Our First Daffodils

Today the first blooms of daffodils opened. I know it may not seem like much, but since this is my first house, and my first yard, it is very special to me. Some of the daffodils were planted by Liam and I last fall. I have been showing Liam the progress of the plants as they grow these past few weeks. He said "yellow" while we were looking at the daffodil blossoms and tried to say "flower". The pea plants that we planted together last week have also grown quite a bunch. Here is Liam checking on them after he gave them a drink of water.

There have been so many new words in the past week. Liam is talking more and more and clearer and clearer. Over the weekend he started saying “bus” and “beep, beep”.

On Sunday afternoon, we had a few friends over for coffee and munchies. The toddlers had the run of the house...I think that every toy that Liam owns was out on the floor at one point! Liam did a great job sharing. He even gave Lindsey a back rub (daddy has been trying to teach Liam to give me back rubs)! Liam was only grumpy near the end when he got tired. Everyone thought it was really cute when he got his blankie out and laid down on the floor. We all had such a great time talking that I barely thought to take pictures. I think we will try to make this a monthly event.

Saturday was pretty uneventful. It was cold and rainy, so we went shopping for tools rather than working outside. As luck would have it, we happened upon a special event for children at Lowe’s called Build and Grow. Liam was too sleepy to try it, but they were nice enough to give us an ant farm kit, a tool belt, and a patch. How cool!

Your son is "Crafty"

Last night Liam's school had a special "family night" event. The theme was travel around the world and each classroom was a particular country, like Italy, Togo, China, etc. They had food, craft projects, art, and decorations to represent that particular country. The kiddos got play passports and collected stickers or stamps for each county that they visited. Liam was pretty tired when we arrived, so I wasn't surprised that he was testy and preferred getting into the toys in each classroom over trying new foods. (And sorry, grandparents, things were so hectic that I forgot my camera). But we did have some fun.

As we toured "the world" Sean and I noticed that nearly all of the teachers, regardless of the classroom and age group they worked with, knew Liam. Apparently, our son is quite the character! Even some of the other parents knew Liam. One mom told us, "your son is crafty". I ponder this a minute...did she mean crafty like Martha Stewart and Norm Abram, or did she mean crafty like Wiley Coyote? So I asked, "Do you mean that he is sneaky?" "Yes," she replied, "he always finds a way to sneak out the door when I drop off my son. He always does it so well that we don't even notice him." So there you have it...Liam is Wiley Coyote "crafty"!

I'm not sure whether to be flattered or worried that our son has attracted so much attention. Sean and I already know that he has a big personality and an even bigger brain. I'm sure they will continue to get him in trouble for many years to come. :)

Four Months & Counting...

It's hard to believe that it is less than four months till Liam's second birthday. I am truly enjoying this stage and age. Liam is fill with such joy, curiosity, and humor that it is completely contagious. I can't understand why people call it the terrible twos. Sure he has his moments and occasional tantrums, but it is magic to be around his growing mind and personality! (Perhaps the worse is yet to come, but so far so good.) Sometimes I wish that I didn't have to be at work and away from him all day, but I know that he is having enriching activities during his time away from me...And we still find time for fun in the morning and evenings.

Windy Thai Food

Yesterday was such a lovely warm day, but ridiculously wind. When we all came home we decided that it was too nice to eat in the house. Instead we took a walk down the street to the nearby Thai restaurant. Liam wasn't too sure about the food. Sean and I are both dismayed that he hasn't taken to Chinese and Asian cuisine that we love so much. Liam did try a crab ragoon and a little bit of tapioca. Sean and I ate up and enjoyed the curry! We had a super windy walk home with our bellies full.

On Sunday we decided to picnic at the zoo with our friends Alissa and Ashtyn. We met them at the playground before eating. The kid's had a ball climbing and sliding and swinging. In fact, Liam was so interested in playing that he barely touched his lunch and didn't stay seated for long. Look at my dare-devil on the big slide!

After our picnic we went in the zoo. The animals were very active (and so was Liam). We had to walk fast to keep up with his little running legs. Poor Ashtyn barely had time to enjoy the animals before he took off for the next one. By far the favorite attraction was the goats. Liam got to feed the goats. Ashtyn fed one goat, but was rather unnerved by the experience and wouldn't try it again. Liam also liked the donkeys and pot-belly pigs in the farm area. Both Liam and Ashtyn also liked the river otter's enclosure...but I'm pretty sure it was because of the bubbles in the water, not the otters. If you look closely you can see an otter swimming by.

Everyone was pretty worn out before we made it to the other side of the zoo...so as usual we left without seeing all of the animals. Liam fell asleep almost the instant he got in his car seat!

One brick, two brick, three brick, ...a thousand

This morning Sean and I got up at 4:30am after Liam woke us up and we couldn't fall back to sleep. We had gotten just enough sleep to not be drowsy, but nearly enough to make it through our busy day! This morning our delivery of 1,000 brick pavers arrived. We had to unload the pallet by hand and carry all the bricks into the yard to stack them up. I dressed Liam in clothes that he could get muddy in, since he played in the mucky yard while we did our work. To Liam's surprise, Grandma Bev and Grandpa John arrived in time to help us with the last few bricks. Liam was a little shy at first, but quickly warmed up when grandma and grandpa gave him matchbox cars and other goodies.

Grandma and grandpa treated us all to a yummy lunch. The weather was so delightful and warm today (FINALLY in the 60s) that we took a walk down to return videos at the library and also walked down to a local book store. Liam had so much fun as grandpa pulled him in his wagon. Grandma snapped pictures as we went...too bad I forgot mine! Later, we enjoyed the spring air out on the front porch. Liam had to say bye-bye to grandma and grandpa when he took a late nap. He sure missed them when he woke up from nap time.

Liam helped me plant some pea seeds in peat pellets today. I have been showing him all of the plants sprouting in the yard and I thought it would be fun to have him grow his own little plants and watch them change. Another activity we did at home this week was to color trains. I found him some coloring pages and also cut out train engine and car shapes out of construction paper. He is very proud to hang them on the refrigerator and sometimes takes them down to admire them.

Over the past couple weeks Liam has added a few more words to his vocabulary. By far my favorite is the word "bubble". Liam LOVES his bubble baths and also gets to play with bubbles at daycare, so it's no wonder he learned it. He also said tickle - he's always trying to tickle my belly - and even giggled "no tickle" when I was trying to tickle his belly. On our way into daycare, he often points out all of the "car-cars" in the parking lot and the "birdie" living under the porch. He can "tweet" like a bird and "neigh" like a horse too.

At daycare, the classroom theme for the past couple weeks has been barnyard animals. Liam's teacher brought baby chickens and a duck into class. He loved to watch the animals. They also made lots of animal crafts, like chicks, pigs, cows, and sheep. I have to admit, I am impressed with all of the amazing projects they plan for the kids.

A Sunny Stroll

This evening the weather was sunny, but not warm. We put on our fleece jackets and took a stroll around the neighborhood. Liam rode in style in his ATW (all-terrain-wagon). We were having a great time, when he suddenly stood up and toppled out of the wagon faster than I could scream his name! He bonked his head on the pavement and was pretty shook up, but thankfully not badly injured. He wanted me to carry him for a little while, but eventually got back in his wagon. Now he knows how important it is to stay sitting down when riding in his wagon.

The joke's on you.

Yesterday it thunder stormed and today we may get snow yet again!?! What a joke! This year is so much colder and snowier than last year. I just read my posts from the beginning of last April and discovered that it was warm enough to go for walks and such...grumble, grumble. I miss being outside, I imagine that Liam does too. The last few days he spends a lot of time standing at the front door looking outside. At least he has a gym to play in at daycare. He loves climbing on their indoor jungle gym and sliding down the slides. Once things warm up we can walk to the playground in the evenings after dinner.

Sean and I are also getting excited about fixing up our back yard for Liam (and us) to enjoy. Over the weekend we purchased a bunch of patio pavers. They will be delivered next weekend. We plan to make two patio areas and several gardens in the back yard. Sean also wants to build Liam a play house and us a grill. The goal is to limit the amount of grass that needs to be planted and mowed. Right now, however, the back yard is a big mud ball. Yuck!

Thunder boomer

Well, I suppose it's final spring now that we had our first thunderstorm of the year. I was worried that Liam would be afraid during the storm because he was at daycare, but apparently he liked to watch the rain and lightning. When I came to pick him up today, he grabbed my had and took me over to watch the rain...he's definitely my boy, I loved storms as a child!

One bad result of the heavy rains is that I found a leak in our basement. The gutter on the NW side of the house leaks and drips near the foundation, causing a wet spot in the basement. Hopefully we can fix this next weekend...but it means climbing up two stories on a ladder to get to the gutter.

Planes, trains, & automobiles

This Thursday Sean and I decided to finally bring the train table that Sean's aunt and uncle gave us up from the basement. Liam has shown so much interest in the toy trains and cars and seems more likely to play well with it than in previous months. The train table turned out to be a big hit! He played with it all evening and raced down stairs to play with it again the next morning. He learned the word "boat" as we played with the Theodore tug boats (uncle Howard also made a bay for the boats too).

Over the weekend, we had quite the Thomas marathon. Liam kept asking to watch the Thomas videos and we also saw Thomas on PBS. All the while, he played with his trains on the table. He has figured out that the train cars repel or attract each other (because of the magnets). He loves to put the train cars together to make a long train and drive it around. Sometimes he also drives the matchbox cars on the tracks too. He also likes to drive the trains under the bridges. It makes us smile to see him play so contently.

My BIG Boy!

Liam has been such a big boy lately. He has been using the potty every morning before going to school. He goes #1 every time and #2 about 60% of the time. I think is starting to realize that it is a lot easier to go in the potty then be cleaned up after pooping in a diaper. We always reward him with a sticker and lots of hugs and praise. Even daddy has gotten on board with the potty training. This morning he made Liam a "Monster Potty" video. A strange title, but it's a collection of video clips from UTube that includes a Japanese potty training cartoon followed by a bunch of monster truck movie clips. Liam seems amused by it.

Liam is continuing to use more and more words. Last week he used the words cracker, cookie, milk, and candy. His daycare teachers also told me that he loves to sort and group toys by their colors. He is also very helpful around the house and will pick up his toys if asked. Last weekend I put away his highchair. He has been eating all his meals at the table with Sean and I for the past week. I can hardly believe that he has grown up so much!

Happy Easter!

We all slept in this morning, but Liam was first to rise. Sean got him out of his crib - thinking that Liam would run it to the bedroom to see me. However, Liam headed straight downstairs without us, to where the Easter eggs were hidden. By the time I got dressed and went to his room to get him ready, he was already on his way back up the stairs. Luckily he didn't find his easter basket right away...he was more focused on retrieving his matchbox car that daddy made him leave downstairs the night before.

After a quick diaper change and dressing, the hunt was on. Liam followed the trail of eggs left from his room, down the stairs, through the living room and into the dining room to eventually find his basket. I took video with the camcorder, so I don't have any photos of the egg hunt. However I did take a couple pictures later, when Liam was playing with the eggs, toys, and eating peeps.

We invited our friend and former neighbor, Chris, over for Easter dinner. I prepared quite a feast for everyone, complete with a carrot cake for dessert. After dinner we watched a movie together and chatted. Chris teased and played with Liam. We had such a wonderful weekend that it flew by too fast!

This is spring?

Friday afternoon, before I got out of work, the snow started to fall. At first it was real light and misty, but then is started to come down pretty heavy. By the time I got out of work there was already three inches on the ground. It was very slow-going driving to daycare to pick up Liam and head home...but we eventually made it.

When we got up on Saturday morning there was about five inches on the ground. My sprouting daffodils are in the snow. Hard to believe that the first day of spring was Thursday! Nevertheless, we decided to drive down to Indiana to visit my mom at her lake cottage. We spent a very unconventional pre-easter afternoon sitting in lawn chairs in the snow around the fire pit. Other than the snow and a somewhat chilly breeze, it was actually a quite lovely and sunny day. Grandma Kathie spoiled Liam with a big basket full of fun toys. Liam's favorite were the matchbox cars.

We had a late lunch at a local Chinese restaurant, then headed to one of the many local antique stores. We all had fun browsing through the old treasures. Liam spotted all the toy cars and trucks. I found him a turtle pull-toy that I just had to get because it was like one that I played with as a kid.

Before we headed home we took a drive to look at a cottage that Sean's parents are buying. It was a really lovely place and property. The house is on a hill overlooking a small fishing lake. The purchase is pending bank approval, we hope that they get it! We had a really fun day that ended all too soon.

Liam meets the Easter Bunny

Today at school the Easter Bunny made a special appearance. Liam enjoyed watching the preschoolers sitting on Mr. Bunny's lap, but was unsure about meeting him in person. I don't blame him, because it's not every day that you see a 6 foot tall rabbit (unless you are Elwood P. Dowd)! They also had an egg hunt and I am told that Liam found quite a few eggs. Yesterday the kiddos got their faces painted like bunny rabbits. How cute and funny they all looked!

Tonight, after dinner, I got out the eggs that I boiled last weekend so that we could decorate them together as a family. Liam was very excited. He has been asserting his independence a lot lately and wanted to do it all by himself. We showed him how to color on his eggs and how to dip his eggs into the dye. The hardest part was waiting for them to dry. Liam wanted to look at them and play with them right away. Here he is with all our pretty eggs. He even arranged them into the color scheme that you see. (As a side-note, one of his daycare teachers told me that he arranged blocks into a pattern of green/orange/green/orange earlier this week.)

Maple Sunday

I'm not trying to be irreverent, but here in Michigan we celebrated Maple Sunday. That is, we went to visit the sugar bush at a local park and watch them making Maple syrup. The weather was chilly, but at least the sun was out. We took a nice stroll through the woods before heading home.

Meanwhile, the last little remnants of winter snow in our yard slowly melted away. While there is always a chance for another snow storm, I doubt we'll get any accumulation. Hopefully this is the last of the snow till next winter! One of the daffodils that Liam and I planted last fall was beginning to poke green shoots through the earth today. I am so happy that spring is only a few days away!

In the afternoon, Liam was pretty miserable. We couldn't tell what was hurting him - his ear or his teeth. It took several hours before we could get him down for a much needed nap. He is so exhausted from the restless nights and few naps that he has dark circles under his eyes. After his nap I gave him earache drops in his ears and put teething oil on his gums. He seemed a lot better after that. I indulged him and let him ear a bunny-shaped sugar cookie that I made during his nap. I also made some rice puddling from the leftover rice at dinner. Liam loved it a gobbled it down!

Liam was excited for his bath before bedtime. He ran into the bathroom and got his toy boat out of the cabinet. After his bath, he played on his piano while we tried to diaper him and dress him in his pajamas. We all need our sleep tonight!

The Ides & Stuff

This Thursday we finally made it to the play group at Impression 5 Science museum. Here is Liam and daddy pretending to be eaten by the huge mouth in the entrance of the museum. We didn't spend too much time at the actual play group, because daddy discovered that a model train club meets in the basement of the museum. Liam had a ball watching the model trains running. We looked at all the scenery. Liam liked the cars on the roads and the animals in the farms.


Friday afternoon Liam came down with a fever while at daycare and I took him to the doctor after work. The verdict was a combination of ear/sinus infection and viral infection. We got antibiotics to treat the ear and were told to give him lots of liquids and Tylenol for the virus. Liam was very talkative at the doctors office and said "fish" and "crab" while looking at their saltwater fish tank.

Even though Liam was under the weather, Ashtyn's mom had made prior arrangements with me to watch Ashtyn today. Liam was happy for the company - I just hope that we didn't make Ashtyn sick. The kiddos had lots of fun doodling with Sean and playing with the toy kitchen. Because the weather was so mild, we took them for a walk in Liam's wagon. We walked down to the library, where much to my surprise, Liam was very well behaved. Perhaps it was because Ashtyn was being so nice with the books. They both picked out books for me to read to them as we sat at a little table. It was very cute. Before we walked home we stopped at the park near the library to play on the slide. Ashtyn laughed as Liam slide down and came running back up the steps to do it again.

They both took long naps after we got back home. Ashtyn's mommy, Alissa, stayed for dinner with us in the evening. She brought some yummy snacks to eat, like crab cakes. We have so much fun with our friends!

Scarlet is 2!

Today is Scarlet's second birthday and Liam was invited to her big party at Caesarland (one of those pizza-play places). Liam was super excited. At first he was happy playing in the toddler area, however, he was not content for long once he saw the big-kids climbing tunnels and slides. He tried climbing up the slides, so I showed him where he was supposed to go. He started on his merry way, but soon realized that I didn't follow him in the tube and got upset. I was forced to climb in after him to coax him back out...it was kinds scary for me because I wasn't sure they were built for my weight, but I did get this cute picture.

Eventually we rounded up the kiddos and got them to the table to eat pizza, cake, and icecream and sing happy birthday to the birthday-girl. Here is Scarlet with her mommy and two aunts. Before long, all the toddlers scattered again and were back at play.

Liam and daddy navigated troubled waters in an arcade game. Daddy was such a good paddler that he got to put his name in the machine.

PS-Liam went #1 and #2 in the potty this morning!

Down with Daylight Savings

The past couple days have been rough as we try to get used to the time change. Liam hasn't been sleeping well, and that means that none of us sleep well. Of course, in the morning it is next to impossible to get him up in time to go to school and for us to get to work. This was him zonked out on Monday morning.

To make things even more interesting, one of Liam's two-year molars is on the verge of breaking through his gums. So he wakes constantly throughout the night and wants to nurse often. This is of course thwarting my efforts to wean him. I can only hope that tonight will go a little better, because we are all exhausted!

Tempura

Liam seemed disappointed that he didn't go to "school" today. To keep things interesting, we had our friends Alissa and Ashtyn over for dinner. Sean and I got adventurous and made an Asian feast for dinner. I made tempura shrimp, green beans, and scallions. Sean made egg drop soup. I also made sushi rolls and rice. The kiddos absolutely loved the egg drop soup. Both Liam and Ashtyn kept asking for more! I didn't think to take a picture of the lovely meal, the only proof I have is this mound of dishes! :/

After dinner, Liam and Ashtyn played happily. Apparently Ashtyn remembers Liam, because her mommy said she ran to grabbed her coat, yelling "Liam" excitedly when she heard she was going to Liam's house. Liam adores Ashtyn and Alissa and gave out lots of hugs and kisses. They were so cute sitting on the rocking chair together...look, they even match (and no it wasn't planned!).

Where is my red shirt?

Today was my second day on the job and Liam's first day at daycare. Yesterday Sean stayed home with Liam because we weren't sure whether he had fully recovered from the flu. Today we decided he was well enough and I took him to school on my way to work. Apparently, Liam had so much fun a school today that he didn't want to go home when Sean came to pick him up. We found out that he had had a poopy blow-out during the day and his teachers changed his clothes. He came home wearing a shirt that was not ours (in second photo) and the red shirt he had been wearing (in first photo) was not to be found. Hmmm...this is not a good start. Liam doesn't have enough clothes to be loosing them every day. But at least he was happy!

As for me. The first day of work was kinda a disaster, because they didn't have anything ready for me...not even my employee ID#. But today things went much better and I even got a computer and a login. While it's only been two days, I think I am safe to say that our family has adapted very well to the change.

PS - Liam turned 19 months old yesterday. Such a big boy!

Sun-shining Day

When the family got up this morning and made our way downstairs, we were greeted by the most beautiful sunshine glowing through our huge east-facing picture windows. Amazingly, this glorious sunshine lasted all day long. In the evening I was able to capture the sun rays in this photo of an old bouquet.

Liam was still sick with diarrhea. I know he was feeling better, however, because he had a lot more energy today than yesterday. He also managed to eat a few more solids today too. We spent a lot of time coloring in the afternoon, after he woke from his nap. He was exceptionally talkative and said a couple new words, "teeth" and...(of course I can't remember them now). He also pointed to his pacifier and said "my dede".