What!?!? Two!!?!

Happy Birthday to my biggest little man, Liam! I can't believe he is two years old already. Time has flown by. And I cannot imagine my life without Liam in it. He is an amazing little person! I am so in love with this little guy that sometimes I look at him and my heart literally hurts.

Liam is beautiful (of course, he does look a lot like me), intelligent (he knows all his ABC's, upper and lower case, can count to 16 in english and 10 in spanish, can spell and read a few words, and so much more!), thoughtful (he loves to give out kisses and share his things), observant, funny, obedient a lot of the time, and so much more! I can't wait to see what this next year will bring. He is just growing and changing so fast that I have to really focus on savoring every moment of his precious little life. He is now and always will be my miracle, my baby, a perfect gift from God!

To celebrate this year we threw a big party the weekend before his actual birthday. It was supposed to rain so we threw it in the shop. We created a big underwater fish theme to commemorate the fact that from 12 to 18 months one of Liam's only words was fish. Everything was a fish no matter how hard we tried to convince him otherwise. Here are a few pictures and some video of the event!

Today, on Liam's actual birthday we decided to make the day all about out little man. My aunt, Nancy came to watch Jonah for the day so we could give Liam ALL of our attention. We started off with some man-cakes, sausage and eggs, Liam's favorite breakfast foods, and then we took him to the Vancouver zoo. He loves animals so we thought he would get a kick out of the zoo. Here is some more video and a few pictures of our favorite animals.

In other news, Jonah has been periodically sleeping through the night, three nights now, though not consecutively. Wooooohoooooooo!!!!

Random Pictures

I was taking some pictures today and realized there were several on the camera that I hadn't downloaded yet. These are some of my favorites.

Edwin's parents came to help out with the kids for awhile. We took these the day they headed back to the airport. We couldn't help but laugh at how each grandparent has a matching grandkid.

Remember this shot of Liam in January of 2009? He was always pointing his chubby little fingers.

Looks like we got another pointer in the family. Jonah tends to be pointing a finger quite a bit too!

Rocking the hawk, as usual

Starting to give out smiles.

Getting to know Great Grandma Mary

And Grandma Nancy

Labor day with Grandma and Grandpa

Daddy with his boys

My oldest friend, Jolene, and her family came up to visit today. Her kids, Lyla and Evan, were so cute with Jonah. Sweet Lyla actually said, "I think I should take him home"

More funny sleeping antics. We call this one "I'm too sexy for my crib"

Smarty Pants

Liam has been obsessed, as you all know, with the ABC's for a long time. That hasn't really changed, but at least now we are throwing in some shapes, colors, and numbers. He seems to have picked up on counting as quickly as he did the ABC's! So, this video is for all of the family (especially grandparents) who like to think that we have some vein of smarts running through the generations. And, no, it did NOT skip a generation!

Awwww...

One of the things I most look forward to, having two kids, is seeing them interact with and play with one another. I know that I won't see much of it until Jonah gets a little older, but I am really treasuring even the briefest of hints at them being buddies. Liam wanted nothing to do with Jonah at first, but is showing more and more interest in him everyday. He started with pointing and saying "baby" whenever he saw Jonah. Then he started inquiring after him when he wasn't in the room. Soon Liam wanted to touch him, but couldn't bring himself to do it. Then he was willing to include Jonah in his nightly round of bedtime kisses (probably a professional stall technique). And lately Liam is paying attention to Jonah and wanting to be in one some of his play time. He gave Jonah a toy, rubbed Jonah's little head (all unprompted by us), and then last night he blessed us with this little scene...

Baths and Bedtime

I know from experience with Liam that all I have to do is blink my eyes and my little newborn is two years old already. They grow up so fast! I had a friend tell me once that when it comes to our children the years fly by, it is the days that seem to drag on forever. And there are times when she is so right!

Jonah has been with us now for two and a half weeks and it has felt like a very long time. He has been quite a fussy little guy and we have gotten very little sleep. I started to panic, thinking that he was going to be colicky and fussy for months to come! But we found out the other day that he was just extremely hungry, poor little guy. We started supplementing his feedings with bottles and he is a completely different baby. He still has some very fussy moments and isn't the easiest to get to sleep, but things are going much better the last few days.

Today we gave him his first real bath. He has had a sponge bath or two, but we couldn't fully bathe him until his umbilical and circumcision were totally healed. Naturally we couldn't help but get some video and pictures of his first bath and our cute squeaky clean little man! My favorite part? When his hair is wet it is really curly and so so sweet!

Not to be outdone, Liam has given us some good laughs lately. I noticed in the last week or so that every time I go to get him in the morning or after naps, and when we catch him out of bed when he is supposed to be going to sleep, that he is hanging out behind his door. We have no idea why. There aren't any toys or books there and he doesn't take any over to play with either. Anyway, last night Edwin and I went to check on him before we went to sleep. All of the lights were off in the house and it was dark outside. I opened the door and it bumped into something on the floor about 1/3 of the way open. At first I couldn't see what toy Liam left there that would be blocking the door. But on further inspection I saw the sweet sleeping face of my little man! Liam had snuck out of bed and fallen asleep hanging out behind the door. Why? We have no idea. But it made for some good laughs and funny pictures!

Now Presenting: Jonah David Martinez!

But first, a little side track on Liam. The night before Jonah was born Edwin and I were watching a movie and Edwin got up to get some water. He noticed Liam's bedroom light was on and went to investigate. Liam has learned how to turn on the light but is still a little too short to turn it off. This is what Edwin found when he opened the door. Liam had turned on the light and then wore out and finally went to sleep, using his monkey to block out the bright light. We thought it was so cute and funny, I had to share it with you!

In bigger news our newest little man, Jonah David Martinez, was born August 3, 2010 at 7:25 in the morning. He weighted 8 lbs. 13 oz., was 21 inches long and has an amazing set of lungs! I had my first contraction at around 5:30 AM and by 6:00 AM was in full blown labor shouting at Edwin that we needed to get to the hospital as quickly as possible. We got there with not much time to spare. Jonah was born about 40 minutes after we arrived. He was face down and the doctor had to turn him over before I could push. She told us that if he would have been face up he probably would have been born a half hour earlier! We could have had this little guy in the car on the way to the hospital if that were the case!

Here are Liam and Jonah meeting for the first time. Liam did NOT like the hospital and he was really not OK with me in the hospital gown and bed. He wanted nothing to do with me! Poor little guy!

Grandma and Grandpa Grant arrived a few hours after Jonah was born. They came for a brief visit to the hospital and then went to pick up Liam and take him home. They stayed with us for about 10 days and were so much help. They cooked, cleaned, ran errands, took great care of Liam and did just about anything else we asked of them. I am so grateful for their time with us. We don't have many pictures, mainly because we were in survival mode the first week. But here is a picture of Grandma holding her new grandson.

Uncle Jeff and Aunt Christine were also able to come up to the hospital for a few hours to meet Jonah.

Here is our precious little guy. I LOVE all of that hair! I think I will be a little devastated if it all falls out like Liam's did. Liam had black hair when he was born, though not nearly as much as Jonah has. Then all his hair fell out and grew back in blonde!

Mommy and Jonah just after eating. You can sort of see in this picture that he has some dimples when he smiles.

Proud Papa!

Our little guy does not like to sleep on his back or be swaddled at all. He much prefers his tummy or his side. So we put him down that way and pray like crazy!

Mommy and her little men. I love that they look so different!

I think Jonah will get used to being knocked around pretty quick!

Big Adventures

It feels like summer has finally arrived in Bellingham and we are taking advantage of it! Sleeping has been a little difficult for all of us, but the sunny days are worth it. Friday night Edwin decided to put Liam in his winter PJ's for some reason and when I went to check on him before I went to bed I discovered that Liam now knows how to take his own PJ's off without any help. Poor little guy must have been so hot!

Saturday Edwin took Liam out on the Sound with our friend, Tom, and his son, Maxwell, to go crabbing. Liam LOVED the whole experience and now has a new little buddy just his size. Well, no kid Liam's age is really just his size, they are always quite a bit shorter. But fun, nonetheless.

Here is some video of the crabbing.

Then, Saturday afternoon we went up to Ferndale for the Annual Old Settlers Picnic. We had never been before and are making it a policy to go to as many of the festivals in Whatcom County as we can. Some have been disappointing and others have been way beyond expectation (we have developed quite a fascination with the Sumas Bull-o-Rama). Anyway, They had a little carnival, tons of food, a petting zoo, museums and cabins filled with interesting artifacts and, I'm sure, a lot more that we didn't see due to time constraints. But we did what we went to do, which was take Liam to the petting zoo. He loves animals and we thought it would be fun for him to be able to get up close and personal with some of them. He also loves slides, so we paid a ridiculous price for tickets so that he could go down a big slide a few times.

It was a big day of adventures for our little man, so today, Sunday, we are taking it easy at home, eating the crab the guys caught.