Hodge Podge

We have been having fun down here while the weather was nice for a few days, working around the yard, visiting grandpa and grandma, playing with friends, getting new neighbors and new fish! So here is a little update on our clan;

First off our garden is growing in very well! YeaH! We are going to harvest some spinach today, our starts survived a rough beginning and everything except the green beans are thriving. Those darn beans just like to stay small and yellow. No pics of the garden yet... every time I go out there I have to watch Lincoln too closely to take pictures :0) He doesn't quite understand why he can't walk on the plants!

We went up to Bill and Kay's on Saturday to help out around the place. Levi and Bill built a staircase outside while Linc, Kay and I tried to get some work done but we decided it was just too hot! I love that! She eventually got some stuff done but I have been having low blood pressure so I opted out of "work" and just watched Linc :0)This is Linc's chainsawing face :0)Probably not the best idea... no injuries though!

Sunday we went back up to Florence and Bill took Linc and I to the Rhododendron Festival's grand finale, the Parade! It was awesome, perfect weather and so fun to watch Lincoln get all excited about the horses and clowns and "big, big trucks". He had a great time and managed to taste his very first piece of candy that he got from one of the floats. Bill said it almost brought him to tears watching Lincoln's excitement. It is so funny how much more fun things are with all that enthusiasm.

We have new neighbors, 11 to be exact in the form of baby bovines! I LOVE IT! and so does Lincoln. We woke up one day last week to the sound of baby "moo"'s. They are so sweet. We haven't got to go take an up close look but we stand in the front yard and watch them every chance we get. Lincoln will say "BIG BIG COW" and then "boo" at them :0) It is precious! Here are some videos of him mooing (I've got to get a better camcorder so you can hear him and not me!) and he learned how to "jump". The first time he made it all the way off the ground but fell over so now he does this hilarious jump spasm thing... it's awesome and I make him do it about thirty times a day :0)

One of the many perks of doing pictures for people is that I get paid! Sometimes in the form of money for my gear fund and sometimes using a kind of barter system which is totally awesome!! It's nice to bless people while I have fun and it is equally fun to see what people will bring me as thank yous. I've gotten anything from secret family brownie recipes to dinner to movie tickets to beautiful house do dads and just yesterday my friends Corvin and Connie brought out something that just about knocked me over, A whole aquarium set up. Corvin is a fish guy. I told Connie about my fish troubles long before I did their photos in general conversation so after I finished up their shoot Corvin volunteered to set me up a 10 gallon aquarium for Lincoln. He brought out the tank, seed water from his own tank, filters, bubble rocks, lights, tank decor AND 11 fish!! Lincoln now has four peaches (that's what I call them), four neon strawberries (again, my name), two blueberries (that is their real name :0), a little sucker fish and of course our sole survivor Moses, lovingly referred to as Mo the goldfish. It is BEAUTIFUL and best of all Lincoln absolutely adores his fish!

And in closing what do you do for a giant goose egg? Lincoln fell over this morning while playing on my recently washed sleeping bags, knocked his head on the mantel and immediately wound up with this amazing shiner... I panicked of course... called Levi... took pictures to send him to see if I needed to take him to the hospital... then called mom to try and figure out how to get Linc to let me ice it... then called Levi again.. and again... it was just so big!

Luckily it went down a bit on it's own but man, I have never seen something like that and I have seen a lot of stuff. I was a little worried but as you can see Lincoln's pain tolerance is pretty good, what a cute smile :0)

Here are some random cute shots of Linc while we were at grandma and grandpa's. He is a man of many faces :0)

The new "smile for the camera"...