Precious Moments

Nothing too exciting to report but Lincoln did sleep for a whopping SIX HOURS last night (I thought had died and gone to heaven). I took these pictures in the last few days and wanted to share them with our friends and family.


I was blowdrying my hair and put Lincoln in his chair (which he hates). In a desperate attempt to stop the crying I handed him this stuffed bunny which seemed to work pretty well. I went back to blowdrying and when I turned back around he had wrapped his little arm around the bunny and was cuddling it! Too cute for words!


This picture is for Aunt Marcia who bought this adorable bear suit for Lincoln. He wasn't so sure about the hood (he hates anything on his head) but he sure did look cute.


A picture for my friend Deb Buchweitz who gave us this Cubs mobile with the advice to put it on his changing table to distract him, possibly the best advice I have received yet. Lincoln absolutely adores his "Cubbys" and always smiles when we put him on his changing table.

So that's it for us here, I'll try to post after Thanksgiving to let you all know how our delicious Thanksgiving dinner at Baker's Square is...

Why did I bother to read the books??

Ok, so no pictures this time, this is my own personal rant about my life right now. Now, don't get me wrong- I love our son, he is a beautiful and precious gift and we are so lucky that he is here and healthy. My problem is with the many, many books that I read about raising our child during my pregnancy. While reading these books I often pictured my angel baby gently falling asleep in his crib while Nathan and I stared at his beautiful happy face. I imagined that I would know exactly what to do in every situation that arose because I had not only read the books- oh no, I had read them, memorized them, and then annotated them (I was suddenly back in high school english class with my highlighter and post-it notes). So when my child arrived I felt like I was fully prepared to be the world's best mom. The first weeks, as my child slept 90% of the time and awoke only to eat, I felt like I was doing great- my books had served me well. And then Lincoln turned three weeks old and my books suddenly turned against me. I tried for several weeks to stick with what my beloved books were saying (after all, they had never failed me before). It took two weeks, several nights of screaming (Lincoln, not me), and many tearful meltdowns (Me, not Lincoln) before I had a sudden epiphany- OUR CHILD DOES NOT FOLLOW THE BOOK!! Now this has been a very hard lesson for me to learn but Nathan has been very kind to gently remind me that Lincoln is not a textbook baby. This is the first time that my beloved books have ever failed me, it was disappointing to say the least but I am slowly learning to be a go with the flow mom (although Nathan will tell you that I am not great at it- yet!) So, stayed tuned for my many attempts at being a more laid back mom- we'll see if Lincoln and I will survive each other!

SUCCESS!!

yes, that is my son sleeping in his crib!! Lincoln decided that in honor of his 6 week birthday he would take all his naps in his crib- yea! Truth be told, he will only sleep in there for about an hour but we are taking baby steps... More good news- Lincoln is sleeping between 5-6 hours at night, a welcome relief for his tired mother. So everything is improving here and BYU plays TCU tonight- go Cougars!
P.S- Upon closer examination of this picture I feel the need to explain that I am not trying to endanger our child's life by putting pillows and blankets in his crib (our childcare class teacher would be VERY upset)- we think that Lincoln didn't like his crib at first because it was too big so we followed our friend's advice and placed rolled up blankets on either side of him (one was in the wash- hence the Bobby pillow). So thanks go out to Laura (aka Mrs. Dub) for her fabulous parenting tips.

Lincoln's Blessing and Halloween

First, an apology to my aunts for not posting these pictures earlier. We have had an interesting few weeks, we found out Lincoln is lactose intolerant and also has acid reflux so we have been struggling through several days and nights of unconsolable crying. After a few days of medication I am happy to report that Lincoln is doing a lot better although we still have to visit the doctor to cure the painful gas pains that are causing him to wake up 40 minutes into every nap he takes but one problem at a time... We haven't even begun to address the fact that he still won't sleep in his crib. Why doesn't God give us babies at 6 months old? I think this is another one of those times in my life where God is trying to teach me to have patience (not one of my strong suits).
So we had most of Nathan's family here for Lincoln's blessing on October 28th. It was so fun to get our families together. We went to dinner at Portillo's on Friday night (a Bond family favorite) and then to Lou Malnotti's Pizza on Saturday. My mother, being the kind and wonderful person that she is, made an entire Thanksgiving meal on Sunday for both our families and some of our friends. I know she spent the entire night in the kitchen but the food was great and it was nice to have a Thanksgiving with all the people we can't spend the holiday with this year.

Us and the Grandparents

The Whole Family (ignore the weird face I am making!)

Lincoln with Mom and Dad- yes he is screaming his head off luckily he was quiet during his blessing

The family at the Jelly Belly factory in Wisconsin

Lincoln sleeping peacefully on Uncle Brian

Also, we owe a big THANKS to Nathan's parents for Lincoln's awesome swing. It is now the only thing (besides us) that he sleeps in.

Lincoln also had a very exciting First Halloween. Although he did not have a costume he did have a very cute Halloween outfit. Check it out...

He also got to go to Grandma Bond's school for the annual Halloween Parade. Grandma was a fifties girl...

That's all for now, I will try to find some time later to update everyone again.

Ode to our Two-Week Old

Our child has officially been in our lives for 16 days and for those of you who don't get to spend every waking moment with the cutest baby in the world I thought I would update you on Lincoln's life so far.

Lincoln...
...LOVES his hands. They have to be on or near his face at all times and his mom is dying for him to gain enough control over them to actually keep his thumb in his mouth. He yells at us every time we try to swaddle his hands in a blanket.

...does not like his crib, at least not yet, leaving his parents to wonder why they bought it in the first place

...is a pooping machine. In fact, we have yet to change a diaper that does not have poop in it


...becomes more of a red head everyday, I am convinced that this is payback for all the jokes we made about having a red headed baby during my pregnancy.

...is gaining weight like a champ. At his last weigh in he was 9lb 8oz.

...is the laziest eater ever, it sometimes takes 45 minutes to get 20 minutes of food in him, wonder where he gets his laid back attitude from?? (DAD)


...doesn't like to sleep, much to the chagrin of his mom and dad

...thinks his mom and dad are crazy, especially when they drag him to the pediatrician to be told that he is a very healthy baby, he just cries like a normal baby. And here we were thinking we got a baby that doesn't cry! Dad's response to Lincoln crying- "Wow, that's really loud!"

So our baby boy is doing well, he is healthy and (generally) happy. I'll post more pictures later.

The Stump is Gone!!

Ok, I can hear Lincoln fussing in the other room right now which means that naptime is rapidly coming to an end but I wanted to tell everyone that our child finally has a normal belly button! His black umbilical cord stump has been hanging on by a thread for several days now but last night (at 2am) I went to change his diaper and it was gone! And I mean really gone, we had to strip him down to find it. I think he was just waiting for his two week birthday to get rid of it. So that means that he also had his first REAL bath today and I think he actually liked it (well, at least he didn't scream). I wanted to take a bunch of pictures since his dad wasn't home for the big event but the minute I went to take the first picture our camera ran out of batteries so I will have to document the event tommorow and post pictures for you all later. Alright, well there goes my baby, duty calls!

More pictures of our little guy...

Ok, I realize that the one picture I posted was not as detailed as everyone wanted but I have been a little busy. So here are some more...

Yes, that scale says 8lbs 15.9oz (they called him at 9lbs even)

He was very alert at first, now all he wants to do is sleep

If anyone can tell us who he looks like we would love to know... so far we can't tell!

Hope everyone enjoys the pictures, we are slowly but surely adjusting to life with Lincoln. We aren't sleeping much at night but we take lots of naps during the day so we are surviving. Thanks for all your comments, it's great to know we have so many people who love our little boy already!