Miscellaneous Pictures & Videos

Dan and Liam drawing 

Big Brother Lessons

Liam sings "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"

Liam helps Daddy fix the dishwasher (That's Liam making the drill sounds.)

Liam went on a hunger strike for a few days and wouldn't even eat his cookie from Target

Getting very good with the kazoo

Christmas Prep

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in our home. I got the tree put up and decorated this week in the hopes that I could take Liam's picture in front of it for our Christmas cards. It's so nice to have it up and my home smells wonderful.

Unfortunately I have reached my Google picture limit so I can't upload all of the pictures that I would like to share. Here are the important ones though.





(These are tiny and low resolution. I'll send better copies to the you, Mamaw and Nana.)

2nd Birthday Party

We had a lot of fun at Liam's 2nd birthday party. We didn't invite many people because last year was too crazy. It turned out to just be some of our family plus our neighbor who we invited to come over at the last minute.

I did a transportation theme. The signs and airplanes are still hanging in my house. Liam loves them.

Liam attempted to blow out his candle, but couldn't quite do it on his own. He was very excited for cake, though I think he just had a few bites of frosting.

Liam understood presents this year. He knew there were good things wrapped in paper and inside of bags. My mom bought Liam a bunch of musical instruments. They are a big hit at our house.

Nana and Pop Pop bought Liam a big racetrack and cars. Liam is particularly attached to "Liam's little red car" as he calls it. The yellow one isn't quite the same you know.

 
Aunt Lacey was about to join us via Skype. That was really nice. I think we talk about Aunt Lacey and Uncle Dan enough and he has seen them with enough frequency that he will remember them when they come for Christmas. He will probably remember their dog, Dio, too.

Liam and Aunt Mo are buddies. He asked for her all the time!

October Round Up/ November Goals

I'll get to our Halloween pictures soon, but it's the first of the month and I really don't want to neglect my Happiness Project for even a day. October was pretty successful. I took Liam somewhere or did something new or especially fun with him almost everyday. I still have to caulk and paint his bookshelves, but his room is mostly in order. I'll post a picture soon of the awesome reading pillow I made for him. I didn't end up buying a dresser, but I cleaned all of the baby things out of his closet, so  his closet is mostly in order. I didn't get around to the top shelf though. I need to do that still. I sorted through his baby clothes and got a little money for some of them at a consignment shop. Dan thinks one of his coworkers may want the rest. His 2 year old photo shoot took about 15 minutes in our backyard on an overcast day, but I loved the results.

I think the fall weather has helped me to slow down and appreciate my time with Liam a little bit more. He loves to be outside so I tried to spend more time outdoors with him. We spent about half an hour a few days ago watching a caterpillar climb my tangerine tree. Liam loved it and asks to see the caterpillar almost every time we go out the front door now.

One thing that I realized during the last month is all of the little things that I don't know how to document yet am afraid I will forget. How am I going to remember the way that Liam drums his little fingers on my arm when we read books? Or the way he bobs his head and bounces his feet in the car along to the music? His hilarious use of the word "sometimes?" Two nights ago, he was up in the middle of the night and wanted desperately to sleep in the bed with me since Dan was in the other room. Liam usually comes to my side of the bed, talking the whole way up about "want to sleep in Momma's big boy bed." By 5 am, he realized this wasn't working, so he crept into my room very quietly, went over to the other side of the bed and tried to sneak up so that I wouldn't notice him. It was so funny and so cute, even at 5 am. Before I know it, he isn't going to want to give me kisses anymore or "hold you" or sing with me and I will miss these days.

Part of the Happiness Project is to build upon your resolutions, not just keep them for one month and forget about them. As October ends and November begins, I still need to do fun things with Liam everyday and keep his belonging in order, but it's time to start on other things as well. I thought that November would be a good time to focus on our Home. The challenge with that is that I need Dan's muscle and input and we have exactly zero empty weekends on our calendar for November. Mind you, I have no problem operating power tools or painting an entire room by myself, but the biggest thing we need to do around here is get the spare bedroom/craft room/junk room cleaned out for Baby Girl. That means I am going to have to clean out and reorganize Dan's office to make room for my stuff and I can't do that without him.

Here's what I can do:

• Leave no dirty dishes on the counter overnight 
• Leave no clothes on top of the dresser overnight
• Steam clean the carpets in at least the common areas 
• Buy flowers and light candles
• Sew the curtains for Baby Girl's room 
• Take a Christmas card photo 
• Always give big, happy greetings 

I took that last one directly from Gretchen Rubin's book. Her daughter came up with the rule that the family always had to give affectionate, attentive greetings and farewells. Dan usually leaves before I wake up, so we'll just stick with greetings. It should be a simple way to welcome each other and make our house feel more like a home. Wish me luck! 

Happy 2nd Birthday, Liam!

I cannot believe that my baby is already 2 years old. I can't say enough wonderful things about Liam. He has totally and completely changed my life.

Look how much he's grown!

Birth

1 year old

2 years old

'Tis the Season

It's not quite time for Christmas music or Evergreen trees, but October is the official start of my busy season. Over the next few months I have: Liam's birthday, Halloween, Liam's birthday party, a mini-road trip, in-laws in town, Thanksgiving, our 6th wedding anniversary, my family coming to town, Christmas, a baby shower, New Years, a 2nd baby shower. By the time all of that is done, I will have reached my due date. Keeping so busy, I know it's going to be here before I know it.

I started planning for Liam's birthday party a few weeks ago. We are not having a huge party like last year, just family and my very best friends whose kids are around Liam's age. I think it will still be fun though. I love how the invitations turned out. I used the print and cut feature and pop up dots for the car, airplane and banner to give it dimension.

Liam has been quite the toddler lately. One moment he is the funniest, sweetest kid. A minute later he is having an absolute meltdown because I took the lid off of the yogurt instead of letting him. "My do it" is one of those phrases I hear all the time: brushing his teeth, buckling the car seat, cooking, brushing my teeth. It's right up there with "I help Mama" of phrases that I don't like to hear.

Can I brag? Liam says "thank you" without me prompting him, even to strangers. It's awesome. He has also started to say "bless you" and "please." His please is so cute that I can't resist it. I'm sure he'll eventually figure out that he can get anything he wants by using it and it will lose its charm.

We're still struggling with his eating a sleeping. This video was shot around 10:30 sometime last week. Most nights are like this:

I love my crazy boy!

Liam's Pumpkin

Our play group took a trip to a local petting farm on Friday. Liam wasn't really interested in the animals, but he loved the train, hay ride and pumpkin patch. He has a small pumpkin that he got in the hospital when he was born and we have some pumpkin decorations around the house for Halloween. At the pumpkin patch, Liam went right for a small pie pumpkin. He carried it around, put it down, picked up other pumpkins, but always went back to the same pumpkin he chose first.

He wouldn't put the pumpkin down while he rode in the stroller or in the car seat. 

He carried it all around the house when we got home. That was fine until he dropped it a few times, then it was not fine. Surprisingly, he didn't have a fit when I turned his pumpkin into mini pies. I gave him a baby spoon and his stuffed pumpkin and he helped me scoop out the pumpkins.

I used the Mini Pumpkin Pie recipe from All Recipes. Liam's little pumpkin was just the right amount of pumpkin for this recipe. I only made a dozen on Saturday. After refrigerating the filling for a few days, it was still good when I made the second dozen pies.

Pumpkin pie counts as a vegetable, right? :)

Nap Time Crafting: Pinwheel Quilt

One of my best friends just had a baby girl. After our group of friends had 4 boys in a row, it was really exciting to sew for a girl. I started on this quilt a long time ago, but morning sickness and exhaustion turned my "Nap Time Crafting" into "Nap While Liam Naps." I finally finished this quilt a few weeks ago and gave it to my friend this past weekend.

I used Sew, Mama, Sew!'s Pinwheels in the Park pattern. Her suggestion for taping down the backing was a great idea.

I was going to do a simpler quilt, but I am really glad that Dan talked me into the more complicated, but much more beautiful quilt. I strayed from the pattern just a bit and did a scrappy binding. I love scrappy bindings.

October Week 1

I started October, my month of focusing on Liam, with a trip to the zoo. We go pretty often, but hadn't been in a while. The weather cooled down just enough that it was tolerable in the early morning. 

so cute in Momma's hat

Liam is starting to get to the age where he has strong opinions. These opinions are not always convenient for me, but I try to let him have his way when it's not a big deal. He insisted on pushing the stroller without any assistance from me. "I do it! Let go!"

A litter of capybaras was born since our last visit to the zoo. They are pretty cute.

Me and Liam's favorite part of the zoo is the kids' discovery area. Liam likes to dig in the sandbox, play with the toys and see all of the little critters in their cages. I like that it is inside in the air conditioning.

It's nice to finish our visits to the zoo with some time at the splash pad. Liam is tall enough that he can wander the whole area, with my close supervision of course. I'm the mom sitting on the rock in the middle of the splash park with my pants rolled up and my feet in the water. There weren't a lot of kids out, so Liam had the boat to himself.

clean, dry & ready to go home

 Our play group has started weekly trips to playgrounds for the "fall." It's is still way too hot to be outside for very long, especially since my kid wants to be pushed in the swing in the full sun instead of playing independently while I sit under the shade. He actually did do very well this week. We hadn't been to this park in a while, so I was surprised at all the new things he could do.

As part of my goal to get Liam's room organized, Dan and I put up bookshelves in an odd corner in Liam's room. I still need to caulk them and touch up the paint, but they are functional for now.

On Friday, I had the opportunity to go to a painting class. My sister came over and stayed with Liam while I was gone. When Dan and I went to this class a few months ago, it took me weeks to finish my first painting. I was shocked that I did my second painting all in one class and I love the way it turned out!

When I got home, me and my sister made a cape for her Halloween costume. She said I could post these pictures as long as I didn't say her name or put them on facebook.

In other news, Liam is doing pretty well transitioning to his big boy bed. There are still nights when it's an hour and a half past his bedtime and he's still getting up that I put him in the crib and call it a night. Last night was kind of rough. He got up several times during the night. It wouldn't have been so bad, but I stayed up late watching football. Eventually, I let him sleep in the bed with me.

I do love that I wake up to him and his frog over the side of my bed and we have a big cuddle-fest every morning. I know these days are limited, so I'm trying to enjoy these precious moments.

I love this so much.