A family outing to the doctor

Liam and I both had a doctor appointment last Tuesday, and Derek came too(mostly to keep Liam occupied during my portion!) - so we had a family trip to the clinic!

Liam had his 18 month well baby check and is doing great! He weighs 29 1/2 lbs and is 33 inches tall. He took his needles like a champ, and I think the whole process bothered his Daddy more than it did him. Derek has never been to one of Liam's immunizations and I think he was a little surprised at how Liam had to be restrained, then quickly jabbed with the needle - twice!

My appointment went really well. The baby's heartbeat was 150 bpm, and according to the ultrasound babe is growing just as he/she should. AND, I've only gained 3 1/2 lbs so far so I was really happy about that!

Van + Scary Animals + "The Freak" = Vacation!

We just got back from our huge summer vacation of a weekend trip to Winnipeg - how exciting! Actually, we had a great time and Liam really surprised us with how well he behaved away from home. He did not sleep well, but generally Liam was in very good spirits the whole trip. He even did really well on the car trip, thanks to a kid's music CD we made before we left.

We spent 3 days in the city, so we didn't have to rush around to get both the fun and essential things done. Since we may not be in the city again before the new baby comes, we did a ton of shopping. Mostly it was things for the fall for Liam - we've finally run out of his baby gifts and had to start building him a fall/winter wardrobe.

One of the trip's highlights was taking Liam to the Manitoba Children's Museum. He absolutely loved it! He had a blast in the forest area (although he was afraid of the animal statues! LOL!) and loved the tree slide. A good half-hour was spent playing with blocks in the infant room, and he kept on returning to the sweet world display (although I think that had more to do with wanting to eat the jelly beans they were using to make a craft than actually playing...)

We also took Liam to visit his Great-Grandma Chris. We haven't seen her since last summer, so it was a real treat. Liam was a bit crabby because he didn't nap too well (and he was afraid of Grandma's dog statue), but he did manage to entertain us all for over 3 hours. By that time it was a little hard to get him to pose for a picture with Grandma - but for that matter, it was a little hard to get Grandma to post too! She said she didn't want to have pictures because she looked "like a freak!" LOL! For those of you who remember, last year she said she looked like a "wild witch woman!" (Click here and scroll down to see last year's pic!) When I reminded her of this, she launched into a tale of her worst "picture" ever - apparently 10+ minutes of video of her removing tape from a package! (I had to stick that in here for any of you Ikerts/McQuakers - Jason, I don't think she'll ever forgive you! LOL!)


Our last main stop was the zoo. Last year when we went, we said "wait until next year, Liam will love it!". This year we said "wait until next year, Liam will love it!" At first he seemed to like it - he was thrilled with bears (or "puppies" as he called them)and liked some of the birds. However, by the time we got to the Monkey house he became a little afraid of all the animals. He kept on saying "Kunkey's go!", "No kitties!", and "a-malls go!" The one thing he did like was the fish pond in the tropical house - although he wanted to go swimming!


Overall we had a great trip and it was so nice to spend the family time together. In fact, even though he was originally dreading this trip, Derek even brought up the subject of a return visit on our way home!

Liam's First Fort!

Silly Sleeper

If you look closely at this picture, you may pick up on Liam's odd sleeping habit. Every nap and bed time, Liam goes to bed with his "Nigh-Night"s - a Monkey lovey (the yellow blanket with the satin trim) and a tag blanket (you can see a blue tag sticking up behind him). Does he hold them in his hands, or cuddle them in his arms? No, he sleeps on top of them. The same goes for his blanket, too - there's no keeping a cover on this boy. By morning it (and everything else) is always underneath him.

Tag! I'm it!

I've been tagged by Brandy at Getting Through Life!

I WANT: my kids to be happy
I HAVE: everything I really need
I WISH: I had the money to be a stay at home mom
I HATE: people who get everything they want with no effort
I MISS: my friends who live far away
I WONDER: what Liam (and this baby) will be like in 10 years
I REGRET: nothing. Mistakes are only tools to teach.
I AM NOT: good at geography
I DANCE: with Liam in front of the windows
I SING: Liam's Backyardigans songs in my head over, and over, and over, and over..
I CRY: when I watch A Baby Story
I AM NOT ALWAYS: as smart as I can be
I MAKE WITH MY HANDS: scrapbooks and sewing projects
I WRITE: not as much as I used to
I CONFUSE: my husband on a daily basis, I'm sure
I NEED: to enjoy my holidays and not worry about work
I SHOULD: call people more often
I START: all sorts of house and craft projects
I FINISH: most of them...eventually!

I tag Amanda and Jill!!

First peek at the new baby!

Last Wednesday we got our first peek at the new baby. I will get more information at my next doctor's appointment, but the technician said that baby looked good. The heartbeat was 142 bpm, and baby measured about a week ahead.

So here you go - the first pictures of Liam's little brother, Charles (Charlie) Ellis, or sister, Ella Grace!

Some pics to get you through the weekend...

Did you notice the purple popsicle face?

What a difference a year makes...

Fair Fun

What to do on a long weekend at home? Lucky us, the fair was in town! We started out yesterday morning by going to the parade. Liam seemed to enjoy watching all the floats go by and he had a few suckers passed out to him. The highlight of his morning though was the balloon on a stick that the kids were given. He just waved that balloon around, giggling like crazy!

After Liam's afternoon nap, we headed out to the fair. We took Liam to the petting zoo and he had fun looking at all the animals. We also went by the cattle displays and Liam was thrilled with all the big "puppies" as he called them! After checking out all the displays, we finally walked around the carnival. Liam was all eyes looking at the people and watching the rides move around. Finally we made our way to the kiddie area and took Liam for his first ride! We decided that the merry-go-round would probably be the best bet, bought some tickets and got that boy on a horse. We weren't too sure how he would react, but as soon as the ride started the biggest smile came on his face and he started yelling "Wheee!!!". He liked it so much we had to ride twice! After that we bought some fair treats. Liam loved the perogies (no surprise there) but didn't even want to try my cotton candy. I thought he would have liked it, but oh well, maybe next year!

We ended our day with the Canada Day fireworks. Bad parents that we are, we woke up Liam and headed out to find a good spot before the 11pm start time. Liam didn't seem to mind being woke up and I'm sure was wondering what in the world was going on. Well, we found our spot and waited...and waited...and waited... I'm not sure what happened, but for some reason they couldn't get the fireworks to go until midnight! We were just leaving for home when we noticed them starting so we pulled back into our spot to watch the show. Liam thought the first few bursts were pretty cool, but after that was more interested in pushing the dashboard buttons. We liked it though and it was definately good enough to be worth the wait!