Brewers-Cubs Game

For Father's Day Jon and I had gotten 4 tickets to the Brewers-Cubs game. We thought that was perfect because Dave is a Cubs fan and he could take Liam to his first game! Although I was a ball of anxiety thinking how Liam was going to fare in 80+ degree muggy weather... he of course surpassed all of my expectations and did wonderfully. Actually, he did beyond wonderfully... he was well behaved and LOVED baseball!

We were up high... as high as you could get! That worked out just fine though! Liam entertained himself with snacks, coloring and stickers. He loved watching the players throw the ball, in fact he was the hit of our row and several rows in front of us because he would pretend throw and yell his approximation of 'throw'. So adorable! He liked it when the Brewers got homeruns (sorry Grandpa)... there was lots of music and fireworks! It was hot, hot, hot, especially after they closed the roof, but we made it to the end of the eigth inning before we decided to try to beat some traffic out... Brewers won 4-2, sweeping the Cubs, but all of us had so much fun!Sasauge race... hot dog won... Liam liked watching it!Relaxing with Grandpa after the game!

Pool

Well... a week ago already (whoops!), Liam and I ventured out to Wauwatosa Pool for his very first pool experience. We met a few other moms from school with their little boys and dove right in. Well, not dove really since it was a zero-depth pool area, but you get the picture!



Liam was a little hesitant at first, but wanted to explore. He just kept pointing and saying 'wa wa' over and over... very cute! He sat in the water, explored the concrete, ventured past knee-depth, and tried out the small waterslide. The waterslide by far was the biggest hit! I am pretty sure he would have gone down that slide all day long!



I couldn't quite navigate a Liam, water and a camera, but I stole these pictures from another mom :)

Liam with his new friends Cole, Cael and Blake

I like this one best... Blake and Liam are in a staredown!

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Driving and Dancing

Playing at the Learning Shop

We took a trip to the learning shop today to scope out a few Mellisa & Doug toys. Liam had a lot of fun playing with the demo toys - Thomas was a big hit!

Liam Swinging

Drinking from big boy cup

Painting

Playing with Buckley

Itsy Bitsy Spider

How did it happen?

I have found myself asking the question... "How did this happen so fast?" too many times to even count over that past week. All of a sudden my little baby boy is doing so much! It brings tears to my eyes, makes me so proud and makes a part of me a little sad that he is growing so fast.

We are now in size 4 diapers, size 24 month clothes, eating foods like a big boy, starting to drink from a cup, have all four (giant-looking) molars in, using some 2 sign/word combinations, problem solving... seriously the list could go on and on... it is so hard for me to think back to just a year ago and this was my sweet boy!

Dancing

Daddy Ride

Moo Baa La La La

Wagon

Whew... caught up!

There are many times when I feel like I am always living in the past... trying to catch up from previous weeks' blog posts...

Anyway, here are some cute things happening this week!

Loving his new wagon... puts things in and pulls/pushes/carries it around!

Eating continues to be an on-again off-again adventure. I gave him a banana to hold onto one morning while I made his breakfast... he wanted it open and preceded to take bites and eat the whole thing while waiting for his bagel! He will now only eat whole banana! This morning he even asked for banana while we were getting dressed... first time he requested food!

Liam has a new love of sitting on shelves, windowsills and boxes... anything that is just at his size! We have some new storage containers that he now loves carrying around to find just the right spot and then sits on them. He looks so proud of himself when he does it! We just have to remember to put the covers on the boxes before sitting on them (there have been several incidents of getting just a little bit stuck!)

Liam is really experimenting with where his body is and what it can do... he likes to hang off things upside down or come and look at you upside down! He is also standing on his tiptoes to get high things and trying to balance on one leg (not so successful with that one yet!)

Peek-a-boo is another fun game that has been resurected the past couple of weeks! Too cute! Among other 'oldies but goodies' are 'so big' and the 'where is it' game!

Riding his Bike

Lake... see we got there :)

On Sunday, we headed out to one of the local Waukesha County Parks to spend a little time playing on the beach and trying out the water. Liam really got into walking on the sand (took a little getting used to) and asking to go to the 'wa wa'. He liked the water about up to knee level, then it started to get a little bit worrisome!

Liam really got into rock collecting while we were at the beach. He liked picking the rocks out of his sifter and putting them into his wagon. Mommy made him cry when she dumped them all out packing up our sand toys... tantrums are pretty common these days!

Relaxing at Alterra

We went down to the lakefront to our favorite Alterra (site of our first date!) for some sun, coffee and relaxing. In reality, we had plans to get a quick cup of coffee and then head to the beach for some sand fun... but instead we sat for an hour watching Liam play and sipping our coffee :)

Farm Petting Zoo

Last week Thursday, Jon, Liam and I all went to a farm petting zoo. We thought Liam would have a blast and he did! The farm is a privately owned place with all sorts of farm animals, most of which you can either pick up and hold or walk right into their pen to pet them. There is also all sorts of fun playground equipment and toys around to play on! Liam didn't quite know what to make of being so close to the animals, but he definitely was interested and really liked watching all of them! Near the end of our time he was much more comfortable and was running up to the pens to stick his fingers through!Playing on the slide Watching the minature horse

Liam pet this cow... he liked him!

He did not like the pigs as much!

He did really get into the goats. He was walking around and pretty at ease in their pen!

The baby goats were so cute! We also got to pet some new calves, which Liam liked!

Of course Liam found himself a ball!

Yet another zoo trip!

Since Jon took the entire week off of work, we decided to continue our family fun at the zoo. We met Grandma Roxanne on Tuesday morning and had the zoo to ourselves for awhile, which was very nice. This was Liam's first time riding the zoo carousel and he loved it! We spent a lot of time in the farm section, which Liam also enjoyed. Although he did stop in his tracks when we went in the cow barn... the expression on his face read "That is a big cow" pretty clearly!

By far the biggest hit of the day was the fan attached to a water bottle. Trust me it was needed and Liam loved it!

Fourth of July!

We took Liam to his very first parade for fourth of July... he was a trooper. We walked from our house to downtown Waukesha (why don't we do that walk more often!) to see the parade. It wasn't the biggest or most exciting parade, but it worked for our purposes! We found a nice grassy hill with a bird's eye view and some much needed shade! Liam seemed to like the bands and fire trucks best... oh also a little girl had a balloon in front of him... that was pretty good too!

Storing Away...

I took some time at the beginning of the week to start going through some of Liam's toys and books to make room for some new toys! It is harder than I thought storing some of these things away... but we must!

4th of July Week

Well - I'm off of work for a whole week.  Looking forward to spending a week with Kaycee and Liam and doing all kinds of fun stuff as a family.  I sort of eased into vacation mode on Saturday - we ran a bunch of errands and put together a list of things we can do over the coming days.

On Sunday, G&G West and Uncle Andrew came down and spent the day.  We had a pool party in the backyard (there was  a pool filled with water so it counts as a pool party - even if the only use it got was to wash off one of Andrew's feet!), grilled out for lunch, then retreated indoors for AC and home-made strawberry pie.

Today (Monday) is July 4th so we packed up the stroller and hiked downtown for the Waukesha parade.  Liam enjoyed himself - some of the floats had balloons on them!  Parade was rather long, but we made it back (just) in time to get Liam fed and down for a nap before serious crankers hit.  Liam took a 3 hour nap so us parents had a relaxing afternoon.

Various pictures and videos were of course taken and will get blogged at some point.  Plan for tomorrow - Altera coffee and then the zoo!

Playing with Animals

New Playing

Liam seems to be just trying to figure out everything this week. This morning he was playing independently for almost an hour. He spent at least 20 minutes playing with a cord, wrapping it around himself and other things, learning to carry it without tripping over the end... over and over again!

He spent another 20 minutes playing with his zoo animals. He loves putting them in just the 'right' spot. Lots of times that is on top of the tree structure, but other times he just gets it into his head that an animal belongs somewhere else! He is so careful to place the animal just so and then five seconds later he wants a different animal there... so he just hauls off and swats the previously carefully placed animal right off it's perfect spot so there is room for the next. After about 10 minutes, he just stopped and stared at the ten or so animals he had put various places. He had a smile on his face... so proud of himself!

He is becoming a big boy so quickly!