Playing Catch Up!

Oh my gosh! Do you realise that it's DECEMBER today? December.... This year has flown by! Last year I was almost six months pregnant with Duncan. And here he is just turned 8 months old!

I am truly in shock with how fast time goes by nowadays. I feel like some days are so slow and I can barely make it to bedtime, and then I look back and a whole month has gone by. 

DUNCAN:

My sweet little boy is 8 months old! He is crawling and standing and cruising along furniture. Although he is still nursing, he loves to eat anything we put in front of him and will stare at you with giant puppy dog eyes when you have something he wants but can't have. It's amazing to see the differences in Duncan and Liam. Liam honestly didn't care if I was around or not, he just did what he did and nothing bothered him. Duncan is very much a needy baby. He doesn't like not being with me and he's happy with someone else as long as he can't hear or see me, cause then he just wants me. He loves flashy things, as most babies do, and he will fixate on something across the room and go after it, his favourite thing right now is Jon's green water bottle. Jon will put it on the floor and Duncan rushes to it. He's also extremely fast, and he gets faster once he notices that you are following him. I just cleaned out his drawers today and said goodbye to his three month clothing and his three to six month clothing, as he is getting to the point where he is in six to nine month clothing. And I washed the clothes we had in storage that are six to twelve months and put them in his dresser. It seems as though he's growing up faster than Liam did, and I can't believe that I'm already prepping his twelve month clothes. 

His favourite things to do right now are clapping, tapping on surfaces and clicking his tongue. He will tap on pretty much everything and then he loves to hear us clapping for him. He also loves to smile and laugh. This kid is quite the giggler and he loves to give out his adorable smiles. 

It's hard to imagine my boys getting older but I'm excited for when they can both play with each other and I don't have to constantly worry about what they are doing.

LIAM:

This little guy has started pre-school! Oh my goodness, that was a fun first week, haha! I stayed in the waiting room for the first day, and the entire time all I heard was Liam screaming and the teacher telling him "no", or "you need to share" or "we don't climb up there". There was even one time when he managed to escape and he came running to me- something he's never done- and climbed into my lap. He teacher followed after him and I told him that  his teacher was being so patient with him and that he needed to listen to her and follow directions. He took a hold of her hand and followed her back into the classroom. It was heart breaking to know that he was struggling, but at the same time I knew that this social interaction and the structure of his classroom is exactly what he needs. He gets better everyday and I am so grateful for a wonderful teacher who is patient and kind to him. The other day, I was in the waiting room at the end of his class and I heard him shout and another boy scream and start to cry, the teacher asked what happened and I heard the other little boy say, "He hit me!" and the teacher said, "Liam, did you hit him?" and without any hesitation my son said, "YUP!" and all I could think was, "well.... at least he's honest."

For the longest time Liam refused to talk or say any words. All he would do would point and grunt. It was driving Jon and I crazy, because we didn't know what to do for him to help him and I was starting to look up speech therapists. Then one day, while Jon and Liam were watching Curious George together, Jon realised that all George does is grunt and point-exactly like Liam. So we stopped letting him watch Curious George and by two weeks later, Liam was saying real words and holding conversations with us. It was amazing to see the huge difference! His favourite show now is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Liam will go around with Scot's Mickey ears and say, "McMouse!" It's adorable!

JON:

Jon is still studying hard and going to school and working. I don't see him a ton, but when I do we always manage to find something fun to do with the kids and watch our shows together when the boys are in bed. 

ME:

I am doing really well! SJH's play opened the second week of November and so now all I'm worrying about is NDJH's musical, Aladdin, which opens in January. We have just a little bit of music left to do and then we are in the last legs of doing that. Next semester I will be working on Once on This Island at SJH and then doing Suessical at NDJH. I'm going to be super busy!

I have also picked up running! I run almost every night, although this past week I haven't done much because I caught the illness that my boys had. I'm in my 9th week of running and run about 3 miles every night. As much as i hated running at first, I've come to love it and enjoy it. Crazy right??

Apart from just being a mom and keeping two kids alive every day I'm pretty boring. 

Alright, now on to the real thing that people care about. PICTURES!

I thought this was particularly cute because Duncan and his grandpa were making the same pose

We practice finding words with our scrabble tiles

the cat took over Duncan's blanket.... silly JoJo

My two cute boys!

I was on the computer one day and looked over and this was what I saw. I laughed so hard, he was so cute!

Liam loves going outside with my dad. The moment he walks in the door, Liam grabs his hand and pulls him to the door. Some days, Dad will take him in the garage and let him sit in the Mustangs or whatever other car my dad is working on. Some days they sit in chairs with their drinks by the pool, but Liam LOVES to help my dad "clean" the pool.

I finally had to put the gate up so that Duncan couldn't get to the stairs!

My little Cutie!!

We took Liam to the zoo to ride the train. And he loved it!!

All of us! Kind of!

Mickey Mouse ears!

I updated our family photo's on the wall!

Liam loves to hide!

All these toys and Duncan finds a water bottle!

Liam climbing our willow in the front yard!

For Halloween, Liam and Duncan were Calvin and Hobbes!

Just a standing in his crib! Time to lower the mattress!!!

Liam is in a box again!!!

"How you doin'?"

So this is a really funny story. I had accidentally left Duncan's gate to his room open, and Liam had gone in there and taken the stool and climbed on in with him. Duncan and he were laughing at first. The only reason Duncan is crying now is because he saw me and then wanted out.

Liam follows in my footsteps and loves putting on everyone's shoes! He walks pretty good in heels too!

Sending photo's to Daddy!

Liam's first day of school!!

Alyn and I being silly before the show opened!

This is Daisey. She was 22 years old and we had had her since she was a kitten. Well, within one week she deteriorated very fast, and my parents made the decision to have her put down, because we didn't want her to be in pain. This was on our way to have her put down. She was a good cat for so many years! We buried her in the backyard and in the Spring will plant daisy's to memorialize her.

I've been on a baking binge and cinnamon rolls heat up pretty nicely after being frozen.

Liam and his Uncle Patrick!

Well. That's been our life for the past several months.

Family Photo's!

Well, a lot has happened in the month since I've had surgery. I'm all healed up and have started exercising again in hopes to lose the baby weight from two children with a lapse of Postpartum Depression in the middle. I have about 50-60 pounds to lose to be back down to a much more healthy weight so that's at the top of my to do list every day. I am also working at two different junior high's this year! The new theatre teacher at North Davis Junior High asked me to come help with their musical this year; they are doing Aladdin and so I knew that I could work it into my schedule so I accepted. It's really fun working on this show again and working with different kids. Already, it's a different show that the two other times I've worked on it. It's been really fun working with Brittany and getting to know her! I've also started back up at Syracuse Jr. High and love it. This will be my third year working with them and I seriously love being there! We are doing a play right now called "A Nuther Thing" and next semester we are going to be putting on Once on This Island. I love working with the kids and they seriously have so much talent! 

The past couple weeks, everyone in my family has been sick. Except for me! Liam started out with it, and then gave it to my mom, and then to Jon and then to my dad, and then to Duncan. Watching everyone around me get sick was like waiting for my execution! But I never got whatever bug was going around. Thankfully! Because I had stuff I had to do!! Everyone has slowly gotten better, but it was a strong virus! At first I thought that it was that Entovirus or whatever it's called that had people on high alert for a couple weeks, but Liam never had trouble breathing so I wasn't worried. Lots of fluids and baths and "rest"- which for Liam is a minute long nap- he got that from me. 

Liam has a new friend! His name is Jackson and he lives in my parents ward! They had a play date the other day which had to be postponed because of Liam's illness and recovery. Because even though he wasn't sick anymore, his nose was still runny and he would wipe it all up his arm. It was truly disgusting. Anyway, so we had a playdate with them last week and Liam had so much fun! He and Jackson played for a good two hours! But finally, Liam was tired and was starting to get a little grouchy, so it was time to go back to nana's house and he actually took a nap! 

Duncan turned six months old yesterday and I honestly cannot believe that he has been in our lives for that long! He was such a trying baby for the longest time and I was seriously just trying to keep my head above water with him. Countless prayers were offered in hopes that I would be able to cope. Then when he turned four months old, it was like a switch flipped and he became the happiest baby, rarely cries, smiles at everyone, giggles like crazy... I was very grateful because life for me had become very strained. I loved him because he was mine, but after four months I really liked him! He has been mobile for the past month. Which is a lot faster than Liam! Liam started crawling a week before six months and Duncan started right at five months! Every morning has become a "hurry and make sure everything is picked up off the floor" type of morning because this kid is a cruiser. We have his six month check up on Wednesday so we'll see how much he's grown!

Liam is learning to share, now with his new friend and his mobile little brother. And he doesn't like it all that much. Last night, we were with Duncan and Liam and Liam would rather put his toys away than to have Duncan play with them, and when we got toys out for Duncan to play with Liam would scream "NO!" and run to take it away. But it's good for him to learn that we share with others. Jon took Liam to the treehouse on Saturday and Liam pushed two kids out of his way, so we are still working on him. 

About two weeks before I had surgery, we had had family pictures taken and when I was recovering our photographer emailed me telling me that they were done. So I'll post my favourites here!

This is the beginning of a series of photo's that shows just what Liam looks like while running away from us!

It's ridiculous how excited he is...

(To find out more about our photographer you can find him here on Facebook!)

We had a fun time getting pictures taken! Our little Mr. Liam was quite the model, and it was basically a photo shoot for him. Haha, but we loved it! We needed updated photo's and I need to remember to get it done more often! At least once a year! It's amazing how much change happens in just a short amount of time!