Eleven months.

Happy Leap Day!

How perfect that Liam's first year is a leap year because I can post his 11 month update on his actual 11 month birthday!

Liam Briggs, you are eleven months old!

What are you up to???

I'm not sure how much you weigh, probably a little over 20lbs, or how tall you are, but we will find out next month at your ONE YEAR appointment!

You are wearing mostly 6-12 month clothes. Again, it depends on the brand. You are a size 3 shoe and a size 3 diaper.

You are still nursing! I really thought we were going to have to throw in the towel last month, but you still really enjoy it in the mornings so I think we will make it the whole year! Yay! Not exclusively though - you get three bottles too and three meals plus snacks - but I'm so glad we made it as far as we did! Your favorite finger foods this month are oranges, strawberries, and graham crackers.

You also have started trying to feed us! It's so funny! You will hold whatever food you are eating out to us, we will pretend to eat it, you laugh hysterically, and then shove it in your own mouth!

Sleep has been a little off this month to say the least. First it was your nighttime sleep, but that has gone back to normal thank goodness. Your naps however are all kinds of crazy. They got really short so I thought you were ready to switch to one nap. We tried that for about a week and it went horribly - your one nap was semi-long but you would get super cranky around 5:30 and stay that way until bedtime. Now we are back to two naps, but there have not been two days where they have been the same. Maybe you will get all straightened out by your birthday!

You made your first word associations this month! Your first word was technically dada, but the first time you purposefully looked at something and directed your speech was to the dogs! It comes out sounding more like "gob," but it's the cutest thing! You will also look right at me and say mama and crawl towards me saying mama if you want me to pick you up. So you may have said Dada first, but you call me Mama! :)

You really haven't said many of your words besides mama, dada, dog and some nonsense words this month. I think it's because you've been so busy learning new things with your body!

You are speed crawling, pulling up, cruising along furniture, and walking with your walker EVERYWHERE! You are super fast and not afraid of anything.

You are also waving, clapping, giving kisses and hugs, making kissy sounds, and initiating peekaboo all the time. When you want to play, you will hide your face behind something until I say, "Where's Liam?" and then you will pop your head out and smile! And then do it all over again about a dozen more times :)

You got a fifth tooth just this week, and they always come in pairs so I'm pretty sure #6 will be making an appearance in the next few days.

Things You Love:

Chasing after the dogs!

Being outside - we spent a good half hour just hanging out on the back porch earlier this week. You were so content to just crawl around on the patio and in the yard!

The musical instruments Yaya got for you (the Easter Bunny may be bringing you some more!) and anything you can bang on to make noise. We all think you are musically inclined and we are already talking about getting you in piano lessons asap. When my friend Tracey watched you last week, she told me you were clapping to the beat of a musical toy that was singing! That makes me happy because I have played many instruments in my day and would love for you to enjoy playing as well!

Bath time in the big tub is a new favorite thing. Especially with bubble bath! You would probably spend all day in the tub with your toys if I let you!

Standing up! You will find a way to pull yourself up onto anything and everything...and anyone!

Your favorite toys this month are your instruments, your turtle scooter that Daddy pushes you around in, and your activity table.

Things You Don't Love:

Napping! Let's change that, ok?

Falling down. It's inevitable of course, but it usually bring some tears, poor thing.

Firsts:

You were babysat by a non-family member for the first time! Minus the nursery and MOPS of course. My friend Tracey watched you for about an hour and a half while I got a much needed haircut. She said you were great, and you and Max just played and played!

Baby boy, I can't believe this is our last month before you turn one year old. You will always be my little baby, but one just sounds so BIG! We have a lot of fun things planned this month, I can't wait! We are going to head into the big 0-1 in style!

Operation Playroom Has Commenced.

We are officially turning our office/guest room into an office/playroom! It will still be considered the office because we have no other place for the desk and computer to go, but it will be like 80% Liam's playroom. It will also hopefully 100% be the place we spend our days because I'm also ready to have a normal living room back!

Here's a before of what the office/guest room looked like:

(pretty blah...)

We started by taking out the daybed. I LOVE our West Elm daybed and refuse to part with it, so it's in the attic until I find another home for it. But it was taking up a ton of space and the only family member who used it was Toula. She will just have to find a new place to sunbathe :)

And here's what it looks like at the moment...

This room feels worlds bigger without the daybed! We moved Liam's toy shelf thing in here too which I know is ridiculous because just last month I went on and on about how perfectly it fit in our living room nook. BUT in the living room it was standing upright so Liam couldn't actually access any of his toys, and isn't that kind of the point of having toys to begin with??

The other half of the room is still all "officey" and not childproofed yet so we have a ways to go. And it still needs art on the walls, a rug, and new blinds and curtains, but it's a start!

Here's some playroom Pinsperation I've been eyeing...

{via}

I would love, love, love to have a reading nook, but our room is not big enough. Liam has about a million books though so I do plan on creating a little library area!

This pin didn't have a link, but I love the use of the IKEA spice racks and the framed book covers! This would be more along the lines of what I have to space to do.

{via}

I would love to incorporate a small chalkboard somewhere in the room. I even have a little chair already for Liam to sit in and doodle!

{via}

I also want to hang a cookie sheet like this up somewhere because we have some great magnetic toys and letters, but NONE of our appliances are magnetic. Isn't that weird? We knew our refrigerator wasn't when we bought it, but we didn't know about the rest until recently.

{via}

And in my dream playroom, I would have this amazing teepee for Liam! I can just picture 3 year old Liam hiding out in his little teepee reading or building with blocks for hours! Oh wait, three year olds don't hang out alone and quiet for hours?!? Wishful thinking, I guess!

I blame the camera

for my lack of blogging. I'm hoping Best Buy calls me SOOOON.

So until then, here are some life moments via the iphone!

I made this yummy dessert earlier in the week. I have this pinned as "the hubs is going to flip" because he loves chocolate and peanut butter so much. I was right!

It's chocolate, peanut butter, and graham crackers - how could you not love that combo?!

(By the way, I have NO idea why these images are so gigantic. This is the first time I've ever uploaded pictures to blogger straight from my iphone - I know, I'm so behind the times - and it just made them this way. At least you get a REALLY big close up of a yummy treat!)

Liam has started reaching new heights with his climbing skills! I'm relieved to say he hasn't figured out how to climb up onto actual furniture yet.

I love the PicFrame app. I think I've mentioned it before? Anyway, I took these pictures of Liam during lunch today. He was giving me sweet faces...and then there's the last one. Ha!

The day after Valentine's I went to Target and got a bunch of cute decorations for 50% off. Valentine's party at my house next year! Who's coming??

Liam has decided when his hands are full it's no big deal. He says, "That's what my mouth is for!"

Liam got his first climbing/cruising injury this past weekend. I'm surprised it took nearly a month for a real spill to happen, but happen it did. Poor thing fell in the tub and got a bruise and a knot. It's only been 3 days though and it's now completely gone!

I took this little nugget for a wagon ride (the weather has been BEYOND amazing here, sorry Northerners!) and this is how he rode most of the trip. Except imagine him sipping on a sippy cup too, totally relaxed!

I was at HomeGoods the other day and was drooling over these nautical pillows! I'm picturing one resting in the cute little adirondack chair my mom got for Liam. I can't wait for summer!

And speaking of pillow-fever, I strolled around with this one in my cart for awhile. I couldn't decide where exactly it would go, so sadly it made it's way back to the shelf :(

I did end up with two books for Liam, socks for Liam, and eating utensils for Liam though. Hmmm....putting away things I want and buying things for my child?? Welcome to motherhood I guess!

I picked up this book for Liam at Half Price Books the other day too. I just love nursery rhymes, but I tend to only know the first few lines and then trail off or make up an ending. Now I know what I'm doing!

Isn't this so cute? These two are like two peas in a pod! Last week, my friend Tracey and I got our cricut on (I seriously need one of those by the way!) while Max and Liam crawled all over the house together. I think they're trying to scheme a way through the baby gate here!

And last but not least...

My dad and I did some painting today!

This $15 estate sale find by my mom was transformed into...

Ta-daa!

The pictures make the highchair look a little lighter and brighter than it really is in person, but I LOVE it so much and can't wait for the birthday boy to use it!

We have pictures in about two weeks and I'm envisioning something like this...

or this...

So adorable!

Oh, and I can't WAIT to reveal our weekend project I hinted about in my last post, BUT I have to wait until I get my camera back because the iphone just doesn't do it justice! SORRY!

Misc. Monday - Our Weekends

I forgot to post these, but LAST weekend my mom came over and brought Liam some Valentine goodies! She got him some summer clothes, sandals, and sunshades. She also brought him some heart-shaped marshmallows that he loved!

A present for me??!

Don't mind if I do!

And of course the tissue paper was a big hit!

Thank you Yaya!

Also last weekend Will made spaghetti and meatballs from scratch. As in meatballs, sauce, and noodles! He got the KitchenAid pasta attachment recently and has been patiently waiting for a free day to make it because it does take all day. The sauce is really what takes the longest. I know I've mentioned before on here that Will likes to cook, and he's REALLY good. It was the best spaghetti I've ever had! We had his parents over to eat too. Will had a little surprise about the meatballs he didn't tell them about until the end - they were buffalo meatballs. Sounds weird, but they were soooo good!

Will took a 4 day weekend this weekend so I feel like he's been home forever - I love it!

Thursday night was our Friday so we went out to dinner, ran to Wal-Mart for some cleaning supplies and bath toys for Liam , and had our first Redbox experience. I can't believe what I was missing out on - Redbox is awesome!

Friday we headed to the hospital to visit my Papaw who had to spend the night there for some tests, but he's fine! Then my mom babysat Liam while Will and I went to see The Vow and out to lunch. I really liked The Vow, and I didn't know it was inspired by a true story!

Friday night we took a trip to Lowe's for some craft supplies (pics soon - it's almost finished!) and then just hung out at home.

When we got home on Friday, Liam had a package waiting for him. His ABC book I made came in, and it is so adorable!

This is the book I mentioned I ordered from PaperCoterie.com and got it for only $9. I also ordered a memory box for his keepsakes.

Saturday the boys spent the morning doing what boys do - building forts and running around the house in scooters really fast! We also ran a few errands including handing my camera over to Best Buy for a week because Liam accidentally knocked it off the desk and the auto-focus won't work. Thank goodness for insurance :)

Saturday night Liam went to stay with Will's parents while we went on a belated Valentine's date. We went to Pappas Bros. Steakhouse and it was delicious! We spent over two hours just enjoying each others company, baby free. It was nice, but I missed my little man by the time we got back!

Will's mom sent us this picture. Liam was playing with her tupperware and thought it was a cup so he tried to take a drink!

Sunday we had church, sunday school, lunch at Will's parents house, home for a nap, bible study for me, and then dinner and another Redbox! Liam got promoted this week and I was nervous how he would do because he was pretty close with his old teachers, but he did great! He played the whole time and only cried when I came to pick him up. He always cries when he sees me and I don't immediately scoop him up. I was just grabbing his diaper bag first - I'm such a mean mama!

Today we are putting the finishing touches on our weekend project, and if the weather is as nice as it's supposed to be then we are taking a nice long walk!

Here's a sneak peak of our little project. Can you tell what it is?

I also want to clean out the cabinets under our kitchen sink with all the cleaning supplies. I want to get it nice and organized and then lock it up! Liam hasn't discovered the kitchen cabinets yet, but I'm sure it will come soon.

I would loooove for it to look something like these when I'm done...

{all images via Pinterest}

And I have to add a short video of Liam's latest trick. He started making kissy sounds! I could just eat him up I love it so much!

Happy President's Day!

Enjoy the day off...if you have it :)