The Croup Tent

This is our croup tent. Talan and Lincoln seem to be prone to catching this nasty little virus. Since September Talan has had it 4 times (1 ER visit and 3 round of steroids) Lincoln has had it twice. We have spent many nights driving around the neighborhood at 1am with our car windows rolled down. The cool air reduces the swelling and allows him to breath easier. Jason and I were laughing last night as we circled the block for about the 10th time that no one has called the cops yet, thinking that we were scouting out the neighborhood. When we finally get the breathing under control we set up the croup tent. We put a cool air humidifier in the tent and it fills with a nice cool mist that keep the kids comfortable. The boys love sleeping in it. We usually equip it with the portable DVD player and movies. I am sure that the croup tent will be one of their memories of childhood.

Lincoln's New Game

Lincoln has come up with a new game he likes to play. From what I can tell it goes something like this:

First find a bag of mustard pretzels.

Second, Eat a couple of pretzels.

Third, put a few down the heating vent.

 Repeat process until entire bag is either been devoured by the participant or is down the vent.

Then grin at your mom when she takes your photo because you are so proud of yourself and you are hoping that your cute cheesy smile will keep you out of trouble.

18 Months (Lincoln)

Lincoln is 18 months old. He is into everything. He can say a ton of works like: Look, Dog, Sponge Bob, Blue's Clues, Coke, Ball, Go, Hi, Kota, Wow, Yeah, Cracker, Night, Night. He can tell you what sounds a dog, cow, dinosaur and pig make. Some of this favorite things to do is play basketball, throw things down the stairs, play with his piggy bank and watch Kipper. He is also fond of picking on his brother. Often if Talan is laying on the floor watching tv, Lincoln will see a great opportunity to body slam him. While on top of Talan he just giggles.They have so much fun wrestling with each other. We always hear grandma C saying, "Talan be careful of Lincoln, he is little." I have to laugh inside because usually I am

saying the opposite. He is climbing on everything. When we where at the Dr for Lincoln's 18 month check up he managed to turn of the Dr computer open just about every cupboard in the room and throw a fit when the Dr wanted him to walk. In the Dr words " Lincoln is a very precocious  boy, isn't he?" Talan tells me that grandma J refers to his as a "fireball". Lincoln is loud, always on the go and determined to have things his way. We are having so much fun watching him grow and learn.

Love you Linx.

Stats: (04-04-2011)

Weight: 27.6 (72 percentile)

Length: 33.75in (87 percentile)

Head: 19in (64percentile)

My Park (Park #2)

Lincoln enjoying the swing at Mapleton City Park.

Talan

Climbing up the play set.

It is so nice to have a big brother to push you in the swings.

Talan had more fun pushing his brother in the swing, than swinging himself.

Talan said that the rock wall was his favorite thing at Mapleton City Park.

I call this my park, because this is always were I went when I was a little girl. All the playground equipment is different but the still have that great white gazebo the one we loved to run on when we were little. I loved going to the Mapleton Park when I was little, I liked the giant metal slide(it would get so hot that it would burn you), it also had teeter totters and a merry go round. I love the giant trees and the old Bird house. Talan thought the park was okay, but still says that the purple park is his favorite. I liked it because there are swings for Lincoln and penalty of benches to sit and watch the kids from. I one thing that I didn't like is that it is so high in places and has giant holes that little kids could fall through. We had fun enjoying the spring sunshine.

Chicken in a Biskit

Lincoln's life revolves around Chicken in a Biskit crackers. He will do anything to have them. He knows where they are in the pantry, he knows where they are at Walmart and if you don't put them in the cart when we get to that aisle he cries.Today a box was sitting on the table. He pulled out a chair and climbed up on the table. Then he started to call for me. When I got into the kitchen this is what I found.

Lincoln in heaven. He would eat nothing but Chicken in a Biskit if we would allow it.

I decided it would be a little safer if we had our snack in our high chair. Lincoln was shoveling them in his mouth as fast as he could. I am sure when he is older he will never eat  Chicken in a Biskit crackers.

Night, Night

Lincoln and Talan watching a movie.

Lincoln saying Cheese for the camera.

Lincoln learned to say Night Night when he was about 1 year old. It is so cute to hear him say it.

Lincoln always falls to sleep with something over his head. It worries me so much, so I am constantly check on him and pulling blankets off his head.The other day I found Lincoln asleep in Talan's room. He had pulled Talan's pillow off Talan's bed and instead of laying his head on the pillow, he put the pillow on his head.

The boys wanted to watch a movie in our room so we let them one night. When I went in to check on them this is what I found. Looks comfy.

Bed time at our house is always an interesting experience. Some nights they boys end up in Talan's bed with the portable DVD player watching movies, other nights they are asleep before their heads even hit the pillow. And almost every night Talan tries to sneak in our bed. When he was younger he would come in and tap us until we woke up and then ask if he could get in bed with us. But as soon as he fell back asleep Jason would carry him back to his room. Now that he is older and smarter he by passes the waking us up part and simply climbs up the middle of the bed and falls asleep. Most of the time Jason and I don't realize that he is in bed with us until morning when we wake up. Lincoln on the other hand HATES to sleep in our bed. There have been nights that he has not been feeling well so I have brought him in our bed so that I could be close to him. This always turns into a big mistake. Lincoln spends the whole night pulling my hair out of my ponytail holder, sticking his fingers up your nose or just playing patty cake on your back. He likes to pick on you until you put him back in his bed. When he is tired he just wants to be put in his bed and left alone. Lincoln is also the noisiest sleeper I have ever heard. ALL NIGHT he moans and groans. We use to get up every time we heard him. Now we don't get up unless he cries or moan for more than a couple minutes. I hope this is just a phase a he will quickly our grow it. It would be so nice to get a quite, uninterrupted night of sleep.

Alien Attack

Every month Talan's preschool has a theme. So far they have had Healthy Bodies, Our Town and this month was Outer Space. They have been leaning about the moon, stars and planets. So for this months party they got to dress up like aliens and have an "Out of this World Party."

Talan has been so excited to dress up for the party. I had no idea how to dress him up like an alien. So we headed to PartyLand to see what we could find. It is quite simple but Talan thought it was great. He was so excited to all morning to go to Preschool. He loves all his friends and his teachers.

One day Talan came home with a solar system that they had made. I noticed that they had Pluto on it. So I had him tell me all about the plants. He could tell me which ones where hot, which ones had land and which ones had moons. I noticed that Pluto was included n the solar system. I have recently heard that Pluto was no longer considered a planet, so I asked him which planet it was, he replied "Pluto is not a Planet, its a star." I could not believe all the stuff he learned. I think he knows more about the solar system than I do.

Talan at school waiting for the Party to start. He was so excited to see all of his friends dressed up.

Talan and Mrs Jackie.

Talan's Party turned out great. They made balloon aliens and fought them with swords. They had worms (gummy worms and cheetos) for a snack and blue alien juice. They played games and put together space puzzles. Talan was so excited to tell me all about the party.

We stopped by grandma and grandpa Jones' to show off Talan's outfit. He also passed off all of this months practice items so he got a prize from Mrs Jackie. This is Talan showing his report card and prize to grandpa.

Lincoln didn't want to be left out so he tried on the glasses.

He loved the star headband, we wore it almost all afternoon.

Talan has enjoyed Preschool so much this year. He is always asking if it is preschool day. So far this year he has learned all his letters what sounds they make, they have learned numbers, shapes,colors and they even had a healthy body month that they learned about foods that are good for your body. Some how Mrs Jackie and Mrs Lani got Talan to try carrots. He came home from school and said "Mom I like carrots now." Yay Mrs Jackie. Maybe she needs to come have dinner at our house if she can get Talan to try some more new healthy foods and like them.

February's theme was "Our Town". They learned about what people in our communities do. So they went on a field trip. We went to the Post Office to see how the mail gets to our homes, we went to the library and learned how to check out books and the last stop was a karate lesson. Talan had fun with his friends learning Karate moves like blocks and kicks.

Of course Talan is front and center.

Talan was a little scared at first to go out on the mats. He asked me if they were going to kick and punch him? Once he saw that no one was getting kick or hit he headed out on the mat and had a great time with his karate lesson.  Talan is going to be so sad that preschool will be ending in May, but so excited that he gets to go again in September.