The Party Barge

Last Sunday we took the new boat out for its first debut.  John, JoAnn, Mark, Margaret, Ryan and I all went in together and bought the "Party Barge" as a family boat.  My parents got rid of their pool last year and some friends of ours sold their boat, so for Fathers Day Ryan and I went looking for boats.  The Tim's Ford Marina had some 2011 demos for sale so we went to look at them.  It was too good a deal to pass up so we went for it.  I have to say that it is one of the best investments yet! Liam loved it.  Liam and I stayed under the canopy pretty much the whole time.  I brought a comforter for him to lay on and play in the floor. He got out in the water a few times and loved every minute of it!   Ryan was the captain of the boat with the help of Liam every once in a while.  My parents came out and brought their jet ski.  We met up with some friends and hooked onto their boat and swam with them and just hung out.  It was such a good way to relax and spend our hard earned money!

I'm 6 Months Old!!!

Happy 1/2 Birthday Liam!  I can't believe that you are 6 months old.  That means you are half way to your birthday.  If the next six months go as fast as the first then I need to slow down and take in every moment I have with you.  You are growing so fast and learning so many new things.  We are so proud of you and love watching you learn.  He is sitting up all by himself.  He is still a little wobbly and I usually have to keep his boppy around him when he is playing.  He transfers from sitting to laying on his belly and is starting to scoot across the floor.  He is eating twice a day now and is starting all kinds of new foods. He is still sleeping in his crib and I can usually just lay him in his crib and he will fall asleep on his own.  Lately I have been rocking him to sleep just because I have been working a lot and I don't get to see him as much as I would like. He wakes up about 4 in the morning and I put him in the bed with us.  He usually eats and then we snuggle and sleep until I either have to go to work or he wakes me up ready to play. 

 At Dr. Eastham's office for our 6 month check up.  Weighing in at 15lbs 7.5oz (11%) 26.75in long (46%) and head circumference was 43cm (33%).  He got 2 shots :( For the past few months he has been running a low grade temp.  Dr. Eastham seems to think that he just runs high all the time and that is normal for him.  So 99 degrees is his normal.  Dr. Eastham was not worried about his weight.  He said that he is a healthy boy and that if low weight gain is all we have to worry about then we are doing good. 

 Here we are scooting around.  Having to block things with pillows so we don't hurt ourselves!!!

 When June comes around that means Bonnaroo time!  Liam didn't get to go this year but he rocked out his tye-dye t-shirt that I got him last year from Tye-Dye Mary! My cute little hippie baby!

New Foods

Wow, so it has been a while since I have been able to blog.  Our life has been crazy this past month.  So many new things have gone on, especially all the new foods that Liam has been eating.  Since the last food blog we have started Peas.  Not our favorite but mixed with other veggies he eats them. 

We have also started Peaches, Carrots, Homemade Rice Cereal or "Super Porridge", Yogurt, and today we started Prunes.  All have been a success!  I have to say that this mornings breakfast was his favorite.  He had vanilla Yo Baby yogurt and Prunes.  I couldn't shovel them in fast enough.  I try to mix things up so that he isn't always getting the same foods over and over again.  Its hard because there are only so many foods that he has tried, and you have to wait 4 days before you can introduce another one to make sure that he doesn't have some type of allergy or reaction.

We met up with uncle John Hardy the other day and had dinner and ice cream.  Liam's favorite part was the ice cream! 

 I have really enjoyed this whole eating process with Liam.  I am usually just as excited as he is.  I love introducing new foods just as much as he loves eating them! Here is to all the new and exciting food ahead!!!

Sitting Up

My baby is growing up WAY TOO FAST!!!  Believe it or not, he is sitting up.  5 1/2 months and he is sitting up.  He barely rolls over but I think he is just too lazy to do that.  I have a feeling he will be crawling before long.  He is starting to pull his legs in under him and stick his butt in the air.  If only he could figure out what to do with his hands. When I sit him up I put a boppy around him and something to hold onto in front of him. He is still a little wobbly.  When he is tired of sitting up he will roll onto his belly and play with his toys.  He is such a good baby!

Butternut Squash and Mangos

I haven't been blogging lately like I should.  It has been really busy lately!  To keep you up to date, we have had Butternut Squash and Mangos since I have last blogged.  He loved both of them!  We haven't found anything that he hasn't liked yet.  I'm sure something will come along that he doesn't like.  I decided to bake the butternut squash.  I rubbed them down with butter and put them in the oven for about an hour until they were soft.  I then put them in the blender and added water until I got the consistency that I wanted.  Then, they went into the freezer.  I should of just bought one squash because two made ALOT! Oh well, I won't have to make any for a while!

It took him a minute to get used to the Mangos. After a few bites he gobbled them up!  I am trying to steer away from so many foods that are orange because I don't want a orange baby but there aren't many foods that I can make that he can eat right now that are in season.  Next week I think we are going to try peas.  I highly doubt he will eat them but we will see!

Mother's Day

Today was a good day.  Liam slept through the night.  Since he has been sick he has been getting up 2 or 3 times a night but last night he finally slept all night again.  Once we all woke up, I got my Mother's Day cards from my boys.  I got my new CHI last week because my other one went in the trash.  It had a short in it and was giving me trouble so that is what I asked for for Mother's Day.  We went to church.  We put him in the nursery for the first time.  Either my nerves were shot because of it or my sugar was low because I was shaky the whole time.  He did fine just like I knew he would have.  After church we went to my parents house and grilled out.  We spent all day with them.  Everyone napped but I got caught up in one of moms jigsaw puzzles on the computer and couldn't put it down.  Then around 7 we met up with John, JoAnn, Mark, Margaret and Mark's momma Lynn at Timberloft for dinner. It was good.  We were going to go to Cracker Barrel but I think everyone else in Manchester wanted to go too because there was a hour and forty five minute wait!  Liam was a little fussy.  It was noisy and it was his bed time.  It had been a week since everyone had seen him because I stayed home with him while he was sick, so he was being passed around and I think it was too much for him.  We had to take a time out and go outside for a minute.   Once the restaurant cleared out some he was much better.  Ryan and I appreciate what all our mother's do for us and I'm sure we don't thank them enough so it was nice to spend that time with them today.

Liam made his grandmothers handprint ornaments out of salt dough.  They turned out really cool but I need to do them again because they were too thick and didn't harden all the way through so they are cracking.

I know that this Mother's Day was hard for my mom since it was the first one without grandmother.  Liam sure did come along at a good time for her.  She had something to be happy about today.  Who couldn't be happy with something like that!  I love you mom! Thank you for all that you do for me!

RSV

My poor baby has RSV.  He has had a cough for a few weeks but it was more like a hey look at me cough.  It wasn't until last Wednesday that his cough turned into a mean cough.  Then followed by a green snotty nose.  I called Dr. Eastham's office and they told me that there was nothing to worry about unless it lasted more than 10 days, had a fever of 101 or higher, had stopped eating, had less that 3 wet diapers in a 24 hour period, was in respiratory distress, and so on and so on.  She said that he was too young for Benadryl and that we would just have to wait it out.  Well Monday night Ryan had me listen to his lungs with my stethoscope and his lungs sounded horrible.  If he was quiet long enough you could even hear with without the stethoscope.  So to ease Ryan's mind he called the Dr. office and Dr. Libby Long called us back.  She said to bring him on in in the morning just to check him out.  So we did. Walk-in hours are between 8-9.  We got there at 8 and the place was packed! We finally got back to see Dr. Eastham around 9:30.  We explained to him what all was going on and he took a listen for himself.  We were right, it had gone to his lungs.  He talked to us a little while and then decided to test him for RSV even though it was no longer RSV season because he was still seeing cases of RSV.  So he proceeded to take a swab and as Dr. Eastham called it, took a brain biopsy.  Liam was not happy about that!!  We waited for about 10 minutes and he came back in to tell us that it was positive.  In Dr. Easthams own words, "RSV is one of the thousand things that I can diagnose patients, but there ain't a dang that I can do for it."  I just love him!  So he said to just keep doing what we are doing and the cough could last 2-4 weeks.  He keeps running a low grade temp too, so I keep giving him Tylenol.  It seems to help his cough too.  Ryan wanted me to stay home with him today so I did. He is a happy sick baby so he still acts himself until he starts coughing and then he gets upset but otherwise he is a happy sick baby.

Watching the Preds with daddy ....

 It's so hard being a baby ...

 Our new travel high chair

 My happy sick baby :)