Oh, How We Miss Them!

We were able to catch up with Rachelle and Jeff in California for Christmas. It was great hanging out with them. On our last day we made panini sandwiches using my favorite cookbook from Giada. And they turned out so great. Kate and Lander were there to enjoy them, too. (Charlene was home with baby Jackson.) If you don't know who Giada is, she's definitely worth checking out. She does italian food and has a show called Everyday Italian on the Food Network. Her recipes are awesome. Jon and I both love her stuff. Plus, she's pretty gorgeous and has great style.

17 Months

He loves his horse Quincy that he got for Christmas. He'll go up to it and give Quincy a hug. He even goes up to my house plants and kisses them! Pretty precious. He's really good at riding Quincy. One day he just pulled himself up and rocked away. It even makes horsey noises. Costco--only $35.

My Birthday Party!

Kim (1st yr dental wife), Jenny (neighbor and adopted daughter), and me.

Rachel, Suzzanne, and Miranda (friends from church), and my mommy.

Me & my mommy.

It was a Girl's Night Out. We sipped lemonade (Mormon style) and ate burgers at Red Robin without any kids or guys (Jon had to study). It was a blast. I was amazed by the turn-out. 14 of my friends showed up. It's pretty amazing to think that I just met these girls less than a year ago. Just one of the great perks of being LDS. And to top off the night, Jon bought me a Cold Stones birthday cake. Oh, so good. Loved it. And its whole theme was Ghiradelli. Once again, gotta represent. We're such loyalists.

26 & Still Got It!

What a ham I am! But what can I say, I love taking pictures. Plus, there's no turning back. Gotta enjoy myself while it lasts. Now I'm really considered being on the old side: I'm in the later twenties, and from here on out there's no 'young' birthdays. A couple of months ago I was bummed about it, but it's okay now because I love living and being one year older and one year more experienced. It's fun to learn things, and for being a mom for the first time, I am learning lessons every day. (Like how not to scream back at a tantruming toddler. Calm voices work much better, ya know? He's in the hitting-me-stage now, and man can that be upsetting. Lincoln's just testing his boundaries and learning how to be civil. Please, got faster! lol)

Being Cheesy!

Lincoln & Mommy posing it up on her big birthday!

Daddy & Lincoln: so proud that his son knows where he came from (in spirit).

Doesn't he look like a ham! I'm so proud. Realistically, he's not that thick. Just has the double chin syndrome inherited from his mommy. What an awesome picture, though!

Lincoln loves to spin on our computer chair. He is such a climber. Definitely adventurous like his mom was. He's a mover. The only thing that can keep him still is Word World (a cartoon on PBS that is the coolest thing I've ever seen. So creative and educational. Even Jon and I get glued to it. Gotta check it out if you have kids).

Just for the record, Jon would like everyone to know that Dorsey is 26 and Jon is 25. What a brat! But I still love him.

Homemade Christmas Portraits

Some of our ideas for poses looked a little goofy. But since we took so many photos and labored so hard, I thought it was only fair that they got published somewhere! Man, was I burning up in that sweater. One coincidence that I didn't notice until I put our two Christmas cards up from the past two years is that we are all wearing the same colors as the year before! Isn't that so funny. Geez, whoever picked out the outfits must really like those colors together. How funny.

How Lincoln Reacted...

"Gosh...this is so boring. Can't we go play with some toys? Do we have to take so many?"

"Okay, I'm starting to get a little smothered here! I can't handle this anymore. I'm gonna scream!"

"Okay, really. Can we just stop now. Nanee, please stop taking photos. Don't listen to mom, I'm the boss." Hilarious!

Bright 'n' Early!

Lincoln had just woken up and all of us were hanging out in the study. Lincoln was making some funny faces so we grabbed the camera. This pose is hilarious! I don't know how he came up with it. You can just imagine what he's thinking.

This pose was sweet. He looks so innocent. Thought these would be fun for people to see. I figure the more of Lincoln the better!

Watchin' Football

Lincoln and Nanee relaxing. See Lincoln's head resting on my mom's shoulder? Yeah, not fair. He never does that with me, but has done it several times with his Nanee. Isn't the sweetest thing, but I have to admit that I'm a tad jealous. I want to cuddle with Lincoln.

Lincoln got a haircut recently with the buzzers (I can't think of the name!). He's really good for me when I do it. Doesn't mind it much. His hair is so fine, though, that I have to go over it several times to make sure I don't miss a chunk, so it can take a while. He looked so much older when I cut his hair, it was crazy. He looked so cute that it reminded me of when I buzzed Jon's hair (right around Lincoln's baby blessing, I think.) so I got this sudden urge to buzz Jon's hair so that they could look alike! Jon's like, "Yeah right!" It's a good thing because I would have missed Jon's curls. Funny though.

Lincoln's Lil Buddy

Carson and Lincoln.

This is Carson's mom, Vickie. To her right is his daddy, Travis. They are 3rd yr dental students. We love them. Just recently we've started to get together with them and some other friends every Wed night to play games. We're really grateful to have such fun friends. The people here have been so great to us.

Carson is 4 months older than Lincoln. However, they are about the same height, so they work really well together. (Can you believe that Lincoln's got bigger feet? I guess that isn't too surprising since his mom wears a 9.5 and Jon wears a 14!) They're both pretty gentle boys and get along really well. Vickie has the funniest story about them: she had them in the same stroller coming back from the park. Lincoln started gabbing away and then Carson started responding back by gabbing back to Lincoln. They would take turns talking and then start totally laughing in unison. Vickie couldn't contain herself and thought it was the funniest and cutest thing to witness!

Thanksgiving!
(at our house)

The Elders came. Well, it was actually like a ward missionary correlation meeting reunion since all of us we celebrating Thanksgiving together. Jon's the ward missionary leader and I'm a ward missionary. Speaking of which, this past Sunday (in January) Jon was asked to organize a missionary sacrament meeting. He chose the speakers and music and prayer givers. He did a really good job. Our ward has a new game plan on helping the members feel comfortable spreading the gospel, and Jon did a really good job explaining that. Our missionaries right now are fabulous and they're really doing a good job helping the members.

The gallery became the play room for all the kids. We had 5 young ones and four teens. It was a blast. Everyone did really well. Thank goodness we had enough rooms for the toddlers to take naps in. That was great.

Tired? Happy? Full? Yes. It went really well. I was thrilled to have so many people over. It was fun seeing all the dental boys talk shop and the babes play together. Plus, the food was superb. Yummy!

A couple of the guys. In total there were 22 mouths to feed. Pretty cool. We love Thanksgiving. Hopefully next year we can spend it with family, though. This was a special group because all of us didn't have family close by, so we substituted as each other's for the day.

Photo #1: Jon wanted to make sure he got the bow from my dress documented. How sweet. Photo #2: The guy dressed like a tourist is the most recent convert of our ward. His name is Mike. Charley, his girlfriend, is next to him. She was the one who introduced him to the knowledge of the Restoration of the Gospel. He's so awesome. He's so enthusiastic about the Gospel. It's great and a lot of fun to have him in our ward. Photo #4: Lincoln had a twin! We even had a scare crow show up. All we needed left for the Wizard of Oz was the tin man. That would've been so cute. Nonetheless, they were totally adorable anyway.