Mostly Liam's Second Birthday and some other random bits

We got back from Istanbul on Christmas Eve and it was really great to have a few weeks at home before James had to return to work.  James couldn't have been more pleased with a Christmas present from Christy and family, of a Jets jersey.  He also managed to convince him to wear it one of the last few days the jets were playing this season.  Too bad they are such a losing team! 

Go Jets!

Sonja and Sham came to visit on the 26th but were off for a few days, returning on the 31st for a good week and a couple of days to just hang out with us.  I'm sorry to say I didn't get a lot of pictures of their time here, mostly because perhaps it would be less than exciting have photos of them at the gym or us all watching Top Chef, or Sonja baking something yet again - we were not terribly adventurous!

We did manage one excursion to Como on Liam's actual birthday, and it turned out to be a chilly but enjoyable day out.  We wandered the streets a while and then headed to our favorite pizzeria place for lunch.  (Sonja and sham did manage to find some paleo friendly fodder too!)

Sonja, Liam and Sham in Como

Liam literally ate almost the whole plate of pasta! Birthday lunch in Como

Sham and I 

Liam laughing after lunch

On our way back to the car after a good day in Como

Stirling and Leigh came by after nap time to wish Liam a happy birthday.  They also brought a couple of exciting presents, one of which was a noisy digger book - clearly a winner for Liam.  The rest of the afternoon was spent on skype with family, and hanging out at home with a few new gifts.  The funniest thing about his birthday was every time someone wished him a happy birthday he'd say " no, no happy birthday!"  In fact it was amusing how right around the actual 2nd birthday "NO" became a big deal to say.  Thankfully it has worn off a little, but we had a few days of "No, I don't want..."  followed by whatever you just said.

Reading the new noisy digger book together

As part of his birthday celebration Sonja also whipped up a sugarless, carb-less cake.  It was quite delicious and a real success with Liam since it was all about the berries on top.

Me after eating the whole pie - just kidding - this is randomly here to mark my 33rd week of Pregnancy

And back to the main event - Liam and co celebrating with the tart/cake!

All set to dig in!

We have also been meaning to cut Liam's hair for some time, and unfortunately we only got to it after his birthday.  Here's a shot of a freshly trimmed Liam.  I feel like I did a slightly better job this time around, probably because I had James assist me with distraction videos of trains and diggers on youtube.

Cutey-pie!

Other major accomplishments over the break were the application of the wall art decals for Liam's room. Baby 2's is not finished yet - I hope to get there before she comes!  But Liam now has a really sweet set-up in his room, and it feels much more like a finished product.  He's enjoying his 3 monkeys!

Liam with his big boy bed and wall of monkeys!

A week and a day after his actual birthday we had a birthday brunch so we could celebrate a little with his friends.  Since everyone was away on his actual day it just made sense to wait, so we had a lovely Sunday brunch here with all the people nearest and dearest to Liam here in Lugano.  We had lots of little peoples running around, but chaos was minimal and I think everyone had a good time.  I didn't get to take any photos so James managed just a couple to at least capture the day.

Liam, Sam, Stirling and Drake playing legos downstairs

A few of the adults - Josh, Kat, Carolyn hanging out with the small people

After all the birthday stuff I am happy to have things quiet down a bit.  I think my hosting days are numbered, at least till after the birth.  I think making 2 dozen bagels was enough for a while.  So we're now back in the swing of things - Liam is getting to know his new babysitter Sarah, and I am testing out how long I can be back at work.  In all of that, Liam has become curious again about the whole potty thing.  He asked to sit on it a few times last week, and even twice sat on it with his pants and diaper off.  Then this past Sat (Jan 21st), James was using the bathroom and Liam decided he would too.  And he really did!  I think we all were surprised to see the poop at the bottom of the potty, but we had a little celebration and Liam felt pretty pleased with himself.  Nothing since then, but little by little we may just get there!

Istanbul - Christmas 2011

After being in Europe for almost 5 years and having Istanbul as one of our "need to see" places, we finally made it there.  Perhaps it wasn't the most perfect timing given that we were traveling with an almost 2 year old and a 30 week pregnant me, but who knows what we'll be able to do once we have 2 little ones to worry about, so it seemed as good a time as any.

Something that made our lives easier was definitely getting a flight from Lugano on Swiss Air and not dealing with delays, major airport waiting times and shoddy baggage issue airlines.  Unfortunately where we have always had really good luck with apartments in foreign cities, we landed a dud in Istanbul.  Without rehashing the whole thing, the place was actually lovely looking and clean, but the smell of cigarette smoke kind of seemed to seep out of the ventilation, and we only noticed it after we got back from dinner on the first night.  We also were not expecting a rowdy party to be taking place just across the street and going until 3am.  The combination led to a bad first night and a decision to move the following morning.  We booked into the Doubletree by Hilton right in the Old Town, and splurged on a suite to allow Liam his own sleeping space.  Breakfast was included, and the location and space were perfect.  We could either walk or hop on the tram to get to all the major sights that one needs to see, and it was easy as can be to pop back to the hotel for Liam's nap times.

Weather was also not on our side, though the prediction of rain every day was a slight exaggeration and we managed to have a glimpse of sunshine on a day or two and a good amount of half days without any rain.  In the short 5 days we had we managed to fit in the Hagia Sofia, Blue Mosque, the Topkapi Palace, Spice bazaar, grand bazaar and a walk from Taksim square down the main pedestrian drag one evening.  That included finding the second best food of the trip - a deliciously delectable Belgian waffle with ice cream and fruit.  Yum.  Best meal of the trip was definitely the Turkish food we had with a former student of James'.  He took us to a fancy place past Taksim somewhere and picked out his favorites.  It was definitely heavy on the meat items but everything was absolutely delicious!

One of our favorite little areas to walk around in was behind the blue mosque in the sultanamet neighborhood.  They had some very sweet shops and boutiques as well as the most curious wood sided buildings that looked straight out of some town in the USA.  Our pictures aren't great because with the rain and my general tiredness I wasn't able to get a lot of fantastic shots.  I guess our memories will have to serve us!

Liam and me inside the Hagia Sofia

Hagia Sofia

James and Liam near the spice bazaar

At the spice market

Just a cute picture in some rare sunshine

The Hagia Sofia in sunshine (not the day we actually went in)

The Blue Mosque

Liam and the Bosphorus taken at Topkapi Palace

Buffet breakfast at the hotel - Liam held out for olives as often as possible

Our souvenirs from the trip included two modern styled kilim rugs (one small for the wall and a slightly bigger one), and 2 hanging mobiles for the kids.

Between England and Istanbul there was all this!

There have been so many little things I wish I had posted in the past month or so, especially things that Liam has been saying.  Unfortunately I don't end up doing it at the time and then I forget because new things are happening for him. 

Speaking wise he has become so so verbal and quite clear about things.  He tells us clearly what he wants and doesn't want - "Liam doesn't want to take a nap now. I all done".  He is also good about recalling different events that have happened.  I always ask him what he was up to when I've been gone an hour or so, and he is actually quite good at telling me what he did!  Of course he gets his timing mixed up and will recall things at very random times.  The other day he spent about 15 mins telling me all about his time and what he remembers of our trip to Barcelona, for example.  He will also share bits about his friends, or what he might be wishing he was doing like being in Stirling's ball pit with her and Drake. One of the funniest things he said recently was in response to me saying "lets do it!".  He totally randomly and unprompted said: "lets fall in love!"  James has been singing and playing that song for a while and I guess he just picked it up.  It was truly one of the cutest things I've heard.  He also often walks around saying "say what you say".  And he always requests the song Big Girls Don't Cry.  Funny little guy.  At night he says his prayer quite well with us, and then he is quite particular about which songs we'll sing and in which order.  For me it's either Blessed is the Spot and Twinkle Twinkle, or Oh God Educate These Children and Twinkle Twinkle.  For James he requests Mr. Sandman, Rockin' Robin and Twinkle twinkle.  Speaking of Twinkle twinkle, he is still, and has been for about 2 months, calling stars "wonder what you are".  I kind of love it since no matter how many times we say star, he still says it.  I also had no idea he knew almost all of Blessed is the Spot until he just started saying "and the house, place, city, the heart, mountain..."  Just out of nowhere!  He is also good about making good eye contact, and then with his finger wagging and head nodding telling you what you'll do for him!

These are a bunch of random pictures from November and early December including Jen's birthday outing to Milan, Thanksgiving dinner with the Walsers and Doves, my birthday, and a few random in betweens!

Liam at the playground with James - we've had a pretty mild fall and start to winter so it's been easy enough to still be out and about.  In fact we still haven't used his snow pants!

Just a random picture of me at 26 weeks along

Jen's birthday lunch at Peck in Milan

Jen's birthday Milan trip - Liam got to hang with sleeping Cassidy!

Helping make pancakes on the weekend - he is always eager to help with cooking, vacuuming, sweeping, emptying the dishwasher etc

Thanksgiving dinner was a group effort hosted at Leigh's house - Stirling, Liam and Drake had a great time, as did we!

Lots to give thanks for - it was a lovely meal and great company

Some of the wee ones at my birthday brunch hosted by Beril and Michael - Stirling, back of Drake, Isla and Liam

My birthday was a gorgeous day to be out for a walk!

Someone donated a Christmas tree to us so we spent an evening decorating it and cleaning up broken balls as Liam tried to throw them or bang them together.  Oops.

Besides all the talking we have had quite a lot of transitions and changes thrown our way.  In a quest for some child care help we have been quite frantically exploring as many options as we can come  up with.  One of those was to try out the Red Cross daycare where Drake had also recently started.  The idea was that 2 mornings a week they could both be there and that would give me a little free time when baby 2 shows up.  Unfortunately the whole experience was more traumatic than anything else.  Since Liam is so social I assumed that he wouldn't have a lot of trouble adjusting to the environment, but whether it was because Drake wasn't adjusted either, or because he actually didn't like the place, our 2 weeks trial wasn't so successful.  I felt terrible because whenever I asked him about it he would say:  mummy leave Liam and Liam crying."  or "ciao ciao holding Liam and Liam crying".  We think that he named one of the women there ciao ciao because she was always saying ciao around him, and he definitely wasn't happy with her.  And all of this drama was with me leaving for 5 -15 mins at the most and just waiting outside to see what happened.  So perhaps it should take more than 4 times for adjusting, but seeing him unhappy, and hearing him sob and say that he wants to go home broke my heart and my will power.  I think that option is done and we are now onto the next ideas. 

The other news is that we got Liam his big boy bed - a lovely trundle style twin bed that sat in his room for the past few weeks so that he could get used to the idea.  He has now spent 3 nights and 4 naps successfully sleeping in his new bed.  The first nap he took in it was Dec 27th and he popped out of the room in a matter of 5 mins.  We talked and I mentioned that he needed to stay in bed and call for us, and so far at least, he has done just fine.  We are leaving the crib in the room a little bit longer to make sure he has a slow and easy transition there, but it will eventually come into our room for baby girl. 

A week in England with cousins

We've been back from England for a week now, but Liam is still saying:  "no lua!" on a regular basis.  It was a fun and hectic time altogether.  Mostly it's great to see the cousins grow together and know each other, but there were some moments when Liam and Lua really managed to get on each others nerves.  Perhaps it was a game that us adults didn't get.

We were so busy running errands for new baby stuff, and trying to keep the kids occupied and happy that we didn't get a whole lot of photos, but we managed to spend a morning at a soft play place in Banbury where all three were able to really let loose a little and run about.

Lua with the fish pillar at Rugrats

Liam tackles a big truck while Leo plays house

Having a bit of jumping around time before bath time

We also had a lovely visit with Char and Otto who came up for the day to hang out.  It was so nice chatting and catching up with Char and of course seeing her own belly swelling!

I love how Leo managed to squeeze into the photo!

We had one really nice afternoon of good weather so the kids could finally spend some time outside.  It seems it was much needed after a few days of being couped up indoors.  Liam tried Lua's wellies on for size, and they all spent a good hour shuffling about outside!

Liam wearing Lua's shoes, and Lua not so sure about it!

I thought Leo was so funny!  I don't know if he knew what he was doing when he put together this look, but it somehow looks like a funny downhill skier!

Lua as happy as can be pushing her shopping cart around

Liam chose to dig in the dirt with a stick

  Sonja managed to also come up and spend a full day and 2 nights, which was a real treat.  We got to sample some paleo desserts and put the pressure on her to start her own brood!

Lua getting some Sonja snuggles in pretty light

This bus/truck was Liam's favorite AGAIN

Video of Liam and Stirling Holding Hands

Friends, birthdays and other gatherings

It's been a busy fall so far for all of us but despite it all we have managed to continue to get together with other moms and tots on a regular basis each week. 

We were lucky to have some unusually warm weather for the beginning of October which did a world of good for the little ones.  They love being outside and playing, so it was always a good time getting together at various neighbourhood playgrounds.  I love that Liam and Stirling have remained buddies despite her starting asilo this fall.  These photos of the two of them holding hands and walking are just a snippet of the cutest moment. 

Kat, Leigh, Grayson, Stirling, Drake, Isla and Liam

Stirling and Liam hand in hand

Stirling and Liam dashing about

 Drake is still one of Liam's best friends, and this past October he turned 2!  We went to a great and very hectic soft play place near Como to celebrate with him and some of the other little friends and I think the kids all had a great time. 

At the soft play place Liam in heaven with a motorbike

At the food table - Drake's party

Drake and Liam playing in the bouncy castle

   We had a little birthday celebration and get together at our house for Leigh's birthday a couple of weeks ago.  Somehow we managed to get all the kids there to sit for a photo at the same time.  It was kind of miraculous, though I won't say the photos turned out perfectly!

The tots lined up for a photo shoot! - Grayson, Stirling, Cassidy, Liam, Isla, Drake

Video from Dinner in Barcelona

I feel like we have missed so many great talking advances for Liam, so here's at least a little video of him waiting on his "dessert" of raspberries after dinner.