11 Months Old

Well, the second photo attempt went okay. Not our best work. :-) However, much to Onkel Ryan's delight, Will dug his German Easter bunny book out of the downstairs toy box and carried it around all evening. We stopped and flipped through the pictures several times, but his 2 minute attention span and my lack of German language skills didn't get us far!

Hey, Froggy, this Bunny is painting stripes on big eggs. Did he paint you, too?

Ha ha! That's a good one!

This has been a very big month for Will - and, therefore, for us!

• Walking! He went from a few tentative steps 3 weeks ago to walking all the time and everywhere. He was also quick to master walking with his hands full! Rarely is he not carrying at least one thing. Usually it's something in each hand!
• Talking! No, he doesn't really talk except for Mama (although, I swear I've heard "Rachel" several times this week. . but that seems too advanced, so I'm not going to count it yet!) but he is always talking (or screeching) and carries on long conversations with himself and/or us.
• Sleeping! I don't want to jinx myself, but now that we've worked through some teething issues (up to 8 teeth now), he's mostly a reliable sleeper. He goes to bed between 7:30-8 and wakes up between 6 and 7.
• Eating! It's only been a month since we started having him eat the daycare lunches, and he's gone from some and a few to a lot and all. It's still some or none on "weird" stuff, but for the most part he is really taking to new foods and enjoys feeding himself. He has baby food fruit mixed in with baby cereal for breakfast (plain cereal is boring now), and usually another container of baby food veggies for a mid-afternoon snack at school. At home the past few weeks it's mostly finger foods. He'll let us feed him yogurt and applesauce.
• Smiling! Yes, he's generally a happy, laughing baby, although he's prone to separation anxiety and has mini-meltdowns (he sits on his bottom and folds his head and chest over his legs and starts to cry) if he's not happy with the turn of events. Usually it's that I put him down or took something away from him. But when he's laughing, it's contagious!

11 Months - Sort of

This is traditionally the post of Will and Froggy to commemorate another month. But. . . although Froggy was willing to sit nicely and smile for a photo shoot this morning, Mr. Will was not! So, we'll try again tonight! In the mean time, here are some other recent pictures: Will has really started "cheesing" for the camera. He pulls out this smile when the camera is blinking! That's also cheese ravioli on his tray and pasta sauce on his face! Usually he drinks water with meals, but he didn't have much formula yesterday, so I gave him some in a sippy cup. He drank a little but poured most of it on the tray and floor. Good thing we've moved dinner into the kitchen with the tile floor! He was getting too dangerous for the dining room and its tan carpet.

Will experimenting with his new toothbrush. This is his second day with it. I don't know why it didn't occur to me to get him a toothbrush before he had 8 teeth! I was just using a wash cloth previously (when he'd let me). But, he's been getting some stinky baby breath, so I think it's time to move to the toothbrush and also get him to drink more water after meals.

What's for Dinner?

There has been a learning curve with Will's new feeding independence. Somedays he eats a ton; somedays he tries to wiggle out of his chair before I even have any food on the tray. It seems like the days I try to make his something special (cheesy scrambled eggs, cheese quesadila, chicken and steamed carrots, to name a few), he's not interested in eating. And then there's today when he enjoyed the random food I put in front of him: an appetizer of whole wheat goldfish crackers and his main course of toasted frozen waffle smeared with applesauce and a side dish of cubed kiwi fruit. I mean, what sort of mother serves that for dinner?! It's just what was handy and kept him busy while I unloaded the groceries and the dishwasher. The waffles were new. Plain were boring, but once the applesauce was added, he shoveled in the bites. Combining two of Will's favorites: playing with his plastic food containers and looking out the window. And rarely is there something in one hand and not the other; he has to be able to hit them together.

What?! We're not going outside?

Rachel's 9th Birthday

Rachel celebrated her 9th birthday on Saturday the 24th. Unfortunately, she had to celebrate at the kennel since the rest of the family was traveling. :-( But, last night she was finally reunited with her boy and his food! She enjoyed a tasty birthday dinner of chicken and steamed carrots since Will wasn't interested in eating them.

Here she is this afternoon waiting on me to take her for a walk and then relaxing when we got back. She's quite white in the face, but she's as beautiful as always!

I took off last week and this week from work in order to rest up and catch up from the winter tax busy season before I start into the summer tax busy season. We were at my parent's house most of last week, and I'm just finally tackling a few things around the house. I think I need two more weeks to get caught up! It's amazing how little things like dry cleaning and mail stacked up while we were in survival mode during the tax season! Oh, and I'm catching up on my naps and my magazines. Will is going to daycare this week while I'm home so I can get more done. He's a good helper with the vacuuming, but not the paperwork. :-)

A Trip to Kansas

Will said it had been too long since he had been on an airplane, so he talked me into a trip to visit Grandma and Grandpa's in Kansas last week! I was a little worried about flying with him now that he has discovered his "voice" and his feet. . . But, for the most part he was a charming (or sleepy) baby. Jason spent the week in Florida on business, but we did get to carpool to/from the airport together!

Will loved playing with Lucy and Maggie and their toys! Their licks also illicited hysterical laughter.

And Grandpa was tons of fun! Will got to enjoy the view from Grandpa's shoulders; he especially enjoyed hanging on to his hair.

On Friday we roadtripped with my Mom to Kansas State to have lunch with my sorority housemom. And we also hit up Varney's Bookstore for new purple shirts for the whole family. We had a great time!

And, finally, Will decided that since he's enjoying so many new foods recently that he should try some plastic steak, too! :-) Strangely enough, the dogs don't like that toy much!

Will and Joey

Will received a very special gift from his Momma on Saturday: a Cabbage Patch Kid! I picked "Joseph Morli" from my collection as the one that Will gets to have. I assumed that he would love having a "baby" to play with since he's such a people watcher, but so far there hasn't been much interest beyond poking at his eyes! And so far he hasn't actually picked up Joey from the toy box to play. Will just investigates Joey's face if I put the baby in his lap.

And, yes, he has his pacifier in the middle of the day. Tooth #8 is coming in, and the pacifier is helping everyone feel better about that! :-)

Stylin' Shutters

We've got our first home improvement project underway: changing out the shutters from tan (the same color as the siding) to black. As you can see, we're starting with the easy stuff! Actually, there isn't that much to do around the house, so there aren't too many projects planned.

I was about two days late photographing the shubbery and flowers, but I hope we manage to keep most of it alive! The previous homeowner was a semi-retired man and his school teacher wife. They had a lot more free time than we did!

Family Fun Weekend

We had a super fun weekend! We played, we napped, we shopped, and then we did it all again! Oh, and we walked and walked and walked!

On Saturday afternoon we walked to the elementary school around the corner to swing on the swings, and then we played in the front yard for while.

And then we went to the backyard so Rachel could play, too. Will's favorite part of the backyard is the rocks. He always has one in each hand. . .unless he puts one of those in his mouth!

Today Will decided we had spent too much time inside (even though we'd been back home from our stroller walk for less than an hour), so he found the Baby Bjorn and put it on. He was very persuasive, and we headed outside to help Daddy with his project to install the new shutters.

Notice the plastic bowl in the background? There are 10 more cups and bowls cropped out of the picture. Will loves to unload all of his cups and bowls and lids out of the kitchen drawers.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

As a thank you for our hard work during tax season, one of the partners that I work for took a few of us to a Cubs game on Wednesday afternoon. It was warm and sunny, the seats were awesome, and the Cubs won!

Unfortunately, the Cubs are no longer undefeated at home in Year One

View of 3rd base

Watching the pitchers warm-up in the "bullpen"

This is the only pictures that is zoomed.

The rest are really that close!

When Cabbage Patch Kids Invade!

Anyone need a Cabbage Patch Kid? My prized possessions of childhood arrived in the trunk of my parents' car last weekend when they were here for Easter. I unpacked them yesterday and laid them all out on our pool table to assess their condition after 18 years in cardboard boxes. I'm sad to say that although I recognize all of them, I only remember the order that I got them in for the first 5. The next 16 are a bit of a blur. :-)

The baby ones in front all smell like baby powder. Unfortunately, that seems to cause a discoloration of their plastic faces. The girl baby already had that before I packed them away. The boy in yellow has it now. The boy in blue is the one that I've decided William gets as his toy.
The World Traveler (Tania from Spain) is one of my favorites. The pink sweatsuit one next to her is Oriana (The First!).

The Clown one was always really hard to play with due to that bulky outfit. On the back half of the table are the other dolls and stuffed animals that my parents snuck in. We'd only agreed that they'd bring the CPK dolls. :-)

The First Fall

With the new baby steps, comes new baby falls. Will got this cut under his left eye sometime Friday night. He fell really hard in his crib right when I was putting him to bed (and he decided he didn't want me to leave), but I didn't notice the cut as I was comforting the wailing baby. So, we're not sure if he fell again later. Jason said Will's eye was slightly swollen when he woke up on Saturday morning. He doesn't seem too bothered by it luckily.

Baby Steps!

We had actual steps last night!! First just one-and-a-half or two, and then a few more. By bedtime, there was at least one stumble of 5 or 6 steps. I was so proud (and a little sad)!

I took a little video but haven't tried to upload it yet (not sure if I will. . .I don't have much luck with the video). This picture is from last month when we were testing out his next car seat that we've owned since New Year's Day but still haven't installed in the car. It was pretty much the only picture I had on my computer which I didn't think I had posted yet. :-)

Our other big excitement is all the new foods Will has been eating. On his report card for Thursday it said he ate A LOT of hot dogs and beans. Usually he eats SOME or A FEW. Good to know the little guy has good taste! Ha! Last night for dinner he had kiwi fruit, green beans and yogurt mixed grain cereal (in a green bowl). He liked the green beans as finger food MUCH better than the pureed kind!

Happy Birthday Ryan!

Brookfield Zoo

To round out Will's Easter presents, we bought a "Family plus" membership to the Brookfield Zoo which gets the Shields family unlimited visits for a year. The plus is that we always get to bring one free guest and we also get 6 single use visitor passes, plus free parking, plus a discount at the snack bar!

How many adults does Will need at the zoo? Five!
One to push him in his pimped out stroller

(Thanks Grandma!)

One to hold him at the indoor giraffe exhibit

(Thanks Mom!)

One to hold him at the outdoor warthogs exhibit

(Thanks Uncle Ryan!)

And one to drive us there (Thanks Dad!)

And one to get the snacks (Thanks Grandpa!)

[NOTE: camel picture not representative of Daddy and Grandpa]

Who Could Say No to This?

With visits from Grandma Joni, Grandpa Roger, and Uncle Ryan this weekend, Will has been spoiled! He got new books and clothes and lots and lots of attention. But, seriously people. . . who can resist that face?!

Who wants to hold me next?!

Happy Easter!

What a fun "baby's first Easter" we had! The much anticipated Easter basket was a lot of fun for me. I think Will liked it, too. I assembled this weeks ago and could barely wait until the big day. In fact, Will received this on Easter Eve, because part of the gift was bath toys, and I wanted him to get to play with them on Saturday night.

Camera 1 or camera 2 this time?

(All the papz were snapping away!)

Will loved the feel of the spongy letters on his budding teeth!

He "8" the letters in the tub, too!

Big thanks to Grandma Joni for three nights and three baths while she's been visiting! He really loves to play in the bath these days, and Mama just doesn't give him enough bath nights!