Liam - 15 Months

Liam will be 15 months old on Wednesday. I can't believe how much he has changed in the past few weeks. Here is what he is up to today and I will start with the bad because it is always nice to end on a good note.

The bad:
Liam is still rough and tumble and all boy. Which means he is constantly running around like a mad man and testing his limits. He has figured out how to crawl up on the couch, glider, ottoman, etc. by himself. Just that is not all that bad, the bad is that once he is up there he has no bearing of where the piece of furniture ends and he also loves to stand up. We end up saying "On your bottom!" about 50 times a day.
He also sometimes loses concept of where he is resulting in lots of bumps and bruises. While he is still as tough as ever, only letting a giant knock to the head get him down for 30 seconds or so, it is always hard to see the little guy in pain.

 I can climb into the chair all by myself... with shovel in hand.

And I've got this getting down backwards thing down pat!

Liam has also developed quite the dramatic attitude and the kid wants what he wants and wants it now. Case in point, he had to have Keith's toothbrush the other day, so I finally caved and gave it to him. Of course two seconds later he was putting it in his mouth which I can not find more disgusting, so I took it away from him. You would have thought I killed his dog... he just stood there and stared me in the eye and wailed for about 30 seconds before moving on to the next thing. It is so hard to not pick him up and comfort him or just give him back the object of that moments affection, but I can't teach him that he can always get want he wants.

What do you mean I can't throw all the mulch you just laid down into the grass??!!

We are having a hard time sleeping these days. We used to be able to just lay him down at 7 and he was out for the count. Ever since day light savings time, we have had a giant struggle starting around 7:30 to even get him to sleep and then more times than not, he wakes up multiple times throughout the night. Sometimes that even results in him sleeping in our bed (but that is usually when he has 104 fever and that is a whole other story!).

The good: (Don't worry, this list is a lot more extensive :))

Liam has been a giggle monster. It is pretty easy to get him going these days. He still loves playing "I'm gonna get you" and running and hiding from mommy and daddy. He loves different funny faces that we make at him along with a variety of made up songs and noises. (Keith and I did this with each other before baby so really not much has changed now!)
He has become more and more interested in books. His favorite is "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" and loves seeing the page with the white doggie! He also loves his truck books and now is enthralled whenever a big truck drives down the street.

Is that a truck?!

Liam loves to be outside. For Easter instead of a basket, Liam got a bucket, a shovel and a rake. He could spend endless hours picking leaves up and putting them in his bucket only to dump them back out again. He also loves "raking" the front flower bed. The outside toys have been a great distraction and actually keep him in the front yard so know we can just sit and watch him as opposed to running all over the neighborhood after him.

One toy is not enough!

He has the best morning greetings.When I go in to get him in the morning, he is usually all sprawled out with his belly hanging out of his PJs with the biggest "oh hi Mom" smile on his face. He then stands up and does shuttle sprints from one end of his crib to the next seeming like he never wants to get out. But once I pick him up, I get the best hug and snuggle from him.

As far as eating goes, Liam has discovered many new foods. He is doing a lot better of a job eating meat and last night actually ate a whole rib (after I shredded it for him). He also has gotten a lot better with a fork and spoon and usually eats more food when he has a fork in his hand. We still have not been able to get him to drink milk out of the sippy cup, he only will out of a bottle, but I am not too terribly worried about that right now.

We have his 15 month appointment on the 3rd and I will honestly be surprised if he is not off the charts. It seems like he is so much taller than he was at 12 months and is just growing like a weed. Updates to come.

Shout-Out to Uncle JC

Even though I am pretty sure he never reads my blog, I wanted to give a shout-out to the Birthday Boy - Uncle J.C.!
It has been so much fun having you living close by lately. Although for your sake I hope you get out of Dad and Ceil's basement soon, my selfish side wants you to stay so I can continue to hang out on a whim. We have enjoyed seeing you for Friday night dinner and movies and Liam loves seeing you as well. He always walks right up to you for you to pick him up for a giant hug.

Hope you have an amazing birthday. I know the Carl's treat tonight will help! :)

What We Are Up To

Everything. We have been busy, busy, busy! It has been stressful but I am trying to keep a level head about everything going on right now.

My mom finally got out of the hospital this weekend. She was in for a whole week and she won't be able to go back to work until the 25th. I went over to her house yesterday and got her groceries and helped do a few things around the house.
Keith and I both took the day off yesterday to try and get some stuff done around the house. Aside from my 2 hour break with my mom, we both worked for 9 hours straight and when we were done, we honestly couldn't see a difference! So frustrating. We did get the kitchen sink fixed, patched numerous cracks (still need to be sanded and ceilings painted), took a load of clothes from all three parties involved to Goodwill, took a load of storage stuff to my mom's and did countless other organizing and deep cleaning. I am hoping that we can get our house on the market in the next two weeks, fingers crossed.
So on top of getting our house ready, we are also started to think about where we are going to move. We have gone to a few open houses and it has been very discouraging. There is nothing that I have seen that I have fell in love with yet. But I guess that can be a good thing too since we are not 100% ready to buy yet. Keith is working with his mom and with Citi to figure out what our house can go on the market for and exactly what we can afford.

Friday-Sunday were just as busy as yesterday.
On Friday, my brothers and I went to Cards Opening Day and it turned out to be miserable. Cold...wet... and they lost... to the Cubs!!
On Saturday we had our friends and their kiddos over in the afternoon for a Mexican feast. :) So the mornings was spent cleaning/cooking and the afternoon was spent running after children. It was great to have everyone over and see all the kids play together. It was also great to top the evening off with a Blues win!
On Sunday we went to a few open houses and then had birthday dinner for Bill, Karin and JC at my dad's house.

So even though I had a 3.5 day weekend, I did not get much sleep or rest for that matter!
I was going to post an update on Liam as well, but think I will leave you with this for now.
And in the meant time if you know someone looking for a 3 bedroom, 2 bath (1 bedroom and 1 bath are in the basement) home in a great area, let me know! Picture of the house is on the bottom of the blog roll. I will post the official posting once it is up.

Just Out Walking the Dog...

Our "Eventful" Easter

Easter did not go quite as planned this year. The plan was to go to church at 10 followed by brunch at my mom's complete with Liam's first "Easter egg hunt" and just overall all enjoyance of the beautiful day.

Instead I recieved a call from my mom around 6:30 saying that she needed to go to the emergency room. After being there for a few hours, they finally concluded it was her appendix and took her to the OR. Bill waited until she went to prep and I rushed home to take a shower and sneak a few pictures in of Liam in his adorable outfit. A couple hours later (after all the food was gathered from everyone's respective houses), we had Bill, Karin, JC, cousin Dave and his girlfriend over for "brunch" at 2:00.

Sidenote: While it was great to still be able to enjoy a Easter meal amongst all the craziness, I had just hosted a baby shower at my house the day before. I felt like I was picking things up or wiping things down with Windex for like 72 hours straight! And even though our trash had just been picked up on Friday, it was overflowing again by Sunday evening.

So around 5:30 we got a call from the hospital letting us know that my mom was out of surgery and out of the recovery room. While I was suspicious why the surgery took so long, we headed back the hospital with just a few of her things thinking she would be coming home Monday morning. Well wasn't I being naive... turns out her problems were a little more extreme that once thought and she will be in the hospital recoving for the next 5-7 days.
I am suprised I haven't recieved a call from my cell phone provider asking if my phone was stolen this weekend. I used it more yesterday keeping everyone informed of what was going on that I normally do in a month!

So needless to say, I am exhausted right now and I know I have a long week ahead of me. My mom is doing much better. She is still in a lot of pain, but they are pumping her with enough Morphine to relax her!

I hope everyone else got to enjoy the amazing weather on Easter. Here are a few pictures I was able to take.

I Think I Need An iPhone...

And only for the options of covers out there!

I have a Motorola Atrix and have been trying for the past 6 months to find a cute cover for it.
I constantly see the most adorable options for iPhones...

I would absolutely love to have any one of these. You can find these options at numerous etsy shops and other websites, but they only offer them on Iphones.
I tried an etsy project I found....

I was able to buy a clear Atrix case for $.50 and a piece of scrap book paper for like $.25 making the whole thing less than $1.00! However when you make things on the cheap, they usually are cheap and although it was really cute, the case lasted about a month before it broke into pieces.
So I am still without an case for my phone. And I am thinking the easier option at this point is to just trade this in for an iPhone (dont tell Keith ;)). Because really I am tried of doing searches for Motorola Atrix phone cover and getting results that look like this...

I mean... really?!