Liam's 1st birthday photoshoot

I love how all of these turned out. Again, I'm posting every one of them. I love them all!

 He HATED that hat!

He didnt like having his foot in the cake. lol. It was pretty funny. Why do I find such humor in his misery?

Liam's 1st Birthday Party!

I finally got the pics from my sis for Liam's birthday. I am going to post every single one of them because 1) it's easier and 2) I am one of those moms that loves EVERY single picture of her kid. :)

 He didn't like everybody singing happy birthday at him here.

 Then everybody was staring and yelling at him, encouraging to eat his cupcake. lol.

 Somebody likes his cupcake!

 He's such a silly boy.

 Happy birthday Liam!!!

Dear Liam

Dear Liam,

Your birthday has come and gone. Yes I'm a little late writing you your letter but I've been thinking a lot about what I want to write.

You're 22 lbs of pure adorable fun. You're on the smaller side, but you're still full of spunk! You love to laugh, sing, play, cuddle, talk, watch cartoons, be silly, and listen to music. You love when I sing to you and cuddle you just right. When you get hurt, you cry for me until I pick you up and love you. Which never takes long because I hate to see you hurt. 

Everyday you wake up with a giant poopy diaper. Haha. It's like a "good morning" surprise for mommy. Then you HATE when I lay you on your back to change your diapers. When you wake up in the morning or after a nap, you just want mommy to hold you so when I have to lay you down to change you, you get mad. But then I hand you a book or toy then you're as happy as can be. 

You're pretty shy with most people. Even though we lived at Monna's and Coke's house you still don't like it when most of them talk to you or pick you up. If I'm holding you and someone talks to you, you sweetly put your head on my shoulder. I'll admit, I love it. You'll sometimes close or cover your eyes too, which is hilarious.

Right now you're learning how to talk. You call your father "Dadoe" and it is adorable. Even Dadoe likes his new nickname. You still haven't mastered saying "mama" to me, but I know you'll get it. You're a big-time daddy's boy, which totally isn't fair! It's okay though. Your dadoe secretly loves it, although he'll never admit it. ;) When he comes home you crawl as fast as you can, with the biggest smile, over to your dadoe and if he doesn't pick you up right away, you are NOT happy. You follow him all over the house until he gives you love.

Speaking of loves, you LOVE to cuddle anything and everything that's soft and cuddly by laying your head on it. Your teddy bear, your blankies, your mommy or daddy, the couch, a sock, pretty much anything. lol. And the more tired you are, the more you lay your head down on things. Whenever you do it, we say to you "aawww, sweet baby boy. aawwww" and you just smile and giggle and move on playing with your toys. One thing you're doing right now that's SO adorable is you'll lift your shirt and show us your belly when we ask, "where's your belly?" You're always so proud to show us your belly and give us a big ol' grin.

You have seven teeth right now but many more are on their way! You're a drool machine with fingers always in your mouth. The words you say right now are, "no, shoe (ssssss), dadoe, dog (daw), bite (bah), water (wa) (you love this word), walk (also pronounced wa), mama, milk (meh), belly (beh), duck (duh)," and that's all I can remember right now. It's so much fun to see you learning new things everyday.

You have absolutely NO interest in walking on your own. You'll walk with the walker and with help from us, but not a lot. You'll get there though, so I'm not too worried. :) You also LOVE to give kisses. We'll say, "Liam, kisses" and pucker up and you'll open your mouth and stick out your tongue and touch your tongue to our lips while we pucker. And then after we pull away you'll make real pucker kisses with your lips. Just not during an ACTUAL kiss. LOL. It's hilarious. Your little wet kisses are the best, I love them and I hope you never stop giving them. :)

I'm sure I'll think of more stuff to say to you once I finish this post, but for now, this will have to be good enough until next time I write.

I love you, my son. You have changed my life and brought so much joy and happiness. Thank you for everything you teach me and for your unconditional love.

Love, your mama

Weaning Liam

Hello there!

My goal is to start updating this blog again. I keep reminding myself of why I started it in the first place, for ME. Not for entertaining anyone else. To do it as a mode of journaling for future enjoyment of me and my children. So here's a quick update on life.

Liam turned 1 year old! He's currently almost 14 months old.

We bought a house! YIPPY! Since CJ and I have been married we've lived in 6 places, and we haven't quite been married 6 years. It feels AMAZING to finally set down your roots, stretch your feet, and finally unpack things knowing I wont have to pack them back up anytime soon! The most we've lived in any one place is a year and a half. Not to mention, our living spaces got smaller and smaller each time! Our last apartment in California was a whopping 700 sq ft. for all 3 of us. Then we moved into our parents house and shared one tiny bedroom. We made it work, but it was tough! Anyway, that's for another post. I'll update with pics of the renovation and the ongoing work on our house.

I really wanted to write this blog because I just weaned Liam from breastfeeding and I wanted to write down what I did and how I felt about it. So, here we go.

I was planning to wean Liam when he turned a year old. But being in escrow at the time, I knew we were going to be moving soon and I didn't want him to have to go throw so many drastic changes at once (new bed, new bedroom, out of mommy's and daddy's room, new house to destroy, not having my entire family there to entertain him at all times, etc.) So I decided to wait to wean him until I felt like he was settled and comfortable in his new house.

Well he started losing interest in really nursing at around 10 months. I continued to nurse him but I cut back on the amount of feedings during the day. No more midday feedings. He didn't even seem to notice that I was putting him down for naps without nursing. I focused heavily on giving him 3 solid meals a day. Lots of sippy cups with whole milk, water, and sometimes diluted juice. I figured if he was thirsty, he'll drink it. I introduced his sippy cup at around 7-8 months and he would take a few sips then just chew on it. I figured the more I gave it, the more he'll want it. Once I cut out those midday feedings he started really chugging down on the sippy cup. Which made me feel so good since I knew he was satisfying his thirst since cutting out mommy's milk.

Anyway, we've been living at the new house for 3 weeks. He has transitioned very well into his own bedroom and having his own house. He had a little bit of a struggle when we tried to transition him from his pack n play (that he's been in since birth) to a big boy crib. I would set him in it a few times during the day and he would freak out and cry. He's sensitive. So, instead of just continuing that, I went ahead and hung some darkening curtains and just cold turkey started laying him in it to sleep. He didn't cry once! I think at those naptimes and night night times, he was tired and just wanted to sleep. Since then, we havent looked back!

So after about a week or two of him adjusting to his new crib, I knew it was the time to start weaning. I cut out his evening feeding (he was only on a morning and evening feeding) and went with it. He did great! Again, didn't even notice. I just gave him lots of milk in a sippy with his dinner and right before bed. I expected to be totally engorged and uncomfortable the next morning and surprisingly, I didn't feel any different! Which tells me that he hasn't been drinking a lot when I nursed him before bed time. I suspect that he just was there for comfort. So I was going to wait about a week for my milk to adjust before I cut out his morning feeding and completely weaned him. After learning my milk wasn't really affected, I only waited two days to cut out that final feeding!

So that first day of no breastfeeding at all went great. I was a little full and sore by the end of the day, not a ton though. Sleeping that night was a little uncomfortable. But again, not too bad. Then that night I had TONS of CRAZY dreams. One of which I dreamed that my husband was cheating on me and had a girlfriend on the side. I have dreams like that occasionally, in which we just laugh about it. But this was different. I woke up in tears and cried for HOURS about that and everything else that's negative in my life, to my husband. He had no idea where this was coming from! It almost felt like PMS, I just couldnt stop crying about everything.

It wasn't until early afternoon that a light bulb went off in my head. *DING* I must be hormonal due to the weaning!!!! DUH! My body was probably all messed up since I hadn't nursed in almost 2 days. I suddenly felt waaaay better about life.

It's been a couple of days since my little emotional meltdown. And I am officially all dried up. It didn't take long at all! The funny thing is that I was completely ready to wean. My baby and I enjoyed almost 14 months of closeness and bonding through breastfeeding. I prepared myself to not be able to cuddle with him as much and I've accepted it. What I'm actually having the hardest time with is the idea that I no longer am producing milk. I am okay with not having the opportunity to nurse Liam, but I am SO sad that I have no milk left. Why do I feel so attached to producing milk? I have no idea! These feelings I have are completely unexpected. I look down at my boobs and knowing that there's no milk left at all makes me almost feel worthless. I am shocked to feel this way. Hopefully with each passing day I get better emotionally. And so far it is feeling that way but very slowly. I try not to think about it because it upsets me.

Maybe I'm just feeling emotional about it because my hormones are still out of wack. All I know is that I MUST start cutting back on my food consumption because I'm still eating those extra calories for nursing! I eat like a horse. So, wish me luck! I'm gonna need it. :)