Friday, July 22, 2011

Portland!

We found our camera! Yay! We have not taken any pictures on it since we went to visit my sister and brother-in-law in April. Wow! So, here is a very late post about the fun times in Portland.

My sister is expecting twin girls, and thus one of the main reasons for the visit: I wanted to see her in her pregnant cuteness!! She has done an amazing job taking care of the little girls and is already a wonderful Mommy!

She, Zeke and I went to her Baby Shower where she got totally loved on and showered with gifts.



Liam had a blast in Portland! It rains all the time, and he loved tromping around in his rain boots!

There was always something going on in the big city and lots of trucks to watch.

We even went to this cool little restaurant that serves only gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches, and is set up in an old school bus. There are tables actually on the bus that is decorated so fun.


Liam, of course, wanted to "drive!" He was in heaven!



One major highlight was being there for Easter. We went to John and Kari's church, Bread and Wine, which meets in a coffee shop. So cool.

One girl brought her pet lamb with her! So Portland.

I dressed my poor little boys in Missouri Easter clothes, but it was Portland weather!! They were good sports and after Liam got dressed he said, "You're so handsome."

Yes, Liam you ARE so handsome!



And so brave!! Liam fearlessly climbed this Lion at the Portland Zoo and gave it a good ROAR!

He went to their local park almost every day to swing under the BIG trees.

We had so much fun and I can NOT wait to go back and meet my sweet little nieces!!

Here is the beautiful mom now in July (3 months after our visit) counting down the days!! Stay in there a little bit longer girlees, you're almost done!

Monday, June 20, 2011

a few not-so-great pictures

We can't find our camera.

I know this is no excuse, but here I am, trying to make an excuse for the lack of blogs. It is more fun to blog if I have pictures!

I do take pictures with my iphone on a semi-regular basis though. So, I have emailed a few of those pictures to ourselves so I can upload them from the computer!

Here is what has been happening recently:

GiGi came to visit!! My mom's Floridian sister came through Springfield to hang with the boys a few days, and now the two of them are going to Portland for a while to help my sister ready her house for the twins who are on their way!! Which reminds me......maybe our camera is in Portland! We had it there in April......hmmmm.... More about our Portland visit later.

Father's Day! Here are the boys with Daddy:
And with Papaw!


Happy Father's Day to Grandpa too! The boys missed you!

Speaking of father.....Daddy is always coming up with some fun game for his sons. Most recently, it was pulling them around the house on a towel. Slightly dangerous maybe, but that's what makes it so fun right?!

Liam and Zeke have loved being outside this summer. Which means running through the sprinkler, swinging at the park, running through the grass, and watching ants on the sidewalk. All this and more to make two very worn out boys!!


Again, sorry for the not-so-great pictures. But I wanted to post something, clear or not. Hope everyone is having a good summer!!

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Camp out!

Liam and I had a fun campout this week. I'm looking forward to taking him camping and floating in the summers when he is older. I thought we would start by just setting up the tent in the backyard.

He "helped" me set up the tent... which meant he wanted to take the mallet and hit everything with it.
and we had a "campfire" in the backyard, and enjoyed some S'mores. I think this was also a first for Liam. He would rather have raw marshmallows and graham crackers.

Liam was fascinated with the flashlight. Especially as the night got darker, he wanted to have the ability to have some light in the tent.

We didn't get to sleep until well after 10 pm, which is 2 hours past his bedtime. He just wanted to crawl around the tent, and explore every corner. Then he went through the phase were he kept asking to see Mommy. She was inside taking care of Zeke. My hopes of him making it outside all night were slowly vanishing...

He kept getting distracted by the outside noises. Bugs cricketing, birds chirping, planes flying by overhead, or helicopters on their way to the hospital. Sirens in the distance (he wanted to go see the "ambubance"). We read his bedtime books several times, and I sang his bedtime song many times. Finally, I turned on the noise maker on my phone (I use it for Zeke), which helped drown out the distractions.

I wasn't sure he'd make it, but we slept out all night! Then the next day he didn't want to get out of the tent, so I think he had a good time...

Zeke missed playing with big brother in the tent all night, but had a good time watching the smores. It won't be long until we all go on campouts together.
We had a fun first camping outing. I can't wait for the next one. And I don't think Liam can either.


Sunday, April 3, 2011

The Little Guy

My past couple blogs have been all about Liam, so I thought I would post a couple pictures of Zeke. He is starting to interact with us now. He smiles, laughs, and coos. His smile is extremely adorable, so I wanted to share it!

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

On the Farm


Liam has always loved animals. One of his first words was "Moooo" in Africa. We do not have pets, but he reads about animals all the time and watches the neighbor's cat.

He has one book that categorizes animals like "In the backyard", "In the water", etc. His favorite page is "On the Farm." By the way, I had to laugh because the page with Zebras, Giraffes, etc is titled "At the Zoo." How neat is it that Liam has seen those wild animals in their native habitat while we went on Safari at Masai Mara!

Anyways, we recently took Liam to the Rutledge-Wilson Farm, which is a farm that is part of the Parks system here in Springfield. Kids can look at the animals and then play on the playground that looks like a barn. He had a blast!!

Here are the highlights below. I won't comment on every picture because several are just of Liam! If you have a toddler, you know it can be difficult to get a picture of your child's face, much less a clear one! So here is our fun day "On the Farm!"
The stare-down.

Just can't get close enough!

This one is for Uncle Levi: Turkeys and Tigers!




Trying to climb the ladder. Mommy had to help a little.
Here he sits in denial that the park is closing and he has to go home. Hopefully it will warm up again soon and we can go back!!

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Liam is TWO!

Party time!

Can you believe it? Liam is 2! Well, in some sense it feels like Liam already was a two year old. People have always been surprised how young he is, based on what he is doing and saying. He has been like that his whole life! Walking at 9 months, speaking 40 words by 12 months, counting to 10 by 18 months, saying the ABC's by 20 months, etc.

He surprises us every day with new words or phrases. Just last night Liam raised the two arms on his C3PO doll and said "Praise the Lord!" He can color purposefully with a crayon. By that I mean if I say "Liam, color this foot red", he can do it! Not inside the lines or anything, but right on the foot area at least. He stacks 10 blocks, but the 11th always seems to fall! He loves to run, jump, walk backwards, wrestle with Logan, roll (or crash) anything with wheels, throw balls, read books, and watch Duck Tales.

We got his hair cut this week so he would be all fresh for his party!
Last year we were in Kenya for his first birthday. We celebrated with the Kenyan children in our neighborhood and had a party with the other missionary kids. Luke and Riley were there, but no Grandparents. So this year we had a party just for the Grandparents! And Auntie Clarice, who has kind of adopted Liam as her boy! Can I just say up front that Liam did amazingly well at his party. As well as you could ask a two year old to do at least.

He was so excited to have balloons in his house! He would jump up and down and say "look at all the balloons!"

Logan tied a big bundle to the stairwell and next thing we know, the little guy some how knocked them loose and they were floating to the ceiling!

He just stood on the stairs looking up saying, "oh no what happened?" Daddy to the rescue. He got them down and the party could continue!

His cake was a chocolate #2 decorated like a road with cars on it! He was much more interested in the cars than the cake that is for sure! I think he took one bite and then ate the grapes on his plate instead. Then off to play with his new cars! I wish I ate more grapes than cake! Same with the car shaped cookies: he just drove them around until they crumbled!

He sat at his new table from Mommy and Daddy and opened his presents one by one taking time to enjoy each gift. It was so precious. His very first present was a stack of Dr. Seuss books from Aunt Kari and Uncle John. He plopped right down on the floor among all of his unopened presents and started "reading" his new book!

He played with each train he got, read each book, rode the motorcyle/tricycle from Mimi and Papaw, and shot some hoops in his new goal from Granny and Grandpa!
It was a fun day for everyone! Even Zeke!