June 14 = Laughing Fit Day

I don't have any good pictures from today but I have a story of my favorite parenting moment so far.  I was putting Liam to bed and after his story, I asked him for a kiss and offered him my cheek.  He gives very sweet cheek kisses and that's what I was expecting but I got a little more than I bargained for.  He opened his mouth wide and planted one right on my mouth.  I laughed and said "Oh gross Liam!!!!" in a very loving way ;) and then he started to laugh.  I was laughing because he was laughing which made him laugh more, which made me laugh more.  We laughed for a solid five minutes and it will always be one of my favorite memories!

July 10 = First First Birthday Present Day

With the birthday party quickly approaching, we headed to Target today!  Grammy pushed Malia in the cart and I was in charge of Liam in the stroller who I realize has not been in any pictures lately...

When we got home, there was a package for Miss Malia and her Great-Great-Aunt Dot sent her her first first birthday present- all these doubles can be confusing!  It's a Bible in a nice, fuzzy, teddy bear cover!  Liam has the corresponding one- the same except some blue accents instead of the pink ones on Malia's- she loved it!  As soon as we handed it to her, she hugged it and wouldn't let go for us to read it!

I did some more work on the board! The only things missing are her height, weight and number of teeth- you never know if she's going to grow or if new teeth are going to break through in the next few days!

July 9 = Sneak Peek Day

We are in party planning mode!  Malia is having a ladybug themed first birthday party so everything is black and red!  I got this black poster board and some paint pens- this is going to show lots of different things about Malia- her heigh, weight, number of teeth, favorite things, favorite foods, what she can do, etc.  I got this far today...

July 8 = Play Date Day

We had a play date today!  During the play date, I was very focused on talking to the two other moms that I didn't take any pictures but trust me, it was fun!  Rachel came with her two kids, Jacob who is four and Alli who just turned one and our new friend Jennifer came with her son, Zander, who is almost 6 months old.  

After the play date, Miss Malia had fun with her push walker...

...and her bottle of milk.

Also, I have thought this whole time that my plant with yellow flowers was a zucchini plant but come to find out, they're cucumbers!

Also, in preparation for Miss Malia's first birthday party, we went to Jo-Ann's to find materials for various things and we found this pretty, lace elastic- so Grammy (who, by the way, may be formally changed to Mimi if Liam keeps calling her that) made it into a headband!

July 7 = Choo Choo Day

First- Zachary painted Malia's nose while Liam was appropriately painting paper.

And then later- we were reading a book about a train and we asked Liam to say "choo-choo" and he did very well- and then Malia, who was climbing the stairs at the time, chimed in and gave us a choo-choo too!  Liam is doing an awesome job of repeating sounds we ask him to- so many times a day we will ask him to say something and he's just a master imitator which is so good for his speech development!

July 4 = Independence Day

We started off the birthday of our country by eating a patriotic breafkast...

 

... and then headed to the gym!  On the way there Zachary and I talked about my running goals- now that I'm pretty comfortable with the walk two minutes, run three, and have even ran a mile without stopping twice now I wanted to know what he thought my next goal should be.  He said he thought I could run a mile and a half now without stopping if I wanted to and I said no way but was thinking- well maybe I'll try.  So I started with my two minute walk and then started running and it felt really good.  I got to a mile and knew I could keep going so I did.  I got to a mile and a half and still felt good so I kept going.  I got to two miles without stopping and felt like I could have kept going but decided I better stop since I've never run that far in my life- I wanted to be able to move the next day.  So I took a picture of the treadmill after I finished because I was so very excited.

Malia was obviously worn out after her gym trip:

Matthew and Grace left in the afternoon to miss the fireworks traffic in DC but we got a quick picture beforehand:

And here's Miss Malia sporting her red, white and blue!

July 3 = Mommy/Daddy Dinner Date Day

We went to Michael's today to get a few things for Malia's upcoming birthday party.  I found this headband for a dollar and couldn't resist.

Liam also tried hummus for the first time today- he was a fan!

My mom, brother and his girlfriend, Grace, came to Maryland late last night so I let them watch the kids and I brought dinner to Zachary.  We sat on a bench right at the water and chatted about our days- his schedule will be a little more manageable starting soon!