Parties, Parks and Road Trips

Liam and Andy at the park pretending to be on a train. Liam was the "chuggachugga" and Andy was the "choochoo!"

Gosh, it's been a couple of weeks since my last posting. So much to say but no time to write! The past couple of weeks have been busy--we had our block party a couple of weekends ago. What a blast! Scott did a triathlon that morning as well and had a great race. We celebrated Father's day together, as well, enjoying a quiet day of hanging out. This past Saturday we went with the Ehler and the Henkle families to A Day out with Thomas the train. Liam couldn't stop talking about it on the days leading up to our outing and has constantly been bringing it up throughout his days since the outing! It was a memorable day! ("Thomas!" "lights!" "aaaallll aboooaaard!" "ticket!" etc.) Tomorrow is Canada Day--Liam has a haircut appointment (oy!) in the morning, then in the evening we are taking a tour of the maternity unit at Clarion North Hospital to prepare for baby's arrival in a month! We've also been spending a lot of time at the parks with friends and Liam has been practising his jumping jumping jumping! This weekend coming is 4th of July weekend, so we have a party on Saturday night and Liam's friend Jake's 2nd birthday party on Sunday. This evening Scott brought home a bicycle for Liam given to him by one of his colleagues whose son had outgrown it. It's a Spiderman bike that matches Liam's helmet! Liam helped Scott adjust the seat and he had a fun time "riding" it.

Liam at our neighbourhood water park

Liam placing his baby in the new carseat.

Liam enjoying a birthday cupcake at the neighbourhood block party.

Liam watching Daddy barbeque burgers.

All of the kids at the block party.

All of the gentlemen at the block party.

And all of the ladies at the block party.

Liam and his Daddy on Father's Day.

Liam with his home-made card and the card he picked out for Daddy.

Liam practising his jumping.

Liam showing off the window decorations for the 4th of July.

Liam's reaction when he first saw Thomas.

Liam, Mommy and Daddy and Thomas. ("tooo close, Mommy!")

Liam and Daddy on the train being pulled by Thomas!

Daddy, Liam and...(gasp)... The Conductor!!!

Liam and his new Thomas train.

We stopped at Dairy Queen for lunch before heading back home.

After a fun day with Thomas, our little boy was just plain tuckered out!

Daddy and Liam adjusting the seat on his new bike.

Liam on his new bike!

We'll be celebrating Liam's birthday early this year with his friends in a couple of weekends so he can have his party (and cake!!) before the baby comes without having to share the spotlight. ;) It's going to be an easy pizza and cake party with toys and games for the kids to play, so it should be fun.

One more month until baby arrives! One and a half months until Liam turns 2! Big changes happening at the Raymond house--we love it! :)

love

b

Happy 22-monthiversary, Liam!!

Hope you had a fun day! We played with your sand table and your little pool today. We also 'bammed it' with the basketball. :)

love,

Mommy and Daddy

Big Boy Bed

Liam's big boy furniture arrived yesterday--he was thrilled to be able to give you all a photo tour.

"This is my dresser."

"This is my little big boy bed."

"This is my big big boy bed."

"This is where I can keep all of my favourite bedtime books."

"Shhh. This is me sleeping."

"And this is my new bedding: construction trucks!! My favourite!"

We're making the move in a couple of weeks--wish us luck! (and good night dreams!)

love,

Mommy and Liam

Camera Hog

Liam has been asking for the "pamma" to make videos lately. This is his latest production:



And to add to the list of fun words that he has been saying:
-dawbies (strawberries)
-buttfly (butterfly)
-fuddah (thunder)
-raycar (racecar)
-peedoo (computer)
-doop (scoop--it used to be syoop and it's morphed)
-baffobe (bathrobe)
-pamma (camera)
-mats (match)
-mits (mix)
He also says 'dis way' and 'dat way' correctly. He's just a 3 ft tall genius. Well, almost 3 ft.
;)
love
b

Happy 21-monthiversary, Liam!

Liam, you're tall! :)
We love you, have a great day today!
love,
Mommy and Daddy

Proud Momma

Happy Mother's Day! I hope all of the mommies out in the blogosphere had a lovely day today. I am getting over the flu, but thankfully had some of my energy back and after a nice sleep-in was able to participate in a wonderful Mother's day with my favourite little guy, Liam, and my absolutely favourite person, Scott. Liam drew me a lovely picture and Scott and Liam got me a massaging chair cushion. Ahhhh. In Liam's picture, Scott wrote Liam's name, but Liam spelled it for him. He tries writing it, but for now, it's just light scribbles. He traced over the word, "Mommy" in the picture with a scribble for each letter. Soon he'll be published like his Mommy and Daddy, I'm sure. ;)

So, since the last post, Scott and I have been writing down more Liamisms so we can add to the list of Daily Fun Things Liam Says. So here are some that we've noted, BUT, I've made it into a game! Try to guess what these things mean (some are obvious, others...not so much!):



-bi-mins

-puddo

-panno

-hai-pin

-effint

-fis

-dis

-ahbow

-hockey

-kisses

-hugs

-us-suh down

-woos

-side

-cuddohs

-"Ho-hi!"

-ohgurt

-bargage

-"feddy"

-fuhd

-"bess oo"

-ah-keem

-bah-rees

-a-bet

-finiture

-fengine

-assauce

-gu-ul

-dude





And here are the answers:


-bi-mins = vitamins

-puddo = puzzle

-panno = piano

-hai-pin = airplane

-effint = elephant

-fis = fix

-dis = this

-ah-bow = elbow

-hockey = hockey

-kisses = kisses

-hugs = hugs

-uh-suh down = upside down

-woos = woosh

-side = slide

-cuddohs = cuddles

-"Ho-hi!" = "Hello?...hi!" on the phone

-ohgurt = yogurt

-bargage = garbage

-"feddy" = "your food is ready"

-fuhd = the song "What a Wonderful World" (world)

-"bess oo" = "bless you"

-ah-keem = ice cream

-bah-rees = batteries

-a-bet = alphabet

-finiture = furniture

-fengine = fire engine

-assauce (tee hee!) = applesauce

-gu-ul = girl

-dude = dude


:)


Some are pretty clear--he actually has a lot of clear words that he says that I didn't include, these are just the cutest ones to hear him say.

{Edited to add: Mom reminded me of one more Liamism that I have seemed to have blocked from my memory. As Mom, Liam and I were headed to the library a couple of weeks ago, for storytime, Liam told he he wanted his "fockers". I said, "You're what?!" "Fockers!!" and he went to the closet and got out his frog shoes. :) }

Yesterday he did something amazing: he generated his own rhyme to a word! This is pretty cool...when I did my research study for my Master's thesis project, I tested 4-5 year old non-reading children about their awareness of phonological knowledge, including rhymes. The kids had to tell me if two words rhymed (yes or no) and then a harder task was to actually tell me the part of the word that rhymed for a set of word that I gave them. A lot of them could indicate yes or no to a pair of rhyming or non-rhyming words, but it was significantly harder for them to identify what part of a word rhymed my given words (ie "at" is the 'rime' of cat and hat, so when given the two words, the kids would have had to say "at").

But yesterday Liam was able to generate his own rhyme! This is kind of a step between the two tasks above. Scott was trying to get Liam to guess the colour 'pink'...so he said, "it rhymes with 'ink,'" and then we both kind of laughed and said that he probably wouldn't understand that, so we started listing off rhyming words like drink, sink, think and then Liam piped up with "wink!" (there's this library book that he LOVES that has a boy winking in it, so he always flips to that page and puts his finger to his eye to wink.) We were pretty amazed! So, Liam is surpassing my research study kids...although, he woudn't have qualified anyway for the study, since all of the kids who could read were "disqualified" as being too advanced for the study. And Liam is up to reading about 18 words now: me, no, go, Mommy, Daddy, Liam, baby, Nana, Poppa, pool, book, cat, dog, cow, cold, hot, food, stop, bee; and some that I will have to check on but I think he can read are: car, milk. So, about 21 words.

Needless to say, I have a lot of reasons to be a proud Momma, but most of all, Liam is just a sweet, funny, hugable, laid-back kid who I just love to hang out with day after day. I'm a very lucky Mommy.

love

b

Liamisms

Liam is just doing way too many cute things these days and I'm trying to keep track of them all. His baby book is filling up, and my plan to make a book of this blog one day will hopefully keep them for posterity, but only if I actually make a blog entry!

So, here goes!

Liam is able to speak in 3 word phrases these days, one of his first being, "I go poop," to Nana when they were playing and he had to run off to the corner of the living room for some privacy. He likes to describe things he's doing like plugging something into the computer "pug in paddo" or singing the "bus" song (wheels on the bus) and saying "up-n-down". He likes playing the "panno" (piano) and has gotten clearer at saying, "peas help" when he needs something. He likes drinking his "waddert" (water) and standing things up on their ends and saying, "I taw." (I'm tall) When going to sleep after being tucked in, as soon as he senses you are about to leave, he says, "Hand!" and wants you to hold his hand for a minute before going. When he wants you to take something that he's handing you, or that you have, he'll say, "tay-tay". During mealtimes, he loves everyone else's cutlery and will often take yours and give you his, saying "tade." (trade)

He's a little Mr Echo and will usually repeat the last word Scott or I would say, even resorting to yelling out, "Jeez!" every once in a while.

Today, after naptime, when I told him that we were going to the park to play, he got all concerned and said, "Owwies" and pointed to his eyes. Then he said, "gasses". I asked him if he wanted some sunglasses to wear outside because it was bright and it hurt his eyes and he said, "yes".

Poppa brought his guitar down to pass on to Liam and while he and Nana were here, Poppa played some songs and Liam strummed along. So now, when Liam sees the guitar, he says, "Poppa. 'Itar."

Liam loves going "owside" to play with his "twucks" and see the "fwowehs" (flowers) and dig in the garden "deiwt" with his "wake" (rake) and "syoop" (scoop). He likes to ride in the little car and on his trike. We go for walks to see the "cane" (crane) and "mix" (cement mixer) in the construction sites. He likes drawing and will often request a picture of a "happy" (happy face).

Reading has been a huge part of Liam's daily life since birth--Scott or I would read his books to him in the morning and throughout the day and always before bedtime. Liam also crawls up on the couch to read his books by himself sometimes, too. Lately, Liam has been finishing the sentences in the books--even for new ones from the library that he's only heard a handful of times. Here is a video of Liam reading one of his books with Nana.

All is "growing" well with Baby #2--we are 27 weeks this week. My neighbour, who was pregnant with twins who are now Liam's age, told me that she was on bedrest at 27 weeks! I can't imagine. I would go crazy! :)

Mom and Dad were here last week for a visit and Mom helped me with the flower beds. We got tomatoes, basil, parsley, cilantro and strawberries planted in the back, and lots of flowers and flower pots planted in the front. Last night, I coiled some sprinkler hoses in the flower beds and covered them with mulch for easy watering (Mom's great idea!) and set up both sprinklers to get the grass in the back covered so the seed will grow this week. It was a busy couple of days getting everything done, and my daily tasks now just include watering the pots, chasing sprinklers every 20 minutes or so and making sure that Liam doesn't dig up or walk on the flowers...or lock me out of the house like he did today! Thank goodness he likes being a good helper and opened up the door right away so I didn't have to resort to the back up plan of going all the way around to the garage and finding the spare key to open up the door. This child is too smart for his own good sometimes!

Well, this place is in need of some tidying, so I'd better get on that. Then it's straight to bed!

love,

b