Back to the races! (15 1/2 months)

It's crazy how much "re-settling" and "catching up" and grocery shopping you have to do when you get home after being gone for a month! It was a lot of fun to spend Christmas break in Utah!

Lincoln and daddy working on Lincoln's bike

Lincoln checking himself out in the mirror at his 15 month well-child check, and Lincoln enjoying the new back rug we got. 

Lincoln insisted he lick the lid of the tamale sauce. 

Things about Lincoln:

He's still a big boy! At 15 months he weighed 26 lbs 5 oz (91st %tile) and was 32.5 inches tall (84th %tile).

Whenever I get a plate out of the microwave, he blows it off from all the way across the kitchen.

This is how Lincoln eats cheese- double fisting it. 

He learned how to blow kisses, and he thinks it's HILARIOUS.

He is obsessed with the measuring cup drawer and the hand towel drawer in the kitchen. I regularly find measuring cups hidden in strange places throughout the house, and he loves emptying the towel drawer daily.

One of his most favorite foods of all time is homemade sweet potato fries (roasted in the oven). He can eat as many as I can it seems.

All boy... mud all over his grandpa sweat pants, waddle-stomping toward me. (This is our back "patio.")

He likes playing around other kids but is still figuring out what in the world it means to play with them.

Once in a while we go over at eat at one of the dining halls on campus. It's an amazing buffet of healthy and yummy food, and kids eat free until they're like 10 or 12. Anyway, It's fun. So we go over there. Lincoln eats SUPER well there and is obsessed with their chocolate milk. 

He always fakes a sneeze or two after he's done with his real sneezes. He also likes to pretend cough.

Lincoln is obsessed with the library and library books. When we get his books home, we store them on the bookshelf in a bright red, reusable cloth grocery bag. He knows right where they are and can pull them down to read. I have to choose wisely what books I check out for him (while I have the last say) because I know that whatever books we get I'll be reading at least 5 times each, every day. (When we hadn't gone to the library yet post-vacation, Lincoln would pull down the red bag off the shelf and stare inside waiting for books to appear... somehow he knew we were tricking him when we just stuck his books in there.)

Lincoln trying to fit in with the college kids at the dining hall. 

One of his favorite words sounds something like "Dow-ma". I think it usually means "that one" or something like that, but he uses it all the time when he's requesting something or trying to draw our attention to something. It's kind of funny-- sometimes it really just sounds like he's swearing at us. :)

When he wants something, he'll grab out fingers and take our finger to the thing he wants... like if he wants a bottle opened, he'll grab our finger and tap the bottle lid. If he wants to know what letters are or what words say, he grabs our finger and uses it to touch the letters/words one at a time as we say what they are.


He loves letters. He can recognize and say A, B, D, F, G, M(sometimes), P, S, T, Y, and Z(sometimes). He can recognize (like find in a pile of letters when we say "where's the __") for probably 5 or 6 others, but unreliably.

Lincoln crashing on the way home from church. You probably can't see it but he has quite the drool stream going here. 

He wants to know what words say. When we're eating something he wants to have the bottle/jar/package on his tray, and he grabs our finger and points at the words one at a time to know what they say.

Lincoln and daddy tested out the new bike trailer and went to the orange-colored lemon tree to pick some lemons for us to cook with. Lincoln was thrilled. His heaven has bike trailers, libraries, and citrus. 

He started walking around without help while we were in Utah, and walks all around our house really well. He's still pretty nervous to do it other places. We're getting better at church but outside is still hard because the ground is uneven or has stuff like pine cones on it.

He likes singing. He walks around the house making little humming squeaks on different notes, singing his songs. Whenever he plays his little baby Mozart radio or other toys that make music, he tries to copy the last few notes after the songs end.

Lincoln really likes to try to use my weights... so I give him a 2 lb weight and he likes to tote it around for a minute or two.  

He likes to "read" my books. If I have a book sitting on the couch, he'll come over, position it just ride, and then meticulously fan through the pages, all the time saying "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah" with a serious face. When the pages run out and the book closes, he stops saying it. Then when he starts fanning through them again, he starts up again. I've been reading some Agatha Christie, and I have this big book of 5 Hercule Poirot books. Lincoln loves to read that one, probably because it's so big. (As convenient as my kindle is, there is a huge plug for paper books.)

This kid can make messes faster than I can even believe. I'm not sure how he does it. I think he's entropy personified.

If we ask, "Lincoln, are you happy?" He always (unless he's mid-tantrum) smiles and claps his hands (as in, "if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands!")

Our favorite word Lincoln says is "DGOOMBA". No idea what it means.

He is king of throwing tantrums already.

He likes to yell. We checked out a library book called "Little dinos don't yell" lol. My favorite page is "Don't scream at your mom!" I particularly emphasize that one.

Lincoln likes to put things on his head to turn them into hats... diapers, hot pads, ring toys...

Diaper hat. 

His favorite drawer and a hot pad hat!

He figured out how to go down the slide at the playground by himself... he crawls up the stairs (finally doesn't demand our hands!) and goes down the slide face first.

He's in the middle of the surprisingly difficult transition to only one nap. When he stopped doing either of his naps very well last week, I decided to try to force the issue and make him transition. Day 1 went well because we had Joy School to keep him awake until after lunch. Yesterday was a fail and both naps were terrible. Let's see how today goes.

He loves to carry my pyrex measuring cups all over the house. He grips the heavy things in each hand (like, he carries two around at a time), waddles as far as he can, sets them down on the nearest chair, repositions, and then goes again.

Lincoln scribbled all over the wall for the first time, twice in one day. We give him a baby wipe and make him help us scrub it off. He enjoys wiping the wall actually (he loves wiping things with wipes), so I don't know how effectively it's teaching him not to color on the wall... hmmm...

When Lincoln and I go for a walk or run, Lincoln waves and says hi to each passerby on foot, on bikes, or in cars. It's adorable.

Besides a 12 month onesie that really stretched out or something, the smallest clothes Lincoln wears are 18 months. His pajamas are 24 months, and most of his shirts are at least 2T. He can squish in a shoe-size 5, but is nearly a 6.

Another one of his favorite toys are the popsicle molds... whether or not they have a popsicle in them.

Lincoln and I have been having dance parties to this song lately. Lincoln loves it.