Keeping Up With The Joneses

Some Family and Maternity Pictures

2012-01-17T08:51:00.001-05:00

When we were in Arizona over Christmas Jeremiah and Kariah took some pictures of our little family and the entire Jones Clan. Here are some of our favorites.

I also asked to have a few “maternity” shots taken. I was about 32 weeks when these were taken, so I’ve grown some in the interim. (Only 5 weeks to go!)

Sunny Christmas

2012-01-02T21:24:00.001-05:00

We’re taking down all of our Christmas decorations today, so I thought it was high time to write a post about our Christmas. We were able to fly out and spend a week with Jonathan’s side of the family in sunny Arizona. The warmth didn’t make it feel too Christmas-y outside, but it was sure fun to spend the holiday with the whole family!

Some highlights:

We got to meet our newest little niece, Lily for the first time.

We participated in another graham cracker house building contest. This year we elected to pay homage to our new home and build the White House. I don’t think an official winner was ever declared, but Lincoln didn’t vote for us.

Jonathan got to play a lot of video games with his brothers…

And a little football.

Lincoln ~~ate most of the left over house decorations~~ decorated cookies for Santa.

And showed us what a reindeer looks like in his special Christmas pajamas.

I made Jonathan and Lincoln matching Christmas ties and they wore them to a very early 8 am Sacrament Meeting on Christmas morning.

Lincoln opened a ton of presents…

But his two favorites were definitely his backhoe from Santa and his basketball shorts from Mamie.

We visited the Mesa Temple to see it decked out with Christmas lights. It was lovely.

And we got to spend lots of time ~~hoarding toys from~~ playing with Lincoln’s rarely seen cousins.

We had so much fun in Arizona and it’s always sort of a bummer when Christmas is over, but it’s not as bad this year since now we can really start getting ready for Lincoln’s little brother to arrive next month! Happy New Year, everyone!

Chez George

2011-12-13T23:00:00.001-05:00

A while back I spotted a Groupon to visit Mount Vernon and snatched it up. We waited a while to use it so we could go when the estate was all decked out for Christmas and it did not disappoint.

Apparently one Christmas the General (as they call him there) rented a camel to entertain his family, so now they bring a camel in every year. This camel wasn’t all that entertaining, but Lincoln thought it was pretty cool. We also saw a chocolate demonstration and the turkey that was officially pardoned by President Obama on Thanksgiving.

Here we are in front of the Mansion.

There was a real working blacksmith on the estate as well. We asked him tons of questions and enjoyed watching him make J hooks.

You aren’t allowed to take pictures inside the mansion, but we saw such interesting sites as a key to the Bastille that was given to Gen. Washington as a gift, the room where he died, and his study and chair.

There was a hill perfect for rolling down just behind the mansion. Several kids were rolling away and Lincoln wanted to give it a try.

Jonathan tried to give him a lesson…

But just ended up on the ground right along with him.

Our last stop was a GW museum where they had a replica of the mansion made of gingerbread by the White House Pastry chief. It was pretty impressive.

North Pole Post

2011-12-06T22:41:00.001-05:00

Lincoln has spent the last couple of weeks busily pouring over various Toys R Us catalogs as he’s contemplated what to ask Santa Claus for this year.

He’s finally made his choices and we’re all set to mail his letter. Here he is with his final product:

He was very careful about all his choices and cut out and glued down the pictures (mostly) by himself. I don’t necessarily agree with all of his choices, but I guess that is between him and Santa. We’ll just have to wait and see what he gets on Christmas morning!

Fringe Benefits

2011-12-04T23:28:00.001-05:00

Jonathan has been able to snag a couple of sets of tickets to sporting events at the Verizon Center from work over the past couple of months. This weekend we were able to attend a Georgetown game (versus the New Jersey Institute of Technology… maybe that is why no one else wanted the tickets). Lincoln was pretty pumped when we asked if he wanted to go to a basketball game and kept telling us how fun it was afterward. Hopefully we’ll be able to get some tickets to an NBA game when the season finally starts.

Colonial Williamsburg by Lincoln

2011-11-27T17:39:00.001-05:00

We enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving in Southern Virginia last week with our friends, the Johnsons. After some early morning shopping on Black Friday, Jonathan, Lincoln, Christopher, and I headed to Colonial Williamsburg to have a look around. I was allowed to take a few pictures at first, but soon my camera was seized by a miniature photographer and never relinquished.

It was a beautiful day (I’m having a hard time remembering that December is fast approaching when it’s almost 70 degrees out), and we enjoyed checking out the shops and buildings the town had to offer. I kept trying to get a picture of Lincoln in a cute colonial hat, but he wasn’t cooperating.

So I decided to model the type of pose I was looking for and allow him to take my picture. But then he became much more interested in taking the pictures then posing for them.

Lincoln loves using our old point-and-shoot camera at home, but he discovered that it’s much easier for him to take pictures with my newer camera. He filled up the available space on our memory card pretty quickly.

Some artsier shots…

I think this might have been a nice picture if he would have gotten our heads.

This picture was completely intentional. He told me he was going to, “Take picture my shoes!” And he loved taking pictures of Christopher, who won his complete fidelity after making donuts for breakfast that morning.

Are these cookies done yet?

2011-11-14T16:59:00.001-05:00

How about now? Now?

25 Weeks

2011-11-06T17:25:00.001-05:00

Lincoln wanted to show off his belly too.

Return of RoboLinc

2011-11-01T13:00:00.001-04:00

I am so happy that Lincoln is finally old enough to really enjoy the holidays! He was so excited every time he got to put on his robot costume and luckily he had plenty of opportunities.

Last Friday we went to our ward’s Trunk-or-Treat. Jonathan was out of town, so my friend Nicole came with me to hand out candy at our car while I took Lincoln around. This was my first time trunk-or-treating and, I must say, it was a very nice experience. All of the candy, none of the stair climbing. Plus some people in our ward really went above and beyond to make it fun for the kids.

On Saturday we had big plans for more trick-or-treating in Old Town Alexandria, but the rain and snow kept us inside most of the day. We did, however, make it to “Air and Scare” at the Air and Space Museum Hangar in Virginia. It was a really cool event with a lot of people. There were several characters wandering around, including most of the cast of Star Wars, two Predators, and an adult robot (with whom Lincoln refused to have his picture taken). We tried to force Lincoln into taking a picture with Darth Vader, but, turns out, Lincoln is not a fan of Darth Vader. He was a bit upset after the photo, but a treat cheered him right up.

Lincoln really loved a remote control helicopter someone was flying around. He abandoned his candy bag to chase after it, all the while declaring how cute it was.

Last night we went trick-or-treating with some friends around their neighborhood. Up until this point we hadn’t had any problems with Lincoln’s costume, but almost all of the houses we visited had stairs leading up to them and Lincoln was not incredibly agile while a robot. It made for some slow going, but all of the candy seemed to make up for the inconvenience.

Lincoln and Bria (a zombie), right before they dug into their spoils.

Lincoln and his totally full trick-or-treat bag after only about one hour or so.

Winner, Winner! Chicken Dinner!

2011-10-26T16:21:00.000-04:00

Our apartment complex had a little Halloween party on Saturday, so we dressed Lincoln up in his newly finished robot costume and headed over. He thought he looked pretty awesome.

They had a cupcake decorating table, pumpkin painting, and lots of snacks.

Lincoln and his friend Wesley were not too keen on getting their picture taken… they were too busy drinking cider and painting their pumpkins.

At the very end of the party they did a costume parade and contest for the kids and dogs present. We were able to get Lincoln to wear his costume for it (he actually did a pretty good job wearing it overall… he was pretty excited to be a robot) and he came in 1st place! He was the proud recipient of a $10 gift card to McDonald’s and $50 off our rent… not too shabby for a cardboard box and dryer vent!

The Never Ending Quilt

2011-10-24T16:05:00.001-04:00

I am so happy that I finally get to write this post! I started making a quilt for Lincoln in early June and I have finally finished it! Making this quilt was really, really difficult. I have been actively working on it for the grand majority of the last five months, but there were so many steps to complete and so many things to think about that it just took a really long time to finish. It is far from perfect, but I am pleased with it.

Ways I made this quilt harder then it needed to be:

1) I decided to do a pattern based on half-square triangles (what was I thinking? Oh, I know, “I don’t know what I’m getting myself into.”)

2) I made those half-square triangles relatively small (another, “I don’t know what I’m doing” moment.)

3) I didn’t buy enough of the backing fabric. When I went back to buy more Hancock’s fabric was out of that (solid, very basic, should be pretty standard) color. I had to drive to Jo-Ann’s to get it and the color doesn’t match exactly. It’s very annoying.

4) I decided to do one zig-zag on the back and that made me feel like I needed to line it up with the zig-zags on the front because I originally planned to quilt it in zig-zags…

5) I decided to free-motion quilt it when the zig-zags didn’t line up correctly. I had to pick out all the zig-zag quilting I had already done before I could start free-motion quilting it.

6) Free-motion quilting a twin sized quilt is a huge undertaking for an absolute beginner. It took hours and hours and hours. And it killed my arms. We didn’t eat on the dining room table for weeks and I listened to three audio books.

7) I cut the binding fabric short ways, so I had to sew a bunch of extra seems.

If I ever make another quilt (and I suspect I will, even though I’m feeling a little burned out right now) hopefully I’ll have a lot fewer “I don’t know what I’m doing” moments.

Lincoln loves his new quilt, so that’s what makes me really happy!

Funny Boy

2011-10-20T15:14:00.001-04:00

Here are some random pictures I’ve taken of Lincoln over the past several weeks. He is changing so quickly now and it is so fun to watch.

We’ve been having some battles over nap time in the last few weeks. He doesn’t think he needs to take a nap anymore, so he just plays in his room when he’s supposed to be sleeping. One day he totally destroyed his room. There were toys everywhere and he had even gone through his closet. One of the treasures he found in his closet was his old infant bathtub. He sat in it in the living room for a while, calling it a boat. The next day he thought it would be awesome to take a bath in it. He quickly discovered, however, that I was right and he is too big for it, so it didn’t last too long.

Another way Lincoln avoids naps is to tell me he has to pee or poo, usually poo. Here he is making the most of his extra minutes in the bathroom.

I recently bought Lincoln some Do-A-Dot markers and he is in love. There are a lot of printable Do-A-Dot worksheets for pre-schoolers online and he will sit at the table for a good long time dotting away.

Lincoln loves to help. I was cleaning up some this morning and Lincoln jumped right in to help. He cleaned the mirrors in his bathroom and vacuumed the living room, all while singing, “Clean up! Clean up!” I love my little assistant!

Apple Picking

2011-10-09T21:25:00.001-04:00

We were a little worried we’d really be missing Ithaca when this time of year rolled around. Fall is our favorite season and it is especially nice in upstate New York, but we’ve discovered there is plenty of fall fun to be had in the greater Washington area as well (and we get the added benefit of beautiful weather while partaking of the fall festivities here). This weekend we drove out to a farm in Maryland to pick apples and enjoy the sunshine. Lincoln had been looking forward to apple picking all week, so he was especially excited for this outing.

Of course we picked a ton of apples, we always do, but we’ve got big plans for them, so all is well. The farm we visited also had a large pile of hay for kids to play on. This sounds like a simple idea, but the kids (including Lincoln) love it! There were kids building forts out of hay, throwing it at each other, or just jumping off of it. It was a huge hit. Lincoln’s favorite activity was picking up hay and delivering it to the fort builders. He was upset when we got tired of watching him play in the hay and wanted to move on, but his tears dried quickly once we took him to see some baby goats and a baby cow.

The farm had a lot of other activities that we didn’t do (we think it’s a little early for pumpkins), so we look forward to a return visit before the end of the season!

National Book Festival and One Pregnancy Picture

2011-09-26T17:16:00.001-04:00

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

2011-09-24T00:15:00.001-04:00

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

2011-09-15T23:10:00.001-04:00

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

2011-09-08T15:01:00.001-04:00

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.

To Whom It May Concern:

2011-09-04T22:08:00.001-04:00

One Fun Day

2011-08-29T21:20:00.001-04:00

For some reason we decided to jam our weekly allotment of fun last week into one day. It was a fun day, but we were all very tired by the end of it. We started off our day at the zoo. It was pretty hot, so a lot of the animals weren’t out in the open, but we got to see our fair share at some of the inside exhibits.

My personal favorite was the large ape house. The gorillas were very playful and entertaining to watch (Lincoln was still talking about them the next day) and the orangutan was very interesting.

The zoo is (sort of) near the Shake Shack, so of course we had to stop there for lunch before heading home for naps!

That evening we decided to attend a Washington Nationals game. Tickets are dirt cheap on StubHub, so we thought we should take advantage before the season’s over. Lincoln was in complete awe from the moment we walked into the stadium.

Look at this look on his face!

Lincoln kept insisting that he and Jonathan trade hats. This worked out well for Lincoln, but Jonathan looked a little silly…

When we asked Lincoln if he was ready to go home (it was getting pretty late) he kept saying, “No! (While gesturing to the field) Watch!” This boy sure loves sports!

More Ithaca Visitors

2011-08-23T15:47:00.000-04:00

We were lucky enough to have even more visitors from Ithaca! Lindsey, Bryan, and Norah stopped by for a quick tour of our new apartment and a delicious lunch at our favorite quick service restaurant, Potbelly’s. It was so nice getting to visit with our friends and picking up right where we left off (well it’s only been about 3 weeks, but I have a feeling it will always be like that with the Hickeses.)

Here are Lincoln and Norah in their matching high chairs. Lincoln is normally not interested in sitting in a high chair, but since Norah was he decided he needed one too.

Most Potbelly’s restaurants employ a musician to serenade patrons as they dine. Lincoln and Norah couldn’t help but get up and dance to the nineties throw backs this fellow was playing. The dads were nice enough to dance along so that the moms could talk.

Thanks, guys, for stopping in to see us! We’re happy Bryan’s parents live so close!

Visitors

2011-08-21T15:39:00.000-04:00

We were lucky enough to have some friends come spend the night with us a few days ago. Lincoln has been having serious play-date withdrawals since we left Ithaca so he was really happy to have a friend come visit (and so were we.)

We haven’t got to see Natalia, Brandon, and Ellie since the beginning of the summer, so it was really nice getting to catch up and hang out for a little bit. Thanks for stopping by, Jacobsens!

Air and Space

2011-08-19T15:30:00.001-04:00

Since we’ve moved to the DC area and left all of his friends behind Lincoln has been a little bored. Here he is reading a book on our bed. He’s very committed to his future in the NBA.

We took a break from unpacking last week and went on an excursion to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, the companion facility to the Air and Space museum. It is a huge hanger full of all kinds of aircraft. Lincoln was in seventh heaven. When we arrived he was running around in circles and shouting, “Airplanes! Airplanes!”

We were especially excited that the first thing we saw was this Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, the fastest plane in the world. We had read about them in a few airplane books and it was really neat to see one in person. The plaque said the last time it was flown, from LA to Washington DC for display in the museum, it made the trip in just over one hour.

We were also pretty excited when we thought there was a space shuttle in the museum. However, it was the space shuttle Enterprise, essentially a test shuttle that was used in atmospheric test flights. But it was still pretty cool. And big.

There were so many airplanes and other aircraft (including the very Jetsons-looking helicopter below) to see that I’m sure we only walked by a fraction on them. But since we live so close now and Lincoln’s love of airplanes doesn’t seem to be diminishing, I know we’ll be back!

Lincoln and Norah Say Goodbye

2011-08-01T14:00:00.001-04:00

Lincoln, sadly, had to say goodbye to his first friend a few days ago when we moved from Ithaca. Lincoln and Norah have been together since Norah was first born, just three months after Lincoln. They’ve spent a lot of time together over the course of their two+ years and Lincoln still asks to play with her daily. It’s hard explaining to a two year old that their friend now lives more then 300 miles away.

Even though they didn’t understand that we were about to leave forever, Lincoln and Norah sure seemed like they were trying to make the most of their remaining time together. They spent about 30 minutes running toward each other with open arms (I wish it had been lighter so I could have gotten some action shots) and hugging tightly, only to release and repeat.

They would pat each others’ backs and laugh. It was incredibly cute.

There were even a few smooches exchanged. While helping me write this, Lincoln exclaimed, “Norah kiss!”

Hopefully we’ll still get to see Norah (and her parents) on a semi-regular basis because I know Lincoln misses her already.

Rochester Air Show

2011-07-21T15:54:00.001-04:00

When Lincoln developed his love for airplanes (and watching the Blue Angels on YouTube) I began scouring the internet for an airshow we could attend. The closest one I found was in Rochester, NY about two hours away from us. When thinking in distances from Ithaca (at least 45 minutes from anywhere), that wasn’t too bad and we figured Lincoln’s joy was worth it. So, last Saturday we made the trek to the ESL International Air Show in Rochester.

It was a hot, hot day, but there were hundreds of planes on display for us to explore. Lincoln loved getting to walk right up and touch them. Even for those of us a little less enthusiastic about airplanes, it was pretty interesting.

One of the highlights of the day was getting to climb up to the cockpit of this huge carrier-based aircraft. We had to wait an hour in line to do it, but it was worth it (and a lot cooler inside the plane then outside.)

We got to look at a lot of smaller planes lined up around the airport including the replica of “The Memphis Bell” that was used in the film of the same name.

Lincoln really wanted to get in the cockpit of this little plane until he discovered it was the pilot that had to lift him up and put him in. When he discovered said pilot was also going to talk to him, he decided he’d had enough and that it was time for lunch.

Here are all six Blue Angel planes lined up on the runway before their show.

We bought these special noise cancelling headphones for Lincoln on Amazon the week before the show. He calls them his “mail” (because they came in the mail.) The week leading up to the airshow he’d wear them around the house and sometimes even out, but he only wore them for about six seconds when we actually wanted him to. Oh well, I guess we’ll have to attend more airshows! (Look at those poor red cheeks! I was so worried he was getting burnt, but I had been faithfully putting sunblock on him. It turns out he was just hot so the redness went away when we finally got back to some air conditioning.)

The Blue Angel’s show was really, really cool. Lincoln was breaking down a little by this point (it had been a long, long day), so I’m not sure he was able to fully appreciate it, but we filmed a lot, so he can watch it later.

Whirlwind Washington

2011-07-03T21:15:00.001-04:00

We recently returned from an extremely fast paced trip home to Washington State. We spent time in four cities and three airports, saw almost all the relatives I have, and drove close to 1500 miles over the course of the week. We were pretty tired when we got home.

Lincoln got to meet his little cousin, Savannah, for the first time. She’s only four months old and he didn’t seem to find her that interesting, but he sure loved her Bumbo and her cat, Hope. I wish I had a picture of him “hexing” the cat; it looked like he was pretending to throw something at the cat with both hands or like he was casting a spell. Poor Hope would hiss and back away, but Lincoln thought it was hilarious. He was a bit less enamored with their giant husky, Legend. Whenever Legend came bounding into the room, Lincoln would shrink away into a corner and pout nervously.

We spent our first (and only real free) day Point Defiance Zoo with Jeremiah and Savannah. Lincoln really enjoyed checking out all the animals and even got to touch a starfish at their touch tank! We especially enjoyed an exhibit called “The Scoop on Poop” (it was really interesting), and (Jonathan in particular) liked the walruses. But, then again, what’s not to love about walruses?

That evening Jeremiah and Kariah were kind enough to take our family pictures. I haven’t got the CD yet, but here is a link to some samples on their blog, if you’re interested.

I thought Jonathan and Savannah looked so cute sitting next to each other in this picture. We get to see them so rarely, it was nice to be able to spend a little time with Les Phillips, even though it was pretty short.

We went to Washington specifically for my Grandma’s internment. My side of the family hasn’t all been in the same location for quite some time, so it was nice to get to see everyone all in one place even though it was a sad occasion. I tried to take some big group shots, but they didn’t turn out as well as I would have hoped. First is everyone, then just the grandkids, then the great-grandkids.

When we were growing up we often went to a seaside town called Ocean Shores for our family vacations. Accordingly, we thought it would be fitting for all of us to head over there since for a brief weekend getaway. We had a great time walking on the beach, checking out the sand castle building competition, and eating s’mores.

Jonathan is still in the middle of studying for the Bar exam, so he often volunteered to stay in the hotel room while the little boys took naps so he could try and keep up with his studies. As a result, we didn’t get to go down to the beach together until the morning we left. Lincoln was pretty excited about the water. Whenever he saw a particularly large wave he’d say “Big water!!”

From Ocean Shores we drove to Spokane, my (our) hometown. It had been a while since we’d been back, so it was nice checking out my (our) old stomping grounds. I caught up with an old friend I hadn’t seen in years over lunch at the always delicious Zips Drive-In, and we spent some time with my more rarely seen family.

Lincoln shares his love of airplanes with my Dad. He loved watching Grandpa wind up and throw this rubberband-powered glider. I wish they got to see each other more regularly because my Dad has always had a lot of sweet model airplanes I’m sure Lincoln would really enjoy.

We had a long trip home as we had to drive back to Seattle, then catch a ridiculously early flight the next morning, and then drive home from Philadelphia. We are happy to be back in Ithaca.

New Wheels

2011-06-11T15:26:00.000-04:00

Southern Virginia

2011-06-10T15:10:00.001-04:00

After leaving Wayne in Scranton we set off for Petersburg, Virginia. We needed to look for an apartment anyway, so we decided we’d like to spend the weekend with our friends, Christopher and Amelia, in Southern Virginia before scouring the DC housing market. We were surprised that Petersburg had far more to offer then just good company. We toured one of only six churches in the United States with all of it’s stained glass windows made by Tiffany Co. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, but the church was lovely and situated on the grounds of the second largest cemetery in Virginia.

Next we headed off to Petersburg National Battlefield where the Union sieged Petersburg for about ten months at the end of the Civil War. We were able to see where some of the most pivotal moments of that battle took place (including the Battle of the Crater) as well as the front lines.

After an authentically delicious barbeque lunch and a short nap, we headed to an antique tractor museum. Lincoln loved it, of course. There were hundreds of antique (but completely restored) tractors and many trucks as well. Lincoln wasn’t allowed to climb on the tractors, but the nice lady at the front desk let slip that that rule wasn’t strictly enforced on two tractors displayed outside.

On Sunday we went to Church in the morning and were hoping to attend a tractor pull a man at the museum had told us about (we think… he was pretty hard to understand) but it ended up being too far away. Instead we saw the most amazing tree. It is the second largest “cucumber” tree in the United States (but only by an inch or so in the diameter of it's trunk). It was pretty cool. Behind the tree was a museum with a very long winded tour guide, but it was interesting nonetheless.

We were bummed we had to spend all our time Monday and Tuesday in DC when we still wanted to hang out with Christopher and Amelia! We’re happy we’ll get to hang out more when we move down there!

Title Censored

2011-06-09T21:26:00.001-04:00

Last Friday Jonathan, Lincoln, and I drove to Scranton, PA to meet up with my friend Wayne who had been visiting New York City that week. Scranton is about half way between NYC and Ithaca, so we thought it as good a place as any to hang out for a few hours. After meeting at Steamtown Mall, we decided to sample the local cuisine at Alfredo’s Pizza Café. We were a little underwhelmed by the pizza. The crust was wonderful. The toppings were delightful. It just tasted like they used Kraft singles for the cheese. I shudder to think what Pizza by Alfredo tastes like.

After lunch, we decided to take in some of the local sites. I had read on Trip Advisor that tours of an old coal mine were available and we thought that sounded like a fun activity for our afternoon. Unfortunately the last tour left at three o’clock and we arrived at 3:02. So, instead of seeing a real coal mine we visited the Anthracite Heritage Museum at the same location. We were the only visitors to the museum that day and the guest book hadn’t been signed in days. People just aren’t as interested in coal as they used to be. On top of being a museum about coal, about half it was blocked off with caution tape, because they were having some work done on the roof. This turned out to be a good thing, though, because it made the museum much more exciting. We felt like rebels as we threw caution to the wind to get photos of hundreds of antique thread spools. We like to live dangerously.

We had such a fun afternoon in Scranton with Wayne! We hadn’t seen each other in quite a long time, so it was really nice getting to catch up and hang out. I’m really excited we’re going to be living a whole lot closer to him in a little over a month!

Welcome Summer!

2011-05-31T23:58:00.001-04:00

We are so happy it has finally thawed out in Ithaca! We celebrated a wonderfully warm Memorial Day with a trip to Flat Rock, our favorite local swimming spot. Lincoln loves swimming, so this was a special treat for him. We are so glad it’s finally summer!

P.S. We took these pictures on our old point and shoot. There were a few pictures left on the memory card from New York last summer. I thought these, from Prospect Park, were exceptionally cute.

Good-bye PizzaLand

2011-05-20T22:29:00.001-04:00

I can hardly believe it, but Jonathan graduated from Law School last week. We were happy to have Jonathan’s parents and Aunt Brigitte in town to help us celebrate such a huge milestone.

Keeping a two year old reasonably quiet for two plus hours (during his naptime, no less) and the low lighting inside made getting any presentable pictures of the ceremony impossible, but we made sure to take quite a few after it was over.

Unfortunately, the convocation fell on a very rainy day. That made it difficult to get from the car to the ceremony location, then to the law school for a reception and, finally, back to the car. Luckily the school provided shuttles between these places and a large tent for the reception, but we all still got pretty wet and that doesn’t really make for a fun afternoon. Nevertheless, we were so happy to be celebrating Jonathan’s numerous achievements over the past three years and the end of our lives as students.

We are now looking forward to a busy summer of bar prep, a move to our nation’s Capitol, and who knows what else. It should be fun.

Shh… Quiet

2011-04-28T20:57:00.001-04:00

I have been working on a quiet book for Lincoln for a few months now. After several missed deadlines and delays I have finally reached a good stopping point. I think I will probably add some more pages in the future, once I can look at a piece of felt again (I am missing the standard lace the football page after all), but for now I am calling it a day. I hand-stitched everything but the cover (similar to how I did my Advent Calendar), so that drew the process out a bit, but I think the results were worth it.

I had a hard time finding a tutorial for the cover, so I sort of had to make it up as I went along. I made some mistakes, but that can’t be helped.

I got the idea for this house page from Leafy Treetop Spot. There are pictures of Jonathan and I behind each of the shutters and one of Lincoln behind the door.

Homemade by Jill included a rocket page in her book, but I decided to change Lincoln’s to an airplane since they are still his favorite thing (his most recent obsession is watching air shows on YouTube, but I digress). The opposite page is just shape matching with Velcro.

Two more pages from Homemade by Jill. I still need to make a few more finger puppets, but you get the idea. Lincoln can also send and receive letters in his personalized mailbox.

This alligator page is probably my favorite in the whole book. The original idea came from this blog, but I expanded and fancied it up a bit. We took the book with us to Church for the first time last week and I put some Reese’s Pieces in the alligator’s mouth. Lincoln was pretty pleased. The cars opposite just snap on and off.

This page is probably my second favorite. It took forever to make because stitching that entire road on was quite the undertaking.

This is just a simple counting page with beads. The idea came from this blog.

I decided to put a pocket on the back cover in case pieces need to get gathered quickly or I’m feeling too lazy to put them all in the right places.

There you have it. Lincoln’s quiet book. We took it for a test drive at Church last week and, I must say, it was very successful at getting him to stay on our laps, but not as successful at keeping him quiet. Oh well, I’ll take what I can get.

Easter Festivities

2011-04-25T16:13:00.001-04:00

Now that Lincoln is two he is really starting to get holidays. This is what I have been waiting for. There is nothing better then seeing his eyes shining with excitement and watching him dart around as he yells, “Eggs! Eggs!!” I didn’t get very many good pictures of him looking for eggs in the morning because the light was bad and I was filming it, but that’s okay.

Lincoln had a few chances to practice looking for eggs before the Easter Bunny came, though, so he was thoroughly prepared. A few weeks before Easter someone came and “egged” our house and we had a ton of fun searching for all the eggs around our door (and eating the candy inside.)

And we had a little, last minute Easter egg hunt with some friends from Church last week. The kids might have been a little disappointed when they realized most of the eggs has raisins in them, but they still had fun finding the eggs and doing a bunny ear craft.

Now I just need to hit the stores and round up all the clearance Starburst jellybeans before they’re gone and my Easter will be complete!

Croquembouche

2011-04-10T20:09:00.001-04:00

We had our annual Branch Talent Show last night and this year I decided to contribute a Croquembouche.

cro·quem·bouche

[kroh-kuhm-boosh; Fr. kraw-kahn-boosh]

–noun, plural -bouches [-boo-shiz; Fr. -boosh] Show IPA. French Cookery .

a pyramid of bite-size cream puffs coated and held in place with caramelized sugar.

This was my first time attempting a Croquembouche, although I have made cream puffs before, but I was pretty pleased with the result. Mine wasn’t the towering cone I was envisioning, but it didn’t fall over… and for a Branch Talent Show I think that’s enough.

Sunshine and Mice

2011-03-28T22:03:00.001-04:00

We celebrated Spring this week by escaping Ithaca’s frigid temperatures for the much more pleasant weather in Orlando, Florida. We travelled with our friends, the MacLennans, which really made the trip awesome!

Once upon a time I spent about 9 months working at Walt Disney World, and this trip, seven years later, was the first time I have been back. Luckily, I still have some friends down there, so it was nice to spend a little time with them and show Jonathan and Lincoln around my old stomping grounds (our hotel was even right next to my old apartment complex!)

After a brief stop into Epcot (Lincoln wasn’t impressed), we spent most of our first day at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. This is the park where I worked, so I was especially anxious to visit it. There were still a few people I recognized working in the stroller area, which surprised me. Lincoln especially liked the Finding Nemo show (maybe we should pick up that movie because he sat perfectly still on Jonathan’s lap the entire time), the petting zoo, and the Safari.

I had plans that evening to have dinner with my good friends Christine and Lisa. It was so fun getting to catch up! A lot can happen in seven years and one dinner wasn’t enough to cover it all. I wish we’d had a few more days to spend down there!

After dinner we headed over to the Magic Kingdom to meet back up with the MacLennans and watch the fireworks. They were just as good as I remember.

We decided to split the next day between Hollywood Studios (but I still call it MGM) and Magic Kingdom. Looking back, I wish we’d just gone to the Magic Kingdom, but we had a lot of fun at both. Lisa had warned me that there was a very popular new attraction at the Studios called Toy Story Midway Mania, so we headed there first. I can see why it’s so popular, it was so fun Lincoln didn’t even mind waiting in line. (Though, as you can see, he wasn’t quite ready to go until he finished off his morning cup of ~~coffee~~ milk.)

Next we headed to the animation section of the park were we watched a little show about Disney animation and then went and looked at some examples. While we were wandering, Sorcerer Mickey walked by, so we hopped in line to meet him. Lisa bought Lincoln a little Sorcerer Mickey doll that he had immediately become attached to, so we thought this would be a great photo op. While we were waiting in line Lincoln seemed so excited to see Mickey, but when our turn came he got pretty scared, which we were expecting. It’s okay, I still like the photo.

The last thing we did at the Studios was watch a Beauty and the Beast show. Since Lincoln had liked Nemo so much, we thought he might enjoy this one too. He did, but we didn’t. It is just not well done. (Lincoln took the picture of Jonathan and the sandwich.)

Finally we headed over to the Magic Kingdom. Our first stop was, of course, to buy Lincoln and Graham their mouse ears. Unfortunately there was a long wait to get them embroidered so his name is not on the back. I am bummed, but it will be okay.

We rode the teacups, of course. Lincoln loved it.

We drove on the Tomorrowland Speedway…

And we rode Dumbo.

Up until this point on the trip Lincoln had not taken a nap. He finally crashed just before we got on Pirates of the Caribbean, but I didn’t mind sitting out since it meant he was finally sleeping! We headed back to the hotel early so we could watch the BYU game, and because we were all exhausted.

For oiur last full day we just hung out by the pool at our hotel. Lincoln loved playing in the kiddie pool and took a great nap when we finally went back to the room.

That afternoon we went to Downtown Disney to do some souvenir shopping and hang out with even more friends from Ithaca (It’s really cold here. We were all fleeing to the south.) It was such a nice way to end a really great vacation!

Going to Disney World with a child was really a special experience for me. I think I got a little jaded when I was down there in 2004, but going with Lincoln was like looking at the parks with new eyes. It was so fun watching him have so much fun. Big thanks to Erin and Lisa for the tickets!

Yellow Period

2011-03-14T20:27:00.001-04:00

Santa brought Lincoln some finger paints for Christmas, but we didn’t break into them until today. Lincoln was a little hesitant at first, but once I showed him what to do, he was painting like a pro in no time.

He took his work very seriously and worked quietly for quite some time.

Finger painting is messy, of course, but that was a small price to pay for a wonderful new piece of artwork and a very happy little artist.

The Best Two Years

2011-02-27T22:30:00.002-05:00

I can hardly believe it, but we celebrated Lincoln’s second birthday yesterday! He’s really into airplanes right now, so we had an airplane birthday, complete with airplane cake and foam gliders hanging from the ceiling.

Here are some pictures of his cake:

I searched high and low for an airplane cake that did not have the wings resting on the cake platter. I finally found this one on Parenting.com and I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. The engines are kid sized ice cream cones stuffed with marshmallows and the windows are rolled out airheads.

Here are a few pictures of Lincoln enjoying his presents. He is so excited to have so many airplanes to play with now!

Lincoln thought he loved his new Bump-n-Go Air Force One before, but discovered he really loves it now that Jonathan put the batteries in!

People always tell young parents to enjoy their children because they grow up so quickly. Before we had Lincoln I just thought that was a silly cliché, but I am learning more and more that it is really true. The past two years have gone so fast, but they really have been the best two years of my life. Happy birthday, Lincoln!

Last Weekend

2011-02-22T22:37:00.001-05:00

This weekend the three of us drove down to the DC to see our good friends, Mike and Jen, get sealed in the temple. It was such a special day and we were so happy we could be a part of it.

We had some free time after the temple, so we decided to take Lincoln to the Air and Space Museum. He is really in to airplanes right now, so he was especially happy to see real ones hanging from the ceiling. It was really fun to see him so excited, staring up at the ceiling and saying, “Airbane! Airbane!”

It was a fast trip, but it did make us really excited to move to DC in a few months! Big thanks to our friends, the Quebes for letting us stay with them!

The Worth of Elephants

2011-02-08T14:44:00.001-05:00

21 months of faithful friendship +

(1000 x comforted to sleep) +

(2.5 moves) +

(always [sticking by your side + holding your hand]) +

endless comfort when scared =

1 Priceless elephant

Fun in February

2011-02-06T17:15:00.001-05:00

We went sledding with some friends a few days ago and had a blast! I cannot remember the last time I went sledding. His first time down, Lincoln was a little skeptical, but after that he loved it! He would just laugh the whole way down!

Sometimes we went a wee bit fast for my taste, though.

The Martha Saga

2011-02-01T22:08:00.001-05:00

*I’ve told this story a lot. If you’re one of the many that’s heard it already please feel free to skip to the pictures.*

I love Martha Stewart. I love how she knows everything about the home, I love how she is talented in so many areas, and I love how she strives for perfection. As a result, I have been trying to attend a taping of her show for quite some time. I would have loved to go over the summer while we were living in NYC, but the show was on hiatus, so that didn’t work out. This fall, when tickets started to be offered again, I decided to send in a request in October. No luck. I tried again in November. No dice. Disappointed, I decided to wait for Spring to try again.

But just because I had decided to wait to try again for tickets didn’t mean that I decided to stop complaining about not getting tickets.

In early December, days after we purchased our tickets to go on the trip to Arizona discussed a few posts ago, I received a phone call from my friend, Anna.

“Hi Hillary, it’s Anna.”

“Hi Anna!”

“I was just wondering… Are you going to be in town on January 13th? Please tell me you’re going to be in town on January 13th.”

“No, actually. We just bought these tickets to go to Arizona from the 5th to the 19th. What’s up?”

“Oh no! I requested tickets to Martha Stewart for us and I got them.”

Stunned silence.

Of course they wouldn’t change the date of the tickets. I checked the website, though, and they did have tickets available for the week of the 17th. I decided to try and get tickets for Anna and I for the end of that week. A few days later I got an email:

“Dear MARTHA Fan,

Recently you requested tickets to see THE MARTHA STEWART SHOW, and your show date has been selected.”

Hooray!!! Wait a second…

“Show Date and Time: Wednesday, January 19^th 2011 – 10 a.m. show”

No. I requested the 20th, or the 21st! I don’t get back from Arizona until the 19th at 4 o’clock! I emailed them back. They’re not filming on the 20th or 21st. Foiled again.

Flash forward to sunny Arizona. My phone rings and I see it’s my friend Christy, who lives in NYC. If I had gotten the original tickets (you remember, like four ticket requests ago) we were planning to go to the show together. She says she just got an email from Martha. Can I go on the 17th?

How does this keep happening to me!?! I go to Arizona one time and that’s when Martha decides she wants me to come see her!

But this story does, of course, have a happy ending. The day we get back from Arizona I get another call from Christy. Martha’s emailed her again. Can I go on January 31st? You bet I can!!

I decided to take a bus from Ithaca to New York so that Jonathan could keep the car and so I didn’t have to drive in the city. Jonathan also kept Lincoln home with him. This was the first time I’ve ever spent a night away from Lincoln, but I felt good about it since he was home with Jonathan.

When I arrived Christy met me at the Port Authority and we went back to their place where we had a very nice dinner, prepared by the consummate chef Jace, with some of their friends from the city.

The next morning we were up bright and early because we had to be to the studio by 8:30. Here we both are with the Martha sign outside. (Me: “Martha Stewart is in this building!!”)

After getting inside and waiting around for a while we were led into the studio. It was much bigger then I thought it would be. We asked several people around us to take pictures of us. Too bad I was messing with my hair in the first one.

This is Martha’s warm up guy, Joey. I’ve seen him on TV a bunch of times and always thought he was a little nerdy, but he was actually really funny.

After the show Martha stayed and answered a few questions from the audience. Since I found out that I was finally going to Martha I tried to think of a question just in case such a situation arose, but I didn’t come up with anything, unfortunately. Someone did ask her where her favorite vacation spot was, though, and I really liked her answer. She said, “Anywhere I haven’t been.” She said, as much as she's loved some of the places she’s visited she has no plans to go back. There are just too many cool places in the world to see. Touché, Martha.

They told us, even though Martha was answering questions, she couldn’t sign any autographs or take pictures with anyone. We found a little loophole, though… so what if she’s tiny in the background and we’re a little blurry?

Martha filmed a few promos for the show and then it was time to leave. It was so, so fun to see her in person. I would go back in a heartbeat.

Afterward Christy and I went to a French restaurant in Tribeca, called DBGB, for lunch. The decor was lovely. There were open shelves all around the room where they store some of the restaurants supplies (there was a bunch of sea salt near us, for example) and so many beautiful copper pots. I had the paté and roasted lamb sausage on couscous. The food was good, but not so good that I’d rush back there next time I’m in the city.

We did a little shopping after lunch, but then I had to catch my bus back to Ithaca. I wish I could have stayed a little bit longer to hang out with Christy more, but I needed to get back to Jonathan and Lincoln. Thanks Christy for such a fun day! You made my Martha dreams come true!

Mama’s Little Helper

2011-01-29T22:47:00.001-05:00

This little boy is going to make some lucky girl very happy one day…

Grapefruits, Lemons, and Oranges, Oh My!

2011-01-23T21:48:00.001-05:00

We decided we needed a brief respite from the seemingly endless Ithaca winter, so we spent a couple of weeks in the warm Arizona sun. It was delightful.

We played outside a ton...

…enjoyed the desert scenery….

…and we drank fresh lemonade (made by Jonathan) almost every day.

We, also, visited Old Town Scottsdale…

…and Lincoln’s Great-Grandparents.

Jonathan and I struck out on our own and took a day-trip to the Grand Canyon. We missed Lincoln (who stayed home with his Mamie), but otherwise we really enjoyed our little side trip.

Lincoln discovered he loves to swim. Outside. In January. Delightful, I say.

We tried to recreate a classic Jones generational photo…

… and spent lots of quality time with Lincoln’s little cousin.

We explored a little bit of Camelback Mountain in Phoenix and discovered that Lincoln really loves to hike.

Really, we loved being able to spend so much time outside. Thanks, Senior Joneses for letting us come to visit!

The Curious Case of the Dog in Our Hallway

2011-01-05T11:24:00.001-05:00

This week we’ve been dog sitting a Wheaton named Maggie for some friends. Lincoln has been expressing his pleasure with this new development often (from yelling, “A dog! A dog! A dog!” the moment I brought her in the house to squealing with delight every time Maggie comes out of her crate). Although Jonathan and I are generally not pet people, I’ve also enjoyed spending some time with Maggie. She is, seriously, the best dog I’ve ever met. She doesn’t bark, she comes and cuddles with me on the couch, and she is so gentle with Lincoln when a lesser dog might lose their temper.

We had Maggie’s crate a few days before we had her and Lincoln really liked to go sit in it, like his own little fort. When Maggie actually got here, it sometimes became difficult to keep him out of it. I don’t think she was too pleased having an intruder in her home, but Maggie took it all with good grace.

It was an interesting experiment, having a returnable dog for a week. I’m a little sad to give her up, but a little relieved too. Having a dog is a lot of work!

Decorating Cookies and Christmas Morning

2010-12-29T00:02:00.001-05:00

We had a wonderful Christmas at home this year! On Christmas Eve we decorated sugar cookies as a family. I think this was probably one of Lincoln’s favorite Christmas activities, only because he was able to sneak who-knows-how-many M&M’s and was given many a-cookie to snack on.

I wanted to try my hand at some fancier cookie decorating. It was harder then it looks and it was a huge pain to make a bunch of different colors. Also, it was something I probably need to do without Lincoln. Nevertheless, I think I will try again soon.

Here’s Lincoln’s best cookie. Jonathan did help some of course.

When I was little, I loved making these cookies with my Grandma. A few years ago she sent me the recipe book they came from, so that I can continue to make them. She passed away earlier this month, so this was a special activity for me. I miss her a lot, so I am happy I can continue the tradition we started together with Lincoln.

Lincoln must have been an exceptionally good boy this year, because Santa Claus brought him some pretty sweet toys. As a matter of fact, his toys were so cool, he could hardly be persuaded to open his next gift, he just wanted to play with the one he had already opened. As a result, Jonathan and I ended up opening a lot of his presents, but it was sweet that he was so excited.

“No, Dad, I don’t want to open these other presents. I want to play with this awesome bulldozer!”

The after-mess.

Jonathan and I made Christmas dinner together in the afternoon (and made a 100% successful turkey, might I add) and we will be eating left-overs for weeks to come. Lincoln played his heart out and ate way too many sweets. It was a very merry Christmas.

Can We Build It? Yes We Can!

2010-12-23T15:35:00.001-05:00

Over the past few days Jonathan and I have been working on a huge project together. We’ve invested a lot of our time, talent, and math skills into… building the Eiffel Tower out of gingerbread. This was a rather large undertaking (and a bit ambitious for our first foray into the world of gingerbread construction – especially considering our quickly-eroding math skills), but we emerged victorious.

Before construction could begin, of course, we had to go through a rather lengthy planning phase. First there were the good-spirited arguments about what we should build. I wanted to build a simple house. Jonathan, at one point, suggested the Taj Mahal. We eventually settled on Jonathan’s original idea of the Eiffel Tower.

Next, we had to draw a template. Jonathan measured a picture of the tower and made the template to scale. The next day – we stretched the project out over a few days – I made the gingerbread dough; and we cut out all of the pieces and started baking them.

This is where we hit our first (and, to be fair, only major) problem. Jonathan (who does not study engineering, or any of the various disciplines that may have been helpful for this sort of endeavor) did not take into account the fact that the pieces would grow slightly during the baking process. So, the pieces didn’t fit perfectly together like a puzzle (which is what we had planned). Nevertheless, we were able to slowly piece everything together with gobs and gobs of royal icing.

Finally, there was the decorating stage. We weren’t totally sure how to decorate the tower because the real thing doesn’t normally have a lot of Christmas Decorations, or any decorations for that matter. It’s just a wrought-iron structure covered with lights. But, with mini-M&Ms as lights and a few other candies spread about, it turned out pretty good.

Ultimately, we were extremely pleased with our first gingerbread construction efforts and hope to try something even more daring next year.

You Want Me to Sit Where?!

2010-12-15T23:50:00.001-05:00

This Kid

2010-12-09T13:00:00.001-05:00

One time I’d like Lincoln to come to me because he’s scrapped his knee, or stubbed his toe.

But this kid only ever hurts his mouth.

In search of Tannenbaums

2010-12-04T22:21:00.001-05:00

We chopped down our Christmas tree at a local farm a few days ago. This was Lincoln’s first outing in all of his snow gear and walking in snow pants and boots took some getting used to.

These pictures are a little deceiving since they suggest Lincoln had a wonderful time. He wasn’t too excited about the snow and cold. We wandered around for a while until we found the pokey-est tree on the lot and decided to chop that one down. After nearly poking ourselves to death, we managed to load the tree onto a wagon and get it packed up to take home.

When we got home we discovered we had not only picked the pokey-est tree on the face of the earth, but the pokey-est tree with a trunk so large we had to go out and buy a new tree stand. It is a very nice looking tree, but next year I think we’ll probably go for a fir tree… and check it’s trunk size before we cut it down.

Advent Calendar Accomplished (Finally)

2010-12-01T18:22:00.001-05:00

If you’ve talked to me in the last three months or so, you’ve heard about this advent calendar. I started working on it in September and I feel like I haven’t shut up about it since. I sewed all the squares by hand, which it took forever, but I think it was worth it for the end result. There are parts of the calendar that I’m not as happy with as I could be, but I guess I can live with those mistakes. Here are more pictures of an advent calendar than you ever wanted to see.

I’m linking to:

Windy City

2010-11-30T14:28:00.001-05:00

We made the long (long) trek to the suburbs of Chicago to spend Thanksgiving with our friends the Booths last week. It was so much fun getting to hang out and catch up for a few days. Lincoln and Taylor fought a lot (as almost two year olds are want to do,) but they also had a lot of fun running around together.

Tiffany and I attempted our first turkey for Thanksgiving. We were cautiously optimistic when it went into the oven and really excited when it came out. It smelled great and looked crispy and brown. We proclaimed a premature success. After the resting period, however, we need to flip the bird over, since the recipe had asked us to cook it breast down. We made quite a mess flipping it only to discover the underside did not look nearly as crispy or brown. In the end we determined the turkey may not have been totally thawed, so it didn’t cook all the way through in the allotted time. After some additional time in the oven it was quite good.

Here are the boys “watching” the kids while we cooked.

Tiffany’s beautiful table setting and the kids table.

Tiffany and I went shopping early on Black Friday with one of her friends there. We had so much fun and got a lot of great deals. We were totally out of it the rest of the day, though.

Lincoln and Taylor coloring (in between stealing crayons from each other.)

We went into Downer’s Grove for some Christmas activities that afternoon. We missed story time with the Elves, but we got to see the big tree lit up and we ate some mini donuts. It was cold, but a lot of fun.

The next morning Tiffany was nice enough to watch Lincoln so Jonathan and I could go into the city by ourselves. We had to hurry, though, because there were important football games Jonathan had to rush back and watch. Since we only had a few hours we just went to the top of the Tower formally known as the Sears Tower and got a hot dog. Chicago seemed like a really nice city and we’d like to go back when it’s warmer (and not football season) so we can look around some more. Thanks, Booths, for letting us come visit!

Marathon Pray-er

2010-11-22T11:08:00.001-05:00

Our daily prayers have recently quadrupled. Lincoln started kneeling when we pray and now he wants to say prayers all the time. It’s been good, though, because when you’re saying 20 plus prayers a day you really have to think about everything you’re thankful for, not just the usual stuff.

I feel like I’m forgetting something…

2010-11-15T13:51:00.001-05:00

Houston

2010-11-07T21:07:00.001-05:00

This week we went on a whirlwind trip to Houston to see these two get married. It was a really quick trip, but it was great to see all of Jonathan’s family and the wedding was really fun!

While there Lincoln met his great-grandparents for the first time and we snagged a picture of four generations of Jones men.

The Houston temple was really beautiful and since we had some waiting time I messed around with my camera a little bit. I was really excited about this sunburst photo, until I looked at it on the computer and saw the sun spots. Boo.

We also got to meet Lincoln’s little cousin, Macey, for the first time in Houston and, boy, is she cute! Lincoln liked looking at her and sometimes laying on the blanket next to her, but what he really loved was playing with her dad.

It was a really busy couple of days for Lincoln with lots of excitement, limited naps, and late nights, but we had a lot of fun and we got a great new sister-in-law/aunt out of the deal. Congratulations, again, Benjamin and Crystal!

Shaken, Not Stirred

2010-11-01T22:15:00.001-04:00

Lincoln put on his superspy disguise this Halloween and hit the town as the always dapper James Bond.

Every year the Greek houses at Cornell put on a trick-or-treat trail around campus. Lincoln and his friend Graham charmed all the sorority girls as they collected their candy, then met up with their friend, Norah, to finish the trail.

That evening we headed over to the Church for our Halloween activity. Lincoln tied for the prize of most original costume and we didn’t get any soup on his tux. The evening was a smashing success!

The next morning Lincoln got up and went straight for his candy bucket. He definitely did not forget what was in there. It’s now hidden away in the cupboard.