Rowan: 50 weeks/11.5 months

This is such a bitter sweet moment to write this last update on our little baby before she turns 1 years old on November 26th?!?!  Where has this year gone?!  It doesn't seem that long ago that she was born...Kids really make time more relative.  So here is our update on our cute little girl.  She is still cruising a lot, and standing for a few seconds at times.  She has tried a handful of times to take a step, but she is a very cautious baby, which is quite the opposite of how Liam was.  It is kinda nice to be able to just let her play, and not worry too much about her falling yet.  Plus we have never met a baby that is so interested in playing...we think that is part of the reason she isn't in any hurry to walk.  She has started to say 'What's that?' a lot.  She says 'bye' sometimes, and has started to wave and blow kisses with her hands.  She sometimes will mimic on command too, it's pretty funny.  At night time when she gets loopy with Liam she likes to kneel up on her knees and free fall right onto a pile of blankets and pillows on the floor. She doesn't like to keep her socks on, so I think we will need to get her some shoes, since the first pair of shoes I have for Liam are still too big.  We had a combined birthday party for the kids on November 13th at Arete Gymnastics.  She had a lot of fun in the foam pit with dad!  We are going to get her a smash cake and have a little celebration for her on her actual birthday.  I am happy and sad she's turning one already...I just want to keep her this age forever, but I know that is just impossible!  We love you Rowan!!

Liam: 2 yrs. 11 mo.

Wow, this is the last update on Liam before he turns 3 years old?!?!  Congrats to us, we have survived our first round of the 'Terrible Two's'. Liam continues to grow and change on a daily basis.  He is really loving school now, and is even excited to go and see his teacher and friends.  He has started to lecture us on things we have lectured him about.  For example, we have had some mice sneak into the house, and we have told him not to touch the traps because he could get hurt.  One day Mike was home with the kids and Liam started to lecture him about the mouse traps.  He said something like this ''Dad,  look at me.  Listening and be patient.  No snap the mousetraps.  They will snap and give a bad booboo.  Be a good boy and no touch the mousetraps". It is the funniest thing!  He has also started to negotiate.  He will ask for something, and we will say you can have 3, and he will say, how about 5, and so on.  He has a steel trap memory on certain things.  For example, I took down one of his pictures in his room so that I could hang a Halloween picture.  A few weeks later when I was putting him to bed, he asked to have his old picture back, and he asked for it by the title 'The Waiting Room'.  We have only told him that title maybe a couple of times, and it had been several months since we told him...We were shocked to say the least!  Then later as we were driving we drove past where I had mentioned seeing a dead bunny about a month before and he talked about how sad it was that the bunny got smashed by a car.  Also if I change my route driving to work and back he will say "Going a different way".  His attention to details just amazes us!  Lately his favorite snack has been Doritos, and he calls them 'Doraydose'.  He asked dad to get them at the store one day, and that is all he asks for now, so that will probably be the last bag for a while.  On the bright side, he does like a soy nut mix that is healthy, and soyjoy bars. 

 

He has also discovered the joy of Halloween this year.  He actually was very excited to go trick-or-treating this year. He was very good about putting on his costume too. The first time we got it though it took a little convincing. We ended up putting Rowan's Flower costume on first, and just showed him how cute she looked, then he was fine putting it on. He was a dragon this year, and a very cute one at that! Halloween landed on a Sunday this year, so our state decided Saturday would be the Trick-or-Treating day...but unfortunately, it also was cold, windy and rainy! But thankfully Liam's costume was warm, and we had an umbrella. I took him to handful of houses, then we went home to warm up. After he ate some dinner, Mike took him to several more...the rain had calmed down, and he kept saying one more house, one more house. The next day he wanted to go again...we told him that it was over, but we could do some Trick-or-Treating in the house. It got pretty late and he needed a bath, so I asked Mike to have a few pretzels behind one door, and his milk behind the next one. He knocked on the first door, and dad handed him some pretzels, and then he said 'I want some candy'...such a funny kid! Anyway, it was pretty fun watching him enjoy Halloween!