November is Nearly Over

After the blogging frenzy that occurred in October (8 posts!), November has been much quieter, and this will be the third and final post of the month.

Not a whole lot has happened this month, and that's a good thing. I've been hanging out with Liam all the time as usual, and the little guy is amazing us everyday with new words he's learning. He adds words to his vocabulary so quickly that it's pointless to try and keep up with them now. He tries to repeat words we say, so it's getting easier to teach him words. A few words I've heard a lot lately include tree, star, leaf, water, cheese, baby, and Melmo (Elmo). Liam is starting to demand to watch his Baby Signing Time dvd all the time, and unfortunately can get very insistent with his demands. I try to only give in once a day! He is actually learning from it, though. He has started saying AND signing please and thank you lately. He also started signing "cracker" and even asked "Cracker, please" the other day.

The weather has been really nice for the most part, so we've gone on a lot of walks. Liam points out almost every tree he sees and loves to watch squirrels. Liam has also loved playing the "tar" with Will. That's his word for guitar. He's getting pretty good at strumming, actually!

The three of us stayed here for Thanksgiving and had four whole days by ourselves since Will was off Thursday and Friday. I cooked a traditional (vegetarian) Thanksgiving meal for us, and Will and I ended up eating leftovers for several days. It was delicious! Liam seemed to enjoy the cornbread dressing at first, but then quickly got tired of it. I offered him several more things, and he ended up eating some pumpkin bread while pretending it was a car. Then he just demanded to eat cheese. We didn't do any Black Friday shopping, although I did end up at Wal-Mart for a few things we needed. The craziness had died down by the time I went, but it was still horrible as Wal-Mart always is. Hopefully it'll be a long time before I have to go back.

Friday and Saturday, we worked on a felt tree for Liam. I cut out the ornaments, and Will helped me with drawing the tree outline before I cut it out. It was extremely easy to make. I attached it to the wall with Command poster strips (I sure hope they come off easily). Liam likes it, although he much prefers taking the ornaments off the tree instead of putting them on. He learned the word star pretty quickly after we put it up. He also calls the red ornaments apples. I also got Liam the Fisher Price Little People nativity set, since the simple wood one I have has some very sharp corners on it, and he can't play with it. He likes to play with the plastic one, and that means it's never on the table. Wise men and Baby Jesus and all the other pieces are always strewn all over the floor. The tree ornaments are usually on the floor too! Oh well, he's enjoying them in his own way, right?

I love the tree! We haven't put up a Christmas tree in many years because our cats like to knock it over, eat it, and barf it up on the carpet. Yeah. Gross. Not worth it. I hate that I can't put up a big tree, but this year I was able to put up the felt tree and our tiny green tree. I put it on the mantel, and so far no cats have jumped up there to get to it. Eleanor thinks about it everyday, but I put pictures on the ends of the mantel so there's no safe place to land up there. Five days later, it's still standing! That is a miracle. I put our special ornaments on that tree. We don't have many ornaments at all (since we never have a tree), but we have a few, and I'm glad they're out and displayed this year. I also put some felt snowflakes and silver tinsel on the mantel for decorations. A friend is making matching stockings for us, so those will go up soon! It's the most Christmas decorating I've done since we've been married!

Christmas is coming! Liam is still too young to understand anything about Christmas, but I am hoping to start some traditions with him this year, and I already have with the nativity set and felt tree. I'm sure I'll do the felt tree again next year, and maybe even the year after if he's into it. We keep our Christmas very low-key, but I'm hoping to do some fun things with Liam this season that we haven't done before. What? I really don't know yet, but I'll figure it out!

Looking up at Totoro hanging from the ceiling fan

He looked up at me and said "Leaf"

Our Thanksgiving dinner: Tofurky, dressing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and rolls.

Liam eating Thanksgiving dinner

He loves to try on his daddy's shoes

The felt tree! 

Elmo didn't stick around long. Liam was TERRIFIED of it! He wouldn't go near the tree until I took him down. I think he was scared that he didn't move. He's always seen Elmo on TV.

Checking out his nativity set for the first time.

Our tiny tree, including the snowman ornament Liam "made" last year at church, a wooden ornament for his first Christmas, a picture ornament of Liam from last year, a Texas ornament made by a lady at International Friends at church, and our LA Tech ornament. The other ornaments were given to us by friends.

Liam and daddy playing the guitar

The first video is of Liam saying Thank You on Thanksgiving. It's cute, but he gets squirmy and is trying to get out of his chair at the end. The second video is kind of long, and is of Liam doing a tiny bit of clapping and dancing while Will plays guitar along to a song. It's mostly of Liam trying to mess with the guitar. Excuse the mismatched pjs.