2009 Wrap Up

Oooooh 2009 what an amazing year you have been! Every thought so many things have happened this year it feels as thought we just celebrate the end of 2008. January 2009 stated out on a quest to start our family. I was crazy with tracking temperatures, taking ovulation prediction tests (in the bathroom at EHOB and work), and being neurotic BUT the last week of January we conceived Liam. On February 16, 2009 i found out i was pregnant. I cannot ever put into words the feelings i felt of that day, it truly was when my life had started changing forever. March 2009 was a full month of morning sickness!!!! or should i say all day/midnight sickness. I lived this month of Ramen noodles and toaster strudles. April brought the second trimester and feeling semi "normal" again. May 2009 Alex and i celebrated our first year of marriage with an amazing dinner at St. Elmo's steak house. June 2009 we found out we were having a BOY....the rest of the month i shopped for anything and everything BLUE! July 2009 we painted his nursery, assembled his furniture and I started growing and growing and growing. August 2009 we traveled to Pennsylvania for our baby shower. It was a wonderful time but a LONG drive when you are 8 months pregnant. September brought pains and the uncomfortable part of the pregnancy, i was cooked and wanted little man out! October 2009 was the month that changed our lived forever. On October 22 Liam Alexander came into the world weighing 7 pounds 7 ounces and 20 and a quarter inches long. November was graced with visited from both the Hinkley's and the Pawlowski's it was wonderful for everyone to be able to come visit and spend time with Mr. Liam. Liam also celebrated his first Thanksgiving that month and learned to smile in response to Alex and I. December has been so much fun. Liam is more alert, more active, and loves to smile..he is such a happy baby. We spent his first Christmas at home and Grandma H, Pop, and Uncle Matt come to be with us. We has a wonderful time and Liam got some great presents! He is a very lucky boy!

As 2010 approaches in a few hours i am so excited to see what it has in store. It should be a wonderful year with all of Liam's "firsts" such as rolling over, sitting up, talking, crawling, walking ... i honestly cannot wait!

Christmas Eve

Five years ago today he asked "Will You" and i said "I Will"...Happy Engagement Anniversary Hubby! I cannot believe it has been five years since Alex and I got engaged, it honestly feels like such a short time ago. In five years so much has changed. We moved to State College..lived in two different apartments during our time there, both graduated from Penn State, got married, moved to Indiana, bought a house and a car, got a second cat (Nigel), and had a son. It has been an amazing ride.

Today is Christmas Eve and the beginning of starting some of our family traditions. We are having the same dinner as we did last year beef tenderloin, asparagus, and mashed potatoes. Then we are getting holiday drinks (mmmm starbucks) and driving around to look at Christmas lights. Tomorrow morning we are having monkey bread for breakfast and my parents will be here in the last morning :-) Yeah!! I can't wait for Liam's first Christmas...i can't imagine how many pictures we are going to take!

Liam's Weekend

Last weekend we got video happy and took so many of Liam. Here is a mash up of the best moments.

Two Months

Dear Liam,
Holy guacamole batman you are two months old already. Goodness can we please slow time down a bit you are getting to old too fast! This month has been so much fun and you have changed so much. You when from the newborn sleep, eat, poop phase to sleep, semi alert, eat, poop phase to alert, smiling, laughing, cooing, eating no devouring, pooping like a champ phase.

This month you had your for Thanksgiving. Grandma H, Pop, and Uncle Matt came to celebrate with us. You had a great time and sat on Mommy's lap during dinner.

You and I also took our first trip our into the real world together. It took Mommy two ours of mentally preparing to go. Once i finally got your in your car seat and bundled up i opened the garage door and it was pouring. Ugh! Well i decided to brave it anyway and off we went to Target. You did awesome and just looked around amazed at all the lights and colors.

We also went to a Christmas Party/Cookie Exchange at work. All the ladies were so excited to finally meet you. One of the funnies days that i look back on as a first time mom was he morning you were screaming your head off, Nigel was drinking my coffee and Kinsey as trying to climb the Christmas tree...all i could do was laugh and i did. This month you grew very fond of your jungle play mat (so did Kinsey and Nigel but that is a story in and of itself) you love looking at Mallory the Monkey and talking to her, the plastic parrot that spins, and of course the butterflies.


You also love to look around! You no lover want to snuggle with Mommy after a bottle you fuss and fuss until i sit you up so you can look around.

Your bouncy chair is still our saving grace, you love it! At times you will just whine until i sit you in it and then you are as happy as a clam.


This month you also learned to smile in response to your Dad and I which just melts me each and every time you do it. The first time you did it we got it on tape and i swear i have watched it 50 times and still laugh at it...so stinking cute.

You also learned to laugh which is adorable. You get such a kick out of being called a goober, Daddy tickling your face with a wash cloth, and making the sound num num num. You also found your voice, in a good way, you love to talk. You talk to your toys and to me all the time. You also found your hands! At first you would stare at them in disbelief, then you started hitting yourself in the head and then they found your mouth. You are constantly chomping on your right hand!


Love you always little man,
Mommy


Your stats:
11.11 pounds
22.75 inches
15 head circumference

This month at the doctors your got two shots and one oral vaccination. You cried for a few seconds but soon forgot when you got the pina colada flavored oral vaccine. I spent the rest of the day singing "If you like pina colada's.."

One Month

Dear Liam,
Today you are officially one month old. It is hard to believe that you have been in our lives for a full month now. It has truly been the best month of my life. It is amazing to see how much you have changed in such a short amount of time. When you were born your slept all the time and opened your eyes but not nearly as wide as you open them now. You are so alert when you are awake and interact more by watching the toys we show you and making different sounds. You become even more fun to play with each and every day. You are such a content baby. There is not a day that has gone by that I have not thought about how lucky I am to have such a happy little boy in my life. You love to just look around and take in your environment.


This month you met Grandma Hinkley, Pop Hinkley, and Uncle Matt when they came to visit the week you were born. Pop drove all day to be sure him and Grandama were they when you were born, they stayed with us for the first week we were home. Grandma was your first babysitter while Daddy and I ran to Target, Best Buy (so he could get a video game), and Walgreens to get pictures made.


The first week in November Grammy A, Grandpa, Great Aunt Debbie, and Great Granny Victa came to visit. They were so excited to meet you. I think you were kissed 500 times during that visit and told you were cute just as many times. During their visit was the first time Mommy and Daddy went out without you for an extended period of time. Great Aunt Debbie babysat your while we went for breakfast at IHOP and shopping at Marshall’s and Joann Fabric and Grammy A and Great Granny Victa watched you while we went out with your Great Aunt Debbie and Grandma to St. Elmo’s for drinks and appetizers and RAM for dinner; we all had a great time that night. During their visit they also get a webcam so they have been able to see you every night.



For Halloween you were a puppy. Aunt Kerri and your cousin Evan bought you a costume and sent it out with Grandma. You looked so cute even though you were swimming in it! I carved a pumpkin as a birth announcement with ‘It’s a Boy” carved in it and painted the pumpkin blue; we lit it on Halloween night on our front porch.



Love you,
Mommy


• Stats: Weight 9 pounds 11.5 ounces, 21 inches long, 14 ¾ head circumference
• Out growing newborn clothes as we speaking and have been sleeping in 0-3 month sleepers at night for the last few nights.
• Wearing size one diapers since 2 weeks when you started peeing through every diaper. After one night of four outfit changes we decided to try the size ones and try worked great!
• Your first car ride was to McDonalds and BK lounge. You loved it but was not a fan of waiting in line when the car stopped moving.
• You LOVE your soothie paci but have a hard time keeping it in your mouth at night as soon as you start to fall asleep it falls our, you wake up, start fussing, mama puts it back in, repeat for an hour until you fall sleep deep enough not to care. Last week you got two wubbanubs, Larry the Lion and Guppy the Frog, they are a big help in keeping the soothie in your mouth and you love to hold on to their legs and squeeze them.
• You have gone on three walks around the neighborhood and have loved it. I wish it was warmer out so we could go outside more often.
• You are so strong. Since we were in the hospital you have been holding your head up when laying on our chests. Now you can hold it up for a few minutes and look around. You also love to climb up us when you are hungry. You start all the way down on my belly and make it up past my neck in no time.
• When your Dad holds you at night and I hear a fart coming I have to ask “was that you or him”?...you are such a boy!
• You love to bounce! Whenever you get fussy we bounce and bounce and you instantly calm down. After my legs get tired I will put you in your bouncy seat which you love.
• You are on a great schedule. Since the day we came home from the hospital you have followed relatively the same schedule. Our normal routine now a days is getting up around 9am, you eat and then I change you into an outfit for the day, we go downstairs and you sit in your swing for 30-45 minutes while I feed Kinsey and Nigel, make breakfast for myself, eat and check email, then we have play time which consists on a lot of singing (mostly Christmas songs), dancing, talking, and playing with toys, you have lunch around 12 then take a good 3 hour nap, you get up to eat again around 4 and sometimes go back to sleep and sometimes stay awake (it depends on the day), at 5:30 Daddy gets home and you are typically napping, you wake up around 7 to eat again and stay awake until 11:30 when you go to sleep, you have been waking up at 4 and 6am to eat but are very good about going right back to sleep. At four weeks old you slept through the night for the first time. Did mommy? No, I stayed awake for two hours because I thought as soon as I closed my eyes you were going to wake up to eat.
• You love to look at faces; you seem to just look at us and study our features and take it all in.
• You came home from the hospital eating 2 ounces at every feeding, moved up to 3 ounces at a little over 2 weeks old and now are up to 4 ounces.
• You sleep like a rock! It amazes people now you can nap through everything such as Daddy playing rock band.
• You love noise. On the rare occasion that you get fussy the vacuum cleaner or running water instantly calms you, it is quite amazing to watch.
• You had your first play date this month when Berkley came to visit you.
• This month you feed on your Daddy twice, one from across the room, and have projectile vomited on him to. I see many night of playing in the tub in our future.
• Poor child you have skin like your Mommy, after baths you get so dry!
• You absolutely love bath time, just like Mommy and Daddy. You like to hang your leg over the end of the hammock and submerge it in the water. What do you hate… getting out of the tub!
• You sleep like mommy with your arm over your head and stretch like Daddy when you wake up. You sneeze like Grandpa, normally twice in a row. Sometimes you make the cutest “awww” sound after your sneeze like you are saying “that feels better”.
• You have learned to make a few different sounds and crys this month. Your hungry cry is the one we see the most but it is INSTANTLY soothed when I but the bottle in your mouth with a “Huh huh hmmmmmm” gulp gulp gulp. You have an excited coo that we have heard just a few times, the “awwww” sound after you sneeze, and your fussy magussy cry.
• You are a loud eater and always make it sound like it is the best thing you have ever tasted. You make a noise that we call your Michael Jackson sound “HeHe”. Often times when I feed you you will hold your hands together on your chest, it is really cute, and other times you will flail your arms and legs around like a crazy man.
• You have been smiling the last few weeks, most of the time it is when you are sleeping but a few times it has been when you are awake and I am interacting with you. Is it a coincidence maybe but I would love to think it is because you are having fun. You smile almost made my melt this month when we were taking our morning nap in bed together and you woke up, opened your eyes, looked into mine and smiled.



World Happenings
• Release of New Moon, the second movie in the Twilight series which broke the record for a midnight release bringing in $26.3 million in ticket sales.
• Release of Modern Warfar 2 scored a record launch earning $310 million in North
America and the United Kingdom, selling more than 4.7 million copies its first week.
• Oprah Winfrey has announced that she is ending her show after its 25th season.
• Yankees win the World Series.
• Top TV shows: Dancing with the Stars, NCIS, House, Grey’s Anatomy
• Health care reform is going forward for approval, the Senate and House have already approved.
• Fort Hood shooting; Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychiatrist who worked in a hospital at Fort Hood, the nation's biggest Army base, is blamed for the deaths of 12 soldiers and one civilian.
• Top songs this month: Kings of Leon “Use Somebody”, Miley Cyrus “Party in the USA”, Taylor Swift “ You Belong With Me”, Chavelle “Jars”, Alice in Chains “Check My Brain”