4 months of wonder and joy!

Happy 4 monthiversary little boo! We love you!

This is Liam wearing his new outfit from Great Aunt Marie! Thanks Aunt Marie! Get well soon--we are thinking about you!

love,

b, s, l

For Sale: House in Buffalo Grove!

New Adventures

Well, this year is in its last few weeks of being and a new year is on the horizon--one that will bring big changes to the Raymond household. Scott was offered a job in Indianapolis with Forsythe Racing (Paul Tracy's team), so we are packing up and moving! We have lived in our little now-fixed-up home for 20 months and we are leaving it behind for a bigger house with a yard! The cost of living in Indianapolis is much much less, so we are happy to get more bang for our buck. Scott's deal includes moving expenses, which is lovely, so we'll be looking to get this place packed up and shipped to our new home, once we have one!

But as we pack up and head 'south', we are moving away from such good people that we have been lucky to befriend. Sheri, Nancy, Stu, and all of the crew, past and present, at Baker (oh yeah, I resigned last week--otherwise, that would be one crazy commute!), the Newman-Haas wives, Scott's colleagues, and my dear friend Anna and her son Ben, who became our weekly rendezvous partners at the greatest child-friendly spots around town. :(

This past week, Scott and I have been meeting with realtors, doing some last minute renovations on the house and Scott has been finishing up at Newman-Haas, writing a manual on "how to be Scott Raymond" so they can continue on in their engineering ways without too much difficulty. (although, we all know they will be completely useless without Scott...heh heh...any bets that Forsythe will win the championship next year?)

Even amidst all of the busy-ness, Liam, the little champ that he is, has been gung-ho in learning and laughing as always. His latest tricks are playing with his toes and blowing zzerberts (AKA raspberries). He's so gifted.

With all of the cold weather, it was bound to snow--and snow it did!! Here's Liam in his snow suit experiencing his very first taste of the cold stuff.

Such a good little Canamerican. Speaking of which, we applied for Liam's Canadian citizenship on Friday, via mail, so hopefully soon he will be a little card-carrying Canadian! We received his American passport last week, so our trip to Ottawa over Christmas is good to go. We will be in Ottawa from the 19th to the 3rd and we are so looking forward to spending some time with our families and we would also love to have the chance to catch up with all of our old friends! We are planning a short overnight trip to Montreal on the 21st, if all goes well, so stay tuned Montreal friends for some fun plans!

Well, I believe my little guy is awake from his nap. Ha--I was supposed to be doing laundry during this break...ah well. Laundry schmaundry. Clean clothes are over-rated.

Happy Weekend! Stay warm!

love

b

The Littlest Fish

Liam went for his first swim yesterday! And LOVED it! We went over to the hotel where Megan and Alen and Aidan were staying and dove into their nice, warm pool! Liam is sporting some fine swim trunks from Cath's friend Bethany (thanks Bethany!) and is swimming around like a little fish! He loved the water and kicked like an Olympic freestyler. I think we've found a new thing to do on the weekends! All we need now is a nice warm pool to dive into! :)
Hope everyone is having a great weekend!
love,
b

Thanks for friends, family and fun!

Thanks to Megan, Alen and Aidan for trekking down to "Chicago" (AKA Buffalo Grove) to help us celebrate American thanksgiving! It was wonderful to have our two families united in fun! We are sure that Aidan and Liam will become fast friends...even if Aidan was a little wary of Liam and Liam would smile at anything that moves, so it was hard to tell whether this friendship was developing its firm foundation or not! See our slideshow for some pics of our time together. (we also did something special that isn't included in the show, but deserves its very own posting!!)

We wish Megailen all the best on their trip home (please no delays, please no delays!).
Love,
Becky

Gobble, Gobble!

Happy American Thanksgiving everyone! Everyone's favourite little American is celebrating his first American Thanksgiving today! And we are all very excited to share it with Megan, Alen and Aidan, who will be arriving shortly! Yay, Turkey Day!

We were lucky to have a nice visit from Caroline, my friend from work, yesterday. Liam was happy to receive a very fancy toque and gave cuddles to Caroline before she left. We hope she comes to visit again, soon!

Happy turkey day everyone!

Love,

Becky, Scott and Liam

Choo choo, Baker, tummy time, and growth spurts!

Everyone's favourite cutie-pie (dressed in his daddy's sweater and toque set)

Liam enjoys tummy time now! Wow, that took a while! For all of the 'tummy time' novices reading this, babies are supposed to play on their tummy for part of their day every day. This is due to the fact that babies now should be sleeping on their backs, to reduce the chance of SIDS. Well, being on their back to sleep and ride in a car seat and play has taken a toll on their development--not having the time on their tummies affects their hand-eye coordination, balance, and many other skills and abilities, not to mention basically their arm and core strength. So, babies on the whole have been reaching developmental milestones later since the beginning of the "Back-to-Sleep" campaign to reduce SIDS. Sooooo, babies need to play on their bellies.

All that to say, it has been torture putting Liam on his belly (as I think it is for many tykes). He would cry almost immediately. (Hey, if that weren't motivation enough to learn to say, "Flip me over, this sucks!" I don't know what is!) Anyway, it is nice to see that Liam can now stand to be on his belly for more than 2 minutes without the tears falling! Now we can really work on rolling over!

We've had a busy week: Scott left for Mexico City for the last race (hiphiphooray!) on Wednesday morning, leaving Liam and I to bach-it for the week. We visited Baker, my workplace, and hung out with the cool teachers--Liam was a hit!

Liam in his cool chair in Sheri's office--where did you get this chair, Sheri? You never told me!

Liam and Jesse, the science teacher

Liam and Sheri

Liam and Juli, 5th grade teacher

We hung out with Anna and Ben at their house and had lunch at the Choo-choo (a cool kid-targeted restaurant where your food is delivered by a train on the countertop--too cool--and birthday kids get a very loud and boistrous symphony of the Birthday Song sung to them, complete with train whistles atop frosted cupcakes! yeah... super cool.).

We did Lunch with Jess today and tomorrow we are heading over to Missy and Trace's house to watch the race. Phew! All this and Liam is in the middle of a growth spurt--meaning he sleeps no more than 1-2 hours per 'shift' before wanting to eat again at night. It's been a tiring week of that! Last night we actually went 3 hours between 'meals' so hopefuly we can get back up to that elusive 6 hour stretch that we once had. Ah, memories...

Speaking of sleeping, Liam is doing just that. He's entering into the second hour of his...hmmm pretty long...nap. Yeesh, I picked the shortest nap of the day to lay down with him this morning when I could have been in lala land myself right now! Sigh, hindsight is 20-20. :)

Well, all, once the beast awakes, it's into the tub he goes! Best get the bubbles ready! Tune in to the race on Sunday to watch Scott's team end their (ahem, WINNING) season on a high note with Seb's last race!

kisses from the wee one and me!

love,

b

Liam and his New Toy

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Toys, Treats and Together Again!

Liam got a new toy! I scored a used Baby Einstein play centre for mere pennies (compared to the retail $80 asking price!) and after a quick cleaning, Liam was ready to explore! Check out the video of Liam spinning the dials and being kissed by the puppet!

Halloween was a blast, with Liam scoring some good treats from our neighbours. He wore his little candy corn outfit (still fits, but barely!) and we bundled him up in a warm blanket and the neighbours practically threw candy at him, he was so cute. He even had a little bag to carry. We told him that he could only have as much as he could carry himself, and we knew it was time to go home when, at the last house, he dropped the bag. :) Here's a picture of Liam and his loot!

And here's Liam giving his daddy a high five:

Liam and I were lucky to hang out with Anna and Ben again today--it has been too long! The last couple of weeks were busy with Auntie Catherine's visit (yay!) and then with my flu-bug (ugh!) so our weekly outing with them was sorely missed! Here they are, with Liam, at Caribou Coffee today. Liam is getting bigger, but still has a ways to go to catch up with 2 1/2 year old Ben!

Liam is definitely growing like a weed. He's wearing his cousin Jake's hand-me-down overalls for a 3-6 month old! (thanks, Cathy!!) And looking super-cool, too, I might add.

Well, off to spend a nice Friday evening with my two fine-lookin' men. Happy weekend, all!
Love,
b

Family Portraits

Hi all,
Click on this link to see our first family portraits!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=27665&l=8834e&id=613675774

Also, here's a pic of Liam at his first Halloween Party with Auntie Catherine and Mommy!

We went to the library to listen to a story-teller. Liam was more interested in watching the other kids. :) We enjoyed having Auntie Catherine visit for the time that Scott was in Australia. She was very helpful and did a lot of cuddling and playing.
Scott's team won the Champ Car Championship for the 4th year in a row with their driver Sebastien Bourdais! Congratulations!!
Well, best be off, I hear some waking noises!!

Happy Halloween, all!

love

Becky

Liam from 5 1/2 weeks to 7 1/2 weeks

The adventures have begun...

Hi all,
My apologies for not posting for the past almost 6 weeks! It's been...ahem...a BIT busy! :) We've had a wonderful, exhausting, adventurous, love-filled stretch of time since the last posting. Of course, as you know, little Liam has graced our lives, bringing a lot of laughter and joy! He is an amazing little being--so sweet and cute and good. We are definitely a lucky family to have him as our own little son.
Liam has changed--he changes every day!--from a little newborn to a full-fledged baby! He's eating well and putting on the pounds; he's sleeping very well (he can sleep anywhere at anytime--he's a champ!); and he's interacting more. In the past 2 weeks, we've seen a great leap in the way he interacts and he even plays for up to 30 minutes with his toys, batting at them and watching them shake and swing and then batting at them again. I swear he knows what he's doing... He coos and smiles more now, too--and it's not just gas! It's definitely social smiles. :) He has been laughing for the past 4 weeks in his sleep, (that's hilarious, by the way) but we have yet to hear the music of his laughter in a social setting.
We have been out and about a lot, going to a mommy and baby movie, having playdates with other mom/babies, attending surviving motherhood groups (where I feel guilty for not having any problems to discuss--ha!) and going for walks and going shopping.
We have had visitors--mom and dad, Dave and Trudy both stayed over for stretches of time to help out and hang out. That was wonderful. And we've had a variety of friends stop by and pay us a little visit, too.
So, things are going well. I'm definitely busier than ever and my time is more spent on feeding and entertaining and hanging out with my favourite little man. My favourite BIG man (AKA Scott) is also in heaven with our little Liam. They are a great pair, my two favourite guys!
Well, hope all is well! We welcome any emails, etc. but please be patient in when we can respond! :) But we will, eventually.
I hear the rumblings of a little hungry tummy. Best be off!
love,
Becky

Liam Up to 5 1/2 Weeks!

Liam Scott Raymond Slide Show!!

Liam Scott Raymond

Hi everyone! Becky and Scott would like to announce the arrival of Liam Scott Raymond. He was born on August 15th at 3:32 AM in Lake Forest, IL. So our little baby is an American. :) He was 8lb 8 oz and 21 inches long.

As I am not the best at updating the blog, here is a link to a photo album for Liam. We'll have more updates shortly.

Liam Photo Album

Love to all.
Scott, Becky and Little Liam

Maybe the last picture??

Taken Friday, August 10, 2007, 5 days past due date. This may be the last photo taken of Baby in my belly! We're hoping that Baby lives for the weekend (like we all do)!

Bora Bora

Since I have some time on my hands, I wanted to experiment with some blogger tools. I figure once baby is here, we can use this to display the little cutie-pie! So, here's my attempt at practicing with it. Enjoy some of our pics from our trip to Bora Bora over New Year's!
love b

Look what I can do!

yeah...this is super-cool. We've got video-capabilities, photo-capabilities...we're set!
Enjoy, all!
:)
b

Brave Scott

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swimming with the sharks

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Post Appointment update

Hi all,
No changes!
Doc's appt. went well. Baby was monitored and he/she is healthy and apparantly quite happy in there.
The next step is ...well, besides waiting... an appointment on Monday to check on baby's size and health and go from there. It could happen before then, or it could not!
We're very happy that baby's healthy and happy. We are also excited to meet him/her and would like to have some good family time with the three of us before Scott has to leave for 2 weeks on the 20th. So, we're hoping for baby to come sooner rather than later!
Keep 'pushing' for us! :)
love
b

Tuesday--two days of extra growth!

Lucky little munchiken--doesn't have to conform to anyone's 'schedule' or expectations. He/she just continues swimming around while the multitudes of people anxiously awaiting his/her arrival go crazy. :) What a jokester!
The news is, is that there really isn't much to report. I believe I dropped on Sunday (baby's due date), since it feels like baby's lower and I'm using a whole new group of muscles to carry this child around...but that is yet to be confirmed by the doc. We have our next appointment bright and early tomorrow morning, so we should have a better idea of what this little tyke is up to. He/she is still moving around and I'm still having "practice" contractions. Some of them are a bit crampy, but as you can tell none have progressed into anything.
I went to the police station to have the baby seat inspected this morning--all is good! The seat is great, installed perfectly and just waiting to be filled. I encourage anyone who has small kiddies in car seats to get theirs checked out. It took a quick phone call, then a 5 minute inspection. It's good peace of mind.
And that's my public service announcement of the day. I might just go make some iced tea and start on one of my books that I picked up at the library this morning. I'm looking forward to a nice, relaxing afternoon. (psst...reverse psychology! haha)
love
b

Due Date!

Today, August 5th, is our baby's due date. Too bad Baby doesn't know this... :)

He/she is still tucked in, nice and snugly. We'll see how things go this week. We have a doc's appointment Wednesday morning to evaluate how the little tyke is doing in there. Baby's still squirming away, so I'm sure Baby is just enjoying the full-body hugs, endless supply of food and the nice, dark, warm cocoon.

I'm off to do groceries. It never fails that when I go out, I get asked about the baby and when it's due. It will be fun to watch the faces of the people when I tell them, "Oh, today." They usually back away in terror, as if my water is going to instantly break all over their sandals, or tell me (as I was told on Friday night when Scott and I were out for his birthday date night) "Get yourself home, girl!" This woman was funny. We chatted with her and her friend for a bit and she told us that she worked as a social worker in inner city Chicago for many years and it was rare that she saw the excitement, love and happiness that we were exuding when we talked about the upcoming arrival of our little one. She said, "Babies just don't know...they don't know how much they can be loved."

So, Baby, in or out, your mommy and daddy love you very much. Happy due date! Maybe we can celebrate with some ice cream later. :)

love
b

All tucked in...

I had my weekly doctor's appt. today...baby is all tucked in there, going nowhere! The due date is August 5th, but baby can come anytime up until 43 weeks (wow--that's almost the end of August! Yowsas!). I'm sure he/she will be here before then!
The house is done! (for now...there are little projects to do still like changing out lights, etc., but the big stuff is all taken care of) It looks great!
It's hot here--this week it's supposed to go up to the mid-90s (that's mid 30s for the Canucks)--that's hot.
Tomorrow is Scott's 32nd birthday! We're going out for lunch and having cake tomorrow and Scott gets to finally open his presents (I've had them wrapped and ready to open early if needed for the past 2 weeks!) then we're going out for dinner and a movie (The Bourne Ultimatum) on Friday! Fun! :)
That's about all that's new. I'm tuckered out from baby's constant dancing during the night, so I should go take a nap!
Bye all!
Becky

up-to-the-minute update!

Love the new carpet!

I was so excited, I had to post. The carpet guys finished up and moved all of the furniture back and I put out some of the accessories and just wanted to share! (in the photos, it kind of looks pinkish, but it's a nice light beige--the colour of a white sandy beach. :)

Yay! :) ...And for all of you looking at the glass tables (and the white-sandy-beach coloured carpet...) and shaking your heads knowing that baby is on its way...we know! we know! :p

love ya!

B

Updates on the ongoing projects

Hi all,

Here is an update on our two main projects--baby-growing and house-renovating. :) Before I get into those, I want to give a couple of 'shout-outs' to some folks: Congratulations to Scott for coming in 3rd place in his age group in his triathlon a couple of weekends ago! It was a beautiful morning for a race and Scott did a great job!!

Scott biking into transition area #2 in preparation for his run.

Scott's times: 3rd in his age group; 17th overall (out of 299 competitors)

My Triathlon Hero

Scott getting his 3rd place medal.

Congratulations Jarret and Kim on their wedding last weekend! They are honeymooning now and getting ready to move to New Zealand! We're sorry we missed your wedding! Also, news of Willie and Sheila becoming grandparents for the first time is great to hear! They are waiting patiently for John and his wife to deliver sometime in mid-August. Yay Johnnie! Too bad we didn't live closer--we could all have Sunday bbq play dates and nice relaxing evenings of watching the Wonderful World of Disney like in the old days. Mom and Dad had a great visit with you and everyone in PA and at the wedding in Edmonton and it was fun to see the photos!

Best of luck to Sarah in her new job on the Paul Gauguin cruise ship in French Polynesia. She is working in the Human Resources department on the ship while also seeing wonderful sights! She'll be back home for Christmas!

Congratulations also to Stephanie, Vincent and Mattieu on their latest addition to the family--little Gabriel Alexandre! My pregger partner from afar had a wonderful pregnancy and delivery and all is well with the family!

Steph and me at my shower in May

The boys: Vincent, Mattieu and Gabriel

And now with the updates! Let's start with the baby-growing...

We're 38 weeks now, baby is pretty content in there and I'm trying to enjoy having the rock-hard abs that comes with pounds of baby-related innards pushing outwards! (Heaven knows that the rock hard abs won't be returning any time soon!) Baby's movements have ranged from both active to zonked out throughout the recent days/nights. He/she has been in the "ready" position (head-down) for a while now and with that, has become adept at giving me a swift kick in the lung every once in a while--nice! My doctor is out of town on vacation (...the nerve!) for the next week or so, but there are back-up docs in place. Our next appointment is tomorrow (Wed) and then again next Wed. It's just the waiting game these days. I have been keeping busy working on making 2 baby blankets out of the fabric from the shawl I wore on our wedding day. They worked out well, even though I rushed them (I just started this project about a week ago instead of thinking about it months ago!). They are super soft and cozy for baby #1 and future baby #2.

Scott made it home safely from his race in Edmonton on Sunday night and will be staying nearby, not traveling to the San Jose race this weekend, in case baby makes his/her debut. That's comforting. It was VERY nice to have Mom and Dad stay with me while Scott was in Edmonton from Wednesday until Monday morning. They are on their way back to Ottawa and will be back up when Scott goes to Europe for 2 races in late August. We had a great time; we went to a village nearby for a classic car show one night (ah, the good ol' days!), Dad installed the handles on the cabinets (see below for pics), we got the oil changed in the cars, Mom cleaned all of the baby toys, we had a fabulous trip to IKEA, got some groceries, and had a nice Sunday dinner of ribs, bean salad, and lemon pie. Mom also stocked us up with cookies and muffins! What more could you ask for? :) Other than the food and the help, which was much appreciated, the best part was just relaxing with my parents and spending some good time with them both.

Mom baking cookies

And now for the house-renovating!

Today is 'carpet-installation' day--phase 2! We are finally having the last of the lovely pink (ick) carpet in the living and dining rooms replaced with the beige carpet that is also upstairs. The installation crew is arriving sometime this afternoon. Good thing I have nothing to do today but sit around a grow a child. :) I'll have to do a mini update next week with all of the new carpet and decor, once we're finished with that.

This photo shows the new carpet on the stairs (which we had replaced a few months ago) and the old soon-to-be-outta-here pink carpet in the dining room.

Thought I would throw in this lovely photo--see the dirt on the pink carpet by the wall? Nice. That's from the previous owners.

Dad did a great job installing the handles on the kitchen cabinets; Ron is coming back early next week to finish up in the kitchen and then he'll attack the baby's room, installing some outlets so we can plug things in! So, the kitchen is almost finished! For the baby's room, we bought an IKEA (love IKEA...) wardrobe and Scott assembled it as well as the change table. We arranged the furniture and we are going to hang some pictures and install a little ceiling fan/light once the outlets are done, so all will be ready for the munchiken. It's a cute little room!

We sanded and stained the bannister over the dining room a darker colour to match the kitchen cabinets (Scott did the ladder-related parts!); Scott installed the toilet paper and towel holders in the half bath; we did some patching and touched up the green and white paint; we got rid of some old pieces of furniture that we don't need; we cleaned up the place a bit and installed the car seat. I think my 'list of things to do before baby arrives' is finally getting completed. I still have to sell some of the furniture pieces online, get the Salvation Army to pick up the excess stuff, get our installed car seat checked by the fire department, update the blog (hey, soon THAT will be done!), and a few other little things. It's nice to have the big things done. It's been a busy few months!

Scott staining the bannister

Oh, and the garden is growing! The front yard is looking nice (when the bunnies don't eat my flowers! Darn bunnies--they're so cute yet so mean!) and the courtyard is awash with colour! It's nice to put out our lawn chairs and enjoy a nice rest surrounded by the flowers.

The front yard

The courtyard

And that's where we are now! I'm still waiting for the carpet installation team--it's 3pm...hmm, it may be a late night of carpet installation for them! I'll post again to show that off once the job is complete!

Hope all is well with you all!

Love,

Becky