ahhh....the start of summer.

Days spent in the pool, running through the sprinkler, having squirt gun battles, and (my personal favorite) eating ice cream.  School's out, summer is just around the corner!

Oh, I just can't wait to be THREE!!

Liam turned 3 last month, but due to a bunch of other obligations and out of town trips, this was the first weekend we had a chance to actually celebrate.  We haven't started friend parties for him yet, so it was just going to be us and the grandparents over, but that little boy was set on having a Lion King birthday party (although that was a last minute change, he had been asking for Frozen for months)  As timeless as the Lion King is, it's not super popular right now, so I couldn't find any plates or decorations or anything, so I had to improvise with some stuff found on Pinterest. 

the sign says "Remember Who You Are"

I printed off some coloring pages, Liam made a little masterpiece:

And I found him this adorable Lion King shirt clearanced at Children's Place...little guy, big roar!

Nana and PopPop had brought a street hockey set that the boys opened the night before, so there were family games of hockey taking place at the party:

Nana joins the game

Pappy and PopPop get in on the action

Doesn't he look so grown up here??

We decided to make it easy on ourselves and order the always delicious taco party pack from Mad Mex...it was a hit, and it was nice to just be able to sit around and relax with the family instead of manning the grill or preparing sides.

After dinner, it was time for Liam's favorite part of any party...the cupcakes!!

After that, he opened some fantastic gifts (thank you, everyone!)

Happy birthday to our little lion!! :)

Liam's 3 year check up

It was a few weeks late, but yesterday was Liam's 3 year check up. Drumroll for the stats, please...

Height: 38.5 inches (73rd percentile)
Weight: 33 lbs ((63rd percentile)

Looking back at Jake's 3 year check up, he was 37.5 inches and 30 lbs, so Liam definitely still has a little bit of height and weight on him :)

Everything else was good, he amazed the doctor as usual with his talent of holding perfectly still like a statue during the exam, not flinching at anything that's done to him.  While I'd love to think that it's due to an awesome parental upbringing, I think the truth is that he's in it for the free pretzel and sticker he gets on his way out of the office if he was well-behaved during the visit. 

His left ear tube is somehow still in place (he lost the right one a year ago) so I guess it's still doing its job.  He had one ear infection in recent months, but it was in the right ear so at least there's still one tube in there. 

He's been transitioning into the preschool room over the past week at daycare, and he's set to go there full-time next week.  (*GULP*)  Some days this week, well...let's just say he wasn't thrilled with heading over there even for part of the day.  He adores his teachers in his current classroom, and repeatedly tells us that he doesn't want to leave them.  The other day he went over (after throwing a massive fit in the morning over it, the kind where he turned his entire body into a noodle and collapsed on the floor in a fit of his own tears.  Parents, you know what I'm talking about) but once he got there, the teachers said he did a great job and wasn't upset at all.  As I was buckling him into his carseat after school, I said "So I heard you had a great time at preschool today!  Are you excited to go back tomorrow?"  His response was a deadpan "No, mommy.  I am never going back there again". 

Well then....

The other aspect of his transition is that they expect him to be potty-trained for preschool.  Thus far our level of success there has hovered somewhere around a zero.  Ok, ok, so maybe not that bad...but not good.  He can go on the potty.  Sometimes he does it.  But more often than not, he simply chooses to not do it.  I'm pretty sure he's been using it as a stall tactic because he told me that if he didn't go on the potty, they wouldn't move him to preschool.  Therefore, I'm hoping that two things happen next week: 1. he realizes that he's going there, regardless of the potty status and he will just cave in and start doing it and 2. that he's inspired/motivated/peer pressured into going once he's over there since pretty much every other kid will be potty trained.

Fingers crossed for me, please.

Our little 3 year old monster!

Finding faith for our family

Brian and I both went to church when we were younger (he was Lutheran, I was Catholic) but by the time we met each other, neither of us had actually been doing anything as far as religion went for many years, aside from the occasional wedding that included a mass (which totally counts as attending church, by the way) We were married in Heinz Chapel, by a Lutheran pastor and while our ceremony was religious-based, it was not a full mass.

When Jake came along, we agreed that even though neither of us were active in the church at that point, it was important us to have him baptized.  Back to Heinz Chapel we went (with the same pastor who married us!) with our BFF's Melissa and Dennis serving as godparents.  A few years later, there we were again getting Liam baptized, with my brother Nate, and his wife, Katie serving as godparents.

Jake-2008

Liam-2012

During those few years, Jake attended church-based daycares/preschools, so Brian and I were kind of patting ourselves on the back, we were all "Oh yeah....look at us, giving our kids some church based education at an early age!"

That was worked out well until this past year when Jake went off to kindergarten, and for the first time in his little 5 year old life, he was not getting some type of religion-based education on a regular basis.  And even though I had not actually attended church voluntarily in over 15 years and had never been particularly enthusiastic about it even when I was attending, I found myself feeling like we needed to provide that to him.

I had no idea where to start.  While we were both raised in a church, neither of us felt particularly tied to that religion enough to advocate for it, but we agreed that we were open to just about any religion/church if it felt like the right fit.  A search of churches in our area produced a short list of places that we wanted to "taste test", and I became the designated tester.  I took a few Sundays in a row, and attended services by myself.  I wanted to see how the services were, and also what they offered for children.  We were looking for something a bit more contemporary, but not too contemporary. Somewhere that would be able to teach the kids the things we wanted passed along to them, and also had messages of being open minded and respecting others. Somewhere that shared the views and beliefs that Brian and I already had for ourselves. Basically, we wanted to find somewhere that could provide to them a solid foundation of the history of the Bible, some moral lessons, and a message of love. 

After a few weeks, I found one that stood out above all the others...it definitely had the most welcoming vibe, delivered the messages we were looking for, and had a really active children's program.  The kids would be able to go to Sunday school during the services, which was a huge bonus.  We started attending in early February, and we've been really happy there. Maybe this will change later on, but right now the kids are excited about going each week and really seem to enjoy their time in Sunday school.

We were all happy with the decision to go there, and then a funny thing happened; a little unanticipated side-effect of going to church, if you will.

Sundays slowed down.  

They didn't come to a screeching halt because, well, we were still trying to move 4 people out the door and a lot of times we still had things we had to get done in the afternoons.  But the mornings?  The mornings slowed down to a wonderful, leisurely pace. Service didn't start until 9:15am; when you have kids who are typically up by 6:30am at the latest, that's a decent amount of time before you have to start getting everyone ready and walk out the door.

Sunday mornings morphed into what they probably should be. They morphed into time spent lingering over breakfast, rather than rushing through it because I was going to go grocery shopping/Brian was going to mow the lawn/insert any morning chore here.  The mornings morphed into extra play time for the kids, or sometimes even just turning on morning cartoons and relaxing and snuggling while Brian and I (GASP!) read the paper in peace. (ok, full disclosure: he reads the paper, I look through the ads and clip coupons)  It seemed like now that we had a standing commitment in terms of somewhere to be, it also gave us a chance to commit to slowing down and just enjoying the time with each other on those mornings.

Sunday morning relaxation

 We'll see what happens over time; maybe the kids will start resisting going to church (much like I did), maybe they will continue to enjoy it...but either way, I'm grateful that it's something the four of us are committed to doing together right now, and I'm thankful that it has given us the ability to slow down and make the most of our Sunday mornings together.