Taylor Homecoming 2012

Hard to believe, but its been five years since I graduated from Taylor. Where does time go? We decided to make a weekend out of my reunion and Homecoming. We had a blast all weekend and it was fun to take Liam back to where we met and fell in love. Taylor did a great job planning the weekend and welcoming families to campus. 

It's amazing what can change in five years. We ate dinner Friday night in the dining commons and Rob and I were floored by how much the food and options there have changed! I wandered around unsure of what to eat and feeling overwhelmed by the amount of food that is immediately available. Those kids don't know how good they have it! Imagine someone making you all that food every day and doing the dishes too. But then, the Brotherhood was there in costumes and chanting about the Snake {sorry, only Taylor people will understand that!} and I was reminded that some things at Taylor never change. We also had a chance to tour the new science center and other new facilities on campus. It was exciting to see good things coming to Taylor. 

The main reason we went back though was to see friends from near and far. We kept running into people all over campus and having "catch-up" conversations. It was great to talk with people we have history with. And bonus, we got some quality time with aunt Kayla and Chris. Liam was a star with all her friends. His comment in the car was, "Go to Taylor. See aunt Kayla and girls." Oh dear, we have a heartbreaker on our hands! 

One of Liam's favorite places all weekend - aunt Kayla's bed! 

These two are buds. 

This is another reason why Liam loves aunt Kayla...a huge ice cream bowl she made for him! 

View from the top of the new science building 

What a treat to see this girl! I heart you Christianna. 

Checking out the football game {Taylor lost, big surprise} 

This was by far the highlight of the weekend for Liam. We spent over two hours at the blow up activity area where Liam braved and LOVED the big slide, anything he could climb on and the bouncy house. Kudos to Taylor for adding area this for kids. 

I wish you could see his smile better in this picture! He was beaming every time he came down.

We finished out the weekend with a trip to Ivanhoes, the best ice cream place in the world. I had a pumpkin shake....

Liam had his third ice cream of the weekend, cotton candy! 

And Rob had chocolate peanut butter pretzel sundae. Yum! 

Thanks Taylor for the great memories, old and new! 

More Birthday!

We continued the birthday celebrating over the weekend with a trip to Cincinnati to spend time with Rob's family. Rob's sister Kayla turned 21 on the 9th so we had a lot of celebrating to do. Mom B also included Rob and I into the mix for an even bigger fall birthday celebration. 

We spent Saturday morning at a local fruit farm taking a hayride out to the pumpkin patch and eating apple fritters. Saturday evening we went out to Don Pablo's with the extended family and then came back to the house for cake and a little party. It was great to see everyone and celebrate two special people, Liam and Kayla. 

We started off the weekend right with these doggie cupcakes Lauren and I made for Liam. He had been asking me for weeks to make them from his kids' cookbook and finally I did. They were adorable and he loved them! 

Waiting patiently for his cupcake

Enjoying it too much to pause for a photo

We spent good portions of the weekend playing in big piles of leaves. Tons of fun for little boys and mamas alike. 

This could have been a cute picture if Kayla wasn't coming out of my head...

Aunt Lauren was there too! 

This is one of my favorites.

Hanging out with "uncle" Chris

Waiting for the hayride with two hipsters we found (aka Chris & Kayla)

Heading out on the hayride. Liam looks unsure, but he loved it. 

Hanging out with Boppy and Mimi on the hayride.

"See the pumpkins mama!" 

Looking for the perfect one

Showing off my lovely pumpkin

We got Liam his own little pumpkin, not this big one

He was, of course, fascinated by the squash bugs crawling on the rotting pumpkins. 

The happy birthday girl and her dearest Chris

More presents! Liam was thrilled to get lots of matchbox cars, an excavator, Playdoh, stickers, bubbles and more. 

It's probably good birthdays and Christmas only come around once a year...we've had enough birthday for awhile! Thanks for a fun weekend Mom and Dad B!

Big Birthday Boy!

It's amazing to me that two years have passed! 

If you've read this blog for awhile you may have picked up that we make a big deal about birthdays around here. We think that birthdays should be a day where you feel extra special and know you are loved. Liam's second birthday yesterday was no exception. We had been talking about his birthday for about a week and I think he understood fairly well that it was a special day. We could have done half of what we did and he still would have loved it, but we crammed a lot into the day. 

We started off in the morning by singing 'Happy Birthday' to him when we went into his room. He immediately buried his head in his blankie and started crying. We were not off to a good start! The day quickly improved though with a trip to Starbucks for a birthday cake pop and chocolate milk. 

Cake pop!

Love this guy!

And both of these guys

Then it was off to WonderLab for some family play time. {Thanks to Boppy and Mimi for the birthday gift of a membership!} 

After WonderLab Rob went off to school and Liam and I headed to Kohl's to pick out his birthday present. Last week he saw a display of Matchbox cars there and I told him we would come back on his birthday to pick one out. All week he had been saying, "Go to Kohl's, get trucks for birthday!" He did a great job narrowing the choices down to one package of rescue vehicles and away we went to Wendy's for lunch. I'm pretty sure chicken nuggets and french fries qualify as a happy birthday lunch! 

Showing mama his new trucks

Yum! 

We came home to a giant cupcake on our front doorstep from our friends the Tuckers which we promptly had to eat some of. Liam then napped for three hours because he was so wiped out from his birthday morning. 

We did get some play time outside even though it was freezing. These are Liam's nearest and dearest friends: from left, Liam, Caleb, Lucy, Peter, Megan and Iain. 

I had to go to Bible study in the evening so we opened two birthday boxes right after supper. One was from Uncle Ben and Aunt Heidi and contained two bags of monster cookies. Then, we opened a birthday box from Grammy and Pop. I've never had a birthday without an amazing birthday box and it looks like Liam is set up for the same. He got clothes, socks, M&Ms (his favorite!), markers, coloring books, stickers, a basketball hoop for the bathtub, a darling backpack and his favorite, a Playmobil policeman on a motorcycle. I think he would have slept with that policeman if he could have last night! He is attached to say the least. The funniest gift opening moment happened when he opened the Playmobil and I said, "Oh my goodness Liam, look at that!" He looked up at me and in the same tone said, "Oh my goodness!" 

Playing hoops

Showing off his new fox backpack. {It's a Skip Hop Zoo Pack if you really want to know and I know you do...}

Looking so grown up!

Liam bear, you are such a joy to us! We are so thankful to God for your life and the gift you are to our family. We cannot imagine life without you. We love your silliness, your giggles, your social personality, your interest in everything around you and so much more. We pray that you will continue to grow in faith and godliness and come to know Christ as your Savior. We pray that the Lord will be merciful to you throughout your life. We love you! 

Psalm 37

I was reading this morning and God's word was so rich and full of promises that I had to share with all of you. Isn't God good to give us His word? He is and we should be so thankful that we get to read it and learn from Him. I hope this passage will encourage you like it did to me.

"Fret not yourself because of evildoers;

Be not envious of wrongdoers!

For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. 

Trust in the Lord and do good;

dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. 

Delight yourself in the Lord;

and he will give you the desires of your heart. 

Commit your way to the Lord;

trust in him, and he will act.

He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,

and your justice as the noonday. 

Be still before the Lord and wait 

patiently for him;

fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way,

over the man who carries out evil devices!

Refrain from anger and forsake wrath!

Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. 

For the evildoers shall be cut off,

but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land." 

- Psalm 37: 1-9 (ESV) 

What are some simple things we can learn from this passage? There are several promises that jumped out to me. Promises that involve us doing something and God responding. 

Here's what I saw: 

If I: 

- Trust

- Do good 

- Dwell in the land 

- Befriend faithfulness

- Delight in the Lord

- Commit my way 

- Be still before the Lord

- Wait patiently

- Fret not

- Refrain from anger

- Forsake wrath 

God will: 

- Give me the desires of my heart

- Act

- Bring forth my righteousness and justice

- Cut off evildoers

- Give me the land 

God's word is so clear and these promises are true! Yes, the things we need to do seem insurmountable sometimes. But, God does not make us go through those things alone. He gives us his strength and grace to trust, wait, commit, etc. on Him. We will sin in our attempts to do these things, but his forgiveness is near and it gives us another opportunity to make a path to the cross and cling to Him. My prayer after reading those verses was "Lord, help me!" 

I know I will be coming back to these verses often to remind myself of what God requires of me and what he promises in return. What promises are you clinging to today? 

Who Goes to the Beach in October? We do!

This picture shows what you might imagine the beach to look like at the end of September/early October. I wish I had a picture to show you from Sunday because it was beautiful then! This was last Saturday in Ocean City, NJ where Liam and I were with my mom, four aunts and two cousins for the weekend. Liam and I took advantage of him still being able to fly free {that will end on Wednesday when he turns two!} and flew out to see my parents for five days.

We had a great visit with lots of playing at Pops and Grammy's house, visiting Grammy's school, seeing my dear Taylor friend Chrissie and her baby Emily and of course going to the beach. 

Before we could be in PA though we had to fly on the "hairplane" as Liam called it. We checked out some books at the library about planes and flying on planes, bought some special snacks, loaded up the iPod Touch with new games, said goodbye to Papa and took off. Three of my four flights were empty enough that we could have a whole row to ourselves so that was great. The one flight on our way home when I did have to hold him on my lap got a little tight, but we made it. I've found in traveling that the downtime/layovers is actually much worse than the plane itself. Airports were not designed with children in mind! Whoever would decide to put a climbing play space in an airport would be a genius in my book. I was proud of Liam for how well he did overall. He did a good job of fulfilling the jobs Papa gave him before he left: Obey mama, sit still, be quiet, be considerate of others, eat snacks and play on the iPod. 

Thank goodness for seatbelts! They make the perfect "project" of putting them together and unhooking them again. And SkyMall. Liam loved looking at all the bizarre stuff they have. His favorite page? The page selling statues of Bigfoot, a zombie and a Tiki man. Seriously, do people buy that stuff? 

The face that says "I know you're taking my picture!" 

Once we got to Grammy's we had a whole world of new toys to play with and of course Webster, my parent's dog. Liam was buds with Webster this time, getting right up in her face to tell her things he was doing. She took it all in stride and apparently slept the whole weekend we were gone. We also had a fun time "playing clay" in the studio with Pops and visiting Grammy's school. Liam had a whole entourage of kids following him all over the playground and was a big hit there. 

Playing clay! 

Big surprise that Liam would immediately find girls and markers. 

Hanging with his posse playing basketball.

At the beach we relaxed and went out to the beach even though it was only about 60 degrees on Saturday. The water was warmer than the air so Liam spent a lot of time sitting a tide pool. He was shaking and had blue lips when he finally decided it was time to go in. A hot bath solved that and of course he wanted to go right back out on Sunday. It was at least sunny then and we had a good time throwing sand and shells into the water and digging. The women in my family are very chill on vacation so when I could I joined them in reading and laughing at the game Loaded Questions. We always have a great time together. 

He was almost immediately soaked head to toe and could have cared less. 

Liam and Grammy enjoying the water. 

This time, Liam LOVED the merry-go-round! And I love this picture. 

Grammy made it up onto the Merry-go-round too.

As always, the visit was too short and we had to say goodbye on Monday. Two more airplane rides later we were back with Papa and glad to see him. He was glad to see us again too. Thanks Grammy and Pops for a great time! See you again soon! 

So glad to be home again with Papa.