5

It's hard to believe that five years ago today, Mike and I were sitting in the hospital, waiting around all day for Liam to make his appearance. And then, around 7:30 that night, he finally did (and what a relief it was!). We continue to be enriched and amazed by this adorable, stubborn, sweet, loving, argumentative person in our lives, and are grateful to have him around every day. This year, he'll celebrate some really big changes in his life (new school, new brother, etc.), but today, we're celebrating him. Happy birthday, Liam!

slip-sliding away

Loni's out of town for the week, so my cousin Brady kindly agreed to come over yesterday and watch the boys while I worked. He brought along some bubble wands and a slip-n-slide, which has instantly earned him hero status with the boys. After dinner, they blew bubbles, slip-slid, got ice cream from the ice cream truck, played wiffle ball, and rode their bikes for almost three hours. When it was time to return Brady to his family, the boys were oh-so-sad (there were tears! there was yelling!) but they calmed down pretty quickly when they realized that Brady would be back again Thursday evening for more fun and games.

lessons learned

This weekend we took a little road trip to scenic Wheaton, Illinois to visit with our good friends Mark and Katie (and the boys' good friends Linus and Leo). Mike and Mark headed to Wisconsin to see a concert, and Katie and I banded together to wrangle the four boys for the weekend. We had a lovely visit, and the boys all played nicely together. For me, one of the big bonuses was that the boys got to spend the night and two days in a house with a newborn, so now they have a slightly better idea of what to expect when our baby comes.

Liam, especially, really got into the act, learning how to give baby Leo his pacifier ("Just hold it by his mouth, Mom, don't shove the whole thing in at once!"). He also learned that babies sleep a lot, and that they poop quite frequently, and that they're really fun when they smile. Both boys got to hold Leo (under careful supervision) and marvel over his tiny features, and it made them very excited to be able to hold their new brother soon.


All this, and yet, when Mike got back late Sunday morning and we asked Liam to tell him everything he'd learned about babies, Liam got this look of wide-eyed amazement and immediately shouted out, "Babies drink milk from their mommies' BOOBS!"

So this is what life is like with two boys, and I can hardly imagine the level of bodily function fascination we're going to encounter with three of them running around!

so far behind

It's been all work for me lately, but all play for the boys. We've (actually, mostly "they've") done so many fun things lately that it's hard to catch up. We saw Loni graduate from high school (during which the boys were surprisingly good, thanks no doubt to an emergency supply of Teddy Grahams provided by Bethany) and had a blast at her open house (where there was an inflatable bouncy slide for the kids and plenty of euchre for the adults). The boys have had a bunch of field trips for school (yesterday, they went to the local library to present Ronald McDonald himself with a boatload -- literally -- of pop tabs for Ronald McDonald House) and have been lucky enough to take a few family field trips as well. Last weekend, Mike took took them to the zoo, and they came back with plenty of excited stories to tell me, along with a few disappointments about animals they missed seeing. Max, in particular, was upset because he didn't see any "lepers" at the zoo. Then yesterday, Bethany and Klaudia took two very lucky boys to see "Up" in 3D. Liam was mesmerized the whole time and gave it two very enthusiastic thumbs up, while Max enjoyed the movie but wasn't a big fan of the glasses. Today, we had a nice visit with cousins Kelsey, Emma, Jimmy, and Gracie while Max was home for his "special day" with Mike. Check out the pictures below to get a glimpse of what we've been up to.

Congrats, Loni!

Mike and Bethany give Klaudia some euchre tips...

He doesn't actually know how to read the zoo map yet.
Pretty convincing, though, isn't he?