Thanksgiving

As usual I'm a few days late in posting about the most recent events, but oh well. This is our life.

We had the pleasure of spending Thanksgiving at Seven Springs ski resort in western Pennsylvania with Rob's extended Bedinghaus family. There was no snow at the resort yet, but we still had a fun time and enjoyed the resort. Rob's family rented a huge house and then some smaller sleeping cabins nearby to accommodate all 24 of us. The lodge and property were beautiful and perfect for fishing, walking, lots of games and eating. Additionally, we were able to use the resort itself which had restaurants, a lovely pool, a spa and an arcade.

The main lodge house where we stayed

Part of the pond complete with a pair of swans

Rob and the men went clay shooting one morning. The next day the women went to the spa...it was only fair!

One evening we went up to Pittsburgh for dinner at Buca Di Beppos. All 17 of the cousins sat at the huge "Pope Table". Here the Pope is sampling some of our dessert.

We were happy to welcome Ryan, Lauren's boyfriend with us for the weekend too. He's looking a little orange here and as usual Kayla is looking weird.

After dinner we rode an incline up a hill overlooking downtown Pittsburgh. It was beautiful with all the lights.

Family picture missing a few members.

This side of the family is more spread out with members traveling from Georgia, Ohio, Virginia and San Francisco. I hadn't spent a lot of time with them as a group, but they are a comfortable family who likes to have fun. We spent the evenings playing big group games like OLD (a version of charades and telephone), four on a couch, Pictionary and our version of Minute to Win It. There were many moments of our game playing that were priceless -- my father-in-law trying to get an Oreo from his forehead into his mouth during Minute to Win It by only wiggling his face comes to mind. Fun I tell you.

Unfortunately I don't have any photos of dad doing the game I mentioned, but Rob snapped this lovely shot of me stuffed with balloons for another game.

Aside from the drive and some coughing fits in the night, Liam did pretty well. I think he was a little overwhelmed by all the people and tended to only want to be with "ba-ba" which is how he says "mama" now. So it wasn't so much a vacation for me as I would have hoped, but it was still a nice time. This trip definitely confirmed our decision to drive through the night at Christmas when we go to my parents. When your baby only sleeps for 45 minutes during an eight and a half hour drive you will resort to drastic measures. It's actually amazing I don't need to go to the chiropractor this week to get my neck put back straight after all the time I spent turned around in the passenger seat trying to give Liam snacks or things to play with.

But you know, that is just the season we are in right now. Squirmy almost 14-month olds just don't want to sit still. I'm still thankful we were able to go and spend time with family. I'm thankful to be blessed with such great in-law family members too. I know it's a little late, but what are you thankful for this season? Happy belated Thanksgiving!

Bandana Update

It's day number three for the King of Drool to wear his bandanas and I must say, it's going well. I wasn't sure how he would respond to having something around his neck all day, but he doesn't seem to mind. The bandanas have been doing a good job of catching most of the drool and he looks pretty cute in the process. Yesterday he wore khaki overalls and a blue bandana to church and looked like he was going to a hoe down. (A cute hoe down that is).

All that to say, I'm hoping this drooling is a phase until the rest of his molars break through. It's not very fun, especially when I look under his chin and see how chapped and red his neck is from where the wet shirts rub against him. Poor baby.

We have gray...

And we have blue. Both soaking wet.

Up close and personal. Liam is fascinated by the camera so it's hard to snap a photo these days without him coming right up to me.

In case you were curious, bandanas are the perfect fashion accessory for future drummers who would rather drum on metal doors than their drums. Oh and who think pants stifle their creative genius.

Happy Birthday Rob!

It's a fact. We keep getting older and we keep celebrating birthdays around here. I was especially reminded of how fast a year goes yesterday when I compared these two pictures:

Baby Liam in his confetti onesie and paper hat for papa's birthday. 24 days old!

And this year. My baby is growing up so fast! As usual he didn't want to sit still. This was about picture number five.

Happy that it's papa's birthday

We had a fun day for Rob's 26th birthday. He asked for a Pumpkin Nutella cheesecake which I happily made for him, creating a huge mess along the way. It turned out perfectly though and was very tasty. Thankfully we had some friends come over in the evening to help us eat the cheesecake.

Making a mess in my kitchen.

Earlier in the day Liam and I worked on a birthday card for papa. Liam still doesn't understand crayons; he just wants to take them in and out of the box. And then, I turned my back for one second and...

...there was blue crayon on the wall. He knows how to use a crayon that way! I'm sure Magic Eraser will take it off, but I kind of like it there. Not that it is acceptable behavior to color on the walls, but it makes our house feel more lived in.

Eventually I did get Liam to color a little bit and hold still long enough to trace his hand for the card.

We had a full week so we were thankful for a visit from Rob's parents today so we could have a little date to continue the birthday celebration. It was so nice to leave home and have a relaxing lunch with Rob without Liam. He had to teach in the afternoon, so I strolled around Target and the mall by myself. I honestly didn't know what to do. It was so easy - no carseats, no looking for carts with a buckle, no bribing with Cheerios, no whining. However, I kept seeing moms with their kids and I missed my baby. I picked Rob up from school and we spent the afternoon at home with his parents.

While we were gone though, mom took 80 some pictures of Liam that I uploaded on to my computer. He had a grand time with Mimi and Boppy while we were gone.

Reading a new book with Boppy

Of course, a gift bag. Could a boy ask for a better toy?

Then they took a trip to the park

Swinging!

I love you Rob! You are a wonderful husband and papa. I hope our next year is even better than this one.

Taylor's Homecoming

It's been a few weeks, but I had these pictures from our time at Taylor's Homecoming that I wanted to post. We combined a day at Homecoming with a family photography session with the very talented Traci Falder. Back in the day when we lived in Upland, Traci was just getting started with her photography business so she used us as "guinea pigs" and took some engagement photos for us. I knew she would only get better and I told her when we moved away that whenever we had kids we would come back and have her take our photos again. Liam's first birthday seemed like a good time to fulfill that promise. I probably could have taken him somewhere close by for one-year photos, but I knew Traci would do a great job capturing our whole family at this season of our lives. Although it was a very windy and chilly morning, we had a great time with the photo shoot. Liam was a ham at first, but then he fell down and scraped his chin and got cold so things went downhill fast. However, I am SO pleased with how the photos turned out and we are in the process of ordering some for our walls.

Per her instructions I can't post the whole gallery she sent us, but you can see most of the photos on her blog. (We're the fourth post down). If you live anywhere in the Upland area, I highly recommend her!

After our photo shoot, we met up with Rob's sisters - Kayla at Taylor and Lauren at Indiana Wesleyan - had lunch and ice cream at Ivanhoe's (obvious choice there) and briefly stopped by Kayla's boyfriend Chris' lacrosse game. It was too cold to stay long.

Cold and windy, windy game with the favorite aunties!

After visiting with some more friends, Rob headed off to take a tour of Taylor's new science building while Liam napped at my friend Miriam's house. Miriam and I have been friends for years and it was so good to spend some quality time catching up with her while our babies slept.

Rob looks good in a hard hat as he tours the science center

One major highlight of the day was going back to my old dorm, English Hall. I was with three other English girls and yes, we were the weird alums who come back and get all nostalgic to the girls who live there now. I even stood in the doorway of the room I lived in my freshman and sophomore year and took a photo (while the girls inside tried to look natural and not give me the evil eye for interrupting their Saturday) to send to my roommate, Ashley. I have so many good memories from that room and dorm that I couldn't resist. But wow, it feels so small and dark in there! I suppose when you are in college you just don't care, but it's amazing we didn't all go crazy. Or maybe we did and just choose not remember those times...

Back on my old wing, 2nd South!

English girls!

We also took a detour down to the converted health center, affectionately called "The Haak" where three of us lived. That was even more weird because it still smells exactly the same four years later! How is that possible? I only lived there for one semester of my senior year when Rob was in Spain and Ashley was getting married in March. There are some very, very good memories from that semester.

Oh the Haak. Katie and Kerrie made those days much sweeter.

We ended the day with this obvious picture and more ice cream from Ivanhoe's with the one and only Ben Taylor.

It was great to be back to Taylor for a day because we do have such a soft spot for the windblown place. It's where we fell in love and learned and grew in part to be the people we are today. There are days I do miss college, but that feeling gets smaller and smaller as I get older and love the season we are in now. Next year is my five year reunion already so I'm sure we will be back again.

Toys

I know I promised I'd write next about cloth diapers, but lets be real - I know you're not all checking my blog every hour to read about cloth diapers. I know (most of you) want to see pictures of Liam and hear what he's been up to these days. So all of you (one of you) who are waiting to read my riveting news about cloth diapers, check back later. Today I want to talk about "toys" that Liam has enjoyed so far this week.

This child is not deprived of toys. He even got a lot of new toys for his birthday. But ever since he understood what toys were he has chosen instead to play with things that are not actually toys. Namely cups, spoons, straws, boxes, fridge magnets, paper, coupon books, etc. He will occasionally play with his toys, but that lasts a short while before he is opening my cabinets and taking out bowls to play with. Honestly, I have no problem with this type of "play." I encourage him to play with various things and use his imagination in playing. It does require a lot more picking up on my part and some discipline to teach him what he can't play with (an entire package of paper napkins) and teach him how to put things away, but I figure that is a small price to play for a child who can think outside the box and invent new ways to play.

A typical scene. Playing with a breast milk storage container he found in his closet and a yogurt container. The yogurt container is perfect for taking smaller toys in and out of.

Lately his latest find has been a bag of Hershey's Bliss chocolate squares. Thank goodness he has no idea what chocolate is! I call them his "squares." It fascinates me to watch what he can do with a bag of chocolate squares and how long it keeps him entertained. This week he's: taken the chocolates in and out of the bag, carried them one at a time to a stool, set them up on top and then one at a time brought them back to me, put them in the washing machine and taken them out again (don't worry, I checked before I did laundry!) spun them around on the floor like a top and my favorite, stacked them inside a napkin ring. This last one was especially fascinating to me because completely unprovoked by me, he got a napkin ring out of the drawer, stacked the chocolates one at a time in the napkin ring (it held four), then picked up the napkin ring so they all fell out and did it again and again.

Playing with his "squares"

Yesterday I actually took some pictures of his various "non-toy" activities. Excuse the condition of the photos - my camera is not fast enough to catch a busy boy!

A new adventure yesterday -- dragging mama's apron around by the strings like it was a dog on a leash. He walked around and around the house laughing to himself and dragging the apron.

Another object he has been fascinated with this week are my tall rain boots that sit by our front door. He is starting to even say the word "boot." Yesterday he was having so much fun dropping a ball into the boot and getting it out again. Later I found about ten various toys down inside the boot.

Papa helped Liam stand up in the boots, but his feet couldn't touch the bottom so it wasn't very comfortable.

There is no lack of curiosity from this little guy and I love it. I hope he always keeps a sense of wonder about the world and how things work.

Baby Basics: What We Didn't Use

Clearly I'm not as good as Erica at posting things for my baby week, but here's the next installment: All the Stuff We Have and Didn't Use.

And in no particular order again...

Nursing Tanks. I've discovered that in mom-land people either adore nursing tanks or leave them at the bottom of their drawers. I'm definitely in the latter camp. I think I got off on the wrong foot with them because I didn't realize how when you nurse (especially at first), well, you get bigger. Ok, huge. So mine always felt really tight and uncomfortable. As much as I find nursing bras to be uncomfortable too I have to admit they are handy and help keep a nicer shape for me. I really only wear my nursing tanks on Mondays when I do laundry and wash my bras.

Pacifiers. Oh how we tried and tried to get Liam to like pacifiers! We must own at least four different kinds and they are currently sitting in a basket gathering dust. I remember when my mom was here the first week Liam was born, she came downstairs holding him happily sucking on a pacifier. The kid loved to suck on anything. I freaked out at my mom (seriously freaked) saying he couldn't have a pacifier until he was four months old at least. See how by the book I was? I was so concerned about nipple confusion that we completely missed the pacifier window. I should have seen from the beginning Liam would have no trouble nursing and it was probably fine to give him a pacifier, but how was I to know? The silver lining of no pacifiers: no pacifier fairy needs to come visit when Liam is going off to preschool to take the precious binky away.

Bottles. Again, we tried and tried. I would pump until I was sore and then listen to Rob upstairs trying to give a screaming baby a bottle. Miserable. It was all with the goal that when we drove to PA for Thanksgiving when Liam was barely a month old that we could feed him in the car and not have to stop and nurse. What a joke. I was trying to pump in the front seat with a blanket over me so the truckers couldn't see and then we would still stop to get him started on the bottle and then stop again to burp later. After one time of this we gave up and just stopped to nurse. Everyone was much happier. After that we didn't really have reason to keep trying a bottle as I was barely ever away from Liam. I wish now we had tried a little harder because there have definitely been times when it would have been so nice to leave him with someone and a bottle. Probably until he was about seven months old the longest I was away from him was six hours when we left him with Rob's parents (and a bottle) and went to dinner and a movie. I was told it went fine, but later learned he had cried, a lot. Next baby: we're going to try a little harder with bottles. However, like the pacifier, the upside to this, no bottle habit to break.

Moby Wrap. I thought I was really going to like the Moby wrap. And perhaps I would have if, like my friend Suzie told me, someone would have showed me how to use it. The enormous length of fabric freaked me out and I never really tried it. I had three other carriers I did use though -- a Baby Bjorn, a cloth sling for when Liam was really little and a Mai Tai carrier a friend made me. My feelings about carriers are this: you have to find what works best for you and your baby. Find one that is completely comfortable to you and that you can put a baby in by yourself. I rarely wore Liam around the house; mainly the carriers were for places like church or waiting in restaurants when I wanted him to be quiet and go to sleep. I'm getting an Ergo carrier for the next baby though. You're welcome to send me money toward one whenever you want.

Baby dishes, etc. Our house is a decent size, but we do not have a lot of kitchen cabinet space. Therefore I simply made the decision one day that Liam is going to learn to use the dishes we use and not take up a lot of space with baby dishes. At least for now when he isn't feeding himself. Maybe when he breaks a piece of dinnerware from Royce Yoder, Potter I will feel differently. But for now all we own special for him are four spoons (really three because he doesn't use the pink spoon -- that is for girls!) and two sippy cups. That's it. Any food I give him I just use our dishes. I've found this saves a lot of hassle and space.

Expensive Video Monitor. This was a disaster. We bought this expensive video baby monitor with extra money from our registry and got it all set up before Liam was born. The first night we brought him home we turned it on and it had terrible feedback, even though we'd tested it before. I was a mess. Liam was tiny, tiny (or as tiny as an almost 10 pound baby can be!) in his big crib and I was sure something was going to happen to him in the night. After Rob went out to get batteries at 11 pm and those didn't work either, we gave up and didn't use a monitor the first night. Liam cried in the night and my mom came up to get him because Rob and I slept right though his crying. After that we went to Wal-Mart and got a $30 cheapo monitor that is still going strong. Thankfully we got our money back from the expensive one, but it was a hassle and not worth it. Unless you really feel like you need to see your baby all the time, the technology on the video ones is not worth it.

Pack 'n Play with Extras. We got a fairly standard pack 'n play, but it came with all kinds of extras I didn't expect. It has a cradle type attachment on top, a pad that raises the mattress so it can be hooked up to a vibrator and music and probably a DVD player for all I know. We've definitely gotten our use out of the pack 'n play and I'm sure we will continue to, but we didn't need the one with extras. Now they are sitting under his bed taking up space. If I could do it over again I would get a PeaPod. Have you seen these? They are like a baby tent with an air mattress that collapses down small enough to fit in a suitcase. Genius!

Halo Sleep Sack. The memories I have from Liam's first week sometimes just make me laugh. Who lets people go home from the hospital with this helpless being? It's so good babies don't remember when happens to them when they are so little. The Halo Sleep Sack ranks up there with humorous mistakes we made. Basically the one we got was a sleeveless, zippered gown that was closed in at the bottom. Then, it had this piece of fabric that velcroed to the back of the gown and came around the arms to create a swaddle. One of the first nights we tried to use this thing and halfway through the night, as babies are known to do, he pooped everywhere and got the gown part all dirty. Silly me, I only had one of these contraptions so my mom and I rigged up some other pajamas that we then wrapped the swaddle part around his arms again. Of course there wasn't any velcro for it to stick to, so just a few hours later Liam had either wiggled out of it or somehow it was all funky around him. It did not work. I clearly remember my mom coming in his room in the morning and saying, "We need to get this pajama situation figured out." She promptly went to Wal-Mart and bought Liam six, long-sleeve sleeping gowns and we never looked back. Sure, he looked like he was wearing a dress, but at 2 am when there is a dirty diaper and no snaps or velcro swaddles, gowns are genius. I ended up selling the sleep sack at a consignment sale to some other poor soul who hopefully had better luck.

I'm sure there are more things we didn't use, but that's all I can think of now. I'm sure some of you have had great success with these things and that is great. Again, it's all about finding what your baby likes and what works for you. I'm completely on board with things that make your life easier!

Next up: Why I gave up on cloth diapers. Riveting, I know.

Top Ten: The First Year

We've had a busy week around here with one year doctor appointments, attending Taylor's Homecoming yesterday and other such activities going on. However, I did not want the week to get away from me without joining my friend Erica and some other women who have been posting about their favorite baby items. Erica is doing a great job summing up the books, stuff and saving ideas she has used in the first few months of her son's life. I don't really have time to be quite that detailed today, but here's our top ten items/things/thoughts from Liam's first year of life.

And in no particular order...

Ten. Kiddopotomus swaddle wrap. My mom found us one of these at a garage sale before Liam was born and we really had no idea what is was until a few weeks after he was born. But once we realized that some genius out there had invented a swaddle that he couldn't get out of, well, the rest is history. Liam loved to be swaddled and this thing really did keep him snug. He actually slept in it until he was eleven months old, no kidding. With his arms out obviously, but still, his bottom half stayed in it. I thought for a long time it would prevent him from standing up in his bed and screaming, but really all that did was make it look like he was wearing a skirt. Next baby we will have more than one of these too because ours didn't make it in to the wash very often...and that's all I will say about that!

Nine. Bouncy seat. I affectionately call our bouncy seat "the Lexus" because it is a beast and has all the bells and whistles you could imagine. It was a gift from my mother-in-law, and at first I will say I was skeptical, but as Liam learned to sit in it and enjoy it, it slowly grew on me. (Thanks mom!) Yes, it made my living room look like a baby garage sale because it was so big, but it was worth it. As Liam got to be more mobile it was handy to have somewhere to put him while I made dinner or needed to run upstairs. Now it sits outside our bathroom and while Liam doesn't love it as much as he used to, it is still handy to have there when I need to get ready or when I need to clean the bathroom, not a chore that can be accomplished with a toddler. (Eek! I have a toddler! He is so big!) I would say this seat was most helpful from about five months on.

Eight. Stride to Ride Lion. When we were on vacation in August at our cabin, Liam learned he could push a chair across the deck. At that point he wasn't walking (he was almost 10 months old) but I knew it was time to find him a walking toy. We went to Buy Buy Baby (Babies R Us on steroids if you've never been to one) and the new ones they had there cost anywhere from $30 to $80! We could not afford that, so I eventually found one for $10 on CraigsList. It is a fun lion that has a handle to push and walk behind and then eventually when he can ride on it, the handle comes down and makes it a seat to sit on. We spent many hours this summer outside pushing lion up and down the sidewalk and I do think it helped Liam learn how to walk by eleven months. Definitely a toy worth having for pre-walkers.

Seven. A play mat. Backtracking to little babyhood (probably 2 to 6 months), a play mat with toys that hang down was a huge favorite in our house with Liam. Liam would lay happily on the mat and talk to the stuffed octopus, (we called him Roctopus because he rocked at keeping Liam happy) for a long time. I'm pretty sure Roctopus got more smiles that I did some days. Again, it will make your living room look like a baby garage sale, but hey, if it keeps the kid happy, I'm ok with that.

Six. Friends to call. Where would we women be without friends to call when things get tough? A very sad place I'm sure. As a mom, you have to have people you can call at all stages of your child's life. They should be the kind of people you can ask honest questions of without being judged and be told the truth, no matter how hard it is to hear. I think one of satan's greatest tools against motherhood is loneliness and feeling like no one understands what you are going through. This is a lie. All mother's have been in your shoes before. I think there is nothing more helpful than calling a friend and hearing her say, "You can do this. It will get better. Keep going." Take the time to foster and grow those kind of friendships even if there are times you'd rather take a nap than talk on the phone. For your own sanity, keep them alive and don't be afraid to ask for help.

Five. Figuring out scheduling and sleeping. Yes, I am the mom who read Babywise before my baby was born. I'm glad I did because it gave me a foundation to start from when it came to getting Liam on a schedule. I don't think that the babywise system works for every baby, nor do I think that it was ultimately the best thing for us when it came to getting Liam to learn how to sleep on his own, (see my thoughts on Ferberization), but it was helpful when it came to understanding the eat, wake, sleep cycle. There were definitely days that were frustrating as I tried to figure out when Liam would sleep and for how long and then we would get thrown off if he woke up early from his nap, etc. But, now that we have a schedule it is good to know what time Liam will wake up and need to nap during the day. It also helped a lot when he was very little to know if he was crying because he was hungry or something else. This helped me to not snack nurse him during the day. Scheduling a baby does have its downfalls, mainly not having a very flexible baby and meltdowns when a nap is missed, but overall I think scheduling was one of the best things I did this year.

Four. Baby bathtub. When we registered, we accidentally added two bathtubs to our registry and ended up getting five bathtubs before Liam was born. Obviously we only kept one and returned the others, but perhaps it should have been a clue to us about how much Liam would like his bathtub. When he was about six weeks old we realized how much he liked his bathtub and started making a bath part of our regular bedtime routine. Now he sits in the big bathtub and we still give him a bath almost every night. Since Rob is gone during the day, he gives Liam his bath and it is a fun time for them together. I highly recommend getting a bathtub for the first few months.

Three. Toys to put things in. This is the stage that we are at now. Anything Liam can put other toys in to is a hit with him. Even though he has all these new toys from his birthday, he still walks around with an empty yogurt container, putting things in to it and taking the lid off and on. We introduced crayons to him recently and he could care less about coloring. The only thing he wants to do with the crayons is take them in an out of the box. Apparently this is fun for a one year old.

Two. Highchair. We did some research about high chairs before Liam was born and we ultimately settled on one that would strap to one of our dining room chairs versus a stand alone high chair. Since the highchair is now a large part of our daily life, I stand by that decision, but essentially our high chair does act like a stand alone one even though it isn't. I didn't think of this beforehand, but the arms of the high chair are too high for the chair to slide under our table. Because our dining room is rather narrow it has to strap to the end chair of the table, which means, that if we want Liam to eat with us, we have to pull the chair around to the other end of the table where we eat. So the highchair usually spends the day away from the table acting like a stand alone high chair. I'm ok with it really -- it's a good seat and is smaller than a stand alone one so it works just fine for us.

One. The Baby Bjorn bib. I could talk about this bib all day long. (See what my life has come to!) When Liam first started eating cereal food we used cloth bibs that people had given us or little ones that came attached to matching outfits. That lasted a few weeks before I realized how gross they got in addition to creating more laundry. Then we moved up to a plastic coated bib that had a little pocket at the bottom. This worked for a while too, at least I could wipe it off, but soon enough it got gross and stained too. I saw a friend using one of the Baby Bjorn plastic bibs and I was sold. It is probably the best $10 we've spent this year. It is a big bib, so it covers a lot of body for messy babies, plus it has a deep pocket at the bottom for collecting "treasures" of food. Best of all, it simply washes off and could probably go in the dishwasher if we had one of those. I will honestly never use another bib.

Did I say I had a top ten? Just kidding, it's eleven. But this one is overarching all of them.

Prayer. I don't think I've ever prayed so much as I did the first weeks of Liam's life. Except for maybe the week before our wedding when I prayed like crazy for the thunderstorms to move away from our wedding reception tent. And they did -- it was a miracle. But anyways, prayer and more prayer sustained me through those first weeks and since then really. I believe that the Lord is especially close to new mother's and helps them by drawing near when the times are hard. There are desperate prayers. There are thankful prayers. There are prayers for sleep, a constant theme in our house it seems. Prayers for energy. Prayers for patience. Prayers for endurance. Angry prayers. Hopeful prayers. Our lives as mothers should be filled with prayers. It's hard to find time to sit down during the day and focus on praying, but whispered prayers throughout the day are also heard and can be sustaining too. When Liam was very small we started a habit of praying with him and for him specifically before bedtime and that is something I know we will continue. I want Liam to grow up in a house that is characterized by prayer; that it would be the first thing he does when he is sad or angry or happy or thankful or whatever. I want him to know how to turn to the Lord in all things and to watch his mama do the same.

This year has been fun and full and hard. It has been a year of new joys and challenges I could not have predicted. Overall it has been characterized by God's faithfulness to give us a son; a tremendous joy and responsibility. I would not trade this life for anything and I am excited to see what year number two of Liam's life brings.

Next up: The things we thought we would use this year and didn't...in other words, my child did not take a bottle or a pacifier so we have lots of those laying around...

*A note about this post. None of the things/objects/companies I mentioned even know I exist so I was not paid for this post in any way. I'm just one mama talking about the things that made my life easier. And I did mean to post some pictures, but it's Sunday evening and we are making pancakes for supper and I just really don't want to take the time to put up pictures. If you want more info about anything I mentioned, leave a comment and I'll get back to you!

Happy Birthday Liam!

One year ago today I was about to go to the hospital in labor and we didn't know anything about Liam. Today, we're on the eve of his first birthday and I cannot imagine life without him. He is a joy to our home and a great blessing from the Lord. He is outgoing, funny, a cheeser, stubborn, energetic, curious, smart, busy, busy, busy and our sweet little boy. It's funny to say, but he really is an amazing blend of me and Rob while still being his own person with a big personality.

To celebrate Liam's first birthday I wanted to have a small, but special party for him. He really didn't understand what was going on, so you could probably say the party was more for us, but I couldn't imagine not having a party for him. I decided to make the theme of the party circles, since he loves balls and these round refrigerator magnets we have. The circle theme was really easy and fun considering how many foods are circles. We had round chicken salad sandwiches, grapes, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, carrots (yes, they are tubular rounds), round tortilla chips and dip, blueberry mini muffins and of course cupcakes. I made all the food including an extra smaller cake for Rob's sister Kayla, whose birthday is today.

A cupcake caterpillar. I was too lazy to figure out how to make a head, so a ball stuck in a cupcake worked great!

All the round foods and my bowl of balls centerpiece. Notice the little hands that would like to have some...

Kayla asked for a smash cake for herself. She didn't get to smash this whole cake, but she did eat a piece with no hands or silverware.

The party setup. You'll remember the triangle happy birthday banner from my birthday, but I made the half circle banner at my mom's group a few weeks ago. It worked out perfectly for my circle party.

The balloon has been a big hit at our house this week. Liam likes to walk around the living room and point to it. It welcomed people to the party.

We invited our immediate families, understanding that my parents and brothers probably couldn't make the drive, but hoping Rob's family could come. We ended up having a great party with Rob's parents, grandma, sisters and their boyfriends coming over for most of the day.

Hanging out with Mimi

And with Boppy

And with Aunt Kayla

Aunt Lauren, Lauren's boyfriend Ryan, and great-grandma Nan were here too.

And how could we forget that Chris, Kayla's boyfriend was here too? These two are the life of the party for sure.

We had fun hanging out together eating, playing a Liam trivia game I made up and another game where I printed off one picture from each month of Liam's life and in teams, the partygoers had to arrange the photos in chronological order. It was fun to look back at his first year of life in photos. (Thanks Chrissie for the idea from Elijah's first birthday party!)

After games we had presents, which there was quite a stack. I think my in-laws did a great job of not going overboard with gifts and getting Liam some good, quality toys he will enjoy. His favorite was a mini soccer ball. He also received a wooden puzzle, a small wagon with wooden blocks, two shape sorter toys, a musical toy and some books. He was actually more interested in the wrapping paper because it was printed with sports balls and he kept saying "ball, ball!" when he was unwrapping. But eventually he understood and was interested in the toys.

Starting the present opening

"Hmm, what should I open next?"

Working on his new puzzle with papa

Later we took the ball outside and tried to work on kicking vs. throwing. His Pops would be proud to know he seems like a natural at soccer. :)

After presents we had high hopes for some good cake smashing considering how much Liam loves to eat. However, it was a bit underwhelming as I think he was confused what he was supposed to do and it was right before naptime so he was getting tired. He eventually stuck his fingers in the icing and thought that was tasty, but he didn't get in to the cake too much. We still had fun helping him explore and understand cake. I think cake at his two-year-old birthday will be a bigger hit.

Exploring the icing

Icing = yum

"I think cake is pretty good."

Happy birthday Aunt Kayla! We love you.

Family shots!

Overall, it was a fun day and we really enjoyed celebrating with family around us. Liam is a very well loved little guy! Tomorrow, on his actual birthday, I think we will have a low-key day and probably not do much in terms of celebration. One party was exhausting enough!

Happy 1st birthday Liam! We love you so much and cannot wait to enjoy another year with you.