Lincoln at 2 1/2

 I just jotted a few things down about Jack. Short and sweet. Lincoln's life and development right now could be an entire novel. He is busy. He is also loud, crazy, curious, annoying, funny, loving, and affectionate. I could spend all day telling you about the crazy things he does and the ways he melts my heart and pushes my buttons, but I don't have time. And it's his fault. I'm nervously writing this as fast as possible waiting to either be interrupted or to hear a crash, bang or scream letting me know that my personal time is over. So here I  go with a few bullet points! :)

 1. Lincoln could eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for every meal if I let him. He also loves pizza, pasta, yogurt, cheese, orange juice, green beans, chocolate, strawberries, and the list goes on. He's a good eater most of the time.
2. He is potty trained. Even at night. Don't ask me how we did it because he pretty much did it on his own. I did let him run around naked a lot though which got him in the habit of remembering to use the potty, but other than that I have no advice.
3. He LOVES outside. He explores bushes and dirt. He tries to chase the lizards we see. He loves to play on the playground. He has always been extremely coordinated and has literally fallen off of something maybe twice since he was a year old. I rarely feel nervous about him losing his balance when he's climbing because I know he understands his limits.
4. Some days he takes a nap and some days he doesn't. It really just depends on how much sleep he got the night before and whether or nor he lets himself sit still long enough to realize he's tired.
5. He is LOUD. He is always talking or yelling and making noise. He knows a lot of words, and is good at answering questions and telling us what he wants or needs. He is still behind in the communication area in comparison to the average 2 year old. I'm sure he will continue to make progress and everything will even out more soon.
6. Despite being loud and busy there are some days where Lincoln just needs to veg and chill out, especially after a really busy and over-stimulating day. Those days are quiet and mellow. He will just watch movies, eat snacks, take a long nap, and quietly play with dinosaurs, cars or blocks.
7. He's hard to shop with because he begs for everything he sees.
8. He loves balloons and bubbles.
9. He loves all Pixar movies way more than other animated movies.
10. He is a fantastic kisser. He gives kisses to all of us constantly.
11. He loves to wrestle and he is very strong.
12. He LOVES to spin in our office chair.
13. He says "I did it!" whenever he accomplishes something he is proud of.
14. He is very good at telling me he "poot" and needs his bum to be wiped.
15. He is a cuddler.

And I think that about covers it! Despite the fact that lately I've felt at a complete loss of what to do with him because he throws tantrums and is defiant and disobedient, at the end of the day I love him and I know he loves me. If there is one thing that has been successful with him it's that he is good at giving affection and showing that he cares about you. And for that, I am grateful!

Jack at 7 months

For the sake of recording I wanted to write down Jack's milestones. He has had so much happen so fast! He is growing, learning and changing so rapidly I feel like the newborn stage was eons ago.

1. Sitting up unassisted at 5 months
2. First two bottom teeth at 5 months
3. 6 month weight was 19lbs
4. Crawling at 7 months.
5. 7 1/2 months he started pulling himself up on things.
6. Top two teeth started cutting through at 7 months.
7. He likes solid food, but gets easily distracted when I feed it to him, so he often doesn't eat too much of it. So far he's tried pears, bananas, strawberries, peaches, applesauce, carrots and rice cereal. I've definitely taken a waaay different approach to introducing solids with Jack. I've made everything for him myself and not been nearly as consistent feeding it to him as I was with Lincoln.
8. His new nickname is 'Flap Jack' because when he gets excited he flaps his little arms in the air like a little duck.
9. He is a very happy and content baby. He is also very curious about is surroundings and now that he can crawl he can get exactly where he wants to go to check things out.
10. His smile is so contagious and when he's laughing you can't help but laugh as well.

JACK at 4 Months

I feel like Jack has grown sooo fast. He was just barely wearing 0-3m clothes and now I'm already getting out the 9 and 12 months things. We barely touched the 6m size. He weighs just over 17lbs, which is the 90th percentile. He's in the 50th percentile for height though. I guess he's turned out to be a little chunk. :)
He loves laughing at Lincoln. Lately they have been interacting more with each other. Lincoln will play with the WonderBug toys with him, and they also have fun playing in the bath.
Jack is TICKLISH! He has been laughing when tickled for quite a while! I don't remember Lincoln actually laughing when being tickled this early on, so this stands out to me a bit. And of course we LOVE to tickle him. He has the cutest laugh.
The last few weeks he has started to grab at toys.
He is a fantastic eater. He nurses a lot. He is also a great sleeper. He still sleeps great at night and finally naps during the day have gotten better. We had a rough patch there for a while. :)
Overall Jack has such a happy and content countenance. He is already bringing us so much fun and happiness, and Sean and I are both excited to continue with life with these two little boys.

Our Christmas Card

This year I have not gotten around to actually taking a decent photograph and getting Christmas cards printed and mailed. I even have $40 in gift cards to Shutterfly and it still didn't happen. So, instead I thought I would do a blog post dedicated to what has been going on with us this lately.

Sean: Moving to Florida was a great choice for us in regards to Sean's career. In mid-November he was promoted to Assistant Kitchen Manager, which is notable because he will now move to salary pay vs hourly, and he will also receive company benefits. In January he will begin manager training. All managers have to go through a rigorous training program almost always located at a different restaurant from the one they will regularly be working at. He will have to commute about an hour north of here for 8 weeks to complete this training. Mostly we are just excited for him to get it over with! Once he's finished his opportunities for promotions are much more easily accessible since there isn't any training between his current position and the Kitchen Manager. A new restaurant will be built on the west side of Tampa next summer. Hopefully it will cause some things to move around and allow Sean to take advantage of other opportunities. Sean loves his job, though. It's stressful and demanding and usually he works about 50 hours a week but I'm really glad he is happy with what he does and feels a great sense of motivation and accomplishment with his career.

Megan: Going from one baby to two babies has started to change everything more and more. Right after Jack was born I felt like the adjustment was very smooth and easy. The more time that passes the more I feel like having two is twice as hard because everything is literally multiplied. Twice as many diapers. Two mouths to feed and two babies who need attention. There are many moments during the day when I feel like I'm going to pull out my hair and shave their heads, but then of course I absolutely love seeing their smiles and seeing them continuously learn new things. After Lincoln was born I was already immediately making plans for my second pregnancy. I guess these boys were meant to be close. But this time around I feel absolutely no rush for a third! I am looking forward to being content with these two for a while. I want to take some time to let my body heal from both pregnancy and from the pains my arthritis causes while I nurse. Sean and I are also looking forward to hopefully starting to aggressively save money to eventually buy a home here so we can settle in one place for a while. 

Since Jack was about 6 weeks old I have still kept up doing my job at the Roadhouse, which is literally 3 hours a week. I also have started a little sewing gig on the side partially for fun and partially to make some extra cash. I make fleece diaper covers and pants that are to be worn over cloth diapers. Fleece is a stay dry material and so if any leaks occur during the night the fleece will keep the moisture off bedding and leave everything still feeling dry. They could be useful over disposables too, but they are a well kept secret in the cloth diapering world. I have had a great time sewing, coming up with new designs and communicating with the moms I sell to.

Lincoln: The gap between one and two is HUGE! Lincoln has grown up so much in the last year. Even in the last 6 months. He started talking and is constantly learning new words. He also amazes us all the time with how perfectly he understands everything we say to him. He loves playing with his toys. He likes blocks, cars, stuffed animals, and especially dinosaurs! He loves to play outside at the park and he also loves going over to his friend Ty's house (his dad owns the restaurant and they are in our ward here). Recently he has become completely enthralled by the Toy Story movies. He absolutely loves Buzz and Woody. I was able to have my family mail us my brothers old Buzz and Woody toys for Lincoln to have for Christmas. I am so excited to see his reaction to opening them! As of this week Lincoln has also started potty training. A few days ago he was naked in the house after his bath and I noticed he started to dribble a little. He kind of panicked and I ran him to the potty. He made it there and finished in the potty! It was monumental! Since then he has peed in the potty at least once every day, sometimes twice, and today he pooped in the potty for the first time! He is pretty proud of himself. At this point I'm just following his lead and not pushing it too much, but hopefully we will continue to make progress!

Jack: At 3 months now Jack is getting super chubby and is great at being interactive. He is ticklish and laughs hard when we tickle under his chin and his belly button. Like any baby that age he loves to be talked to and sung to. He sleeps fantastically at night, but during the afternoons he is a terrible napper and often throws complete fits from being tired and unwilling to settle down. Once when I was putting him to bed I got up to turn the light out. When he saw me leave he instantly freaked out and started screaming. I was back to his side quickly trying to talk to him and calm him down without picking him up because I was hoping that I could just rock him in his bed to sleep. I was trying to calm him for a good minute when all of a sudden he saw me and had a look of complete shock on his face like "wow! where did you come from?" and then instantly he stopped crying and started smiling at me. He is a very determined little guy. Once he decides he wants to be held or changed or nursed or put to bed he will not let up. It makes it hard when I am trying to help Lincoln with something and Jack is over there having a fit. He is quite a little charmer though and always instantly smiles when he sees our faces. I know he is already trying to figure out how to mobilize himself. Having two babies who are capable of destroying things will be a whole new adventure!

Well, that is us in a nutshell! We will be celebrating Christmas here in Florida this year. It will be our first Christmas with just our little family, but we are looking forward to it. We are planning to go to the beach in the afternoon with some friends. Not exactly the white Christmas I had in mind, but I guess we might as well take in the whole Florida experience! :)

Merry Christmas!

Love, The McWhorters

MM Fleece

This photo sums up a little hobby/project I've been up to the last few months. More on this later... but the Mickey butt sure is cute! :)

Halloween

 Lincoln loved trick-or-treating. It was an extremely exciting and overwhelming experience for him. We loved watching his reactions to everything. We went trick-or-treating with our friends that have three boys all older than Lincoln. He had a hard time keeping up with them since they can run faster but also because he kept taking pit stops to admire his candy and even took out a few suckers to enjoy along the way. We only did one street, but it was enough! He had such a great time. Sean also dressed up as a red-neck with a mullet and aviators which I'll have to add photos of later. He looked hilarious!

Lincoln's 2nd Birthday

 

We had several days of celebration for Lincoln's 2nd birthday. Saturday night before the 23rd we went out to Texas Roadhouse and had everyone sing to him. Grandpa Jerry and Nana Marleigh were in town which made it extra special. I was impressed he sat on the saddle. 

His dinosaur cake. He loved it! I had to hide it in the fridge so he would forget about it and eat dinner first. He blew out those candles like a pro. Extra cute! On his actual birthday Grandpa Jerry took all of us to see the animals at an aquarium in Tampa. Lincoln really enjoyed it, but was definitely scared of the ones they would let you touch. It was a great day!