Lincoln's 1st Birthday

We recently celebrated Lincoln's 1st birthday.  We weren't able to celebrate on February 24th because we just had too much going on that night.  A couple of nights later we had some friends over for cake and presents.  Nothing too extravagant, but Lincoln enjoyed himself.  Lincoln got some farm toys from Grandma and Grandpa Foster, a Tractor book from Grandma and Grandpa Elton, and we gave him some bath toys, a big bird stuffed animal and some puzzles.  Lincoln is growing fast and is happy as ever.  At his 1 year check up with the his doctor he weighed in just over 20 lbs and only in the 5th percentile for his length.  The doctor started to express his concerns about how short Lincoln was until I reminded him how tall Tony and I are.  I guess Lincoln taking after his dad.  Lincoln's not walking on his own yet, but still manages to get into everything!  His top two teeth have been trying to cut through for the last couple weeks which will bring his total teeth to four.  We love our little man!

Little Big Man

It seems like Lincoln has grown in leaps and bounds over the last 6 weeks.  With Lincoln being our last baby it makes me a bit sad when he hits each milestone.  He's now crawling, pulling himself up, and getting into everything!  At Thanksgiving he got really sick and stopped nursing altogether.  He's now starting to eat some finger foods.  He's 10 months old with his first birthday just around the corner.  The whole family just adores our little guy! 

Christmas Festivities 2015

Every year the kids school does a Christmas program with all the grades at the same time in the High School Gym.  As you can imagine it's quite the production with all those kids, parents, and grandparents.  This year Carson auditioned for one of the speaking parts and got it.  He did awesome!    

This year we stayed home for Christmas and that meant getting our own tree again.  The kids of course loved decorating the tree and Lincoln loved pulling the lights and ornaments off the tree.

 Our ward had a Christmas breakfast again this year with a visit from Santa Clause.  I keep waiting for Carson and now Alaina to ask the big question about Santa.  I even  carefully approached the subject with Carson.  Making sure he knew that he would still get presents regardless of what he believed.  He was still adamant that Santa is real and made sure that Alaina knew that too.  Next year I may have to spill the beans if he doesn't come to the conclusion himself.

 On Christmas Eve we had a breakfast dinner and then acted out the nativity while Tony read.  It's a little hard to do the nativity justice with three active participates.  Earlier in the week we had dinner with some friends and did the nativity with them.  It was a comical rendition of their 3 year old daughter had a meltdown because she wanted to be Mary and stole the manger for her baby Jesus.  Lincoln didn't like the idea of laying quietly while playing the part as baby Jesus.  Ultimately we did a summery of the story and finished the evening with watching Star Wars episode 4.  Anyway after our own nativity we all opened our new pajamas and watched The Polar Express.  Next year we may watch the Muppet or Mickey's Christmas Carol instead.

 Once our little ones were all nestled all snug in their beds Santa came.  The three older kids all got new bikes this year.  Carson also got a new video game, a case for his Ipod, Legos, and a model jet.  Alaina also got new art supplies, lip gloss & nail polish, a couple cross stitches, and some new shirts.  Charlie also got a remote control car, Legos, some puzzles, and a Lego Truck.  Lincoln got a walking toy, a dump truck, a plane, a bath toy, and some books.  The kids were all thrilled!  It is a bummer though that we've had snow and ice since Christmas so the kids haven't been able to ride their bikes yet.

We traveled to Boise the day after Christmas to spend the rest of the break with our Families.  The week was packed with family visits, playing with cousins. seeing the new Star Wars movie, yummy meals, going out to dinner, and the kids going to Jump Time.  We got home Sunday night after some pretty sketchy roads because of the snow.  As fun as all the Christmas festivities are I'm glad that things are settling down and I can catch up on some stuff.

Robos

As many of you know Carson has been part of a Robotics club for the last 9 months.  In December his team competed against other teams from all of Eastern Washington.  We traveled to Spokane to watch him compete.  It was nice for me to see what he had been working so hard on.  Basically his team had to program their robot to preform certain tasks on a coarse.  (YouTube FLL Robotics for an idea of what they do)  Unfortunately everything that could go wrong did for his team and they didn't qualify for state.  But they still had a great time and now Alaina wants to join the girls team and Charlie the junior team.

Carson's 11th Birthday

This year Carson was pretty specific about the cake he wanted.  I made a cake from scratch.  Once it was cooled I went to take it out of the prepared pan and it all fell apart!  So I put it back in the pan and just decorated it in the pan.  Thankfully Carson's theme was very forgiving and it still looked pretty cool!

 Carson's "Hot Wheels cake in the desert"

This year Tony and I got Carson his own IPod.  As you can tell by the picture Carson was beside himself with excitement.  It was a little difficult for me to get something like this for him, but Carson has always taken good care of his things and has never given us a reason not to trust him.  He's been given some ground rules of when, where, and how he can use the IPod.  He's been on it a little more than I'd like, but it is still new and an exciting thing to have.

I say it with every birthday and milestone my kids make, but I can hardly believe how grown up they are becoming!  Carson is such a great kid and I am very blessed to be his mom.  He's a very affectionate kid and so helpful with his siblings, especially Lincoln.  So here is to the last year of being a kid and then onto the tween stage...eeek!

Halloween 2015

This year for Halloween we went to a trunk or treat at our church.  Came home for dinner.  Tony took the older kids trick or treating around the Neighborhood and I stayed home with Lincoln to hand out candy.  We actually got a decent amount of kids come to our door this year and we gave away all our candy.  The kids all came home with a ton of candy and each got a full sized candy bar!

 The night before Halloween we carved pumpkins.  An Avenger pumpkin, a witch's hat (hid behind Alaina's knees), a transformer pumpkin, and a cute little Jack-o-lantern.  Tony and I didn't get our own pumpkins this year.  We figured that we spend so much time helping the kids with their pumpkins we didn't need to.  Which turned out to be the case.  I carved both Charlie and Lincoln's pumpkins.

This year I talked Alaina into being Dorthy from the Wizard of Oz because she already had sparkly red shoes and I had blue gingham fabric to make a costume for her.  Charlie got to pick a costume from the costume box and decided on Optimus Prime after much debate.  Carson wanted to be Captain America and Tony made his shield out of Foam Board and paint.  It cost probably $4 to make.  Much better than the $20 Party City wanted for their plastic shields.  Lincoln modeled the Lion costume all three of the boys have worn their first Halloween.  I have come to the conclusion that Halloween doesn't have to be elaborate to have a good time, and look our kids are happy and cute as ever!    

Family Fun at the Corn Maze

To my delight we were able to find a real corn maze near us this year.  Last year we found a maze made out of old pallets (kind of weird) and in Rexburg people didn't grow corn so all the mazes were made from straw bails.  On our way out to the maze Tony and I realized the last time our kids had been to a real corn maze was when Carson was in preschool and we still lived in Nampa!  Oh our poor deprived children!  This place was a pretty neat setup complete with a country store, train rides, corn pit, straw mountain, petting zoo, and a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch.  We all had lots of fun despite it being a little cold and windy.

 Charlie making a "corn angel".

 Carson and Alaina laying around.

 All four of the kids enjoyed a train ride.  

 Carson, Alaina, and Charlie 

 Getting ready for a ride out to the pumpkin patch.

 Showing off their pumpkins.  (Alaina is in the make silly/funny expressions for pictures phase)

Lincoln trying to decide what he thinks about the corn.