all i want for christmas...

liam is working on his 2 front teeth! they started showing the friday before xmas.

we had a busy weekend last weekend - going to bill's family's party, going to my parents' house on xmas eve to meet liam's uncle chris and his girlfriend ani. then back up to bill's parents' house xmas day and back to my parents' house that afternoon. but liam got lots of toys and loves to play with them. he likes the ones he can stand up with!

the following day we went to the family NHL game. liam actually WATCHED the game (until he fell asleep.) i had a hard time feeding him when all he wanted to do was watch the game. and listen to the beer man, but i told him no beer, in case he has to drive home. :)

we also heard from liam's birthmother, and she is doing well, which is always great to hear!

first snow!

liam had another busy weekend. friday afternoon was our visit with parents as teachers. liam appears to be on track developmentally in all areas. we filled out the health hx info too, which is interesting to have to look up my son's health hx in a file, but thank goodness his birthparents were generous enough to give us copies of all their paperwork so we would have so much information for liam. friday night was xmas shopping, and liam did a fine job picking out lots of things for everyone!

sat. we got together with our friends from my infertility support group. liam got to meet baby julia for the first time. he thinks julia is very pretty. and he had fun playing on the floor with landon, lily and olivia. i think he likes seeing people his own size.

sat. night we drove home in the snow, and when bill got home sunday morning, we went sledding in the front yard. liam seemed to enjoy it, even when he did a face plant in the snow. he came up laughing! definitely his father's son.

sunday night we went out with landon and his family to celebrate both boys' adoptions being finalized. it's nice for them both to officially and legally be home.

hope you enjoy the pictures! (excuse the runny nose!)

it's FINAL

monday was a big day for our family. we drove to columbia, through the freezing rain and ice, to finalize liam's adoption. i got extremely car sick, and it rained the first 2 hrs of the drive. not a GREAT time, but we made it. got to see bill's cousin tyler. we changed clothes there (into our "nice" outfits, which is funny because bill had to borrow pants from tyler when we were there for TPR.) next we stopped by the NICU to see one of liam's former nurses. she was happy to see him and how well he is doing.

court was fine. we both raised our right hands and sat on the witness stand. liam was more impressed with banging on the table. we took pictures with the 3 of us; steve, our lawyer; the judge and the guardian ad lidem (sp?) i tried to get them uploaded today, but i have the wrong cable. all my friends here at work say they are very nice pictures though. :)

we got the decree saying that we are his legal parents and that his name has been legally changed (only his last name changed.) apparently, it will be several months while the state gov't workers laboriously type up the new birth certificate. oh well.

6 month check up

liam had his 6 mo. pediatrician appt. this past friday. he is 17lbs 13 oz and 26 inches long. he was 25%ile for height and 50%ile for weight. he seems to fluctuate between 25/30%ile then back up to 50%ile on height. so my guess is that at his next appt he will be back up at 50%ile. he seems to be doing very well overall. the dr. said his head shaking trick is just that - something he figured out he could do. my guess is that it makes him a little dizzy, and he likes that. he handled his shots like a pro again - crying until he realized the nurse was a pretty girl. :)

after that, we made a trip to grandpa ken's office where liam had quite a bit of attention. we also went shopping at the dreaded babies r us and got the baby gates for the house. bill installed them on saturday. i put in all the annoying electrical outlet covers. (bill says he hates safety, mr. fireman that he is.)

liam has also moved onto stage 2 foods, which includes meat. bill is happy that liam is a carnivore now (he's never gotten over lincoln loving canned pumpkin.)

everyone check out our agency website. the blog entry for this past week was about a comment i made to our social worker. she summarized my feelings well.

6 months old!!

yesterday, liam turned 6 months old! what a big boy. he has 2 teeth, he can crawl, he can play with his toys and he can use his voice for fun things.

he had a big weekend leading up to that day. on thanksgiving we went to great aunt dot's house. he had lots of family telling him how handsome he is. we also did some "adoption education" with some friends of family members. i guess this is something that we will always be doing that fertiles never, ever think of.

thursday night we left for a weekend in branson with both sets of liam's grandparents and his aunt, uncle and cousins. he did extremely well in the car all weekend and just went along with the flow. he got to go shopping in the outlet malls and ride in a boat for the first time! liam, bill, liffey, lincoln and i all stayed in the camper, which was interesting the first night when it got down to about 14 degrees. but the campsite was nice, and we had a spot right by the river. i had fun finally being able to shop for my baby in branson. what a difference a year makes. that trip last year we were losing our triplet cycle, which was our last hope of ever having biological children.

looking forward to our court date to finalize the adoption!

fun at flyball!

liam had another exciting weekend. this weekend we had a flyball tournament close to home. liam LOVES to see all his friends there, and he seems to like watching the dogs run! and of course, he loves to hear how handsome he is, which is what he hears all weekend from his friends. :) we are very lucky that he is so laid back and will go visiting from person to person while our teams are running.

and a little brag - liffey ran her fastest time ever - a 6.5 second heat! i am very, VERY proud of her.

an exciting weekend

looks like liam's other tooth just couldn't stand it, and it has started to pop through! so hopefully we will have two handsome teeth in the next few days.

liam had a fun day yesterday. we went geocaching (www.geocaching.com), and the WHOLE family went. liffey and lincoln are old pros at it. this was liam's first trip. he seemed to enjoy himself, mostly because he was in his stroller and outside. we found several caches (and didn't find 2 of them!) hopefully as liam gets older, he will be more helpful finding them than he was yesterday. :)

could it be? maybe??

after much speculation over the last month+, it looks like liam may be getting his first tooth. it is still even with his gum line, but there is a white line there now. i could feel it last night while liam was eating his carrots (carrots are GOOD!) and thought i saw something. it was definitely more pronounced this morning. so we will see!

he is EXTREMELY good at blowing raspberries after our instructional session the other night. he is starting to experiment with intonations in his babbling, along with trying different places of articulation (making different sounds, for those of you not in speech and hearing sciences.) :)

will be checking the tooth progress this evening!!

rocking and rolling

well, he's been rolling for quite a while, but liam's newest trick is to get up on his hands and knees and rock back and forth. he can move around on the floor already, so crawling is not too far into our future!

liam is enjoying his food more and more. he ate half a jar of green beans last night, instead of his usual 1/3. i think we'll be adding more and more "food" to his diet over the next few weeks.

liam went bowling for his godmother's birthday this past friday. he seemed to enjoy the cosmic bowling the best, with all the lights flashing and moving. on sat., we went to watch bill help with a fire training class. liam got to see his dad all dressed out in his bunker gear, complete with air mask. bill looked at liam and said - LIAM, I AM YOUR FATHER - through the air mask, but liam was COMPLETELY unimpressed by bill's darth vader impersonation. oh well.

5 months old!

liam is 5 mo. old today. he seems to be enjoying his dinner of peas this week (visualize whirled peas.) :) i think we might try a fruit next. he also likes his new play yard that we set up for him - he can play on the floor with his toys without being kissed 27,000 times by the dogs. his favorite think to do, though, is play in his jumparoo. sometimes he looks like he's trying out for riverdance. it's pretty funny to watch.

liam got a very nice package in the mail from his birthfather yesterday. he managed to find a beanie baby with a "born on" date of liam's birthday! liam gave it a big hug when we took it out of the box.

liam also seems to like riding on my old rocking horse. he's still too short to ride on his own, but he holds onto the handles like a big boy while he rides. we do have the problem of wanting to chew on the rocking horse though.

he's been sleeping in his "big boy bed" for the last several nights and doesn't seem to mind. the monitor is on so we can hear him since he's not just outside our room anymore. we're trying to find a happy medium on the volume control though. :)

have a wonderful weekend everyone! thanks for reading.

new food!

liam has been busy again. we were in memphis this past weekend for the st. jude's showcase of dogs. liffey played flyball with her friends. i'm trying to teach liam how to call passes, but i think his little fingers are too short for anyone to see. :) he had a good time visiting with his friends. it's so sad that NO ONE loves him and no one wanted to hold him or tell him how handsome he is. he even had someone from another team ask me if her dog could come pet my baby. you read that right. her dog was very sweet and tried buttering me up so that she could take liam home with her. her owner promised to come get liam if he was ever sent to the pound. :o)

and liam finally got to try some new foods. he had his first vegetable last night - sweet potatoes. he really seemed to like it, at least much more than he liked his rice cereal and somewhat more than he liked his oatmeal. he still loves to take a bath, too.

liam has his first cough. it is very sad to hear, but we've done great to get this far before his first cold. he's been around a lot of people lately, so we knew it had to come eventually.

liam might be moving downstairs to his crib at night sometime soon. he's outgrowing his cradle (he can hold onto both sides at the same time when he's not swaddled.) watch this space.....

and yes, i know i need to get a new picture posted! his comb-over was cut so he looks much more handsome now.

4 mo. pediatrician check up

the little porker is 25 inches (50%ile), 15 bls 6 oz (60%ile) and his head circum. is also in the 60%ile. he didn't enjoy his 4 shots, but within mintues, he was smiling at the pretty nurse again.

that night we bought him a jumparoo that "aunt beth" found him on craigslist. he LOVES the jumparoo, just like his friends landon, lily and olivia do.

he tried cereal for the first time sat. night. he thinks we are raving lunatics for putting that stuff in his mouth! i think he'll like it more once he gets to eat something that tastes better.

another busy weekend....

liam had another fun filled weekend. saturday liam and i met up with friends from our old infertility support group. he got to see his friend landon, who was adopted through the same agency as liam, and he got to see lily and olivia, his "girlfriends," with their moms, of course. we also got to see "aunt" carrie's belly with her twins (along with "aunt" susan's horse impersonation, which liam was laughing out loud at) and got to meet abbey, who is just starting the adoption process with our agency.

on sunday, liam hung out with his grandma karen while we did a flyball demo at a fundraiser. sunday night liam went to his first cardinal's game! they won, so liam must be a good luck charm (either that, or they didn't want to listen to him scream any longer.)

liam also started rolling from his back to his stomach last week! he is a man on the move! he turned 4 mo. old yesterday. he goes in for his 4 mo. pediatrician visit tomorrow. we're hoping that he gets to start cereal soon. i think the little porker will like it.

on the move!!

liam started scooting across the floor last week. he's trying hard to figure out how to move better than that. if it was up to him, he'd be walking by now. he has to be able to see EVERYTHING. he loves to sit outside and look at the trees (glad some of them are growing back after the tornado!) :) he already likes to pet liffey and lincoln (especially very soft lincoln.) we are teaching him how to be very gentle with lincoln.

liam went to the balloon glow friday night. he liked looking at the balloons light up and didn't miss anything because his cousin andrew made sure to point out all the cool balloons. sat. night liam went to a bbq and had fun there (except when everyone laughed at his hair. but his hair is pretty funny last night.)

got good news that an online infertility vet friend is now a proud mom (yeah spike!) she had a very short wait from her match to her son's birth. gee, sound familiar? spike is the lovely person who sent liam his dog "rug" that he is laying on in the previous picture. she deserves this!

a local infertility vet friend is waiting for her potential birthmother to give birth next week. hoping to be able to sneak upstairs to take a quick peek - since she is scheduled to give birth at the hospital attached to our medical building!

and jenna - the one who appeared on oprah and the today show - is also matched. she's written on her blog about how nervous she is. i understand COMPLETELY.

what else - liam had his parents as teachers visit recently. it is confirmed that he is a genious. :) his 4 mo. pediatrician check up is next week. we're hoping to be able to try some cereal! he already loves to sit in his big boy high chair (mostly because he likes to bang on the tray.)

guess that's it from here!

more flyball....

liam had 2 weekends in a row of flyball! he LOVES to go to flyball because he has so many friends there he can't keep track of them all. aunt shelly loves to hold and kiss him, aunt tammy loves to talk to him, aunt barb is getting more brave holding him while standing:) and aunt paula loves him even more because he doesn't wake up in the middle of the night anymore!

he can now roll over from his belly to his back. he has started to bat at/reach for things, including his liffey! (watch out liffey!) he loves to smile at everyone and loves to talk to himself. he's not real crazy about the long ride to iowa, but neither is his mom.

had a little issue with my life insurance co. today. they have a juvenile 1 time payment plan. when i called to get some answers to a few questions (like do you want his name or his legal name) they said (essentially) that i wasn't his parent and not qualified to purchase the policy. i assured them that according to the county courthouse where his guardianship hearing was held that i was indeed his legal guardian and had papers to prove it. i would either get the policy now or not at all. after a brief consultation with her manager, the rep was more than happy to sign him up. adoptive parents expect hurdles along the way, but this was not one i saw coming.

to end on a happy note, liffey and her teammates rocked the last 2 weekends playing flyball. liffey got a new title, as did several of her teammates. liffey posted her fastest racing time ever and had fun playing flyball with her friends (and against her friends!) hope you like the picture of liam, too.

liam update

liam has decided that there are too many THINGS TO SEE to take time to eat. we're hoping the heat is aggravating this "issue" and that he returns to his normal piggy self soon. he doesn't seem upset by this at all, except when we try to convince him that eating only half of what he was eating last week is not enough!

we also brought out the exersaucer. he LOVES to sit up, look around and swat at the toys. he's still not very good at sitting up (the exersaucer is supposed to be for 3+ mo) but he can lean on it like he's at a bar, waiting for a drink. :)

we took a family dip in the not-hot hot tub. liam liked that a lot too. he also likes to watch liffey swim in her "pool." so many things to see! like his lamp! (he laughed at it yesterday.) and his wallpaper! (it has puppies on it too.) and, of course, himself in the mirror. :)