In which Liam and my mother make the same face

We took a lot of pictures at Liam's birthday at the end of June.  Lots.  And GG was kind enough to volunteer to come to Liam's kid party and take pictures there, so we have lots of those too.  I've finally started to go through them all, and my favorites so far by far are these funny shots of Liam and my mother making the same face, not once, not twice, but basically in every single picture. 

So funny. We also took photos with his other grandparents, GG, GoGo, Grandpa.  He is so blessed and lucky to have these people love him so very much.

I am reminded that a month and a half ago when these pictures were taken Liam was going through a very grating "I must wear PJs all the time" phase AND insisting that they be fleece, footed PJs even though it was trying to be summer.   He seems to have pretty much graduated from that now, or as he likes to say "Mommy, I've retired from that."  Although, really, he does still love to wear PJs, I just put all the footed, fleece ones away in the top of the closet until fall.  Chose your battles.

In other news, we took the last of the pea plants out just in time to plant more in hopes of a batch for the fall.  I have officially declared myself serious about getting rid of the slugs and garden snails after they ate two of the five broccoli transplants down to the stems and one of the brussels sprouts.  Except for my remaining hopes of tomatoes, and a few cucumbers coming on, we seem to be moving directly from the spring garden to the fall.  The slugs and sails also ate all three plantings of green beans and most of the zucchini flowers so...you know.

Thank you for all your kind thoughts and intentions for Lisa.  She died that Monday, going on two weeks ago now.  Her memory will be a blessing always.  Later that week I found out the spouse of a dear friend of mine at work was dx with surprise stage 4 lung cancer and is not responding to chemotherapy.  (She got bronchitis last year but got better; she is in amazingly good shape but how strange she started to get out of breath hiking; she got -- finally -- a chest xray; there you have it.)  He is a scientist and a biologist, like me.  (Sort of, at least, I was when I went to school and I'm still wired pretty much that way.)  He said: she's probably going to die soon.  You can see straight through his eyes into his heart when he says it; watch as everything starts to go upside down.

So, so fragile.

Sending much love to dear Kate today (and always, but today especially).   Thinking about Will's birthday coming up on Monday.  Always to correspond with the Perseid meteor showers.