road trip!

Apparently I like to travel alone with my 1 1/2 year old a lot...(remember those 4 trips to DC last summer? Those were all flying though but I'm still not sure which way is easier).....I think I'm crazy but it always ends up working out pretty well.  I'm glad he's such a good traveler.  I got lucky that he doesn't mind his car seat.  I'm thankful :)  So about our road trip to Maryland....

Lincoln and I took our first "longer" road trip by ourselves this past week.  We went to Maryland to visit some great friends of ours and we had such a great time.  The drive was 6 hours (including stops....we made great time surprisingly enough!)  It was almost ALL toll road the whole way there, which equals LOTS of mula.  I think it cost $40+ just in tolls plus gas but it was OH so worth it!  Besides the slight freak out episode Lincoln had in response to the toilet flushing in the rest stop bathrooms, we had a pretty uneventful trip there.  They had the automatic flushing toilets and it flushed as we walked in to the stall and he totally freaked out and so was wanting me to hold him the whole time, while still crying.  Oh boy it was quite the funny experience to say the least. But we both made it there in one piece :)

 Lincoln tried to join Allie in the bathroom while 

she was getting ready one morning

He could open all their doors - they had the "easy" door handles :)

 Our fun "crafternoon!"  It got kinda messy.  We messed around trying to figure out the perfect way to make "rolled flowers" for necklaces and finally figured it out.  I made another pom pom necklace like the grey one I made HERE and then a purdy mustard yellow rolled flower necklace that I still need to find a chain for.  CAN'T wait to wear it! :)  Oh crafting, how I love my new hobby!

Yes, you are seeing correctly, there are TWO Dr. Pepper cans and yes, they are BOTH mine.....hehe

 Precious little Haley (2 mos.)  All that crafting wore her out!

I couldn't get over how much this little girl has changed since I last saw her in August!

She is just so sweet!

she looks ornery and up to something in this one (see next picture)

when she got ahold of Lincoln, she wasn't letting go anytime soon!  

He wasn't so sure, what to think about that!

Bath time!  They are gonna hate us when their older!  

 he was fascinated with the bubble bath Allie had

Elise's classic "lip look"  I love it!

We took a walk and let Lincoln play in a little courtyard - 

conveniently located directly across a starbucks :)

 It was so nice to get out and get some sun!  Elise sure thought so!  Lincoln tried, and eventually succeeded in pushing her around in her stroller (while being closely monitored by both mommies) :)

He was occupied for a good 10 minutes just by pushing our stroller around - sans Elise.

chewing on her giraffe

this girl is gonna be walking before long!  

my sweet little boy

Our trip home was the complete opposite as our trip there.  First of all I couldn't get the key to turn on my car.  It just wouldn't budge.  I called Tyler and we figured out I had to turn the steering wheel a little and the key turned right away.  So away we went!  It wasn't 10 minutes into the drive that Lincoln started crying and pulling on his ears.  He had been up a lot of the night before crying (from what I later figured out was pain from his ears) and continued crying while I was on the phone with our Dr (which apparently it's a new law in MD that you can't talk on your phone while driving....oops!)  I got an appt. set up for the next day but then had to deal with the here and now.  I called Tyler and told him I needed to stop somewhere to buy some children's advil for the poor boy so he googled the next town and found me a nice quaint pharmacy.  It reminded me of small town Aurora, actually.  They all were super nice, got Lincoln his Advil and a huge snickers for my sanity.  The medicine started to kick in after a 1/2 hour or so and Lincoln quickly fell asleep.  After waking up though, he was back to crying :(  That was THE hardest drive ever.  I couldn't do anything to help soothe him while I was driving so I just prayed and prayed that his ears would stop hurting and that the rest of the drive would go quickly.  Thankfully it did.

Next morning we were in the Dr.'s office for almost 3 hours figuring out what to do for him.  He has a double ear infection and broncitis :(  Poor little guy.  We've got an appointment made with the Ear, Nose and Throat doctor to discuss tubes and he's on breathing treatments 3x/day right now.  He seems to be feeling a little better but I think it's gonna take a little while to fully get this crud out of his system.



Aunt Kelsey is here this weekend and we are having a blast!