Pictures

Yeah Turbo got out of our crap chicken-wire fence - again - this past weekend. So I made an emergency trip (which turned out to be trips) to Lowe’s, spending about $300 dollars on lumbers and supplies to build a real fence. I’d strangle the dog if I didn’t know I’d be strangled in return by Carleen who has this strange attachment to this very neurotic dog. There’s this episode of The Simpson’s where Homer strangles Bart (”Why you little…!”) and then Marge commences to strangle Homer (”Why you big…!”) - yeah, it’d look something like that. Anyway, on with pictures!

There’s a bit of purely aesthetic work left to be done, but it does it does it’s job. I don’t have pictured the other side of the house, but it pretty much looks the same on that side too. I still have to do the back part of our property, but that’ll have to be done later. I’ve got a bathroom finish.

Liam had his first Easter Egg Hunt this Sunday. He surprised us all - I had figured he’d find a few and then get bored. But he really enjoyed himself and found every single egg. Carleen bought some plastic eggs from Wal-Mart and filled them with some Teddy Grahams, so every time he found an egg, he got a treat - that probably helped. Here’s some pics:

I sort of feel like the holidays just sort of grazed by me. All of a sudden it’s 2008 and I’m due to turn thirty this summer.

This past year has seen a lot of changes for me. I’ve encountered some difficulties, some disappointments. I’ve gotten to know myself a little better, I’ve discovered some weaknesses, some strengths. But I have this strange feeling that 2008 is going to be good year.

There’s a bunch of xmas photos we still haven’t uploaded to our flickr yet but we’ll get them done…plenty of cute ones of Liam. I should probably mention something about resolutions for the year. Besides the joint one Mike and I agreed on I’ll simply want to find more time for crafting, spend more time with friends, less time stressing, more time napping, less time searching for misplaced car keys, more time reading and writing letters to people instead of email (really like that one Chrissy :-). Oh, and yoga, which I’ve been doing pretty good with during the past months so I just want to keep it up. Every day, forty minutes. And speaking more Norwegian with Liam. And getting out of Oklahoma by my birthday. I guess I should have put all that in list form for ya but oh well.

Anyway, happy belated New Year everyone!

We’re back, I kind of feel like I need to do a rendition of Billy Joel’s “We didn’t start the fire” to explain everything we did and all the people we met in the short time that we were there but basically it was a great trip, Mike and I got a couples massage from his parents as our belated birthday gifts (that was the suprise), it was good to see family, good to see friends, bonfires, board games and bad tasting beer, Liam had a blast meeting his various cousins, aunts, uncles, great uncles and aunts, great grandma’s and such, the wedding reception was Aloha cool with tasty garlic mash potatoes and Mai Tai’s, we’re exhausted, here’s some pictures for now.

Here’s a cute video we took of Liam walking. He’s been taking steps for awhile but it wasn’t until about Wednesday of last week that he started really walking.

The cutest thing about this video is Mike getting annoyed with the camcorder. You have to start with this video first.

It appeared that the video in the camcorder was full so we switched it out. But then the damn thing wouldn’t stop beeping so Mike got annoyed and I took over. I don’t usually have the “magic touch” when it comes to technical devices but for some reason on this day the Camcorder Gods took pity on us and I managed to press record and somehow it started working. Suffice it to say, I think Mike and I might be investing in a digital camcorder some time soon.

Also, don’t miss Liam in his adorable bat costume. Mike did one hell of a job putting it together. We had our little Halloween get together last night and had an absolute blast.

We had a wonderful full day. Started out at my dads. He walked Liam to the park while I ran the route and met them there so we could feed the ducks. Then we headed to the pumpkin patch to pick up some pumpkins and mums. Liam had a blast crawling through the fields and hugging pumpkins. Then my dad and I drove down to my uncles in Tulsa where Liam got to meet some of his cousins for the first time. Good times.

I think I’m going to designate Mondays as my official blogging day. I never blog anymore, I just can’t seem to find the time. It doesn’t help that I spend eight hours a day staring at a computer screen. The last thing I want to do when I get home is stare at one some more. On a similar note, I think to help with the whole techno stress thing, I’m gonna designate Sunday’s No Technology Day. That is, no computer, no t.v. and no car. If I need something at the store, I’ll walk to Wal-Mart. Chances are I’ll be too lazy to do that so whatever I need will have to wait. I may, however, make an exception with the t.v. thing in case Mike wants to watch a movie. I’ll claim that as me and Mike time.

Now that I’ve gotten myself all organized I guess I should blog about something interesting for once, and what could possibly be more interesting then my son. I’ve had some time to reflect on this past year, which has been full of changes both personal and professional. So far, I think Mike and I have it pretty good when it comes to finding the balance between work and home life. We’ve been doing the mom work full time, dad stay at home thing for about two months now. We’ve worked out a flexible schedule (note the emphasis on flexible). Liam still wakes up at night. I have a feeling this probably won’t change until he’s finally got all of his teeth. There are dozens of different schools of thought on this. Most people say he’s supposed to be sleeping through the night by now and that we shouldn’t respond to his crying/whines because this will help teach him to self-soothe and put himself back to sleep. Although there are times when Liam will wake-up and fuss himself back to sleep without any assistance, there are other nights when he simply won’t and needs help. Sometimes he just needs some rocking and a sip of water. Other times he needs a full bottle, especially here lately since he hasn’t been eating to well (probably a combination of teething and growth spurt). When nothing else works, we bring him into bed and co-sleep with him. Those nights are cozy, sometimes too cozy…for some reason he likes to sleep sideways so I usually end up with a foot in my ribs by morning. To help each other out, we rotate the night time responsibilities every two nights. That way we can ensure a few nights a week where one of us can sleep through the night without interruption.

I always come home for my lunches. Depending on how Liam’s nap schedule is, I’ll get at least forty minutes to see him before heading back to work. Mike will often email me throughout the day with short little updates. This helps since it makes me feel like I’m still participating in his daily routine even if I am at work. Most nights I get off at 5:30, drop my stuff at the door, change clothes and eat dinner. I have about three hours with Liam before his bed time routine starts. Most people might consider this a tiring task after eight hours on the job but it is honest to God the best way to unwind from work for me. I love it. I miss him so much throughout the day, I can hardly wait to get home and see him.

I think, maybe, the only time I have difficulty is on the weekends. Because I work all week, I feel a little guilty about taking time to do things for myself. I feel like I should be spending every waking moment I have with Liam. Not only that, but Mike has Liam all week. He needs his breaks too. Then of course, Mike and I need time together. There’s only two days in a weekend, it’s hard to fit all of that in. But all in all, I think we’re doing pretty darn good. If we could just keep our house from falling apart, we’d be in really good shape. I’m still trying to work on Mike with the whole yurt idea. I have a feeling I can swing him when he finds out that plumbing is completely optional.

Say Mike, what did you do this weekend?

Me? Oh I only laid a floor in my living room. BAM!

We had a nasty brown carpet (it was even nastier than we thought - the bottom side was beyond gross). The Linoleum was underneath, I laid the new, laminate floor overtop that. I got it down in about 6 hours, but of course then I had to replace all the trim - so that took me into Sunday. I am so sore from putting it down so fast, but it was worth it - this floor would make Bob Villa weep.

Liam was 11 months old yesterday. Only one more month before we’ll start counting his age in years. I can’t believe it’s gone by so fast.

I didn’t go with Mike to New York this time. Plane tickets are outrageous right now. His friend Jamie is also getting married in the Fall and Mike is best man so we plan to save for that trip instead. It’ll be interesting flying on a plane with Liam. I’m already having horrible nightmares of him screaming because of ear pain. I used to have problems with that. The flight attendents would give me plastic cups filled with steaming hot wash cloths to cup over my ears as we descended. I never could understand why that was supposed to help, but it did.

Even though I didn’t go, I did schedule vacation leave for the time that Mike is away. So, these last few days have been interesting, having Liam all day long. Yesterday, my friend Cindy and I went to Tulsa for the day. Liam’s nap schedule was off. He didn’t have his morning nap but slept on the drive down, although I don’t think it was enough since he got pretty cranky towards the end. My friend Jennifer had invited me out that night but I ended up not going. I dropped Liam off at my mom’s where he spent the night. I went back home, ate fried chicken from the deli at Wal-mart, and watched re-runs of Columbo for most of the night. It was strange not having Liam around after having had him around twenty-four seven for the past two days.

Liam has started pulling himself up and can walk along the sides of things. It’s so much fun to watch him think things through and problem solve his movements. Today he finally figured out how to pick something up once he had dropped it from a standing position. Previously he would just get annoyed and start to cry. He’s confident enough now with his standing that he buckles and let’s himself fall, then grabs the toy he’s dropped. Of course, the next thing he has to figure out is how to lift the toy in one hand and pull himself back up with the other. The toy always presents a problem since it prevents him from being able to use that hand to grab onto things and steady himself. My brother, mom and I sat on the couch for almost half an hour today watching him work things through. I wish I had some video clips to show on here but we’ve started using a regular video camera and I haven’t figured out how to transfer it to the computer and downsize it into a quicktime video. That kinda goes beyond my computer expertise.

Being able to pull himself has, however, presented some problems when it comes to putting Liam to sleep. Everybody who takes care of Liam pretty much has a different method for putting him to sleep. It will change often, according to his own development. My mom strolls him around in the stroller and talks and sings to him. I’m not entirely sure what method Mike is using at the moment. I’ve always been able to just feed him his bottle and stick him in his crib. He’ll fuss a little when a lay him down but quickly starts to play and sing to himself until he eventually tires himself out and starts to make a specific lulling moan sound. When you hear that sound you know he’s on his way out. But now that he can stand up, he get’s distracted by all things he can see outside his crib. I’ll rock him for awhile, kiss and hug him then tell him “nite nite”. The minute I stick him in his crib he pulls himself up and starts looking at things, the fan, the window, the mobile on his crib. He never cries and eventually, in most cases, he does fall asleep. When he doesn’t he’ll just start yelling really loud “mam, mam, ma”, “babbabba”. If that goes on for five minutes or so you know you’ve lost him. Give it up, strap him in his car seat and drive, otherwise you’re just going to make the rest of the night painful. So, bedtimes recently have taken a lot longer than usual. He also has his upper front two teeth coming in, probably another reason he’s not going down as easy.

I have a few days left of vacation. I think I’m going to spend most of tomorrow outside. I bought a bunch of plants the other day and I’m going to stick them in pots and do something creative next to our front door. I haven’t told Mike this. He’ll probably find out via this post. It seems like whenever he leaves for New York, I go out and spend money on “house improvement” stuff. Last year it was a wall unit. I promise, baby, I’ll buy less groceries this week.

I’m probably going to change the template on here again soon. Not because I want to but because this template has a tendency to display photo’s and javascript stuff all wonky.

We’ve added some pictures to our Flickr album. Liam is starting to pose and smile more for the camera (I think he’s finally getting the idea). We haven’t added our Flickr album to our blog since the update but will eventually. For now just go here.