So I really haven't been as good about taking pictures this year as I was in his earlier years, but I've made up for this with a ton of great videos. Now that he's so much more mobile and coordinated (and pretty much never still), I find that it's easier to catch little bits of video here and there than photos. I thought it would be fun to recap Liam's last year of life through various videos I've taken from his second birthday up until now. I know I'm biased, but I think you'll agree with me that these are all pretty adorable.
11/22/12 - First up, Liam performing for everyone at Thanksgiving in Brenham last year.
12/27/12 - Next is one of my all time favorites. This is a great example of how dang funny this kid is - he's always just coming up with the most random and hilarious things to do, all on his own.
1/11/13 - As most readers will know, I've always loved frisbee golf (yes I committed the cardinal sin not calling it disc golf). One fine crisp day in January, I introduced Liam to the joys as well.
2/4/13 - One day Liam decided he wanted to walk around in my shoes for a change. Listen for how he says "hi" at 27 seconds - completely melts my heart, every time.
3/2/13 - Kristen's parents got Liam a trampoline for Christmas, and this is easily one of the best gifts he's ever had. He gets a ton of use out of this thing, and loves rolling all over it. Here's a typical session:
3/16/13 - This is the evolution of a thing Liam had already been doing for at least 8 or 9 months - what we call the "old man walk".
4/5/13 - Bedtime is always fun. Our usual routine is to take a bath, then go to Mama and Dada's room to sit on the bed and read a book or two before we go to sleep. All the parenting books always say that the bath is a great tool to help get the kids ready to sleep - all it really does for Liam is wake him up I think. Here's a good sample of after the bath.
4/19/13 - As most of you know, Liam is gaga for anything remotely construction related. Thanks to his interest, I now know how to tell a skid steer, front loader, excavator, and grader by sight (just to name a few). The very first construction equipment toy he got was his beloved Bobcat skid steer. I'm pretty sure this is the first time we recorded him in action with it.
5/16/13 - Liam has gotten pretty good at some basic soccer skills and likes to kick his multi-color bouncy balls all over the yard. Interestingly, he always uses his left leg.
6/5/13 - Liam really is a sweet little man. He's always trying to help Kristen or me with whatever we're working on (sometimes this is good, sometimes not). Kristen found him this little lawn mower somewhere which he loves to push all over the yard, especially if one of us is mowing.
6/7/13 - I absolutely love this one - it's short but great. One random dinner Liam and Kristen decided to do a little dance together.
8/11/13 - Liam loves to spend time outside, but it's rough in the dog days of summer when you wake up to sweltering heat. The answer? Frisbee golf! His throws have gotten a lot better in 7 months...
8/17/13 - Kristen found these great little construction themed puzzles (I think they're Melissa and Doug puzzles). Liam loves to put these things together and has gotten pretty good. Here he is assembling the excavator one.
9/7/13 - We all went over to Brenham to hang out at Oma's house one evening and have dinner. Here's a snapshot of what happened when the bubble wrap came out...
10/27/13 - Liam loves for us to get the cats to chase the laser pointer. One day while Hannah was visiting we were doing this, and then Liam decided to get in on the chasing action.
10/30/13 - There are these animal ride things at the playground near our house that Liam likes to ride on. They're basically just big seats attached to a huge metal spring that lets them rock all over the place. He's gotten pretty good at getting himself going.
So there you go, a quick look at Liam's life for the last year. I had trouble picking only this few videos, though I'm sure you're all thinking it's way too many. There are a lot of really great ones I found as I was looking back through them all to decide what to share here.
I'll leave you with one more - this one is actually from a year and a half ago, but it's hilarious. The setup: Kristen and I had gotten Whataburger and were eating on the back porch. Liam had been playing with the ketchup packets - I was pretty sure it was going to get interesting, and I started videoing just in time. Make sure and re-watch the video to catch the popping moment - right at 2 seconds.
