About a Boy

I realized all my new posts have been about Julia. She IS the main consumer of my time and energy and works hard to overshadow her calm little brother, but I do, in fact, have two children.
Liam is now 3 months old. He has a sweet disposition. For the most part he only cries when he's really hungry or something hurts. For anything else he gives a short squeal and then just waits patiently for someone to tend to his needs. He smiles at everyone who talks to him and will ham it up when he knows he's got your full attention, cooing, grinning, sticking out his little tongue and flirting shamelessly.

He can roll from back to front but not consistently. He often flips himself over and then looks shocks to find himself in this new position. His head is getting much stronger, and he's discovering that he can actually control his arms a bit and that they aren't just independently flailing appendages that whack him in the face every now and then. He's not proficient at grabbing things yet, but he bats at his toys in a valiant effort.

All of his antics keep me thoroughly entertained, but my favorite milestone so far is his laughing. He has a great sense of humor already and will chuckle, belly laugh or even snort a little at funny faces, silly songs and being tickled.

By the way, the snail outfit was a major hit with Julia! Thanks to cousin Hayes for passing that on!

The Snail

Julia loves gardening and could spend hours outside digging in the dirt and watering the plants (too bad she tends to the same area-- about 2 square feet--every time we're outside or else I wouldn't need to do any yardwork myself). Daddy got a small lemon tree as a present for doing well on his exams last semester, and it is her current favorite plant in the yard. The caterpillars helping themselves to the lemon tree's leaves were particularly interesting for awhile. But the other day Julia was tending her little garden as usual and found a treasure....A SNAIL complete with a nifty shell. Okay, so the shell was dull brown and the snail was actually decaying inside of it, but to Julia, this was an incredible treasure!

She spent the longest time examining the decaying contents (which she then wanted me to clean out), and then she proceeded to show it around the yard. I think she was letting it choose a new place to live. She took it to each corner of the yard (and also the patio, the BBQ grill, and a laundry basket lying out by the clothesline) and in what I imagine was her best realtor's voice, gave the sales pitch on the perks of the various locations. He chose the BBQ grill at first, but apparently gave up that lease in favor of better view from the retaining wall.For almost two weeks, Julia would wake up each morning and sit at the kitchen table for breakfast while staring longingly out the window and begging me to let her go out and see her snail (I drew the line at having him as an indoor pet). It was such a woeful day when she dropped him on the patio and the shell was crushed beyond recognition. So woeful in fact that we spent the next half hour scouring the backyard for another. Amazingly, we found a second snail (also just a body decaying inside a fragile shell). Fortunately, by the time that one met his maker, the novelty had finally worn off.

Outdoor Art

With the nice weather (and Liam happily napping in his swing in the doorway), Julia and I took our craft morning outside. I gave her a sponge brush and fingerpaint (washable, of course), and I let her paint the outside of our kitchen window. This was the longest I've seen her interested in an art project! She carefully painted bright patterns and thought it was really cool when it dried because it looked like stained glass. The best part was that she enjoyed the clean-up effort (I gave her another paintbrush and a bucket of water, and she "painted" it clean).Continuing with our graffiti theme for the morning (and hoping it won't lead to delinquency in her teenage years...), we moved on to covering the patio with chalk drawings.

Note: the "bruise" above her eye is actually just finger paint. (a real one came later, but the tale of that fall will have to be left for another post).

Across the Ocean Blue...

Matt and Julia joined Simon and Sarah on the bay for some sailing and windsurfing recently. I think Matt managed to stay mostly upright on both the boat and the windsurfer. Julia stayed on the shore to avoid potential capsizing and to perfect the art of sandcastle building.

"First, I'll just get the foundation nice and level"


"What do you mean I have to do ALL the digging myself...where is the crew I hired?!"


"Now Sarah, you take that water back to the job site. Steady now, don't spill any"


"Mmm, all this work is making me hungry"


"Is it meant to lean over like that?"


"Hmm...now it's not there at all"


"Ooh, I think Daddy needs a rescue"


"Hey guys, I'll just take this one out there, okay?"

I'm still here!

I know, I know...I've been a bad blogger! So this is a quick post to say that I'm still here and working on getting pictures uploaded and blogs written.

Coming soon....

Nana's here!
Starting law school (take 2)
Fun times at the beach
21 months, going on 13
Laughing Liam

And more...
(Might even get to the quirks tag, Brittany!)