Climbing the walls

It's that time of year when the Guild's seem to catch every bug that goes around.  So far this month we've spent 8 days in self-imposed quarantine.  What does a toddler do when forced with not leaving the house for 8 days...he climbs the walls!  So, John and I decided to get him a small climbing structure that we could put in the playroom; thus letting him burn off energy in a manner that didn't result in a time out!  

As with most of our endeavors, a small idea turned into a much bigger project.  The store didn't have the small climbing structure we wanted so we decided to go big!  We should have thought about how we were going to get said big purchase home...but we didn't.  A BIG thanks to John's co-worker for lending his pick-up truck and his time at a moment's notice.

Lincoln napped and John put it all together...with a little help from me and only a small amount of grumbling.

Lincoln loves to go to the park.  When he walked outside to see his new toy for the first time, he said, "park" and ran to it.  It was adorable (of course)!

The second best thing about a new toy is the big box it comes in!  Lincoln spent a good hour decorating his box with stickers.  I'm not sure why the right side of the box didn't deserve any sticker attention.

He is very insistent that mommy and daddy play "box" and will push us into the box if we don't act eager enough to enter of our own accord.

Ya for the park!  I hope our sweet neighbors don't mind looking at the Little Tykes lawn ornament for the next few years.

If you are happy and you know it...

This is so darling, I just had to share!  Can you tell that we read this book A LOT at our house?  

18 months and he knows so much!

John recently read an article/heard a news story about the number of words a two year old should know (which according to the article is 75-200).  It made me think about this video we took several months back when little guy was about 18 months of him showing off all his tricks.  

Valentine's Fun

Lakewood Early Childhood PTA Valentine's Party

Lincoln made Valentine's for Daddy, Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw

And decorated heart shaped cookies

Yum!

The party included dancing!  

DLC Valentine's Party - Toddler II

The three sweetest women in the world!

Checking out our loot!  

Best Valentine's Day Card Ever!

Fall Fun

Ye-Haw!

(Or as Lincoln says, "ha-ha!")

Fall has been a lot of fun at our house this year.  Lincoln is old enough to participate in and enjoy the activities that come along with the season.  Doesn't he make an adorable cowboy?  

We took our annual trip to the Pumpkin Patch at the Arboretum. 

Last year at just under 6 months we had to prop him up on the pumpkins because he couldn't sit up by himself yet.  

This year he was all over the place!

We painted pumpkins with Grandma Kathy and Paw-Paw (though I'm not sure the grandparents enjoyed it as much as Lincoln...notice they are sitting VERY far away from the paint!)

Our church held it's annual Fall Festival; which Lincoln loved.  

Linc's favorite game at the Fall Festival was the duck hunt.  He didn't care about the candy or prizes, he just thought pulling the ducks out of the water was awesome!

Halloween at school was filled with all sorts of fun events.  Lincoln's daycare is located in downtown Dallas.   Each year the kids dress up and walk around the the area offices to receive candy treats.  

Getting his bag ready...

Miss Gretchen handing out candy...

He loved holding his bag open!

Whew...Mommy was TIRED.  Next year this will be a two-parent job!

Daddy works just down the street and was able to join Lincoln for his afternoon Halloween party

Lincoln loved showing his friends the cool games his daddy could play.

Umm...adorable!  His teachers must be saints.

Yum...juice and cupcakes and cheetos.  

Rounding out the fall fun, we went to a birthday party at the Dallas Zoo.  

(thanks Chandler for having such a cool party!)

Lincoln loved checking out the animals

But I think he loved chasing Laurel even more!  

They were adorable!

Sitting on daddy's shoulders to see the animals!

Of course, it was hard to go to the zoo and not think about the loss that our friends, The Sikes', have experienced this year.  They continue to be on our hearts.  If they continue to be on yours, I encourage you to make a donation to the James Camden Sikes fund for the research of rhabdoid tumors.  You can contribute at www.jamescamdensikes.blogspot.com

We didn't visit Jamie the Giraffe on this trip.  

We'll make a special trip to see her soon!

Lincoln turned 18 months old in October.  He is growing and changing everyday, so I thought we'd document the words he knows and the things he likes to do right now.  Getting him to perform on command is always a bit of a challenge, so this is in bits and pieces...Enjoy! 

P.S. ...thanks to Sandra Boynton for teaching Lincoln that "three singing pigs say la, la, la"...

Catching up with the Guilds

Right after my last post, John and I finally decided to put our house on the market.  We've talked about it for years, but to be honest, it was just never the right time and I was certain that I would never find an actual house that I loved as much as our townhouse.  However, it had become apparent that we needed MORE ROOM (baby toys take up a lot of space).    

The weekend our house went on the market coincided with Lincoln's rescheduled 1st birthday party and we had our first showing an hour after the party ended (I always tell my clients not to turn away showings, so I couldn't tell them not to come!)

A couple of obligatory party pics are below.

My great-grandmother made this sock monkey 

for my mom when she was  a little girl!

John's Aunt sent Lincoln this sock monkey when he was a baby...

He obviously loves it!

Somehow we managed to clean up all of the party decorations and ball pit in time for the showing.  Luckily, our house sold in less than a month and the past few months have been a whirlwind.  

In between selling our house and moving into the new house...my brother and sister-in-law had TWINS!  Samantha and Easton are adorable!  My sister-in-law, Kim, is an excellent blogger, you can check her out here:  http://www.bluegrassandgreentomatoes.blogspot.com/

I'm so excited that Lincoln will have cousins close in age who are also close by (hint hint B&K...don't move off!)  Lincoln has learned to say "ba-by" and point to the babies...ADORABLE!

Okay, back to the Guilds :)....

This is the house we bought.  It backs up to a creek (in theory...there hasn't been any water in the creek since we moved in) and is walking distance to Lincoln's elementary school.

We moved in over the 4th of July weekend, though not before checking out the 4th of July parade in our new neighborhood.  

Moving into the new house has been a challenge (to say the least).  When we moved into the townhouse (7 years ago!), we really just had to sit our furniture where we wanted it and nothing else really needed to be done.  We decided to buy new furniture for the new house (our current furniture was purchased before we got married...9 years ago!).  So, everything is "on order" and nothing is really finished yet.  This drives me crazy, but I'm trying to be zen about it.  Luckily, we've had the help of the amazing Sydney Fiedler at SydneyDesign with this process!  I'll post pics of the inside when it's come together a little more.

As if our lives weren't hectic enough...John changed jobs!  You can check him out here.  

We are so excited about the new firm.

http://www.ghjhlaw.com/Lawyers/JohnFGuild

And we just got back from our first summer vacation as a family of 3!  The last vacation John and I took was to Hawaii two years ago with my family...boy does that seem like a lifetime ago!  Here is one of my favorite pics from the Hawaii trip.

And here are a couple of my favorite pics from our trip to Orlando with my best friend from college, Jamie, and her family!

Just chillin' with Mickey

It's a small world!

Look Parker, you can climb this window!

My mommy made me wear this!

The ocean is SOOOO fun!

Run run fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the Lincoln man!

Seeing the animals on safari at Animal Kingdom

I hope they can be this good of friends always!  

Lincoln seems to be growing and changing every day!  Just look how big he is in all of these pictures!  

At 16 months old, he says the following:

mama 

dada

papa

Bailey

baby

ball

up

please

fish

tree

bubbles

five

duck

quack-quack-quack

poopy ;)

It seems like there are more, I'll have to go back and add to the list as I think of them.  

In addition, he signs:

more

please

all done

milk

and is really good at waving and pointing to what he wants...we are working on "thank you"

Even more impressive, he seems to understand everything you tell him to do.  He loves to go outside (can't wait until it's under 100 degrees and we can actually play outside some) and pet Bailey as well as play with mommy and daddy's phones and iPads.  He's a fan of Mickey Mouse and enjoys taking things out of a bowl/box and putting them back in.  My dad started setting him in his lap and counting 1-2-3, then throwing him up in the air.  He will now climb up in your lap and hold up one finger to tell you he wants to play that game!  He still likes to climb anything in sight.  He has a sweet disposition but is starting to show signs of the Terrible Two's (i.e - I want this and I want it RIGHT NOW)

Proof that he isn't always a perfect little boy!  We had stopped at the Ghiradelli ice cream shop and the people at the other tables had ice cream he wanted...NOW!

Okay, that was an incredibly long blog post, but you are mostly caught up now!