Thanksgiving with Mimi and P-paw

Liam had a great first Thanksgiving. We were lucky enough to have Mimi and P-Paw come up to Maine to celebrate the holiday with us. They arrived on Tuesday night. Mike and I had to work on Wednesday so Mom and Dad got to watch Liam for the day. Mom just couldn't get over how much Liam eats. Since starting solids, he has pretty much chowed down on everything we will give him. The only thing he really hasn't liked is a green pea, spinich and green bean mix. It really makes him gag. His favorite seems to be sweet potatoes. He is also a fan of avacado, bananas, applesause, oatmeal and rice cereal.
Anyway, on Thursday we spent much of the day preparing for Thanksgiving dinner. We had plans to have Thanksgiving with our friends Brian, Carolyn and Emma. Members of both Brian and Carolyn's family were also up for Thanksgiving. They also had invited some other friends so in all there were about 18 people including five kids aged seven on down to Liam. It was festive to say the least. It was a wonderful way to spend Thanksgiving.
On Friday, we went to Freeport home of L. L. Bean for some shopping. There are many outlet stores there. We had a good time though it was tiring at times trying to beat the shopping crowds.
The rest of the weekend was spent enjoying the quiet of Bar Harbor in post tourist season. We played with Liam, enjoyed the ocean and took a nice Sunday drive.
With another holiday down I get more excited for Liam's first Christmas. It will be so wonderful to get back to Ohio so that Liam can meet all of his family, spend time with his Grammy and Grampy McKernan and meet some of our good friends as well. I am sure it will be here before we know it.

Determination

I don't really have much to report but I thought I would post this cute picture of Liam. I think it really captures how hard he works when having tummy time. He is getting so good at pushing up on his still scrawny arms. I love the look of determination in his eyes.

template changes and suggestions

So, I've been playing around a bit with the template of this blog. Thought I'd try to give it a little character and make it look a little less prefab (which it is, of course). You'll notice the banner image at the top, and I've added height and weight tallies on the side. I'll update H & W after his checkups. I have a few other ideas - maybe a rotating 'picture of the day' thing, or I thought an occasional poll would be fun. Maybe a new foods checklist. Any other suggestions for this blog? Anything you've been staying up at night thinking 'jeez, I wish they would just do X'? Maybe I'll try to look around at some other baby blogs to see what other parents are up to.

OK, enough blog stuff. Liam is growing and changing weekly and daily, it seems. Just in the course of two weeks he is learning how to grab things. Two weeks ago, he would reach out with his hand in kind of a claw shape - hoping to hook whatever was in front of him and reel it in. Not so effective. A couple days later, he figured out that his hands could work as a grabbing tool, and for the last couple weeks, he's been practicing grabbing hair and small toys. He's particularly tenacious when it comes to hair. One really interesting thing he does is grab the thumb of his opposite hand and splay out the fingers. I'll have to post a picture, if I can get one of him doing this motion. It's like his right hand is out saying stop, but his left hand is grabbing his right thumb. He was helping me cook the other day when I watched him reach over from this right side, grab the top of a loaf of bread and drag it over to his chair. It was incredible. It was very purposeful, he knew exactly what he wanted to get and he did it. In other developmental milestones, he's much better at tummy time, he's starting to push his torso up with his arms, and he's getting better at rolling. Right now we're practicing sitting up - which we hope he'll have a handle on by Christmas. No pressure, though.

Boo!

Well, Liam had his first Halloween. We celebrated by carving pumpkins, going on a pumpkin walk at the College of the Atlantic and going to a Halloween parade in Southwest Harbor. On Halloween night we dressed Liam up in his little pumpkin costume and headed to the street in Bar Harbor that gets all of the trick-or-treaters. We didn't actually go begging for candy but we did walk around the street and enjoyed the festive feel of the night. The Bar Harbor police shuts down the street to cars so it will be safe for all of the kids. Doing this makes the street have the feel of a street fair. We talked to some friends of ours, who live on that street, about 1.5 hours into the night. They had purchsed 75 dollars worth of candy and they were already out. They ended up getting more from the Baptist church that is next to their house. After getting our fill of that scene, we went to our favorite restaurant/pub. The Lompoc also had a festive Halloween feel to it. Liam and his little friend Emma were the hit of the place in their very cute costumes.
Liam's first Halloween was great all around. I have always loved holidays but having Liam makes it so much fun. I can't wait for Thanksgiving and Christmas.