I voted!

This morning at 6:30am we walked down to the community center where we vote. When we arrived we were in a short line. Before long, the line went out the building! We only had to stand in line for about 45 minutes before voting. I was all done by 7:30. The 40th person to vote in my precinct! Liam was on my back the whole time. We both got "I voted" stickers!

Leaf Stomper & CandyChomper

On Sunday, a few friends came over for a little gathering. It was the first time that Lisa and her daughter Lesli came to visit. Leslie is two days older than Liam. Our friends Sara, Ian, and Ellie also came. Ellie was dressed as Bat-girl and was very cute!

Yesterday I came home from work to find that nearly every leaf had fallen off of the big black walnut tree in our front yard in only one day! The front yard was carpeted with green leaves. So after dinner, we all went outside to rake. Well, daddy and I raked, and Liam played. He loved to hop in the leaves and then fall down into the piles.

Today was Halloween, of course. Liam was dressed in his Hobbit costume and I dressed up time time too - as an elf. We walked down the street, while daddy stayed home to hand out candy. Liam liked to visit all the "pumpkin houses," as he calls them. The neighbors were extremely generous. Liam got toys, candy, and even antique coins. He wasn't able to walk too far, however, before tiring out. We only walked a few blocks...I think it was because his bag was so heavy with all that loot!

Candy

Today is daddy's birthday. Liam was the one who got a treat, however. We took him over to the Halloween festivities at a local mall and met with our friends Alissa and Ashtyn. Ashtyn was dressed as Elmo. Liam was dressed in his doggie costume. We visited a few stores for candy and stickers. Then we setting in the book store to warm up. The kiddo's played with the train table. We bumped into a few folks from my department and their kids - what a small world.

We decided to eat dinner with Alissa and Ashtyn at a Mexican restaurant. It was a tasty meal! Afterwards, both Liam and Ashtyn tried to use the potty. It was a fun-filled evening.

Snoozy, Zoo, Boo

Fall is my favorite time of year. And the best part of Fall are all of he fun Halloween activities to take part in. After a slow start this morning. We made our way to the Lansing City market to purchase chicken, produce, and enjoy some Halloween fun! All the vendors were dressed up and gave out treats. Liam thought it was funny that the gal from the coop was dressed like a cat. I thought it was funny that Bob, the produce guy, was wearing a rainbow colored clown wig. Liam got to paint a free pumpkin with daddy.

After our visit to the market, we stopped in Aldi and then home. Liam didn't get down for his nap until rather late. Consequently, he snoozed till almost 3:30pm. Unfortunately, the Boo and the Zoo event was scheduled to end at 4pm. But we quickly got dressed (Liam as the hobbit, Frodo) and hurry to the zoo. They were wrapping things up by the time we arrived. But we found a few zoo keepers who passed out candy. We got to see the zoo decorated with pumpkins, lights, spiders, and skeletons. The big cats had special treats of deer legs. We got a special treat of cider and popcorn. As always, Liam fed the goats.

Upon leaving the zoo, Liam spotted his favorite play ground and took off running. I let him slide and swing for a few minutes, but it was bitterly cold and we didn't stay long. We headed over to Diane and Brian's house to join daddy at his friend's party. We stopped in for a half hour or so to eat a little and say "hi". Liam had fun chasing Diane's little dogs around the house.

The freeze out.

Well, last night we finally decided that it was cold enough to turn on the heat, and wouldn’t you know it, the furnace wouldn’t work! The low temp got down to 27 degrees. Thankfully the house stayed at 55 degrees because of the all the energy-savings improvements and winterizing we did. But it was still rather chilly. I am also very glad that we spent the money to renew our home warranty this year. If everything goes right, we won’t have to pay much for the repairs or possible replacement...the furnace is over 45 years old after all.

I made some calls and the soonest we could get a contractor to come out is tomorrow afternoon. Let’s cross our fingers and hope that we can get things fixed before next week, since snow is in the forecast. Brrrrr!...

Train travels

Last week Liam had quite an adventure. We took a train trip to Milwaukee. I was attending a conference, but I really wanted Sean and Liam to come with me to experience some of the great things that Milwaukee had to offer. There are a lot of great Museums in Milwaukee. So between attending and giving papers, we walked around and took it all in.

Liam was very excited to ride the train. We had to wait a little longer than planned, because the train was two hours late. We were all a little cranky about this, but we made the best of it. Daddy walked down to the corner store and got us donuts. Eventually the train was here. Liam enjoyed watching out the windows for a while. We also stayed busy by visiting the lounge car to play and eat snacks. Later, Liam and I chased each other down the isles, he was getting a little stir-crazy by the time we made it Chicago.

Because our train was so late, we had to run to catch our connection. We got there just in time and soon boarded the Hiawatha to Milwaukee. This train didn’t have any lounge, but they did bring some snacks around on a cart. We all enjoyed a drink from the cart and ate the snacks that I packed. It was nearly 3pm by the time we made it to our destination.

We walked from the train station to the hotel. Liam rode on my back in the Ergo. Once we got settled in the hotel room, we went to the conference to get me registered. Then we took a stroll around the downtown district. I pointed out some landmarks. Liam liked looking at the river and all the cars. We stopped in a mall for a quick dinner, then went back to the hotel for a shower. We crashed early and slept from 6pm till 7am the next morning. We all needed that sleep because we were all recovering from colds.

The next morning, after breakfast at a diner, we walked to the Milwaukee Public Museum. This Museum is really quite spectacular. They have amazing collections of paleontological, anthropological, and ecological materials in really great displays. Liam liked the huge Mammoth skeleton and dinosaurs. He also enjoyed going through the butterfly and insect displays. We got to walk around with a bunch of fluttering butterflies. Liam was too shy to hold one, but got to look at one up-close on mommy and daddy’s hand. When we were done, we picked up lunch and went back to the hotel. Liam and daddy stayed to take a nap, while I went to the conference to present a paper.

That evening, we walked down to the lakefront. We stopped in the war memorial complex and walked over to the art museum. We briefly stopped in the museum to show daddy the amazing architecture and look at the Chihuly glass sculpture. It was a really beautiful evening for our walk. We headed back towards the downtown and looked for unique restaurant for dinner. We eventually stopped at a Caribbean restaurant, where we had a fabulous meal of jerked pork, Cuban sandwiches, sweet potato fries, and for dessert we ate rum cake and ice cream. What a great meal!

Saturday morning we walked back to the lake shore to visit the Betty Brinn children’s museum. It was a fairly small museum, but packed with lots of great things for kids to learn and play with. They had a toy train that Liam could pretend in, crazy musical instruments, a stage and puppet theater, craft area, stations to learn about the senses, digestion, and a huge model of a heart to climb through. There was also a pretend bank, grocery store, and mechanic’s shop. In a separate area, there was a toddler play land with an outdoor theme. We spent several hours there. It was a lot of fun!



After the museum, it was a nap for Liam and more conference for me. Liam had such a late nap, that we got a late start going to the zoo. It was nearly dark by the time we caught our bus out to the Milwaukee County Zoo. I had visited the zoo once before and was very impressed. Unfortunately, it was so dark that we didn’t see much of the animals…just humans dress up as animals, because it was Boo at the Zoo night. I had planned ahead and packed Liam’s doggie costume for the occasion. He looked very cute. We did get to see the Bonobos, gorillas, big cats, and bats. Liam got a cool black cat (temporary) tattoo at the big cat house. We were all pretty exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel and went to bed. What a day!

Sunday morning we had breakfast and then packed for the return trip. The train ride home went very smooth. Liam fell asleep just before we got to Chicago. I put him on my back in the Ergo and he slept nicely during our layover. He woke up in time to see the grand concourse at Central Station. We let him run around a bit and get off some steam before getting back on a train. We picked up some dinner to take with us on the long ride home. After we ate, Liam played and made friends in the lounge car. He had everyone charmed, as usual. He did very good and didn’t even fuss when we found out that the battery was dead in the car and had to wait for help.

I also have to mention that Liam was really great about using the potty while we were traveling. Perhaps it was the excitement of using the potty on the train, but Liam went #2 and #1 on several occasion while on the train and also in the hotel. This was really exciting for Sean and I, because we’ve been working on potty training for some time now. I am encouraging him to keep up the good work and daycare and at home!

Bug-out

Last night when I got off work, I was feeling like we should get outside and enjoy the sunny weather before it turns cold. So instead of eating dinner at home, we picked up a quick bite to eat and took it to the Potter Park for a picnic dinner. Unfortunately, m plans were dashed by the presence of swarms of mosquitoes, who were also taking advantage of the last vestiges of summer to suck as much blood as possible before dying. We hastily ate while Liam played on the playground. We kept moving, just to keep the mosquitoes from settling on us. It was terrible! Liam didn't seem to notice, however, and would have been happy to keep swinging all night if we let him. Sadly, we had to go and get away from the bugs!

Family and Friends

This weekend was busy and hectic. But we received a surprise visit from Grandma Bev and Grandpa John. Liam was so excited when he saw them that he gave everyone big bear hugs! After we finished running or errands, we took some time out to enjoy a yummy lunch and trip to the cider mill with the grandparents. At the mill, Liam got to pick out some pumpkins to decorate our porch. He also got to feed some silly goats. Grandma and grandpa treated us to fresh made donuts and cold cider too!

On Sunday we had our friends Alissa and Ashtyn over for dinner. Miss Ashtyn is quite the expert on dinosaurs now. She brought some dinos for Liam and told us what all their names were. The kiddos were less than excited about the chili dinner that I prepared, but they had a blast playing in Liam's tunnel after dinner...the giggles were non-stop!

In other news, Liam said "you're welcome" for the first time this weekend after I told him thank you. He can be very polite when he wants to be. ;)

Pretend Play

Last night Liam and I pretended to cook meals together. He was very cute choosing ingredients and cooking them up on his stove. He even embellished with sound effects of frying food. We also pretended to go shopping for food. He drove around the house on his scooter carrying bags for his food. Then he would pick out what he wanted, fill up the bag and drive it back to his kitchen. He would occasionally take out his toy phone and talk (holding it with his chin and shoulder) while stirring and cooking food - gee, I wonder where he learned this? After he cooked a pretend meal he would offer some to me and say "here you go." We pretended to eat it together. Then he would say "you full now" and pat my tummy. I would say "Oh, I'm SO full from this yummy food!" and he would laugh and then offer me more food to eat. It really tickles me to see him using his imagination and pretending.

1, 2, 3...

All weekend long Liam was counting things every chance he had. He was counting the number of steps as he went upstairs, the number of apples put in a bag, the number of blocks he stacked up, and the number of times he drove a car through playdough, you name it! He has 1, 2, and 3 down. I've heard him count as high as 6 all on his own...And up to 10 with some help. It's so exciting for me to see him learning such a complex and abstract thing as numbers.

Liam picked a peck of apples

This morning we took a short drive to visit my coworker, Julie's house. She and her husband own 10 acres with gardens, prairie, ponds, and fruit trees. Julie invited us to come out a pick apples from their orchard. Liam had fun helping to carry the bags and filling them with apples. The trees were packed, so we had four paper grocery bags full in no time. Liam loved running around on the property. He also watched for frogs in the pond and got his finger tickled when he fed the hungry koi. There were also lots of great pine cones to pick up under the jack pine trees. When we were done outside, Julie had us in for coffee (or juice) and apple muffins. Liam tried to catch one of her cats, but Sunshine was just too fast for him! He tried to coax her over with some toys, calling "kitty, kitty"...but Sunshine was too smart for this toddler. :)

Liam's Dance

This week at daycare, Liam made some pretty unconventional artwork. All the kiddos got to dance on paper with paint on their feet. Liam's picture is a pretty red color. Cheri added a caption and date to it with scrap-booking letters. I liked it so much that I framed his artwork. It now hangs on his bedroom door! Now we will always remember his "snoopy dance," as daddy calls it.

It's the blues, fool.

This afternoon we decided to take Liam to the Blue Festival. It is usually a very family friendly event, so we thought that Liam would enjoy it. The weather was just perfect, warm and sunny but no hot. Liam loved walking around in the crowds of people and playing on the chairs in the audience, but he wasn't very interested in sitting still. We went for a walk and splurged for a little ice cream. Surprisingly, mommy was the only one to end up with chocolate ice cream on her.

Then we decided to sit and wait for the next show. I entertained Liam on my lap for a while, playing silly games. Once the music started though, Liam didn't like the noise and covered his ears. Oh well, I guess he's not ready for the blues. ;)

My little "sweeper"

Liam loves to be my little helper. This evening he helped sweep the floors for me with the vacuum. We swept the kitchen, dining room, and living room together. He's actually starting to get the hang of it, but I have to point out the dirt to him and then he will go sweep it up.

In other news, I heard from Cheri that Liam didn’t want to sit on the potty at school any more. So in an effort to entice him to try it, I found some potty charts online and printed one out. I found a train potty chart, which Liam was very excited about. I gave it to Cheri today and when I came to pick Liam up from school, Cheri told me that he sat on the potty twice and went #2 on it! Reward charts really do make a difference!

PS-I don't know why blogger keeps turning this photo on its side...I've tried re-loading it four times and it's always like this, sorry.

Three days of rain.

It rained here all weekend. So there's not much in way of news. On Sunday I was the master of multi-tasking and got a bunch of stuff done while Liam took a long nap. I made two loaves of bread, two batches of pear preserves, and sorted through six boxes of décor and heirlooms from the basement. I was very successful at winnowing the six boxes down to only two "keepers" and the rest of the stuff will be donated. I am proud to say that I kept only Sean's grandmother's depression glass salt-dip and cream/sugar collections in one box. And in the second box is my antique camera collection and a few items hand-crafted by my mother when she had her own business years ago. I kept only those things that were the most important to me or possibly worth something. It has been a slow process of getting rid of things over the years – I have gone through many purges. Now next weekend I just need to tackle all the craft and art supplies in the basement! The other project I finished up today was the hobbit cloak that I was knitting for Liam's Halloween costume. Once I get a picture of Liam wearing it I will post it.

Saturday morning we ran a bunch of errands in the rain. To maximize our time out of the house, we spent an hour at the hardware store looking at lighting and other things. On Saturdays Lowes has a build-it-yourself project for kids. So we took advantage of that to give Liam something fun to do. He really got into it this time. The project was a little pirate ship. He was very excited to hammer in the nails...his aim needs some improvement though. We made a couple more stops before heading home - we were pretty soaked by then. Liam fell asleep on the way home and then napped for a while when I carried him in the house. While he napped, I finally stained our coat wardrobe. I think it looks pretty nice, but with the humidity, it took a while to dry. Unfortunately, later in the day Liam used his toy pliers on it a buggered up the finish a little in the door. Oh, well!


Lately, Liam’s favorite game is “running” around the house after the cat. Strangely enough, the cat seems to enjoy it and they play tag back and forth. Sometimes Liam get’s out Dozer’s toys and tries to play with him that way. Other times Liam pretends to be a cat himself and crawls on his hands and knees or batting at Dozer’s toys. It is so cute and funny to watch him pretend. He also likes to pretend he is a bear.

Saturday afternoon, Liam was going stir crazy in the house and literally bouncing off the walls, so we braved the rain again to take him to the History Museum. He had a blast running through the exhibits. His favorite thing to do is stop and pose at all of the cut-outs. This picture is so funny! After Liam expelled some of that restless energy, we had a much calmer evening. Sean and I prepared a gourmet Chinese dinner complete with general’s chicken, egg drop soup, steamed rice, and homemade steamed rice buns. Yummy!

Sometimes I a blown away by how verbal Liam is now. He repeats everything I say (even the bad :o). So we have to start watching our words. Along with all his talking also comes the whining. Sometimes we have to help Liam remember not to whine and remind him to ask nicely when he wants something. He talks a lot more when he gives up his pacifier, but he is so attached to it that it can be hard to do.

Bountiful Beauty

I have been blessed by some generous coworkers this week. Julie gave me a bag full of tasty pears and Bill brought me a box full of tomatoes. All of these produce was organic and simply amazing! I can't wait to make preserves out of the pears.

New School

Today was Liam’s first full day at his new “school”, which we call Cheri’s house. He was so happy and excited when we pulled in the drive. At the door, he said “knock, knock, knock” and tried knocking on the door. This was just so cute. He happily ran in and quickly found the trains to play with.

I called just before lunch to see how he was doing and it was still going great. When I came to pick him up. Cheri told me that he had a hard time falling asleep at naptime. I kinda expected this. First of all he has never been a good nap-er, and secondly, he was excited to be in a new place. But he did eventually fall asleep and took a short 1 hour nap. I’m sure naptime will go smoother tomorrow. The good news, however, was that Cheri told me he sat on the potty with no trouble and actually went #1. So this was promising to hear.

It gives me so much relief that Liam is so happy and comfortable at the new daycare. I think we are all happy with the change.

Be our Guest

We were lucky to have Aunt Rae stay with us for part of the week. Liam was spoiled having her here to play with. One night, we went out to eat at the Ethiopian restaurant. The last time we ate there with Liam, he acted like we were poisoning him! To our surprise, however, he was much more enthusiastic about the food this time. He enjoyed digging into the lentils with his hands and dipping the bread into the lamb stew. The trick was asked for all the mild-flavored meats and lentils. What a feast! Yum!

On Saturday, Aunt Rae survived a long shopping trip to Target, Aldi, Meijer, and the thrift store, with Liam and I. We were all pretty tired when we came home and by then it was time for Aunt Rae to head home. Thanks for staying with us!

On Sunday, Liam was surprised by a visit from Grandma Bev and Papa John. They came up to visit because they wanted to go to Ikea with us. Shopping with a toddler can be hard, but I tried to plan ahead and brought snacks and toys to keep Liam happy and brought the Ergo for napping. While I was worried that the trip would turn out like our Saturday shopping spree, things went very well this time. It just so happened, that by the time we reached Ikea, we were approaching naptime. Liam played well in the cart for a while, then I could tell he was starting to fade. I put him in the Ergo and he was out like a light. I carried him on my back through the rest of the store. Shopping was peaceful and better yet, grandma found exactly what she was looking for. So we all left the store feeling pretty triumphant!

Grandma and grandpa got to hang out with us for the rest of the day. Liam enjoyed playing trains with grandpa. Later, they bought us a yummy chicken dinner. Liam (and the rest of us) ate up! What a fun week of visitors!

After grandma and grandpa left, Sean and I hung up the new shelf we bought at Ikea. It was the perfect thing to fill the big empty wall in the kitchen. I was very excited to finally display some of my pretty green art pottery.

Last Day at the Big "School"

This week was Liam’s last week at EC3. I was feeling sad that he would have to leave the place that he spent so much time and had made so many friends. His favorite teacher, Burger, was not there for much of the week. He said goodbye to her on Thursday. Burger gave us her address and phone number though, so we could come visit her and her horses some time.

Today was Liam’s last day at the big school. It was hard for me not to get emotional as he hugged his friends (Owen, Liam, Ben, Julian, Jacob, and Brandon) and teachers (Adrianne, Sarah, Belle, and Pat-Pat) goodbye. He seems to understand that he will be going to a new school, but I am not sure he understands that the goodbye is for good.

To help him transition to the new place, I got off work a little early every day so that I could take him to his new school for the afternoon. The new place is very different from the old school. The old place had 24 toddlers in 4 classrooms, 8 fulltime teachers, and several additional support teachers. The new place has only one teacher, Cheri, and only 6 kids total. All of the kids are between 15 months and 3 years in age and they are evenly split between boys and girls. Liam gets very excited when he sees Cheri’s house. He seems to really love it there. We shall see how everything goes next week!

Ahoy Captain Liam!

Even though the date on this post is September 1st, I am terribly behind on updating the blog and am actually writing this on September 10th. So I will do my best to remember events.

On Saturday we took care of chores and such. Late in the afternoon we decided that we were going to go down to my moms lake cottage. After we ran around packing everything for the trip, however, we were too tired to go. So we had a leisure evening watching videos instead.

Sunday morning, after a big breakfast of waffles, we headed south to the cottage. It was a perfect warm sunny day. Liam had fun wading in the water and splashing grandma. He tried pulling Grandma’s kayak into the lake, so grandma decided to take him on a paddle. Liam loves to be in a boat! They paddled around the east side of the lake, looking at the cottages. Liam decided that he wanted to paddle all by himself (without grandma’s help). He didn’t do half bad, but he was not strong enough to make them go anywhere, and eventually grandma had to paddle them back to shore.

Liam was so excited to be a the lake that he didn’t want to take a nap. Eventually he laid down for a little while, but not nearly long enough. Great grandma can to spend the afternoon with us. We had lots of fun chatting together on the porch. Liam remembered great grandma and spent most of his time in her lap or play cars with her. Grandma and I made up a big dinner of steaks, fresh melon, coleslaw, homemade bread and jam, and lemon bars for dessert. We all ate very well!

Monday morning was cool and sunny. Liam, daddy, and I took the canoe and grandma took her kayak on a long paddle. Daddy did most of the work, since my shoulder was hurting. Liam behaved very well in the boat, except for one time when he wanted to switch from the middle seat to the front seat. By the time we headed back, the weather was getting hot. Liam wore himself out and fell asleep in the canoe. When we arrived at the cottage, Aunt Rae was there. Liam was happy to see her when he woke up. We stayed for a while after lunch to enjoy each other’s company. Liam snoozed on the way home in the afternoon.