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

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

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