Colonial Williamsburg by Lincoln

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?

How about now? Now?

25 Weeks

Lincoln wanted to show off his belly too.

Return of RoboLinc

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!

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

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

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!