Anybody seen Tim Simons?

I found him!

Liam's so adorable! He's becoming cuter and cuter each day. He is starting to do this thing at night, right when we're changing him for bed, where he'll start kicking and acting like he's running or dancing on his changing table and he'll just squeal in delight! It's absolutely adorable! It kills me every time! He's sitting up on his own really well, too! I had him sitting up last night, with a blanket behind him, just in case he fell, and was tickling him and he'd laugh and laugh and laugh. He's the most adorable child ever. In my humble opinion.

We went to LaSalette on Saturday with Jill, Pam, Brian & Emma. Emma seemed to enjoy the lights more than Liam. He was a bit cranky, but not too bad. I don't blame him, though. It was a different environment, cold, and a little blah. And we kept him up too late. But it's all good. He got his revenge by waking up at 6:10 AM on Sunday, when he knew that mommy had to drive to NJ on Sunday afternoon. Not fun. Was very tired!

Went to NJ on Sunday, so that I could do inventory at one of our warehouses on Monday morning. I stayed at my aunt's house, which was really nice. I got to see my cousins and went out to dinner with my cousin Kelly. We got to catch up, which is nice, since I won't see her at Christmastime. I should get down there more often, but with a baby, it's so hard!

Mom and I make our traditional Christmas cookies tonight. We'll probably make 300 - 500 tonight and then another bunch on Friday for Christmas Eve at my grandmother's house and the day after Christmas at my in-laws. It should be tiring, since we won't be starting our cookie making until 5:00 PM. I will be sufficiently dead on Wednesday. But my end of year vacation starts on THURSDAY!! Yeah! No more work from Dec 22 - Jan 3! Not that's going to be particularly restful, since we're going up to Maine for four of the days, but it will be great to spend so much time as a family, since Bill has Dec 23 - Jan 3 off. So nice!

I will definitely try to post again before Christmas, but if not, have a very merry (happy!!) Christmas and we'll catch you in the New Year!

The Fastest Six Months in Recorded History!

Look at him... completely buried in a book, just like his daddy.

Anyway, hi folks! Erin's husband Bill here. Erin went to bed super early tonight, so she wanted me to go on her blog and write an entry commemorating the fact that today is Liam's six month birthday.

Six months. Wow. I cannot believe how fast the time has gone by. It's really amazing. But even more amazing is how far we've all come in that time. Six months ago, they handed us this wrinkled, wiggly little guy and basically said "hey, here ya go, don't screw up!" You'd think a major life upheaval like that would come with instructions or something, but no, you'd be wrong. The early days were manic, frightening, and very, very tiring. Any first-time parent who tells you differently is lying. But gradually, we got used to him, and he got used to us, and now the whole parenthood thing is just another part of our everyday lives. An amazing and blessed part, but still... this is what we do now, it's just another aspect of life. But - and I can only speak for myself here, though I'm sure Erin does this, too - every now and then, it all still takes me by surprise, the daily reality of it all slips away, and I just have to say to myself, "wow." And I hope I never lose the "wow-ness" of this whole parent/child thing, because even if it does just make up another aspect of your life, it's still a pretty miraculous happening when all's said and done.

Okay, enough philosophizing; as Erin can attest, I'm tend to get a bit sentimental. Today wasn't only Liam's six month birthday, but also his six month doctor's appointment, so here's the tale of the tape on that. The boy weighs in at 19.6 pounds and is 28 inches long, putting him in the 90th percentile of kids his age for height and weight (meaning 10 percent or fewer children his own age are any bigger). I don't remember the exact head measurement, but it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 centimeters; considering the size of the rest of him, this is a little smallish, which I'm hoping means that maybe he won the genetic lottery and didn't inherit my enormous noggin. But still, all around, he's a big kid. As big as a lot of 1 year olds, in fact. Though it's not like he's fat, either... he's just a big boy. There's a lot of height on both sides of the family. And as one of my aunts likes to remind me - entirely too often, in fact - I was the biggest baby she ever saw, so genetically speaking, Liam comes by it naturally enough.

So happy half birthday, Liam. Mommy and Daddy love you very much, always and forever.

And thanks for reading, folks! Erin will be back with the next entry, and she'll most likely spend a lot less time waxing philosophical than I just did. She's good like that.

Jill & Her God Babies

So Jill, the pagan/catholic/witchy/religious/faithful best friend, has three God babies now! We went to Emma's baptism yesterday, which was really fun! Liam was such a good boy. No breakdowns! He hung out at the church and played with Dino. He kept tapping Jill's Dad and Lise on the backs, like he wanted to play. He's so cute! Then he fell asleep for a while (I don't blame him!), and then we went over to the Pump House for the reception. He had some lunch and then took a little nap. Emma was so cute in her heirloom baptismal outfit. Apparently, though, she had to basically be stuffed in it, since she's so big! But I think that Liam is going to end up being huge, as of Friday. We go for his 6 month visit on Friday and I swear... I think he's going to be over 18 lbs. He's huge! Emma's 21 lbs and she's only 9 months old! :-) I love chubby babies!

Less than two weeks til Christmas! Yeah! We're going up to Maine for Christmas, and hope to visit some friends that we haven't seen in, well, at least a year! It should be a fun, if not incredibly stressful, time.

Skip this one if you're on dial up, because it's "A Very Christmassy Liam"

Liam, Lindsey & Lucas at Lindsey & Lucas's combined birthday party on Sunday. They're so cute together!

Our tree!

Damn Mrs. Claus. Screwing up Liam's first photo with Santa! Oh well. At least he isn't freaking out!

Liam can kind of sit up on his own now and this is him being very proud of himself!

Happy Christmas!

The British are so cute with their "Happy Christmas" instead of "Merry Christmas!"

Well, I survived yesterday. My mom and I went to the Citizens Bank Children's Christmas party in the early afternoon. Liam got to see Santa and he didn't even cry. He actually held Mrs. Claus' finger! Like he does with the fam! He cried a little bit while we were waiting in line (for like 30 - 45 minutes... poor planning, Citizens!) to see Santa, but right before we went up on stage, the woman standing next to us had a reindeer ears headband on and Liam was completely mystified by how they worked. He just stared at her for like five minutes before we got on stage. So he was chill once he sat down with Santa and Mrs. Claus.

He got a cute toy - a little ball that has a mirror and balls rolling around inside of it. He thought it was cool, but totally just wanted to hang with Dino. After we fed him at the party, we drove over to Coventry for my cousins' birthday party. It was Lucas' 1st birthday party and Lindsey's 6th birthday party. They are SUCH good kids. Lucas was standing up and even walking a little bit on his own. By Christmas, I'm sure he'll be walking all around the living room! Lindsey was adorable. She's so good natured! I've got pictures of the Lindsey holding Lucas and my mom holding Liam, but they're at home, so I'll have to post tomorrow, when I'm trapped inside, due to the obnoxious amount of snow we're supposed to get. My rule stands. If the flakes fly, I don't come into work. I have a cable modem and wireless networking, so I stay home and chill.

Bill and I took this picture on Saturday when we were putting up the tree. Liam was in his swing and Bill was singing to him and he was just smiling!! So we're going to use it for our Christmas cards, which I've already stamped and gotten completely ready, except for the photo. So I'm going to Wal Mart at lunch to try and get a bunch of pictures printed down, so that I can finish putting the pictures together while I'm snowed in tomorrow night.

Isn't he the most adorable child ever!!! I'll also post pictures of my tree tomorrow too! It's so cute. Oh yeah! And Liam (5 1/2 months old) is ALREADY bigger than Lucas (1 year and some change). It's so funny! I went to pick up Lucas, to have him sit on Lindsey for the picture taking time, and I almost threw him through the ceiling, since I was expecting him to be so heavy! He weighs about 17 or 18 lbs. Liam probably already weighs 18+ lbs. We're going for his 6 month visit on 12/16, so I'll be able to CONFIRM how much he weighs, but he's a tubba. But he's not, like, a fat baby. He's just big-boned. I don't want to give him a complex. But Bill was a tubba baby too! I saw a picture of him when he was a few months old and he looked like he weighed about 40 lbs. Now I know this isn't true, but he was a HUGE baby.

More tomorrow!