December Aught Nine

We had a lot of fun spending our first Christmas season with Liam.

We went and got a Christmas tree:



Which is really hard work:



We took Liam to meet two great men. First, Thomas Keller. He was very friendly and gracious, though Liam doesn't seem very sure about him.



And second was Santa, of course!



Liam's fifth month has been the best yet. He smiles and laughs so much now and he's learning so much every day. At the close of the month, our little guy was sick with his first real cold (beyond the sniffles he's had a few times) and between that and the frustration of impending milestones (he's so, so close to both sitting up and scooting), the smiles have been a little slower in coming. I miss them.

Thanksgiving

Since it's a couple of days before Christmas, I decided it was high time we got some Thanksgiving pictures up. We had a great trip to Niles for Thanksgiving. Liam was a total trooper. He didn't complain when we dragged him out in the sleet for the Turkey Run. He didn't fuss when thirty people passed him around and around and around later in the day. And the next day.

Turkey Run!





Dressed up in his fancy clothes:



Reading a book to Aunt Jess:



D made an amazing turkey:



And still looked this good:



The Gourlay/Young men thinking too hard for a holiday:



Quality time with his Great Grandmas:

Comments, Revisited.

Over Thanksgiving, some people told us that they still weren't able to post comments. UNACCEPTABLE.

Here's the deal. When you click on the comments link, it takes you to this screen:



By default, the radio button next to 'Google Account' is selected. This is where things have gone wrong for those who don't have Google accounts (and don't want a Google account). To get around this, all you have to do is select the radio button next to 'Name/URL' like so:



Then you can type in your name (or make up an alias) and post your comment:



Please let me know if you're still having problems!

Day at Shedd

Today, we went with Aunt Jess, Greg, and Andy to Shedd Aquarium. Shedd is my favorite place in Chicago (and that's saying something). Liam showed again that he is definitely the offspring of Damian and I ... he LOVED it. He spent a lot of time looking around with his big huge eyes. When he saw something he really liked, he kicked his feet like crazy. When he saw something he really, REALLY liked, he talked to the fish.

What he didn't do, not surprisingly, is nap.

Here he is, captivated by the shark tank:



And here he is, talking over some things with the tropical fish:

Bumbo Growth-o-Meter: Month 4.5

And, just as a reminder, here's where we started:

Ready for Turkey

He'd been spending a little naked time on the floor in his room, working on his consecutive rolls. I left the room for a second, and when I came back, he'd rolled himself up in the blanket like this.

Our kid moves too fast and too much now to get a good non-flash picture with my p&s camera. It's a little blurry, but I love it.