Merry Christmas!

 He seemed to be more interested in the ornaments than his presents.

 Playing with the cell phone he got from Aunt Lisa and Uncle Mark

 Hugging the stuffed doggie he got from Aunt Katie

The Christmas dessert platter I made (Snowflake cupcakes and Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies)

 I love this sweater I got him (a black Friday deal! woohoo!)

 My dad (in green) and 3 of his siblings playing Just Dance on the Wii! That game was pretty fun!

 Liam posing with his cousin Genevive

 Being swung upside down by Dad

"Where are my presents, dammit?"

Merry Christmas!

Christmas was pretty awesome, yet exhausting. We did my dad's side of the family for Lunch and my mom's side for dinner. And for those of you that don't know, Filipinos tend to go big on the holiday family get-togethers. Can you say sensory overload!? Liam hit the jackpot with the presents this year. Joel says that we could open up our own toy store with the amount of toys he's received. He got a TON of clothes too. Even people I don't know gave Liam gifts! (Some of my parent's friends) I know for next year, that I probably should only get him one big item (from Santa). His closet is FULL of unopened toys. I have to go through his current inventory and pick out the old ones he doesn't play with (or shouldn't play with, i.e. rattles, links, etc.) anymore and donate them to Goodwill. Thank you to everyone who gave him a gift. I am still working on the thank you cards for his birthday... I know I am so late!

So the past couple weeks have been HELL in terms of his sleeping. We have not had a solid night of sleep in WEEKS. Ever since we got back from Savannah, it's been like this. And I thought his rash was going away, but it's actually still there. I need to call the doc again because it's been 2 weeks. He's fine though, other than the sleeplessness. Well, he actually caught a cold this week (and looks like we did too), but there was only one day that he had the snotty nose drips. Then I thought he was cutting a molar (which would contribute to the night wakings), but I felt again and didn't feel anything. Hmmm. I don't know. I am having newborn flashbacks again.

Also, I mentioned in the last post that Liam is very clingy these days and wants to be picked up ALL. THE. TIME. And if he doesn't get his way, he will cry. I try to hold off on picking him up, but the kid just won't stop crying. He'll also throw fits/cry if he can't get to something, or even just RANDOMLY... like he'll just stand there fine one minute and then cry the next, as if he just thought of something that upset him! Man... I hope this is a phase! I like to tell myself that, anyway!

It's hard to get Liam to drink whole milk now. I don't understand why. He loved that stuff when we first gave it to him. The only time he will drink it is before bed. During the day, if we offer it, he will only take little sips. The doc said at his last appointment that he needs to be drinking 16-18 oz. of whole milk a day. He's probably only getting 9-10oz at most per day, of course we are giving him water and diluted juice if he won't drink the milk. I don't know how to get him to drink more. Maybe warming the milk will make it taste better for him? Anyone have any suggestions? (Hopefully this is just a phase as well!)

Despite all the crap we have been going through the past couple of weeks, he seems to be thriving: 

• He seems to understand more verbal commands and questions, although he doesn't really say much other than dad, dog, dat, ma... You'd think he'd pick up on more things, especially with 5 adults in the house and 2-3 different languages/dialects spoken here. 
• He is pretty darn strong: I let him play with an unopened carton of orange juice and he picked that thing up like it was nothing! I was amazed because those juice cartons are kind of heavy. 
• He has also discovered his boy parts... which he likes to tug on in the bath or when we're getting him ready for bed. It's funny. 
• He can climb up onto the sofa now by getting his abdomen up first and then kicking his legs up until they catch the edge of the seat. 
• He can spin himself around and make himself dizzy... which is actually kind of scary because he usually falls or runs into things afterward. 
• He has also learned to maneuver his push toys. Instead of just going in a straight line, he can turn now. But he still doesn't understand the concept of riding the toys yet! He'd rather push them than ride them. 
• Oh, he can also flush toilets now! He loves when the water goes down the hole! And now he's figured out how to do it himself! (Supervised, of course)

All the Christmas photos will be posted to the Shutterfly site very soon.

Have a Happy New Year! Cheers!

My Week off...

...for blogging. Sorry, just been way too busy on my free time to blog. I can't think of anything really notable from last week anyway, aside from the fever and rash Liam got when we got back from our trip to Savannah. His fever lasted about 3 days, and didn't seem to phase him. Well, I take that back. A couple of those nights he woke up hungry and very hard to get back down to sleep. Then after his fever broke, a rash started to appear on his chest, neck and back. I called the pediatrician (that I picked for him to go to in this area) and a nurse answered the phone. I told her his back story and we decided that it was a reaction from either the MMR or chicken pox vaccine he received at his 12 mo. checkup the week before. She said we just had to wait it out and let it run its course, but of course if something worse comes up, to bring him in. I'm glad we didn't have to take him in because #1, I had a feeling they'd tell me there was nothing they could do and then have to pay the co-pay anyway; and #2 it was snowing that day.

Anyway, he's fine now, I think the rash is all gone. Now we are dealing with a very needy, toddler who throws tantrums and wants to be picked up and walked around a lot.

More next week after Christmas stuff dies down.

Also, if you feel like reading it, I updated my blog entry from 2 entries ago - The Happy Birthday to US blog from Dec 6, with more details on the party and with a few shout-outs at the end. My cousin Sharon also updated Liam's birthday party album with pictures she took from her camera.

And oh yeah...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Savannah Visit

I decided to cut out the "month, week" Blog title format since it's rare that people even describe their babies as being anything over 12 months old (other than 18 months or even 24 months). They're pretty much toddlers now and no one can really understand the whole age-in-months concept anyway unless you are a mother yourself!

So we had another busy week... it was basically an extension of Liam's birthday! Woohoo! We traveled (drove) down to Savannah last Wednesday night. It was horrible. I had not gotten any more than 3-4 hours of sleep all week due to work and other special projects, so I wasn't any good for driving any longer than 30 minutes. And them Liam cried for about 3 hours straight until we decided to stop at a rest area to power nap for an hour. THEN, to top it off, we were about 30 minutes away from our GA house and we ran into completely stopped traffic. What a horrible night.

When we arrived, Liam seemed to remember his old house. It was just empty and quiet and had significantly less dog hair (and dog smell) than he remembered. :) I had to make sure all the outlets were child-proofed and the kitchen cabinets were rubber banded (a makeshift way of keeping a toddler out of them) before we let him loose.

We met up with Joel's mom and sister Katie for some lunch downtown at SoHo South Cafe where I had some awesome tomato basil soup and a 4 cheese grilled cheese...mmmm. I shared with Liam, but he was more into the artwork and Christmas decorations hanging all over the place. The cafe is decorated with old books and local artwork. It's pretty cool.

At 2pm, we took him into his old pediatrician office for his 12 month checkup. He had blood drawn and FOUR shots. He didn't seem to mind them, except for the blood draw... he kept squirming as the nurse was trying to get a sample, so blood got everywhere: on Joel's shirt, on the nurse's scrubs, on Liam's body, on the exam table... Then after they put the bandaid on him, it just kept on bleeding. Liam kept messing with the bandaid which didn't help at all either.

His official 12 month stats:
27 lbs. 0.5 oz. (Thought he'd be heavier! He sure seems heavier!)
31.5 in tall
46.5 cm head

He's on the bigger side of the percentiles. I hope he is a tall guy! :) He's looking slimmer these days probably because he practically runs everywhere now.

Saturday was his second 1st birthday party with our GA family and friends. He got an AWESOME Madagascar cake from Publix and they also threw in a matching smash cake. He got to smash this one a little more than the one last week (of which only ate a ton of green icing). He got pretty messy, so we had to take a bath intermission before opening presents.

That night we decided to drive back up. Unfortunately, since Liam's presents took over our car, we were unable to grab some of the things we wanted to bring back up with us... mainly our running stroller! It's huge, so there's no way we would have been able to fit everything in there. :( We also decided to start front-facing Liam in his car seat. I think he likes it better... but I'm not sure yet.

Our time down there was short, but it was great to see all our family and friends again. I hope we can visit again soon! And hopefully Master Liam will travel a little better next time!

More pics will be added to the Shutterfly soon, as well as I plan to elaborate more on last week's post. I put so much work into that party that it deserved a longer post than that! I don't expect anyone to read it – it's more for me anyway... as a reminder that a LOT of work and time and money go into a big party... haha, OK, well that and mostly because I want to document it for posterity, much like how I did with my super long birth story post about this time last year!

~~~~

P.S. My awesome, superly talented girl, Pennie (pengsarttable.blogspot.com) made this vector illustration of Liam as a birthday gift to me! (Oh yeah! It was my birthday, too!! haha) I love it!

P.P.S. My multi-talented older sis Jen sewed Liam a stuffed frog plush and also a SUPER CUTE lion head pillow! It's awesome. She just started making plushies. I told her she needs to start an Etsy shop! (Check out her work on her DeviantArt page.)

1 YEAR OLD! Happy birthday to US! (Edited on 12/16/10)

 

So much excitement this past weekend. The party was a success. I'm glad it's over. No more big birthday party planning for me anytime soon. It was fun preparing for it, though. It's just hard when it's so close to Christmas! I'm BROKE!

I posted ALL the pics I have on Liam's Shutterfly... more will come next week after his Georgia birthday party next weekend! Woohoo! 2 Birthday parties! I can't wait to visit everyone down there. Just not looking forward to the drive. Gotta have my coffee ready!

Liam's 1 year checkup is on the 9th in Savannah. I will update with stats next week.

I'm so exhausted, I can't think of what to write. I will probably make another entry later this week.

++++

EDIT: OK, here is a late continuation of this post.

The entire week before the party was extremely busy for me. I had way too many projects going on for work, freelance projects, personal projects and the party! The month of December started my lack of sleep schedule apparently. Well, I would stay up late working on projects one night, then another night crash at 9:30 after putting Liam to bed. It's working out so far! haha

Jen came into town on the 1st. She was a great help with Liam and with the party AND with running silly errands for me while I was stuck at the computer all day. THANKS JEN!!!!

On Thursday night, I asked my cousin Sharon to come over to help Jen and I make decorations for the party. It was awesome, she brought over a bunch of her old art supplies (all of mine are still in Georgia!) and we painted the night away!

Super Sharon did the huge giraffe, elephant, cheetah, alligator and snake.
Jen did the monkey, spider, toucan and cat... er, I mean tiger :)
I did the lion, hippo and zebra.

They were such a hit at the party that some of my guests asked if they could take them home! Then when kids saw people (the people who ASKED ME first) taking down the animals, all hell broke loose and everyone started going for the animals! I got pretty upset, but then let them go. We managed to salvage the lion (for some reason I associate lions with Liam) and Shonna was able to grab the cheetah for me. I originally wanted to keep most of them for Liam's room. Oh well.

Getting into the party... It turned out great! The photo booth and food were a hit as well. Props go to my awesome mom and auntie Letty. Mom and Jen prepared and cooked all the food. Auntie Letty reserved the hall for us and helped buy some of the food. THANK YOU!!!!!

Surprisingly, a lot of guests honored my request to wear animal prints! It was pretty cool. :) And it was a great extra touch to the party vibe!

We served a variety of hors d'oeuvres: spankopitas, BBQ beef AND turkey meatballs, chicken nuggets, pork egg rolls, pancit (rice noodles with veggies and chicken), fruit platters, mini-pastries, rolls, green punch and of course birthday cake (that I didn't get to try).

Jen manned the photo booth: a corner of the room with a palm tree backdrop, set up with props (safari hats, animal masks, toucan beaks) for souvenir photos for our guests. I bought a cheap photo printer from walmart (only $30!) and brought my mac. She took the photos and printed them on the spot, then double-sided taped them to these cards I had printed from Vistaprint (the order that was messed up - as stated in a previous post).

It was a long day. Liam enjoyed being passed around. He wore the personalized Lion shirt (with his name on it) that I bought from an Etsy shop. He turned it green after he dug into his smash cake (made my Jen). He actually didn't really smash into the cake, but he did manage to scoop off and eat a TON of green icing with the spoon that we would not let go of.

By the end of the party Liam got cranky. Apparently he was hungry, because as soon as we got back home and fed him (REAL food as opposed to icing), he was back to normal and ready to open his presents! He even stayed up a little late that night: went to bed at 9:30! Too much excitement!!!

Also to note, that 2 hours is not enough time to set up a party. Well, we had allotted 2 hours, but we got there 30 minutes late because we had not anticipated the time it would take to get all the food packed into the car. Also, it was only me, Joel, Sharon and Jen setting up the hall. I had to figure out the layout of the tables (not knowing what I had to work with before hand), where the food / photo booth / presents / etc would be... Then I had to give instructions to Mr. Balloon-inflater Joel as to how I wanted the balloons to look. Luckily Sharon is a graphic designer as well, so I gave her free-range on how I wanted the animal window collage to look... her layout turned out even more awesome than I had envisioned! Jen heated up and set up all the food. I was left to set up the computer and printer for the photo booth, set up the speakers, and set up the tables. Can you say scatterbrained? Well, it all worked itself out. We had some early guests, but they helped us out too.

I collected a bunch of jungle-themed songs, as well as some dance tunes to play in the background during the party. I was hoping I could get more of the kids to start dancing, but it didn't work. D'oh!

I handed out party favors to the kids: I bought some animal crackers and cookies and placed a bag/box of cookies in a treat bag with either a plastic jungle animal head sippy cup or a jungle animal beach ball... both ordered from the great Oriental Trading Company. I had 20 bags total and ended up with 4 left over, which I saved to give to kiddos at Liam's GA birthday party. I was honestly afraid that I would not have enough to give out! Luckily some of the "kids" I offered them to were more mature than they looked because they declined the "juvenile" treat bags! haha

Things I would have done differently... Hired a photographer! I had no time to take pics. And Jen was too busy at the photo booth to go around and take party pics. I wanted nice pictures of the food setup, the table setups, the window mural, candid party guest pics, etc. You know, the details. Also, I forgot to set my camera's ISO back down to 400. For some reason, it was WAY up to 1600. I think I messed with it a couple days before and never turned it back down. So the photos that Jen took with my camera were all grainy. :( Of course that is just something that would bother my detail-oriented self. The photos that were printed look fine. What else...? I would have designed my own invitations, but I wouldn't have been able to use the awesomeness of eVite.com. Unfortunately they do not give you creative freedom to supply your own invitation design. You have to pick from the designs they have. Luckily I found a Jungle-ish type invitation. I collected photos from Liam's 1st year to play as a slideshow at the beginning of the party (to be played on my iMac), but it only played for maybe 15 minutes because we had to use the computer to print out the photo booth photos. Ah well.

So, that's the recap of the party. Someone at the party said I should go into party planning. Ummm...Hell no! haha Too much work man!!

SPECIAL THANK YOU SHOUTOUTS:
Mom - Preparing, buying the food
Auntie Letty - Buying the food, renting her church's banquet hall for us to use
Jen - Helping with making decorations, setting up food, making the smash cake, cutting the fruit for the fruit platters, taking and printing photo booth pics at the party
Sharon - Helping with the decorations, letting us use her art supplies, setting up for the party
Shonna - Letting us use the helium tank they didn't use for Scarlett's party
Joel - Blowing up the balloons for the table centerpieces and kids
Dad and Grandma - watching Liam while we were setting up
Everyone who stayed to the end of the party to help clean up the joint!
THANK YOU!!!!

I do want to design Liam's thank you cards. I'm really late on that, but hopefully I can mail them out before January 6th rolls around!

11 Months, 3 Weeks: 1st Thanksgiving & Early Birthday Presents!

Liam and his new buddy Robert (18 months old) on Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Cupcakes - Pumpkin Cake w/ Cream Cheese Icing and Chocolate Leaves

EARLY birthday gifts from Auntie Stacie and Uncle Will from San Francisco! (I couldn't wait until his birthday!)

"Brushing" his teeth!

Happy belated Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. I get 2 days off (paid), it's one of the major holidays that EVERYONE in the country can celebrate... AND the FOOD is GOOD!!! I ate way too much dessert and not enough turkey. haha Liam had some good eats as well... he had almost as much food as I did! He also got to meet and see more family members on my mom's side, most haven't seen him since he was here back in July or even EVER. He was overstimulated and got cranky a few times, but otherwise, he had a good time and was good entertainment! There was another little boy there - Robert - who was 18 months old. Robert hugged and kissed Liam and of course the paparazzi came out and tried to snap pics of it. I don't think I got any good ones, but I got a few of them playing together. So cute!

I also got to experience my first Black Friday shopping with Shonna and her sister Tracy. We did the midnight madness at Tyson's. It started off as madness with crazy crowds and long lines (The Children's Place, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Disney Store, Starbucks), but quickly died down around 3. We have decided that if we ever do this again, to just get to the mall by 3. All the deals will still be there! It was exhausting at times, but not as bad as I thought. What surprised me was the number of infants we saw there! In strollers, carriers, etc... Some were even wide awake! I would NEVER bring my kid shopping in the middle of the night, let alone on the busiest shopping day of the year! But that's just me! :) Anyway... I managed to get a bunch of clothes for Liam and a few other gifts to wrap up for Christmas.

Liam got an early birthday present from the Wilkersons (Stacie and Will)! I was debating on whether I should wrap the gifts or not... I went with not and just gave them to him! I wanted him to see and play with the cool toys they got him! One is this musical Elmo toy that sticks to the refrigerator and has pots and utensils. He loves dancing to the music and he can also stir the food in the pots! The other gift was an Elmo TV remote. He LOVES remotes, so needless to say, this toy was a hit. It has eyes on top that blink when you press a button on the side. He loves trying to manually open and close the eyes, and of course, eating the eyes! THANKS STACIE AND WILL! :D

We put up our Christmas tree today... it's really simple and sweet... just some lights and silver ornaments. I didn't want any breakable ornaments on there because as predicted, Liam grabbed at some of the ornaments that were closest to his level. Now to fill the bottom of the tree with presents... all for Liam!

Next week is our birthdays and this Saturday is Liam's BIG PARTY! Woohoo! I can't wait! All of the party crap that's been sitting here taking up space will finally be gone after Saturday! Just a few more artsy things to do before then... I'm getting my sis Jen, who is flying up from Orlando on Wednesday, and my cousin Sharon to help me with that... just a few more little touches to make the party area complete! If you are coming, can't wait to see you there!!! Don't forget your animal prints! If you're not coming, stay tuned: photos will surely be in my next post!

11 Months, 2 Weeks

This week wasn't as crazy as last week, thank goodness.

What did we do? Oh, well over the weekend, Liam met a bunch of my dad's side of the family at my dad's cousin's son's christening reception. Although my dad wasn't able to make it, Liam gravitated to my 2 (blood) uncles who look like my dad. In this pic, my Uncle Jerome is carrying Liam:

They walked all over the restaurant with Liam leading the way. Apparently, Liam even led my Uncle into the kitchen area! haha Liam loves cooking!

Hopefully we will get to see everyone again in two weeks at Liam's first birthday party! (I will get to that later in this post...)

The next day we went for a family run with the Wattrups (Shonna, Paul and Scarlett) along the Potomac River Trail in Alexandria. It's a great trail, though we almost got run over by bikers a few times! I started out running with the stroller, but my arms we KILLING me not even 5 minutes into it. I am so out of shape it is not funny. (This time next year though, I should be fresh out of running a 1/2 marathon!) Gotta start training somewhere. Joel ran with the stroller the rest of the way. I think we did about 4 miles. I didn't run the entire time, I had to focus on keeping up! haha The kids got some good napping in, at least! After the run we had some lunch and we saw a 5 year old (at least) kid drinking from a bottle. What the hell? Strange...

In other news, Liam has become somewhat clingy and wants to be carried a lot. I hope this phase ends soon. I think he just likes having a higher perspective. Joel put him on his shoulders and he loved it. He could see everything. I guess he's tired of seeing things at his level. I don't blame him, there's mot much there! No wonder they like opening cabinets and drawers!

He's also been picking up crap from the floor and eating it (well, just sticking it in his mouth). My mom pulled out a piece of bark (or something) from his mouth last week! We really have to keep an eye on this guy! He'll get hair, threads, lint, whatever he can find. Sometimes, I think he's just playing a game because he'll pretend that he's picking up something, knows that I'm watching, and will quickly pull up his hand from the ground and run away! But most of the time, there's nothing in his fingers! So either he couldn't grab it in time, or he's just messing with me! Funny thing is that he'll stick dirt from the ground in his mouth, but he won't pick up some foods and feed himself! Argh.

I measured him with a tape measure the other day. He was close to 31" tall! Not sure where that is on the growth charts, but that's about 2+ inches since his 9 month appointment! He's really thinning out a lot. His rolls aren't as "poly" any more!

So Liam's got a huge birthday party coming up. I've got way too many visualizations in my head for how I want things to look... I am hoping I can pull it off. And I hope everyone that comes will have a good time. I printed these "favor cards" for the party from Vista Print, but when I got them, the back side was printed upside down. (It might have been my fault because I used a postcard template and I wasn't sure if I uploaded the photo in the correct orientation or not) I was unhappy with the printing, but I was prepared to get a crappy credit or something back for my dissatisfaction, but they actually printed more for me the correct way, for FREE and with expedited shipping. I love them! So I highly suggest vistaprint.com for all your printing needs!

My mom and I are going to order the cake tonight and buy a couple more things at the craft store. Woohoo!

P.S. I also updated the shutterfly site with some 11 month photos (message me for PW). Check it out if you have the time!

11 Months, 1 Week

This has been a pretty busy week for us. I had a special project I had to work on all weekend! We also celebrated Scarlett's FIRST birthday last Monday (the 8th was her actual bday) and Saturday! Here are a few photos:

 The birthday girl and her birthday (Georgetown) Cupcake!

At Scarlett's JW Tumbles party, Liam loved the Superduper fan that blew thousands of bubbles everywhere!

Liam checking out his goody bag!

At Scarlett's JW Tumbles (kid gym) party on Saturday, Liam got to play with (or at least play in the same area as) a bunch of other kids! There were kids everywhere! I think he liked being around kids close to his age. They had a bunch of things for the kids to do: bubbles, swing rides, foam balls, trampolines... lots of fun! He had a lot of cake as well!

Oh, last week, Liam thankfully survived the time change. It didn't take him long at all. I think the night of the time change, we tried to keep him up as late as we could and he woke up around the same time he would have without the change (normal time is between 6:45-7:15). He transitioned very well! I was so relieved!

In preparation for the big OH-ONE, we've been giving Liam mixed whole milk bottles and formula. He can pretty much take the whole milk by itself, but I just want to gradually get rid of the last canister of formula. We are also trying to get him use the cup more, since the bottle is another thing that "they" say you should get rid of by the first birthday. He can use regular spout sippy cups now (in addition to the straw ones we got for him before he figured out how to tilt the cup), it's just a matter of getting him to feed himself. Most of the time he will just play with the cup and not really drink it, or it will leak onto his shirt.

Food is still one of those things we are behind on. He finally has the desire to eat the food that we are eating, but we still have to feed him. There have been a few things that he can feed himself, but he still would rather play with food we put in front of him than feed himself. He actually tries to feed US instead!

He is doing more imitating these days. For instance, there is a water cooler in the basement where Joel and I "live". I guess Liam has seen me get water from it because one day, he took one of his empty water bottle toys and held it up to the spout! He also likes to put "gas" (his sippy cup) in his car (the little push/walker toy we have that turns into a ride-on car).

We bought Liam a toothpaste/brush set since he's got 6 teeth now. There were 2 options we had to choose from: one that came with an actual little toothbrush, another that came with a finger brush (the same type we've used on our dog's teeth). We got the finger brush one because we figured at this point, he probably want to grab the brush and play with it. Well, when we first tried it, he seemed to like it. The 3rd time I tried it, he bit my finger! HARD! And then he bit it again! In the same spot and equally as hard or harder! It hurt like HELL!! I think my nail is still throbbing. So we might have to get him an actual tooth brush now...

I sent eVites out last week for Liam's birthday party on the 4th. It's jungle themed, so it should be fun! Looks like a bunch of people are already set to attend! Gotta love eVite!

11 Months

Here, Liam is showing off one of the things he likes to do: hold things with only his mouth and walk around!

Happy 11 months Liam! 

This past weekend we went winter clothes shopping for Liam. My Uncle Armando gave Liam a $50 gift card to JC Penneys, so we went there to check out what they had. Luckily for us there was an awesome sale (60% most baby clothes!) going on, along with a $10 off special. So I bought ALL this:

 

 ...and ended up only paying $8.74 out of pocket! As you can see from the receipt below, I saved $108.50! Even before applying the gift card! I think we did good! We got 2 coats (one thicker, and one came with pants), a pair of slip on shoes, a set of gloves/mittens, a hat with a set of mittens, and 4 long sleeved shirts. Not bad!

 

I also made a trip to Babies R Us to buy Liam a couple larger Sleepsacks. We brought him with us, but Joel and Liam waited in the car because he had fallen asleep and you know how Liam is with sleep... so we wanted him to get as much napping in as possible. Which was unfortunate because there were SO many toys in there that I wanted him to see! I picked up a large stuffed frog (his favorite animal these days) since it was only $12 and then proceeded to head to checkout - zigzagging through the rest of the toy aisles on the way up. At the very front corner of the store, I spotted what I decided was going to be Liam's birthday present:

I thought these things were practically out of stock everywhere! I had to check it twice to make sure it was the real thing because the shelf was fully stocked (well with about 6) of them. I thought for a moment that maybe I should get 2, one for Liam and one for eBay! haha It was also on sale - $10 off! When I paid, the lady at the register was surprised to see it since she had a couple people yesterday asking for it, but they didn't have any at the time. I guess I got there at the right moment after they just stocked the shelves. I think I did some pretty good shopping this weekend!

Although the shopping went smoothly, we experienced out first meltdown/tantrum. After I got back to the car with Mickey and the sleepsacks, Liam just woke up (slept maybe 30 mins) and he wasn't happy. But he seemed fine when we drove off, so we decided to get lunch at a noodle place. At the restaurant he let us sit him in the high chair, but after a few moments of trying to get him to eat and him shifting in the chair constantly, he started fussing. So Joel and I had to tag team eating then holding Liam. I ate first (since I am a speed eater), then I took him and tried to take him outside on the patio (came back in because it was cold), tried to get him to people- or car-watch, then eventually took him to the car because I didn't want to disturb the other restaurant patrons any longer with a fussy baby. Well, I got to the car and put him in his seat... which was when the super duper tantrum started. We left as fast as we could to get back home... I think he was just still really tired. He would NOT stop crying! And his face turned red and voice got hoarse... I thought he was going to throw up from being so upset! And he kept flailing his arms and yanking at his face and hands and hair. :( Poor guy. Then he would all of a sudden stop and fall asleep... then remember that we was crying and go into tantrum-mode again... The sleep-crying pattern continued a few times until we pulled into the driveway. As soon as we got into the house, he was fine! ugh... I don't think we've been though anything like this since his colicky phase when he was one month old!

Liam sleeping in the car... pre-tantrum!

Also this week, I had my first HEART-ATTACK moment with Liam. It was pretty bad. I don't even want to write about it because I will get upset. If you want to know, just ask me privately. It was something where Liam could have seriously been injured, but we were lucky that he is fine. I was going to take him to the doctor to get him checked out, but the nurse at the pediatrician's office told me that I don't need to if he is acting normal, sleeping and eating, and not vomiting, but come in if I notice anything different. So we didn't go in. He is fine though! Ugh... what a week!

He has learned a few new tricks this week: he can pet the dogs (before he would only pull their hair, but now he can pat them gently) and give kisses. He first learned to kiss stuffed animals, then himself (in the mirror), then Mac, then actual people. It's funny and gross (open-mouth style!). I think he gave me his cold when he first kissed me! haha

He also made up his own magic trick! We call it: 2 cups, 1 cup. He loves playing with plastic cups and took 2 of them from the stack in the dining room one day. Then he put one cup into the other and the 2 cups "magically" turned into 1 cup! Then he turns it back into 2 cups! It's pretty much stacking them together. Way to go, fine motor skills!

In addition to him being sick with a cold, he hasn't been eating well this week. I don't know if he's just sick of the foods I give him or what. Probably so, but every time I try to give him something new, he doesn't take to it. So it's hard trying to feed him. And frustrating! But it's just another one of those things that we'll probably have to deal with for a while... (just like his sleep issues!)

Well, even though he's been sick, the multi-wake-up nights haven't been happening. We were sure the one night he sounded really congested, that he would wake up at least twice, but he only woke once (1 hour after I put him down). We are still trying to figure out how he'll do with the time change. We managed to keep him up to his normal bedtime (really one hour later) tonight, so we'll see how that goes. 

Tomorrow is Scarlett's 1st birthday!!! We are heading over there after work to celebrate! Then next Saturday is the kids party. Woohoo! Speaking of which, I need to send out e-vites for Liam's 1st birthday party on Dec. 4!