Holiday Gift Guide for Babies & Toddlers

Happy Cyber Monday!

With the internet covered in crazy good deals today (well, for the next hour anyway), I thought it would be the perfect time to share a holiday gift guide for the babies and toddlers in your life. While I know this will be another holiday where Liam will be more interested in the crinkling sounds of the tissue paper and straight up eating the wrapping paper and bows (haha!), we still have a few special surprises for him. I LOVE giving gifts but sometimes the holidays stress me out with the sheer number of loved ones to buy for and the hype of the latest and greatest gifts to give but I recently saw the idea of centering gift buying around these four things ... want, need, wear, read and I loved the idea so much! So here is a little holiday gift guide and Liam's want, need, wear, and read ..... 

| ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR | FIVE | SIX | SEVEN & EIGHT | NINE |

| W A N T |

Liam LOVES hiding under blankets right now and I can tell many homemade forts are in our future. With that said, we decided to get him his very own teepee to play in! I can't wait to set it up, put a string of Christmas lights inside, and see his face light up on Christmas morning! Tegu blocks are also a fun addition to your child's toy collection. Liam got some for his birthday and these magnetic blocks have already brought hours of fun (even for us adults!). We've never tried bath crayons before but they will be in Liam's stocking this year to pull out on a snowy winter day when there seems to be nothing else to do but take a bath!

| N E E D |

A couple of needs ... his very first pair of mittens and a new hat since his head has grown out of all the ones he wore last year. 

| W E A R |

Just like every other little one, Liam is constantly growing out of his clothes. We got him a new fun pair of Christmas jammies and a comfy hooded romper since we spend most of our days this winter at home. 

| R E A D | 

I recently hosted an Usborne Books & More party and it was the perfect opportunity to add to our Christmas book collection as well as our growing library. We love the "That's Not My" series and picked out the That's Not My Penguin and That's Not My Puppy (since Liam is obsessed with them!) for his stocking. Liam will be taking his first trip to the ocean this coming April so we also got him a seashore book. It is from their Shine a Light series where you hold a flashlight behind the pages in the dark and images appear! They are so cool! This book and his very own flashlight will be wrapped up inside his new teepee on Christmas morning.

Happy Christmas Shopping! XO

Thanksgiving 2015

Thanksgiving is one of my very favorite holidays. Not only because I love to eat (haha) but I think it goes without saying that it is a wonderful opportunity to reflect on all the many things we are thankful for in our lives. Before I share those things, I wanted to recap our time spent in Meridian with my mom for Thanksgiving ...

While we were skeptical (if you've been to Idaho and experienced the weather, you understand) the weather forecast showed signs of snow on Wednesday and Thursday this week. We'd planned to travel on Wednesday but kept getting encouraged by others that it would be smart to leave at the soonest opportunity and we are so glad we decided to leave on Tuesday instead. First thing to be thankful for, making it there safely because Wednesday did indeed bring snow. My mom had to work Wednesday so we popped into her office to say hi in the afternoon. At the first sound of Liam, her co-workers started popping up from their desks to see him. He just stood there overwhelmed by it all until one of the ladies gave him a stuffed monkey to carry around and then it was all fun and games after that. He found his way into every nook and cranny he could. haha A place full of non-baby toys is always Disneyland to a kid. His favorites being Sita's computer/keyboard and his new love of calculators. I think it is safe to say we know what he wants from Santa this year. His very own calculator! ;)

On Thanksgiving we took Liam  outside to experience snow for the first time in his new boots! We didn't let him go too wild and crazy because it was about 20 degrees outside and his pair of gloves and hat haven't come in the mail quite yet but he definitely loved poking it with his finger from Sita's hand.

Nic's favorite appetizer on holidays is little smokies with BBQ sauce and he got to share a bite with his little sidekick this year. Considering Liam wolfed down 3 or 4 of them in a few minutes flat, I'd say he was a fan. haha

Liam discovered the CD rack at Sita's house and it was game over to any and all toys we tried to draw his attention away with from there!

Through no fault of her own, my mom's turkey wasn't done when it was expected to be so for dinner we gave Liam bites of other foods instead. When everything finally came together, he was too full and showed no interest in a bite of mashed potatoes and gravy, turkey, or stuffing. He sure loved leftover apple crisp and ice cream the next day for dessert though.

^ Nothing but trouble!!! ^

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we've had an on-going second round of sickness at our house that we brought along with us on the trip. I had a sore throat most of the time we were there and Nic started coming down with it by Thanksgiving night so we laid low the rest of the trip. We did quite a bit of online shopping on Black Friday from the comfort of the couch (best way to do it in my opinion!) and kicked off the Christmas season with Christmas Vacation and Home Alone.

I shared a family picture of us on Instagram on Thanksgiving Day saying that you know you are living a wonderful life when every year you are more grateful than the last, my family being one of my biggest blessings of all. I meant every word. I continually feel more and more blessed with each passing year as we near the end and I look back and reflect on all God has given me in my life. I am one lucky woman to be adored by a man as wonderful and selfless as Nic. I am blessed to be a mom to a little boy who takes the world by storm and is my reason to smile every day. I'm lucky to consider myself among the very few these days who get the incredible privilege to be a stay-at-home mom. I adore Rue and the giggles she brings to our family from her quirky, entertaining, and lovable personality. I am blessed to always have my temporal needs met and feel so thankful to be loved by my Heavenly Father and his son Jesus Christ each and every day despite my shortcomings. Happy Thanksgiving to you all! May you reflect often on the blessings in your life because I promise you that if you do, you will find more joy than you can imagine this holiday season. XO

P.S. Our Thankgiving last year. Look how tiny Liam was!

Decorating for Christmas

It seems I unintentionally took an almost month long blogging break but I think that it was necessary for me. I tend to want to document every moment in our life which isn't a bad thing because as they say, "take lots of pictures, for you'll only regret the ones you didn't take." For me, that is so true, but living in the moment with my boys is equally important to me.

Besides an on-going second round of sickness for the season in our family, we jumped the gun and decorated our home for Christmas the week before Thanksgiving. At first I justified it because we were going to be out of town for Thanksgiving and I wanted to come home to a fully decorated house but in the days leading up to Thanksgiving I realized that you can never have too much holiday around you in my opinion and a Thanksgiving accompanied with twinkling lights from the Christmas tree is pretty amazing in my book. Liam has done better than expected with the tree, by the way. Call me crazy but I decorated the entire tree top to bottom despite having a one year old Tasmanian Devil running around. Before you shake your head, the bottom half of our tree only has plastic balls so even if he does manage to tear one off in the split second that I am not looking his way (yes, he has done it already), he can't hurt anything. But really, for the most part he stays away from it. Rue on the other hand is another story entirely!! That little stinker camps out under there inching closer and closer to the tree cord so we decided rather than playing catch me if you can all month long, up went the gate again yesterday, sigh. I remember tiny baby Liam last year being transfixed by the lights on the tree, oh the nostalgia. 

Besides our nativity and Christmas tree, one of my favorite pieces of decor is our Christmas village. We were SO blessed to have it passed down from Nic's parents to us last year. Believe it or not there is still a third of it not set up from lack of high enough ledge space where it won't get mauled by tiny little fingers. One day, it will all be set up! It is so pretty and so much fun to look at!

It is not surprising in the least bit that our son is obsessed with technology. The remote and daddy's computer keyboard being a couple favorites right now!

Nic's mom brought over a container full of toys from his childhood and it has been like an early Christmas for Liam over here as he is transfixed by all the new toys!

 ^ That little tongue kills me!! ^

I still need to hang the mistletoe and stockings and add a felt ball garland around our tree and then we are all set for the Christmas holiday around here! I even got most of my Christmas shopping finished! Thank you online sales on Black Friday. A Christmas tour of Liam's nursery is coming your way later this week as well as our Thanksgiving tomorrow. Happy Sunday! XO

life lately

After I put Liam to bed most nights I find myself looking through the camera roll on my phone at all the fun things we've been up to and memories we made during the day. After doing that last night, I realized that I take a lot of little funny pictures that I often don't share on social media and rather than letting them get lost amongst the others in my camera roll, I thought I would share them here with a memory to go along with it. After all, they make up some of the best parts of my day as I get to live my dream job as a stay-at-home mom with Liam.

Liam still isn't showing a lot of interest in books despite my frequent effort of reading stories to him but he sure does LOVE to knock them off the shelves, carry them and drop them all over the house, and chew on them! haha

At the beginning of September, Liam and I got our first colds of the season and were stuck inside for a week straight. By the weekend we were going a bit stir crazy so we took a scenic family walk in a part of town we don't usually visit. Liam had a blast riding on daddy's shoulders and being tall enough to touch the leaves on the trees.

I've been struggling lately with foods for Liam. He has seemed to regress back to wanting mostly pureed foods unless it is fruit. It became really discouraging for a while because he was eating so many different things. Two realizations have led to a breakthrough in the last few week or so, number one being that I read the information sheet that Liam's pediatrician gave us at his one year check up and it said that it was common for kids his age to lose some of their appetite for food and that parents should dial back the nursing or bottle feeding to ensure they are hungry enough for their meals. It was like an "A HA" moment for me! That and I watched a periscope the other day about getting kids to eat healthy foods and one thing she mentioned was to give one food at a time to a child and in very small portions. That multiple foods on their tray and larger portions can overwhelm kids really easily, especially if there is foods they haven't tried before. I've tried this the last couple of days and have gotten Liam to eat cucumber, beans, and bread! Three things he hasn't eaten in a very long time. 

I found some fun chicken nuggets in the shape of letters. He hated them so the rest of the box has sat in my freezer uneaten. haha (p.s. Don't worry, I cut those nuggets into very small pieces before he ever took a bite!)

Nic and I decided that we wanted to hold off on giving Liam sugar until his first birthday for two reasons, we thought it would make for one heck of a reaction when he took his first bite of cake on his birthday and it just seems like the sugar monster takes over kids after they have some and it becomes all they beg for. We wanted to prolong that second one as long as possible! haha Well, like anyone else, I hate admitting when I am wrong but it turns out it wasn't the best idea we've ever had. Wednesday, the day after he had cake for the first time, was a crappy day. And I mean CRAPPY! All up his back, all over his blankets & sheets, and basically covering him from head to toe by the time I got his pajamas off. I carried him as far away from my body as I could, straight to the bathtub to be hosed down. haha Baby number two will be slowly acclimated to sweets. Sorry Liam!

 I am sad to say goodbye to, summer & this adorable tank top. Especially with the 30 degree temps and massive amounts of rain we are having here today. How is fall already gone?!

 Liam was given this hilarious corn cob outfit last fall when he was born but it swallowed him whole back then so I thought I would try it on again. I was dying laughing as he quickly rolled over and tried to crawl around when his legs were practically attached! It lasted 30 seconds tops.

You should see his bed rail. Chew.Marks.EVERYWHERE! I have a beaver on my hands you guys!

I know many people eye roll that Christmas stuff is already in the stores when it isn't even Thanksgiving yet and we JUST finished Halloween, but it doesn't leave me any less excited! When we were at the store the night before Liam's birthday we pulled down this GIANT Christmas teddy bear and had one of those moments that I captured just a few seconds too late. He ran up to the teddy bear with his arms outstretched and hugged it right around the neck. It was so sweet!

At about 9:15 like clock work every morning, Liam starts to get fussy but isn't quite tired enough yet for his morning nap so we've started having "snack time". It is the one time of day we sit down together and watching about 15 minutes of Mickey Mouse and have some of his favorite veggie & fruit or yogurt melts. It is adorable how excited he gets!

There ya have it. Just a few moments from our every day that I definitely cherish SO much! I sure love these boys of mine!

Halloween 2015

If I wasn't really looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, I would definitely be more sad that Halloween is over. A lot of aspects of Halloween I am actually not crazy about (creepy costumes, horror movies, pitch darkness), any of the above all terrify me. haha However, movies like Hocus Pocus & Hotel Transylvania, cute neighborhood kids trick-or-treating, and baby animal costumes keep me loving the holiday and a baby animal costume this year, I got! 

Lions, and tigers, and bears, OH MY!

The cutest lion I have ever seen! I plan on soaking up every year I can where Liam lets me pick out his costume and we get to do a family theme. Please tell me I have at least one more year left?!

Liam trick-or-treated at his Grandma Sue's house in the afternoon but we decided to stay home and answer the door this year in the evening. I am so glad we did! It was so much fun seeing all of my adorable little neighbor kids' costumes. While we answered the door, this little lion tried with all his might to carry pumpkins (by the stem) around the house. I've watched the video below about a hundred times now and laughed every single time. It is rough trying to bend over in a chubby lion costume!

A combination of all the little trick-or-treaters and us eating WAY too much candy, we ran out right about the time that the teenagers in gory creepy costumes came out to trick-or-treat. It was also time for Liam to go to bed anyway so it was perfect. It was a spooktacular day!

Happy Halloween from the Williamson's! XO