Happy 1st Birthday Liam!

Last week on October 13, Liam had his first birthday. We celebrated with a party the Sunday before. We had a movie theme where Liam was the star of the show. Tim made a video of Liam's first year with pictures and video. It is amazing to think how far he has come and all the things he has had to overcome in the past 12 months. He started out at 3lbs 13 oz, 17 inches and now he is 19lbs 13oz and 28 inches. I love to pull out his preemie clothes and remember when he used to swim in them. Now he can't even get his foot in one of the leg holes. He is such a happy little boy who brings more joy than we could have ever imagined. We love you Liam!

To go with the theme we had movie theater food: hotdogs, nachos, pretzels and of coarse, popcorn. I even made the dessert - cupcakes - to look like popcorn. We decorated the basement and we all hung out down there. I also made the birthday banner you see hanging, it says Happy 1st Birthday. The "thank you's" for coming were boxed movie candy with thank you tags.
Liam was not that into opening gifts, Carter and Austin were way more into it. Liam just wanted to crawl around.

When it came time for cake, Liam wasn't sure what to think of everyone standing around. First we sang to him and then watched him eat. He stared at the cake for a few seconds, but after a little taste, he was totally into it and didn't care who was watching.

He would dig his hands in and just suck on his fingers. He was surprisingly calm, yet consistent - one bite after another.

This was bout the time we realized that he had probably had enough. He sure payed for it the next day too. He had the runs so bad his little butt was raw. He recovered by Tuesday his real birthday.

We decided to skip the cake and just have panCAKES. He really likes those too, but I think he missed the frosting. We hope you had a wonderful first birthday Liam and we look forward to celebrating many more!

Mackinac Island - Finally

It's a good thing you can't get kicked off your own blog - otherwise we would be banned for never updating! Life has just been so busy, but so much fun too. Liam is such a joy and Tim is not so bad either. We have really enjoyed the little bit of summer we had and now, I guess we are skipping right to winter? Well, we did manage to get in a little vacation in with just the 3 of us while it was still nice. Mid September we went up north to Mackinac Island for a weekend getaway. We left Friday and took our bikes, burley and buddy Liam. It was fun riding around the island, taking pictures, throwing rocks, eating a few (Liam) and just enjoying the scenery. Liam fell asleep on our ride around the island. It was really cute, but I couldn't get a picture because the camera was siting next to him! I hope this one of him at Fort Mackinac will do. He is going to fire the cannon.

And what would a trip to Mackinac Island be without ice cream? We got ours to go and we sat by the water to wait for the ferry boat. We drew quite a crowd as we let Liam devour this special treat.
It wasn't long before he got the hang of it. Apparently Tim wasn't feeding him fast enough. Liam thought he could do it better himself.
Ahhh! Brain Freeze! That's what you get when you eat ice cream too fast. He loved every minute of it. Can you believe he actually ate carrots and broccoli after that?
So excited to watch the boat come in. I think he could have stood there all day watching it.

Then we got on the boat to go back to Mackinaw City. We picked up dinner and went back to the hotel (after a little shopping of course). We were excited to get back to go in the water park at our hotel. It even had a lazy river, which was Liam's favorite. I loved the two big water slides. One was like the black hole and the other was more open. They went surprisingly fast and it wasn't busy so you could go over and over again. The water could have been a little warmer. Liam's teeth were chattering by the end. Now quite the same as his bath water. I think he would have liked the hot tub.
After a long day, we retreated back to the room were we all got ready for bed. Here is Tim and Liam brushing their teeth together. Liam slept great in the same room as us. This was the first time he has ever slept in the same room. We put him in the pack and play and he was so worn out that he just fell right asleep.

On Sunday we stopped at the bridge to take some pictures. This is one of my favorites. Liam slept most of the ride home, waking up to eat lunch and play a little and then asleep again until we were about 25 minutes from home. he is a great traveler and I think we will take him again!

Tomorrow is Liam's first birthday! We celebrated on Sunday so I will update those pictures by Christmas time - I promise!