Our Birthday Girl

In April Tessa had her first birthday. It seems like a year has really flown by, but I can't imagine our family without this sweet girl. Here are a couple of pictures of her big day.

Tessa ate her birthday cake like a perfect lady. She was very dainty, eating only one pinch at a time. 

Tessa was a really easy baby. She loves to hold her Mom, and gets sad if Mom is in the room and someone else tries to hold her.  Her favorite thing is having one binkie in each hand, one in her mouth, and one clipped to her shirt, so she always has one ready to go. My favorite thing is when she pulls her binkie out to kiss me, then puts it right back in her mouth. She loves giving hugs and kisses. She thinks Lincoln is the coolest person in the whole world and tires to do anything and everything  he is doing. She is happy and content most of the time, but when she wants food and it isn't given fast enough she screeches louder than  humanly possible. She is a good little eater, she loves cooked carrots, fruit, cereal, chicken, and corn dogs. She didn't get any teeth for the longest time, but when she did get them they all popped out at once, and now she has 8 teeth, including 2 molars. She doesn't like wearing shoes or hair bows, and hates having her diaper changed. Her favorite toy is mom's phone. She loves to hold it up to her ear and say "hi" and "love you". She loves to go on walks, and loves swinging at the park. We feel so lucky to have her in our family. 

St. Patrick's Day

A couple of St. Patrick's Day pictures of our little red-headed beauty.

Discovery Gatway

This winter ( I know it's June forgive me) we got a season pass to the discovery gateway. I took a bunch of pictures on my phone, but these were the only ones that survived after a sippy cup phone issue. So here is a short post of picture from the children's museum. It was fun. (Stay tuned, I promise to update about the rest of our spring, and now summer)

 

Some cute neighbor friends of ours. Addie and Paisley (My cute Sunbeams) 

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Baking

Lincoln loves helping out in the kitchen. Whenever I get the flour and sugar bins out he runs to get the measuring cups. It's so fun to have him help, but he sure knows how to make a big mess. 

Here are a few pictures of him helping Grandma Who-who making cookies. 

His favorite part of baking is helping to test out the finished product. 

Sledding

 Since Jake had the day off today, we decided to take Lincoln sledding. The boys had a great time out in the snow. And afterwards we had cookies and hot cocoa at Who-Who and BaPa's house.  Such a fun day.

My parents have a great sledding hill behind their house, which makes days like this pretty convenient. Happy Presidents' day.

December

December was a busy month for us. My Grandma Allen passed away at the end of November, and the weekend of her funeral a terrible wind storm hit Bountiful. The power was out in some parts of the city for over 2 days. The church where we held the funeral had no heat, so they gave out blankets to us to wrap up in during the services.
Here are a few picture of the damage to our roof.


On an exciting note, Jake's sister Leslie and her husband Stephen had a baby girl on December 7th. Elise Hayward. Here is a sweet picture of the happy family.


The next day we finally, -wait that needs more emphasis- FINALLY got carpet in our basement. The last big step in getting it all finished. Here are a few random pictures of the kids playing on the new carpet.



It's so nice to finally have some free time again. Tessa loves to have a place to crawl, and Lincoln loves LOVES his new playroom.
Christmas was awesome! Duane and Shar came down for about 2 weeks. It was so nice to spend the holidays with them. Christmas is 10 times better when you have kids. Lincoln thought opening presents was the funnest thing ever.

We had some technical difficulties with the camera on Christmas day, so we'll have to upload more pictures later. Hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and a very happy New Year.

Halloween

We had a great Halloween. Lincoln and Tessa went Trick-or-Treating at Jake's work, my Grandparent's nursing home, my Grandma's house, and around our neighborhood. It was such a busy day, but we had a lot of fun. Lincoln thought having people give him candy was the greatest thing EVER. For days afterwards he kept saying, "where is Lincoln's candy? I need my candy."

At Jake's work we had to remind him to say thank you, so to everyone who gave him candy he said "Thank you Lincoln." cause that was what we told him to say. So cute. 

Hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween, and that you still have some candy with which to bribe your kids.

I forgot my camera, but my Dad had his and we just got a few shots. 

So here are my parents 

(Red Riding Hood, and the Big Bad Wolf), with Lincoln (Batman) and Tessa (a Lady Bug).

Here we are playing in this great leaf pile we found.

Here is miss Tessa with my Grandma MacKay.

Of course I couldn't get a picture of both kids smiling at the same time, 

so here is one happy picture of each kid.