Welcome to Earth Lincoln!

Hello family and friends. We would like to announce the birth of our second son, Lincoln Guy Harrison! This cute little guy (pun) was born on January 27th after only 3 and a half hours of labor. His stats are as follows:

Weight: 7 lbs 3 0z (keep in mind Krista only gained 13 lbs total)
Length: 20 in
Birthday: January 27, 2009
Birth Time: 10:35 am
Head Circumference: 13 in
Finger Count: 10
Toe Count: 10
Cute Button Nose: Check

And here he is.


Now I know what you're thinking. "Hey, isn't that Parker?" But alas, it is not. This is Lincoln. Look for a game on this blog in the next few weeks entitled "Who Am I?" in honor of the Jackie Chan movie "Wo shi shei?" (translation: who am I?). You can try your skills of telling the two apart after we take a few pictures with Lincoln in Parker's old clothes.

Here is Krista checking to make sure that Lincoln is adequately kissable.


And finally, here is our latest family picture. Notice how happy Parker is to have a new baby brother. Life is good at the Harrison House. Take care all of you. We love you.


Oh and incidentally, Rachel won our baby guessing contest with a total score of 88 points. Some of you might now be thinking that she only won because she picked Lincoln's name correctly (actually she gave us the idea of using the name in the first place), but this is not so. Rachel pretty well dominated the competition across the board. Note the accuracy of her guess:

Name: Lincoln W. Harrison
Weight: 7 lbs 2 oz (off by one ounce)
Length: 20 in (right on)
Date: 01/26/2009 (off by one day)
Time: 10:08 am (off by 27 minutes)

Honorable mentions are given to the second and third place winners as well, although a prize is only given to the first place winner. In second place with a total of 75 points was Nanette Combe, proud grandmother of Lincoln. Third place went to Lincoln's cousin Logan Fry with a total of 72.5 points.

Jake Merkley, one of Lincoln's adopted uncles, actually scored 84.5 points, although his guess came in exactly 18 minutes before the birth and he was promptly disqualified according to the "24 hour" rule. Krista, beautiful, brave, and brilliant mother of Lincoln, scored 76.5 points and yet was also disqualified due to the "parents cannot be winners" rule. (I was also disqualified by the same rule, but this did not affect the winners.)

Scores were calculated using the K&W factor equation published in Harrison et al. [1].

Pregnancy Update.

Our due date for this pregnancy was Tuesday, Jan. 20. We visited the doctor last week and he had predicted that he would see us over the weekend. I was dialated to a four already. Well lo and behold the baby is still cooking. I have now only gained 12.5 pounds. I am very grateful for that but I always worry that the baby isn't getting enough of what he needs. Yesterday at our appointment we had the baby monitored for about 15 minutes to make sure everything was still good. I haven't felt many contractions. Back pains have increased in the last four days, but I really can't complain. This pregnancy has been a blessing and I'm grateful that I haven't had any complications. The plan is to induce next tuesday unless he comes before then. We are very excited to have another little guy around the house. Hopefully Parker will be just as excited. He doesn't seem to really grasp what a baby is and that there is one coming to stay real soon. Perhaps we should have tried harder to get him ready. He can say 'baby' now, so at least he can tell us what we are holding. Parker can also show us where the eyes, nose, mouth and ears are on the baby, as well as a few other features. By the way I think the picture looks a lot like Parker.

Inauguration Celebration.

We decided to celebrate the inauguration of President Obama by making a red, white and blue layered jello. Utah style. The jello has been a yummy treat. Willie was able to witness this historic event while at school. Parker and I watched the swearing in but had to switch over to watching 'Cars'. I don't know why watching President Obamas speech wouldn't be fun for a little boy. Willie and I were the only ones to enjoy the jello on inauguration day.

The blue ball

Parker loves to get out his magnetic ball and stick set. He has found a different use for the balls though as you can tell from the video. I have to make sure the table is cleared off so Parker can be entertained.

A visit to Savannah, GA

Our trip to Savannah was the week before Christmas. We wanted to get a trip in before the baby came and also before Willie had to write a paper for work. The journey was about four hours, in which Parker did an awesome job. We stayed in a small home called the Carriage House. It was on 'rent by owner' .com. We had fun learning about the history of Savannah while we were on a trolley tour. Willie had read '1776' before the trip and found that a few of the men in the book were also talked about on our tour. I really wanted to see River Street and Willie really wanted to look at all the town squares Savannah had. We were able to enjoy both, perhaps not to the extent we wanted to but hey that's okay. We enjoyed lunch in a nice restaurant where Parker had fun throwing things on the ground. The shrimp was great! We also took a ferry ride over to a hotel where they had built a small town out of ginger bread houses. This is where Parker learned about trains. Another fun moment was getting on board a cool pirate looking ship. One of my favorite moments from the trip was watching Parker play with Willie. They don't get a whole lot of time together and I tried to soak it all in. Here is Willie's favorite moment from the trip; Actually it's my most memorable moment, but not necessarily my favorite moment. It was when we first got there, and I had to walk to Kroger at night to get some stuff. The night was foggy and the conditions looked to me the exact same as when Hardy Greeves runs off to fetch Cap'n Junah in The Legend of Bagger Vance. As I was walking I noticed old fashioned bicycles coming in and out of the fog passing under street lamps, and I thought to myself "When am I?"




We headed to Tybee Island on our last day. The lighthouse was pretty cool. Neither of us had ever been in a lighthouse before (that we recall). Parker and Willie did great trekking up the 175 feet to the top. Although once up top we were so scared to let Parker go because of our fear of heights. There was a railing in which Parker wouldn't go through, but still it was SCARY!



Parker taking his first steps up a lighthouse staircase. He worked so hard.



I crack up just looking at how short Parker's shorts are and the fact that this is how we acted the whole time at the top of the lighthouse.

One of the funnest parts of the trip was to the beach. This was Parker's first time at a beach. Parker was a bit reluctant at first to get near the water. I had to convince him that it was okay to run to the water and then run away. Eventually he got down from our arms and walked on the sand. He liked playing in the sand and looking for shells and bugs. He even had a great time running through a small stream just away from the ocean. We didn't take a towel with us, but we knew it was worth the fun we had together as a family. Parker was a bit wet when we were done and we had to use clothes from previous days to clean him up. I'm glad Willie convinced me to take this trip, it was a BLAST!








Mommy teaching Parker to run to the waves.


Parker had fun on daddy's shoulders.

Choo Choo

This is a greeting from our family. Keep in mind we just woke up.
Happy Holidays Everyone!

This year we were very blessed to experience Christmas on our own. Being only four weeks away from delivering the baby my doctors wouldn't allow for us to travel back home to Utah. With this new adventure we decided we would find out what kind of traditions we wanted to begin with our own family. For Christmas Eve we were invited to an awesome couple's home in our ward, the Luce's. We had such a great time being adopted into their family. At their home we ate delicious soups, homemade rolls, assorted jellos and yummy brownies with ice cream. Parker had fun watching some other children play and even got involved in some of the rough housing. As part of the Luce's tradition we went caroling to a few of their neighbors homes. Willie and I had never participated in caroling such as they did. We had fun taking their neighbors treats and singing to them. The weather was warm enough that we didn't really need to even wear jackets. I do miss having the snow around. After caroling we went back to the Luce's home and had the yummy dessert and were visited by some carolers from the ward. Their style of caroling was different, they used violins, recorders and a guitar. I'll tell you what, that was some great caroling. By the end of the night the Luces had given Parker a Christmas present, a little Tonka train and a book. Sister Luce knew that Parker was starting to get into a phase of liking trains. Willie and I are very grateful for the example shown to us by the Luce family. We are grateful for their hospitatlity and their love. We do miss our family very much, but on Christmas eve this year we enjoyed our ward family. Thank you to the Luces!

Christmas morning.
Every morning since we put up Christmas lights Parker has been so excited to turn them on when he wakes up. I miss the times when I would go into his room and I could hold him and cuddle, that's all over now. Christmas lights are a big thing in our home. One distraction on Christmas morning was the little train we set up for Parker to enjoy. He was cute coming out of his room excited to see the lights, but when he saw the train he became even more excited. We kept a good eye on him the whole time. After about half an hour of playing with the train we decided it was time to put it away (Parker stepped on the tracks and kept pulling the engine off). It's a nice little set so we had to make sure it can be used for future Christmas'.


Parker was so good to help Willie get the train back on the tracks. We had a fun morning.


After getting Parker away from the train we moved on to opening the presents. I think Santa did good because Parker played with everything he received from him. We did good ourselves, Parker liked the things we got for him. After looking back we received many books, which is awesome. We really want our kids to enjoy reading. Parker loves bedtime because his daddy reads to him.
Parker loved the train. Maybe we can find a more kid friendly one for next year.The boys look good in this picture. I promise though I was having a good time.Christmas Eve I was working hard to get some stockings made. My friends convinced me I should make my own stockings. I borrowed one of their sewing machines and got the stockings to the point where they would hold something in them. Thanks Camille. I was pretty proud of myself for getting through as much as I did all on my own. Although I wouldn't have been able to begin if Camille hadn't set her machine up for me :)


Willie and I are very grateful for this holiday season. We love the wonderful music that is played and the great hymns we get to sing. I am grateful for my Savior and His birth. As we go through the years one tradition we want is for Santa to bring three gifts for each person; each gift representing the gifts given to the Savior. We hope to always teach our children about Jesus during Christmas and we want them to know why we celebrate the season. There are a few other traditions we would like to do, but some things must remain a secret.

Our new crib.

A pack n' play is great and I think we could have kept Parker in it even longer if the new baby weren't coming so soon. So after 17 months of living here on this earth Parker has finally received a real bed. We bought a convertible crib in case we ever need to convert it. Parker has done really well in transitioning into his bed. The first few nights he cried a little more, but we think he may have been teething too. He does pretty well at sleeping in a new place, considering we travel so much. Parker and Willie did a great job at putting the crib together. Parker learned a new word in the process as well, 'twist'. He loved helping Willie twist the screwdriver to get the screw in. We think Parker has enjoyed his new bed.
Here is Parker helping Willie 'twist' the screw into place.


Parker didn't understand that the mattress should be used before laying in the crib. Maybe we were just working him too hard.