Liam is 11 Months

Liam is 11 months old!

I apologize for the garbled-look of this post. I am having some serious html coding issues. I need to research why it doesn't register when I try to hit "return" to space these entries properly...

WARNING – WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD!

He continues to be our bee-charmer. He somehow knows exactly how to melt Mommy’s heart!

Right now he’s really vocal, trying to make his point to whoever will hear him. :0) He and Ava get into their cackling fits, where I have no idea what is so funny that they laugh that hysterically. I love to see how much they love each other. (Note to self: Refer to this post when they’re screaming at each other in the back seat of the mini van on road trips five years from now…)

He loves to play peek-a-boo. I crawl on the floor and back around the corners of the trunk in our living room (we use as a coffee table). He crawls after me so fast that I barely have time to back up and hide. He laughs the entire time. He has a little machine-gun rapid-fire laugh. It’s entirely too funny to hear. I need to catch it on video and put it on the blog.

Well I'm a monkey's uncle! :-) I couldn't pass up adding this picture. Hilarious! :)

Lately he has started clapping. He used to say “guh” if he wanted more of something, but I’m working on trying to teach him the sign for “more”. He ends up clapping, but it’s a step in the right direction. :0)

Liam is a big boy. He’s only a few lbs away from his sister, but I think he stretched up again lately. The doctor, at his nine month appointment, mentioned that we could start facing him forward in his car seat, because he is developmentally like a one year-old. When I see other babies that were born around his timeframe, I have to chuckle because Liam is SO. MUCH. BIGGER! Not that it is good or bad, it just IS. :-)

He is walking everywhere. He seldom loses his balance now and is getting FAST! He actually walked down the hallway at church on Sunday by himself, without holding onto my hand.

He is such a social creature. He does enjoy smiling at other people but will be shy at first and turn away from them, only to look right back at them while he smiles.

Sweet boy

He has three (and a half) teeth on top, with three on the bottom. Doug and I crack up, saying that he looks like he belongs in Monster’s Inc. (the cartoon movie) with three evenly spaced teeth on top.

Liam is a good sleeper. He goes down every night about 7:30 – 7:45 a.m. and sleeps until at least 7 a.m. every day.

He is on to “big people food” now. Loves green beans. Loves blueberries, oatmeal with spiced apples, holds a special place in his heart for his bottles (and still giggles whenever he knows one is on order). He got really picky about a week ago, chewing things up but spitting them out immediately. It was pretty frustrating. I think it might be a texture-thing. But as you can see, he’s not starving…

We took him to an allergist on Monday. They said he has a pretty sensitive respiratory system. He just always seemed to be congested. The doctors mentioned that he has been in once almost every month (or every two months) for congestion-related issues. They seem to prescribe steroids, etc, and kind of chastised me for not giving him the steroid more frequently. Knowing there is a link between Type 1 Diabetes and steroids, I really tend to shy away from wanting to give him steroids. Not that I want him to be sick, but I do want his body to be able to heal itself, and I at least want to give it a chance to heal itself (within reason, of course).

He also has REALLY BAD eczema. I found that eczema can often be caused by food allergies, thus the visit to the allergist. The allergist mentioned that the allergy medicine he prescribed for Liam will hopefully clear up the eczema and the congestion. I’m praying that it does. I just hate to treat the symptoms (with steroids and/or overmedicating) and not deal with the problem itself. So he’ll go back in 6-8 weeks to be assessed again and see if there have been improvements.


Sib love
















More sib love...
















Wanting to stand up for the monthly rocking chair shot... I promise I had just changed his diaper, although it doesn't look that way. :-)

For the month of June, we took the kids out of day care. It just didn’t seem to make sense to send them to school and incur added expenses when Doug is home and can watch them while I work. Talk about a role reversal! So far it has really worked out well. I do have to banish myself to the basement so that I can get work done while the kids roam free upstairs.

It was hard to pick the kids up on the last day of day care. Being that we don’t have family in the immediate area, they are our family of sorts. They threw a party for Ava on the last day, sent her off with a gift bag full of princess toys, etc, and some things for Liam, as well. Ava’s teacher made a little scrapbook full of pictures of the kids / teachers so Ava could remember the fun times they had together. When Doug went with the kids to pick-up the scrapbook yesterday, the day care director of the school pulled him aside and said they want to offer the kids a “scholarship” to come in two days a week, free of charge to us, through the remainder of the summer (through August 31st). Wow, talk about God working. This day care has been nothing but a blessing in our lives. That will give Doug the much-needed time to further search for a job and / or go on any interviews.

Speaking of, it’s been “slim-pickins” as far as jobs available down here. Please keep Doug in your prayers. We are “financially fine” with my paycheck if the kids aren’t in day care, fortunately. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Flywheel”, you’ll know that God doesn’t make these things happen coincidentally! (“Flywheel” is a movie that a church in Albany, GA did for their own local area. The message in the movie is powerful, although the budget for the movie was only $20,000, and it is on Amazon’s top sellers list now.) So it is during times like these that we realize how much God truly provides to us, for us. Amazing!

I love baby feet! Here is a picture of Liam's big ole sweet foot:

Monkey toes: Liam has his mama's monkey toes. I know this picture is blurry, but I just had to include it... His big toes look ike opposable thumbs! ;-) I think he could palm (or should I say "foot") a basketball with those things!

I was laughing while taking these pictures. "Attack of the 40-foot baby!!!!" Panic in the streets!

He loves to see what things will fit in different receptacles... Here he is pushing Ava's magic wand into her dollhouse windows.

Yep, my arm fits here...

Great picture for blackmail when he is - oh, about 17?

I know I’m mentioning a lot here, but I also wanted to mention this. Most of Doug’s potential work opportunities are coming through his network of friends / co-workers. He found a place about 40 minutes away (through an old college friend) that does medical office / dental office build-outs. They are a growing company and needed an architect to “stamp” their drawings. Because Doug is an R.A. (Registered Architect), he can do so. Doug met with them, showed them his portfolio and they let him know they would call him when they had any work for him. He drafted a sheet for the pricing he would charge to them. His numbers were lower than other architects charge who work with that company, from what I hear.

So Doug got his first call on Monday, asking him to look at 5 sheets of drawings and stamp them. He offered a certain dollar amount, but the guy came back (think fad Sunset Tan crazy-haired owner from the t.v. show) and told Doug he thinks he can pay Doug a higher dollar amount than what Doug asked for. So through that transaction, I think this guy knows that Doug is fair and not going to short-change him. This could eventually lead to Doug doing the actual drawings for projects (and then stamping them)…which could lead to more money / opportunity for him.

Keep this opportunity in your prayers. And Doug is on my insurance, dental, etc., so we haven’t had any hiccups as far as that is concerned. Oddly enough, we realized about a year ago that the best deal for insurance was with my employer, and Doug switched insurance companies to be covered under my policy. Looking back, it’s hard to think now that all of those things were coincidences…

We pray that this message finds all of you well, or as they put it at the Waffle House, “is everybody fat and happy?”

Peace, love and Liam-garble :-),
Doug, Shelly, “Ava Lou” and “Liam-ski”