6 Weeks

Raise your hand if you are 6 weeks.

Can you believe the difference in only 6 weeks? I mean, his head is gargantuan now. I think he is going through a growth spurt because he basically wants to eat all the time. Eat, play, sleep, repeat. Mostly though, eat.

Lincoln is growing out of clothes right and left. He is still wearing his newborn onesies but barely, and he is moving into his size 0-3 items. Somethings he didn't wear very much and I'm like wait! Wear this one again! Just for a little while!

My arm tastes delicious..

Lincoln does not love tummy time. He really likes being on his side, and usually if he is on his back he will flip to his side just for fun. He also does not like his carseat very much either unless he is already asleep when you put him in it which pretty much never happens. "The Transfer" is hard no matter what. He seems to calm down if I talk to him, or even if Isabelle talks to him which is pretty much the cutest thing ever. She says, "Don't worry linc, we almost home. It's o-tay."

Isabelle put the mr. potato head hat on him. Dapper!

And the big news this week is that Lincoln is SMILING. Not just in his sleep- like authentic look-me-in-the-eyes happy kind of smile. He's done it now for me and Jazz and my mom so I have witnesses. This is a sleepy blurry smile but look how cuuuuute.

Isabelle always wants to hold him for about four seconds then she says, "I all done."

Sometimes I really do nibble his cheeks, just a little bit because he is so soft and he smells so good. This time is passing too quickly.

Epilogue, posted in 2018

thoughts i never posted- now posting 8/2018

It's been 6 weeks since I had major surgery and birthed a baby. 6 weeks to think about how Lincoln came into our family and how we've adjusted since then.My body has mostly healed and so has my heart. Sometimes I read over what I have written about his birth story and it makes me cry- mostly because it is such a sacred time, no matter how your baby is born. I ache to experience it again.

The more I talk about labor and birth and c-sections, the more I hear stories that sound like mine. Friends and neighbors and aunts and blog friends. It's nice to know I'm not alone, so thanks for sharing. No matter how many stories I read- they are ALL different, including mine. Nobody can predict how it will go and I'm just thankful in the end for a healthy baby.

That being said- It stings to watch a baby story or baby's first day or one born every minute or any of those stupid shows. I love/hate hearing about people who have easy fast labors. I envy them. Yes, I will always be disappointed that I didn't have the birth I envisioned, BUT I am at peace knowing it is out of my hands. It is out of my hands. It is out of my hands.

But there are some good parts! Like, next time we will be able to pick the baby's birthday! And hopefully follow our trend of even-day births. Which will be great. And I will get a good night's rest the night before the surgery. No two weeks in a foreign city without Jazz, no waiting around, no being a week overdue. No cervical checks or stripping membranes or anything like that. We will be able to arrange child care for Linc and Izzie ahead of time. I will walk myself into the OR and be wheeled out an hour later. Strange? Possibly.


When I talk to people, I want to so badly tell them that everything went perfectly and it was no problem but I always say something about how it was a great experience.. but in the end I did have a c-section.

I can't seem to delete my contraction notes from my phone for some reason. Maybe because I will never have them again? I hate that.


The other day I psoted on my facebook that I wish I could keep having babies forever. I really do mean that. I love the whole experience and before you roll your eyes and barf


I'm breaking up with my OB.

Chit chat with Iz.

I don't usually post videos but this clip is too fun to miss. 

I want to eat her whole, she is so cute.

Thanks Aunt Brit for the new bathtub toys!

PS the chicken she is talking about really did bite her.

more stuff about babies.

Well, I officially have nothing to blog about besides my babies. Plural, cause I have two of them now ya know.

I am slowly feeling like we are finding a new sense of normal.

Normal includes waking up in the middle of the night to spend some time with baby Linc. Or waking up to Isabelle throwing Leilani on my face.

Normal includes putting on clean yoga pants after a shower. A brief shower.

It includes baby barf down my cleavage and diapers too many to count.

Also includes making dinner with one hand and rarely using the restroom alone. (Is nothing sacred!)

I inhale my food at most meals. Inhale.

My hair is on a permanent wash second day schedule.

I find that we make a plan, usually every other day to make some venture out of the house. Too many consecutive outings make me tired and my brain explode. It helps to pack the diaper bag the night before with anything we might possibly need ever. For my two babies.  I've learned to park by the cart return and NOT the front of the store- it doesn't matter how sweet of a parking spot it is if you have to carry an infant in a car seat and a 30 pound squirming toddler across the street. Then I'm just sweaty.

Always feed Linc right before we leave or we may as well not leave at all. Even then, I took him to TJ Maxx the other night and got a whopping 30 minutes before he was all, yo mam feed me. He doesn't love his car seat either. Could this post be any more random?

I can't get everything done in one day. Like either the house is clean, but the laundry is all piled up. Or we got groceries! But failed to pick up any of the toys. I can exercise! But can't get dinner ready on time. There is never enough time in the day. Actually, I don't have enough ENERGY to get the things done in the day I'd like to. And since I am a lover of sleep, that usually gets top priority. Am I right? Sleep trumps all?

Isabelle has figured me right out. She knows that when I'm nursing it's not convenient for me to get up and take something away/pull her off the counter/chase after her. She gives me the most hilarious and infuriating look like 'mom are you watching look what I can do!' Most times it isn't a big deal. Like the other day she pulled everything out of her dresser one by one and brought them out to show me. Then she said "I be riiight back I get one more thing!" It meant a lot a clean up for me later but at least it wasn't a drawer of knives or pills or bombs. I'm a great mother.

Hi, I'm ten pounds already. Nbd.

PS: We are planning to bless Lincoln in church on March 4th at 11:00 am. All of our friends and fam are welcome!

already one month

It's been one month already. One month with little Lincoln in our family... four weeks went by so quickly I can hardly believe it. Lincoln continues to be such a good baby, pretty mellow and happy. He eats every 3 hours during the day, last feeding at 9 pm and then not again until 3 am like clock work. I usually sleep from 10:30-3, and then 4:15 to 7:30. Pretty good, right? I think I'm getting more sleep now than the first 8 months of Isabelle's life. Let's be honest though, I still try to nap if I can- the triple nap in our house is a rare feat but it can be done! Oh I love to sleep.

So far we have gone on walks, to the park, to target, and to visit dad and grandpa at work on Valentine's day (with donuts!). That's pretty much all I can handle right now doing the solo outings. So much to drag around, and such a short window of time before you gotta hook the baby back up. Every day this week I think today is the day I get groceries. And then I don't. And we have frozen food or noodles for dinner.

Lincoln loves his bath, and he loves to be swaddled but NOT until he is asleep. Don't even try it. When he wakes up and is hungry he is super impatient, like WHY IS NO ONE FEEDING ME. I usually hurry and change his diaper but he cries every time until he gets what he wants. Just like Isabelle, he does this frantic shark face when he is hungry and it's so funny. He is growing out of his newborn clothes! I bet he is maybe 9 pounds? Ish? Moving into his 0-3 clothes, and he is in size one diapers.

jowly cheeks



blue steel




Getting chunky!

 Isabelle continues to be awesome at being the big sister. So far she hasn't been jealous or angry or anything. She says, "I wuv baby linc." She wants to do anything he is doing. During tummy time she gets her own blankie and lays down next to him and puts her arm around him. Kills me.

She has since gotten a haircut. Mullet = gone.

We were at church last Sunday and made it through all three hours. Basically, it was like getting a gold medal at the religious Olympics. I jokingly told Jazz we are good for at least another month or so now... anyway I was waiting in the hall outside of Sunday school for Lincoln to be really asleep before I went in and this sweet elderly lady came over. She congratulated me and asked about the new baby. Then she leaned in close and said, "Don't be alarmed but I'm going to smell him." And she bent her old little body down and put her nose close to his head and closed her eyes and inhaled a big breath of newborn baby smell. And for one minute I didn't see her as old or frail but just like me, a mother, her baby rearing time long gone. We were two women sharing a moment over a new special spirit- there is nothing like the scent of fresh new baby and I don't blame her for wanting to remember how that felt.

For as long as I live I will never forget that moment. And I hope when I am 75 the memory of the quiet moments with my babies will always be fresh in my mind. If not, I hope some young mother will let me smell her newborn.

linc's first bath

Lincoln's belly button finally fell off after two weeks, but there was still some weird chunk thing happening so I asked our pediatrician about it when he had his checkup. She called it a granuloma, or a cluster of cells, whatever.. it happens to 1/500 babies. She zapped it with  a bunch of silver nitrate and it eventually healed up. Healed button = BATH TIME! He was seriously three weeks old already and the sponge baths can only do so much ifyaknowwhatimean. Plus Isabelle was really wanting to see the whale tub in action. (And we counted it as an activity for family home evening. Bonus!)

Have you ever seen a tinier bum?

So far the verdict is: bath time is awesome. Getting out is less awesome. Being cold while getting dressed is horrible.

Baby Isabelle on the left, Baby Lincoln on the right.



adventures with two

We are tired! But we are alive!

Jazz is back to work and we are flying solo at home. So far, so good. I mean I’m super tired and I’ve only sort of made dinner once and yesterday the Costco sized fabric softener exploded onto the floor and I literally shut the door and left it there for later. Like a little welcome home present for Jazz. Surprise! But we are slowly adjusting to having two children in our house. Lincoln is a wonderful baby, mostly content and happy just to be held and hang out. Isabelle loves to be the big sister and “help” me whenever she can.



"I hold him?"



Isabelle hates socks, but not if Lincoln is wearing them! Must match.

Most of my day consists of feeding Lincoln from the couch, and getting Isabelle juice. Seriously- 90% of my day, right there. I’m finding it hard to balance giving Isabelle enough play time and interaction since so much of my time is spent nursing. Of course I play with her when I can but it is hard to tell her I can’t do playdoh or go for a walk or help her undress her doll because there’s a newborn in my lap. I can tell her little face gets so frustrated when I can’t do something for her, and then I just want to die. I go to bed feeling guilty wondering if I could have spent more time with her during the day. Mother's guilt! Does that part get easier? Yes? She’s been so patient and mostly so happy- except when I force her to wear a shirt because she HATES IT. Obviously I’m out to make her life terrible.

Homemade baby carrier.

Sometimes I look at the clock ten times and no matter how hard I try I can’t remember what time I started nursing. I usually keep track once I’m finished, so I know when he will be hungry again… but especially in the middle of the night my brain is sort of fuzzy. I fed Linc at 1, and when he woke up at 4 to eat again, I could not for the life of me figure out why he wanted to eat since clearly in my mind he had eaten at 3, so he shouldn’t have been hungry so soon. The only thing that made sense at the time was to attribute the confusion to the three hour time change between east and west coast… of COURSE that’s why he was hungry! The time change!

Seriously, my mind absolutely thought that was the reason.

The other night I came into our bedroom to get something, Lincoln was fussy and Jazz woke up. Jazz said, “Whats going on?” I told him the baby was fussy and was having a hard time going to sleep. He replied, “What baby?” Um… our son? Clearly we are both delusional.

Also I'm pretty sure we will never go anywhere ever again. I definitely forgot how time consuming feeding a baby is. I’m sure it works like that on purpose, otherwise we probably wouldn’t keep having babies. Anyway, Lincoln feeds every 3 hours, and each feeding takes a little over an hour. (feed burp feed burp diaper change feed burp feed burp.) So really, I have like an hour and 45 minutes in between to get anything done. By the time I shower and get ready, he is hungry again. Then its lunch time, and then Isabelle’s nap time, then dinner time, then bath and bed time. I wonder if Target delivers. Every night I make really great plans like hey we should go to the park! Or tomorrow I will definitely put some make up on! And more often than not, Jazz comes home to a toy tornado and me in my sweat pants with a men's t-shirt half on. At least we are all alive and fed, right?


Isabelle feeding her baby.

In conclusion- it's pretty awesome having two babies, even though it's a juggling act and I feel like a sedentary dairy cow.

lincoln's newbies

When Lincoln was six days old we had some pictures taken by the very talented Kara Stewart. She came to our home which was sooo much more convenient then trekking all of our crap/children to another location. Plus I still wasn't very mobile yet from the surgery so being home was awesome. Once we got the little ninja to sleep, she got some amazing shots. She even grabbed some of Isabelle because again, she is awesome. Awesome I say!  Here is a smallish sampling of our favorites... there are over a hundred and it would be embarrassing to post them all (or would it.)

This is my favorite. Isabelle disappeared for a minute and came back naked with a pillowcase and a clip for her cape. Best ever.

I love them! I love them alllllll! How will we ever choose which ones to print and hang?

PS. I saved a few secret ones for Lincoln's baby announcement.. if you have moved or have a new address, I need it!