Meet “DeeDee"

Christmas is just around the corner and with Christmas brings family! Evan and I were so excited that Ethan came to our house Friday night but I don’t think our excitement combined could even come close to how pumped Liam was (and is).

Saturday Liam finally got to see Ethan and let’s just say that poor Uncle “DeeDee” was played with and played with well. Liam did not give “DeeDee” a break from 9 am until Grandpa took “DeeDee” away at 3 pm. Of course there was a short intermission break for naptime but then Liam was right back at taking Uncle “DeeDee’s” hand and pulling him to the next toy. Playing hide and seek, making Christmas  cookies, decorating the cookies, and lots of pretend play with his little people made up Liam and “DeeDee’s” day.

Today we will be spending the afternoon again with Uncle “DeeDee” (Nana and Grandpa too) and I just hope Ethan got a good nights sleep because this kid is going to be so excited to play with him again!

Walles boys decorating cookies

How beautiful!

Walles boys with their prized cookies

First snow of the season

Last night we had a bit of a winter storm come through Bloomington. Lots of wind and just a little bit of snow.

As it is my day off Liam and I suited up and out in the snow we went!

I’m not sure if Liam really likes the snow but he definitely does not like the cold strong wind in his face. We probably were only outside for 10 minutes before he started telling me “Too cold! Too Cold!”

Butters loves the snow and was extremely disappointed that I could not find her frisbee anywhere. We attemped fetch with a stick, it didn’t work out that well.

I think I was just excited because Liam could finally wear the snow pants that I bought him two years ago. Yes, that is not a typo, I bought these pants for last winter (12 months) and due to our lack of a winter we never used them. Now that Liam is 23 months old they fit him perfectly! Little shortie!

I was also excited for him to wear his boots that I bought him to go with his Peter Pan Halloween outfit. Now they are not just part of a costume but an actual functional piece of Liam’s wardrobe.

I’m not looking forward to a lot of snow this winter but if Liam likes to play in it I’m all in!

Covering his face from the bitter coldness

A Christmas Cookie Success

Being pretty smug about the Packers beating the Bears 

Helping cut out gingerbread men

Two days later decorating the gingerbread cookies that we all made together

Super excited about the sprinkles

Do you really think I could not post a picture of my son in a Packers jersey? Especially when so many of my family members are Bears fans? HeHe

Christmas cookie making this time was a success. I remembered that Liam’s arms are short and instead of a chair for him to stand on we gave him a step ladder that is a bit more safe with the bar in the front that he can hold onto.

Liam was so excited to cut out the gingerbread shapes and I thought I was going to trick him into thinking we were all done when we had cut out all the shapes that we had room for. But when he saw me rolling the scraps into a ball and picking up my rolling pin again he dropped his toys and came marching back into the kitchen.

A patient highly recommended that we let Liam decorate the cookies as it is something he does with his grandchildren and he promised it would be highly entertaining. Liam was all business while frosting his cookies and wanted no help at all picking out the sprinkles and shaking them out. This was a serious matter and not to be taken lightly.

We had so much fun decorating our cookies that I plan on making the Fink’s Butter Cut Out Cookies next and decorating them tomorrow with Uncle Ethan! Hope you’re ready Uncle Ethan!

Our tree outings

Helping Daddy find the right one

I love this one

Helping decorate the first tree

The second tree

Awhile back I explained how the tree that we had gotten was not drinking any water and so the first pictures are of our first outing experience. I did not get any footage of Evan tying the first tree back onto our car as it was a highly stressful experience. I don’t think that me following him around with a camera would have been much appreciated.

I will say that the six blocks that it was to get back to the nursery to return the first tree resulted in us stopping twice to stop the tree from rolling off the roof of our car and into oncoming traffic. It didn’t really put us in the Christmas spirit.

Our second tree is doing just fine and even if it wasn’t we weren’t about to call the nursery back and complain again. After all the tree will be on the curb in two weeks.

Future so bright...

He’s got to wear shades! 

This kid is so cool!

Got your nose

While putting Liam to bed last night I began to sing him some songs. I have a horrible memory and there are only a few songs that I can remember most of the words to that Liam can choose from as lullabies. Usually when I ask him what song he would like me to sing “Mahna, Mahna” from the Muppets is most often the first request. But last night I was singing “Away In A Manger” and "Silent Night” while Liam listened ever so quietly.

Until he looked up at me and started to play “Got Nose.” You may be unfamiliar with the title but the game is a classic. One pretends to grab the others nose and than you say Got Your Nose! So in the midst of “the little Lord Jesus asleep....” Liam would grab my nose, laugh and say “Got Nose!” I tried to continue to sing him his lullabies so that he was aware that it was bedtime but, of course, couldn’t stop myself from laughing.

Oh this silly kid! What am I going to do with him?

Moms are great!

I love Christmas and while my previous post may make me sound like I am complaining I truly love this holiday season. The lights, the tree (as long as it doesn’t die immediately), the decorations, the music and of course what the holiday is truly about.

My mother helped me decorate the house this past Friday and I must say she did another amazing job. I try to put things together as well as she does but she just does it so much better than anything I could ever do. So thanks Mom for going through all of my keepsakes and for standing out in the rain to place the garland around the fence!  For decorating my planters with beautiful “stuff” that I am in love with when I pull into my driveway. For playing with Liam while you were standing on my kitchen counter and he was ducking underneath the ladder.

And thanks to you Mom, Evan is insisting that we have people over for dinner so they can admire your beautiful decorations.

Thanks Mom! (you spoil me like only a mother can when she's around her favorite daughter)

Bah Humbug!

Is it just our year to have bad seasonal luck?

Halloween 2012- Squirrel ate all of our pumpkins

Christmas 2012- The Christmas tree that will not drink water.

On Saturday we drove to one of our local nurseries to buy our Christmas tree. I love real trees and only have two artificial trees in my attic because of my previous apartment rental status (fire hazard).

Liam helped pick out a beautiful Douglas Fir Tree we had them make a fresh cut, drove the five minutes back to the house, put the tree up, threw on the lights, poured in the water and the tree has not drank/drunk any of it!

Seriously!?!?

After calling the nursery back they have assured me that we can come pick out another one we just have to take the dead one back. Again, seriously???? I understand they don’t want me to take advantage and get two trees for the price of one but I will be videotaping Evan wrestling this dead tree, which will be spraying dried needles everywhere, to the roof of our car. Which by the way when the employee tied it to the roof of our car at least it was shrink wrapped (?) with netting to make it easier to deal with. Evan will have to do this with a 7 foot tree that may be just as wide as it is tall.

This is going to be interesting.

Too many chefs in the kitchen

The other day I decided to make Evan’s favorite food so when he came home from a long day of work he would be greeted by the wondrous smell of chocolate chip cookies. (Yes, I am really that amazing wife that you should be jealous of)

Liam wanted to help so I decided to pull a chair up to the counter and show him how much fun it is to bake. I wasn’t about to forget that Liam is not even 2 and that all “helping” would be done with my hand still in the mix. (haha, I really make myself laugh)

I was showing Liam how to put the ingredients into the bowl. Thinking I was so smart I told him it was like we were a dump truck, dumping our load and going back for more. (This is a rhyme that we learned at our library story hour)

I put the cup into the sugar, grabbed Liam’s hand so that he could dump it into the bowl and......I pulled Liam right off his chair resulting in me holding him by his arm, midair, while he dumped sugar right into his face!

He of course was crying and screaming because I probably just scared him to death and also due to the fact that there was sugar in his eyes and all down his front. To make matters worse as I was trying to clean him off in the sink (that was surprisingly not filled with dirty dishes) Butters was licking the sugar off of the floor. So while I am trying to calm and soothe my frightened child I am also yelling at the dog to go away and stop eating sugar or you might die!

Liam did finally calm down, the dog did not die and Evan probably ate 7-8 cookies that night. I think that we can still call that a success. A.K.A I am the best mother, wife in the world!

Us against them

I have decided that Butters really doesn’t care for Liam. Sure during mealtimes Liam becomes her best friend but if we were to honestly ask her (and if she would be able to speak) I know that she would tell us to send him back to the hospital.

Good thing Butters has no say in our family dynamic.

Liam really tries to play with Butters. He will go get her toy. He will say “Chase me dog!” He will go and hide and wait ever so patiently for Butters to find him so he can run out and throw her toy for her.

Butters? Not interested. We literally have to tell her to go find Liam, and then push her body towards where he is hiding. Sometimes repeatedly. I tell her she’s a brat.

Now it’s possible that Butters feels that she cannot truly play with Liam for fear of getting yelled at by Evan or myself for being too rough. Knocking Liam down. Making him cry. These are all true fears and have definitely happened in the past. I’m not sure really what to do to help Butters see the light. That a boy and his dog are truly the best partners and friends one could ever have.

Aha! Now I see after typing that sentence! A boy and his dog....Butters boy is Evan! Oh how silly of me, how could I have missed this. Of course it all makes sense now! (I am truly having a revelation at this moment)

So now I have decided that in Butters eyes Liam is competing against Evan. Forget about me, she only views me as the one who takes her out to relieve herself and feeds her. Oh man, how could I have been so dumb.

Ok, Liam and I will just have to come to terms with 'us against them.'

Happy Halloween

This year was the first year that we took Liam trick or treating. We went to about 10-15 houses in our neighborhood and he had so much fun! Only thing about our neighborhood is every house has at least 4-6 steps before you get to the front door, so he was a little tired once we were finished.

Liam did say ‘Trick or Treat’ even if Evan and I were the only ones who knew what he was saying. And his Peter Pan/Robin Hood costume got many compliments.

I even let him have an Almond Joy after dinner. (I may have given him Almond Joy because I don’t like them and I wanted to see what he thought of coconut.) He loved his little candy bar and definitely wanted more! Of course I said no.

Surprisingly Evan and I have not finished off his candy....yet!

Another epic fail by me

Two nights ago Liam's eye was watery and I was concerned that he could be getting pink eye. Yesterday morning Liam awoke unable to open his left eye due to it being crusted over. But it wasn't that bad and his eye didn't look that bad to me so off he went to daycare. I know, I know we are those parents who sends their kid to daycare with a disease. I was fully aware that we would be getting a call at some point during the day asking us to come pick him up.

At 10:00 am our babysitter started hinting that we should pick him up so I took off after the morning to get Liam and hopefully get him to a doctor. Can I also say it was only at this point our babysitter told us that there has been 3 other kids with pink eye in the last week! Some information I would have liked to have known before this moment.

Liam not only has slight conjunctivitis but he also has an ear infection! Our doctor said it was bad enough that there was even a little pus pimple inside his left ear. He continued to ask me "Has he been unhappy? Not eating well? Waking up in the middle of the night?"

Well let's see, Liam is in the midst of throwing tantrums, screaming and crying over anything and everything, but that's normal for us. I guess he hasn't been eating that well and there was that night where he woke up twice in the middle of the night. He usually will sleep from 8 pm-8am the next morning.

Now I realized that I have none of that 'mother's intuition' that everyone always talks about. Does Amazon sell any of that???

Storytime

Last night we went to our first class of Storytime at the Normal Public Library. We get to sing songs, read books and at the end of class all the kids got to play with toys.

Liam LOVED it!

Although he may be slightly confused as to which class we were at. During one of the books that the librarian was reading he did a somersault.

The elusive squirrel

We bought our pumpkins awhile ago and Evan went to work right away on carving his. I will admit that his pumpkin was pretty amazing this year. I wish I had taken a picture of it so you all could see how brillant it was.

Here's why I cannot show you what it looked like. We have a very hungry squirrel in our neighborhood. The day that we bought our pumpkins we left them outside and this squirrel ate all the stems off. He then started in on the pumpkin itself. Since then he has taken the tops off, at first ate half of Evan's pumpkins face off, and now the entire front of his pumpkin is gone. When Evan found said squirrel gnawing away on our pumpkins he tried to scare it away, which did not work, and then he started throwing sticks at it to get it to leave. The squirrel slowly scampered up the tree with the pumpkin top in his mouth.

This is the same squirrel we believe that gnawed on our front porch post all summer long. Digging into our wood post so badly that Evan finally tried to repair it. With Liquid Nails. Now I'm pretty sure that wasn't the best material we could have used and I did try to voice my opinion, but at least the squirrel hasn't tried to eat the liquid nails material yet.

So I have no amazing pumpkin pictures this year. And I have yet to get a good picture of Liam all dressed up as well. He has been in his costume at least twice and all of my pictures are horrible. I've got one more night to get at least one good picture. Wish me good luck!

Tradition

It is a tradition in the Fink family to carve pumpkins at Halloween. When Evan and I began dating I thought he was so weird because he had never carved a pumpkin before. Now of course, with Evan's artist background, his pumpkins are pretty amazing, about 100 times better than the ones I do.  So, this year I wanted to really introduce Liam to this family tradition.

There is a picture somewhere of me, when I was probably 18 months old and my father is placing my hand inside a pumpkin while the whole family is pulling out the guts of their pumpkins. I look terrified, I think I was screaming while the photo was took. And yes, I wanted that picture of Liam this year.

Unfortunately this is the picture that I got instead. Liam wanted nothing to do with the slimy insides of his pumpkin. My rough and tumble, messy boy refused to even touch a pumpkin seed. To say that Evan and I were shocked would be an understatement.

Oh the things this kid does

I really enjoy Liam becoming a toddler. (except the tantrums and the constant NO’s that I hear most of the day)

I like that I can give him food during mealtime and walk away-not very far-and he can feed himself.

Apparently though that is no longer an option for me. Last night Liam kept asking for more food during dinner, so I went to get him string cheese. Returning after I washed a few dishes I discovered that Liam was trying to shove the cheese up his nostril.

So I guess he wasn’t really that interested in eating which resulted in dinner being over.

Fast forward 10 minutes later to tumbling class where we had a few minutes before class was to start, so I decided that we would get friendly with the other kids in our class. I said to Liam “Hey, why don’t we go say hi to our friends?” looked over at him and there was a giant piece of string cheese covered in snot coming out of his nose. Yikes!

I guess we didn’t get all of it out after dinner. And now after we wash hands following a meal we will also be making Liam blow his nose.

In her blood

Yesterday while on our family walk we decided to meet Evan at Tipton Park, which is similar to Lakeland in Canton if there were 400,000-500,000 dollar homes built around it.

Anyway, while walking around the lake there were many ducks swimming despite it being very cold out. So we went to take a closer look. I had Liam in the stroller and Evan was in charge of Butters. He was letting her get very close to the edge of the lake letting her sniff around and as soon as I said; “Butters, you got another screw loose if you think you’re going to jump in that water and go for a swim” did Butters jump in and start swimming.

Thankfully Evan did not have to help her out of the water, she was able to swim to a shallower area to get out of the lake. Did I mention yesterday was maybe 45 degrees out, very windy and slightly rainy? Also thank goodness that I had a spare towel in the trunk of my car. I still made Butters ride back in Evan’s car so I didn’t have to smell a wet dog. Surprisingly she now smells better than what she had before, maybe that’s not saying very much.

Ok dog we get the hint, we promise when the weather is nice we will take you swimming again. You might just have to wait until May though.

Sticks and stones....

may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Is such a bogus rhyme.

Apparently at the Children’s Museum here in Normal it was ‘let your kid do whatever they want while the parents just sat around on their phones or talked amongst themselves’ day. Ellen and I were unaware of this special day as there were no signs of declaration anywhere. (Ok, I am being sarcastic, but seriously lots of horrible children running around with no parents in sight)

In one particular instance I was taking Liam and Staley up the stairs to sit in the combine and pretend that they were harvesting corn. We met a little boy, maybe about 4, along the way who then decided that he was going to sit with the kids in the combine and take over the steering wheel giving my child and niece no steering time at all. Even after I asked him to stop and share.

Again no parent in sight and believe me Ellen and I were looking.

So this little boy, who doesn’t know how to share, looks at me and says “Are you their Grandma?”

No you wicked little monster, I am not their grandma! I am 29 years old!!!!! I may not be wearing any makeup and wearing my glasses today but I am not Grandma material. I did actually do my hair and was wearing jeans, a sweater and my knee high boots. (this is unheard of on a day off) I thought I was looking pretty good until this rotten child told me I was old.

But because I am so sweet I kindly told him who I was and excused Liam and Staley from his presence. They need not hear such blasphemy about their beloved mother and aunt.

PETA would fine us

It’s a bit gruesome but pretty hilarious.

When we tell Liam we are eating chicken for dinner he immediately starts to make the sounds a chicken would make. While eating it.

Bawk, bawk, bawk.....

Poor, poor chicken.

Just a great day!

This morning was such a great morning with Liam. We didn’t go anywhere or really do anything but just had fun together. It could have been bad...Evan left for work early and in his attempts at getting ready to go quietly he was actually rather loud, waking up the whole family. So even though Liam woke up about an hour earlier than he usually does he has been so pleasant to be around.

This afternoon he was getting ready for his nap and kept trying to tell me that he wanted to “poop.” I really didn’t want to take off his clothes again and sit with him while he was on the potty because it was naptime.  But I decided that if he is trying to tell me that he wants to sit on his potty than I had better listen.  So off we went with a couple books in tow. He didn’t poop but he did pee! I was so excited as Liam has been pooping on the potty and been able to tell us that he needs to go for a little while now and I wasn’t sure how we were going to get him to realize that he needs to do the other on the potty as well.

I don’t know if Liam is ready to be potty trained but right now he is having a lot of fun sitting on his potty. And I know that the world of Facebook is tired of me talking about my son’s bodily functions so I won’t talk about it anymore in print....unless you ask me. :)

Tumbling

Liam is very active and so I decided to sign him up for tumbling class through the Bloomington Parks Department. I assumed that Evan would not want to go and that I would be taking Liam by myself but Evan told me that he would be coming with us and that he even wanted to participate! Fabulous! Here are the photos to document our first challenging class!

 Stretching

 Show off :)

 So sweet

 Notice the focus and drive

 Perfect balance

 This may have been the favorite

Learning how to stand on his head

Our class meets every week for the month of October and we can’t wait to see what he learns next!

Fun at the pumpkin farm...again

Today I had the day off so Liam and I, met Aunt Carrie and Elliott at Rader Pumpkin Farms. It is really fun to see how much Liam looks up to Elliott and tries to copy some of his actions. Whenever Elliott would lay down, Liam would do it too. When Elliott was playing in the playhouses or the sand Liam wanted to be right next to him.

Its so much fun to have cousins so close in age and distance to play with. Thanks for coming over guys!

Cute little pumpkin heads!

NO!

At almost 21 months all I hear all day is Mama! and NO!

M: Are you done eating?
L: NO!
M: So do you want more spaghetti?
L: NO!
M: Liam that makes no sense, do you want something else to eat?
L: NO!
M: So you’re done then...
L: NO!

This is just a sample of some of my conversations all day long. At 9:00 am this morning it was beginning to look like it would be a very, very long day.

I try to teach Liam his colors, his numbers, or new words. But all I hear in return is NO!

Hello terrible two’s, we have been flirting with you for awhile now, but I see you are here to stay.

Lord give me patience. :)

MAMA!

At 20 months old I thought I was beginning to see Liam’s vocabulary expand. I swear a week ago he was saying all sorts of words that I now can’t remember.

But this week all I hear is MAMA! I hear MAMA in the morning, noon and night. Liam loves to say my name. While I love being a mom it is beginning to get tiresome that I am the only one he is calling. A lot of times he calls Evan MAMA as well just because he is always saying my name.

Tonight we were all playing together in the living room, including Butters begging me to play with one of her toys. And so I went to grab her toy from her mouth and instead banged my hand against her very sharp teeth. I didn’t break skin but definitely feel like I am now getting a bruise. I, of course, said OUCH! which brought a very concerned Liam over to find out what had happened.

"Mama? Mama?" My sweet little boy had come over with such concern on his face to see if I was ok and then gave me the nicest little hug because he saw that I was sad. (or mad at the dog) And then he grabbed my injured hand and kissed it. “Boo-boo, mama”

My heart melted. I am so in love with this kid.

Could be a total fluke....

but Liam just pooped on the potty!

Tonight I was making dinner while Liam was reading a book.  I looked over and he was trying to take off his shirt. I went over to help him and then he tried taking off his diaper. I asked him if he wanted to sit on his potty and he marched right over to it. (The potty book that we bought him has a little boy going potty completely naked, so Liam thinks he needs to be naked too)

We sat on the potty for awhile and nothing happened so I told him that he was a good boy and we put his diaper right back on. Liam decided to put his potty away since I had pulled it out of the downstairs bathroom into the kitchen (so I could keep cooking while he sat there). Since he likes to close doors he closed the door on himself and started hollering for me to come get him. Once I opened the door it was obvious that he was about to poop so I just ripped that diaper right off again and sat him down. We read a book or two just in time for Evan to come  home and watch his son poop on the potty!

I was pretty excited and started nudging Evan to be excited too so Liam would understand that going on the potty is pretty awesome! Reward for going on the potty? Three animal crackers which completely ruined his appetite for dinner but I don’t even care.

And yes I know that this is a long road in front of us as 2 hours later Liam pooped in his diaper while telling us that he wasn’t pooping.

Maybe my reward needs to be sweetened by Nutella.

20 months old

Anybody remember these sweet little babies???

First White Sox Game

On Saturday we took Liam to his very first White Sox game. If taking a 20 month old to a 9 inning, 3-4 hour game doesn’t sound like a good idea to you, we have proved you wrong. Liam loved the game. Or he loved all the people, the loud music, the booing, cheering and dancing that took place. He especially loved watching the game with his Dad, his Mom and the Freeman’s. Maybe also the bag of books we brought along to keep him occupied helped as well.

A White Sox win against the Kansas City Royals was of course even better; but 2 homeruns with fireworks after each one was icing on the cake.

Violet and Eli also did extremely well at the game. It can be really hard for a 4 and 2 year old to stay in their seats for 3 hours but they did great. (Kudos to my sister and brother-in-law) I sat between them and tried to explain the game of baseball.

M: “So Violet do you see the men wearing blue uniforms? We don’t like them and when they hit the ball or catch the ball we don’t clap for them ok? We only like the guys in black and white."

V: “I think I like the men in blue better Aunt Melissa. I think I will clap for them anyway. I don’t like the black and white outfits.”

V: “I want to count the people Uncle Evan. Ummmm, 12, yes there are 12 people here watching baseball”

E: “Well, there may be a few more than that but.... (Uncle Evan beginning to explain how poorly attended the games are even though the White sox are in first place)

Anyway, we loved our first game and loved that the Freeman's wants to come with us. I hope we can do this every year!

Teaching a dog to read is not really that hard

and here's proof:

 (I'm not sure she's paying very much attention!)

Balloon!

After buying our new fridge from Sears this past weekend (woo hoo!) Liam and I were walking the mall. We met a little girl (maybe 7) who had a balloon and she wanted to know if Liam wanted to have it. Oh boy! Who knew what joy could come from one blue balloon!

Now we just have to keep reminding him that he can't sit, squeeze or lay on the balloon or it will POP!

So far the balloon has made it through the rough and tumble play of a 19 month old boy. We're going on 5 days now of balloon success.

Good-bye Summer...

Good-bye summer and nice warm weather. Good-bye flip flops and juicy watermelon. Good-bye baseball and swimming in the pool.

It's been a great summer with Liam and I am more than sad that it is now September. So instead I will think about next year when Liam will be 2 1/2 and we'll have even more fun in the sun. Liam will be able to go down the waterslide at the pool all by himself and big slides at the park too. Every summer is going to get better and better.

Taking me down a notch...or two

Last night Grandpa and Grammie (Nana) Walles came over to baby-sit Liam so Evan and I could go see a movie. It was marvelous. We of course saw Batman because I love Batman and Christian Bale did not disappoint me. Or Joseph Gordon-Levitt. (I'm sorry, I haven't seen a movie since May)

Anyway, not what my post is supposed to be about.

This morning, Liam woke up calling my name. Or at least I thought he was saying "mama" when in reality he was saying "nana." And would not stop saying nana until I finally realized that he could have cared less about me but he demanded to know where nana had gone.

Me: "Home buddy, nana went home. Aren't you happy to see me though?"

Liam: "Gran-pa, Gran-pa"

Me: (sigh) "Grandpa went home with nana. You'll see them another time. I missed you, do I get a hug?"                  

Liam: "Book, book please"

Don't worry, my feelings weren't hurt. Much.

A night with the Freemans

I adore my niece and nephew, Violet and Eli, so when Evan wanted to go to Chicago and see his brother, Liam and I went to stay with the Freemans.

These kids have SO much fun together. Violet is so nurturing and sweet and always wants to hug Liam or wrestle him. (so much that Liam started to cry whenever Violet would try to hug him on the second day, I think he had had enough)

Eli is the best, so loving and such a sensitive little man. He really loves his Cousin Liam. (no more Baby Liam)

 Ashes, ashes, we all fall down!

 Violet sharing her elephant slippers

Eli in "time-out" for not wanting to share his cowboy slippers ;)

Thanks for letting us come over Blair and Stephanie! Can we come next weekend too?

Grandpa's Truck

A couple weeks ago we went home for the day and Liam got to see Grandpa's truck. Liam is obsessed with trucks right now, talking about them, looking at pictures of them, and watching them drive by the house take up most of our day.

He was quiet while getting to see Grandpa's truck but we have heard about that day a few times now.

"Grandpa's truck! Grandpa's BIG truck! Grandpa's white big truck!"

As if Grandpa wasn't the coolest family member anyway in Liam's eyes, it is most definitely a confirmed fact now. Liam always talks about Grandpa, wants to know where he is when he wakes up first thing in the morning. Always thinks he should be the one who is calling me when my phone rings and now he can talk about Grandpa's big truck as well.

You're pretty great Grandpa Fink!

Best friends

Today we dropped off Butters at the doggy hotel, said bye-bye and Liam broke down in tears. When I asked him what was the matter he simply replied "Dog, dog!" I think Liam is going to miss the big loud dog who always steals his food. (I'm pretty sure Butters did not feel the same way) Good thing it's just for the weekend.