Saturday, December 29, 2007

Puke piles and snow drifts

This Thursday night was a rough one for the whole family, especially Liam. despite having gotten the flu shot, Liam got a real bad case of the flu and started vomiting profusely Thursday evening. I never knew such a small person could hold so much vomit! To make matters worse, he ate an entire banana before he got sick...the whole house smelled like a banana-stomach acid sundae. ICK!

Friday was pretty much a sick day. Liam looked white as a sheet. I cuddled him and eventually resumed breastfeeding (once I was sure he wasn't going to get sick again). We spent most of the day watching cartoons, which was just what the doctor ordered! I also got him to go #2 in the potty for the first time in months. He used the potty a couple times this week. Liam ate his first solids at dinner time. His meal consisted of saltines and pedi-drink. By late evening, he was starting to act like himself again. He was being silly and even started getting into things he shouldn't.

This morning he was much better, although he still has some diarrhea. He ate some pancakes for breakfast and more pedi-drink. Yesterday we got a good 5 inches of snow, maybe more. Daddy had fun trying out his new snow blower. It worked like a charm! I really wanted to take Liam out to play in the snow today, but I'm not sure he is up to being in the cold yet. If it's still around on Sunday, maybe we'll go out and play in it.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Talking Toys

Whew, what a day! This morning when I took Liam to daycare, I found out the terrible news that they are closing in two weeks! Now I have to find another place to take Liam. It will be difficult just because of the fact that I only need daycare for one day a week. Most places require a minimum of two days a week in order to enroll your child.

At home, one of Liam's new toys kept "talking" and making noises when no one was touching it. I even heard it play music while I was in the basement sorting laundry. Later, while I was on the phone it went off and I told the person about it and it did it again! How strange is that?

Time to go pick up Liam...gotta run!

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

On Saturday we celebrated Christmas with the family. Sean's brother, wife, and nephews came up Friday night. It was great to spend some time with them, since we hadn't seen them all in a year. My mom and sister, as well as Sean's parents, joined us Saturday morning. There were plenty of goodies to snack on and Sean and I prepared a Spaghetti dinner, complete with home made bread. After we ate, we exchanged our gifts. As you can see from the picture, we were all very spoiled!




From grandma Bev and grandpa John, Liam received a huge, and I mean HUGE, red wagon. It is the Hum-V of all wagons. Liam had so much fun being pulled around in it. He even opened the rest of his presents in his new wagon!

Liam received a neat play grocery store from Aunt Shelly and Uncle Brad. It counts and talks in English and Spanish. His Aunt Rae gave him a cool electric piano. Liam's cousin Jack had a lot of fun showing him how to play it and talk into the microphone. Grandma Kathie gave Liam a bunch of play food and a toy mail box. Liam loves mailing letters and learning how to "cut" fruit.

My big Christmas gift was a new camera. My one has been ailing and is six years old. Here are a few of my favorite Christmas pictures from the new camera.
Liam with cousin Jeremy.

















All tired out from opening gifts.
















Sadly, everyone had to go home all too soon. Only grandma Kathie stayed till Sunday afternoon. Liam and I did a little shopping with grandma Kathie on Sunday. Then we had to say goodbye to her too.

Monday afternoon I was at the hospital for several hours getting a HIDA scan for my gall bladder. The doctors failed to warn me that the test requires an injection of radioactive isotopes and that I couldn't breastfeed for 48 hours after the scan. This was definitely not welcomed news. The last thing I wanted to do to my son on Christmas eve was deny him nurses. Luckily we were able to make it through the evening just fine. He was in pretty good spirits before bed...acting silly and walking around with the laundry basket on his head.

We made it through a rough night. Liam was rather tearful in the morning because he couldn't get any milk from me. But we were able to distract him with the celebration of Christmas. Even with everything that happened last week, I was able to finish up the play kitchen that I made for Liam. He went straight to it to check it out. I think it looks pretty nice, especially stocked with all the great play food from grandma and that I made. The other big hits were the Tonka tractor and magna-doodle toys that we got him.















Later in the morning, our friends Alissa and Ashtyn came over to play. Liam and Ashtyn had fun playing with his new kitchen and finger puppets. They got so excited that after lunch they were running around surprising each other and screaming at the top of their lungs. They got themselves good and tired for nap time.

Though after Liam's nap, things went bad for him. He really wanted to nurse and was inconsolable. He cried and tantrumed for nearly an hour. Eventually we were able to distract him with his new tricycle from grandma Kathie (it was also what grandpa Mike wanted to get Liam before he died). Daddy put it together yesterday. Unfortunately it is a little too big for Liam to peddle. But Liam is so agile that he had no problem climbing up on his tricycle and pushing it around the living room. He also figured out how to ring the bell too.

Liam is doing better now, but we still have a long night ahead of us...wish us luck and we wish you a Merry Christmas!

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Mommy's trip to the ER

Well, is seems that my holiday baking has caught up with me...in particular, my gall bladder. Last night I was feeling extremely sick and nauseated all night. A pain that was all too familiar from the gall bladder attack I experience while pregnant with Liam. I think I brought on the present attack due to consuming too much chocolate in the past couple weeks.

This morning I was still feeling awful, despite the fact that I hadn't eaten anything in hours. So I called my doctor and he told me to head to the ER (definitely not what I wanted to hear!). Luckily, Sean was able to come home from work early. Liam was fairly well behaved, considering. The nurses there were super nice to him and gave him coloring pages, crayons, and a stuffed cat.

At the ER, they ran the same blood tests and ultra sounds as before and found nothing. I got sent home with a painkiller that I won't take. Meanwhile, my abdomen is still swollen and eating makes it worse. They are supposed to schedule another out-patient scan to determine whether the gall bladder is not functioning correctly...I hope it will be soon. I am really at the point of saying, "Would you please just remove it!" I am tired of dealing with this.

I did a little research on the subject of gall bladder health and it seems that may have also triggered this attack by not eating regularly enough. I have to admit that I've been skipping meals a lot during the past month. Apparently this can cause the liver to stop producing enough bile for digesting fats. And since I've been eating more fatty foods as the holiday's approach, my body can't handle it. Ugh! Now I have a house full of yummy treats that I can't eat. I can't wait till everyone comes to visit us to help the sweets disappear!

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Baking Bliss?

The past few days I have been cooking and baking up a storm of my own in the kitchen. The result is a few good recipes, a few failed recipes, and a mountain of dirty dishes (with no dishwasher but myself). I have resolved to use paper plates for the family Christmas party this weekend (I know...I go to all of the trouble of washing cloth diapers only to fill the landfill with paper plates. But my hands are like sandpaper! No more dishes!).

Anyways, Sunday's home-cooking was bread and lasagna. I made a delightful lentil soup with homemade croƻtons on Monday. Today I made a family recipe, scalloped corn, for a potluck that Liam and I attended. I made fruitcake and shortcake cookies. I also attempted some fudge, but it came out woefully soupy. I regret to say that I ate most of it myself (at this rate I am going to gain back all the baby weight I successfully lost!).

I think Liam is a little jealous of all the time I have spent in the kitchen. So I let him "help" me stir some of the cookie batter to get him involved a little bit. I also made him a toy using an old cocoa can/lid and a bag full of pom-pons. I got the idea from one of the Great Start playgroups. I cut a whole in the plastic lid large enough to put one pom-pon in at a time. He loves playing with the pom-pons (also referred to as Tribbles in our house) and putting them in their "home". The only drawback is that I am bound to be sweeping stray tribbles up every time I vacuum the floors.

First Snow Storm (12/16/07)

As always, I am a few days behind. We have been busy with Christmas preparations. But I had to share Liam's experience with his first big snow (last Sunday). Although it was a long time coming, we did eventually get around a foot of snow over Saturday night and Sunday morning. Liam and daddy had fun watching the snow coming down.

Once the snow finally stopped, I took Liam out to play with his new sled. Of course, the snow was so deep that we were practically plowing through it with the sled, rather than over the snow. But Liam didn't seem to mind. He thought it was great fun to have the snow flying up around him as I pulled him around the backyard and down the neighborhood sidewalks. He kicked and threw the snow as it pilled onto his sled with him.

Of course after that, I let him play in the snow for a bit. He couldn't resist the temptation to eat the snow and loved crawling around in it too. He liked playing in the snow so much that he cried when I brought him in. We couldn't stay out longer though, because his little hands were frozen.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Liam meets Santa Claus


Like much of the Midwest, we woke to news of an impending snow storm. Knowing that the the forecasters always overreact about these things, we decided to go out. One of our stops was the Lansing City market. It's always a fun place to go this time of year. There were plenty of yummy foods, sweet smelling soaps and flowers, handmade wreaths, produce, live music and even Mr. and Mrs. Claus.

To our surprise, Liam was a little afraid of Santa. I think it was because our timing was bad and Liam was ready for a nap. Luckily Mrs. Claus enticed Liam over with a sticker and we got this super cute photo of Liam with both Santa and Mrs. Claus. We LOVE the market!

Here it is nearly 8pm and the snow is finally starting to fall, I'm glad that we didn't stay in all day!

Friday, December 14, 2007

Tunnel Tricks

We finally received our new modem and were back online! This week Liam was busy with our usual outings. To keep him (and mommy) happy, we go to some sort of play group or activity just about every day. Monday is Tot Time at the community center. Tuesday varies because there are no structured activities to attend, so we usually make it up. Wednesday Liam is at daycare. This week I substitute taught all day on Wednesday. Thursday is Great Start playgroup in East Lansing. Friday is Great Start at the community center.

Tonight we had guests for dinner. Alissa and little Ashtyn had dinner with us and then stayed to play for a while. Liam was so happy to have Ashtyn here that he kept bringing her toys to play with. She was a little shy at first, but after dinner the kiddos had a blast. One of their favorite games was peek-a-boo in Liam's tunnel. They had such a riot that they were giggling and squealing up a storm!

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Playing in the Snow

Saturday was the first time that I let Liam cut loose in the snow. I got him all suited up and put sun glasses on him to protect his eyes (it was a super sunny day, even though it looks dark in the picture). Liam didn't know what to do at first. I had to show him that you could pick it up and play with it, kick it and crunch it under your boots. He had lots of fun pretenting to "shovel" the snow with a fallen branch that he found in the back yard.

PS - The word from ATT is that our new moden will be here by Wednesday. Cross your fingers for us!

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Guitar Strum'in

This may be my last post for a while until we get our new modem in the mail, because this is my last night of work for the semester. Today Liam and I went to our usual Great Start play group in the morning. He has so much fun at these. This time they had tempra paints out for the kiddos to use. Liam made a very nice painting. He actually held the brush and dipped it into the colors all by himself. He has such good hand-eye-coordination now.

Probably the biggest highlight of the playgroup was at the end. The facilitator brought her guitar to play during the sing-along. Liam loves the song time and will dance and clap and scream/sing. He took a real interest in the guitar and wanted to strum along while she was playing it. I am glad that he has such a love for music.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

A case for home schooling!

Today was my first day of substitute teaching. I had a class of fourth graders for just the morning. This experience was truly dreadful and definitely trial-by-fire. As soon as I entered the building I knew I was in for a treat, when the secretary groaned: "Oh, that class." These kids were by far the most disrespectful, argumentative, and rude children I have ever met (And I worked as a camp counselor!). They couldn’t follow simple directions, sit in their sear, or even contain themselves from fighting with each other for more than 2 seconds. They were shouting at each other so much that the principle could hear us from across the building. No threats could scare these kids either…not even being sent to the principle or loss of recess. To make matters worse, the regular teacher did not leave me a clear lesson plan and her desk and classroom was a total wreck. I have never felt more depressed about American public schools than today. No wonder the college students I tutor and teach are functionally illiterate. This classroom was no more than a warehouse for children. I came home utterly exhausted and overwrought.

Needless to say, I have renewed my vow to find a way to send Liam to a good (and if necessary, private) school, and to home school as much as possible. I was so happy to see him when he and Sean came home this evening. Liam came running to me and gave me a big hug. I sure hope that my son will not become one of the hooligans that I saw today! His toddler tantrums seem like nothing when compared to the horrible behavior of these fourth graders.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Super Sixteen Months (belated)

Yesterday Liam turned 16 months. We didn't do anything special to celebrate. But he did "draw" a lovely picture (it's very green). We had a really good day. Liam slept in, which is very rare. Then we walked down to the community center for tot time. They had a new toy for the kiddos to play with. It was a reproduction peddle-car that looked like a 1950's Chevy. Liam absolutely loved it and was rather territorial about the toy. He would climb in and go "vroom" and push himself around (since his legs were too short to reach the peddles). Liam played really well and actually took two naps, which is even rarer!

Today we stayed home most of the day. Although we had to go to the doctor's office for his flu shot booster. Afterwards, I treated him to a trip to Pruess’Animal house...the best pet store in Lansing. He had a ball running around looking at all the animals. We got up-close and personal with a huge scarlet macaw. That was really cool, until he let out a even huger squawk that scared the both of us!

PS-Our dsl modem died, so I won't have internet access at home until the new one comes in the mail. There may be even fewer posts than usual for a week or so...sorry.

(photo added 12/9/07)

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Liamisms

Liam is such a bright and cheerful little boy. His current love is anything with wheels. He loves to play with his assorted toy cars, trucks, trains, and buses. I am constantly hearing "errmmmm"...his sound for a car engine, as he rolls it across the floor, table, or even the walls. Yesterday we saw a show on PBS about steam engines. Every time a train would roll across the screen he would point and say "train" excitedly.

Liam is a good dancer too. He spins and bobs with music whenever he hears it. He also loves to make lots of music with his toy piano and toy drum (at the same time!). He will get both of them going to serenade him while he's playing in his room.

He has started stacking blocks now. We often build bridges for his car, which he crashes into. He giggles with delight whenever I say, Crash!

Liam is quite obsessed with animals. He loves to look at his board books of animals. He knows the words for or sounds that many of the animals make. Every time he hears the neighbors dog barking he says "dog". He will also yell "kitty" or "dog" when he sees them on TV or in a cartoon.

Another cute thing that Liam does is pretend to "read" is books aloud. While he's looking at his books, he often softly babbles to himself or says "ga, ga, ga".

The only bad thing is that tantrums have gotten more numerous and dramatic. I know it's a developmental stage, but it can be exasperating, especially when were out and about. I try to ignore the stares I get from people when he's wailing as we wait in the check-out line. Even the littlest things can set him off sometimes. The other day Liam fell apart when I peeled his banana for him...sigh. His also been drooling like a fountain again. Perhaps his 2 year molars are coming in early just like his other teeth. In an article on Mothering.com I read that "often, being exposed to our child's raw emotions makes us feel the raw emotions that we have shoved into cold storage over the months and years." This is definitely true for me. With the stress the of past year, I sometimes find it hard to weather Liam's tantrums with him, but I'm getting better at it with time.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Some Thanksgiving weekend pictures

Today was the first time that I got to finally download some of the pictures we took over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. The first batch are from Thanksgiving at my grandparents new house. We traditionally celebrate Thanksgiving at my Uncle Mike and Aunt Mara's house, with my aunts extended family too. This year we kept up the tradition with our two families, but moved it to my grandparents very spacious and lovely new home. One of the highlights of the house is the game room, complete with a pool table that my grandparents have had for many years. All of the kids (young and old) enjoyed playing with the pool table. Liam had the most fun climbing inside of furniture.

Unfortunately, we were not able to make it to the Evans family Thanksgiving this year. The dinners were planned at almost the same time in two different cities. And to make things more complicated, our car's "check engine" light came on as we were leaving my family. We are sorry that we missed it.















As I mentioned in a previous post, we spent a good part of the weekend feeling downright miserable with ear aches. But on Saturday we did go spend some more time with my grandparents. We tried to keep Liam busy with a little backpack filled with toys and books. Liam loves running around in their big house. It's mostly toddler safe (only because things are not yet unpacked), but leave it to Mr. Destruct-o to break one of my grandma's dishes. :( Oopps! Sorry!

We decided to go home on Saturday evening. This turned out to be a good idea, because it gave us the time to get out the Christmas tree on Sunday. After Liam went down for a nap, I busily trimmed the tree. Sean decided to finish installing our stereo system, so now we can listen to music again. I finished the transformation of the house into a Christmas wonderland this Tuesday. I'll post some more pictures once I get a chance to take some.


Of course Liam loves the tree and can't help but want to touch it. I'm glad we decided to put unbreakable ornaments on the tree this year. It turned out that I had enough cookie cutters and existing ornaments that I didn't need the pine cones that Liam and I collected after all. I decided to used them for other decorations elsewhere.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Kick me when I'm down.

I've been struggling with what to post about life lately. I grew up hearing "if you can't say something nice, then don't say anything". Hence, my lack of posts lately...life has really been hitting me and my family hard. Sometimes it can be a reach to say anything positive, even when Liam is just as cute and funny as ever, because of all the other crap that's flying about. So I'm giving up on being positive and just getting some stuff off my chest.

It's bad enough that my father died out of the blue this summer. But the fates decided that they had more in store for us. In the past month I learned that my mother's little brother (my uncle) has lymphoma. Ok...take a deep breath. Maybe there is a curse on people named Michael or something. THEN...my mother found out that she has colon cancer after a routine check-up. This is her second go at cancer. The first time was seven years ago and resulted in a full hysterectemy. This time the doctors are calling for surgery again, and my mother is understandibly nervous about another major surgery.

After someone close to you dies suddenly, it's normal to have irrational thoughts that other people in your life will die suddenly. You start to feel like nothing is safe. You tell yourself that these thoughts are irrational until everything goes to total shit like it is. As if all the people around me being sick wasn't enough, even my cars decided that this was best time to run amuck too. On top of that, when I visited my doctor yesterday for a ear ache, he told me that he suspects I have kidney stones...more good news!

Sigh...that's why I say life is kicking me while I'm down.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Feasting

We've been extremely busy the past few days over the holiday, so this is just a short post to tide you over until I get a chance to really write more. Wednesday night we went down to Indiana to stay with my mom and sister. The weekend had it's ups and downs. The up - seeing my grandparents new home, the down - being reminded of all the misfourtune that our family has suffered this year and the three of us being pretty ill most of the weekend. I think Liam is better today, the doctor agreed. I, on the other hand, have both an inner ear infection and a UTI. UGH!

More updates to come...

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

It's been four months...

...since my dad passed away. I am still coming to terms with the loss of my father, especially as the holidays approach. I find myself constantly fighting the urge to buy him Christmas gifts whenever I happen to see something I know he would have liked.


To get my mind off of this sad anniversary, I took Liam to the Michigan Historical Museum in downtown Lansing. Admission is free and we only had to pay 75 cents for parking. I figured it would be a good place to take Liam because it's a large space for him to run around in and is fairly toddler-proof (except the Corvette exhibit, which he climbed into!). All of the middle and high school kids who were there with us thought Liam was very cute. Liam had a blast and no one cared how loud he got in his excitement.

When we came home, Liam was feeling a little under the weather, so I tried to get him to take a second nap. He fought it, but eventually settled down. I made us a mini Thanksgiving dinner - complete with roasted chicken, seasoned roasted red and sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and green beans. When Liam woke he enjoyed his dinner - especially the chicken, sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce. After dinner I made chocolate chip cookies too. We went to bed with happy tummies tonight!

PS - I'll try to post more pictures from our trip to the museum later. Blogger is acting funny tonight.

Monday musings

On Monday we went to our usual Tot Time playgroup at the neighborhood center. Sara and Elli came too. Elli taunted Liam with wheat crackers...Elli was running around the gym with Liam following after her. I think Liam eventually ate her crackers. That's ok though, because I later feed Elli Liam's snack when he wasn't looking. The rest of our day was pretty uneventful. Liam took a good nap when we came home from playgroup. I took the opportunity to work on his play kitchen that I am making him for Christmas. I still have a lot more work to do! I also started taking the old burnt-out lights off our Christmas tree. Later, we went to Lowes to buy some LED light sets. We are upgrading to LED lights because they last 10 times longer than regular lights and are 90% energy efficient. Of course they cost a lot more, but it will definitely be worth it! I've also gotta get cracking on making some toddler-safe ornaments for the tree.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

Well, as you can see, I'm a little behind on posting. We've just been super busy lately. Last Sunday we continued our weekly race to keep up with the falling leaves. Finally we are starting to rake leaves from our own trees, not just the neighbors. It took 10 bags to clean up all the maple leaves in the front yard! As always, Liam was my little helper. He gets all excited when I get out the rakes. The weather was chilly but not too bad, so I dressed Liam in a sweatshirt that was his daddy's. He looked very cute in it and Sean thought it was funny to see Liam wearing something that he had worn so many years ago.

We've started a tradition of making homemade soup and bread every Sunday. I am finally getting some use out of my crock pot. I guess it takes being a mom to really appreciate being able to throw the ingredients into the pot at 7am and let it simmer all day long. The only problem is that you are maddeningly hungry by dinner time because you've been smelling the wonderful soup and bread cooking all day! This weekend we enjoyed french onion soup and whole wheat bread. The week before was potato soup and sourdough bread. Yum!

My little artist


Liam loves to draw. Whenever he sees me using a pen, he wants to have it. I give him crayons and his own clip board with paper instead. He makes a very satisfied little noise every time he marks on the page. You can see an example of his drawings in middle, right of the photo (sorry, it's not the greatest photo and I was too lazy to hook up the scanner). He has also had the opportunity to make other artistic creations when we go to the Great Start gatherings. Last week they had materials for making a collage (it's on the bottom in the photo). He also got to "paint" a pumpkin shape with pant markers before Halloween (upper right). When he was in the toddler room at daycare, he painted leaves and they glued them on a paper tree (left). I framed the tree to display during the fall. It looks very nice in our living room.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Silver Bells

Every year Lansing has its Silver Bells in the City celebration. It includes a nighttime parade with lots of lights, plenty of hot chocolate vendors, and culminates in the lighting of the state tree with fireworks. We decided to brave the cold and go join in the festivities. We had a lot of fun walking around downtown and checking out some of the stores. We discovered a really nice fine art supply store and a comic book place that we didn't know about. The crowds got to be pretty crazy during the parade. Liam liked seeing the big draft horse pulling wagons and loved grooving to the marching bands. He also thought the lighted trucks were pretty neat, although he didn't like them honking their horns. We didn't stay to see the tree lighting because Liam was getting tired and a little too heavy for mommy and daddy to wear on their backs. But we sure had a fun time!

Kisses

Liam loves to give kisses. He puckers up and goes "mmmaaa" when he gives a kiss. This week he started kissing some of his toys (in addition to giving mommy and daddy kisses). He will kiss his teddy bears and stuffed elephants. He also gave his toy train (his favorite toy this week) a kiss too! It is so gratifying to have such a loving child.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Fun in the November Sun

Anyone who knows Michigan, knows that we don't see a lot of sun in the fall and winter. But we were lucky enough to have two mild and somewhat sunny days this week. Monday started out rainy and gray. Liam had his first dental appointment in the morning. It went pretty smoothly and Liam actually let them take a look at his teeth. He has 16 teeth in already!

After or trip to the dentist, we decided to take a trip to Grand Rapids to visit the John Ball Zoo, since daddy had the day off work. We took Liam to this zoo for the first time last fall and we really liked it. Even though it was kind of off season, we thought it would be a fun outing. While some of the animals were inside for the winter, we saw quite a few. Some of Liam's favorite were the penguins, fishes, farm animals, Bengal tiger, pygmy goats, and spider monkeys. Unfortunately, my aging camera didn't save some of the pictures to disk, so a few were lost. But here are a couple of the ones that did save.










Tuesday was an even nicer day. I took Liam to a couple local parks to collect pine cones for our Christmas tree decorations. Liam got very excited and every time I handed him a pine cone he would inhale in excitement and put it into the bag he was carrying. We also walked down to the river and looked at the water. When we came home, Liam helped me knock the bugs out of the pine cones. When daddy came home from work, we took a stroll down to the library and playground. Liam loves to swing!

Sunday, November 11, 2007

A horse is a horse...

This weekend was super busy with lots of home improvement sorts of stuff. But on Saturday afternoon we did manage to meet up with Alissa and Ashtyn to go to the MSU horse farm. Liam has been very interested in animals lately and has started saying their names and making their sounds, so I thought he would really get a kick out of seeing the animals in person. Liam loved petting the horses! He also made friends with the "farm" cat that was out near the horse pens. The cutest thing was that Liam kept saying "mooo"...cows are his favorite farm animal and he hasn't yet got the hang of saying "neigh".

Friday, November 9, 2007

New hat for Liam

About a month ago I knitted three pairs of mittens for Liam. I've been meaning to make him matching hats for a while now, and started working on one this week. Here is the first hat. I am very please with the results and it fits him great!

Clipped the Curls

Well, I put off getting Liam's hair cut for quite some time...I enjoyed the shaggy look and the little curls in the back. But now that it's getting cold and dry here and his hair is constantly static-y. So I decided it was time to get his hair cut short. I took him to Olivia again. She's really amazing at cutting kids hair and can do it so fast. Here are his before and after shots...He looks like a totally different kiddo!

Kicking the leaves


The past couple days have been cool and overcast, but were still nice enough to spend some time outside in the backyard. Liam loves jumping into the piles of leaves and kicking around like he's making leaf-angels. Today he "helped" me rake leaves too. He looks so grown up in the second picture and like a child model...even though he's dressed head to toe in thrift store finds not designer clothes.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Wednesday Musings

This morning while Liam and I were going through our usual morning activities, Liam brought me one of his farm animal board books. He opened it to the cow page and said, "Cow, mooo". I don't think I ever been more proud of him (except when we went poopoo in the potty for the first time)! His verbal skills have been expanding by leaps and bounds in the past week. While visiting grandma he seemed to be more expressive than usual...perhaps he was trying to impress. Yesterday he heard our neighbor's dog barking and said "dog". He also pointed to the elephant painting in his room and tried to make an elephant trumpeting-sound. Other words that he has used pretty consistently are "more", "mom", "daddy", "kitty", "teddy", "bear", "GOat", and "up". He also growls like a bear, roars like a tiger, says "ruf-ruf" like a dog, and meows like a cat.

I took Liam to daycare today. When I got home I washed all the dishes that had been pilling up in my sink...I sure do miss having a dishwasher. After I finished, I was looking out my back door and happened to see a squirrel with a double chin. Yes, a double chin! This guy was not just fat, but rotund. Even his little squirrelly arms were fat! He was so big in fact, that I doubt he could have climbed a tree. He was busily digging around in the mulch looking for more nuts...I'm sure he's the one who ate my daffodil bulbs.

This afternoon I finally ventured my first try at making yogurt. I've been saying for months that I would do it, but just haven't had the time to look up how it was done and just do it! So I checked its progress a few minutes ago and it looked extremely lumpy - more like cottage cheese than yogurt. Now this could be because 1) its not done yet, 2) I didn't mix my "starter" yogurt into the milk well enough, or 3) I have indeed made cottage cheese and not yogurt. There are so many variables unaccounted for...perhaps I added the starter before the milk had cooled enough. I guess I'll check it again in the morning and hope for the best. Who knows what kind of culinary creation I end up with!?

Monday, November 5, 2007

French Food and Flower Gardens

We started our weekend in Fort Wayne by going to the local $1 theater with my mom on Friday night. I hate spending a lot for movie tickets, especially when I don't know if Liam will sit still for 15 minutes, let alone an hour! So the $1 theater seemed like a safe bet and they were playing Ratatouille. Surprisingly, Liam sat still and stayed awake through the whole thing! It was a really cute movie, although there were a couple of kinda scary scenes.

Saturday we went to PentaCon with my sister (see below).

Sunday, we went to the Botanical Gardens. We arrived a few minutes before it opened, so we took a stroll around downtown. Thankfully, it was such a lovely and sunny day. We stopped for lunch at our favorite gyro restaurant. Liam ate a super yummy spinach pie. Once in the gardens, Liam had fun looking at (and carrying away) all the pumpkins they had on display. He really liked the waterfall in the rainforest exhibit. Mommy had to coax him into a play tunnel that ended with a slide...this meant that I had to crawl down the tunnel with him...Ohhh, the crazy things you do for your children!

What a busy weekend! It's no surprise that Liam slept well on the drive home.

I spent my 15mo birthday at PentaCon

Over the weekend we went to visit family in Fort Wayne and also went to the gaming conventions known as PentaCon. Yes, we are that geeky!

Liam and I spent most of Saturday at PentaCon with my sister, Rae. Liam was quite a crazy toddler while he was there. It was tough to keep him under control. I spent most of my time running after him or feeding him snacks to keep us both sane. He did manage to take a couple hour nap, but it wasn't quite long enough for me to finish the "Wrath of Khan" game that I was playing. Overall, it was a lot of fun...though I really missed my dad (who never missed a convention while he was alive).

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Trick or Treat (belated)

Last night was Halloween and as luck would have it, I had to work during trick or treat hours. So we took Liam briefly to the neighbor's houses before I had to go, mostly just to say "hi" and let them see Liam in his adorable outfit. Liam and daddy then handed out candy to other boys and girls...Liam got to see how important it was to give (not just receive) goodies.

Today was Liam's 15 month check-up. Dr. T said that Liam was growing and developing well. Liam measured in at 32 1/2 inches long and 25lbs 4oz. He's still in the upper percentiles, but has slowed down his growth a little bit.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Thanks for the Generosity!

We all want to send a big THANK YOU to Sean's cousin Jill and her family! They sent us a ton of great toys and clothes. Joshua, now 10, generously gave Liam his wonderful Thomas train table (made by his grandpa), his huge train and tug boat collection, as well as a bunch of great books, wooden puzzles, and a couple dozen videos. They also gave us a bunch of 2T and 3T clothes for this winter, including several really nice winter coats. Thanks so much!!! I was going to ask for books and puzzles for Christmas gifts, but Liam is pretty well set! Liam is one lucky little boy!

Christmas Projects

I know, I know...today is Halloween, so I shouldn't be writing about Christmas already. But I've been working on several hand-made Christmas gifts for Liam and I wanted to share some of the ones that I finished already. So far I'm very happy with the results.

The first gift is an activity book that teaches Liam about buttons, zippers, velcro and laces. I had a lot of fun making this out of scrap material. The only thing that I had to buy was a $2 zipper. I think it came out rather nice even though I only spent about 4 hours total working on it.

The other project that I'm still in the process of making is felt play food. So far I have a few things made including: one sunny-side-up egg; one pancake; a sandwich complete with tomato, lettuce, onion, and lunch meat; three carrots; an apple; and a cupcake with frosting. I made this food out of felted wool sweaters from the thrift store and inexpensive craft felt that I already had in my craft supplies.