Tank

The moms group that I go to every Wednesday is growing in number and in physical size!  Most of the babies are from our childbirth class (you probably saw the pictures I posted in December of our reunion) but there are two sweet little girls that are older that came this last week.  One is the second on the right in the little red dress and one is the second on the left with the little pink shirt.  They are quite a bit older than the rest of the babies who were all born around the same time.  But you will notice that my little Liam, dead center, is just as big as they are! Yep, my son is a tank. He is tall and sturdy and I am guessing he will grow up to be a good sized man! And along with his size he's got a big personality...life of the party.  I don't know if that is good, or a little scary!

Liam's New Trick

This one is for all the grandparents, honorary grandparents and other people who love my child almost as much as me.  Because you pretty much have to love a kid like a parent does to think that this is cool.  Liam has found his tongue.

February is going quickly!

I can't believe we are already in the middle of February.  We celebrated our 8th anniversary on the 10th. We are learning more and more that we can't just go out and be romantic on a whim with a little one in the picture.  And we are feeling the impact of not having any grandparents in the area.  No easy babysitters!  But, we packed Liam up and headed up to Grouse Mountain for what we thought would be a nice day out. But, alas, Liam decided sleep was overrated and proceeded to get to get more a more fussy.  Here is a picture of us up at the lodge.  As always, Edwin is having fun no matter what.  Liam wasn't having any fun at all and I am just ready to take my fussy baby home.  

More evidence of Liam's pointy finger.

Liam loves to smile and will smile at just about anybody.  But more important in this picture is his outfit.  This was the gift from the people at my dad's office.  Unfortunately it fit him right after football season ended.  But they also gave us a Seahawk sweatshirt and pant outfit that should fit right at the beginning of the 2009 season.  Hopefully Liam will be able to watch a game with Grandpa.

Sneaker is getting more and more brave about going near Liam.  Now he will cuddle with us when we are holding Liam.  He jumped up on Edwin's lap and made himself cozy. Liam doesn't seem too interested in Sneaker yet, but he will be!

Here are a few clips so that you can see the little one in action.  Grandma made her second attempt at changing Liam's diaper.  The first one came out a little saggy, but who wouldn't want to see the top of a super cute baby bum?  Then you'll see Grandpa and Edwin, who could both spend half the day trying to make Liam scream and laugh.  Then last Monday we watched Liam's buddy, Merritt, for a few hours in the morning. Taking care of two babies who are close to the same age is not an easy task!

Liam's Cute Noggin

As most of you probably already know, we had our appointment with the craniofacial specialist at Children's Hospital in Seattle yesterday and everything is fine. Liam's soft spot is practically non-existent, which is rare, but not a problem in this case. All of the sutures, or areas between the plates of the skull, are fully open and those are what matters. So, NO SURGERY!!!  We felt such a tremendous sense of relief all day.  He also has a flat spot from sleeping and the doc thinks it will work itself out so that he will not need to wear the helmet.  Though, if he does have to wear it, we figured we would just use that time to teach him how to ride a bike and kill two birds with one stone.  Do you think 7 months is too early for bike riding?  I don't know, I am a first time mom, but it seems like they learn how to do things so fast!

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit for the weekend so that they could go to the appointment with us and keep us distracted for a few days beforehand.  We had a great time, even though poor grandpa had to get the last 10 minutes of the superbowl on his Blackberry in 20 second updates of who had the ball and where on the field they were.  We don't have cable, so no game here. We also got to see Dan, Mikki and Ellie for the day on Saturday for some good food and stiff competition at the card table.  All in all, it was a great end to January and Beginning of February.

Here are some pictures of Liam.  He is getting big so fast!

Ellie feeding her little cousin.  It was a pretty good first attempt.

Liam is a very happy little baby.  I love that about him! (I say little, but he is actually a pretty solid, hearty baby)

We could kiss the cheeks right off of this kid...

Here are a few pictures of Liam starting to push up on his arms during tummy time. Babies are so amazing.  I worked with him for about three days and he refused to do it, and then one day I rolled him over and he held his little head up and looked at me like, "Is this what you wanted? I mean, I don't know what the big deal is." But you can see for yourself what a cute, healthy little noggin he has. And just look at those baby blues!  Ugh, he is going to get away with so much with those big, innocent eyes.

Liam is Making Noise

Liam is starting to recognize his voice and use it a little more. I am sure he likes the way it sounds, I know I do.  I love to listen to him! Here is a little video of him talking to himself while he plays.

He is also laughing more and more.  We haven't been able to catch him on camera really cracking up, but here is video Edwin got of him giving out some giggles. He is very ticklish, and that is how we can usually get him to laugh. I can't wait to see him when he starts to find things comical.  I wonder, sometimes, what will he will think is funny.

What's up in January

January seems to be flying by for us!  We have been busy and so has Liam.  He is growing so fast already.  We went to the doctor for his four month check up today and things look good. Liam is 14 1/2 lbs. and 25 1/4 inches long.  That puts him at the 50% for his age, for both height and weight. Perfectly proportionate! Our only worry is that his soft spot seems to be too small, which means it is closing prematurely, so we will be going down to Children's Hospital in Seattle to see if he will need surgery or not.  Please pray for all of us regarding that situation.

Liam is smiling all the time and has started laughing too.  We love to hear him laugh!  He is grabbing for toys and starting to put things in his mouth more.  He holds his head up pretty well and is starting to stand on his legs a little longer.  Liam is no longer addicted to being swaddled and is sleeping from about 9:00 PM to 8:00 AM, praise the Lord! Nina and Edwin are pretty much the same developmentally, in case your wondering.  Well, if I'm being honest we're slowly declining, but that's another story.

For some reason Liam thinks it is really funny to have his shirt on top of his head...

But then again, we do too, so I guess it can be genetically explained.

Another thing we love about our little one is that he is always pointing his fingers. We are trying to figure out what this will mean for his personality.  Will he be bossy, or just really profound?  He does it when he stretches, when he is drinking his bottle, or just playing around. Check out this double point...

The problem is that he also points his finger when he is trying to eat his fist which means that he keeps gagging himself.  We are hoping he will catch on soon, but it doesn't seem to bother him.

This last weekend Edwin's aunt Delmi, uncle Carlos, and their kids and kids kids came to visit us in Bellingham.  We had a great time. Ceci and her husband Julio have a three and a half year old son, Sebastian.  And Pablo and Mady have a son, Alek, that was born three days before Liam.  Pablo and Edwin grew up together and are only about a five weeks apart in age, so it was really fun to see our boys together.   We went up to see the snow on Mt. Baker and spent some time in Seattle as well.  I put together a quick little video with a bunch of clips from the trip.  I am going to make more of a movie out of it later, but that will take a lot of time and I wanted to get this blog done!

Here are some pictures of our time as well...

Liam and Alek

Julio, Sebastian, Ceci, Nina, Liam, Edwin, Alek, Pablo and Mady

Carlos and Delmi (It was Carlos' first time in the snow!)

That is all for now, but we still have a lot to do in January, so we will keep you posted!

Home Videos

Her are some of our latest videos.  They are both a little long, but this is what we have been up to. I wasn't able to post them to the blog the typical way because they have music and there are some copyright issues so you will have to click the links that I have added below. And because of the size of the file they take awhile to upload, especially if you have a slower internet connection, so you will have to be patient!  Just click the pause button (ll) in the lower left hand corner of the video, wait for it to fully upload (maybe get a cup of coffee or something). There is a black bar next to the pause button with a white dot. Until that bar has turned completely grey the video is not fully loaded. And then play it when it has loaded.  Otherwise you will be watching it in 5 to 10 second intervals and then waiting in between, and that would annoy anyone!  Sorry for all of the instructions but the videos are worth it, I promise!  Soon I should be starting my own website that will eliminate all of the problems, so stay tuned!

This first one is for those of you who love our little Liam and never get to see him in person.  He is growing so fast and we are loving every minute!  We love his series of stretches as he wakes up and the way he panics for his bottle.  And we are eating up every little smile the he will give up.

http://gallery.me.com/ninamartinez#100003

This is a video showing the snow we got in Spokane over Christmas. 

http://gallery.me.com/ninamartinez#100000