Discovering a Child's Talent

I will post more about our wonderful Christmas adventures later, but first I would like to reveal Liam's special talent.  For a while now, we have bemoaned his manners and behavior at the dinner table.  On Saturday with the Hales, we discovered that he is truly just a culinary artist.  I don't mean cooking, I mean an artist whose medium is food.  Hope everyone had a wonderful and delightful day!

Love, Mike, Emily, Graeme and Liam

The Artist

and his masterpiece

Video Test

Well here is my first attempt at taking some video and making a "home movie".  This is clips from our trip to Pullen Park last Sunday.

Hope you enjoy!

Train, Look a Train!

Mike and I had a great trip out to Colorado Springs last week.  While it was great to have some time together just the two of us, we missed our boys so much.  So after we got back, we decided to head to the newly remodeled Pullen Park in Raleigh and visit the miniature train.

While the boys enjoyed riding the train, Graeme especially loved watching it chug around the park.  We also enjoyed the indoor carousel (especially since it was pretty chilly).  Playing on the playground was primarily us chasing the boys and Graeme looking for the train to come around.

We weren't sure that Liam wouldn't jump into the water of the boat ride, so we just let Graeme ride the little boat ride this time.  He had a blast pulling the bell and of course, looking for the train to come around.  Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as we enjoyed the day!

The boys waiting for mommy to get tickets for the rides

Checking out the train car

Looking for the train

Liam and Daddy waiting for the train to start

Graeme was very excited to be on a train

Okay, mommy, enough pictures, let the train ride begin!

Onto the carousel!

Getty up!

Liam rode a very nice giraffe :-)

Waiting at the crossing to see the train come by

Sweet smiles

Look, look, look a train!

Driving the boat

Ringing the bell

And one more time, looking for the train.

Thanksgiving Adventures Part 2 and a Bit of Early Christmas

Lucy and her crowd are headed to Disney World for Christmas so we decided to do Christmas at Thanksgiving.  The kids had a blast opening up their gifts and playing with new toys and checking out new books.

Liam thought the wrapping paper was cool and that the present made a great place to seat

Neal was happy to finally get to open his (he asked all day when it would be time to open presents as he had already figured out what his gift was)

This is the nice picture of the boys opening their present, about 5 seconds later Graeme pushed Liam backward so he could finish ripping off the paper

The Mater bubble bath was a huge hit from the cousins (he doesn't care if it ever gets used in the tub :-)

Liam enjoyed the wrapping paper and the awesome NC State pillow pal from the Melby crew (the boys have to look out for mommy stealing this present)

Ripping into the presents

Graeme helping Papa with his gift.

We had a great time and enjoyed a fun evening hanging out.  The next morning dawned very cold (in the 20s).  It made for some beautiful scenery.

As the day warmed, the boys got dressed to spend another day outside playing.  Sadly this picture doesn't show well Liam wearing his daddy's crocs.  He put them on and then ended up hooking the strap around his ankle and carrying the shoes so he could walk.  

Friday was also Rob's birthday.  Way to early that morning, Rob and Haley went out hunting.  Haley came back with a 4-point buck.  To ensure that Rob also got a buck on his birthday, we put antlers on a "buck".  Here he is posing with his son and his much hoped for birthday buck.

As shown in a previous post, I tried to get a picture of the boys together to send out in Christmas cards.  Once again, I failed.  This was the best picture of them both, looking at each other and possibly wondering when their mother will finally stop trying.

Some great individual smiles, though

Liam of course just wanted to get hold of his Papa

Did manage to get a sweet smile out of him on the porch as he tried to grab hold of my camera.

Thanksgiving Adventures Part 1

Our Thanksgiving family tradition is to head up to the Page family farm just outside Hillsville, Virginia.  Mike and I headed up with the boys on Wednesday (we were quite dreading the drive, but turned out to be a delightful drive :-).  We got to the house around 9pm and after getting the boys settled in, we hung out a little with Papa Witt, Brenda and Ken (friend of the family) before heading to bed ourselves.

Liam did not sleep well.  The side did not attach well on his diaper and slid down into his pjs so he wet himself and his mommy.  It was quite a night.  After not much rest, we were up at 6 and put in the ham.  Lucy and her crowd showed up around 8 a.m. and we truly started getting ready for the Thanksgiving feast.  

Unfortunately, it was not much later that Liam went and grabbed the handle on the wood stove that warms the house and burned his hand.  After running his hand under cold water and going through all the expired first aid kits in the house for burn cream (we didn't find the current first aid kit that was in the kitchen until the next day), he finally calmed down.  The best medicine for him was the cool weather and time outside.  So we put on his jacket and he stayed outside until lunchtime.  Except for the redness, he has thankfully never acted like he was burned at all.  Definitely a reason to give thanks!

Other adventures include a favorite activity of the kids is sledding down the hill while still covered in dew or frost.  Here are some fun pics from Thanksgiving morning . . . 

Graeme thinks this is a lot of fun

Rob goes down surfing (he did it best the first time, busted big the next)

Liam hung out with his favorite person A LOT.  He was a Papa seeking missile the whole trip :-)

The cousins were really great about taking Graeme down the mountain.  The next trip Graeme took with Sarah, they went FLYING and Graeme flew off rolling through some brush leaving him scratched and very briefly upset.  I took a little longer to recover.

Liam was ready to go for a ride

Finally time for yummy Thanksgiving food.  Graeme had a great time with his cousins!

His sweet smile completely outshines his scrapes

Hopefully next year his smile will be because he ate all the yummy food

Liam loved the turkey

The boys finally got to go for a four-wheeler ride with Papa Witt

Most of the crowd go for an after lunch walk

Liam smiling cause he's still hanging with Papa

Another fun adventure for Graeme and Jadyn, being tossed in the air by Mike

Look, a tractor!

My handsome fella

After Liam woke from a nap, we headed down by the stream and along the road with Neal and Jadyn with a quick stop at the tire swing.

The first stop at the stream was fun.  The kids skipped stones (okay, Neal and Mike skipped stones, Graeme and Jadyn threw stones into the water)

And we're off for more adventures

Liam was released from the backpack carrier

Lucy and I used to love to climb the mountainside using the tree roots and now a new generation starts climbing

Graeme also used Jadyn to help himself up the mountain

Neal and Jadyn

On our way back to the house, we stopped at the stream again.  Graeme threw more rocks in and then threw his hat in.  I had to step in the very cold stream to grab it.  When we got back to the house, Neal went inside and told Sandra (friend of the family) that "Auntie Em had wet herself."

Liam thought the cold water felt great.

I hope you enjoyed our Thanksgiving Day adventures!