365: February 8-14

Looking back at the pictures, I realized we had a very uneventful week. I even forgot to take pictures for this purpose last weekend. Thankfully, I took some pictures anyway that I was able to use. As usual, most of these are pictures of Liam, but this blog IS about him after all.

Also, Liam is 21 months old today! That monthly post will happen in the next couple of days.

On to the pictures:

February 8: I would say it's pretty rare to get a picture of a toddler sleeping without them waking up. If I hadn't gone in there to wake him up on purpose, I wouldn't have chanced it! He was worn out after playgroup at the park. Poor Noel the Bear can't breathe!

February 9: Liam trying to eat a thread hanging from his shirt sleeve. He will put anything stringy in his mouth, including my hair (yuck). I've caught him trying to floss with/eat strands of my hair way too often.

February 10: This was definitely one of those days where I didn't take any pictures for this specific purpose. I just noticed the upside down froggy potty looked like a koala bear, so I took a picture. Doesn't it, though?!

February 11: Our daredevil child. Although, this is pretty tame compared to some other stuff he's attempted. He handled himself pretty well standing up on this thing. About the outfit: At home, I don't care if he matches or not. If we're staying home all day (which happens a lot only having one vehicle), it's pretty likely Liam will spend the day in one or both parts of his pj's. However, I think this outfit came about because of a massive diaper leak that required a clothes change, and these were the closest two clean items of clothing around.

February 12: Liam playing with the toddler lock app on my phone...and giving me a "Get out of here. I'm busy." face. It's a handy app to keep toddlers still during a diaper change.

February 13: We took a walk down a street in our neighborhood, and Liam just wanted to dig in the dirt between the cracks in the sidewalk. He was still wearing his pj bottoms, too! This was right before we met a neighbor who was arriving home with her young granddaughter. We talked for a few minutes, and then Liam tried to walk on in to her house. She seemed nice and all, but I opted for us to not go into the stranger's house.

February 14: My two wonderful guys on Valentine's Day with the card Liam and I made for Will. I actually took their picture with the regular camera instead of my phone, and I was able to get just one picture (this one) before the battery died. Lovely that Liam is wiping his nose, huh? I love these two!

365: February 1-7

I am a month late to the party, but it's better than never showing up, right? I'll just take this 365 photo challenge to January 31st, 2014. Here's the first week!

February 1: Dropping Liam off at the church for Parent's Night Out. Will and I had a nice dinner (alone) at Sushi Robata, followed by the sweetest vanilla milk tea we've ever had at Best Thai in Addison. I don't really think there was any tea involved, just liquid sugar.

February 2: A picture of a house we looked at while house hunting. Liam's favorite part of the houses we've looked at: the backyards!

February 3: Liam's new monkey backpack. This has replaced the big diaper bag. I've had my eye on this monkey bag from Skip Hop for awhile online, and when I saw it at Target, I bought it. I think it's adorable!

February 4: Playing at the nearby park, which is our backyard. However, it takes about 10 minutes to walk there. Look at those sweet cheeks! You can also get a glimpse of his second hair cut he got Saturday afternoon.

February 5: Liam eating broccoli. It's his favorite vegetable, and one I can count on him eating pretty much everyday. Real talk: this picture was taken after 5 p.m. and he was still in his pajamas.

February 6: Sliding on the slide that's right outside the door to our apartment. Liam decided that would be the day he could handle walking up the stairs and sliding down all by himself. We also spent a good 20 minutes sitting at the top, throwing rocks down the slide. You can see the dried snot on his nose and a little bit of dirt around his mouth because he decided to take a little taste earlier. This is life with a toddler! It's pretty awesome.

February 7: Liam wearing his hat (turtle shell shape sorter), on the verge of taking every single toy out the bin. I love his expression in this one.

January Randomness

It's the last day of January. Tomorrow, February starts, and I'm pretty sure it's my favorite month of the year. There are several things to look forward to in the coming month, so I'm excited!

I'm stealing an idea from my friend Jenny and starting a 365 photo challenge. I should have started January 1st, but I didn't know about it then, so February 1st will be the start date. I'll just go through January 31st, 2014 instead! Still counts. Plus it's an easy weekly blog post that will also chronicle our life. I will try to include some non-Liam pictures, even though he's awesome and pretty much the focus of every picture I take.

Speaking of Liam, I'm about to write about Liam speaking. He's a chatty toddler these days. These are a few things I want to remember about how he speaks at this age (20.5 months).

Liam finally pronounces "book" correctly. He had been replacing the B with a G.

He pronounces stickers as "gahkers."

He calls chips "pips." Don't worry. He doesn't really eat chips, except the occasional veggie straw (which are probably just as bad as regular chips).

Liam loves to throw balls around, and he always says "tatch" before he throws it. That means "catch." He's getting pretty good at "tatch"-ing them himself, too. He loves to kick his soccer ball around as well. I think he would enjoy something like Soccer Tots!

Coloring is still his most favorite thing to do, and he asks to do it all the time. He usually just starts randomly yelling, "cuhyur! cuhyur!" We do, however, remind him to ask nicely. He's gotten pretty good at saying, "Peas" (please) then and doing the sign. However, he's now just decided to say please and thank you all at once...I guess to save time! So now he does the signs and says, "Peas. Dee-doo." all at once. My goodness, it's cute! He sounds so sweet.

Liam pronounces play as "pay." He also looooves to "pay," especially outside! Thankfully, the weather has been decent a lot of the time lately, so we've spent more time at the park.

I love his toddlerese language! It still amazes me that words come out of his mouth at all. His cute pronunciations and sweet, sweet voice just make it that much more awesome.

Let's see...what else is going on?

Well, he sometimes asks me, "Where?" when I tell him we're about to go somewhere. Usually whenever we put him in his carseat, he says, "church." Ha, I guess that's usually where he goes! He also asked me "Why?" one day when I asked him not to touch something.

Despite all the talking and words he knows, we still have trouble understanding him at times. Then Liam gets frustrated because we're not acting on his request...because we have no idea what he's requesting. However, he does occasionally take my hand and lead me places to show what he wants me to do or get for him.

He's also starting to occasionally let me know when he needs a new "biper" (diaper). It usually happens after he's been put down for a nap or for bedtime! Were starting to talk about going potty more, and I got him the cheapest potty Target carries. However, I really don't have plans to attempt potty training him anytime soon. I just want him to get used to these things before I do.

He's also asking me for hugs these days. Talk about sweetness!

These are just a few of the things I want to remember about this stage. :)

Recent phone pics: (Liam is usually a blur in them!)

Coloring. (I think daddy had been helping.)

Hanging out at Whole Foods

Drawing lines

The curls occasionally come back!

Potty head (It's clean! Never been used.)

Reading

Playing with a stick

This happened in literally 2 seconds

Playdate with a friend

Big hair

Coloring on himself

Cool dude

Post-nap hair

Reading again...well, calling out letters he knows

Tired after many attempts to climb up the slide the wrong way

I think he looks older in this picture

Grumpy Liam on the swing (He was actually pretty happy...just tired at that point!)

A little glimpse at the silliness of Liam!

The table (and the crayon marks on the couch) were removed shortly thereafter!

Liam at 20 Months

Wow. I've really been slacking on the blogging. I suppose that not much has happened recently that warrants sitting down and writing about. However, I know I should blog more, so I'll make an effort.

A few days ago, Liam officially turned 20 months old. Life with Liam is always interesting and never boring. He wears me out. Most likely, I'm just too tired to blog! But here we go, 20 things about Liam at 20 months:

1. Liam can now pretty much identify and ask for anything he wants, especially if the request is just one word. If he doesn't quite know the word, I hear "I wan dat." He's learning and saying a lot of words in general nowadays.

2. When he starts demanding something, I remind him to ask nicely. That's when he does the sign and I hear, "Peas." (Please) He does, however, occasionally say "Peas" without being prompted. It's a work in progress, as I'm sure it will be for a long time to come, but I'm always impressed. He gets what he wants when he says, "Peas."

3. When I hand him what he wants, I'm starting to hear "Dee-doo" a lot more often. That's his pronunciation of Thank you! It's so sweet to hear.

4. Putting Liam down for a nap or in bed for the night is starting to become a challenge sometimes. Thankfully, he doesn't put up a fight every time, but when he does, it can be pretty spectacular. How easily he goes to bed seems to go in cycles, and right now, we're just in a rough patch. I think teething has a little bit to do with it, but really I just think he wants to keep playing. I'm writing this right after I put Liam down for a nap. After the first attempt, I heard a lot of yelling and babbling. I went in to check on him since there was no chance of him calming down again on his own. I picked him up and held him, and he was saying, "George, letters, colors, pay (play), bocks (blocks), walk." Basically all the things he'd rather be doing than napping. He calmed down finally, and I put him back to bed. But now I'm hearing some talking and the occasional scream again. He's fighting it today. I will be going back in there in a moment. The same thing occasionally happens at bedtime, but recently it's been more common for him to go to sleep easily, sleep a few hours, and then wake up to start throwing fits...right when we're about to go to bed. A couple nights ago, he was awake from 11:30 pm until 2:00 am, and since I hadn't gone to sleep yet when the ruckus started, I didn't go to bed until really late. Liam then woke up early the next morning. Ha! But, like I said, it's not every night. Update on today's nap: It took an hour and 35 minutes for him to finally go to sleep!

5. Liam is gnawing on everything lately, even sampling a crayon or two. The reason is that he's getting more chompers. About a week ago, I discovered that a molar had broken through the gum and was starting to come up. That was a complete surprise since I figured he'd get a few other teeth before molars started showing up. I figured wrong. The molar makes tooth number 8. He has a tooth on top that could break through any day, and the corresponding molar on the other side of his mouth feels like it's also getting ready to make an appearance.

6. Liam has somewhat of a Curious George obsession. It started before Christmas, but intensified when he got a couple DVDs of George for Christmas. It is all he wants to watch. He also loves to color in his Curious George coloring books.

7. Liam loves letters. Really. He adores the alphabet puzzle he got for Christmas, and has learned a lot of letters since then. He identifies letters anywhere he sees them, though. The ones he knows 100% of the time are: A, B, D, E, F, H, I, K, L, O, P, Q, R, T, V, W, X, and Y. He will correctly identify C, G, M, S, and U most of the time. He sometimes calls C "E." J, N, and Z are the ones he pretty much always has to be reminded about. With his puzzle letters, he sometimes turns the A upside down and calls it V, and the M upside down and calls it W (double or duh duh to him). He does the opposite with the V and W. He also will turn the H on its side and call it I.

8. When Liam thinks about an answer to a question, he says "Hmmm" and puts his finger up to his lip.

9. Liam is obsessed with stickers and coloring. He even colors on himself from time to time. I have no problem with that. It comes right off!  He's getting much better at coloring (scribbling), and holds the crayon correctly pretty much all the time. He's also starting to draw lines and attempt to draw circles.

10. Liam is starting to learn and say the names of other kids we know. His favorite one is Collette, whom he calls "Cah-ket" or "Cah-tet." Her name is the only one he randomly says or says when he sees a picture of her.

11. I think it might be time for Liam to get his second haircut. I'm starting to sweep his bangs out of his eyes a lot recently. Since his hair has grown out some now, the ends are starting to curl a little bit again. I think I would like to grow his hair out, but it's hard getting past this stage where he can't see through his bangs very well.

12. It's still cute to see Liam dance. I make sure we dance at least a little everyday, even if there's no music playing. Sometimes we watch the Willy Moon "Yeah Yeah" video. (iPod commercial song, but the video is just lots of dancing.) That usually gets a stompy dance out of him. There's also a song by The Gaslight Anthem that always gets him moving. Other than that, though, he still doesn't really show any interest in music...unless I'm singing to him. He still loves that!

13. One of Liam's newest phrases is, "Ta da!" He says it when he pulls apart two blocks, but he also just says it anytime he feels he does something that needs some accolades...like standing up on the table beside the couch. Ta da!

14. Lately, Liam has learned the word "help" and sometimes asks me to help him do something if he's having a bit of trouble. It's sweet and I think it's smart of him as well to ask for help.

15. Whenever I lay Liam down for a nap or bedtime, more often than not, he starts fake snoring as soon as he lays down. He thinks he's so funny! I'm not sure where he learned it since he doesn't ever see us sleep plus we don't snore. Unfortunately, when I hear the fake snoring, it usually means he plans on putting up a fight over having to sleep. It means he's not too tired to be silly.

16. Yet another new word Liam says a lot these days is "OK!" Whenever he stumbles off his step stool, he yells, "OK!" meaning he's ok and fine and not hurt. Since he's such a climber, he falls down a fair amount, and most every time, I hear "OK!" If I don't hear "OK!" there might be some crying involved, or at least the need for some snuggling with mommy.

17. As I previously mentioned, I sing to Liam a lot. I'm a horrible singer, but he doesn't care. He now knows the motions to "If You're Happy and You Know It." I sometimes add on an extra verse that calls for smooches, and he does those too. He also is partial to "Wheels on the Bus." Our bus usually has a lot of animals on it as well, and sometimes he starts requesting certain animals while I'm singing it. He still doesn't sing yet himself, except the first three words of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat."

18. Liam still loves to explore (I hope he always loves to explore), but that does mean he will walk away from us in pretty much any situation if given the chance. Last Saturday, we all went for a walk and let Liam walk as well. We just followed him. He went straight to the entrance of the apartment complex and took off walking down the street. He was just GOING! I'm still very wary of letting him loose in public situations. I'm afraid he will have to be one of those children on a leash, or a rein to put it more politely. At least Skip Hop makes a cute one!

19. Liam is starting to become a friendly little guy. He still has plenty of moments of shyness around other people, but he does now randomly say "Hi" to people in public sometimes. He also does his version of a wave. Liam still gets a lot of attention from other people in public, although it's thankfully not all the time. He also still flirts with ladies, too, looking at them and smiling and then quickly looking away.

20. These days, it's kind of difficult to get Liam to sit down and listen while I read a book to him. I read anyway, though. If he really doesn't want to listen, he comes and takes the book out of my hands. I am noticing him sitting down with books on his own, though, and pointing out stuff he sees in the pictures or calling out letters. He loves to get a book, climb up on the couch, and look at it. Occasionally he lets me read them to him, but we usually just go through them and look at stuff in the pictures. He's still pretty rough with books, so he doesn't have hardly any with paper pages. If I do read one with paper pages to him, he usually ends up frustrated because I won't let him tear the paper. Oh how he loves to tear paper.

Pictures! We bundled up and went to the park this morning where he walked and messed with bushes and leaves. He even hugged a tree, but I was too slow to get a picture of it happening. The sock monkey hat is the only warm hat I have for him. He actually wore it last winter too when he was about 7 months old. It's a little snug, but still functions.

Always with the walking away from me

Mid stride

Hey tree

Shadowy

Long hairs peeking out the bottom

Drinking water on the park bench

Plopped himself right down in the dead grass

Christmas 2012

Now that it's the last day of the year, I should probably go ahead and write about Christmas.

Liam, of course, is still too young to understand what Christmas is about. He's still not even super interested in opening presents. This was probably the last year I had to open most of his presents. Pretty much the only goal I had for this Christmas season was to teach Liam the name Jesus and have him be able to identify baby Jesus in the manger. I got the Fisher Price nativity set for this purpose, as well as a couple of Christmas board books. We totally succeeded at this. Fairly quickly, Liam was able to identify the baby Jesus in pictures and even in nativity scenes in peoples' yards. He still likes to say "Jee-us" and find his picture in the books. He even gives him smooches sometimes. (He will give pretty much anything a smooch.) It's really sweet.

We keep our Christmas season calm, which is easy to do without any parties to attend. Will skipped his office party because he was sick, and Liam is my boss/coworker, and he doesn't host parties. We did get together with friends one night, and that was fun! Leading up to Christmas, we did attend the Christmas program at church, and it was a wonderful way to get in the Christmas spirit.

As for decorations this year, I put out more than I usually do. I made a felt tree for Liam and put that up right after Thanksgiving. He loved taking the ornaments off and putting them back on the tree over and over. He learned the word "star" the first day we had it up. Now he's kind of obsessed with identifying stars. I also decorated our mantel with a tiny tree that held our sentimental ornaments, and our new stockings that were handmade by a friend. The tree was left alone by the cats for the entire Christmas season. Miracle. The Fisher Price nativity (that I had to place back on the table multiple times a day...ok, sometimes I just left it all on the floor) rounded out our decorations this year!

Since our family lives in Louisiana, that's where we headed last weekend. We were only gone one night this time since Liam tends to forget how to eat and sleep properly away from home. Plus, he's just been a general fussbot lately, asserting his independence (which is actually a great thing) and making his grievances known (loudly). We were gone less than 36 hours, but the trip didn't feel rushed, and we managed to see everyone we wanted to see.

We left Dallas just 15 minutes behind schedule (which is a miracle for us), stopped for breakfast at our favorite truck stop in Kilgore (the halfway point), and made it to Homer right at noon. After lunch, the three of us headed out to the park just down the street for the 18th annual JAAG Christmas. The four of us (me, Amy, Amanda, and Glenda) have been celebrating Christmas together since were were high school freshmen in 1995. It works out since we all tend to be in Homer at Christmas. Some years, it's the only time we're all together. This year, Glenda brought her kids and Amanda brought her niece and nephew, so there were big kids for Liam to try and play with. Will took him on the merry go round with them and slid down the big slide with him. Amanda pushed him in the swing and on the springy horse. He had a great time "pay"ing. It was fun to be at the park. I have lots of memories of playing there and having/attending birthday parties.

After JAAG Christmas, we went back to my grandparents house, and my goal was to put Liam down for a nap. He was certainly tired, but still had some fight in him, and I ended up laying down with him on the bed while he slept. I didn't sleep, though. After the nap, we headed to my parent's house for our family Christmas celebration. We had a great dinner prepared by my sister and brother in law. Then it was time for presents. Liam got the most, of course! He had very little interest in opening gifts, so I helped him a bunch. He got toys, books, magnet letters and numbers, a table and chair set, as well as many other items. He also got his first bb gun from his papaw. Since he loves all things Curious George at the moment, I got him a CG Christmas shirt for cheap at Old Navy that he wore that night. He also got a couple of CG DVDs, and he even got to watch some after the present opening. He was a happy kid!

After all the excitement and the very long day, I was hoping Liam would go to sleep in his pack and play without a fight. Nope. He did lots and lots of screaming. Will and I ended up going to bed at the same time as him and letting him sleep in between us on the bed. It was nice to snuggle him at night, but I don't sleep well with him in the bed, and he never sleeps in our bed at home. I'm not totally against it happening on occasion, but he thinks our bed is a super fun place to play, and as soon as he gets in our bed, he's up jumping around and trying to stand on me. No thanks. Thankfully, he slept through the night!

The next morning, we headed to Ruston. I love Ruston. I would live in Ruston again. One question, though. When did Monjuni's become Pizzoli's? It was kind of strange to see that. When we rolled into Ruston, Liam was snoozing in the backseat. We dropped Will off at Baldwin's Jewelers so he could do a little shopping in private, and I decided to drive around the campus of Louisiana Tech. The campus was quiet, of course. It certainly has changed a lot in some ways since my college days, but in essence it's still the same. I was surprised by the appearance of several new buildings I had never seen, but comforted by the fact that many buildings I spent a lot of time in still look the same. Surprisingly, after only about 15 minutes, Will called me and told me he was finished at Baldwin's! After that, we headed to Chili's to have lunch with Will's parents before we headed back to Texas. As usual, Liam had a big time taking his Grandpa's cap and either putting it on his head or throwing it on the floor for laughs. After lunch, we went back by Baldwin's so Will could pick up his purchase, and then we got on I-20 coming back to Dallas.

It was dark when we got home but not very late. After dinner, Liam got a bath and I put him in his Christmas pj's. Then he opened his Christmas book, and we read it together. After Liam went to bed (in his own crib!), I wrapped his presents and Will and I filled his stocking. We also took turns filling each others' stockings with gifts we got for each other.

We didn't open presents right when Liam woke up the next morning. We waited until after he had breakfast. We got him three presents plus stocking stuff. We went a little overboard on stocking stuff, and some of it had to be wrapped because it wouldn't all fit. From us, Liam got a wooden alphabet puzzle, a Duplo ABC block set, and a play fruit/veggie color sorting set. He is loving letters lately, so I wanted to encourage him to play with them so there's more opportunities to learn them. We also wanted to start teaching him the names of different fruits and veggies. A week later, I can say that Liam loves his toys, especially the alphabet puzzle! He also wakes up most mornings and immediately starts building with his Duplos...and he pretend eats the play fruit and veggies. I got Will some things he wanted and needed, and Will got me Nutella and an Etsy gift card (still deciding what to buy with it)! We were both very happy with our gifts. Will also decided to give me what he bought at Baldwin's, even though it is technically a tenth anniversary gift (which is not until February). He didn't want it to have to sit around for two months! I knew what it was, but had no idea what it would look like. Inside the box was a beautiful vintage diamond wedding ring! I will most likely write about the ring more in February, but I have to say it's perfect! He did a great job, and I love the ring!

Later that Christmas Day, it snowed for several hours giving us a white Christmas. Unfortunately, Liam really doesn't have proper snow attire, so we just admired it from inside...for a couple of days. All in all, we had a wonderful Christmas!