Week of September 7

Sunday - My parents were still here and went to church with us.  After church they took us out to eat and then headed home.

Monday - We finally had a day to get back to normal after being gone all the previous week because of the revival.  Caleb even found some time to get outside and make a bench.  A few days before we left he took a walk to go pay our rent.  He happened to walk past a dumpster and saw some crib parts.  He took the van back over there and snatched them up.  He just did a little bit of cutting, screwed some pieces together, and boom.  Bench.  He considered selling it, but it now sits in our dining room.  :-)

Tuesday - Caleb had gotten called to go back to Orscheln and it turns out that they started his training.  He didn't know that they were planning on doing it that day.  After he was done he met up with Seth and they went to go see some weird lame movie.  While Caleb was gone I had been working on a new Shutterfly book.  I have made one every few months of Liam's first year with some pictures of the big highlights, plus his monthly pictures.  I only order them when I can get a really good deal.  This time they were running a promo where you could get a free book, you just had to pay shipping.  Free is good.  I like free.

In order to finish the book I needed to take some 12 month pictures of Liam.

 I'm pretty sure that here I had asked him where Batman was.  I guess he thought he saw Batman.  He always points and says "Bat!"

Thursday - The next two paragraphs are about Liam's toe fungus.  Read at your discretion.  :-)

A few weeks ago, one of Liam's pinky toes was getting kind of icky.  I thought it was probably a blister from one of his pairs of shoes.  He had a pair that he was suddenly always falling down in, so I figured it was that pair and quit putting them on him.  It hadn't been too bad for awhile and I forgot to mention it to Liam's doctor at his one year visit.  I had started putting neosporin on it but it continued to get worse.  On Thursday morning Liam was really crabby and kind of seemed like he was in pain.  I gave him teething tablets and that didn't help.  I checked out his toe and it was pretty bad.  Here's some pics in case you love looking at nasty toe pics. 

Liam and I were about to head to Columbia anyway so I called the doctor's office and they told me they could get him in with the doctor on call.  Perfect.  I just didn't want him to have a flesh eating bacteria and lose his toe or something crazy like that.  As soon as I got to the doctor's office I suddenly had a fear that the doctor on call was the doctor we saw the last time that I called to make an appointment at last minute.  (That time, Liam was a couple of weeks old and had some red spots in his diaper that I was concerned might be blood.  This doctor said the she remembered studying it but couldn't remember what it was called or what caused it but she didn't think it was anything bad.  Reassuring, right?)  The next thing I know, there's a knock on the door and in walks the same doctor.  *facepalm*  She took a look at his foot and said that it was either a fungal infection or it was an uncommon type of eczema.  She got on her computer to look at some pictures and then told me that she was going to go with fungal infection.  She said that even if she was wrong that she didn't think it was anything too terrible.  She gave me the name of a cream to buy and keep on his foot several times a day for 2-3 weeks.  She didn't really put me at ease so I took some pics on my phone and sent them to my future pediatrician, Karisha.  ;-)  She said it did look fungal but that air is the best thing for it, not constant expensive cream that other doctor had me buy.  Karisha was right and Liam's toe is growing new healthy skin again.  (Although Karisha had to reassure me that it IS looking better)  Ok, enough foot fungus for one post.

After we left the doctor that day we went to Target to get the stuff the doctor prescribed and Liam had his first in-public tantrum.  I was the parent I always despised when I worked at Target.  And it was all over a bag of Cheerios that I wouldn't let Liam hold by himself.

Friday - I had my first Parents-As-Teachers meeting.  I have been meaning to start this sooner, but things kept coming up that prevented me from doing it.  Anyway, our parent educator came over and I had a great time with her.  I already had a lot of questions for her as far as development, different parenting techniques, etc.  She even left some toys for Liam to play with during the next month! I think this program will be really beneficial for us and help keep Liam on target with development, especially since I don't really know anything about kids.  I've been allergic to them most of my life.

Saturday - We went to Hannibal and met up with Glenn and Leah!  They are our friends who used to live in Chattanooga, TN that we used to go visit when we lived in the Looavull area.  They moved to Springfield, IL this past summer and Hannibal happens to be the middle meeting place for us. 

We first met up at Java Jive.  Look at those two flanneled-shirt cuties.

 At the college

 We found the table that used to be in the old coffee shop and had a bunch of names carved in it. 

 Then we went on a walk in Riverview Park.  Leah and I went on and left these guys behind with their walking sticks while they talked about who knows what.  Probably knives and stuff like that.

 Leah and I had to keep walking to try to get this lil guy to sleep.  He eventually did for probably 20 minutes.

 Then we went to a field in the park and the guys played some "new and exciting" game where you whack an empty tea bottle with sticks.

 

 Looks fun, right?  (You can see the bottle in mid-air)

 

It was really good to get to see them and hang out.  Hopefully we will be seeing much more of them now that they are only about 2-3 hours away instead of 11ish. 

One picture to leave you with.  "No hands, Mom!"

Weeks of August 24 and August 31

I meant to update my blog last week but we were out of town this whole past week and I didn't have internet access for my computer so I fell behind a little bit. 

Week of August  24

Monday morning Liam had his 1 year doctor appointment.  He weighed 20 lbs 4 oz.  He's a little bit more leveled out on the percentages this time and mostly right in the middle.  I don't remember the exact percentages and it doesn't really matter.  He's a happy and healthy little guy.

 Look at how big he is in this picture! 

 The poor little guy had to get some more shots, followed by a finger prick to check for lead and iron levels.  He did great with the finger prick.  I guess it was nothing compared to the shots he had to get.

During Wednesday night services at church Liam likes to find the empty Culligan water bottle and carry it around.  It's almost as big as he is.

Another day that week Sonic was having a 50 cent corndog day.  Liam and I went and got some for Caleb when came home for lunch.  I handed my corndog to Liam because I thought it would be a cute picture and the little booger took a huge bite out of it.  I didn't think he would be able to do that very easily without having any top teeth, but he showed me!

I also got both quiet books mostly finished this past week.  I posted two other posts about those if you want to go check those out.  Those books were so much fun to make, but I'm glad I finally feel like I reached a stopping point so I can feel a sense of accomplishment and set the project aside for awhile.

Here are some other pictures from the week.

 Bath time got a little crazy one night. 

 Liam got a train set from Great Grandma Connie and has had fun playing with it.

 One day this week I woke up and saw on facebook that it was National Bacon Day so I decided to get up and cook some bacon because it sounded good.  When I was done Caleb was still in bed so I went in and left this on his night stand. 

 A few minutes later when Caleb was still sleeping in bed I sent in Liam to make sure he woke up.  :-)

 While I was trying to get packed up for revival I closed Liam in his nursery while I got his stuff packed up so he wasn't bothering Caleb who was trying to get school or sermon work done.  He kept climbing up on this tote and then getting stuck because he didn't know how to get back down.

 

Liam loves avocados.  He tends to smear it all over his face too, which then makes his other food stick to his face.  

Week of August 31
Sunday -
Liam and Caleb enjoyed their breakfasts together.

We went to our church that morning.  Seth came and went with us.  After church we had lunch then loaded up and went to Atlanta, MO.  It's a bustling town of about 350 people about an hour away from us.  Caleb's Dad, Tim, was preaching a revival there and Caleb was asked to lead worship.  We had really been looking forward to this week.  This church was a blessing to us that week.  You could really see the love of Christ in these people in several different ways.  I wish there was a way to show each one of them our gratitude for all they did for us that week.

We got to stay with the pastor of the church and his family.  Caleb knew the pastor from college at HLG.  They have 4 kids and they are some the of the cutest well-behaved kids ever.  :-)  I can't say I've ever enjoyed having a conversation with a 5 or 7 year old that much before I met their kids.

Sunday night Liam did not have a good night.  At all.  Liam never does well when he sleeps in the same room as us I'm not really sure what time he woke up but he was crying and wouldn't go back to sleep.  I got up with him and tried getting him to go back to sleep and didn't have any luck.  I tried laying him down in bed with us and he still wouldn't sleep.  Caleb got up with him for a little bit and still no luck.  Finally I decided to climb into his pack n play with him.  That finally worked.  He snuggled up next to me and fell asleep.  I thought I had finally reached a victory with him being asleep so I tried to climb out and it was all over.  He woke up and started crying again.  So I rocked him back to sleep and climbed back in with him and he went back to sleep.  I tried to make myself as comfortable as possible and slept next to him for about 4 hours.  At that point he was sound asleep enough that I was able to crawl out, stretch my legs, and get back into bed for a few hours.  Liam ended up sleeping until 11:45 the next morning!  How crazy!  It was much needed though.

As the rest of the week went on, Liam still wasn't sleeping well.  He went to bed anywhere from 9:30-10:30 (he's used to going to bed between 7:30-8) and he would wake up when Caleb would get up each morning around 7:30.  Naps sometimes happened, sometimes didn't.  By Friday he was so crabby and ready to go home!

Caleb really enjoyed his week.  The guys from the church did service projects within the community all week.  They did stuff like cutting grass, chopping wood, painting, and stuff like that.  It was also a really good week for us to spend with Caleb's family.  His parents pulled their camper and had it parked outside of the church.  It was nice to have Caleb's mom be able to watch Liam for me when I needed to do things like take a shower.

On Wednesday Caleb's mom and I went to visit Caleb's Grandma Connie.  I haven't seen her in awhile so she also hasn't seen Liam in awhile.  It was good to get to visit and spend some time at her house.  She has some fruit trees in her back yard and this year her apple tree is doing really good this year so I left there with 4 grocery bags full of apples!  I'm planning on steaming them and freezing them for Liam to eat, and possibly even making some applesauce out of it.

Playing with Grandma Connie's Rubix cube.

 Picking apples!

Friday morning I took Liam over to the camper to hang out with Lori while I took a shower.  When I got back to the camper he was passed out like this.

 So I laid down next to him to take a nap too and he rolled over like this.  Could he be any more precious?

How about that weather that rolled in Friday evening!  I am absolutely loving this fall weather and being able to have the windows open and put Liam in some of his fall wardrobe.

We got back home late Friday night and put Liam right to bed.  He was awake shortly after we went to bed.  I'm not sure what his problem was.  I tried giving him teething tablets and changing his diaper.  Liam was crying so loud that Caleb got up to try to help me out.  I passed him off and went to get Liam a drink.  When I came back Liam was back in his crib and silent.  Caleb came out of the the nursery and said "I guess that was his 'Put me back in bed, you idiot' cry."  I'll have that noted for next time. 

My parents came to visit on Saturday morning.  We didn't do a whole lot while they were here and just relaxed at home.

Other pictures from the week:

Liam loved climbing up the steps in the camper.  He just wasn't so great at coming back down them.

 I guess that hamburger looked tasty enough to eat!

 Playing with cousins!

 I found this guy in Liam's swim toy bucket in the kitchen when we got home Friday evening.  Gross. Gross.  Gross. We poured salt on him then gave him a ride down the water slide.