Mommy and Daddy

Mama and Dada have become Mommy and Daddy! :-) William and I had a very nice conversation before he went to bed tonight. We haven't had a lot of time to play or chat recently since it's the end of tax season. I'm not sure how my baby become a toddler and has now turned into a little boy in the past 22 months! We were flipping through Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things that Go, and he did such an awesome job identifying his colors and repeating words. I also learned he can say Mommy and Daddy. Oh, and he gives real, great, big hugs. Love my boy!

More Molars

Will stuck his finger way into the back of his mouth yesterday to show and tell me that the first of his two-year molars had cut through. I can't feel the other three yet, but I hope they're not too far behind. Let's get this teething done with!

Friday Nights

The last two Friday nights we have gone to Rock Bottom Brewery for dinner after work/school. I have a hard time working late on Fridays knowing I'm going to be at the office all day Saturday, so I come home in time for dinner with my boys.

Here we are sitting in the bar having a drink (IPA, pale ale, and milk) while we wait for our table. You can see my hand in the picture, since I'm steadying Will on his barstool. Don't worry; he had the milk. :-)

Will's shirt says "Bugs Rule" and he's wearing his K-State jacket. We joked that meant he was cheering for the Richmond Spiders who were playing against KU while we were there. Once we were seated we only saw the UNC blowout and a hockey game.

Thank You & I Love You

This weekend I was rewarded with several unsolicited "thank yous" from Will! It sounds something like "tane-tee" but it's obvious that's what it is. So exciting! I guess they must be teaching him at daycare, since we've just been emphasizing please ("pees").

And realizing how often Will repeats what we say, I have been sure to tell him lots and lots of "I love yous!" And I was rewarded with a repeat and giggle when I put him to bed last night. Melts my heart!

We had a pretty sleepy day yesterday. We enjoyed our regular Sunday brunch at home of pancakes (this time with frozen mini blueberries baked in), and I even let him have some syrup on them. That was rewarded with his yum sound and face. We played for awhile and then we fell asleep in the recliner in his room around noon. Jason woke me up after 30 minutes, and we each moved to our own beds to finish naps. After naps we went to Panera for a late lunch where Will ate an entire adult bowl of soup plus a yogurt tube. He just loves soup! Then we did a little shopping and ended the day at the pool. I sure do love Sundays at home with my guys!

I didn't take any pictures this weekend, but here's a throwback to last year at this time. Too bad Will didn't have any need to wear his current year Wildcat warm-up suit for many games this spring!

Chicago Flower and Garden Show at Navy Pier

We made a family trip into the city on Sunday afternoon to go to the Chicago Flower and Garden Show at Navy Pier thanks to some free tickets that Ryan gave us. We wouldn't have otherwise gone, but it was a great excuse to get out of the house. After a delicious lunch at Harry Caray's, we strolled the length of Navy Pier (well, inside the shops) down to the exhibition hall. Will loved all of the gardens with water features and yellow and purple flowers. He also generally just loved having wide open spaces to run ahead of us. We were very impressed how well Will did since he skipped his afternoon nap. He snoozed in the car on the way home and then after a few false starts slept well overnight.

Professional golfer or left-handed pitcher? Both would pay for my retirement!

Mama is supervising, but he climbed the ladder himself each time.

Action shot! Check out that static!

Larger than life!

Enjoying a fresh fruit smoothie before heading home.

Asleep before we were on the expressway

Side note: part of the east branch of the river was still St. Patrick's Day (Observed) green as we drove along Wacker Drive back to the expressway, which I hadn't seen before since it doesn't flow down the south branch past my office.

Misty of Assateague Island

Will has a new friend: Misty of Assateague Island (also known as "Horsey" around here). I bought Will several stuff animals from our travels in the couple of years before he was born, and they have been sitting on a shelf in his closet since he has never showed much interest in stuffed animals. But on Thursday morning when Will woke up early, he pointed to the closet and asked me to get Misty down. He clutched her to his chest and they've been best friends in the past two days. I also pretended to give Misty kisses (complete with a "mwah!") so now Will makes Misty kiss all of us! He's not very gentle shoving the horse into our faces, but his "mwah!" is priceless!

Mwah!
Mwah, mwah!
Mwah! Mwah! Mwah!

Spring Cleaning

Ryan came out on Saturday to help us with some projects around the house. I've titled this Spring Cleaning, but we did more sorting and organizing and moving stuff around. Maybe he can come back next weekend with the mop and broom?! One project was to move a bookshelf from the playroom up to the master bedroom, which left space for Will's Lego table and slide to come back up from the basement. Will was very happy to see the slide return! And Rachel was happy to share the love!

Ryan learned how much harder house projects are with a young helper. But, between three adults we were able to get almost everything on my list done, and the house looks great!

Outside!

When I woke up this morning my goal was that we would get to spend some time "outside," which is one of Will's favorite things to do. Unfortunately, it's been very cold outside recently! Although there was still a dusting of snow on the ground from yesterday, it was sunny by 10 a.m. so I asked Will if he wanted to put on his snow boots and coat and join Rachel outside. As you can see, he was eager to do that! And, yes, footie pajamas serve dual purpose as a lightweight snow suit. The only addition I made to this outfit was his winter coat.

Unfortunately our time outside was mostly spent trying to catch Rachel. I made the mistake of letting her off of her tether because I thought she'd stay near us. Nope; she ran off and kept running off, all through the neighborhood. We finally caught up with her two streets away. I'm sure we were quite the sight: the woman dragging a dog by its collar and carrying the baby in his jammies and winter coat!

But, after lunch and naptime, it really warmed up and the snow melted. So, all the human members of the family put on jackets and gloves and sunglasses and went for a walk with Will in the jogging stroller. We kept choosing the turns that would make our walk longer; we didn't want to get home too fast since we were all soaking in the sunshine! Forty degrees and sunny is a welcome treat after what we've been having!

I can't remember what this scowl was about. I was probably just taking too long to get myself ready. He's dressed and has his snack and water, so it's obviously time to go NOW! :-)

New Pictures

Be sure to scan back through the last few posts which have been updated with pictures that I finally got around to downloading!

Here are some other cute ones from when he helped me make Bisquick biscuits for dinner. I just can't get enough of these cute sous chef pictures. And, yes, all of our baking involves adding milk to Bisquick! :-)So thirsty after that hard work baking

Baker AND taste tester

He liked pretending this was a spoon for holding his biscuit