March Photos

Sean is 24

Our little family at breakfast time.

Today was Sean's birthday. To date, it was the best birthday he has ever had. His words, not mine. And let me tell you, it really was amazingly perfect. I'm not proud, but even the green bug of jealously got me for a few minutes. It started with Sean waking up and me making breakfast for him. He came downstairs to some balloons and a little banner--an extra touch that I thought would be fun. I made sprinkle cake pancakes from a recipe that I found on none other than Pinterest itself. :) They were super good btw. Afterwards Lincoln was a little cranky and tired so we all got in our bed and took a nap for about an hour and a half. We woke up at 1:30 and decided to go to the mall. Yesterday I discovered that we qualified for an upgrade on one of our cell phones. We found out that if we resigned our contract, Sean could get an iPhone 3G for ninety-nine cents. He was very excited because he has been using a dinky flip phone that cost 10 bucks at Walmart since last August when his old phone got wet. After we got back from the mall Sean's mom was waiting at our house to pick up Lincoln and babysit him while Sean and I had a little date for the evening. We were planning to go see this movie called "In Time" at the dollar theatre. Unexpectedly when we got there we found out that they no longer were showing that movie as of yesterday. Oops...I blew that one. So, needless to say we were very disappointed as we sat in the car with about 3 hours to kill and not a clue what to do. We couldn't afford anything too fancy, cuz our money was already going towards presents and a nice dinner. My dad happened to call while we were sitting there and he noticed that I sounded kind of disappointed about something. I told him what was up and then we hung up. We went to the mall to walk around when my dad called back and said that he would give us $100 bucks to go do whatever we wanted for the rest of the day. That's when this day went from good to spectacular!
We decided to go to the Cinemark and see what was playing. Sean was interested in seeing the new movie "John Carter". We got to the theatre 3 minutes after the movie time was scheduled. So we went for it. Sean loved the movie. It even made him cry in one part. At this point in our story I want to make a little sidenote about why I love Sean so much and it's all explained in why he cried. Since we have been married Sean has cried 3 times. And they were all basically for the same reason. He cried today during a scene where John Carter returns home from war to find his house burned down and his wife and child lying dead inside. He buries them himself. The other time he cried during Benajmin Button when he lost his opportunity to raise his daughter. And finally he also cried during Meet the Robinsons for a similar reason (i'm not exactly sure, I fell asleep at the end of the movie). Sometimes Sean likes to seem a little rough and tough around the edges. He's not fond of talking about his emotions. But when I see him cry in moments like this I realize how much he loves me and the family we have, as well as how much he cherishs being a daddy. A day doesn't go by without Sean telling me he loves me and appreciates me, but I can't help but be touched when I see him become emotional over something so simple. There is a difference between hearing it said and holding onto him as it's felt.  Anyways, being able to go out to a movie totally changed our day (Thanks Dad!). 
Afterwards we went back home to get primped up to go out to PFChangs. Sean was given a gift card to eat there from one of the managers at work, so we had been planning to go there on his birthday for a few weeks. We went there one other time on my birthday last year and really enjoyed it. It was super delicious. Have you had their chocolate cake? To. Die. For. I couldn't help but eat a little bit of gluten just to have some. OMG it was soo good. We left there on a high note with Sean's fortune cookie telling him "Keep up the good work. You will be rewarded in the coming month." Promotion? I hope so...but Sean's not supersticious like that... haha. I'm not sure I am either, but I liked this fortune a lot! :)

Wearing his riding jacket.

After dinner we drove up to Alpine to pick up Lincoln from Sean's parent's house. He was happy as a clam and bouncing around like crazy. We chatted with them and got Link ready for bed before we left. Sean also got a great card from them as well as another $100 to spend. How could the day get any better? Oh, it did! We got home and had a box waiting on our doorstep that contained scooter stuff Sean had ordered with a $200 rebate giftcard he recieved from the scooter shop. He ordered a super cool riding jacket, sunglasses, and some oil that smells like strawberries. He had been waiting for it to come all week, so this was perfect timing for it to show up. He's wearing his jacket in the pictures. That was the end to a fabulous birthday. He totally deserved it.

Me and the birthday boy!

Sean and Lincoln during breakfast.

What's Goin' On

Eating rice cereal

Sean with his scooter.

Lincoln at 5 months

February has been a good month. I am officially done with my job. I worked on training my replacement last week. Luckily she has a lot of experience working in medical offices, so it was a piece of cake to get her aquainted. I love being home. Now that Lincoln is getting older and more active I've realized how hard it would have been for me to keep working, and I'm glad this little blessing came. Lincoln sure has grown up the last month. He's 5 months now as of the 23rd. He is now eating rice cereal twice a day. I gave it to him last week randomly to try it out again and he downed two tablespoons of it as if he knew how to eat all along... go figure. I think he'll start liking to try other flavors soon. We'll probably wait on that for another couple weeks. But he's lovin his rice. I feed it to him in the bouncer... which might have to change because he gets so excited when he eats that sometimes I can't get the spoon in his mouth cuz he's bouncing up and down so much. haha. He also won't take a bottle. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about this. He started to show dislike towards it about a week before I quit. What's not good about this is that I have about 30-40 bags of frozen breastmilk in the freezer that need to be drank and replaced before they go bad. I definitely don't want all that milk to go to waste. So... I'm hoping that within the month as he grows and eats more solid food that he'll like being able to hold the bottle himself and maybe we can get him to drink some of that milk. haha...he likes the fresh stuff. I don't blame him...Lincoln is also becoming extremely loud. He screams, grunts, and squeals constantly. Crying is no longer is method of communication until he's desperate or hurt. Now he uses is voice in other ways to get our attention. Just today we went out to lunch and he screamed so loud in the restaurant I insinctly tried to cover his mouth to muffle the noise. Yikes! haha...it makes us laugh though. Not sure if it would make me laugh a year from now... :)
Another milesstone: Lincoln slept for 8 straight hours last night! That was amazing. He didn't fall asleep til 11... usually his bedtime is 10... so I think he was extra tired. Then he slept til 7. And went back to sleep til just after 10. I even woke up naturally before he did about 9:45. That hasn't happened forever! It was wonderful.
Also, after about three weeks of using cloth diapers I have decided that I really like them. It's harder to get them on correctly with two wiggling legs, but once I get it on I think it's totally worth it to being able to save the money on tons of disposibles. It works for me because baby poop doesn't really bother me...but if you gagged at the sight of it... I wouldn't recommend using cloth. :)
So, I'm finally getting into Pinterest! I never figured out why it was so addicting, but now the last week or so I've been really into it. I've made some bibs for Lincoln from a tutorial that I found. And my future project might be making homemade laundry detergent. I think my latest hobby is finding a way to save money on things you sort of have to buy. Like diapers, or soap. We can't live without them, but why not pay less for them?! And spend the extra money on something you really want! haha... or save it I guess! :)
Sean is doing really well. He is still loving his scooter and he loves his job. It says it on the back of his t-shirt--that's how I know. Just kidding. He is getting really excited about the prospect of being promoted to a management position sometime before the end of the year. The managers are working on helping him learn all the stations in the kitchen so we can soon lead the team, which is exciting. He's going to be starting the bake station soon--where all those rolls are cooked. He also goes to all the meetings with the managers on Wednesdays, which gives him a leg up on what's what with the restaurants success and needs etc.
Anyways, that's what's goin' on.

Scooters and Diapers

We have two new things going on! Number one: Sean and I bought a scooter! I've never seen him with a bigger smile on his face than when he rode it up our driveway and took off his helmet. He was grinning ear to ear. He was so excited about it! We are very excited for him to have his very own mode of transportation to get to and from work and school. I didn't take a picture of him yet but I'll have to post one of him cruising around.

Number two: Lincoln is going to start wearing cloth diapers. I know this may not seem like a big deal, but when you're changing 6 diapers a day this is actually pretty life changing! Now, for starters, cloth diapers are not what they used to be, incase you were wondering! They've gotten a whole lot fancier and more easy to use. I never knew all the benefits: overall they will be so much cheaper than buying disposable diapers. The diapers you buy only have two sizes, and the ones I just bought will last til he weighs 35lbs or so. It's also waaay less garbage! I can't believe how much trash diapers add. It's crazy! And all they are is just full of pee... yucky! I have also read that they prevent diaper rashes better as well as keep leaks out better than disposable diapers. The only downside that I've notices since I put the first one on him today was that they are bigger than disposable diapers. Which makes Lincoln's clothes tighter. In the summer I don't think this will be a problem because I can totally see him having a blast cruising around the house in his diaper and a t-shirt--especially with that little extra padding. But in the winter right now when he wears onsies all the time I can tell it will make his clothes fit a little differently. This one minor thing isn't really a big enough deal to make me wait to let him wear them for a few months. He looks so cute . . . they come in super cute colors. Just to clarify how they work, they have a cloth insert inside that's changed when needed. The outer part is resused several times until you want to wash it. Everything is just thrown in the washer. Pretty simple actually. So far I only bought 12 cloth inserts. We'll get in the habit of using them and then I think i'll buy more so that whenever we're home he'll be useing them. I'm excited. :)
Check out how he looks! btw...Lincoln hates the camera. Everytime I put it in front of his face he just stares blankly at me. We'll have to work on that, cuz I love this kid's smile!

He's like "put that thing away! It hurts my eyes!"

4 months!

Our little "Hawke man" has changed so much in the last month. I feel like everything I said about him when he was three months seems weird because now he's a completely different baby. His personality is starting to shine--big time. He's a squealer and loves to make noise. He is also now able to hold small toys in his hands and he smiles all the time.

When he's on his tummy sometimes he prefers to suck on his hand more than he likes trying to rollover. We can tell he wants to be mobile soo bad. He loves to stand and be sitting up. He doesn't like laying on his back as much, unless he's under his toys like in the picture below. Or sometimes he finds something interesting to watch. When he's on his back he starts to bed forward or back and then squeals in frusteration when he can't seem to sit up on his own. He usually starts crying until one of us comes to pic him up. This is one way he is extremely vocal.

He's smiley, too. I can tell he's even starting to get a little ticklish because when you tickle him he doesn't laugh but he makes these funny little grunty type noises and smiles. Can't wait til he really laughs.

He is mostly sleeping through the night. Usually he will wake up once at around 4am and want to eat a bit. He might wake up again at six and then he'll sleep til 8. He likes to be up for a while and then he'll take another nap. He's not the best napper. He hardly ever sleeps longer than an hour during the day. He usually takes 3 cap naps though, after 11am.

He now weighs 16lbs 3 oz and if I remember right he is 24.5 in long. His clothes are tight, but a little bit long on him. haha. He's a good eater. He definitely prefers to nurse. Sean sort of has a difficult time feeding him since I've been at work (one of the many reasons why I'm quitting). He won't take the bottle til he's super hungry. He likes it fresh! :) He hasn't tasted any baby food yet. He doesn't seem ready or very interested. I remember before he was born I thought learning to nurse would be hard. That was true, but I never thought about how difficult it would be to decide when to introduce food nor did I think about how hard it would be to teach him to eat. Maybe by next month he'll be sampling a little rice cereal.

He loves it when I sing to him. Usually it calms him right down if he gets a little worked up. He just listens and smiles. He still doesn't like the paci too much. If any, he prefers the one the hospital gave him. Lately I've been able to get him to suck on it to help him fall asleep, but sometimes he just moves it around in his mouth or bites on it like he doesn't really know what it's for. ??? It makes me feel like he's not a real baby... like he's a little man in a baby's body because he seems to just want to get bigger and skip this phase where he cant walk or crawl. He doesn't even like a paci... what a weirdy! :)

Scratch That!

Janurary 1st I posted about how I just wanted to live this year with normalacy and very little change. Well, it's only the 24th and it seems like I can't get away from a hecktic life. Sean and I dedided to make a pretty significant change that I'm actually extremely excited about!
I'M QUITTING MY JOB!! Just put in my notice yesterday!!
Last week was sort of the straw that broke the camel's back. One of the dental assistants recently quit because she found another job. Since she basically just left and didn't give two weeks, I ended up with the job as a dental assistant for two weeks til the new girl started. My days at work were busy and to top it off Sean and I were trying to juggle taking care of Lincoln as well as getting to Sean to work on time at 5. Not to mention both of us actually taking Lincoln to work with us...It was a mess. But it was also just a sort of more extreme version of what we really do every week. We realized that we are exhausted and overloaded. Sean realized that he couldn't be spread so thin. His goals are to move up in the Texas Roadhouse company. He is constantly talking to the managers about how he can make this happen, but last week he realized that because he's home 3 days a week or more with Lincoln he doesn't really have time or flexibility. Add full time school to that mix and you've got one overwhelmed dude. I was feeling like the stress that my job was adding to his life was just not working out because his career is our priority, therefore, we needed to treat it as such. So, in the end we realized that between Pell Grants, our Tax Return and hopefully minimal student loans, we will be able to make ends meet for this year if I stay home. Sean will be working 40 hours a week to impress his managers as well as taking 13 credits. Luckily, the dentist office is letting me come in for about 6 hours a week to just scan documents for them (something that desperately needs to be done) and then I'll be the sub if anyone goes out of town or gets sick. This is sooo much more manageable.
I can't tell you the sense of relief that I feel. Now that the burden is about to be lifted...well it will be completely lifted in about two weeks after I train my replacement... I feel like we will be able to focus on what's most important to us. I'm so looking forward to being able to stay home, take care of Lincoln (and Sean), and clean up our house that became a total diasaster after a crazy week last week.
Now I know for sure that 2012 is going to be a fantastic year!!

2012--I hope it's relatively boring! :)

So the title of this post needs to be explained a little. I'm excited about 2012. I'm hoping that it's purpose is to just help Sean and I have opportunities to progress and work towards our goals. I'm not hoping for any major changes or events and I also don't foresee and major changes or events. The past two years have been extremely intense for me:

2010
Feb 19: return home from my LDS mission
May 5: Sean and I get engaged
May 15: My mom is diagnosed with brain cancer
July 30: Wedding Day
Oct: Sean gets a new job at Texas Roadhouse
Nov: Mom has more cancer growth
Dec: Graduate from BYU
Dec: Get a job

2011
Jan: get fired and hired at another job within a week
Feb 5: We find out I'm pregnant!
May: It's a BOY!!
April: Sister Melissa recieves mission call to Poland
August 12: Mom dies after 15 months of fighting cancer
Sept 7: Melissa leaves on her mission
Sept 23: Lincoln Hawke is born 2 weeks early!

Talk about major changes! I'm looking forward to a year where we can spend time working to better our life together as a family. Hopefully by the end we'll be grateful for the blessing and trials we will have had and we will be moving forward adjusting to the changes that have taken place in the last two years. Here's to a great year in 2012!!