Splash Pad

Today we went to the splash pad with Casey and Owen. I was a little nervous about how Liam would feel about the water squirting everywhere, but he ended up loving it! Here he is, all ready to go in his swimsuit and new hat!

Nana finally got him to laugh. I love that smile!
Note to all moms going to a splash pad...do NOT wear a white shirt! I was not thinking about the fact that I would get wet when I chose my clothes this morning. Thankfully, I was wearing my swimsuit underneath the white shirt, because I got soaked!
Liam wasn't sure what to think at first. He just kind of stood back and watched the other kids play.
Owen knew exactly how he felt about the splash pad, and it wasn't good! He did NOT want anything to do with the water at first.
Once Liam figured things out, it didn't take long for him to get soaked!
I think Casey is trying to bribe Owen to play in the water in this one....and it worked. Owen eventually started playing in the water and ended up loving it!
Liam never really put his entire body in the water. He'd just reach in with his hands or feet.


Nana was such a good sport. She ended up getting pretty wet! Sorry, Nana!!!
This is the best pic of Liam and Owen that I could get. It's kind of hard to get a two year old and a seventeen month old to pose together when water is involved! Ha!
We already have another trip to the splash pad planned for next week, and I'm sure many more will follow!

Water Table

My mom and dad came into town today to stay with us for the long weekend. As soon as they got here, we headed to Target to pick up a water table for Liam. He loves it!

Liam just laughed when Papa would sprinkle water on him.

Look at those chubby cheeks! I swear by looking at him you would never know that he is in the .27 percentile in weight. He looks so healthy to me!

Liam ended up absolutely soaked, but he had so much fun.
Thanks, Nana and Papa, for the new toy! We are going to have so much fun with it this summer!!!

Fun Family Day

Have I mentioned that I love summertime? In case I haven't, I LOVE summertime! Yesterday was just the best day. David was off, so we spent all day out and about having fun. We started out the day by taking Ross in for an early grooming appointment and Maudie to the vet for her weekly dip. Then, we went to Chick-Fil-A for breakfast. I love Chicken Minis! They are soooo good. The playroom was empty, so we decided to let Liam play for a few minutes after he ate. He had so much fun.

After Chick-Fil-A we went to Hastings. Liam and I went back to the "Just for Kids" section while David looked for what he needed. We played with this train table until Liam spotted the Yo Gabba Gabba books. So, we ended up sitting in the floor for about 15 minutes reading about the YGG characters. I am so thankful Liam loves books as much as he does. As a reading teacher, I realize the importance of having a love for reading at an early age.
Then, we went to Academy. Liam was so tired at this point that we kind of let him run around the store so he could keep himself awake. When we were leaving, he spotted the treadmills and hopped right on.
Since Liam was so tired (and so were we), we went home and everyone took a nap. We're really trying to get Liam to stay on his sitter's schedule, which means one nap a day. I don't know why, but when he is home he really wants to take two naps. I kind of like the one nap a day schedule, because he sleeps for such a long time. I can get so much done! After we all woke up, we went back out to run some errands and pick up Maudie. While we were at Target, we stopped for a much needed snack. Liam had some cotton candy ice cream from Cold Stone. He did a great job of feeding himself!
After we picked up Maudie, we rushed home because it was getting ready to storm. Liam was not happy that he didn't get to stay outside and play. He threw a huge fit!
After dinner, Liam went down for the night and we watched Idol. I am so glad Lee won. It was the perfect ending to the perfect day!!!

After-Bath Baby

It is inevitable. After every bath, Liam runs, streaking through the house like this...

And now for a front view....
Precious boy, you have stolen my heart!!!

Duck Pond

My summer break has officially begun!!! I had such a great year and an amazing class this year! It was so hard to say good-bye to my students, knowing that I won't see most of them again. That's the worst thing about teaching 5th grade....when they leave my class, they also leave our school. :(

Even though I was sad, it was time to celebrate the beginning of my summer home with Liam, so we headed to the duck pond. The last time we took Liam, he was only a few months old, and we didn't last very long. This trip was a totally different story. Liam loved it! He was so excited to see the ducks. (I realize that most of what we saw weren't actually ducks, but I'll worry about teaching Liam that some other day.) This crazy duck came right up to us, went after our bread bag and then got in our faces. I screamed. Then, Liam cried because I screamed. OOPS!

After we finally got him calmed down from the crazy duck in our faces experience (or crazy, screaming mom experience), Liam started having fun again. His Aunt Shalayna was trying to get him to throw the bread to the ducks instead of holding onto it.
Funny story about Liam and ducks....A few weeks ago I took him up to David's work after school. One of the sweet librarians gave him an Aflac duck that says, "Aflac, Aflac, Aflaaac." So, when the ducks would quack, Liam would say, "Aflaaac!" Love it!!!
Every night we go outside to water the flowers in my flower beds. I think Liam thought I should water this one.
I love this picture! This mama duck has some serious structure going on...a woman after my own heart!
When David got off of work, he came to meet us. I was so glad he got to see how excited Liam was to feed the ducks.
Today I officially checked out at school, so I am done with everything for the year! I get to be a stay at home mom for the next two months, and I am so excited. I am so blessed to have the job that I have. I get to experience the best of both worlds....being a working mom AND a stay at home mom. (Personally I'd prefer the stay at home mom gig. Maybe someday......ha!)

Fun with O

Friday afternoon I got a text from my good friend, Casey, asking me to watch her sweet boy that night. Of course I jumped at the chance to get Liam and Owen together. They had so much fun!!! We started out the evening with some sidewalk chalk.

Owen had more fun throwing the ball around the yard. (Can you tell that he would NOT look at the camera? I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that his mommy is a photographer and takes pictures of him all the time? ha!)
Liam preferred the sidewalk chalk, as usual. After we played in our yard for a while, we headed to our neighborhood park to let the boys swing and slide. I didn't get any pics of that, but I promise they had fun! Before Casey and Owen left our house, we made plans to play at their house on Saturday. I didn't take any pics of that, either, but Casey did. Hopefully she'll post some pics on her blog of our boys playing so well together soon!
On Sunday night, Casey and Owen came over to pick up Owen's birthday gift and bring Liam his shoes that we left at their house. Since it was Liam's nighttime routine time, we decided to throw Owen into the bath with him. They pretty much ignored each other in the bath, but it made for some precious pics!
I love these two boys!

Thanks, O and Casey, for making our weekend so much fun. We can't wait for our next play date!

Success!!!

Last Friday we headed to Jenks so that I could run in The Aquarium Run....my first post-baby 5k!!! My goals for the race were to....

-Finish

-Run/jog the entire 3.1 miles

-Not be last

And I achieved all three!!! My time wasn't great, a very slow 36:17, but I didn't even care. I was so proud of the fact that I finished, and I had so much fun doing it! Running in a race is totally different than training and running alone. You have people to talk to, people to pace you, people to cheer you on. I'm hooked!!! I was also excited that I started out running with a good friend from college, Amanda. She ended up going ahead of me not too far into the race, but after she finished she ran back down the course to cheer me on. She gave me that extra push I needed to finish strong. I never would have thought that running would be the thing that would bring us back together!

I must also mention that my awesome hubby ran the race also, at a much quicker speed that I did. He finished almost 4 minutes before me. It was great having him right across the finish line to congratulate me on finishing. I am so glad that he started running again shortly after I did. I love having him to talk to about our runs, aches, and how challenging and rewarding this is. I'm proud of you, D!!!!

Next up....The Bricktown Blaze on June 12th. I can't wait!!!

After the race we headed back to Shalayna's (David's sister's) apartment to pack our things and head out for a quick bite to eat with her and her boyfriend before going to Bartlesville to see our precious boy. We ate lunch at Murphy's. YUM! Yes, I ate a hot cheeseburger, which completely defeated the purpose of running that morning. Ha! After lunch, my mom and I ran a few errands while David and Liam went home to take a nap before we headed to our niece's birthday party at 6. If you've been reading this blog long, you know that Liam goes to bed by 7:30...and that's pushing it. At about 7:15 he was done. I'm talking screaming, fit throwing in the middle of the party. DONE! So, we headed back to my parent's and called it an early night.

The next morning before the drive back to Norman, we went to Sooner Park to hopefully wear Liam out before the drive home. It worked. He slept almost the entire way. (Well, until the weather man came on the radio saying there was a tornado warning that we were driving straight into. We quickly exited the turnpike on a random highway, headed south and never even saw a sprinkle! Phew!!!) Here are some pics from the weekend...enjoy!

The night before we left, we had a few errands to run, so we decided to stop at McDonald's for a quick dinner. Liam just had to wear his daddy's hat while he ate.

I love that you can barely see his face when he's wearing one of his daddy's hats!

This guy loves going down slides! And, I think his Papa loves catching him at the bottom just as much!

This slide was a lot steeper than the others Liam had gone down, so I decided to go down with him. In order to get to the slide, I had to climb these crazy bars...butt in the air! Ha! I'm sparing you the pics David snapped of that!

Look at the determination in that face! We were about to leave and he decided he was going to go down the slide again with or without our help!

This pic was snapped before Liam almost fell asleep in the swing! He was exhausted and ready for the car ride home!!!

We had a wonderful weekend. In about a week my summer break starts and it will be like the weekend everyday for me. I can't wait!!!!!

One of those days

L and I spent the day shopping, so that D could mow the yard and do some other things around the house. Yes, the shirt I'm wearing does say Oklahoma, as in OU, but it is an Oklahoma Law shirt and it's NOT that awful crimson color. That makes it okay. And, I put L in orange to make up for the shirt I was wearing.

L started to get a little tired of being in his stroller, so we made a quick stop at the cookie place in the mall. I bought him his very first cookie. He loved it!
After the mall, we headed to Wal-Mart for our weekly grocery shopping. I decided to let L hold onto his cookie in the car. When I got in the backseat to get him out, this is what I found.
He was a mess. He had chocolate all the way down to his belly button. I should have taken this as a clue and headed home, because after this everything went downhill. As soon as I put Liam in the cart, he started screaming. I rushed through my grocery list as fast as I could and got in one of the self-check lines. The mother and daughter in front of us took forever. I'm talking like 15 minutes forever. L was so tired at this point that he had almost fallen asleep in the cart while we were waiting. Finally, the women finished ringing up their items and started to pay when the machine froze up. So....I had to pack up my items and head to another line to wait for another 15 minutes. Seriously?!?! My child was a fussy mess, I had already waited in line and I was told to go to another line. So, it's finally my turn and I go to pay, only my wallet isn't in my purse. The lady who is checking me out obviously feels sorry for me and offers to finish ringing up all of my things and leave them at Customer Service so I can come back in when I get my wallet.

It was one of those moments...ya know, the ones when all of the bad stuff happening can't be your fault, and you have to blame someone...so, I called David and took it out on him. Thankfully, he sensed how stressed I was and told me he would take L and go pick up the groceries while I went to find my wallet.

I called the cookie place and they had my wallet, so I headed back to the mall to get it. I guess in the excitement of buying L his first cookie, I forgot to grab my wallet. Thankfully, everything was still in its place, including the lone dollar I had.

When I got home I was so excited to see what all D had been up to while we were out shopping. I'll post some pics later!

Running injury

Running has been going very well. I'm absolutely loving the time I spend on the road, with my own thoughts. I'm discovering very quickly that positive thinking can carry me a long ways when I think I can't go any further. I never thought I would be ready to run a 5k after four weeks of running, but I am. David and I are both running in The Aquarium Run in Jenks, May 15th....that is if I can handle the pain after last night's injury. Here's what happened....

I was running along, so excited because I was at 2.8 miles, making great time and I had a lot of fuel left in my tank. I was finally going to hit my goal of 3.1 miles. Billie Jean was playing and I was thinking back to one of the first times David and I ever danced to that song...ladies night at Joes.....almost eight years ago...when I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my calf. I turned around to see a fat little dog running away from me as fast as its fat little legs would carry it. I looked down at my calf to see the damage......

The owner was nice enough to put down his beer and chase his dog down, then ask if I was okay. I hunched over, stunned, for a couple of minutes and then made the 1/2 mile trek back to our house, trying to hold it together. As soon as David opened the door for me, I lost it. I was in so much pain! We called Animal Welfare, and they came out and got our info., then went to talk to the dog's owner. Thankfully, the dog's rabies vaccines are up to date. I went to the doctor today as a precaution. He gave me a Tetanus shot and some antibiotics in hopes of avoiding an infection. Ugh! I'm going to try to run again tomorrow...hopefully after two days the pain will be bearable!

Adventures in Gardening

I decided it was time to fix up our flower beds, so I talked my wonderful dad into coming down early Sunday with his gardening tools to give me a hand. After all, this is the first attempt I've ever made at gardening. I needed help! My mom and grandma took turns playing with Liam and helping while my dad and I worked. With all four of us working on the project, it only took about an hour. Here are some before and after pictures.

Before....this is the small garden to the right of the sidewalk as you approach our front door. These bushes were seriously overgrown!

After...a nice haircut and some Impatiens. Much better!
This is the flower garden directly in front of our house. I love the window, but it was covered by those bushes/trees...whatever they are.

And after...I accidentally cut off the top of the trees when I took this pic, but after my Dad worked his magic, they aren't much taller than what you can see in the picture. It looks so much cleaner. Now, hopefully the Impatiens will grow and fill up the empty spaces!

I didn't get a before picture of this, but the planter used to have a bush in it that I wasn't a big fan of. So, I pulled it out and planted some Periwinkles. Much better!
I'm pretty sure I don't have a green thumb, so hopefully these flowers are hearty enough to make it through the summer without me killing them!!!