A bit of catch up...

So I have completely lost my motivation on the blog front. I've been busy, yes, but I've been lazy. So here's an all singing, all dancing post for you to enjoy. Full of pictures and a bit of commentary, here's what we've been up to over the past month or so.



MOM'S VISIT

My mom came over from the states at the beginning of December for Liam's birthday. She stayed with us for 10 days and Liam loved spending loads of time with his Granny. We went on many adventures, exploring some bits of Belfast that I Mom hadn't seen before.
Here's Granny and Liam on the carousel at the Christmas Markets at City Hall. He liked it for the first few spins and then wanted to get off right and quick. We tried to get him to visit Santa in his Nordic looking log house, but he wasn't having any of it. Santa is 'bold' and he doesn't like him at all this year.
My mom and Liam in the glass dome at the Victoria Centre. The Victoria Centre is a new shopping mall. It's a covered mall, so it was freezing. The glass dome is a good 6 or 7 stories high and you can see much of Belfast.
Enjoying some whipped cream at Starbucks.
Again with the whipped cream...
Kind of a random shot, but I just thought he looked really cute with his wee backpack on. He wanted to show Granny how much of a big boy he was.
Here's the big 2 year old! Happy Birthday Liam!! I think he looks like such a proper wee boy in this photo. I couldn't resit the top and tie out of Next... he looks so preppy.
Here's my handsome little man. I really think he looks like me in this picture. Obviously he has my hair, but I think he has my lips, nose and chin too! Lucky boy.
Some posing for Mommy at Ikea. I'm having a little too much fun with my new camera.
"Lambs! Baby sheep!" shouted an excited Liam.
Excited at the prospect of petting a little chick.

That chick is kind of close Grandma Kerwin.
Liam and Ollie. I think I caught Liam mid sentence.. he was discussing what came first, the chicken or the egg.
CHRISTMAS

Blurry family Christmas photo.
Family Christmas photo.
Excited to open up another one of his presents on Christmas morning.
I think I see one in the back there Daddy.
Table all set for Christmas dinner. We had 7 this year in total because Susan was in San Francisco :( By the way those long tubes on the charger plates aren't napkins, they are Christmas crackers. They have a paper hat, joke and little present wrapped inside. You pull one end of the cracker and someone else pulls the other and it make a big pop and whomever has the bigger half gets to keep all of the goodies inside. It's a 'this side of the pond' thing.
My pretty centrepiece. The picture doesn't really do it much justice, but the flowers were lovely.
I did place cards for everyone. It was cute. It was!
Liam wanting to watch The Snowman again for the 20th time. He was all about the Christmas movies- The Snowman, Charlie Brown's Christmas (which Ollie ordered me from the US) and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas were some of his favourites.
His Granny Reynolds got him this cute puzzle which he put together in 30 seconds flat.
Wearing his cute spoongebob pjs.
THE BIG FREEZE

So we got hit with some rather wintry weather. It was freezing for a couple of weeks and the snow came down on 7 or 8 separate occasions. I don't think I saw snow in the first 5 or 6 years I lived here, so it was pretty remarkable. Since we're in a new part of our development and they are still in the process of building, the road services are not yet responsible for our roads. It was like an ice rink for a good week. They are NOT equipped for snow or icy weather here at the best of times. They don't do all weather or snow tired, I've never seen a snow plow and most people wouldn't own a snow shovel. It was pretty treacherous out there. Anyway, we did get a few enjoyable afternoons in the snow. Here's Liam all wrapped up.
Going to explore in the snow with Daddy.
PIZZA MAKING

I made my own pizza dough for the first time the other week. It's sticky and tricky business. I've been trying to get Liam involved in cooking and he seems to love it.
Homemade tomato sauce going on (the trick is to put some sugar in to take away the sharpness of the tomato).
Add some cheese...
And presto, here's your pizza.
Here's our pizza. I was a little disappointed in the pizza dough. It just didn't seem to cook very well. I know that pizza ovens are like 600F so maybe it just needs to be super hot in order to cook properly. It was more than edible, it was just a little off... I'm such a pizza snob!
PLAYDATE WITH ANYA

We babysat Anya for a few hours last weekend while Stevie and Cara finished moving into their new house. Anya is 17 months old, super cute and super smart. I'm happy with Liam's development- in fact I know he's above average. I had heard that boys develop earlier physically and girls develop early with speech and emotional intelligence, but she's something else. Any word you say she will try and repeat. She seems to know a few colours and numbers and remembers everyone's name. Cutie Anya.
Enjoying some lunch.
Hugs bye-bye.

CHRISTMAS DINNER IN JANUARY

To celebrate Auntie Susan's early return from San Francisco, we had another Christmas dinner. Here's Liam looking civilised on arrival.
Not sure if this was all of the food and sugar or the running around and entertaining (probably a combination of both) but Liam is a red and sweaty boy!
We're very excited at Susan's return... our babysitter is back! Woo-hoo!!

FUN AT THE PARK

We've lucked out with some nice weather after the cold spell. This past Saturday we hit the park for a bit of exercise... which seemed to have done the trick since we had to wake Liam up at 9:40 this morning. A full 14 hours of sleep!
Riding the lion...
Cheeky grin...
Enjoying the twirly wurly... I don't know if that's what this is called- I may have made that name up.

So that's a round up of the past few weeks. Promise to try and get pictures on here more regularly. I am taking about 100 photos a week anyway, so I can't say I don't have much to choose from!