Lots of time outside--and it was only March!

Slowly but steadily catching up with photos.

We reinflated the ball pit recently.  We also made numerous attempts to plug a leak, until we finally found a glue that worked well on a seam.  The boys now love having the balls out.  Liam was a bit unsure the first time though.

Something all moms probably do at some point in time or another

We decided to take advantage of some of the nice weather by eating lunch at a park.

Dean did this with Robin when Robin was only weeks old.  It was a bit harder with Liam this time around.  Liam weighed in at about 18 pounds at his 9 month checkup.

After everybody had eaten, I took Liam on the tire swing

Liam liked his own swing much better, though

At another park, another day.  Dean went down this slide with both boys

Liam likes slides

So does Robin.  He likes to go to this "cowboy park" where this slide looks like a giant cowboy hat.  It's a very fast slide.  So fast, that Robin goes down on his tummy to feel more in control

Liam enjoyed it too

We went to the Museum with Dean's parents on St. Patrick's Day.  This is the first time Robin wanted to try on the astronaut costume in the outer space play area.

Liam examining the "meteorites"

Liam and Grandpa playing with animals in the Children's Discovery Zone

In the Expedition Health kids area (the museum has a lot of kids areas...and with kids, we explore them!) they have a giant pin-board-thing (you know, those things that were all the rage for keeping on your desk at work several years ago, where you press something (your hand or face, for example) into it and the little pins hold the shape, making it look pixelated.)  Anyway, this one was taller than the kids.  We played with it a bit.  Dean and I "kissed"

And we pressed Liam into it too

Then we let Liam play with his mould

At home that evening, I wanted to get a picture of the boys in St. Patrick's Day hats:  Robin in the one he made, and Liam in the plastic one we have.  Neither wanted to participate.  These are the best I got, of Robin, wearing his own had sideways, trying to throw the plastic hat onto Liam's head.

Not the shot I'd been looking for, but then, this is more fun

Dad helped us cut into the space under our stairs to make a storage area.  The boys like the new space

Did I mention a while back that Liam was taking the burp rag and trying to wipe my face with it?  Well, if I didn't, I'm mentioning it now.  I thought it was funny.  He's not doing it so much anymore--now he just wants to put his fingers in my mouth.  He's also blowing raspberries now.  It's cute and fun--except when he does it with food in his mouth!

Robinisms:
He continues to pronounce "airplane" as "hair-plane"
He pronounces "fire engine" as "fire en-gee"

Robin likes to make up language.  He does this quite frequently.  He'll make up a word, use it in place of real words, and I'll tell him I don't know what that means.  Then he'll tell me what it means, using another made-up word to define it.  All this flows out so smoothly that I envy his language-creation skills.  I've told him I'll be asking for his help if I ever need to make up a language for a story.

Sometimes, though, his made-up words will overlap with real words--usually ones he doesn't know.  And sometimes they become inappropriate--or they would be if anyone else was listening.  He's come up with "sometimes I call you 'homo'," and something similar with "booby."  Ai yai yai.

Some more Rhoadarmer Boys

In mid February, Liam and I drove up to Fort Collins to see my friend and her new baby. I like the expressions on both of their faces here. Liam's thinking "What's this thing? I'm not sure I like it." and the baby is thinking "Someone else is touching me, but all I want is my dinner and to go back to sleep. Urg."

One of the four of us

A trip to the zoo with Dada.  This crane tried to peck at our fingers through the glass

That's one big catfish

Liam's not sure what to think of the big dragon (plus he was quite tired)

Dada pulling the boys through the zoo

Dada helping Robin ride the carousel.  The last time we went to the zoo and rode this, it was just me and the boys.  I informed Robin that he had to stay put on his animal once I got him there, because I would have to be holding Liam in place the entire time.  After which, Robin promptly chose the bench-seat peacock to ride.  This time, though, with two adults, Robin was willing to ride an animal.

It wasn't long before Dean decided to just climb up behind him

I started out just holding onto Liam

...but after Dean climbed aboard, I figured I might as well climb up with Liam too

Look at that cute little guy!

Ohhh, THAT'S what he was up to!

Liam wasn't quite sure what to think of finger food

Until he figured out that he was supposed to put them in his mouth.  Now he LOVES feeding himself, and protests if we don't have food on his tray frequently enough

Robin's been staying more on the pictures while coloring these days.  This was from a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs craft.  Some of it was Dean or I, but most of it was Robin.

Liam shows a lot of interest in faces lately.  He likes grabbing them and putting his fingers into/on each different part.  He gets a really big kick out of putting his fingers in our mouthes.

My mom was visiting us recently, and when she was getting ready to go she pretended she was going to take Liam with her.  Robin started calling out "no, no!"  Mom asked why not, and Robin said "It's our baby."  It.  He focuses a lot on pronouns these days, and Liam came out as an "it."  Oh well.  It was pretty funny.  And I liked that Robin is taking some ownership of Liam.  In fact, Robin's begun interacting with Liam a lot more lately, which I love seeing.

Other quirks of Robin's languague:
His Th sounds come out "Z"
He says "a" (or "ah") when he means "to."  "Go a bed."
His language has really come a long way--I understand most of it now.  However, I wish I could make up language as well as he does, because he often makes up words and whole phrases, often while giggling, because he recognizes the absurdity of it.  I need that skill for my writing.
He pronounces silly "sis-zy" (now isn't that silly?)

Wow, my blogging comes in binges

Time to start catching up on blogging and photos!

Liam pulled the Thomas tent down on himself in one of his explorations. Fortunately, he was right under the door, so he simply had a unique way of entering the tent.

Exploring the knocked-down tent

Right after Valentine's Day, Liam started standing up in places other than his crib.  Soon after, he was cruising all over the house

Robin has started singing!  I had to get a video of him singing Yellow Submarine, since Dean loves the Beatles so much.  But since this video, Robin has been singing a lot.  He's impressing me with how many of the words and tunes he actually remembers, even after only hearing them a few times.  *sniff*  He's getting so big!

Here comes Liam!

Aaaah!

Aaaaaah!

More shots from Robin's point of view

 

Getting a horsie ride from Grammy

Getting a horsie ride from Grammy




We made a volcano for one of our crafts, and Robin L-O-V-E-D it. Of course, he HAD to show Grammy and Grandpa

And Poppa and Ama too

He got a big kick out of Poppa's making the Lego people run away from the erupting volcano

This video is of Robin putting his magnets in alphabetical order, with only a little prompting (and a fair amount of distractions.)

 
Robin really made me smile the other day. He gave me my juggling balls and requested that I juggle. After a moment, he decided that he wanted to juggle, and then he threw the balls on the ground. This is particularly noteworthy because I reportedly did the same thing when I was a kid--throwing the balls on the ground, just like the way my dad juggled. Right? :)







Liam has started imitating Robin somewhat. Robin was banging away at Liam's toy nails with his toy hammer, and Liam was just staring at his big brother, taking everything in. When Robin paused, I told him we should let Liam have a turn, now that Robin had showed him how it was done. Robin agreed and handed Liam the hammer. After hitting the floor a few times, Liam banged on the toy nails too! It's amazing what he can pick up--and what am I going to wish he wouldn't pick up, I wonder?
Liam is really blossoming. He cut his second bottom tooth a while ago, and often acts as though the top ones are coming in, although nothing's here yet. He's really learning to understand and manipulate more of his environment. He still prefers our company, mine in particular, but he's wanting to be held less and wants to explore more.
Speaking of teeth, Robin has seen a dentist now and has a good smile. We've even started flossing his teeth, and he cooperates most of the time.
I'm happy to report that the two foods we were a little leery of after first introducing them to Liam, peas and banana, have both been eaten without incident many times now. Hurrah! Who knows why he got fussy/blotchy, maybe he just got something in his eye each time (darn kids, why'd he go and do that on the first day we introduced new foods to him?) But at any rate, he's clear on those. Soon we'll be starting egg yolks, which will be a little hair-raising because of Robin's allergies. But hopefully he'll get past those too.

Much of the formatting on this post is not what I'd like, but Blogger was being a huge pain in the *&*%*&.  Anway, hope you enjoyed this latest installment! I'll be trying to get caught up over the next few weeks.

hi

Robin likes to climb into the crib with Liam.  (Liam looks like he has teeth in this picture.  I assure you, however, that only the bottom left one has started to cut, not the top two--and he didn't have any when the photo was taken.)

Robin built a snowman with his Uncle Dan before our Superbowl party, while Mama and Dada shoveled the street to make more parking spaces.  At Robin's request, it had two heads.

Where's the baby?  I can't see him!  Blue walls, blue sheet, blue sleepsack, blue pajamas... where is he?

Liam has graduated to sitting in the big bathtub for baths!

Robin wanted me to take this picture while we were doing crafts.

I still love those moments when Robin announces that he wants to hold Liam!

More pictures from Robin's perspective

My parents gave me a fresh tea seed kit for my aerogarden, and I reaped the first rewards in a mug of mint tea the other day.  Actually, I need to drink a lot of mint tea so the other plants have a chance to catch up.

Robin opening the Valentine Toy Story Hot Wheels cars he got from my parents

Liam opening his giraffe

Robin wanting to hold/hug Liam again.  Hooray!

Licking the spoon after helping me make chocolate covered strawberries

Liam thought the best part of receiving valentines was playing with the envelopes

As I mentioned above, Liam has finally cut his first tooth.  He's also becoming a pro at getting around.  His crawling gets stronger every day, as does his ability to pull to standing.  When it began, he only did it in his crib, but he's starting to use other pieces of furniture.  He's also starting to cruise more.  I really do think that his time crawling will be very fleeting.

I think I might have gotten a piece of a real dream from Robin the other day.  I had to wake him up the last time we went to storytime, because he had a hard time putting himself to sleep the night before.  I came into his room, said hello, and started opening his drapes.  He looked at me and asked where the new helicopters were.  Nobody had given him any kind of new helicopter toy that I was aware of, so I'm pretty sure I interrupted a dream there.  Robin dreams about helicopters!

I suppose I might as well get the bad news out.  In April, Dean's job will be ending.  They're laying off 60% of the people remaining in his department, and he's not going to survive the cut unless a major miracle happens (read 70% of the people on the "safe" list would have to take voluntary termination in order for him to still have a position.)  So yeah, things kind of suck right now.  The good news is we have a cushion.  Between severance, savings, and unemployment, we'll be okay for a while.  But we really don't know what's going to be happening on the job front, who will be working, and who will take care of the kids if we both have to work.  It's a big mystery, and not a fun one.  So... well, that's the news from the Rhoadarmer household right now.