The Jefferson pool opened up for six days over a two week period to give free swim lessons for homeschool kids. We took advantage of that...well...Liam did. He is the little fellow in the water in front of the ladder in the above picture. He enjoyed it so much. And since it was unseasonably warm (the theme of the whole summer) it was a very nice break from the heat for the kids as well. Liam went from being afraid to put his head in the water and not comfortable floating on his back even with the teacher holding him, to loving to dunk his head and floating around on his own a lot!! We were certainly proud of him. I want him to love the water as much as I did and still do. My mom told me that my brother and I took to the water like fish right from the first. Liam is a different temperament. He is very cautious, frustratingly so at times. And water is just one of the many things he is cautious about. And little, or maybe not so little, things can radically change his opinion of something. For instance. He loved riding his bike. He wanted to ride it every chance he got. Long rides. Then in August while I was still sick and in bed my niece and a friend's daughter took Liam bike riding. He came back alive and unscathed but suddenly convinced that if he went out on his bike he would get hit by a car and die. He to this day is unable to tell us anything that happened during that ride that could have created this problem. He also loved to be by the tracks when a train went by. He now cries and runs from them if we happen to be near when a train is approaching. We will never know what happened that day and knowing Liam is might have been something so minute....but it was still something. And we are working our way through it.
As the title alluded to, end of summer does signal the beginning of someone's birthday month. And he was so excited! I have learned with him that he has to have warnings of things. Five minute warnings when we are going to be leaving etc. Another important warning is about his birthday gifts. Starting around the first of the month boxes and cards will begin arriving for him. If you remember last years post and the Liamism I think was him admitting that he would have a meltdown if he couldn't open the box. Well...before I could utter the words a large box arrived...before October 1st. from my mom. Let the meltdowns begin! He handled the other packages over the next week pretty well. But we did make him wait. And now that he is older I guess that daddy and I will have to wait until our birthdays as well. Fair is fair!
As the title alluded to, end of summer does signal the beginning of someone's birthday month. And he was so excited! I have learned with him that he has to have warnings of things. Five minute warnings when we are going to be leaving etc. Another important warning is about his birthday gifts. Starting around the first of the month boxes and cards will begin arriving for him. If you remember last years post and the Liamism I think was him admitting that he would have a meltdown if he couldn't open the box. Well...before I could utter the words a large box arrived...before October 1st. from my mom. Let the meltdowns begin! He handled the other packages over the next week pretty well. But we did make him wait. And now that he is older I guess that daddy and I will have to wait until our birthdays as well. Fair is fair!
Here he is birthday morning with his gifts.
From grandma and grandpa he got the operation game and a real live honest to goodness stethoscope! This is a pediatric one as it has several different animal heads to attach to the end of it. The noise the game makes bothers him. But he loves to listen to hearts and play doctor! Remember the time he diagnosed me with little monsters in my tummy?
This art set and two sketch pads were from Aunt Missy and Uncle Lance. As you can see by his face he was quite excited. And he is being remarkably good about keeping the caps on the markers when not in use!
And though he was quite happy with the lego set we got him he was particularly pleased with what grandma (Craig's mom) got him. Well, she gave us money to choose what he would like. But it is still from her. And since the 6th this and about 200 miles of hotwheels track has been set up in my living room. It takes an act of congress to get it cleaned up so I can clean and if company is coming over. And just about every evening he drags Craig into the living room to create yet another grand track plan. It is really exciting.....I guess.
One of his gifts was a gift card for Toys R Us from Grace. So here he is at Toys R Us. You can just never get enough of Hotwheels at this age. What he doesn't know is this is probably going to be his Christmas present. He has been eyeballing it for months. So has Craig:) But not too many isles over he found what he wanted.....and I will preface this by saying...occasionally on his kindle fire he will get things that are incredibly annoying. One of those things is a cat that repeats everything you say. And he is convinced that the louder he talks to it the better it all goes. Craig has removed that game over and over and Liam will eventually find it and the noise starts all over again. Wouldn't you know that they came up with a real live version of this!?!?
Craig blames me....it was, after all, my brilliant idea to start walking up and down the isles to hopefully speed up the process of finding just the right toy.....here....his eyes have just fallen on it.
I thought it was so neat that you can have pictures put on gift cards now. When Liam opened the card from Grace he said 'Grace'. I thought he had learned to read without me! But he had seen her picture. Very cool....and thank you Grace and Kelly...he loves it! We on the other hand.....:)
So, that was Liam's very quiet birthday at home. Now, later that day we took him to Chucky Cheese's for lunch and games. Can I find those pictures? Nope. But the minute I ask Craig he will go right to them. But he is in bed so I can't. But he did have a fun time there and since it was during a week day there were only about 5 other kids and it was so nice!!
Now for other news......there hasn't been a whole lot going on. I think I have picked the last of my garden. And I have the grand total! If nothing else comes in the total poundage is 744! I could not believe it and counted each line again and again! This from a garden that depended on the kindness of others after August 3rd. When I water I REALLY water. I spend about two hours watering. It did not get near the water I would have given it. It was not harvested and weeded like I would have done. But it gave and gave! This was also with three beds not in action! Three beds! You may wonder what was the biggest harvest....tomatoes. At 226 pounds! They started off the season with blossom end rot. I gave them two treatments before I got sick then Craig gave them one. It was amazing how they turned around and produced like crazy! Annette turned that into 43 quarts and then I canned another 14 after I was up and around. There was also quite a bit given away and eaten fresh. The next largest harvest was Zucchini. It had been years and years since I had had any luck growing it. Last year was a pretty good year with 75 pounds. But this year was a whopping 175 pounds! That was three plants. Now, logic tells me to plant fewer next year...will I.....probably not. That is just how I roll. Cucumbers came in next at just over 124 pounds. In fact...a couple days ago I went out and picked 7 pounds. Such a long season we are having. I think the beans suffered the most from all that happened. They struggled with the heat plus the watering plus the being harvested only about once a week. They gave me 52 pounds though. And a lot of that was enjoyed fresh. But Annette canned for me 63 quarts of beans. How you may ask? Well, the day I got sick I had been at the Baptist church here in town bright and early to pick up beans. It was on my way back from dropping some off for my sister that everything started. She came a few days later and picked up the 5 hugs bags full in my garage fridge and canned them for me. So now I am looking forward to putting the garden to bed for the winter. The next day off for Craig that is also dry we will pull up the spent plants and haul them off to the dump and cover all the beds in black plastic. That has just worked wonders for our beds since we first did it two years ago! Spring is so much easier now! I once again did my potato tires but this year only got 8 pounds from them. That is lousy. Last year was just over 24. Still not good. I am not going to give up quite yet. I will research it a little more this winter and see if I can improve on anything. But Liam helped me from start to finish with digging out the potatoes. Though every so often he was side tracked by a worm, or centipede, or some such creature. All in all he was a good help.
We are doing well with schooling. We are now up to an hour three days a week. Though about half way through I let him up to get a drink, go potty, run up and down the hall...then he comes right back and works happily along. Though he is really good with letters he seems to struggle with the sounds they make and hearing the sounds they make. I will say does tiger start with the ssssss sound? Yes he will promptly reply. It puzzles me. But what he looses in phonics he more than makes up for in math. He enjoys numbers and working with them and he does really well! Thank goodness my niece is a math whiz, because once we get past 2 + 2 I will be calling on her often!
I got on the desk top and all by myself moved files around! You know...click and drag....but still. So, I now have all the pictures that I want to use for the next several blogs in one area that I can easily get to. And each time I navigate weebly I improve a little tiny bit. And so far I have not accidently deleted half of this blog and had to start over again.....like last time......but we won't open up that kettle of worms! I can't promise anything but I plan on another post before my birthday month begins!
I will leave you with a Liamism: A couple days ago Liam and daddy were building tracks together...This is what I heard, "you are amazing daddy, you are amazing! you had something in my mind that I wanted to do and you did it!!" Funny how we crawl into each others minds around here...we're cool that way!
I will leave you with a parting shot... roses taken a few evenings ago. Still blooming. Three of the bushes had gotten very sick over the summer. They were losing leaves and what leaves they had had the black spots on them. Right before I got sick...like a day or two before...I fed all the roses with a rose food and a big scoop of rabbit doo doo. A month later they were full and green and blooming like crazy! One went from looking dead to full of life!
So, that was Liam's very quiet birthday at home. Now, later that day we took him to Chucky Cheese's for lunch and games. Can I find those pictures? Nope. But the minute I ask Craig he will go right to them. But he is in bed so I can't. But he did have a fun time there and since it was during a week day there were only about 5 other kids and it was so nice!!
Now for other news......there hasn't been a whole lot going on. I think I have picked the last of my garden. And I have the grand total! If nothing else comes in the total poundage is 744! I could not believe it and counted each line again and again! This from a garden that depended on the kindness of others after August 3rd. When I water I REALLY water. I spend about two hours watering. It did not get near the water I would have given it. It was not harvested and weeded like I would have done. But it gave and gave! This was also with three beds not in action! Three beds! You may wonder what was the biggest harvest....tomatoes. At 226 pounds! They started off the season with blossom end rot. I gave them two treatments before I got sick then Craig gave them one. It was amazing how they turned around and produced like crazy! Annette turned that into 43 quarts and then I canned another 14 after I was up and around. There was also quite a bit given away and eaten fresh. The next largest harvest was Zucchini. It had been years and years since I had had any luck growing it. Last year was a pretty good year with 75 pounds. But this year was a whopping 175 pounds! That was three plants. Now, logic tells me to plant fewer next year...will I.....probably not. That is just how I roll. Cucumbers came in next at just over 124 pounds. In fact...a couple days ago I went out and picked 7 pounds. Such a long season we are having. I think the beans suffered the most from all that happened. They struggled with the heat plus the watering plus the being harvested only about once a week. They gave me 52 pounds though. And a lot of that was enjoyed fresh. But Annette canned for me 63 quarts of beans. How you may ask? Well, the day I got sick I had been at the Baptist church here in town bright and early to pick up beans. It was on my way back from dropping some off for my sister that everything started. She came a few days later and picked up the 5 hugs bags full in my garage fridge and canned them for me. So now I am looking forward to putting the garden to bed for the winter. The next day off for Craig that is also dry we will pull up the spent plants and haul them off to the dump and cover all the beds in black plastic. That has just worked wonders for our beds since we first did it two years ago! Spring is so much easier now! I once again did my potato tires but this year only got 8 pounds from them. That is lousy. Last year was just over 24. Still not good. I am not going to give up quite yet. I will research it a little more this winter and see if I can improve on anything. But Liam helped me from start to finish with digging out the potatoes. Though every so often he was side tracked by a worm, or centipede, or some such creature. All in all he was a good help.
We are doing well with schooling. We are now up to an hour three days a week. Though about half way through I let him up to get a drink, go potty, run up and down the hall...then he comes right back and works happily along. Though he is really good with letters he seems to struggle with the sounds they make and hearing the sounds they make. I will say does tiger start with the ssssss sound? Yes he will promptly reply. It puzzles me. But what he looses in phonics he more than makes up for in math. He enjoys numbers and working with them and he does really well! Thank goodness my niece is a math whiz, because once we get past 2 + 2 I will be calling on her often!
I got on the desk top and all by myself moved files around! You know...click and drag....but still. So, I now have all the pictures that I want to use for the next several blogs in one area that I can easily get to. And each time I navigate weebly I improve a little tiny bit. And so far I have not accidently deleted half of this blog and had to start over again.....like last time......but we won't open up that kettle of worms! I can't promise anything but I plan on another post before my birthday month begins!
I will leave you with a Liamism: A couple days ago Liam and daddy were building tracks together...This is what I heard, "you are amazing daddy, you are amazing! you had something in my mind that I wanted to do and you did it!!" Funny how we crawl into each others minds around here...we're cool that way!
I will leave you with a parting shot... roses taken a few evenings ago. Still blooming. Three of the bushes had gotten very sick over the summer. They were losing leaves and what leaves they had had the black spots on them. Right before I got sick...like a day or two before...I fed all the roses with a rose food and a big scoop of rabbit doo doo. A month later they were full and green and blooming like crazy! One went from looking dead to full of life!