Friday, January 27, 2012

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! :)



Tuesday, January 24, 2012

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!!

Sunday, January 1, 2012

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!!

Monday, December 26, 2011

3 MONTHS



On the 23rd Lincoln turned 3 months old. Let me tell you a little more about him: He is a "good baby". As you might know people ask about that all the time. "Is he a good baby?" or they will say "He seems like a good baby." It's funny because sometimes I think "What's a bad baby like?" but overall I say he is a GREAT baby! He hardly ever cries and when he does he makes these little moaning sounds like he's just sad or tired or frusterated. Rarely do we ever hear him cry so hard it seems like he's not breathing. That's only happened a few times namely when we got his shots. He's not dramatic at all.

He probably weighs about 14 pounds now. He has grown out of most of his 3 month clothes and I've started putting him in 6 month things. He has started doing a lot better sleeping at night. Once he falls asleep, which is usually about 8 give or take, he will sleep for about 5 hours. After that he will wake up every 3 hours to eat just a little bit. He's always super drowsy though and he isn't even awake when it's time to be burped. This is leaps and bounds above what it was like when he was tiny. I'm surviving very well. Once he wakes up he is all smiles. He loves us to hold him so he can stand up on our laps. He'll smile, squeal and do this little stomp with his left foot that's kinda funny.

He loves ceiling fans. It's funny. He loves to stare at our fan in the kitchen. On Christmas Eve I was changing him into his jammies on Sean's parents bed and they have a dark wood fan on the ceiling in the room. It was turning slowly and he was going crazy kicking all over. He is completely enamored by them. Also, when something catches his attention you can never steal it. You can be holding him up in front of you making all sorts of noise and he will just keep looking around at whats interesting. It always makes me laugh.

He is also quite a cuddle bug. We have a California king size bed that all three of us sleep in. Sean and I sleep on either size with regular size pillows and he sleeps right in the middle all sprawled out. Luckily neither Sean and I really move much in our sleep so it works out for us. Usually in the early mornings when I go to work Sean snuggles up with him and he loves it. He goes right back to sleep when he gets startled as soon as he feels us pull him in close. Sometimes when he's tired or not feeling as energetic he'll just let me cradle him even when he's awake and he'll just look around behind me or wherever.

It's so amazing to be a parent for the following reason: here we have this little tiny human that can't even talk let alone pick up an object that's been handed to him and I feel like I know him so well. I can tell whats bothering him. Different cries mean different things. We know what makes him happy and sad. And thats all he really needs right now is parents to take care of him and love him. We love it. It's an incredible blessing in our lives right now.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Not All Fun and Games

The truth is. . . sometimes being new parents is really hard. So far there are two main reasons why: the first one is no surprise and can basically be summed up by saying that you get a severe case of sleep deprivation and there is no turning back. There are a lot of ways life can be crazy when you're sleep deprived. The second is more complicated, but can also be summed up in a few short words: Sean and I have not been on a date since Lincoln was about 2 weeks old. Did I think this would happen? No. I actually thought that I would be more dedicated to us trying to find more time to spend together, but I haven't had time. :) Since we both work and no one else is ever home with Lincoln we spend roughly 50 to 60 hours a week apart from eachother. Add the time Sean goes to school. Then add the fact that the majority of the time when we are in the house at the same time is when we're both asleep. That makes for very little leftover time. The past several weeks we've initiated "Family Night". . . sort of FHE, but it mostly just means that we decide to spend the evening together doing whatever we want. Half of these nights we've ended up falling asleep watching TV together. So its basically family nap night. :)

But, all of this is about to change next week when we are hoping to get a night out for Christmastime! I'm very much looking forward to it! Could I be more proactive about making this happen more often? Of course . . . I know I have several people who would love to babysit! It just takes energy to make it happen. As much as I'm looking forward to going out this next week, I keep wondering what the heck I'm gonna wear! In case anyone wants to know: my normal clothes still don't fit! :( Just ignore the fact that I'm still wearing my maternity jeans and trying to pretend that I'm not. Maybe exercising will be the next thing I'll try to add to my life! :)

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

O COME ALL YE FAITHFUL


I'm not a 16 year old love-struck fan, but David Archuleta sure does make me love this Christmas song! :)

Monday, December 12, 2011

Lincoln's First Bad Day

Today was a hard day for our little Mr. Lincoln. He went to his two month check-up and you guessed it: he got shots! The pain of the shot suprised him and hurt him so much that when he screamed he started to shake a bit and no sound came out of his mouth. It broke my heart when for the first time in his whole life I saw his eyes fill up with tears. He did fine for a few hours, but then late this afternoon he started to get a fever. He was miserable, burning up and not feeling well. He never cries for no reason, but he was really upset this afternoon. Finally we got some Tylonol to help with that and he is sound asleep and much cooler.

Good news though: He weighs a few ounces short of 13 pounds! and he's grown almost 4 inches in the last 2 months!