Part of the group

Lincoln, my most favorite son ever is making a change. This whole moving 3 times in one year has gotten to us a bit and sadly enough it has gotten to my Lincoln a little more than the rest of us. He left a wonderful neighborhood full of children his age that he thinks about often and that he wishes he could go visit constantly. We basically bought this current house because of the park across the street assuming that would bring some friends around.

We of course aren't from here so we didn't know that people don't play outside in the winter 50-70 degree weather because it is too cold, which is when we moved in. We also didn't know that on the exact street that we moved to, there are no children Lincolns age. Lots of kids are 2 and under or 10 and over. Let's just say, it's been really hard for a mom to watch her child be lonely.

Lincoln is also a little more imaginative than other kids and likes to wear costumes and pretend fight with the air. Some may think it is strange, I say it's fine, he is having fun and besides all the kids he used to play with did it so I guess it would be normal for his age.

This past week Lincoln has been hanging out at the park and I started noticing that these older boys have invited him to play with them. He has been playing football, Star Wars fighting and today was a big game of kick ball. WOW! They are so nice to him and have helped him to feel like part of the neighborhood. They didn't even care that he was wearing his flourescent swim goggles today to play kick ball. What a blessing to finally see him so happy. I snuck outside and video taped the kick ball game from my front porch so it's not very close but I didn't want to embarrass my son. Anyway, this is such a humongous milestone in our life that I had to share it with everyone and also I wanted to Thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers, they were truly felt and also for my ever Loving Heavenly Father for watching over me and my little family. I guess it's true that you have to have a little bad to know what good is.

Lincoln is in the turquoise shirt running the bases.

New Hair Cut

Brinley: Do you like my haircut?

It's Free!

It's called bangs or not!

I tried to get a real close cut, since my mom was busy.

I even cleaned up afterwards! I'm not complaining, I want mom to take pictures because I did an awesome job!

Our Saturday Drive

Super Something

Lincoln has decided that with all of his costumes he is going to make a different hero each week. He has also decided that all of the creations shall have the same name.

The name shall be MIX-RYE! This is the first weeks super hero. As you can see, he has put a lot of thought into creating this.
This is Mix-Rye testing out his super powers on Doug. It's obvious that Doug is no match.

Lincoln has been telling us for the past couple of months that he really needs glasses. He even took Doug into the Walmart optical and picked out some blue Super hero frames that he was sure that he needed. (Ssshhh, I think they were Hannah Montana) Doug was beginning to fill the pressure and started checking prices at the optical centers. Luckily, while Lincoln and I were on our date last week, we found these really handsome glasses at Claires. They were only 8.00. Bargain! We bought both him and Brinley a pair and I do believe that was money well spent. He feels that he can see better and he wears them to school. I am asked to clean them often with my special glass cleaning cloth. School picture day was last week and I did let him know that he may want to take them off because of the glare. Wheeew! He told me that he hid them behind Zachary. Lucky us! Anyway, these are my silly happy kids in their fancy glasses. I believe I could make the below pictures black and white and he would look just like he belongs on My Three Sons. (hee, hee)

Kids

This is a fun big park that we found out in Chandler. The ground is covered in wood chips and there is a roof overhead to block the hot sun. There are little covered picnic areas all over that look like small barns and people rent them for birthday parties. The parties are huge. I think we will end up coming here on a regular basis.

This is Brinley on the playground. I was sitting over by this little climbing aparatus and every dad that saw it would encourage (or force) their child to try it and they would for about 2 seconds and run off, then the dad's would try it. I'm not sure what was so fascinating about it but the men liked it.

Lincoln was going crazy on this motorcycle. I was cracking up because he tried every move that a guy with a new dirt bike would try. Luckily it was bolted to the ground.

This is a man made rock for the kids to climb. Brinley climbed up and down and up and down and about 10 minutes later and a little courage, Lincoln climbed up.

After Lincoln made it to the top Brinley climbed down as fast as she could and climbed up again and back down. After trying for about 5 minutes, Lincoln was a strong boy and just jumped off.

This is Lincoln showing me how he uses the smart board at school. It is just like the weather mans on tv. He moves all the letters from one side to the other and switches screens with the touch of his finger. It's pretty neat. I was impressed. They have these in all the classrooms.

Lincoln is taking a golf class after school with about 10 other kids. It has been a lot of fun and he has learned a lot. I don' t know if he will do it again because he really wants to start into Karate.

New backyard

This is our backyard before last week. Rocks from the patio to the back wall. Scenic, I know.


This is our yard after last week.
We have grass and it's green and we have bushes, they are small but they will grow and trees that will grow. Yay for us!

This is the lemon meringue pie that Doug and I made from the lemons someone handed out at work from off of their tree. We almost have it perfected.

Happy Birthday Doug

This was our little trip home from Utah. We went to see Doug's mom for Doug's big birthday. There are so many beautiful and different areas that I had to take some pictures. We had snow on the ground in Southern Utah and in Flagstaff but it was warm desert in between the cold. The bridge that we walked across is called Navajo Bridge which is accessed from Fredonia. This was a very fun but long drive. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOUG!