Look Who Turned One

Lincoln Benjamin turned one on May 21, and he is a cutie with all his brown hair that we've cut several times, his two bottom teeth that show every time he smiles, and best of all his chub rolls on his thighs (Natalie never had those and his aren't even that big, but, oh so squeezable!). He weighs in at a hefty 21 pounds 1 ounce (25%) and is 29 3/4 inches tall (50%). He loves to walk with assistance from Mom and Dad, a scooter bike, or the furniture (he will occasionally let go, but not for long). He can crawl at amazing speeds though. He also enjoys climbing just about anything, especially our LoveSac to reach the blinds and the stairs at the parks we go to (he will even slide by himself, but he's not a fan of swinging). He loves to jump in his bed while holding the railing or even on Mom and Dad's bed holding on the headboard. He enjoys eating, animals, reading books, playing outside, going on walks, looking out the screen doors, unrolling the toilet paper, playing chase with Natalie, being tickled and thrown up in the air by Dad, and generally being around Natalie and doing what she is doing (if she lets him). The cutest thing is watching/listening to them laugh together, which happens often especially in their room while Lincoln is in his crib (Natalie loves to throw things in and climb up and talk to him while standing on the railing or on the radiator) or at the dining room table during meals. However, Lincoln's most favorite thing is probably Mom--who can blame him! :)

We had a small family celebration for Lincoln on Wednesday night. I made a tiger face cake, which turned out really cute. Lincoln opened a couple presents--a book from Natalie and jeans and pajamas from Mom and Dad, a card and money from Grandma & Grandpa Tobler, and a book of Mother Goose Rhymes from Grandma & Grandpa Taylor. He really liked the lit candle, but needed assistance from Natalie to blow it out. Natalie was way more excited about the whole day and kept singing the "Happy Birthday" song all day with Mom, she helped wrap the presents and kept trying to blow out the candle, which we did let her do after we got some pictures. Then we ate some cake, talked to grandparents and Lincoln talked up a storm, and the kids got to take a bath together since they (mostly Lincoln) had cake and icing all over themselves.

Anyway, I can't believe how fast time has gone and how different Lincoln is from the day he was born. He definitely has a different personality and temperament than Natalie.

2008 Amazing Race Champions

On Saturday Ben & I had the exciting opportunity to attend a great party hosted by the VanCamp's. They put on their own version of The Amazing Race in Warrenton for Emily's birthday (her birthday is the same as mine, but it's a bit cold in March for this kind of thing). There were 4 couples competing (2 didn't show)-Dameon/Baelen, Travis/Melanie, Emily/Linzi, and us. We were to meet at their house at 3 pm to start the race. We were the last to arrive and so were supposed to leave last, however, we were parked behind the 3rd team (E/L), so we got to go before them. We had to follow exactly the hand drawn map we were given at each leg and obey all speed limits and traffic laws or we would be disqualified. The first stop was an elementary school yard where one partner had to pitch a baseball to the other and it had to be hit 10 times in a row past the pitcher. If it was a bad pitch or didn't go past you had to start all over. I pitched to Ben and we did awesome (all my years of softball paid off), we only had to start over once and we were at 8. Oh well. We were finished for several minutes before the next team. The losing team had to run a lap around the parking lot holding hands. So we got to go first on the next leg, but they only gave us like 30 seconds or something like that. The next stop was a parking lot and then we had to run to he library. Too bad Ben had me take a wrong turn and we had to turn around to follow the map exactly (to Ben's dismay I insisted we be honest even though we were only a block away from the final destination), we ended up getting there 3rd. Can I just say Ben is in great shape, but I'm really not! I had no idea we would be doing so much running! So we had to pick fact or fiction and we picked fiction. We were given a sub-plot for a book and we had to find the book and show it to Brad. We had no idea and we asked the librarian and she said she had a guess and wrote it down--she was right--The Brothers Karamazov!! We found the book and were surprised to find out we were the first done but we know had a fact to find. We had to find in a book the weapon used to assassinate Lincoln. We found it and we were the first couple done again. We again waited for everyone to finish and talked about what everyone had to find. We started this leg first again and the map led us to Cold Stone. One partner (me in our case) had to eat a Gotta Have it All special creation bowl of ice cream using a sampling spoon. It's a good thing I was hungry and too bad it wasn't warmer outside!! I should not have gotten the kind with chocolate chips because they were all hard and required more chewing, plus when the 4th place team got there, Travis started inhaling his ice cream, which made me have to eat faster and the chocolate built up on the back of my teeth and I bit my cheeks several times--ouch! So I won by one bite. (My dad would be proud of my ice cream eating abilities). We got to go first again and this time the map led to a ward member's farm where the partner that didn't eat ice cream had to pick a number and catch a chicken with that number on its leg. Ben had a great head start but the 50 chickens were everywhere and Ben thought the roosting house was off limits. But, after another team had gotten their chicken inside there Ben found his there too--unfortunately we were 3rd (the 4th team got lost and never made this event). There was only one more leg of the race and I thought there was no way we could pull it off. However, we followed the map exactly and made it to the destination of our stake patriarch's house and we were team 2 (the team that started in 1st took a wrong turn and were way behind, & team 4 met Brad back at Cold Stone for directions to the last place). The patriarch and his wife set up this one. We had to follow a string from their front door to a path in the woods on their property. We had 5 stops on the way. Stop 1 we had to find an Easter egg, stop 2 we had to collect 5 different tree leaves, stop 3 we just kept going, stop 4 one partner (Ben) had to run back to the beginning and grab a yellow tag while the other (me) had to memorize D&C 14:7 (this is where we overtook the 1st place team--since Ben has been working out for over 6 months he did a great job running this path that was curvy and bumpy and slippery with mud from rain), stop 5 was on a gate and it told us to run back to their backyard. Once there we had to throw baseballs and knock our cup off the table--it took us 4 throws (my throw knocked it off). We then had to grab our cup and grab all the balls for our team and place them in a box. We had to answer 2 questions from the patriarch--did we follow all traffic laws & game rules and did we keep the speed limit--we could answer honestly and we obeyed all rules/laws. We ran up the stairs gave Brad all the things we had to collect and I recited the scripture. So we got this awesome clear trophy that looks like a miniature Washington Monument, a bottle of sparkling apple juice, 2 movie tickets and 2 gift cards for Cold Stone bowls same as the one I ate (we'll wait a bit before we use those and we'll share one bowl). Team number 2 was Dameon/Baelen, team 3 Travis/Melanie, and team 4 Emily/Linzi (they were in 3rd but both did not go touch the gate and had to run back and do it). After that we had a little pot luck and conversation and then a game of Celebrity wit the patriarch and his wife (not my favorite, I'm not very good)--a game kind of like charades but there's 3 rounds, round 1 you can say or do anything, round 2 only 2 words are allowed and anything more is a point for the other team including um, round 3 is only acting and a pass is a point for the other team. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and even if we hadn't won it was still a blast! I just wish we had brought our camera. I guess the only lame thing was the next morning when I had a tick on the back of my thigh--gross!!! Anyway, Ben and I really want to do this again and maybe even this summer with family.