Lincoln's One!

I keep not posting for long periods of time...sorry guys!

So much has happened over the last month and I have so many things to talk about (new tattoos, more home improvements, milestones for both boys), but by far the most fun is the fact that Lincoln turned 1 on July 23rd!! Get ready for some pictures y'all!

One of Lincoln's favorite things to do is make music. He likes banging on his xylophone, he loves shaking his jingle bells (while I sing "Shake Shake Shake" of course), and he even likes to sing on occasion, though of course the tunes and words are all of his own invention. Because of this, I thought it would be fun to throw a music-themed party, so there were kazoos and flutes and a music note cake. Haha! Kid parties are kind of the best!

Even though Lincoln's neat eating disappointed my mom's hopes for a cake-in-the-hair moment (haha...apparently I just breed clean eaters cause Levi doesn't really make messes like that either), I think he had fun eating his first piece of birthday cake.

And of course, we opened some presents...

 Clearly big brother wanted to help Lincoln unwrap (and play with) all of his presents. Haha!

 Just like when Levi turned one, I made Lincoln a toddler-sized (aka not tiny) tagged blanket. Lincoln's is aqua and olive. Spunky colors for a spunky kiddo.

 And yes, I chopped off all my hair. It's actually even shorter now, but that's for another day...

Sometimes it take 4 people to unwrap a present. Justin's actually dipping Lincoln into the bag so he can grab the tissue paper and pull it out. 

Now that he's one, I've been working on weaning Lincoln. As of today, he only drinks mommy milk at night (like the middle of the night...whomp whomp...). He really had no problem switching to cow's milk. This week, he drank an entire quart of whole milk all by himself in 5 days. 5 DAYS! A QUART! These boys are already eating us out of house and home! 

Lincoln's not walking yet, but he pulled up to standing all by himself the other day and can slowly cruise around the furniture. He's also really trying to talk. He says, "What's this?" and "To read." (Wahziss??...Tooweed!!) Such a sweetie! 

He's also growing a bunch. At his 9-month wellness check-up, our pediatrician mentioned that if he didn't start gaining more weight, we may have to supplement his diet because he was so tiny, but now he's all the way up to the 22nd percentile in weight!! Hey-O! I know it's still tiny, but it's so much higher than what he was, so that's really exciting! I mean, it makes sense...you read how much milk he's drinking...

Hopefully I'll be posting again soon! I'm writing this while I watch the Olympics, so maybe I'll do that again later this week. :-D

It's Finally Happening!

Y'all...after saying I was going to do this MONTHS ago, I finally opened my Etsy store! It's called RockAndPetalHome. I only have two items for sale right now, but I have more that just need to be framed or prepped for shipping before I can add them, so it will have more soon. I'm super excited about it!!

In other news...

As I said I would talk about the hubs last time I wrote a post, here's what's been going on in the land of Justin lately:

• He went to a work conference in San Diego and got to do/see some pretty cool stuff, including seeing the Eucalyptus trees at UC San Diego that inspired Dr. Seuss' The Lorax (super cool!!), and going to a Speakeasy which you had to go through a hidden door to get into (also super cool!!). 
• While at said conference, Justin gave a presentation with his co-workers, which I'm sure he doesn't think is a big deal at all, but I think it is, so yay J!! 
• Yesterday morning Justin took his comps (comprehensive exams) for the HESA Master's program. That's such a big hump to get past, so the stress of looming exams is no longer over his head. Now if he could just know how he did... (there's always something right?) 
• Justin got a new phone through work (hello iPhone 6S!) which signals the beginning of us FINALLY getting our own phone plan. I know...we're such millennials... And bonus, his phone has a much better camera on it than my lousy iPhone 4 (yes...that's what I'm still using right now) so the pictures for my store are going to get a face lift (see story cover photo and logo for examples). 
• Justin is playing on an adult-league flag football team through the city with some friends from work. The boys and I haven't been able to go to a game yet, but I'm sure Justin's a stud out there. That being said, his first game was played without cleats, so he came home all bloody from sliding all over the field (not exaggerating), and during the second game, my dad's old cleats (which he was wearing), decided to come apart mid-game. Let me rephrase, the bottom came off one of the cleats, but not the other, so he had to hobble around in one cleat and one slipper (as he called it). Hahahaha! We'll get him some proper cleats before his next game.
• Justin got a 12-week pass for Crossfit through work (hello!), so he's going to be starting that this weekend. Sounds like voluntary time in a torture chamber to me, but to each his own I guess.

Also, over the past few weeks, Justin and I have completely redone the landscaping in our front yard. This was REALLY hard work...like harder than I thought it would be. We had to dig up a bunch of bushes, remove the old edging stones, plant new plants, haul in fresh top soil and mulch, and create a new edge using rocks from the side of our yard. (side note...the previous owner of our house, for reasons unknown, decided to lay rocks over a large portion of the side of our yard. My guess was that the grass wasn't growing well so they put down rocks to cover the lack of grass, but now weeds and some grass are growing there, but we can't mow it, so there's this weird rock/weed part of our yard. We gathered a lot of these rocks for the border to our new flower beds and hardly made a dent in the number of rocks over there, but hey, free rocks!)

Here are some before and after pics:

Man...our grass looks thirsty...whoops...

Anyway, so we replaced all the crazy bushes with (on the left) a black knight butterfly bush, two pentas, and some lantanas (see below), and (on the right), 3 floribunda rose bushes - two Livin' Easy roses, which have apricot blooms, and one Julia Child rose, which is the old-fashioned yellow rose below, a hybrid tea rose (Lady Bird Johnson rose, which is big and coral and beautiful), and some more lantanas.

This is the Julia Child rose. I've been having a lot of fun pruning all of these flowers. Who knew that I'd like gardening so much? All of the roses have been recovering from transplant shock, but this one is doing the best. I'll post pictures of some of the other roses when their buds bloom.

If you look back at the RockAndPetalHome picture at the opening of this post, you'll see a faded Lady Bird Johnson rose that I pruned off this morning. Keep in mind, it's super faded.

These are some of the lantanas that we have in both beds. They love the heat and are super easy to take care of. They're actually all over the place in Central Texas. 

Also...my mailbox Zinnias have gotten a little out of control...hahahaha!! That's not cute...oh well! 

The next project we will be tackling will be for Justin to install gutters in the front of the house to protect our new flower babies. He's also going to put rain barrels (hidden by a handmade fence) on the side of our house to catch the water because 1) it's eco-friendly...yay!, and 2) it'll help us save money on our water bill (assuming it rains)...yay!

Highlight Hodge Podge

Hi Everyone!

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything...sorry! :-/ Without any ado whatsoever, here's a random highlight list of things that have been going on in House Hardegree (get ready...):

1. Ya'll...Justin built me a clothesline and I LOVE IT!! Check it out!

It has 4 lines, spaced 15-inches apart, and is in the sunniest part of our yard. It's perfect! Now I can do multiple loads of laundry a day if I want to instead of having to space everything out. I also got a fun little pink lap apron to hold my clothespins in while I hang up clothes. Super nerdy? Maybe...

2. I made Levi binoculars out of toilet paper rolls and he explored the entire house with them saying, "I see a wall and a door and a window and a tree!" (or whatever it was that he was looking at). They had a strap made out of pipe cleaners so he could wear them around his neck, which he did for almost the entire day. Mommy success!

Lincoln wanted to get in on the toilet paper roll action too, which of course meant chewing on them. Ha!

3. Lincoln got to swing in a swing for the first time and he LOVED it. He was a little giggle monster the entire time. 

4. Levi made a picture by gluing little cut-up pieces of straw onto a piece of paper (think macaroni art) and squirted the glue out of the bottle all by himself. He was really proud of himself and I was proud of him too because he didn't get glue everywhere! 

If you're wondering what's on his face, he got into my personal marker stash and colored all over himself before I could get to him. It's happened before and, unfortunately, it'll probably happen again. Toddlers.

5. The boys and I played with homemade Sidewalk Paint in the driveway (Cornstarch, water, and food coloring). So fun! I put some in squirt bottles for levi and then poured some out for Lincoln to play with. After the paint was all used up, we had even more fun making it disappear with lots of water.

Don't worry...it's taste-safe.

6. Levi's really into cooking lately. When we were up visiting Grandma and Papa, Levi helped make pulled pork for dinner. Little chef.

7. Lincoln started crawling the day after Memorial Day!! His movements have been a little jerky, but he's getting better at it. He actually realized that he could go places while crawling a couple of days ago, so he set off down the hall giggling because he was following me. Then, when I passed him to go back to the living room, he turned around and started crawling and giggling again. It's been super cute. And of course, as always accompanies crawling, I had to rearrange some of the stuff on low shelves and have had to create impenetrable chair fortresses around the cat food to keep him out, which he openly does not appreciate. But let's be honest, that's kinda funny too. Haha!

He's so excited that he's crawling in his crib. Haha! 

8. Check out my plants! The first pic is of my Zinnias. No blooms yet, but they are getting massive!! I knew it said "giant" on the package, but I didn't realize what that meant. Haha! Below that is our garden. I've now transplanted the pepper plants into the garden and actually used some of the cilantro while I was cooking the other day. Let me tell you, that was super cool to be able to pop out there, pick off a few leaves, and throw 'em straight into my mixing bowl. The last pictures are buds on one of my Marigolds and my biggest Zinnia (looks like it's going to be pinky-purple!!!!)! Hopefully my next post with have more than just green in the picture.

Can you tell how big they are? It's hard to see green on green, but that one in front reaches almost to the bottom of the 7.

9. Popsicles! Sometimes I make popsicles out of smoothies and we all shared some for a snack in the backyard the other day. It was Lincoln's first frozen treat and he was all about it. It got EVERYWHERE!

10. We got new windows on our house!! I have before and after pictures for you below, but it's hard to really communicate the drastic change. The whole house looks different on the inside too! No more old, spider-web-filled, silver, unopenable windows!! The house is quieter and more comfortable. I can open the front window now, which allows for a nice breeze in the morning and then I can close all the windows in the afternoon and put the AC at 79 or 80 and be completely comfortable, not at all hot. It was a great investment. I'm not sure what we're going to do next as far as house projects, mostly because we can't decide, but we've thrown around updating the front-yard landscaping and building a new backyard porch swing. We'll see! You can also see how much our yard has improved in the last month. I took the first picture when we ordered the windows in May, and since then, our yard has filled in dramatically thanks to some weed and feed treatments that Justin's done. Hey-O! (We're pretty confident that we had a grub infestation last summer that killed almost all of our grass...so this is exciting...for us at least...haha!)

11. After Memorial Day weekend, I was getting increasingly frustrated with Levi and his refusal to mind me. So, after some research (re-reading my Jo Frost book and watching old episodes of Supernanny on YouTube...you think I'm joking...), I wrote out some house rules and started afresh on the discipline front. After just a couple days, Levi's back to being the sweet, well-behaved-for-a-two-year-old kid that I know and love. (I love him regardless, but goodness, my patience was getting stretched REALLY thin.) Here are our house rules with some cute creatures to remind us that following these rules makes life a lot more peaceful. (Ok...maybe I just like drawing little creatures and took advantage of the opportunity...so what?)

12. Now that Lincoln can crawl, he's gotten into some shenanigans, as I hinted at earlier. The other day I was changing his diaper in the living room, and when I left him laying there so I could fold a diaper, he rolled over really quick and started crawling around naked. Haha!! Then, Levi saw him and I hear a "snap-snap" and then "Levi wants to be naked too!," and next thing I know, Levi is also crawling around naked like his brother. They both stopped at the back door to look outside. What goofs!!

13. Levi painted with tempera paint for the first time yesterday. We rolled cars in the paint to make tracks and stamped different items in the paint to make shapes (like foam blocks and toilet paper rolls). He also experimented with popsicle sticks and straws to see if they worked like brushes.

14. I got my cartilage pierced on the Friday before Memorial Day! Justin smiled when he saw it (don't worry...he knew I was getting it...I didn't just show up with a new piercing), and then said, "Another hole in my wife's face." Oh J. I don't consider my ear to be my face per say. And anyway, despite his first comment, which I think was part him picking on me and part him thinking nostalgically back to the time when I had fewer piercings, I think he likes this one. At least he warmed up to it A LOT quicker than the eyebrow. Ha!

Other random stuff about/pictures of Levi:

Waffles!

Levi was trying to get a box of toys out in Lincoln's room today and sang this song to the tune of the Jurassic Park theme: "There are toys in there. There are toys in there. There are toys...inside...the box!" I immediately started laughing and therefore inadvertently ended the improvisational masterpiece, but what a gem! In case you've been living under rock and don't know what song I'm talking about, click here and start plugging in the words once you get to the main theme.

What'd I tell you about the markers...it happened again. Levi created a game where he got into his hamper and then very slowly leaned until he fell over with the basket in slow-motion and then spilled out laughing. 

Out of the blue quote that accompanied this: "See? Levi likes eating spinach!" He was eating some baby spinach from my sandwich while we picnicked outside the zoo. I wasn't talking to him when he said this, he just decided to confess it to me like we'd been talking about it all along and I just didn't believe him. 

Playing one of his favorite games: separate/match the buttons.

Levi's current favorite words are actually, as in "actually, I think it's a circle," (sometimes he's right, sometimes he's wrong, but he's always correcting someone), and hilarious. Many things are hilarious...Lincoln, watching a car roll down a block ramp, a bird chirping. You know...the usual stuff.

On our way back from Irving after Memorial Day, when Justin was at a work conference in San Diego, I took the boys to the Czech Stop in West to get Kolaches. The place is normally packed, but for some reason (weather maybe?), I didn't even have to wait in line (always a good thing when you have two little boys with you). I got us some sausage and cheese kolaches for our mid-morning snack and as Levi ate his, he said, "This sausage is GOOD." He then pulled the sausage out of the kolache and ate it first by itself. That kid knows what's up. If you haven't had a sausage and cheese kolache from the Czech Stop, then you need to know that this sausage is awesome!! I can't remember the name of it, but it's czech (obviously) and delicious.

Other random stuff about/pictures of Lincoln:

He may be crawling, but he's still a sweet little baby boy.

Exploring at the library!

Lincoln's vocabulary is starting to increase a little bit, and he also tries to imitate words if you ask him too. He can say "Done" when he finishes eating, or napping, or playing, or whatever; "Tiss" for kiss; "Ga" for cat; "Dada" sometimes; and "Tee" or "teethie" for teeth. He's also said "detss" for dance, "sh" or "shh-shh" or "zee" for fishy; and "tuh-tuh" for turtle. Levi encourages Lincoln to learn new words too. The other day we went to the zoo and when we pulled into the parking lot Levi said, "Zoo! Say Zoo Lincoln! Say Zoo!"

Both boys:

The magnet room at the museum.

Ok. I realize this is SUPER long. And I actually have more to say, but I don't want to exhaust your eyes, and/or completely lose your interest, so be on the lookout for more Hardegree blogging in the next day or so. :-D