Old School Overalls

I have a pet peeve about little boy/girl clothes. I know I got it from my mom, but I also can't stand that the clothing industry wants little boys and girls to look older than they are. I was at the mall yesterday and there wasn't any "cutesy" clothes in Lincoln's size. Good thing I won't ever have to buy clothes for him, because my Aunt and my SIL hooked me up with boy clothes!

I don't know who this was from, but I'm guessing from Kim, Dave's sister. She has 8 kids and 6 of them are boys. (No, I didn't mistype the numbers, she really has 8. She could handle 8 more if she wanted to. If you ever need any Mom advice, see Kim W.) I'm thinking if these overalls came from her, she must have bought them for Tyler (the oldest at 16). They are vintage Carters brand cord overalls with a cowboy theme, and I think they are too cute, especially on Link!

Here he is showing off the overalls and his climbing skills.

Now he's mad at me, because I told him to stop climbing....but Moooom.

Happy 16 months (a couple days late) Stinky Link!

Changes

All of the sudden Link has been changing like crazy! He is definitely defining his personality and becoming a little boy. It makes me want to have another baby now. Dang that 9 month gestational period!


Anyway, Link has been a sassy molassey lately: he "shooshed" me and put his finger to his mouth at church yesterday after I told him to be quiet. He also is really good at telling me "no, no, no" and shaking his head. Occasionally, he will come up to Dave or me and make pig noises in our ear. I love it when he makes his airplane noises and moves his arms like they are the plane wings. If I want him to eat his veggies, I get the pickles out from the fridge. He LOVES pickles, and he gets a slice if he eats a couple bites of veggies. Just one more thing: he is getting good at using utensils. It is nice that I can enjoy my cereal at breakfast, while he eats his yogurt or cereal by himself.

( Clearly, he didn't use a fork to eat this pizza crust)

Dave is in full-on study mode, getting ready for a huge comprehensive test that he HAS to pass in March. If he doesn't pass, he doesn't get his degree. The people in his program have split up the suggested reading material and each has to make a study guide by Feb. 1st, so they can exchange study guides. I know I have said it before, but I will be so glad when Dave is done with school!

Because Dave has needed the time to study, I haven't been working much at all. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE not working (not like I have a bad job or that I even work a ton) and finding fun things to do with Lincoln. I'm grateful to Dave for all the hard work he has put in for our family, so I can stay home. I would hate missing out on all these Lincoln changes!

Good times for babies and mamas

I usually don't just give a time table of what we do during a day, but yesterday was a great day and I have to blog about it.

First, I acutally set my alarm clock and exercised before Lincoln woke up. This might seem insignificant, but I felt great all day yesterday. I wasn't stressing about how I needed to exercise at night, and I felt I had already accomplished something by the time Link woke up. It didn't even matter that it was only 6:30am when Stinky Link started talking!

Mid-morning, Link and I went to the library for storytime. It was a special day, because storytime was cancelled and they had Little Gym come for a demo. Lincoln had a blast on all of the Little Gym equipment: he loved the songs and games that we played with the other kids and parents. I felt like a proud mama, because all 3 instructors told me how wonderful he was doing. He was doing somersaults (with help), balancing on the beam, and climbing the foam blocks. I can't wait to take him to a free class at Little Gym soon. I'm sure I'll get suckered in to joining!

Mom treated us to Cafe Gouda, a very yummy restaurant, where I havn't been in forever. I was glad to get the calories, because I was about to do something fun for myself...

I went my first clogging class at Sims Country Cloggers, way out in the country. I started dancing when I was very young and stopped before High school, but my favorite classes were tap classes. Clogging is like tap, but the metal taps aren't screwed tight like tap shoes: they flap a little bit. I seriously loved every second of clogging. It was so fun to spend time with a friend, wear fancy red clogging shoes, and to dance again! I'm bummed there isn't class next week, but excited that we have a mini-recital in February for a fundraiser to benefit the dance school.

I will post pictures of me and my fancy red shoes as soon as I can learn to use them better!

Free Fridays

The Hickory Science Center has free admission on Fridays. Link and I take advantage of this often! It is such a fun place to take him, and I know he loves it. We went last Friday, and it reminded me of the Children's Museum in Portland. I haven't blogged about it yet, and it will give me an opportunity to post pictures of Lincoln (which I never do).

The day after Christmas, Dave's parents and the 3 Shinsels took a 4 hour road trip to Portland. We stopped at the zoo first. As we were parking, we saw this lovely train.




For those of you who don't know, Lincoln LOVES trains. He makes train noises, he prefers to play with trains, he likes to watch trains on tv, and he has lots of train books. So, it was a chore to pull him away from the train to go inside the zoo. The only way we got him to do it was telling him there was a train inside the zoo (which there really is!). I wanted to make it to the monkeys because they give the primates presents the day after Christmas. The workers decorate their cages and have wrapped broccoli and other goodies for the animals to open. I was so excited we made it to the chimpanzees just in time to see the workers decorate the cages. When they were all done, they let the chimps out. Link and I were standing in front of the females. They were totally lame and took their presents where we couldn't see them anymore. So, Link and I headed over the males, right when they let them out. The bigger male came barging down and was so excited to see the presents, he let out some loud chimp noises and banged on the glass a couple times. I could feel Link tensing up, but thought he would be ok. THEN, some scared kid started crying. That was it...Link started hysterically crying. It took a while to calm him down after that! At least I know what his nightmares are about now.

It was freezing at the zoo, so we left for some food, extra layers of clothing, and for naps. We took care of everything but the naps, Link refused to sleep. I swear he was too excited for what was about to happen...we were going on an actual steam engine train ride at the zoo! They only run the train during the summer and for a couple weeks during the Holidays. The zoo is decorated with tons of lights, and the train goes around the zoo to see all the lights, which takes about 15 minutes. I didn't think we were going to make it on the first train ride around, but we were so stinkin' lucky to get the last seats...right in back of the engine. Ok, maybe I was more excited than Lincoln, but we seriously had the best seats.

We saw all the lights and we heard the engines whistle and we saw the whistle's steam and then we saw this...

Classic huh? He was so wiped out, he fell asleep for the last 5 minutes of the train ride.

The next day, we went to the Children's Museum, which was just as cool as the zoo. Why is everything so much MORE fun when you have kids? They had this water play area, where we spent lots of time.

They also have a play area for kids under 3. Lincoln had fun in that room looking at the fish and going down the slide. Here he is posing with his Grandma and Papa.

We had so much fun in Portland and we will continue having fun on Free Fridays!

I'm in Love

I'm just saying....look at those eyes

and that sticky mouth.

I'm in love!


Thanks Mama Shinsel for making the yummy cinnamon rolls and Papa Shinsel for capturing the moment.

Blogger, I missed you!

I did miss blogging these past 3 weeks. Here's what I didn't miss when we were in Oregon...

cleaning house,

cooking meals (not that I do much of that),

working, and

cloth diapers

Besides blogging, I missed...

these cuties (my parents),


these toy trains, and

warm NC winter weather.

There's not enough room to write what we will miss.

Grandma and Papa (I'm sure Link will have withdrawls),

siblings,

cousins,

weekend trip to Portland,

this indoor playground, and

birthdays...we celebrated 3 while we were gone.

Link has changed quite a bit over these 3 weeks. He has a ton of hair now ( so sweet!) and his vocabulary is expanding. Some new words are dude, bird, and help. He loves to give hugs, and when Dave and I are hugging he comes over to be part of the action. He puts one arm over Dave and one arm over me (we call it double hugs.).