October 24, 2009: 14 months and Amelia's Bday visit!

I'm a little behind on my monthly update posts so let's do that first. At 14 months old, Liam is truly coming into his "toddlerhood" :) He loves to repeat new sounds and words like basketball "baka bah", spoon "s'poo", and Elmo "mo mo". We are still working on manner words like please and thank you. He doesn't quite have the skills to put two words together, but I'm still encouraging it. Sometimes he'll just point and say please, which is actually pretty smart of him since he knows if he says the word, I'm going to ask him to say please next. So now he says whatever he wants followed by "puh puh puh...". Hope I'm not confusing him, he's trying so hard to please! He feeds himself with a spoon and gets about 50-75% into his mouth :) He loves to go to the bookshelf, choose a book (and yes he looks through all of them), and bring it over to us to read. These 2 skills came in especially handy yesterday when I had a 24hour bug...I set him in his high chair and he fed himself his yogurt for breakfast, then he ran across the room all day bringing me books to read him from my position on the couch. He is walking great now, but still reaches for our hand if we're close. I'm clinging to this, because I know it's only a matter of time before he's running away from us :) Liam is sleeping great through the night, and napping (once a day) like a champ. He loves to play catch and we've learned to take a ball with us everywhere we go because if another kid has one, he will go crazy for it! I also tried postnatal yoga with Liam...apparently they accept kids up to the age of 2 in this class although I was a little skeptical. We went with Erin and Eloise hoping the kids would entertain each other. They did have a large mat with toys for older kids to play with and shut all the doors so the kids could crawl/wander the room safely. Most kids were babies less than 6 months (much more manageable age!) Liam spent the class clinging to me...straddling my head during down dog, mounting my back during cobra, and wrapping around my leg during warrior...it was a different type of work out :) Most importantly, Liam is happy and healthy and we pray he stays that way!

Amelia came to Cali for the entire week of her birthday. She was joined by Megan and (a surprise visit from) Candace. I can sum up what we did in one word: shop. We hit the outlets, Robertson, 3rd St. Promenade, Beverly Center, the Grove...we basically ran out of places to shop!! We also celebrated her 24th bday on the 24th with girls night out! And Liam got to fall in love with his Aunt Meha all over again...

Amelia invited her friend Megan from Santa Barbara...but then we flew in Candace as her birthday present!Dinner at Marix's...Lounging...Mmmm, crepes at the Grove...my favorite!Liz joined us for girls night out...dancing on Main St!

We have a big weekend with multiple Halloween parties and multiple costume changes...can't wait!