Arkansas weather

Yesterday: 72 degrees! In February!

Tomorrow: 30 degrees and snow!

Stacking blocks

Liam loves stacking his blocks. He's very precise about it, and it makes him so very excited. And he gets upset when it doesn't work quite like he wanted. He seems a tad bit OCD sometimes. Hmmm...I see traces of myself here.

Favorite new foods

Grandma Hall will be happy to hear that Liam loves Grapefruit, and Grandpa Hall would surely get a kick out of how much Liam enjoys raw onion. He happily munches away on it!

Check out those teeth!

He's up to five now: 3 on top. 2 on bottom.

While holding Liam the other day, Micah remarked, "Wow, it's like I'm holding Gabe!"

I can definitely relate. The older Liam gets, the more he resembles his daddy.

A little time outdoors

is wonderful. Even on a nippy day.

Happy Valentine's Day

Yesterday, we were treated with the Gray's company all day long. The guys worked on a project outside (click here to see more about that...), and Liam and I hung out with Crystal and Simone. It was so great to be able to spend time together. It's funny how very far away Fayetteville seems sometimes.

Simone was super cute in her heart-print pants.

We kept telling her to give Liam a hug or a kiss and she'd bend down and have the mokey kiss him instead.

Sharing a whipped cream covered beater.

All pajama-ed up and ready for bed.

What a good day.

Happy Birthday Liam

No, it's not Liam's birthday quite yet (we still have a little over a month), but we bought his gift with our income tax return, and just couldn't wait to put it to good use.

We'd been admiring these European style high chairs for quite some time. Not only is there no plastic involved, but they also adjust in height and can support an adult's weight. So this won't have to be stored somewhere when he no longer needs a high chair. We ended up going with the Keekaroo brand. So far, we love it! Liam likes it, too.

So, Happy early Birthday, Liam.

kid swap

I won concert tickets from NPR (you can read about it here ), and since we need a babysitter for it, and the Bouchers needed a baby sitter too, we decided to swap some babysitting.

Last night, we had Caleb and Owen Boucher come and play for a while. They put Liam's train set from Ema and Cora to great use.
Gabriel got in on all the fun (he's blowing a train whistle...).

Liam was excited to share his toys with Owen.

It was a fun night for everyone, although we're glad we don't have three little boys of our own just yet.

Happy Monday

All Done

We have been working on teaching Liam some basic sign language. This is the only one he signs back so far (and he actually is saying it, too...although you may have to be his mother to translate):

Food Adventures

Liam loves to eat. It's probably his favorite activity.

Here are some recent favorites:

for breakfast

a banana and a slice of almond butter toast

any kind of muffin

pancakes or waffles

for lunch

grilled cheese sandwich

muffins

apples

plain yogurt

for dinner

basically whatever we're eating

He recently has discovered the art of dipping, and he wants me to dip everything for him. Repeatedly. His favorite dips? almond or peanut butter, yogurt, ketchup, and surprisingly, my tomato vinaigrette.

Pesky Cat

At 5:30 this morning, I heard Liam talking and giggling. I instantly knew what was going on. Both of our cats have been climbing into his crib with him lately. Coleridge normally just curls up next to him, but Hopkins gets a bit more interactive.

After a few minutes, Liam's happy giggles turned into complaining cries and I headed downstairs to kick the cat out of his room.

When I got there, Hopkins was sitting on Liam's stomach and kneading his chest. Liam was trying to push him off. And, Liam had drool all over his forehead (yes, this cat drools).

I sure wish I had my camera at that moment, but who carries one around at 5 in the morning?

This reminder will have to do: Hopkins has always insisted on being really close with Liam.

8 weeks - seems so long ago now

happy happy happy

Finally, his middle name isn't so ironic. He is now a very blythe baby (well, most of the time...)

He's growing

At his 9 month apointment, we also discovered that Liam has slipped from the 25th percentile weight slot down to below the 5th percentile. Combined with his over-the-75th percentile height, the doctor was a tad bit concerned.

So today we went in for his monthly immunization (we space them out to one a month) and a mandatory weight check. But have no fear, this boy is growing!

9 months

17 pounds, 6 ounces

10 months

18 pounds, 11 ounces

That is over a pound of weight gain, which is a new record for our skinny little guy! It must be all that almond butter toast he's been having every morning :-)

No worries here.

Time is running out

We have a few more contenders for our photo of Liam to enter into Regis and Kelly's Beautiful Baby Contest.

#1

#2

Here are the favorites from the last batch.

#3



#4

Let us know what you think.

Fun in the snow (or..umm...ice)

Our neighbors across the street gave Liam this little boat. He thought it was great and really enjoyed shifting the gears and turning the wheel.

We discovered that this little boat also makes a great sled. Liam had a lot of fun touring the yard.

Crazy hair day

Liam is having quite the hair day. Look at what he looked like when he woke up this morning...

This is after we wetted and combed his unruly hair back down...

This is how Liam always go to sleep: he has to have his pacifier and his blanket. I thought we lost his pacifier the other day and decided that we'd have to go ahead and wean him of it. Let's just say he screamed for over an hour without going to sleep before I hunted it down between some boxes under his crib. We're not ready to wage that battle just yet.