmas Eve

We decided not to risk driving to Des Moines and back today with the epic winter snow storm forecasted for the whole holiday weekend. Instead, we spent a nice day at home as a family. Austin hung the new vertical blinds in the living room with a little help from Emily. ;o) He also put on the first coat of red paint in the half bath. All he could say was, "Wow--that's really red!" :o)

My good friends Angie & Brian stopped by for a couple hours because they were in the area. The weather also held up long enough for us to make it to a Christmas Eve service at Orchard Hill Church--something we would usually not be able to do because we would normally be out of town. It was a beautiful service. I thought Emily might enjoy the music, lights and candles, but she begged to go play in nursery and threw a fit when it was time to go home. Go figure! Here are the kids dressed in their Christmas best...

Cruisin'

Lincoln is riding in style...

7 months old

Lincoln is 7 months old today. He weighed in just shy of 17 pounds. He must have gone through a quick growth spurt recently because all of the sudden one day last week none of his remaining 6 month clothes fit. His hair is also filling in nicely on the sides, so he isn't really sporting a mohawk look anymore. The new hair is lighter even though it looks dark in the picture. It's funny because you can see a distinct line in the longer hair on top where the dark baby hair color ends and the lighter infant color hair begins.

Lincoln can almost sit up unassisted now. He still needs some supervision to prevent major face plants when he leans too far or gets too excited. Lincoln is also quickly increasing his reach and range. He happily rolls both directions and pivots on his belly. He can even sometimes push himself backwards on a hard surface. I caught him up on his hands and knees once this week. It won't be too long!

One of Lincoln's major goals in life right now is to catch the teddy bears on the mobile above his crib. He reaches for them whenever I pick him up or lay him down. Sometimes I hold him standing up in his crib and let him play with them for awhile. Lincoln also loves standing up along the bathtub during Emily's bath time. I wouldn't mind starting to do baths together, but thus far Emily has been quite adamant and unaccommodating in that area, and I have chosen not to push the issue.

I am thrilled that as of the last 2 weeks Lincoln has started consistently sleeping through the night--meaning he goes down around 7:00pm and I don't have to get out of bed until 7:00am. However, he is working very hard on cutting his first tooth/teeth. That has thrown a couple nights off. Thank goodness for Tylenol!

I don't know if it's teething or what, but Lincoln has been a bit of a bugger lately with eating cereal. It feels like an uphill battle to get and keep anything in his mouth a lot of days. I tried feeding him green beans and squash, but he since he's not eating cereal consistently I'm going to hold off on that for a bit longer. He has definitely figured out how to get water out of a sippy cup. It's just a matter of whether or not he swallows it. ;o)

Thanks to some leftovers from Cousin Seth, I gave Lincoln his first finger food yesterday--a Baby Mum-Mum. It's a vegetable-flavored "rice rusk". Basically, a wafer cracker that dissolves almost instantly. Lincoln liked playing with it and gnawing on it, but I'm not sure if he actually consumed it. I can't imagine it tastes very good. :op

Prep & Painting

The walls in the foyer, stairwell and half bath got textured this week. I did the prep work on the woodwork and Austin spent the day priming everything. It looks so much cleaner and brighter even with only primer. It will be really exciting once the wall color goes on. Oh yeah--I should probably pick that out. ;o) I did get the tile ordered this week and bought new light fixtures.

Experiment update

Remember my little cinnamon roll experiment? It still took two days for Austin's office to finish the pans of cinnamon rolls--even with one missing from each pan. Seriously, people. I don't understand. I made another pan for my former co-workers to deliver on Monday. Because of the weather (again!) I had to delay my trip until Tuesday. It took a ton of willpower not to eat half the pan all by myself over the course of 24 hours. I love to bake and love to eat it even more. With a husband who barely eats any sweets/desserts at all it's a bad combination!

Christmas is coming

Has Christmas snuck up on anyone else as much as it has on me this year? I am feeling so far behind and unprepared. On Wednesday, Emily & I actually got around to frosting the cut-out cookies we baked last week during the snow storm. Along with the usual bread, milk and bottled water, there apparently was a run on Christmas sprinkles last week before the snow storm. I went to 3 different stores and got the last bottle of Christmas sprinkles at Super Target in Waterloo on Tuesday. They weren't even very exciting sprinkles, but Emily didn't care. She was just excited to be in charge of putting them on the cookies. I'm pretty sure that just as many sprinkles ended up on the counter and floor as on the cookies, but that's okay, too, because they went nicely with the glass of OJ Emily spilled on the floor at breakfast. If you have to mop--you might as well make it worth it! ;o) We definitely won't win any cookie decorating contests, and for many reasons these cookies will only be consumed by our family, but it's a fun tradition and activity.

I also had to enact a "no touching the Christmas tree" rule this week. After cleaning up the remains of 3 broken ornaments (none of which were at all sentimental to me) and finding more ornaments scattered around the floor and house than still left on the tree I decided that that was enough. So far, Emily has pretty much stuck to the new rule. Maybe she just got bored and is ready to move on.

After several late nights and a little help from Emily, I FINALLY have all the Christmas cards ready to drop in the mail. This is one of my favorite holiday traditions--both sending and receiving cards/letters. I'm usually the type of person who has my cards ordered by Thanksgiving and everything ready to drop in the mail by Dec. 1. This year I totally procrastinated after deciding I really didn't care for the photo card I ordered. Oh well. If you happen to receive a card with a slightly crooked stamp or address label you'll know why. ;o)

So now I should probably concentrate on putting together and wrapping gifts. Maybe I'll get around to dipping the holiday pretzels by New Year's. Maybe. :o)

Lincoln Laundry

Every kid needs a picture in a laundry basket. This is Lincoln observing load #4 of 7 in the dryer today. I used to not really mind the chore of doing laundry, but it is starting to become overwhelming at times--especially on Mondays when I do sheets & towels. That's when it would be extra nice to have first floor laundry. I am very grateful for the new washer/dryer that came with the house, though!

Also, this picture confirms that it's time to purge Lincoln's closet/drawers again. He must have just had a growth spurt because all of the sudden a bunch of his clothes really don't fit anymore.

Bathroom Demo

Austin spent Saturday doing more demolition work--mostly in the small half bathroom. This is what happens sometimes when you start messing with 60-year-old pipes...

After removing the blue sink, he discovered quite the eclectic sampling of former generations of wallpaper. Seriously--what were they thinking?!? It made the tan paper with small country blue & cream flowers (at the bottom) that he tore off seem not so bad.

Austin also discovered an old, dusty coin purse stuck in the radiator. The two pennies went in Emily's piggy bank and the rest went in the trash.

In addition to the bathroom, Austin also prepped the foyer and stairwell walls for texturing. He removed the wood panel opposite the top of the stairs to reveal the largest attic fan ever. This thing is 4' x 3' and isn't going anywhere any time soon even though it doesn't work.