Weeks of June 15 and June 22

We haven't had too much going on the past couple of weeks so here's a combined post.  

Sunday - My parents came to visit for the day.   It was also Father's Day!  I made Caleb this card:

I know it kind of looks like an angel, but it's actually a superhero.

 On the inside there's a picture of Liam wearing his "my dad is my superhero" shirt along with a poem.

 Then I let Liam draw a picture on the back.  This is what he came up with. 

 

 Monday - When we were in St Louis for Darren's wedding we drove by a house that had one of those turtle sand boxes out by their mailbox like it was trash.  When we left to go to the reception a few hours later it was still there.  Caleb asked me if I wanted to go check it out and I told him we would on the way back after the reception.  Well of course we forgot and didn't remember until we were on our way back to Centralia.  My dad, being the junk picker that he is, gladly went to check it out for us.  He ended up bringing it home and my mom cleaned it up!  They brought it when they came to visit on Sunday.  Since Liam is too little for a sandbox because he would just try to eat the sand, we filled it with water and let Liam use it as a baby pool.  The only downside is that we don't have outdoor water access so we have to fill up buckets and take them outside.  Liam's enjoyment is worth it though.  

Liam turned 10 months old!  Trying to take his pictures were kind of difficult.  I was trying to do it by myself when Caleb wasn't home so I got very few good ones.

Here's what most of the pictures look like:

 

And here are the semi good ones.

 Showing off the bruise on his face that he got earlier.  He's a tough cookie.

Thursday - A man from our church usually does a nursing home ministry at some of the local nursing homes.  He was out of town on Thursday so he asked Caleb to do a service for him.  This home is only about a block away from where we live so Liam and I walked over there and joined them.  All of the old people loved Liam.  I picked the right spot to sit...next to a little old man who gave me some of his Werthers.  

It was embarrassing when we were headed out the door and they have these butterfly decorations hanging from the ceiling and one of them got caught in my hair.  Yep.  Still a Haley by blood.

Thursday - Chomper number two was not visible when I fed Liam breakfast, but after a long nap I noticed it during lunch time!  I was kind of surprised because he cried for days before his first one popped through.

On the subject of lunch, this is typically what our kitchen table looks like after Liam eats lunch every day.

Friday - We had another bonfire Friday night with some people from church.  Liam came and hung out with us for a while before every one got here.

Saturday - Our church association has a "block party" trailer that has a bounce house and games and things like that.  We rented it for the day to help promote our Vacation Bible School.  Caleb took Liam into the bounce house and he loved it.  :-)

We bypassed the rain that day.  It rained a little bit a few hours later and we were blessed with a beautiful rainbow!  This was the view from the front of our house

Week of June 22

Monday - I went to Columbia by myself.  I love when I get to go shopping by myself.  It's a lot less stressful when I don't have to worry about my child screaming because he's bored/hungry/tired/whatever reason he may find.

When I got home Liam was down for a nap.  I sat down on the couch next to Caleb and I noticed that Liam's light was on.  I asked Caleb why it was on and he was puzzled.  Then it went off a few seconds later....then came back on....then went off.  Growth spurt confirmed!  He can reach his light switch again.

So speaking of growth spurt, when Liam had his last doctor's appointment he had only gained 1 pound in 3 months.  Now it has taken him less than two weeks to gain another pound!  It seemed like overnight you could hardly buckle his car seat buckles anymore.  Maybe next time we take him to the doctor he will be in the 10th percentile for his weight.  :-)

Tuesday - I decided to rearrange Liam's nursery furniture since he seemed to find nap time avoidance entertainment in his light switch again.  It took several different tries to figure out something that works, but we finally did it.  Now he can't reach anything from his crib!

Wednesday -I started weaning Liam.   Unlike last time when I gave up because I thought that bottle feeding was too much work, I'm actually succeeding this time.  :-)  I have so much pumped milk in the freezer so I finally get to free up some freezer space!  We have a side-by-side refrigerator and the freezer side has 4 shelves, and for awhile Liam took up 3 of those shelves.  1 freed up, 2 to go!  

A few weeks ago I told you that I won a contest for a free thirty-one large utility tote through my friend, Amber.  It came in so she dropped it off.  I love it!  (and so does Liam)

Friday - Our youngest nephew had a minor surgery in Columbia so we met up with some of Caleb's family to have lunch after they left the hospital.  

 As we were leaving Culvers we saw a truck that looked like it had a kayak on the back on it.  As we got closer Caleb noticed that it was actually a gnome!  The guy came out while I was taking pictures of it and he said that he made it out of styrofoam and he was taking it around Columbia that day taking pictures of it at different well known places.

Our Vacation Bible School started on Friday night.  Our theme this year was "Blast Off".  A few months ago when I found out what the theme was I was on pinterest and found an idea for a jet pack and I knew that I had to make one for Liam!  I'm not sure that he thought it was all that cool, but it was adorable.  He had some engine failure though and repairs had to be made a few times.

Saturday - Liam was tuckered from VBS the night before and napped about 5 hours on Saturday.  Then we did it all over again that night!  I was working with crafts for the kids and they enjoyed making bags to take to the nursing homes. 

Sunday night was family night for Vacation Bible School.  After it was over our church rented the city pool and we had a pool party for all of the kids and every one involved in Vacation Bible School.  This was Liam's first time in a real pool!  The water was pretty cold so he didn't stay in it too long, but he did have fun.

 

 I could hardly get him all ready for bed before he passed out on me.

In other news, this past week we had three days where we had a delivery of some sort that involved a box.  Liam loves getting in the boxes and climbing on top of them.

 The other morning I got Liam's diapers out of the dryer to stuff them and he got so excited about them!

 

And now I leave you with a snippet of my favorite band.

 

Week of June 6

Monday evening Caleb's parents came over on their way back from being up north.  Liam loved getting to see them and show them how well he eats his little puffy snacks now.

Tuesday - Christa brought her boys over and had picked up Aunt Rachel along the way.  We all went to the park and enjoyed some time there.

 Aunt Christa!

 Cousins

Christa also brought over her little turtle.  Caleb's dad had found this turtle in their yard a little over a year ago and gave it to Nehemiah.  Nehemiah had named him "Buzz".  Christa's family decided to give up Buzz and let him move on to a new home.  My sister said she would take him.  I thought he could live with Oscar until I was able to take him to St. Louis to my sister's house.  That was a bad idea.  I put Buzz in Oscar's tank and watched to see how they would react to each other.  Mean ol' Oscar the Grouch cornered baby Buzz and took a chunk out of his shell.  :-(  I felt bad for the little guy.  He isn't much bigger than a quarter and couldn't defend himself.  I whacked Oscar out of the way and was able to rescue Buzz.

 Enjoying some uva rays

Wednesday - Liam and I worked on Caleb's father's day card while Caleb was at church.  :-D 

Thursday -  I went to lay Liam down for a nap and he snuggled up next to me and was asleep in a matter of minutes.  This rarely happens so I sat in the recliner and enjoyed it!

We went to Caleb's parents' house for the afternoon.  They got their airplane swing put up in the garage and Liam loved it! 

 Caleb was jealous of the fun Liam was having.

 Liam wasn't so sure about this car.

Friday -  Even though he was only a couple of days away from being 10 months old, Liam had his nine month appointment with his pediatrician.  He did really well, but he also didn't have to get shots so that helped!  He is only in the 9th percentile for his weight and 22nd for height.  Although I think he's probably on the verge of a growth spurt because he's been downing 23 oz of baby food a day (that's almost 6 of the normal Gerber baby food jars) plus cereal and his normal nursing.  Phew!  The doctor wasn't really concerned about his weight especially since he is such a busy body and on the move so much.

 Too cool to smile for a picture with mom.

Liam is getting so close to walking on his own!  Caleb and I will sit on the floor with him and he can walk back and forth to us a few times on his own before he starts to lazy and realize how much easier crawling is.  There have been several times I've looked over at him and he's just standing there on his own chewing on something.  He can't do it for real long amounts of time, but I'm sure it won't be long before I'll really be having to chase after him!

Friday night we had a family from church come over.  Caleb made a bonfire and it was so nice to be able to sit around the fire and visit with them.

Saturday - We did nothing and I loved it.  Although Saturday morning I had taken a shower and went to clean out my ears with a q-tip (I know you aren't supposed to, but I've done it for years) but when I pulled the q-tip out I couldn't hear out of my ear anymore.  It was really frustrating.  Caleb tried putting some rubbing alcohol in my ear in case it was water, which didn't work.  Then he tried hydrogen peroxide which is supposed to break up ear wax, and that didn't work either.  It was driving me crazy especially since I couldn't go see a doctor without going to an Urgent Care and those are too expensive for something as simple as this.  As of the following Monday I still couldn't hear so I got in to see a doctor and it was just some lovely ear wax all built up.  I think I can hear better now that I have in a long time!  It feels great to have all of that creeping crud out of my ear!

Saturday afternoon Buzz was ever so happily basking under a heat lamp and then he croaked.  Not like a frog croak, but like died croaked.  :-(  I'm not sure what exactly caused it but I think he probably got an infection from his wound, despite my application of Neosporin to it.  We had a funeral out in the back yard.

 More pictures from this week:

Watching Batman.  What else would have these two glued to the tv?

 Hauling Batman around in his pocket.

 Puppy Liam