Happy New Year!

The past few years, my little family has rung in the New Year with a hike. This year we celebrated with a pleasant walk along a flat, paved trail. Miss Emma loves the outdoors, but gets tired and asks to be carried after a mile or two, which means Barry has to be available to wear her in a carrier for part of our adventure. That means I'd have wear a baby and hike, which I am in no shape to do at the moment. Hence, the lovely, flat, New Year's Day walk.

We invited some friends to come along, which was wonderful. Em doesn't understand why little Heather can't keep up with her, but she loves her to pieces. Those two have a lot of fun together. Barry climbed a tree and convinced Emma to join him. We even saw my favorite bird. It was a great morning.

 

New Year's Day also marked Liam's 5th month of life!

My sweet son continues to melt my heart into a sticky puddle of goo. He smiles so much. He loves to laugh. Lately, he does this precious thing where he looks into my eyes, smiles like I'm the greatest thing in the world, and plays with my hair. He loves to be held, still loves to be swaddled to fall asleep, and is addicted to the pacifier as a sleep aide.

For most of the past month, he has been sleeping in his crib at night and sharing a room with Emma. It has worked out better than I expected. They are both used to the other one's noises and do a really good job of sleeping through when one wakes. (I hope typing that out didn't jinx me.) *Knock on wood.*

I've started feeding Liam baby cereal and he really likes it. Who doesn't like oatmeal? The only problem is timing a feeding so that he doesn't becoming a screaming, angry baby. I always nurse him first, then let an hour go by so there is some room in his tummy for food. When he sees the bowl and spoon he gets really excited and a little impatient. Lately, after eating a bit, he starts to cry every time I take the spoon out of his mouth. At first I thought this meant that he wanted more food, but today I realized he just wants to suck on something because he's tired. Life's rough when you're five months old.

Rockin' his sister's pink bib!

Liam can roll from his tummy to his back. He has done it several times, I even got in on video, but it's been a couple of weeks since his last roll. He can almost roll the other direction as well. We shall see. He loves playing with toys, and is working hard at mastering his hand-eye coordination. He's pretty skilled with his feet, too.

He makes tons of noises, and like a true boy, is already into sound effects. He also really likes sticking out his tongue. I know it was just a fluke, but he absolutely said, "Emma" the yesterday. Em and I both looked at each other in amazement when we heard that one!

I am so blessed to have such a wonderful bunch to call my own.