A Future Missionary

I thought this picture needed a post of its own. Here's Lincoln sharing the good news!  :)

Have you heard?  The Book of Mormon, another testament of Jesus Christ!  And doesn't he look excited?

I think so.  His father assures me he's a spiritual little creature.  They read the scriptures out loud during evening bottle time, and I'm told that Lincoln pops the bottle out of his mouth to say "amen" at the end of bible chapters.  And he provides an "amen" at the end of prayers too.  Not bad for 14 months old.  Now I need to go hunt down the 5 and 6 year olds and work on them...

:)

Bouncy House

I took the children to the bouncy house on Tuesday. They had been asking to go for quite a while, but Kara and I don't like to take the children to indoor play activities in the summer. It's no longer summer and it's been windy or wet or windy and wet for days now. Last week we had four power outages due to high winds. It has not been good play outside weather most days. So when the children asked again to go, I acquiesced. It was Lincoln's first time there. He played the entire hour and one half, a lot of that time he ran around on his own. He could not access all the play equipment that the older children could, but that didn't bother him.

The older kids could go up this slide ramp, but Lincoln could only watch. 

(The kid with the orange shirt is not ours.)

It's a long way up when you're little.

Fun, fun, fun! 

More fun, fun, fun!

Bentley and Jake played hide and seek.

Lincoln liked the little car, but he could only make it go backwards.

Viva hung out with this little boy for a while.

Jake and Bentley jousted. Viva ran laps. Lincoln watched.

The jousting sticks were larger than the boys.

Jake wanted his photo taken.

Here's...Lincoln!

Lincoln did a great job. At first he was reluctant to let go of his props. I wanted a photo of the big tears running down his cheeks when I took his book away, but Mark has always been uncooperative when I request photos of crying babies. But he was so CUTE! Then after the photo session ended, he ran back and sat on the stool and posed sans book.

Mug Shot

This reminded me of a mug shot when I first viewed it--the glazed look and the sign with a string of numbers on it. Truth is it was supposed to be a commemorative photo showing off Viva's great hand writing. She just started learning to write her numbers a couple of weeks ago and she already does a great job of it. Good work, girl!

Good Help Is Easy To Find

Opa has been building for me storage shelves. I purchased twelve of them, so it's an ongoing project. One Saturday when he worked on them Viva helped. Another work session Lincoln was the assistant.

The older children are assigned the chore of putting the clean silverware away. A lot of the time Lincoln offers to help his siblings. Bentley enjoys working with Lincoln. Viva lets him help, too. Jake does not.

Where Is That Baby?

He's right where he's been for the past 38 weeks. Now that the crisis is past, he's hunkered down for the long haul. He's not coming out until he has no choice...which would be next Thursday when Kara has a C-section scheduled.

Kara would like to be finished with this pregnancy, but holding out to the end does have its rewards. If the baby waits until next Thursday, Kara's doctor will do the surgery. If Kara goes into labor before next Thursday and her labor is outside of office hours, it will be whichever doctor is on call.

Kara is completely off bed rest, but she's not all that energetic after spending two months off her feet. She is still going in for twice weekly check-ups. The baby is doing great.

Here's...Bentley!

He did not want to devote much of his precious time to taking photos, so this is all we have of him.

So CUTE!

wearing his fall coat and hat

stuffing his ball in the ice dispenser (it stuck)

on the trampoline

wearing his new Osh Kosh overalls

first trip in his new car seat

Here's...Viva!

You must be wondering about the many different dresses Viva's modeling. Does she really own that many Sunday dresses? Technically we do own them, but we plan on returning four of them back to Costco. I bought and brought them all home so that Viva could model them for Kara. Viva liked the red and magenta dresses most, but they are both similar in style to the Jona Michelle dress Kara bought her last winter. (Viva chose by color only.) Kara likes the blue one so it's a strong possibility. Viva's last Christmas dress which she wore for two years was green, so the green dress is probably not going to make it. Choices! Choices! I'm partial to the black and white with the big pink bow, but the skirt is poufy like the blue one, so if we kept the blue one, I'd not want the black and white. I don't think we can go wrong no matter which two we keep because she looks great in all of them.

Snarly Six Year Old

Bentley can be a little snarly when he doesn't get what he wants. He scrunches up his face and vocalizes his dissatisfaction. His mother tells him he looks like a Klingon (she's shown him photos of Klingons) and that he needs to stop it. I tell him his mom didn't give birth to any ugly children and he needs to stop it. Does he? Not really.

I wish we could blame it on bad habits he picked up at public school, but he doesn't go to public school. He doesn't watch a lot of TV either. It must be his inner beast bursting out.

Bentley did not pose for this photo. I snapped it surreptitiously. You'll see the staged version later this week in another post. Watch for it.

Here's...Jake!

About Lincoln

Today is Lincoln trivia day!

Lincoln:

-  is still obsessed with his Father.  It's cute, so I'm okay with it.

- loves, loves, loves raisins (and chocolate chips).

- likes honey dew, tomatoes of all types, and most other foods!

- has 12 teeth.

- gives a great high five.

- can't really say the "j" sound, but does have a word for Jake!  And Bentley, of course.  I'll have to quiz him on Viva...

- likes to dance to music.

- likes to play the xylophone.  Like is actually a mild word, he is QUITE passionate about it.

- loves to cart around mini books.  I'm PRETTY sure he can't read, but since everyone else around here is he gives it his best shot!

- thinks the middle of the table is the best seat in the house.

- wakes up happy, and has the best smiles.

- gets vocal, quickly, if he think he isn't being fed fast enough at meal time.

- is a speed demon.  He runs, and with a fair amount of grace.  He also has the stairs mastered.

- is a great ball kicker.  I'm sure he could win a baby Olympic championship.  I should put one together for him.

- still loves to hang with Great-Grandma.  He plays peek a boo, xylophone, shares her food... lately they've been working on eyes/ears/mouth and nose!  They spend hours at the table "talking"!

We love you, little man!