LIAM!

I love hearing comments about the babies from people who know our babies almost exclusively from the blog. Often, we hear, "those babies are just so smiley all the time" or "they are such happy babies!" While they obviously don't spend every moment of the day smiling or happy, they really are good natured and happy babies. So, for those of you who haven't yet met them in person, here's a little about our Liam!

SIZE: At 8.5 months, Liam is already almost 20 pounds and has outgrown his baby carrier. As a comparison, Jacob was between 16 and 17 pounds at 9 months. Liam's calf and thigh is nearly the same circumference as Claire's is now!

NICKNAME(S): Buster, Bus, Bus-Bus (said like "Gus Gus" from Cinderella), Chubbas, Big Happy Dude, or just Big. I'm sure he hears his real name a few times a day, but he's more often called one of his nicknames.

PERSONALITY: Liam reminds me a lot of Jacob... other than the red hair, and he may be just a little calmer... or at least maybe we hope he is?

Liam LOVES people - and he is really excited to have people's attention. From across the room, if he makes eye contact with you, his arms and legs start flapping furiously. At times, this eye contact also includes the expectation that you're coming to pick him up, which can be pretty disappointing to him if that wasn't your intention.

Liam is a very sensitive little boy (sound familiar?). He gets scared occasionally (today, for example), and if he gets put down when he's wanting to be held, he has a very sad cry. He's started giving occasional snuggles, which we love!

RELATIONSHIP TO FOOD: Liam's other love is food. He eats anything and would eat almost all day if we let him (again, sound familiar?). When he's in his high chair and runs out of puffs, or if the babyfood isn't coming fast enough, he starts growling. If he drops his food, he starts panicking! It's really funny. He also uses a second hand to make sure the first hand puts the food in the right place (pictured above)... it's about 50% effective.

FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT LIAM:

• Getting Liam out of bed - he kicks his legs really hard and flaps his arms.
• Liam is SO happy when you're getting Cherrios or puffs out of the pantry that he starts giggling or squealing (in a very high pitched voice)
• His Cheeks - they are so wide, they just need to be kissed!
• His dimple - his cheeks are so wide, his dimple is about at his ear lobe!
• The gap in his top teeth - it's really cute - and he smiles so much that we get to see it all the time!
• Liam's eyes - his are different from our other kids because they're a little more almond shaped and are a little darker blue and have long eye lashes.
• Liam's high-pitched squeal. His normal voice isn't all that high, but when he's excited, he does these loud, really high-pitched squeals. They're funny!
• Watching him laugh at Jacob and Claire. I don't think I anticipated having this much fun watching our babies look up to their big brother and sister.

We love this little boy! What a blessing it is to have him as part of our family!

Bawk bawk

We got to experience the chicken pox! I had shingles, then a few weeks later Kate had a mild case of the chicken pox, then a few more weeks and Liam got a not so mild case of the chicken pox. Since it is so contagious we got to spend the better part of 2 months hanging out at home. I was so grateful that they are such good natured babies, that they cannot scratch, and that the immunizations that Jacob and Claire had seemed to have worked since they did not get it. Check that off the list, glad it is over... Hopefully the scabs and marks that are still lingering on Liam will clear up soon.

Unusual Cinderella

Claire came down in this and informed me that she was "unusual Cinderella". Ha!

Have You Heard?

"Sister... we are eight whole months old... don't tell mom, it might make her sad!"

*photo by Laughing Stars Photography

Spring Fever

A little over a week ago we had a beautiful sunny Sunday and we just couldn't spend it indoors. Flat Lydia was also visiting us and there is a new Visitors Center at the temple, so we took her to see the temple and the new Visitors Center.

Kiddos showed her around.
Babies were both happy to be outside.

Poor Kate had super watery eyes the whole time (hopefully we don't have a bad case of allergies on our hands).
We were trying to get a picture of Kate and Liam together and all he wanted to do was look at the fountain, so we decided to just let him look at the fountain.
Then his big brother joined him. Can't wait for more sunny days!

Nana and Papa visit

Last month Nana and Papa came to see us (mostly their sweet grandkids). It was so fun to have them here and I think they enjoyed book time with the big kids and snuggles with the babies. We did a little shopping, had a fun time eating and playing at John's Incredible Pizza where they have the most fun go-carts, had a nice adult dinner at a favorite restaurant, went bowling, and spent a lot of time home playing with kids. Unfortunately we did not get many pictures, but here is some proof of book reading and baby cuddling

Picnic

We ordered some furniture, which means that after about 2 1/2 years of living in this house these rooms will soon no longer be empty. So... before we no longer had our big empty rooms we had a little family picnic in the front of the house.

Jared was there... he had the camera.

My Sweet BabiesI

I have been trying to post the pictures I had taken of my babies, but I cannot get blogger to post them, so in the mean time, here is a link to some of them.

http://www.laughingstarsphotography.com/2012/02/im-pretty-sure-that-it-doesnt-get-any.html#comment-form

Happy Valentine's Day, and some random pictures

These are the Valentines Dani made for the kids to bring to their classroom. Dani also helped kiddos make Valentines boxes for their friends to put valentines into. Jacob made a Valentines monster. Claire made a Valentines chicken... because nothing says I love you like a chicken!

A game Liam likes to play is to turn his head sideways. He'd been doing it a while, and so we started imitating him. He thinks it's funny... and it probably looks funny to someone looking in the window to see the parents and the 5-year-olds all with their heads sideways trying to get Liam to join in the game!

I'm realizing that we get a lot of cute pictures of babies in their bumbos. They don't spend nearly as much time in their Bumbos as this blog would make it seem!
And, Kate in a bright green bowl.
Babies in a box. In their Bumbos. Yeah, there are a lot of pictures of babies in their Bumbos.

Kate is really funny when she eats. It is a very social experience for her. She opens really wide, but then gets easily distracted. Tonight, she was turning away and trying her hardest to ignore me calling her in a high pitched voice, but I could see her cheeks getting higher as she was smiling. It was funny.

Liam LOVES to eat! He is focused on his food and is very satisfied throughout.

Conversations with Jacob tonight

Jacob said there were pictures of presidents on the $1 and $5 bills. When asking who it was on the $1 bill, my dad explained it was President George Washington, and that he was the first president. Jacob asked, "Was he president when Adam was there?"

Before Jacob said our family's prayer before bed, I was reminding him to pray for Andrew, who is on a mission in Houston. He asked, "Why, did he get a bad report?" I went on to explain that we can ask Heavenly Father for righteous desires, and he asked, "Can I ask for another baby?" ... "Well, Jacob, don't we already have 2?" Sure enough, he did pray that we could have another baby. At least it was singular!

Jacob needed to know what letters made the CH sound. He wanted to know how to spell the word "chother" (as in, e chother).

Epic Ski Trip!!!

For Christmas, Dani gave me an awesome present - a ski trip to Utah! I flew in Thursday, got to watch the BYU-Gonzaga game in the student section, and take part in this. The atmosphere was awesome, BYU won, and the game was great!!!

Thursday night, I stayed up 4 hours past when the college kids went to bed, until 4:30 am, to finish my work responsibilities (including payroll). We got up, and hit the slopes! T was able to find a little powder in a few places, so we went there a bunch of times. It had been a few years since I'd gone skiing, and I was playing catch up to T the majority of the time!

Friday night, we spent in Park City. Turns out, there was a World Cup Aerials event there. We went up there and stayed for the majority of it, before heading back to the hotel to get some hot tub time and a few ping pong games in.
We spent Saturday skiing until close, then we drove back to Provo, changed, and went to celebrate Grandpa Russ's 90th birthday (how nice of him to plan his 90th birthday for my trip). Russ looked great! He had a lot of family there, and it was great to see them
After the birthday party and some racquetball (T didn't stand a chance... even when I wasn't moving much!), we went to hang out with Hayley. Sunday, after attending fast and testimony meeting at T's single's ward (first time in a while!), we went over to Hayley's again and made sushi... Yum! It was awesome to spend a weekend with Taylor, to spend a little time back at BYU, and to get to know Hayley! It was EPIC!!!

Here are a few videos from the weekend... 360 T!

BIG, EPIC AIR!!! USA... USA

At least I survived my big air (maybe with a bit of a limp)... I may have been at least a little encouraged by those hanging around this jump.

THANK YOU SO MUCH, DANI!!! I LOVE YOU!!!

One more

I forgot this one of Jacob.

Phone Pictures

I finally uploaded some pictures from my phone, I take a lot on it since I always have it with me. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the last few months. The first are the oldest, the last are the newest.

Showing off her rolling over trick.
Showing off his sitting up trick.
Showing off his teeth.
Her hair is invisible, but she has some. This picture shows a little of it.

We went on a bike ride/rolleblade ride on the waterfront this last weekend because it was such a nice day. Once we convinced Claire that her legs weren't actually that tired we all had a great time.

Her hair really is red.
Such happy happy babies.

8 years

Last week was our eighth anniversary. I can hardly believe it has been that long and feel like it has been longer all at the same time. So much has happened in eight years. Marrying Jared is the best decision I ever made.

In eight years we have had 4 kids (two at a time) and have had a career start and a big career move, two homes, one big move across the country, a few cars, and several other things I don't care to count. We look older and maybe not as skinny, but we are more in love than ever.
I love you Jared, thanks for 8 great years, so excited to see what all the years ahead will bring.