365: March 8-14

This week has been extremely uneventful. That's not a bad thing, but it makes it hard to remember to take pictures. I actually forgot to take any pictures Sunday. Oops. The weather has been nice this week, especially the second half, so Liam and I have been spending an hour outside in the morning sliding and walking around. Then Will takes him out again in the evening while I cook dinner. Daylight Saving Time isn't so horrible after all!

March 8: We are in the process of buying a house, and the inspection was Friday afternoon. It got started late, so Will didn't get home until almost 10 pm since he was there for all of it. Liam and I snuggled on the couch some in the evening (watching Curious George) waiting for Will. However, Liam was in bed by the time Will got home.

March 9: We decided to go to Home Depot to look at home stuff since we are trying to get in to the mortgage-paying club. Unfortunately, these days Liam pretty much REFUSES to get in a buggy. There was a small scene trying to get him to sit in a buggy at HD, and he did sit in it for awhile. The complaining eventually worked, though, because we let him walk around some. Of course he went straight to the table saw area.

March 10: This was the day I didn't take any pictures. So you get to see a picture of some kale and Brussels sprouts I sautéed for dinner last night. Eat your greens!

March 11: Liam doing his best Earl Hickey while playing in his room. He specializes in making messes at lightning speed.

March 12: Liam insisted on taking this tennis ball outside to play. It made climbing up to the slide a little more difficult, but he persevered and held on the tennis ball the whole time. Dedication...or stubbornness, one of the two.

March 13: This is one Will actually took of Liam on their evening walk. The sprinklers were on at a house in the neighborhood. Will said Liam just stood there getting soaked and saying, "Water! Water!" He was a fan.

March 14: We took a walk around the neighborhood this morning, and I took some pictures of Liam for his 22 month blog post (coming in a day or two). I don't think I ever succeeded at getting one of him actually looking at the camera. To me, this picture doesn't really look like Liam. He's making a face he never makes, but I somehow caught it on camera. Again with the closed eyes.

365: March 1-7

This felt like a very long week to me because Will was on a business trip for most of it. Yesterday (Wednesday) felt like Friday, and today feels like Monday. Thankfully, I imagine I will be quite happy to wake up tomorrow morning and realize it's finally the real Friday!

March 1: Liam was helping me eat an apple. He kept saying, "Good," but then he got tired of eating it after about four bites.

March 2: I was waiting in line at the post office to mail a present to my friend Amanda. She got married that day in New Orleans, and I was super sad to not be there. Amanda and I have been buds since first grade! I was in line at the post office at noon when it closed, so they locked us in and let us out as we finished our transactions.

March 3: I'm not a fan of this place unless I'm going somewhere too. But we were there to drop off Will for a business trip to Las Vegas.

March 4: The weather was actually really great Sunday and Monday. Sunday, the high was in the 80s! We spent a lot of time outside both days and tried out two parks we hadn't been to before since we had the car. This was taken at Yale Park. Liam loves to swing, and does enjoy the baby swing. However, he's starting to get really upset that he can't swing on a regular swing yet. He kept going over to them and saying, "Wing. Peas." I told him he didn't have the balance to swing like that yet. The couple of times I did put him on the swing I kept my hands on him, and he would have meltdowns about that. He didn't want help. It was frustrating for both of us!

March 5: It got chilly again that day, and we ended up spending the majority of the day inside. Liam loves to do this little trick these days on the chair in his room. Eh, not much happened that day!

March 6: We went back to the airport to pick up Will! Liam and I went to Grapevine Mills Mall beforehand so he could walk around. We spent 20 minutes walking up and down the same set of four stairs. Yep. Surprisingly, Will's plane landed early, so he had to wait a little while for us to pick him up. We were so glad he was home!

March 7: Sticker obsession. This kid has one.

Anniversary Pictures

A while back I thought it would be nice to have good pictures taken of the two of us for our tenth anniversary. If at all possible, I wanted them to be taken on the exact date of our anniversary. I asked my friend Brenda if she would be available for about 30 minutes that day for an anniversary photo session. Thankfully, she said yes, even though our anniversary is also her birthday!

We took them at Prairie Creek Park, which is where Brenda took our maternity pictures almost two years ago. We took them right before we went to Dallas for dinner and the Anberlin concert.

These pictures are by Brenda Cook and posted with her permission!

I think we finally look like adults in our thirties, right?

I'm wearing my new wedding ring Will bought me for our tenth anniversary!

Brenda gave us the rose for our anniversary!

365: February 22-28

One month down! I'm starting to get into the habit of taking at least one picture a day for this purpose. It's kind of neat to see some of the events from the past week in pictures. This week, you can tell that Liam was the focus, as he's in all but one picture. You can also tell I don't get out much! I wouldn't trade getting to spend all this time with Liam for anything, though.

February 22: In my effort to lose weight, I'm eating a lot more fruits and vegetables. This was my breakfast that day, and I think I've had that same meal for breakfast twice since then. Now I'm out of cottage cheese, though.

February 23: Liam is pretty good about not messing with our glasses, but he is all about placing items on his head or face. I think Will might have handed these over willingly for a quick photo, but Liam put the death grip on them when he tried to get them back.

February 24: We went to Bible Study at our friends' house that night. They have two girls. It was only a matter of time before Liam found the necklaces and tried them on.

February 25: Liam has recently become obsessed with washing his hands. He calls it, "Hah hands." I think he really just likes to play with water. The stool is still a little short as he can barely reach the water.

February 26: Liam woke up with this lovely hairstyle that day, and I could not get it to lay down at all. His hair looked like that all day long.

February 27: The weather the past few days has been sunny but cold. It's the wind that's caused it to be more frigid than I like to experience. However, we couldn't stay cooped up inside all day, so we put on some layers and took an hour-long walk around the neighborhood. Liam likes to stop every ten feet or so and play in the dirt and mess with sticks. That's why it takes an hour.

February 28: Liam loves to sit at his table and color these days. He also can't resist dumping out all the colors. This is an accurate picture of what happens around here every day.

Celebrating Ten Years

Will and I celebrated ten years of marriage last Thursday. Months ago, we started thinking about what we wanted to do on that day. One of our favorite bands made it an easy decision by announcing they would be playing in Dallas on our anniversary. So we bought tickets first and worried about the babysitter part afterward. Thankfully, my parents agreed to come and visit from Louisiana and hang out with Liam.

Before heading Downtown, my friend Brenda took some pictures of the two of us for a little anniversary photo shoot. I knew I wanted good pictures of us from that day. We went to the same park where she took our maternity pictures. Although the morning was cold and rainy, by the afternoon, it was sunny and 70 degrees. Perfect picture-taking weather.

Then we headed toward Oak Cliff to eat dinner at our favorite restaurant, Spiral Diner. I know I've written about it before, but we love this place so much. It was a natural choice for our anniversary dinner. Everything is vegan...and crazy delicious. Will had the Cowboy Burger, and I had the "Mitch" Tofu Club sandwich, which is one of the best sandwiches I've ever had. (Bonus points if you know it was named after a Mitch Hedberg bit.)

Yummmmm

A fun little thing I want to remember: The guitar player for Anberlin (the band we saw) is a vegetarian and typically asks for restaurant recommendations on Twitter for each city he's in. Will got on my Twitter account and told him about Spiral Diner. The next day, he posted a photo of the restaurant with the caption, "Thanks for the recommendation, Jennifer C." So yeah, he took our advice.

After a great meal, we headed to the House of Blues for the concert. As mentioned before, the band we went to see is Anberlin. I'm sure most everyone reading this has never heard of them. That's ok. They're still good! They've been around ten years, but aren't super well-known. Thankfully, that means it's still cheap enough to go to their shows! This was our SIXTH Anberlin concert to attend. You could say we're fans. The first time we saw them live was in 2003. They opened for Relient K at the Strand in Shreveport. We actually saw them the night before we left for our honeymoon (which was 9 months after the wedding). Before that night, we had never heard of them, and I don't remember a whole lot about their performance. I do remember, however, that a few days later we both had their songs stuck in our head after only hearing them once. We decided they needed a second listen, so we got their first album, and we still listen to it almost 10 years later. They've released 6 more albums since then. We listen to those too. Every other time we've seen them live has been in Dallas. We saw them in 2007(came from Louisiana for that one), 2008, and twice in September 2010, with one of those being an acoustic performance at Good Records. Their show at HOB in 2010 was actually the LAST concert we attended before this one. Liam attended both of their September shows as well as a Smashing Pumpkins concert that month, as I was pregnant but didn't know it yet! As you can see, this band has been important to us over the years, and we were thrilled to get to celebrate our anniversary at their concert. They get better live every time we see them! It's neat that we know how they've changed and improved performance-wise over the years.

Anyway, I think we've established our love for Anberlin. Moving on. We got to the HOB after the doors had opened, so we didn't have to wait in line. We checked out the crowd situation, and there wasn't much of one yet, so we took some pictures in the photo booth there. You know, anniversary souvenir. I think this is the first picture I've seen where I think we actually look like a couple in our thirties as opposed to college students.

Our tickets were general admission standing room only, so we made our way to the area in front of the stage. It wasn't very crowded yet, so we got as close as we could and waited for the first band to go on. They were called All Get Out. I didn't like them. It was a little too screamy (thought it was 2005 for a minute), and the lead singer cussed too much while talking to the audience. Low class. The second band was Paper Route. We actually liked them and enjoyed their performance despite not knowing any of their songs.

By the time Anberlin came on, we were almost at the very front. There was one person between me and the fence, so we were about 5 feet from the stage. Will claimed he had never been that close before at a concert, but I had. When I was 15, my first real rock concert was Bush at Barton Coliseum in Little Rock. My friend Glenda and I were at the very front of a rowdy mosh pit. We had to duck to keep from getting hit in the head from people crowd surfing. We could only breathe when the crowd swayed backwards. There was a real possibility of being crushed against the fence. However, I was only a few feet from the picture below, so I was ok with it!

After what seemed like forever, Anberlin took the stage, and then the fun began. It's always awesome when you know the words to every song and sing along...loudly. The lead singer, Stephen Christian, sounded great and looked like he was happy to be there. I really love live music. I like being able to feel the bass in my chest. Fun, fun times! There was also great pit hospitality (are they still called pits?). Anyway, I wasn't pushed up against strangers. I had room to move and breathe, and the only person touching me was Will. Perfect!

Lead singer Stephen Christian

All in all, I think it was a perfect tenth anniversary. It was very much "us." I'm looking forward to many more decades and many more rock shows with the best husband ever!

Let's Go "Pay"

Last Thursday morning, my mom and I took Liam to the Indoor Safari Park in Plano so he could play. That morning was cold and rainy, so it was a great opportunity to check out an indoor play place.

We got there shortly after they opened, and I put Liam in the soft toddler play area first. It had a tiny slide, but Liam thought it was fun anyway, and some large blocks he could stack. Then we went to the small play table area. A couple other little boys around Liam's age were in there too. They played at the train table together (i.e. beside each other) and occasionally took trains out of each others' hands...the usual. No one really got upset, though.

Then Liam played in the large play area meant for 2-4 year olds. Since the only other kids there were around his age, I let him. If there had been 4 year olds thrashing about in it, we would've skipped it. I plopped Liam in the ball pit, which was his first time in one. He was a little cautious at first, but quickly started digging it. He spent a long time just falling down (on purpose) on top of the plastic balls. Eventually, Liam decided to climb to the top of the really tall play area. Since there was no way I was letting him go up there alone, I had to climb up too. Liam did a great job climbing and going through the tunnel. They announced the train ride while we were up there, so we slid down the slide into the ball pit, and headed over to the train. No one else wanted to ride it then, so we had the entire tiny train to ourselves. It was a pretty lame train ride, as it just went in a circle a few times while an employee held stuffed animals up to Liam's face. Thankfully, it didn't last too long.

After that, he went back to the ball pit. He escaped several times and ran to the large play area meant for 5-10 year olds. I had to carry him away from it with him yelling, "Why? Why?!" No one was playing in it, but I still got the impression from the employees that it was off-limits.

After being there a little over an hour, I could tell Liam was about done. I tried to get him to sit on one of the walking animals, but he didn't want to at all, so we left!

I know Liam had a good time, but the place was pretty underwhelming. I'm not saying we won't go back again, but it will be a long time.

365: February 15-21

It's a day late, but yesterday was a busy and fun day. There was no time to be blogging.

February 15: Liam was pulling all of the toys out his closet I had put away in there. He's always intrigued when I open the closet door in his room. That day, I let him have some fun in there and get out all of the toys I think he's outgrown or that weren't getting much play time. Of course, when he discovered them in the forbidden closet of mystery, they became awesome again...for a few seconds, at least.

February 16: These days, our Saturday mornings are usually spent looking at houses. This particular home had a faux stone wall in a bedroom. Lovely, right? We actually ended up making an offer on a different house that day. However, 4 other people did as well. We didn't get it. Oh well. It just wasn't the one for us!

February 17: This is an extra picture from all of the ones I took after church that for Liam's 21 month post. I think this is a funny face. He was cutting those eyes at something...or probably someone.

February 18: This past week, Liam decided to dabble in non-napping. By the time we got to this day, he had skipped napping three out of the previous four days. My solution was to head outside and wear him out. We walked around the neighborhood a while, and of course he had to do a lot of sliding. It worked, and he took an awesome nap that day. Thankfully, he decided napping wasn't so bad after all this week.

February 19: This month, I've gotten serious about losing weight. (See? A month late again on something else.) Will dug out his old scale so I could keep track of my weight. I typically just have it out in the living room. Why? Not sure, but it's there. Liam decided it needed some decorating, so he added color and stickers. I think it's pretty cool.

February 20: My parents got in to town that evening, and after dinner we went to Target. Will let Liam walk around the store while I shopped, since it wasn't busy. As we were leaving, Liam decided he wanted to push the buggy.

February 21: My mom and I took Liam to the Indoor Safari Park in Plano so he could play since it was cold and rainy outside. It was pretty basic as far as stuff to do goes, but he certainly played his little heart out. By the time we got him home, he was out.