National Book Festival and One Pregnancy Picture

This weekend we headed down to the Mall for the National Book Festival. It was a pretty cool event, they had authors speaking and signing books, lots of children’s activities, and all sorts of booths set up giving out free stuff.

                                                                                                           

Lincoln’s favorite part of the festival, though, was… riding the carousel that’s there all the time. He hasn’t really enjoyed carousels in the past, but he made a beeline for this one and thought it was amazing.

We stopped by a Wells Fargo tent to see how it felt to ride in a horse drawn carriage. I felt bad for the guy whose job it was to simulate the motion of the horses!

We’ve been watching a little bit of PBS lately and Lincoln was pretty excited to see some characters he recognized at the PBS tent. He was particularly happy about Clifford. While we were waiting in line for the dinosaur he kept looking over at Clifford and saying, “Big red doggie!” Clifford’s line was supposed to be closed when we headed over there, but the lady closing it was nice enough to let us sneak in. I’m glad she did because Lincoln was really happy. He gave Clifford a high-5 and a hug. It was pretty cute.

                                                                                       

On a different note, I have not been nearly as diligent about taking pictures of this pregnancy as I was with Lincoln. Even so, I thought I should have some sort of documentation of the different phases, so here I am at almost 19 weeks! I can’t believe how fast this pregnancy is going!

Pizza Parrot

Lincoln and I had such a fun afternoon today! He just gets funnier and funnier everyday, I am really loving this stage! When he got up from his nap, he asked to go to the store and at first I agreed, but then thought we better get our pizza dough going for dinner before we took off. Lincoln has always loved helping in the kitchen, so he decided to pull a dining room chair into the kitchen and help me with the dough. Here he is “painting” the pizza pan with canola oil. He’s imitating everything that we say, but he had a hard time wrapping his little tongue around “oil” when I pulled it out of the pantry. It was pretty funny watching him try it a few times.

After he was done painting, he helped me finish the dough. When I opened up a new package of wheat flour I showed it to Lincoln and asked him what it was to which he promptly replied, “Dirt!”

Lincoln’s favorite thing in the kitchen is watching the stand mixer do its thing. I was explaining to him that we needed to wait for all the flour to get incorporated into the dough before we could take it out, but he got a little impatient after a while. Finally he exclaimed, “Come on, flour!”

Here he is kneading his portion of the dough. He liked that I was encouraging him to punch the dough. He, in turn, encouraged me to throw my portion of the dough in the air.

Once we were done with the dough we did finally head to the store. He said several other charming one liners there, but my favorite was as we were looking at toilet paper. We generally pick our toilet paper based on the animal portrayed on the packaging these days. When I suggested the bears Lincoln said, “How about doggie?” We went with the dog.

Potty Training Side Effect

Lincoln made the transition to a twin bed very smoothly. He remained good about taking naps and sleeping in… until we started potty training him. Now I think he values his time with a diaper on too much to sleep it away. Instead he spends his time playing and removing all of his books from the shelf. Normally he makes it back to his bed for an abbreviated nap when he has completed his shenanigans, but today he didn’t quite get there.

Water Logged

We went on a last minute trip to Myrtle Beach, SC last week as a sort of “bar trip” for Jonathan. We were only there for a few days, but we packed a lot of fun and even more sun into our time.

Minutes after arrival, we went down to check out the pools at our resort. Lincoln loved riding the “boats” on the lazy river and resting on the poolside lounge chairs.

                                                                                          

                                                                                                        

Jonathan was really excited about the beach on this trip, so we headed down there (our resort was right on the beach) on the morning of our first full day. Although he seemed to be pleased at first, it turns out Lincoln doesn’t much like the beach. Or more specifically, he’s not on board with the tide coming in. When the first wave came in unsolicited and splashed over us, Lincoln started crying and asked to go back to the room. But, ultimately, he settled for cuddling with me under the umbrella while Jonathan swam.

                                  

Lincoln, however, did love the kiddie pool at our resort. It was only a foot deep and featured a sunken pirate ship complete with water-shooting canons and water-dropping buckets and barrels. In other words, it was a two-year-old’s paradise and we spent the majority of our time in Myrtle Beach in that kiddie pool.

                                               

Lincoln could barely be persuaded to get out for a picture. Here he’s pleading to get back in.

                                                                                          

                                                                                                     

But even Lincoln needs to rest sometimes.

Jonathan enjoyed some more beach time while Lincoln and I rested in the room in the afternoon. He didn’t tell me until we were about to leave (so I wouldn’t freak out), but apparently the lifeguards pulled everyone out of the water because of a shark during that time. I wasn’t too pleased when he told me, but apparently the lifeguards were pretty casual about the whole thing so it must not have been as frightening as I generally picture it.

Most of my childhood beach memories involve flying a kite, so we picked one up to see if Lincoln would also enjoy it. I am happy to report that, as long as we weren’t too close to the water and he could keep his sandals on, he did. It was incredibly easy to fly it, too, since it was pretty windy down by the water.

                                                                                       

                                                                          

                                                                                            

Myrtle Beach has a nice boardwalk area that we enjoyed walking around. There were lots of kitschy little shops, ice cream stands, and general tourist traps. We got some ice cream and listened to a band play in one area. The lead singer had a nice voice, but the band was called “The Potato Heads.” I, personally, think that may be what’s holding them back.

                                                                                            

We tried the beach again the next day; but Lincoln kept asking for the “yellow boats” in the lazy river, and it was ridiculously windy so our umbrella kept flying away. We didn’t last long.

                                                                            

We spent the rest of the day in the kiddie pool. Lincoln fell asleep on a lounge chair at about 4 o’clock after playing hard all day. When he woke up an hour later he wanted to get back in, but the day was cooling off and it was time for dinner.

                                                                                      

That evening we went to “Broadway at the Beach,” a very Downtown Disney-like experience without all the Disney stuff. When we got back, pretty late, Jonathan thought he and Lincoln should go night swimming. Lincoln thought this sounded like a great idea, but when put in to action he decided otherwise. He only lasted a few minutes on the yellow boat before he decided he’d rather be sleeping.

We waited until the last minute to check out the next day so that Jonathan and Lincoln could have the maximum amount of pool time possible. I think Lincoln might have been a little upset when he woke up at home the next day and didn’t get to put on his bathing suit and jump in the pool immediately. Maybe we can do it again next year.

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