Blue Dog Swims in the Big Potty

Here's a sampling of the conversations you're missing if you're note at the Gates Home:

(Scene: Ryan just got home from work, Lincoln is helping Jenn cook dinner.)
Lincoln: "I want to do my Advent Calendar."
Ryan (deciding to use big concepts to see how much Lincoln can handle): "We've already done the Advent Calendar for today. But I'm glad you enjoy it. And it's about anticipation. You're anticipating opening the next door just like the Israelites anticipated the coming of Jesus."
Lincoln (thoughtfully): "Where are the Israelites?"
(Scene: Lincoln, running around upstairs when he should be napping. Jenn catches him in the act.)
Jenn (sternly): "Why are you running around?"
Lincoln (matter-of-factly): "I'm running around because my socks are wet."
Jenn (slightly irritated but curious): "How did your socks get wet?"
Lincoln (matter-of-factly): "Blue Dog got them wet."
Jenn (wondering where this is going): "How did Blue Dog get them wet?"
Lincoln: "I dropped him in the big potty."
(And sure enough, Blue Dog was soaking wet and sitting on the step stool by the potty.)

Jenn had her BC Spa open house on Saturday afternoon and Lincoln went down to the cabin at Leesville Lake with Grandpa. It was a big help to have him occupied for the day! (Thanks, Grandpa Doug!) Jenn had a better turn-out than she expected and she got to meet some of our neighbors, which was nice. In the evening, Jenn was putting some things away and I did a double take when I saw her because her lips looked different. I didn't remember her wearing such popping lipstick when we were out shopping. I later found out that she was sampling one of the BC Lipsticks that she was pretty skeptical about (it claimed to remove wrinkles from lips when applied). Holy cow, it worked!

On Saturday night we went Christmas shopping for Lincoln and Lydia. Remind me not to go to Toys R Us on a Saturday evening in December!

We've been getting snowed on in a big way this Sunday and Monday. Just in time for our trip on The Polar Express! I've had to shovel the driveway twice today, and Lincoln "helped" me during the lunch-time shovel on Sunday... ...and for Monday's lunch-time shovel, we just bundled him up for some play time. Last night my Edge guys had a snowball fight in the front yard. And in typical middle school fashion, some put their coats on first while others didn't.
So tonight is The Polar Express. I'll have photos up soon showing the event.

Enjoy the winter wonderland!

Red Christmas Lights

There's simply a lot of Christmas spirit at the Gates home. Lincoln is loving the Christmas lights, and he's enjoying looking through the plethora of catalogs we're receiving. Today we made our first batch of Christmas cookies. We tried out Southern Living's and Good Housekeeping's sugar cookie recipes, and we'll let you know which we like best. Lincoln was good with cutting out the shapes and with liberally applying sprinkles. He's become quite adept at using the KitchenAid mixer. He knows to lock it before turning it on and he knows how to properly add the ingredients. He even broke his first egg today and most of it made it into the bowl. It was the cutest thing to watch him tap it on the side of the bowl 3 or 4 times. You can tell he's been watching us closely as we cook. How many 2.5 year old boys do you know who know how to correctly break an egg?

Lydia has started mimicking some behavior lately. We're also finding out that her patterns are nothing like Lincoln's patterns. She likes to eat in short frequency and big volumes in the morning and in the evening. She's got one really big nap in her for the day, and last night was the best overnight we've had. She has yet to put two similar 24-hour periods together, so we're not holding our breath for tonight. We're getting good use out of the clothes we have for her. With her spit-up frequency reaching peak performance, we get to dress her up in all sorts of different, cute outfits.

How to Make a Cheesecake

Christmas Season, pt. 1

Thanksgiving was a great time with family. Lincoln thoroughly enjoyed his time with cousins Grace and Cole.

Now that Thanksgiving has passed, we are in full Christmas mode: music, decorations, stories, lights. Lincoln is getting really excited. I told him today that only good boys get presents for Christmas and then I asked him if he's a good boy or a bad boy. He replied, "I'm a good boy. But sometimes I'm bad." He's also learning the Christmas story. With all of his other books he has them memorized and I'm guessing it will only be a couple more days until he has the whole thing in his little mind.

He's been helping to decorate our Christmas tree. Speaking of our Christmas tree, we went to Herritage Farm in Peninsula to cut down our own tree on Saturday. It was freezing, but Lincoln was a trooper and Lydia slept the whole time in the Baby Bjorn. Lincoln took the tape measure to measure the trees. He had gotten out of the tape measuring routine for a while, but he's been back in the groove of measuring lots of things lately. Whenever we ask him how big something is, he says, "Five and a half inches." Seriously, everything is 5.5 inches, including our tree.This is the first time since Jenn and I have been married that we've been able to use all of our ornaments. We had two pretty good sized trees in Columbus and Brecksville, but they were still too small to use the ornaments each of us have collected over the years. They all fit on this one!
Lydia has actually started to show some degree of consistency with her overnight sleeping patterns. We'll see how long it lasts, but right now when Jenn feeds her at 8:45 and then puts her to bed, she doesn't get us up until 3:30ish. That's a big step. She's also starting to smile more, but not with any predictability.Lincoln has seen the 24 day Advent Calendar that Grandma Laura gave him a while back. It's all he can do to keep his hands off of it now. We want to keep an element of surprise and anticipation about it, but he's making it hard!

One of the biggest areas of excitement now is the concept of Christmas lights. Lincoln get's totally pumped up when he sees houses decorated, so this evening we took a short walk down our street before bed-time to see what things look like after dark.

Thanksgiving 2010

Thanksgiving with the Gates, Gates, Hopwoods & Watsons. The blessings were abundant and evident.

Pre-Thanksgiving Get-Together

The Hopwoods arrived and Auntie Em has been enjoying her time with Lydia and Lincoln has been loving his time with Grace and Cole. As a parent, it's really neat and special to see how he plays with his cousins. They're all so good together, the way they play and interact. I'm equally proud of Lincoln for tagging along and communicating with them and of Grace and Cole for doing such a good job of including him and helping him along... they even taught him to play Ping Pong!
I'm pretty sure Lydia's hair is here to stay!
I'm blogging here at home as I give the dogs a break from their cages. I took a bunch of photos of our dinner and of the family, so those'll go up soon.

IFC Thanksgiving Dinner

Lot's has been going on with us lately. Jenn and I have been running on fumes as Lydia has yet to consistently move beyond waking up every 3 hours on the hour. She's super cute, though, so we're okay with it.

Lincoln has entered a new phase of his verbal skills. He's coming up with some funny stuff, a la Kids Say The Darndest Things. Spend more than 15 minutes with him and you'll see what I mean. For instance, he picked up a Reese's and asked, "What is this?" I answered, "A Reese's Cup." He replied, "It's a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. That's what you meant to say."
Sunday evening we all went to the Internation Friendship Connections Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner at HCC. There were over 700 people there, and most of the internationals had never been a part of a Thanksgiving Dinner... they didn't even know what Thanksgiving is. Yunfei was there and it was nice to catch up with her. We haven't seen her since the HotAir Balloon Festival. She's quite busy doing her graduate work and working. Lincoln took a while to warm up, but once he was comfortable with his surroundings, he become the center of attention of the four tables surrounding his chair. He was a total ham after dinner. Maybe is was the combination of 1/2 a Pumpkin Pie and 2/3 of an Apple Pie!

Lincoln is more than excited to set up his Christmas Tree. While looking for something in the basement, Jenn and Lincoln found our small, artifical tree. Jenn told him we could set it up in his room. They then went to Hobby Lobby and picked out some train ornaments and blue and white jingle bells (Lincoln really wanted blue jingle bells!). After Thanksgiving, we're going to get the house ready for Christmas. (Not a minute before, like some crazies I know! [You know who you are!])

We are greatly anticipating our time with Auntie Em, Uncle Jeremy, Grace & Cole. They're driving up this evening our Thanksgiving dinner is planned for Thursday. This will be the first time the've seen Lydia! (Recall Lincoln's first Thanksgiving.)

I'll post our Thanksgiving photos as we get them. Enjoy your time with your family this Thanksgiving.

Growing Fast

Today was Lydia's 4 week visit to Dr. Maggie (that's what Lincoln calls her). She's growing like a weed! She's also probably got reflux. It doesn't bother her much now, but she's spitting up with the frequency and volume that Dr. Prevette thinks she may start being bothered by it between 6 and 8 weeks of age. So we'll see. It was a good visit overall.
Some record-keeping items. Lydia is pretty much eating every three hours around the clock. This has been very tiring for Jenn as she never gets much more than 2 continuous hours of sleep through the night. Lydia had slept for between 5 and 6 hours at a time over night a week or so ago, but that time has passed. She wants to be held and/or moving all of the time. Sitting her down when she's awake may be a peaceful thing for 10 minutes max. She's also very good at going back and forth from drowsy to amazingly alert within a short period of time. It's really funny to watch. Especially when I'm holding her and talking with Jenn, I'll look down at her to see her looking up at me in earnest concentration. She's a big-time cutie.

I forgot to mention in my last post that Walmart was playing Christmas music last week. Ugh. Can we just enjoy Thanksgiving first? I'm not a humbug at all, but my goodness! Let's not get sick and tired of Christmas music and decorations before December 1! Several years ago I asked rhetorically, "What's next? Christmas music and decorations before Halloween? Well, lo and behold... So I'm deliberatly avoiding Christmas stuff until the long Thanksgiving weekend because I want all of us to enjoy the season. We'll also be paying attention to Advent this year as we anticipate Christmas. Lincoln will surely be excited about it this year.

Lincoln was particularly funny at dinner time tonight. He was as slap-happy as I've seen him in a long time. Here's some still's of the laughs: