Rowan, you make us laugh

Rowan,
Daddy and I crack up at you on a daily basis.  They tell you how each baby is so different from the other, and your personality is soooo different than your brother's was at your age.  Not that he wasn't just as cute, but you are just so special in your own way....and it is FUNNY!
Your facial expressions are to die for!  Like we know exactly what is going on in your head.

I mean, obviously, you hate hats!  HA!
You LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to talk.  I must figure out how to upload videos because you are soooo adorable with it.  We joke and say you will be talking before your big bro because you make sooo many sounds already, and a few of them sound like words.  Dada, mama, and hi.  You are too cute.  In the morning, you are SOOOOOOOOOOo smiley!  And when I talk to you, you get SOOOO excited.  You try to talk back and just stare at me until I say something else.  You also crack yourself up!  ;)  You LOVE attention and LOVE to be held and walked around.
You are SUCH a girl!  Your mannerisms and noises are sooo girly.  It is adorable to watch.
You do not like to miss out on ANYTHING!!!!  BUT, you are sleeping 6-8 hour stretches at night now and I am loving it!!!
Daddy and I just think you are THE.CUTEST.THING.EVER!
Love you to the moon and back sweet girl.

My little Artist

Liam you LOVE to draw!  Today we tried out some stamps and watercolor paints and markers.  You did GRRRREAT!  And we both had so much fun!  I love making these memories with you. After you did try to drink the paint water and suck the paintbrush, you were a pro!  ;)

Had to have some snacks while you were working ;)

You are a natural!!!!

your smock "dress"  ;)

TADA!  Your finished products were awesome!  Way to go buddy!

Liam is TWO!

We were so happy to have daddy home for Liam's birthday.  We relaxed in the morning and headed out to Dave and Busters after naptime.  The mall was PACKED so it took us 30 minutes to park, but well worth the time.  Liam had an awesome time!  We ordered kids grilled cheese with french fries and a kids grilled chicken with french fries and shared it all...the faves for the bday boy.

You ate all of the fries and drank his sprite all gone.  He loved playing the games with daddy and this was his favorite...the seat moved like you were going over bumps and actually driving on a raceway.  He was giddy with excitement!

the other fave!  After an hour and a half we headed out to the mall to walk around and then to Sugar Queen cupcakes to get dessert for home!  They are THE BEST CUPCAKES!!!  We left and went home to sing happy birthday.  You did well trying to blow out your candles.

And VERY GOOD eating your treats...

And making a mess ;)

ha!  You are growing into such a sweet, big boy!!  At your 2 year well visit you were 33.8 lbs (95th percentile) and 36 3/4 inches (96th percentile) and your head was in the 80th.  MY BIG STRONG BOY!!!  You are so special to us ans we love you with all of our hearts!!!

Christmas Weekend 2011

What a fabulous time!  Rick took off of work on Friday the 23rd and Monday the 26th.  We had a blast all the way through.  It is so nice when he is home and Liam absolutely LOVES every minute! 

Friday morning Liam and I headed to do some last minute shopping in the morning and then to Market St to get the rest of the food for Christmas Eve.  He was such a good boy and it is really nice to have one on one time with him.  When we got home it was naptime.  Mommy made macaroni salad and a pot of sausage and daddy made his first homemade batches of sugar and butter cookies.  They were AH-mazing!  We are going to make THAT an annual event!

When naptime was over we got ready and headed to Cristina's for a yummy mexican dinner.  Rowan has been tolerating it a little better now and thank goodness, because it is all I want!  It was a little hectic...Rowan did not want to sleep and only wanted to be held which made it difficult to have a relaxing dinner, but we still had fun.  Liam loved the chips and salsa (who knew?!?!) and enjoyed playing with the ice in the cups.  ;/

Caught in the act!  ;)
After dinner we headed to see the light show in downtown Frisco.  It was REALLY cool!!  So awesome we have something like that so close to home!
Liam liked it but was not overly enthused. ;)

Christmas Eve morning was very relaxing!  Liam took an early nap and we all got dressed up and headed to the 3 pm mass at St. Francis.  Unfortunately the line was out the door and we only lasted 15 minutes before a meltdown from Rowan...there was not even any room for me to feed her and I was not going to do it outside so we headed home.  :(  Hated that we missed it, but we did try.  New Years resolution is to attend church EVERY week this year.  Hopefully we can do it!  It really is so important.  The kiddos looked sooo cute dressed up.  Rowan's dress I got at a consignment sale before she was even born and it was PERFECT for her!  Liam was able to wear his Christmas vest from LAST year!  And looked so adorable in it!

We were really excited to have the O'Brien family over for some celebrating Christmas Eve night.  They are from Ireland and did not have any family here coming into town either, so it was great to spend time with them.  Zinedean and Liam played SOOOOO nicely!  And we had lots of time to chat while Sophie slept and I carried Rowan in the bjorn.  She just loves it!  And I like having my hands free!!  ;)

Z wore this toolbelt all night!  Sooooo adorable!

Eating their dinner...well, Liam is tryine to eat Zinedeans!  haa!
They headed home around 8 and we gave baths and got into our Christmas pjs.  Liam LOVED watching some of A Christmas Story and then we set out milk and cookies for Santa and some carrots and celery for the reindeer.
Liam wanted to eat all of Santa's cookies and was not too happy about not being allowed. ;)

Rowan did not want to got to sleep til about 11:30 so she hung out with us while we opened our presents. 

I loved all of my things.  Rick got me some surprises and it all was so nice.  He loved all of his because it was taken from his list with weblinks he had emailed me...too funny.  We had a great time putting everything together, having some beers, listening to music, wrapping, and all of the sudden it was 3:30 am!  YIKES!  Well worth every minute though.

Getting delirious!  ha!

Christmas morning was amazing.  Both kids slept til 9!  I got up at 8 to put the ham in...my first ham!  And clean up a bit and have some coffee because I knew it would be a looooong morning.  Liam came downstairs while Rowan slept a bit longer and it was nice to just be with him.  He LOVED talking blue and the basketball net.  The train set was also a big hit.  Christmas day was SOOO relaxing.  We had some mimosas, took naps and ate a nice dinner.  The ham turned out great!  I cherish every moment of the memories we made last weekend.  Cannot wait to continue to make more!  We did miss our family VERY much but it was also nice to have so much time "just us". 
Here are some pics from Christmas morning...

Liam ate Santa's scraps of cookies!  ha!

Would not let Blue go!

Of course, he loved Rowans presents!!!  ;)

While the princess slept!!  Such an AMAZING weekend!  :-)

Liam's 2nd Birthday Party

We had Liam's birthday party at Gatti Town in Frisco on Sunday Dec. 18th from 11:30 to 1.  They did a great job!  It was very reasonably priced and we were given our own room and a host.  I dropped off some Blues Clues decorations on Friday and we had a fun little Blue Birthday Party!  He was a little overwhelmed at first...especially since I gave "his" notebooks away as party favors, but overall he did a great job.  We ate pizza, then all of the kids (and parents) played some games, then sang happy birthday and lastly opened presents.  Even though we had practiced blowing out the candles for a week, mommy still ended up doing it!  ;)  But opening up the presents came very natural to him!  ;)  He did excellent with that part.  Such a great day with friends.  Here our some pics from his special day!

                                             Ready to go!

                                             So is baby sister!

 

                                      THE BIRTHDAY BOY!!

                                           Table is set!

 

Taking notes instead of eating pizza ;) 

(probably on who is taking hi notebooks!)

                           Chatting with Kendall, Brendan and Cole.

Carousel Ride with dada!

CAKE TIME!

Present Time!

HAPPY 2ND BIRTHDAY MY SWEET ANGEL BOY!!! WE LOVE YOU SOOO MUCH

Our Christmas Card 2011

Love the new photographer we found this year!  Laine Johnson Photography 

Laine was so patient with Liam as he was sick and not being very cooperative.  Lollipops helped, but what 22 month old really wants to do a photo shoot on a Sunday morning?!?!  But we did get some great shots and Rick created this Christmas card for us this year.  I think it turned out pretty cute!

Our family is COMPLETE!!!!  :-)

The Blakes Big Adventure to get a Santa Picture 2011

I am not sure whose big idea it was to try to get a Santa photo on the Saturday before Christmas, but it was a.bad.idea.

We left the house at 9:45 and headed to Northpark Mall hoping we would kill 2 birds with 1 stone--trains and Santa pic.  Who knew the Northpark Santa took APPOINTMENTS!!!  His first available was 6 pm so at 10:30, that sounded a tad too long to wait.  We did listen to him tell some stories though.

He does look like the real deal...ours was wearing pajamas that showed under his suit and he tried to kiss the lady in front of us after giving her a very uncomfortable looking hug...he was not worried about keeping it PG rated--ewwwww...but that pic will come later.  Here is Mr Liam so excited listening to Santa's stories.

Rowan was not too excited about it...ha!
So then we headed to the trains.  Rowan was wide awake so she hung out in the Bjorn with mommy and Liam and daddy checked all of the trains out.  We had lots of fun.

Then it was time for diaper changes and mommy fed Rowan.  45 minutes later once that was complete, we headed to the Galleria to see the big tree and catch a Santa photo there...only when we got in line Santa went on his lunch break til 2pm.  :/  ugh.....so we looked at the tree had some lunch and yet again did diapers and gave Rowan some lunch.

Daddy left to get in line and there was already over an hour wait...the problem was mommy had NO IDEA WHERE DADDY WENT when we came out of the nursing room...he had called my phone which was with him in the stroller.  Oh my!  With NOTHING I carried Rowan around Nordstrom looking for Liam and daddy, then to the play area, and back to Nordstrom thinking I missed them...nope finally went to check the line after 20 minutes of searching and there they were.  Liam was eating goldfish off of the floor and he had already had it but we still had an hour to go.  He threw a few temper tantrums, ran around the line with daddy a few times, threw some snacks all over and by the time we got up there he almost passed out on Santa's lap because he was so tired.  Rowan fell asleep 2 minutes before we got up to santa...of course!  But we did get a pic...with the most interesting Santa I have ever met.  Think he may have been hitting the bottle on his lunch break.

                                                  A MESS

                              And a sleeping baby but....

We got a pic!!  MERRY CHRISTMAS 2011 Love, the Blakes

and ps...here is a good pic on Rowan's cute outfit...she was a little too big for it and busting out of the crotch, but looked soooooo cute!

a crayon made it in the pic too ;)   HAPPY HOLIDAYS!