Fun Times

It's not even Easter yet and we've already had a ton of fun the past few days.

Thursday night the boys got their hairs cut and then we went for ice cream afterwards. They looked so spiffy with their new cuts. Just in time for Grandma Dixie to come and just in time for Easter weekend too.

Friday I had the day off of work because we were planning on meeting up with Robin and Trent (and the kiddos) while they were still in the area. Liam and I were home all morning. He was such a good boy and let me take some photos of him in the front yard. It was a gorgeous spring day!

Daddy got home and we three left to meet up with Robin and gang at Chuck E Cheese's. It was so good to see everyone, especially Henry. He was my snuggle bud pretty much the whole time. I have been so excited to meet him and he didn't disappoint. Thanks, Robin, for indulging me.

Liam loved all the toys and games at this place with the "big mouse"... He would play the game as best he could, then gather his winnings like a real grown up... folding the tickets just right, then stuffing them in his pockets (video to come). Later he was grooving to the music as he ate his pizza and even gave that "big mouse" a high five. What a little man!

After the lunch party, the gang came back to our house. I had laid Liam down for his nap right before Robin and family got here. An hour later Liam hadn't slept a wink and was downstairs playing with the kids. Yep, he got out of his crib (on his own accord), opened his door and came downstairs because he KNEW there was more partying going on. He really enjoyed Tucker's company. I would love to have Tucker around here more often. What a cute pair they were.

Robin went over to see her old house and the dads went to wash the car. I had 4 kids for a bit and it was as easy as pie. They were so good with each other. Charlotte just played with the boys and Henry would do his own thing crawling all over. I was amazed at how careful the other kids were with Henry when he'd come to drool on the toys they were playing with. Tucker especially knew how to be gentle. Made me miss these kids (and their mom) even more... why did you all have to move to Arizona?

Friday evening Grandma Dixie arrived! He's been talking about her all week long and finally he got to see "Gram!" Liam gave her a nice greeting with a big hug! She was tickled that he hugged her so soon with no warming up. Once we all came inside, she gave Liam some gifts. He opened up a bag full of Crayola Color Wonders and started his art work immediately! A little later, there was a bigger gift to open... a Radio Flyer Tricycle! Daddy put it together and we all went outside to see Liam actually peddle that thing! Such a big kid!

THANK YOU GRANDMA AND GRANDPA!

Saturday (today), we got up and around and out of the house by 10am. We made our way to Thanksgiving Point to face a much larger crowd than last year's Easter Eggstreme. We paid to get in then totally skipped all the activities (long lines) that we paid for. We went straight to the farm animals.

It was a brisk day so Liam was feeling kinda chilly. Daddy carried him most of the time as we went through to see all of the animals. We had a warm break when we went inside to see the baby chicks and ducklings. There was a yellow chick and a brown one. We decided to buy the yellow one. Liam and Grandma were in the back seat giggling with that little chick all the way to IFA (where we picked up some feed and two more chicks that will lay eggs eventually). More giggling commenced in the back seat on the way home... three chicks that are a week (or less) old.

Much handling of chicks took up the rest of our afternoon and evening (plus lunch with Uncle Drew and a nap). Liam can't get enough of our chickens who live in a box in my sewing room. Their names are Yellow, Peanut and Caramel. Liam's is Yellow, Daddy's is Peanut and mine is Caramel. Liam let us each have one of his chicks... so nice to share!

You can see all three days worth of photos HERE.

St. Patrick Day Easter Eggs

We had our friends over tonight so our kiddos, Joslyn and Liam, could decorate Easter eggs. First they put stickers on the plastic eggs, then they dyed the hard boiled eggs. They dyed their hands too while they were at it!

After eggs, the kiddos played and started watching a movie. They get along so well together... so we took advantage of that and we parents played Apples to Apples. We had a great time!

The kids didn't want to stop playing when it was time to say good-bye, so we took them upstairs to jump on the bed for a bit. They were so cute! Squeals and lots of smiles!

Note: The next day all Liam could talk about was "Joshwin."

Friday Night Water Colors

This is the first time we've attempted paints. Daddy went to bed early and Liam was wired to the max. So this is the only thing I could think to do that would keep him busy until his bedtime. He absolutely loved it! I knew he would since I can already tell he's a budding artist, but he loved it even more than I could imagine! I've already picked out one of my favorite pieces, I am sure it will be one of many (in time).

He is one focused little boy!

Wednesday Night Tidying

Liam loves to "bac" whenever he sees a (dry) mess. The vacuum is the "bac"... and it's requested mainly when the cats have made a crumby mess around their eating area. Cat food is always tackled first, and then it's on to the rest of the house if his mother allows it. This evening, I knew there was a lot of Liam's own messes under the table and I gladly moved a chair out so he could "cwean up, cwean up" under there. (He learned the clean up song in nursery at church and always sings it when it's time to pick up toys or whatever.)

Such a great helper!

Tid bits

~Liam knows all of the alphabet... I don't know when it happened but it's been in the last month or so that there are no more mix ups. And the letter O is not a "kircle" anymore, it's an "O!" I thought it was pretty cute that all zeros and O's were circles to him. And lowercase L's were the number 1, but not anymore. His counting has improved greatly too. He goes into the high teens now.

~Last night during dinner, Daddy asked Liam if we should go camping sometime soon. Liam got all excited and said, "Yeah! Pamping!" So of course the rest of the evening we took a few more opportunities to have Liam say the word camping. "Pamping!!!"

~Liam was such a big helper last night. I got a spring cleaning bug in me, so I'd invite him to help me with a few things. He helped wash the front picture window, inside and outside. He cleaned the kickboard of the front door (and I cleaned the rest of the door). He helped me vacuum the stairs and also helped pick up his toys.

~Liam has had a hard time going to bed the past week or more. The time change kinda compounded the matter. Last night we were getting pretty impatient as we wanted to watch a movie and Liam just wouldn't go down without many screaming requests from his bedroom. I finally related to Ian, after he asked what we should do, that I was going to bring Liam down and take him on the front porch to cool off and give him a talking to. (It was pretty hot in his bedroom and with the added carrying on, we knew he was probably sweating at this point.) So I went up and grabbed Liam, stood at the top of the stairs with him as I counted to 3 for him to stop crying and get himself together. (He's been taught this trick as going downstairs is a big treat when it's bed time.) The crying ceased and I made my way to the front door and out. I talked to him about a warm bed verses the cold front porch. I went on about how nice his bed is and sleeping outside would be sooo cold. I then told him that Daddy is not going to "cuggle" him (this is always the main request from Liam). Daddy is only going to cuddle Mommy from now on. "So, are you ready to go back to your warm bed to cuddle your silky, blanky and pillows?" Yes was his reply and with him repeating the phrase Daddy "cuggles" Mommy, we headed up the stairs. I put him in his bed and we didn't hear anything more from him.

Kite Flying

Saturday was another half lazy day. We hung around the house all morning. I did some chores and Ian worked on his truck a bit. Liam enjoyed keeping Dad company outside. He threw rocks into an empty barrel and ran around the yard helping me pick up sticks.

After lunch and great naps for all, we got ready to go kite flying. We had picked up a couple kites at Wal-mart for only a dollar each (Elmo and Winnie the Pooh). And Ian found a cool polyester tiger shark kite at Sam's Club.

We picked up some fast food at Wendy's on the way to a park that had a lot of open space. Ian put together the shark and I put together the very simple Elmo kite (though I put it together wrong so Ian fixed it up later so it would actually fly and not twirl).

Liam would chase the long kite tales and jump so high at times to reach them! He was giggling and running everywhere. He just loved being outside playing with his parents. He did well holding the kite string once we had the kite flying high in the air. He'd pump his arms when he'd see it start to descend and then it would go back up higher. We were pretty impressed with his kite flying skills (for it being his first time).

You can see all the photos HERE.

We ran a lot of other errands and Liam was well behaved and in good spirits most of the afternoon and evening. We had one meltdown at the mall because he wanted to push the stroller, but he couldn't steer well enough to NOT run into oncoming traffic. Oh the screeching horror of a tantrum in an echo-y mall! He was relentless for about 10 minutes, but we got past it and he was great the rest of the evening!

We went to a little Mexican/Salvadorian restaurant on the way home. Liam was so good as we waited for our food. We were dancing to the polka music and we were asking him silly questions. I was so happy with him. Ian was too. He got a proud look on his face and said, "I love my family!"

It was sweet day.

Liam makes cake

Tonight after dinner I wanted to make a pineapple upside down cake. I put the butter in the pan to melt in the oven. I then started to crack the eggs, etc. I realized Liam was in the living room misbehaving for his dad. So I called him in to help me make a cake.

He ran right to me all excited to do something fun!

First, he stirred the cake batter and did pretty well. He kept the whisk in the bowl and batter didn't fly. Yay!

I took the pan out of the oven with the melted butter. I told Liam that the blue glass was HOT. Do not touch the blue.

I showed him how to place the pineapple in the pan. The first one he tried made some butter fly, but I showed him how to do it with no splashing. He placed all of the slices so perfectly! I was so proud of him for that and NOT touching the blue pan in the process.

I opened the Marciano cherries. I showed him how to take off the stem and place the cherry in the middle of the pineapple. He then took the stems out of each cherry and placed them as I had directed! Wow! I didn't even flinch when he would squeeze each cherry and get the red juice dripping down. A mess I could worry about later so he could focus.

I got out the brown sugar. I would give him about a tablespoon at a time to dump on each piece of fruit. He'd notice that he was missing the target each time, so he took it upon himself to spread the sugar around with his fingers. It was so precious how focused he was on his job.

Next he helped me pour the batter (and that is when Ian came in with the camera). When we got it all done, he licked the whisk and loved it!

I thanked him for helping me make a cake. He excitedly skipped around saying, "Hep make cake! Hep Mommy Cake!"

DELICIOUS! Awesome work, Liam!

Goo goo goggles

Yesterday I put on my glasses before we left the house, something I rarely ever do. Liam looked at me with a tilted head and said, "Daddy's gwasses!" I told him that Mommy has glasses too and reassured him they were not Daddy's. Then he says, "Wee-um gwasses!!!" I said in reply that we'd find him some glasses really soon!

That evening we took a trip to Wal-mart as a family. I found my sun glasses and handed them to him (as both Ian and I still had our glasses on). He did his cute little tickled giggle and said "GOO GOO GOGGLES!!!"

I had to laugh! Dr. Suess really has an influence on my toddler!

He immediately put them on all by himself!

Liam wore the glasses into Wal-mart. He's becoming one of those toddlers that insists on wearing weird items in public. He always carries his blue Lightning McQueen car. This morning, all morning, he wore his doggie harness back pack, a glow necklace, shoelaces and wouldn't let go of one of my "orange" ear plugs... and don't forget "boo car" in the other hand.

Auto-Rama and Aquarium

Saturday Liam had a runny nose and the chappy face to compliment it. He was up almost every hour Friday night into Saturday. So after a long lazy morning of recovery (and Liam's noon nap), we headed to the Auto-Rama car show in SLC. Ian has been wanting to go since he heard about it. Chappy and I decided to join him.

It was a feat keeping Liam from touching all the pretty cars, but he did well over all. We took turns chasing him, holding him and helping him push the stroller. He got to see Lightning McQueen and also got a giant pretzel all to himself!

We were due to meet up with Josh & Katie at 7pm for dinner (and it was only 5 when we ran through the snow to find our car). We decided Liam needed a kid friendly place to run around and touch stuff. So we went to the aquarium close by.

Liam loved skipping around, pressing his cute head against the jelly fish tanks, splashing in the sting ray pool and chasing other kids that were there.

Liam was such a good boy all through dinner with our good friends. He started "hiding" under the table when he was all done eating, but we soon left so all was well. We then went to hang out with Kari, Adam and Jayci. Jayci is the happiest most charming baby on the planet. Her peek-a-boo skills were very impressive! She is one smart little girl! I loved her cute little voice too!

Liam fell asleep on the way home. He transferred well to his bed and woke later around 11pm so I could give him his medicine and change him into his pajamas. Such a sweet little groggy guy.

Uncle Blake's Christmas photos

Better late than never is what I say. I love the photos that Blake took. Here are only a few. He's got a great camera! Now I need to put them into the Christmas montage I made.

Grandma Dixie made us all pajamas! Liam and his monkey have matching ones!

Liam Sunday Feb. 24, 2008

I found Liam in the shower lining up his Hippity Hoppity Frogs on Sunday afternoon.
He was "hiding."



Later he was using his hat as a neck basket to carry around guns and whatnot.

How true this is...

2 years, 4 months

Dear Son,

This month went a little slower than usual and I have an inkling of why. We have had days on end that all seemed the dreaded same. You are truly a 2 year old who has constant struggles testing where your boundaries lie. We never thought the "terrible two's" would catch up to us. It's a fortunate thing that you continue on with your charming ways... as heaven knows, that (and your physical cuteness) are your saving grace. That said, we really are blessed to have YOU, and no other, testing our limits. Your mildness wore off long ago, but you really are a good natured child... we are very proud of you for that.

This month you've been praying a lot with our help. It's very sweet how clearly you echo back the words we offer you. My favorite phrase continues to be "Jesus Christ, Amen" and another favorite is when we bless Grandmas and Grandpas. Your way of saying Grandpa is more like Papaw. Just incredibly adorable, Liam. I wish you could see and hear the memory of it in my mind!

You continue to learn the English language and crack us up as you try:

Caterpillar - Pattipiyar
Butterfly - Fuff-fry
Put Away - Pooway
Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner - Yunch
Button - Bunt
Fish - Shish
Mustang - Musthang
White - Wipe
Chapstick - Boop

Daddy is always testing you with funny phrases and tongue twisters. The things he thinks up are hilarious all by themselves, but to hear you repeat them always gets us chuckling. We parents, acting like kids, try to get you to make us laugh with the same material over and over. You tickle our funny bone and you seem to love to play jester for us. I have found that most sessions of laughter are found in the car when we are running around town as a family.

A big milestone this month is that you've taken an interest in your potty chair. You'll sit there before bath time and sometimes before you get dressed or pajama'd. You think you are so big, though we've had no real results from all that sitting and trying. Tonight you got one tiny drop and seemed very pleased. "Wook, Mommy, wook!"

And speaking of "wooking", you are always asking us to look, look, look! All. the. time. You'll cross your fingers, make a face or stack 2 cars on top of one another... and then the requests begin. "Wook, Mommy!" and I say "Wow, Liam, that is SO cool! Great job. High fives!" You seem satisfied and go on with whatever you were doing before the randomly showcased trick. It makes me smile and then laugh to myself. I always knew you were clever, but it's extremely funny to me that you think you are pretty darn clever too.

I have to report your eating habits the past few weeks. I am amazed and delighted that you've been eating EVERYTHING put in front of you. I cook a meal for the family AND YOU EAT IT! No back up hot dogs, ravioli or oatmeal. This fact is simply surprising and wonderful to me! I haven't worried about your vitamin intake for weeks... weeks! You'll eat most any vegetables and any fruits... and pasta and rice and meats and pickles! I only hope this isn't a phase. And if it is, can we keep it forever?

I have broken out the parenting manuals once again. This parent/toddler thing is an ongoing education of rights and wrongs. We are learning just like you and it is hard. I know you are giving us your very best and we appreciate your stage in life. I hope we can give you our best more regularly, too, this next month and throughout your life. We'll continue to pray together for patience and understanding. The three of us sure can use it. Thanks for always forgiving and loving us not matter what, kiddo. Those soft kisses (and many other redeeming gestures) really go a long way.

All my love,

Mom

We Love Uncle Drew

Drew came over to tend Liam so we could go to the Rockapella concert on Saturday. We had such a great time! The show was just amazing and we had no worries leaving Liam.

As you can tell in this photo (taken before we left that evening), Liam was beyond excited to have Drew as a play mate.

Thank you, Uncle Drew, for tending a two year old, boundary testing, spitting maniac who is mainly saved by his cuteness and small stature!

Report: Liam was put in time out 5 times in three hours, but I am sure he probably deserved 10 or more.

Yes, I said it, my child is not perfect. We need to give Drew the most patient uncle award. We are fortunate to have him in our lives... he is such the doting uncle.

Sunday Evening Snow

I had promised Liam all weekend that we would go play outside.... so Sunday night rolled around and the cold task had to be done. He was so tickled to be outside throwing snow!

Ian came out a few minutes after us and got the sled for Liam to slide down a huge mound of snow. He was so delighted!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

And that snow suit he has on? A 70's original... that was Ian's!



The End

Butter licker

We met up with my great friend, Kate, on Friday night. This is Liam at Mimi's Cafe using butter as dip... he dipped his face in it a few times... and his melon wedges.

Later that night Kate came over and helped me put Liam to bed. I had to take a few photos of her reading to Liam and then she stole the camera from me. This is one of the shots she got. I thought it was random and very cute.

Cute

Last night as we were tucking Liam into bed, he asked to cuddle Daddy. Our initial reply was a big fat "not tonight, son" but Ian remembered he'd be at Klondike tonight with the scouts and wouldn't see his little boy until Saturday. So he cuddled Liam to sleep. I thought that was so sweet of Ian to spend that extra time.

This morning Miss Purr Bug was giving me some love. Liam tends to call her Orion because he plays with and reprimands Orion more. So I corrected him and said "this is Purr Bug" and he said, "oh yeah, Purr Bot!"

Made me laugh! I couldn't quite make out what he called her before today.

Another cut

Liam got another hair cut last night. He does so well as long as he's on Daddy's lap. This girl was just as impresed as the last one as to how well Liam does. He just moved his head wherever Ian put the hand mirror. Vain little fellow.

He got the sucker reward afterwards.

And I have to share this gem... We went to PetSmart while we waited for the walk-in appointment at the hair cut place nearby. Liam loved seeing all the birds, kitties and fish in the store... The gem? He was a huge help when it came time to buy the cat food. He even walked it out to the car and loaded it up. I love the joyful strain on his face in this photo:

PRICELESS!

Liam Prays

Last week I must have said the dinner prayer too hastily, because Liam seemed alarmed when it was over so fast. He refolded his arms when Ian put his food in front of him, so Ian asked if he wanted to bless his food. "Yeah, Liam pray." Ian went on to help Liam say his own prayer.

We were so proud of him!

Then Sunday, the nursery workers told me that Liam gave the opening prayer for their lesson. He kept showing me how he closed his eyes "see" and folded his arms "see." (The lesson just happened to be on prayer and they had little paper bag puppets that demonstrated how it's done.) I was so excited to hear he actually prayed with an audience! What a big kid!

Then tonight he blessed our dinner with Ian's help. When he said "Jesus Christ, Amen" at the end, I was so pleased! My heart just swelled!

Also tonight for bed time prayers, I was saying the prayer but he was whispering back ups of every other thing I said super softly. Man, he is a sweet kid!

The Letters

Liam officially recognizes every letter of the alphabet except a few mix ups.

Z and N look the same to him apparently. Understandable.

X and K look the same to him too. It makes sense.

And finally, M and W. But, I don't think it's because they are so similar in shape. I think it's because M is much easier to verbalize than W.

Oh well. I am proud of his recognition of all the other letters. Just like his animal sounds at 16/17 months, it all happened sooner than I thought and practically overnight! Go Liam!