liam as a toddler

when did we get to the point where liam passed the baby stage and became a toddler?!

(anyone else see lance here?!)

my little boy can answer when i ask him what his favorite color is. (it switches between pink and yellow)

my little boy can sing songs with me by doing hand motions when they come up.

my little boy can register and tell me when he has two of the same thing.

my little boy can listen to multiple step commands and follow directions.

my little boy says thank you on his own when he is given something.

my little boy can navigate an ipad to find which app he wants.

my little boy can most times repeat words spot on.

my little boy can give the best hugs.

i love where liam is right now. every thing he says and does makes me laugh and love him even more. even when he throws a small tantrum because he can't have any more candy or when we're done playing a game and he wants to do it more. last night i was asking him yes and no questions and he was answering correctly. weren't we just filming him cooing and laughing for the first time?

liam's new favorite game is like red light, green light but we say stop and go. it blows my mind that he understands what word means what and the concept of the game. it's mind blowing, i tell you.

liam is obviously our first kid but i am just amazed at how smart he is. he is doing new things every day and is constantly surprising me with new words or funny things. i dont think i could love my little boy anymore! i am so grateful i get to be his mom!

guess who's back

oh hey there,

remember me?

it's been awhile! 

i fell victim to the black hole of the blogger world. you know when you have an update and it keeps getting push back and back until it's useless to even blog about it anymore? like the time we went to the zoo in september. or thanksgiving. or christmas. or new years eve. and once you're that far behind, there is no catching up but at the same time, it feels like nothing has happened to even blog about. bare with me while i get the motivation to finally blog.

baby steps right?

to keep this post from being completely pointless,

here's a picture:

                                      

i dunno who's having more fun....

liam and christmas

christmas time with a 15 month old vs a 3 month old has been so much more fun! he has no idea whats going on but he likes it! 

he likes the tree, in fact he loves smelling it and will always say mmm even though it's fake and has no smell. 

                                  

he loves the image of santa and will point it out and say dah-dah(santa) whenever he sees something santa-esque. however, meeting santa in person was a different experience. the first time we saw him was at the mall on black friday. we weren't planning on talking with him or taking a picture at first. it was let's just look at him, then it was let's just wave to him, then let's just say hi to santa, then it was sit on his lap and before we know it, we're getting pictures taken. in a batman shirt. so festive aren't we? anyways, i think because we gradually got closer he was fine(until santa tried bouncing him to get him to smile. that crossed the line.)

running into santa at target was a whole different thing. the guy was so nice and tried talking to liam but liam froze. he normally babbles, waves or blows kisses to everyone but for santa he just stared. then "santa" asked if we wanted a picture and picked liam up. and the next picture does the rest of the talking. again, so festive in the salmon colored shirt.

liam loves the christmas lights! he likes to watch me plug them in every evening. 

my personal favorite part is the pergola. it looks so magical. i want to drink hot chocolate under there every night.

                                               

i know i may be a little biased, but look at this kid!!!!! where do i sign him up to be a baby model? he is such a freaking stud! i can't stand it!

close calls

liam is pure boy. 

he is rough and tumble. 

he runs into everything, he bangs on anything, he is clumsy.

he is just a rough boy.

we haven't had too many bad spills with him yet thankfully. 

but within the last four days we have had two very close calls to the point where we were almost getting ready to load him into the car to get checked out.

incident #1

it's thanksgiving morning and i'm in the bathroom getting ready which liam hates. he likes to be under my feet at all times. so once that bedroom or bathroom door closes, he freaks out. so while i'm getting ready, lance is in the living room trying to entertain him and all the sudden i hear him cry pretty hard. it was a little harder than a usual small bump cry. so i come out and lance has picked him up and is trying to get him to calm down. when lance points to what happened and is telling me about it (he was leaning into his toy bin to get a toy out, he actually fell in). at that time i look back at liam, who is still crying, just as blood starts pouring out of his mouth. and we're talking a good amount of blood. so we rush him to start wiping away the blood and when we think it's just about done i find the tiniest flap of skin on his lip hanging down and attribute the bleeding to that. so when i finish getting ready and head up to get liam dressed. as he's laying on his changing table i get another look into his mouth and notice what the real problem is. here's where we back up, at one of liam first appts i asked the doctor about the flap of skin(frenulum) that connects the lip to the gum. go ahead and try to feel yours. for most peoples it's at the top of their gums. liam's is at the very base of his gum line and she mentioned needing to get this removed to save his teeth from growing spaced out because of that muscle being in the way. so when i'm looking into liam's mouth, i notice that is what was causing the blood. his frenulum had ripped and was no longer attached to the base of his gums. we talked to the nurse on call (felt so bad having to call on thanksgiving!) and she basically said that if the bleeding has stopped then we just saved ourselves a procedure charge. it's been a few days now it's been looking a little better. it's healing and we're happy thats all it was!

(it did not effect his first (with real food) thanksgiving meal one bit. he was all over that turkey)

incident #2

while i was out black friday shopping, jcp was handing out tiny mickey mouse snow globes and liam was given one. i was initially worried about him playing with it but after seeing him drop it a few times, thought it was pretty solid. last night he was playing with it again and it finally shattered. we were about two feet away from him but just as fast as we could snag him up, he took steps toward the pile of water, fake snow, glitter and shards of glass. we started saying no pretty loud and then lance snatched him up real quick. right away i looked to see if i could see any glass or blood on his feet and didn't see anything but with the way he was crying we couldn't tell if it was from the commotion of everything or if he hurt himself. after a few seconds we saw there was a little knick mark on his foot. lance and my sister cleaned up his foot while i cleaned up the snow globe remnants. once that was all done we were trying to decide if we though there was glass in his cut. the only thing i could think about was how were we or anyone going to get him to stay still long enough to get a piece of glass out?! luckily after a closer look we decided that there wasn't any glass in there, put a band-aid on him and sent him on his way.

last night i was starting to wonder if we were good parents with the recent accidents but told myself boys will be boys, right. especially this rough and tumble boy. the er might be in future multiple times.

this is an unrelated but sad looking so it's relevant picture

a night time conversation

i am an early to bed person. always have been.

lance is the complete opposite.

orion will come and lay in the bed with me until lance comes to lay down and then he'll switch to the couch.

but since its been a little cooler at night, orion has been staying on the bed longer with us.

saturday night lance comes to get in bed and i wake up and pat the bed and tell orion to come over to me.

then lance and i have this conversation all the while i feel like i'm completely awake.

kristen: what is the puppy name of his halloween book?

lance: what? who?

kristen: orion, the puppy name of his halloween book.

lance: i'm not understanding, can you ask it in another way? 

(poor guy has learned to be careful with his questions)

kristen: no... just.... nevermind....

lance: are you asleep?

kristen: no, i'm awake... nevermind.

and i give up and go back to sleep.

when i wake up sunday morning, i remember this happening but forgot exactly what i said but told myself that once lance tells me what i said, i'd be able to explain it perfectly now that i'm awake and fully conscious.

when lance wakes up, he takes out his phone and reads to me what i had said to him that night.

what is the puppy name of his halloween book?

what does that even mean?! i have no idea! 

what the heck was i dreaming and how did i feel so awake trying to explain it to him that night?

so strange!

liam's one year photo shoot

for liam's one year photo shoot, i originally pictured going to railroad square and taking darling little boy pictures on the train tracks. but picture day was a saturday with a fsu(woot woot, go noles!) noon home game and the train tracks are about 2 blocks away from the stadium and right in the middle of all the traffic so i quickly decided against it. mcclay gardens it was.

let me tell you what, it is hard taking pictures of a moving one year old! quite the workout! but never the less, here they are:

liam's first birthday party

liam's birthday was on a saturday so we all got to sleep in. we actually ended up being awake before him. when he finally started moving around i went up to grab him and made this little video

we really wanted to keep his party simple. we probably could have filled my moms house if we had invited all of our friends but we kept it at parents, grandparents and siblings. and celeste, because they are going to get married.

publix is awesome and will give you a matching smash cake for free if you buy a cake from them. it  was a legit cake too!

we ordered two large momo's pizzas and thought we would be eating pizza for days but ended the party with only 3 or 4 slices left over.

this kangaroo, now known as joey around our house, was liam's first present that he opened. he could have stopped there and been happy! he loves hugging stuffed items.

he loved seeing the new toys and clothes that he got. he wanted to stop and play with each of them right then.

he also enjoyed eating the tissue paper. somethings didn't change with this age.

cake time! he was all about trying to eat the candle. we had been working on blowing few in advance for the big day but when it was showtime, nerves got the best of him and he forgot how to blow. liam wasn't that interested in eating his cake. he put his hands on the icing and squished them some and he was done.

this past year has been the best. i couldn't have asked for a better baby with a better personality. he's the whole package. thank you to all of our family who came to celebrate with us!!

be on the lookout for liam's one year old photoshoot!