Instagram App.

Stop what you are doing right now and grab this iPhone app for FREE! Look at how cute this picture turned out. Several other fun filters to play with as well!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Merry Christmas from The Calhouns.

Christmas card design and photography by Lindsey Faith Photography.

Our own Sock Monkey.

Lincoln loves to take his socks off and crawl around with them and wave them in the air. They provide hours of entertainment.


- Posted using BlogPress

Christmas Traditions.

Now that we have a baby it is fun to start thinking about new Christmas traditions we want to start. This Saturday we are partook in two of them -- visiting Santa and going to see the lights on the square. When we arrived at the area to see Santa Lincoln was very interested in him. He kept looking over at him and clapping his hands. However, I had a feeling that once we put him IN Santa's lap that he might not be so happy, but you never know with him. Some things scare him more than others so we thought we would give this a try.


However, as we got closer and eventually sat him on his lap, Lincoln was definitely not a fan. But, it sure made for some classic "crying in Santa's lap" pictures. I really feel sorry for this dear "Santa." I apologized to him before we sat Lincoln down b/c I knew Lincoln would not be a fan. Sure enough, Lincoln cried so quickly that I wasn't even able to get a picture of him not crying in his lap. Ha! We did snap these few and then ended the torture for him. You can see the event unfold in the sequence of the pictures.

Just to show you that he was not all THAT traumatized this is him minutes afterwards peeping around the camera trying to look at Santa again.


Later that evening we headed to see the lights on the square. There are tons of lights as well as donkey rides, a live reindeer exhibit and Santa was there as well. We just walked around for a little bit, took a few pictures and headed back to the warm car. Lincoln loved all the lights and the people. He sat content, bundled-up in his stroller checking everything out.

We enjoyed our day of Christmas traditions and look forward to many more years of these traditions as well as adding new ones!

17 December.

17 December 1916. My grandmother's birthday. My dad's mom. She was one of the kindest, most gentle yet straight-forward ladies I have ever known. She loved her family, grandchildren and always asked us grandchildren when were going to give her great-grandchildren. The last birthday that she celebrated here on earth was her 90th. This picture was taken that day at her party in 2006.

17 December 2004. The day I said yes. Cory proposed on this day 6 years ago and luckily I chose what was behind the last "door" in his homemade version of lets make a deal. The "door" was his closet door and on the chair was a ring box but no ring. When I turned around to tell him how rude that was to get my hopes up he was on one knee with the ring asking me to marry him.

Honeymoon in Ocho Rios, Jamaica in June 2005

17 December 2009. Our friends and awesome neighbors, The Paslays, welcomed their son into the world a month early on this day. Erin had extremely high blood pressure and her doctor decided that Will need to enter this world immediately via an emergency c-section. Erin continued to have high blood pressure for several days afterwards and remained in the hospital while Will spent 10 days in the NICU as well. They arrived home in time for the new year to start their lives as a family of three. We cherish this family and have felt a true blessing and gift from God to be able to live next to them for 3.5 years. This past week they moved to Memphis where Justin took a position at Bellevue Baptist Church. We are extremely sad to see them leave but excited for their future. And look forward to future visits.

Will and Lincoln, July 2010

Lincoln and Will, November 2010

17 December 2010. Today. The day that Lincoln got tubes in his ears. We checked into the hospital at 5:30 a.m. this morning. They took Lincoln at 6:49 a.m. back for the procedure. We waited in the waiting room till 7:20 when Dr. T came to talk to us. We were told it would only take 15 minutes so the 31 minutes of waiting was a little more than I had prepared myself for. I was pacing the floor. I had a feeling that something had not gone quite as planned. Not a really bad feeling but just maybe a small setback. Sure enough, as Dr. T. walked us to Lincoln's recovery room in the OR, he explained. He confirmed the opinion that our pediatrician had told us -- Lincoln has "tiny" ear canals. Once they started the procedure they discovered that they needed smaller instruments and a smaller set of tubes. Despite the small ear canal size, Dr. T said that the inner parts of the ear look normal size and in perfect shape. Dr. T did say that his ears were very infected and to expect lots of drainage.

Lincoln was definitely upset as we entered the room but calmed down pretty quickly and easily as we held him. We were in the OR recovery for about 30 minutes before they wheeled us back up to our hospital room. I laid up on the bed with him and he fell asleep on me for about another 30 minutes. Once he woke up he cried a little more but nothing major. Cory fed him his bottle and soon after we were told we could go! He was more sleepy today than normal but otherwise he acted extremely happy. We are optimistic that this will help Lincoln out tremendously in the days and months ahead.

What a sweet little guy playing with his teddy bear the hospital gave him.

Me with my little patient :pre-tubes:.

Looking forward to what future December 17ths may hold for us.

Homemade push toy

Lincoln has always loved playing in baskets. However, Sunday afternoon after finishing laundry I decided to turn the basket upside down so he could pull up on it. Well before I knew it he was taking off walking behind it. Now he wants to do it about 40 times a day. I'm sure this is what our parents used for us as a "push toy" long before the ones we know today existed.

- Posted using BlogPress

Christmas time is a changin'

Last year we were preparing for our precious baby...

This year we are busy chasing him around our little helper...

{Go hogs}

Hope your days are merry and bright.

Ten Months Old.

Happy 10 months, Sweet Baby Lincoln!

I think he is trying to drop the title "baby" Lincoln as we have so affectionately called him these last 10 months. He is still as sweet as pumpkin pie, don't get me wrong, but he is extremely adventurous, curious and determined. This picture best explains what he is capable of when I turn my back for .002 seconds. And you will notice that he is looking upwards trying to figure out how he can get up even higher. Yikes.

This month has been one of the fastest months yet. I have a feeling this is the speed life is going to start moving with all of the rapid changes Lincoln will be making in the coming months. He has had his fourth ear infection in four months and next week we are headed to the ENT to see what his future holds. Despite all of that, he still manages to be the cutest little Santa Baby we have ever seen!

10 month stats:

• He weighs about 20.5 pounds and is about 28 inches long
• He takes 2 naps a day - morning and afternoon, hour and a half each, sometimes 2 hours in the afternoon. He will no longer take a nap after 3:30.
• He eats 4 bottles a day, about 8 oz each. Schedule goes something like this -- 6:30 a.m. bottle and food, 11:00 am. bottle and food, 3:00 p.m. bottle and snack, 5:00 p.m. dinner, 7:00 p.m. bottle and bed.
• He eats baby food/solids 3 times day (4-8 oz of food each time) and sometimes has a snack of puffs mum-mums, diced peaches or yogurt melts in the afternoon after his nap
• He babbles ma-ma, da-da, and hi (with a wave at times). He also babbles "na-na" and the "t" sound when he really likes something.
• His favorite book is "My Little Word Book" which a big vocab book with pictures.

• He is starting to drink out of a sippy cup but most of the time just wants to chew on it but he LOVES to drink water from one of our cups.

• He loves for you to "chase him" and say "I'm gonna get Lincoln." He crawls really fast to get away from us and will stop and look back at us to make sure we are still chasing him
• He wants the food off of our plate and is slowly but surely trying to ditch the baby food.
• On occasion, he has started bear crawling -- bent over standing on his feet but using his hands to move around
• He pulls up on things very well and has started cruising down furniture.
  

• He understands to look at things that we point to and he points to things with his whole hand, palm facing outwards.
• He has begun to understand "no" or "no sir"
• He CONSTANTLY wants to crawl over to me, pull on my legs and jump up and down until I pick him up.
  

Lincoln,
We are so blessed to have your sweet presence fill our home. You are becoming such a big boy and we are loving watching you learn about this world we life in. You are uber observant and notice the smallest noise or even when there is something new in a room. You L.O.V.E to be right next to me when we are at home. You follow me from room to room. You love to watch me vacuum and crawl right behind me while I vacuum the whole house. Your little head moves back and forth watching every back and forth movement. When you really like something, a toy or object, you hold it in your hand and make the "T" sound over and over. We are looking forward to seeing what you learn next month!

Mommy and Daddy.

Gobble Gobble 2010

This year we spent Thanksgiving with Cory's family. We all live in different areas of the state so we met up in the center of the state to spend the weekend together. Oddly enough, my parents were spending Thanksgiving with my brother in Atlanta so we decided to crash their house and spend our holiday there. Yes, you got that right -- we had Thanksgiving with Cory's family at my parents house without my parents there! Funny, huh?

We started the festivities with a Thanksgiving feast at Cory's dad (Pop-pa) house which was prepared by him! It included a yummy smoked turkey along with all the trimmings. Lincoln ate a couple of bites of turkey, green beans, mashed potatoes and some rolls. He is definitely a fan of things he can "chew."

Thursday, we enjoyed the day with Cory's mom, stepdad and his brother and family. We, of course, ate way too much but it was all very delicious. As we sat down to enjoy the meal the electricity went out. It was like a scene from a movie! As soon as we rounded up some candles it came back on so we did not have to enjoy our lunch in the dark. We spent the rest of the day looking at the ads, making our "Black Friday" game plan, playing the Wii and playing a round of Partini.

Mady and Lincoln

The grandkiddos - Lincoln, Lucy and Mady

Lucy (6 months) eating her Thanksgiving meal of baby food.

Mimi making her famous chocolate pie. As you can see below it was "magazine worthy"

Uncle Cory and Mady

Mady playing the Wii. She did really well at snow skiing.

Calhoun kids with grandkids. Cari, Cory, Lincoln, Mady, Cody, Lucy, Jessica

Calhoun kids and grandkids with Mimi.

Cody and Jessica

Jessica, Lucy, Mady and Cody

Mimi and Poppy with all the grandkids.

Later that night we decided to venture to Toys-R-Us to which was due to open at 10:00 p.m. that evening. We waited outside in the line for about an hour and a half before getting into the store. Then we shopped for a little bit and had to stand in line for about another hour and a half to check out! It was nuts. Cory's brother and sister-in-law had some things on their list they wanted to get but mainly me and Cory were along for the ride. We did pick up a few good deals. We got back home and in bed about 2:00 a.m. Then around 6:30 that morning our sister-in-law, Jessica, and I headed to Target! Needless to say, we were exhausted from our shopping extravaganza.

We ended the weekend with cheering on the Hogs to a victory over the LSU tigers over at Cory's dad's house! WPS!

Mady cheering on the hogs.

Uncle Cory and Lucy Mae.
Pop-pa with his grandbabies.

We have so much to be thankful from year to year and this year it has been a joy to add Lincoln to the list! We love our little turkey!

New Lens.

I recently purchased a new lens for my camera! As soon as it came in the mail, I opened it, sat down on the kitchen floor and began shooting. Here are a few pics of my favorite subject with the new lens.

{None of these have been edited -- they are straight from the camera!}

I am trying to learn how it works but I am loving it.

Thanks, Bethany for the recommendation!