Two Steps Forward

Liam has been cruising along furniture for quite some time now and last night we coaxed him into taking a few steps.  And today while we were playing downstairs I saw him taking 2 steps without peer pressure, so we may have a walker on our hands soon! 

 

Beckett the Scholar

This semester I was able to take a parental leave to be home with the boys (maybe I'll expand on that more in another post?)  We have another little boy that joins us every day (and when I say little, I mean he is 11 weeks old!) and yet another little boy that joins us two days a week.  That's a lot of little boys! 

Because Beckett is not at daycare anymore I try really hard to incorporate some learning in our day.  Downstairs we have a calendar, a weather chart, numbers, the ABCs, etc.... think retired teacher materials!  Remember our letter of the week idea from last summer?  We have started that up again.  And instead of jumping willy nilly from letter to letter we officially started with "A" in January.  We are currently on "D."  Some days Beckett is excited to have "school" and other days he could care less.  So basically I plaster letters all over the house in the hopes that he will notice and remember them. 

When we converted our unfinished basement into a giant playroom we purchased panelboard to cover the 2x4s.  It also doubles as a giant whiteboard which is perfect for practicing our letters, numbers, and drawing whatever we want.  Below is Beckett's first try at drawing the letter A.  I had only shown him how to draw it once!! 

That same panelboard makes awesome personal whiteboards when cut.  We were our third day into our week of "B" and I told Beckett I would show him how to draw one.  He told me he could already do it.  So I guess that strategy of flooding Beckett with letters is working.  Or he's just a genius.
 

Liam: 11 Months Old

The onesie is back!  Well, the onesie never left.... just the mommy blogger.  In fact, one of these days I will post the onesie pics from months 7-10 because they were taken just never posted. 

This onesie idea is really good until about month 9 or 10, and then it's all about hurrying and taking the picture before they crawl or roll away.  Liam is no exception.  Poor guy looks all a mess in these pictures - hair all over the place and cheeks bright red from all the teeth he is getting.  At present he has 6 that we know about, but he must have more on the way with the constant drool, fingers in the mouth, bright red cheeks and horrible diaper rash (all symptoms that accompanied previous teeth as well). 

Where did these 11 months go?  We're savoring the time with both of our boys as best as we can! 

It's a Girl!

It's fairly safe to say that Chad and I are done having children. In case anyone wonders what a little Paulson girl would look like, Liam might be as close as we get!

Photo Shoot

Rather than dwell on how long I've been absent I'll get back into your good graces with adorable pictures of the boys.  We had pictures taken of them before Christmas so we could give them as gifts to the grandparents and aunts and uncles.  They turned out great -- but with such cute subjects of course they had to! 

Stayin' Alive

Hmmmm, yes we are still here.  I see that I am creeping on 3 months of no blog entries.  And I was starting to feel bad about that until I looked at my favorite links to the left and see that I am not the only one who seems to be taking a break from blogging!  The good news is that my spare time is spent with my boys and they are doing well.  Lots of updates to come - like Liam is standing and pushing things along, and Beckett spelled t-o-y today.  Which we were ecstatic about and convinced we had a child genius until he told us that Woody taught him how to spell it.  Well, Beckett certainly has a talent for memorizing and reciting movie lines! 

Maybe I will get some entries done over Thanksgiving break?  Until then here is one of our Christmas cards for this year. 

Liam: Six Months Old

Liam is a half year old.  I'm in denial.  Here are his pics - his checkup is next Tuesday so I'll have some stats after that.  He really does smile more, these pictures are taken when he got home from daycare.  He is crabby, crabby because he only sleeps for a little over an hour while he is there.  Lovely, right?  I'm so excited to hang out with him and he is cranky and needs to nap right away.  :( 

Anyway, here's our six-month-old!

Liam's Baptism

Liam was baptized this morning at a nice outdoor service at Lands Lutheran.  He was so good the entire service and the water on his head didn't faze him in the least.  What a sweetie!  And Beckett was a well-behaved big brother during the service.  We are so blessed with our two wonderful boys. 

Pastor Nate baptizing Liam.

Instead of drawing on the sidewalk Beckett chalked himself.

The creation of Kaden, Brooklynn, Mateo and Beckett.

Liam in love with Brooklynn.

Apparently we are too much fun for Papa.

Liam with his sponsors, Greg and Rissa.

Back At It

Time to catch up.  The Paulson family is back at it - back to work for me (sigh) and back to daycare for Beckett and Liam (sniff).  Our summer went way too fast and it was a big change for us, especially since the boys are at a new daycare.  We were spoiled with Angela!  The boys now go to a center, which has its pros and cons.  We had 2 practice days before I went back to work on the 9th and I was openly bawling before I could sneak out the door their first day.  It didn't help that Beckett started off saying he didn't like "school."  I'm fairly certain he pictured me at home hanging out with Rissa, Mateo and Kaden.  Now that he realizes I'm at work and he's had a chance to get settled, he likes it.  And, I'm proud to say that his teachers think he's doing so well in the 2-year-old room that they would like him visit the preschool room for awhile during the day! 

Beckett and his teacher Miss Lydia. Clearly embarassed that I'm taking his picture!

Liam totally fine with my picture taking, but not quite sure what's going on.

But before it was time to go back we spent some time in Iowa and were able to spend time with my grandmas.  We were trying to get Liam comfortable with drinking out of a bottle and Grandma Ardis and Grandma Marilyn were willing to help!

What a show off! Apparently he can hold his own bottle now.

Beckett tells me that Prince is not ready for a bottle yet.

And while we are exhausted getting used to our new routine and trying to make the most of our time together, Grandpa puts 2,500 miles on his motorcycle without batting an eye! 

Grandpa and Grandma went to the Sturgis Rally and brought back souvenirs for the boys.

And that should bring us to today, when Liam showed us he could sit by himself!

Look at that smiling cutie-pie!

Beckett's Musings

Beckett is quite the character, and never ceases to amaze and amuse me with what he says.  If I had a better memory I could probably share a bunch of his comments, but these will have to do for now. 

Much to the horror of my sister, Rissa, my family frequents Wal-Mart.  Why?  Because they always have low prices.  Always.  Because I can get my groceries and household items in one spot.  Because their apparel for my age is not cute so I don't have to worry about making impulse purchases like I do at Target.  Because their carts hold Liam's carseat carrier better than HyVee's.  Several months ago I took Beckett with me to run a few errands.  When we pulled in to the parking lot Beckett yelled "Yay Wal-Mart!"  As much as I like Wal-Mart I failed as a parent because my two-year-old child 1) could recognize Wal-Mart and 2) was so darn excited about it.  And earlier this week as we were returning books and DVDs to the library Beckett suggested that we "go to Wal-Mart and buy some Pull-Ups."  *sigh*

Beckett redeemed himself on Sunday. We were in Tea checking out his new school (daycare) and decided to have dinner at Pizza Ranch.  In the middle of eating Beckett put down his pizza, looked around adoringly and proclaimed to us "I love this place!"  Me too, bud.  Me too. 

Last Friday morning we received a substantial amount of rain in a short amount of time.  When we woke up and looked in our backyard this is what we saw:

Beckett stated the obvious.  "Mommy, we need a boat." 

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Sometimes I'm not sure if Beckett comes up with these things on his own, or mimics them from someone else.  I was sitting with him in the bathroom while he tried to poop before going to bed.  Our conversation went something like this:

Me:  Tell me when you're finished trying, OK?

Beckett:  OK.  When I go, I go 3....2.....1..... poop!

Me:  Who told you to say that?

Beckett:   That was just me.

While that line may have been his, Beckett's latest are definitely not his own creation, rather lines from his favorite movie Cars.  When Beckett is upset with me he will use lines that Lightning McQueen uses when he is mad.  "OK Mr. One Man Show!" and "I'm SO not taking you to dinner" are two of his favorites.  I have to turn away when he says these because they still make me laugh!  And he's so smart venting his anger like that!  Beckett Russell, I am so lucky to be your mommy!

Liam: Five Months Old

Liam is five months old already!  He's such a smiley, happy little baby boy and so much fun to be around.  Lately he loves to be in his jumperoo and is usually bouncing his legs around even when he's not in it.  I guess he fits the "bouncing baby boy" stereotype quite well.  His unofficial weight is 16.5 pounds and he still fits nicely in his onesie. 

I'm not sure if turning five months is supposed to be so serious, but Liam sure looks somber in these pictures.  I usually take a few pictures and here are the four I took - almost the same exact expression in all of them, and that includes a few where Chad is trying to make him laugh! 

So here is my serious boy, surrendering to the fact he is five months old:

Slip and Slide

Remember how fun slip and slides are?  To double our fun we put two of them together on a recent hot weekend.  The boys had a blast and those of us watching them did too!

The Hotelo Part 2

After Chad was done with his work in Pierre we spent the next 2 nights in Chamberlain.  Hotel pool?  Check.  City park?  Check.  That was all we needed to keep busy while Chad was working!  Beckett must have had a grand time because several times since we've been home he has asked to go back to the hotelo. 

The view from our hotel!

Proud mom moment:  Beckett helped me get ice and broke into singing Ice Ice Baby after we filled the container. 

This is a 419 pound marlin that was caught in Hawaii.  Beckett was as excited about pointing it out the 12th time as he was the first.

 Beckett is quite the little fish and loves the "biiiiiiiig pool!"  Can you tell he has a small pool at home?!