Tuesday, June 30, 2009

A Week Of Firsts

This past week was a lot of fun for us. First, my mom came for a week-long visit. It was so nice to have her around. Of course it was great to have her here for all the help she offered, but it was also great to see Liam with is other grandma! Liam sure must've been excited to see her, because he decided to unveil two "firsts" for her. For a while now, Liam has been SO close to rolling over from his back to his belly. On Monday, my mom was able to be the first to witness a successful roll over from back to belly! She yelled for me, and I quickly joined her and Liam, and he rolled over again for me. By Tuesday he was an old pro! He loves rolling over! He gets a huge smile on his face and plays on his belly for a long time. The second "first" was that Liam is now finding his toes and playing with them. He hasn't started sucking on them... yet :) 
  
We also decided to take Liam to the pool for the first time. (There are pictures up on the smugmug site). He really enjoyed himself! We went late in the evening so that it wasn't too hot (its been consistently about mid-90s here for a while). He probably thought he was just in a big bath tub cause thats how warm the water was! We took turns helping him float/swim, and he also enjoyed sitting in his floatie. Grandma enjoyed getting to play with him in the pool. We stayed for about an hour and afterwards Liam was all tuckered out!
  Its been amazing to see Liam's growth and development even in just the last week or so. He's now mastered the rolling over, and he's definately not there yet- but he's looking like he's wanting to crawl. He can get up on his hands momentarily, and today Shawn found him in the crib on his tummy with his knees brought up all the way underneath him. He also enjoying kicking his legs a lot. These things are all new within the last week! Its so exciting to see him getting so much stronger. 
  Next up for us, in this busy summer, is a trip to Indianapolis next week. We're very excited about this! Liam will get to meet his Uncle Joel and Aunt Tiffany, his great-grandma and great-grandpa Hunt, and great-grandpa Rapp all for the first time. We're also so excited for him to meet Kristen and Jonathan (our best friends from college), and for all of us to meet their son Ethan. As some of you may know, Ethan was born in December and was over three months premature. It was so hard for me not to be able to be there for them in that hard time or get to meet Ethan. Well, now he's doing great and we couldn't be more excited to finally get to meet him! We also get to meet Abby, who is my friend and old college roommate Michele's daughter. She is about a month younger than Liam. We also get to see a whole lot of friends from high school/college/church. We're really excited! 

Friday, June 19, 2009

First Trip to Erie














  Well this week we made our first roadtrip to Erie. We left Monday morning with Liam and the two dogs in tow and drove all day. The trip went fairly well, and we arrived in Erie around 8pm. On Tuesday Liam was able to meet his great-grandma Dorses. We enjoyed the beautiful day with a ride down to the Pennisula and dinner at Sara's, a 5o's style diner. After dinner Shawn and Pam rode motorcyles around the Penninsula. We spent the rest of the evening enjoying the outdoors, sitting on the back porch. 
  On Wednesday evening John and Pam had an open house for friends and family to come and meet Liam. The party was great, and it was really nice to see so many familiar faces and family members. Liam got to meet his great-grandma and great-grandpa Mayle, along with great-aunts and uncles and a lot of other people, that quite frankly, I'm not sure what the proper titles are for how they are related :) Liam did pretty well with the party, although it was a lot of stimulation for him. By the time the party was over, he let us know he had had more than enough! (by screaming, screaming, and some more screaming).
  Our short trip came to an end with us leaving Thursday night. We tried something new with Liam and decided to drive through the night. Although it didn't go quite as well as we had hoped, it still worked out. Enjoy the pictures from the trip on the smugmug site!