Finger Play Fun

Maddie loves practicing the finger-plays that she is learning at library time. If you notice I was doing them with Liam, so Maddie had to get her baby out and lay her beside Liam. She practiced them with her baby also.

Liam's Baptism

On Sunday, Liam was baptized at St. Joseph's Church. He was blessed to be surrounded by lots of family on this special day. Liam's Godparents are Uncle Randy and Aunt Amanda. Uncle Randy looked so nice all dressed up!

I think these are our first family pictures after Liam's arrival.

Liam's cousins just love him sooo much, they can't keep their hands off of him! They love to rub him.

Liam didn't cry while Father Scott was pouring the water over his head. He didn't fuss until Scott repositioned him in his arms. Liam's baptismal outfit is the same outfit that Uncle Randy and cousin Jake wore when they were baptized.

After the baptism everyone came back to our house to have lunch. Everything worked out well, except our refrigerator door was left open a little bit so the light toasted some of the food I had ready for the lunch. But Daddy came to the rescue and noticed the problem in time so he could run out to the store and replace the ruined food.

I made a cross cake for Liam using a cake pan I borrowed from Scott's Aunt Sue.

Cleaning House!

We went to grandma's house to help Aunt Heidi clean out her closets and Maddie came up with an interesting combination of items to wear, so I had to snap a picture.

SNOW MOBILING GOGGLES PAIRED WITH FLIP-FLOPS...WHAT A COMBO!

Liam is 2 Months Old!

Liam turned two months old this week and in order to celebrate we decided to spend the morning at a local park. As you can tell from the picture Liam had a great time! He is really smiling all the time. He is such a sweet boy! He is sleeping really well from about 8:45 or 9:00 until anywhere from 4:30 to 6:00. It varies from day to day, but I feel as though I am getting lots of rest, which is good. Liam and I survived my first bout of mastitis. This week we got out the play mat and he really likes to look and listen to the sun play music. Maddie decided she needed to teach Liam how to play on the play mat. She is such a good big sister!

Maddie decided she needed to sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star to Liam in her microphone over and over again while he played.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Last Sunday, we celebrated Grandpa's 53rd Birthday! Grandpa grilled steaks on the grill, his favorite food! After dinner we sat outside in his shelter, while the kids played. Grandpa got lots of great gifts and cards. Maddie picked out the card for grandpa this year and she chose one that had a dog on it that looked like Uncle Kyle's dog, Rudy.

Church Conversations

During church this past Saturday, Leah, Brendan, and Maddie had some dandy conversations...so here are my two favorite ones.

At the beginning of church, I had to give Liam a bottle so as I am getting him in position, I sat the bottle on the pew. Brendan comes over and says: "That is a bottle."

Maddie (while she is sitting on the pew sharing pretzels):"Yes, Brendan, that is my baby brothers."

It was funny to just here her state the facts so matter of factly. She is definitely the big sister.

Now to my favorite conversation between Leah and Maddie...again during church.
Brendan had brought an elephant with him to church. So Maddie says to Leah, " I see an elephant."

Leah: "Yes, Brendan loves elephants."
Maddie:"I like elephants too." (As she picks it up off of the floor.)
Leah: "Brendan likes elephants too."
Maddie: "Silly Brendan likes elephants too. That's silly, Leah"
Leah: "I know."

I don't really know why Leah and Maddie think Brendan is so silly for liking elephants, but it must make sense to them. I can't wait until we are together again in a couple of weeks, so I can hear some more cute conversations.

Liam is 8 Weeks old!

Liam is now a little smiling machine. He is now eating about every 4 hours during the day. I am now waiting to feed him until 9:00 p.m. and then putting him to bed after that. He is doing well, he is now sleeping until 4:30 or 5:00 a.m. So I feel like I am getting so much more sleep. He really enjoys hearing Maddie talk to him. In the mornings, he likes to lay on the floor and likes to watch Maddie play 'talk' with her little people. It is funny how Maddie addresses Liam and how he tries to coo back to her like he is playing with her and then she responds to him like she knows what he is saying. I guess she has seen Scott and I do this everyday, so know she just follows what she has seen us model.

This is a picture of the kids playing 'talk' this morning while I was getting ready for the day!

Sunday Night Camp Fire

On Sunday evening, we headed to the Blasdel Family camp for a cook out and camp fire. Maddie had a really good time. She got to walk a trail in the woods, roast marshmallows, and cook popcorn on the camp fire.

Here is Maddie enjoying chips and dip before dinner.

Here is Liam sitting with Grandma. I think he really likes to be outside also.

Here is Maddie sitting by Grandpa while Daddy is cooking some more marshmallows on the fire.

I had to get a picture of Liam's first time in a winter hat. It cooled off quite a bit once the sun began to go down, so here is our cutie snuggled up by the fire with grandma. HOW CUTE!

On Monday, we went to JcPenny's to get Liam's 8 week old pictures taken and then came home to relax. Scott and I covered the pool for the summer. It is sad for me to think that another summer has passed, but I am already looking forward to next summer! Maddie will still love swimming and will hopefully take swimming lessons to be more independent, while Liam will be one and walking and will hopefully love to swim as much as Maddie. Next summer, will be full of new experiences for both of our children and I will love every minute of it!

Labor Day Fun...Continued

On Sunday, we had some visitors! The Wheat Family stopped by after lunch for a quick visit. Sarah, a life-time friend and college roommate, stopped by with her handsome twin boys that were born in May. It was funny, because her boys will soon be four months and Liam was 7.5 weeks old and we think that Liam is bigger than the twins. Simeon and Jonah are so cute and really look like a Wheat. I don't think that Nate could disown these boys!!

Sarah and I were excited that our boys could meet and we can't wait for them to play together in the future!! Here is a picture we snapped before they left. (Simeon is on the left, Liam in the middle, and Jonah on the right.)

Labor Day Fun, Continued...

After the parade, we met Nana, Brendan, and Leah and headed over to the Wine Fest for some fun. The kids played on the playground until lunch time.

The girls really enjoyed playing together. The conversations that they have are so funny. The girls took turns pushing each other on the swings. Here is Leah pushing Maddie....followed by Maddie pushing Leah.

After we ate lunch at the Festival, we headed home for naps before church. After church, we went to Nana's house for LaRosa's pizza and more play time with Leah and Brendan. Brendan actually ended up sleeping on the couch the whole time, while the girls played 'talk'. Since Brendan was sleeping we hoped to get a picture of the four cousins, but Brendan came too long enough to move to the bigger couch, so we only got a picture of three of the four cousins. Of course, Maddie is the bucket head!

It is nice to see that even though Leah and Maddie don't get to play together very often, that when they are together, they are great friends. They really enjoy their time together!

Leah is kissing cousin Liam goodbye. We can't wait to spend time with the Moore's in a couple of weeks at Liam's baptism!

Labor Day Weekend Fun!

This Labor Day Weekend was packed with lots of fun things to do! It all started on Saturday morning when the Ruwe Family headed to Scott's work to walk in the Sunman Wine Fest Parade for ETC. Liam got to see his 2nd parade and Maddie got to help Scott pass out candy. Maddie ended up wanting to be held during the parade...poor daddy, his arms were breaking by the end of the parade route.

Here is Maddie and Liam sitting in the ETC truck waiting for the parade to start. The second picture shows Maddie guarding the candy before the parade started. Surprisingly, she did not eat a lot of candy before the parade.

Liam is 7 weeks old!

Liam turned 7 weeks old last Wednesday and he is now smiling! It was so hard to catch a photo of this. He would smile real big, then by the time I snapped the picture the smile had faded away. This was my best attempt at trying to catch him still 'cheezing' it up. On Monday, Liam had his 8 week old pictures taken and he did a good job of smiling for the professional photographer. So I will try again to get him smiling and post the picture.

Just like Daddy!

On Monday when Scott got home from work he took off his shirt to change and Maddie wanted to wear his shirt, so Scott put it on her. We just had to take a picture of her being just like Daddy!

Boating Fun

On Tuesday afternoon, Maddie and I dropped Liam off to spend the afternoon with Grandma so we could go boating with Heidi and Kyle. Maddie had a GREAT time! Before we got on the boat we had a picnic lunch McDonald's style on the dock at Kyle's parents house. The whole time we were eating Maddie kept saying "I so ex-cited!"

This is Maddie at home before we left.

Maddie liked riding on the boat with Aunt Heidi. As you can see, she likes wearing the Garfield life jacket. She was a little unsure of the boat when Kyle sped up outside of the Wake Zone for the first time, but after a couple of minutes, she was loving the ride.

Maddie, Kyle, and Heidi got off of the boat for a swim. I was surprised that Maddie wanted to get the water. I thought she might be a little scared because it is a lot bigger than our swimming pool, but she loved it also. She was floating on her back and trying to swim back and forth from Heidi and Kyle.

QUOTE OF THE DAY! While Maddie, Heidi, and Kyle were swimming the quote of the day came. Maddie looked to the other side of the lake and saw the beach area. She looked at Kyle and Heidi and said, "I swim to the beach now." and tried to take off swimming. The next picture shows how far we were from the lake. We later drove the boat to the beach.

I even took my turn at tubing! What fun!

Maddie enjoyed swimming at the beach also. She had a great time and she can't wait to take Liam along next year!