So This is What One Looks Like?

Jason and I are just amazed how much Will has grown, and how much his personality shines. Our house is full of hysterical laughter every day. There are always cries, too. Either because of one of his more than once daily trips, falls, or crashes while playing, or because he noticed that for one split second, his mama wasn't in the room.

Such a big boy! It's amazing how much older he looks in his new separates - and when I put shoes on him - instead of his onesies and sweatpants. He still wears lots of onesies and looks much younger in them. But, wow, he's getting so big! Luckily he still likes lots and lots of Mama cuddle time in between all of his running around!

And so dapper - and he sure knows how to charm an audience! The teachers and parents at daycare always tell us how much they love him. Yesterday we went to the mall to have his picture taken, and a family of four little kids waiting to check out swarmed him. He took it all in stride. When he wanted to move on, he walked off, and they all followed behind him. He toddled around and giggled and made all the adults ooh and ahh, as well. Unfortunately he used up his full quota of cooperativeness in the waiting room!

And so onery. He's learned how to run away from us. And he's getting really good at teasing Rachel. But he's so clever. Twice today he walked off so I pretended not to know where he was (although I could hear him). I said, "We're Will?!" and he came up behind me and tapped me on the back! He knows how to use humor (often involving food and/or the dog), and knows when he's being funny. And such a sweet little boy - who is heartbroken when he wants his Mama and she doesn't pick him up immediately.

Radio Flyer Ride

So that I could make dinner uninterrupted tonight, Jason took Will for his first ride (out of the house) in his new wagon. We haven't tried out the canopy yet, but that will be a nice feature for sunny days around the neighborhood or afternoon trips to the zoo. Thanks again Grandma and Grandpa for a great birthday present!

Happy Birthday Will!

I have a few more posts about Will turning 1 today and all the fun we had, but I wanted to get some pictures posted tonight. Here's our home "birthday party" after Will finished dinner tonight. We had funfetti cupcakes frosted in Cool Whip and topped with sprinkles.

Hey, those are for me!
Let me show you how to blow this out, Mama!

They call it the smash cake, right?!

Ah, this is good.

I love cupcakes!

One for you. . .

One for me.

Here, you can lick my fingers!

{Insert sound for HYSTERICAL laughter}

Baptism

We were able to have Will baptized on Sunday at St. Michael's where we were married, and to make it even more special was that we got to celebrate it with almost all of our family and share the day with Will's cousin, Lexi.

With Will's godparents, Keith and Ryan.

They also stood up for us at our wedding 9 years ago.

Amy, Ross, and the guest of honor, Lexi
Lexi and Will in front of the baptismal font after the service

Aren't they adorable?!

Birthday Party

We made a LONG drive to Kansas City on Friday (and an even longer drive home today with an overly tired baby), but we had a fantastic weekend with our families celebrating 1st birthdays and baptisms. A great big thanks to Keith, Desiree and Aiden for letting us invade their home! Will had so much fun playing with Aiden and all of Aiden's toys and chasing their dog. After Will opened one of his birthday presents from Aiden, he enjoyed dragging the bag around the house. We had a great party for the Will and his cousin, Lexi, at Veteran's Memorial Park in Gardner. It was an awesome spot: we had a covered shelter with tables, a basketball court and playground equipment. Will and Lexi getting their first taste of their birthday cake at the party! Will enjoyed the frosting and a little cake, but didn't go too crazy.

Our little friends Mitchell and Aiden were pretty pumped up that Grandpa Roger and Grandma Joni gave Will a new wagon for his birthday present! They actually ate their pizza in the wagon while getting people to pull them. By the end of the party, Mitchell was tired of riding and was doing the pulling instead!

Thanks to everyone who came out to help us celebrate! We had a great time!

Lights out on the ride back to the house! :-)

Same Kid, Same Day

The Baby Sweet little baby taking his nap with his blankie

The Toddler Are you kidding me? Where'd my baby go?!

Bye-Bye Baby Seat

Well old friend, you've served us well. You made it much, much longer than most of your infant carrier friends. . .You're rated to 30 pounds or 30 inches, but you're just too heavy to carry around anymore. And, we're getting pretty close to that 30 inches. Time to move on to your cousin the convertible car seat (which should get William into kindergarten! :-)). The very first ride
4 Months Old

8 Months Old

(about when we realized we still had the newborn inserts still in it)

The very last ride!

Hooray!

Daddy's home! After 25 days, 11 flight legs, 4 states and 3 continents, Jason has finally finished 4 business trips in 4 weeks! We're keeping him home with us for awhile!

Hopefully he racked up the frequent flyer miles and hotel points, so we can all go someplace good as a family!

He's only been home three hours, but he's already hard at work assembling our new kitchen table. We're finally going to eat together. It's going to go where Will is doing his little dance, so I guess it's a good thing I caught this picture this morning. :-)

Movin' On Up

We're finally going to install the convertible car seat today (after buying it on January 1)! We have still been using his infant carrier, although, I stopped actually taking it out of the car a few weeks ago, since it's just so heavy with his 20+ pounds in it. It's rated to 30 pounds or 30 inches, and we're running out of head room. Here are some pictures from our test ride in the living room this morning:

Pretty comfy, Mommy!
Room to stretch my legs!

Hey, Rachel, don't get fur on my fabric!

The extra piece of blue there is a wash cloth doubling as a handkerchief to mop up Will's dripping nose.

The Youngest Foodie

Baby in high chair photo #23. I know, it's all I post anymore! We have established a really good bedtime routine in the past month, and it is predicated on sitting down to dinner at 6:30 (in order to be in the bath at 7 and in bed at 7:30). So, we usually only have about 10-20 minutes of playtime after work/school, and it isn't always conducive to pictures. So, there are dinner pics!

Ready for his first taste of Chipotle: sharing Mommy's veggie bol
Loving his vanilla yogurt dessert much more than the Chipotle!

Will ended up picking out most of the black beans and eating some rice and a little of the other toppings. Lest you fear he went hungry, he also had an entire (small) banana and the yogurt. He was full enough that he was sharing with Rachel. This is his daily sign that he's finished, or about to be!

Class Clown

I've learned a lot about Will and his popularity at daycare the past two weeks as I have been doing drop off and pick up. He's the second oldest now in his class (8 weeks to 15 months is the infant room age bracket), and all the other babies and their parents love him! (And we always knew the teachers loved him!)

Today when I got there, he was working the room. He bopped over to Adrian who was standing in an exersaucer and spun a few of the toys and made him smile. Then he moved on to grab the beach ball and bounce it around - every move intently studied by Blake. All the while chitter chatter is pouring out of his mouth, and Miss Heather was laughing. And this was in the 30 seconds while I stood outside the door taking off my shoes!

Adrian's parents have both told me how they love Will, and they've only been there 3 weeks! On Monday a brand new baby started (only 10 weeks old; I saw her nervous mom dropping her off as I was leaving.). When I picked Will up at the end of the day, I asked about how the new mom and new baby did, and the teacher said, "well, the mom was nervous, but she sure got a big laugh out of Will before she left this morning!"

My son - the class clown, the politician and the peace maker!

{Note about this picture from Sunday: he's actually putting the cow in the barn! Wow! Oh, wait, that's the chicken coop, but he put the chicken in first! No pants, but at least he's got socks on. . . }

My Mother's Day Presents

Obviously my very best Mother's Day present is to have a great little baby boy! But, how fun is this little gift that he made at daycare? It's a baby magnet! That's his handprint that his floating head is resting on. :-)

I love that they got his big bald head and goofy smile. That's my boy! And now I have something to hold his school papers on the fridge. You'll notice his daily report from Friday. He ate Alot of his lunch: Hotdog, broccoli, bread, beans & pears. Oh, and his fave grahams which he gets every afternoon between 3 and 4. Below the feedings section is naps. On Friday and today he only took one hour long nap right before lunch. Yikes was he a grouchy monster by the time we got home! Good thing he ate a lot of lunch both days, because we didn't even attempt lunch on Friday and tonight I had to spoon feed him applesauce and vanilla yogurt through tears. He was better once he ate up a little and then tried some of the chicken and pasta I had made while he was napping in his carseat. Bath time was quick and bedtime was quicker.

Big thanks to my super mother in law for sending me these beautiful flowers! I was working at home the day they were delivered, and I was so excited that for once the delivery man brought something for me! :-) I've been enjoying them all week!

All In

Will spent Saturday entertaining me (at least when we weren't both sleeping - this kid slept an awesome 12 hours overnight and two hour-plus naps!) with how intently he plays. Recently he has started to step right into the middle of his track here (this is the broken down exersaucer) to play. And while it may look (it does to me) like he has a ton of toys in this picture, I should put it in perspective that this photo captures the entire one section of the family room where we put all of the toys.

I put Joey there the night before. Will used his face a few times for leverage while dropping small items into the tube. No other real interaction with the baby.

Recovering something that he dropped into the tunnel, so he can examine it and then drop it down again perhaps.

I'm a Mom!

Well, how about that?! My first Mother's Day! I only had to wait 11 1/2 months! (Or 31 years, 10 months, however you're counting) :-) I never imagined how much I would love being a mom to Will. There is no denying the maternal instincts that take over and how intensely you can love and feel an overwhelming need to protect one little person without even thinking about it. If you're a parent, you know what I mean. If you aren't, I probably can't explain it. No one could ever convince me how much it would change me. :-)

Day 2 (day 1 started at 11:47 p.m. - we didn't take any pictures of us that day)
6 months
10 months

Mother's Day! Our self-portrait after our swim with Ryan at his YMCA

Today is about the little guy who means I am a mom and the big guy who made me want to be a mom and who is such a great dad. Unfortunately Jason is traveling this weekend/week/month, but I hope that means he'll be home on our anniversary this year! He only gets to be gone one personal holiday per year, right?! :-) He's about 4 for 8 on anniversaries, I think, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed his work doesn't send him anywhere this year! He did remember with a great email (and promise of a present) when it was Mother's Day in his part of the world yesterday afternoon, and called me today when it was Mother's Day here!

Driving the Truck

Will has learned an important driving lesson this weekend: trucks are much harder to manuever than sports dogs. Yes, I said dogs. He's been running behind his puppy push toy for a week and deftly manuevers it around all obstacles (that he chooses to avoid) to do laps through the house. Today, with the puppy upstairs, he tried to push his truck instead. It was pretty frustrating for him when it wouldn't corner, so I showed him how to ride on the truck instead. He quickly figured out how to get off and on. . .and off and on, and had a fun time! I feel like my camera is too slow to catch all of his great smiles. So many of his pictures end up with the face below. It was a huge funny grin just seconds before! The brown part is the seat that lays down, but Will preferred it up so he had the opening for his feet as he climbed in. With the seat down, it was a little too high to get his leg over.

And, yes, although it was 50 degrees outside, he was traipsing through the house in a diaper and t-shirt. He had on pants on socks earlier, but he's tough to keep still long enough to redress after a diaper change. I just feel lucky to get the diaper on!