makes me smile

Hey, this is fun. I love tummy time!

Um. Mom, I don't know about this...

Yeah, I really don't like this anymore.

Make it stop!!!

Ah, sweet sleep...well deserved!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend to all!

backstreet's back!

So....we got our first real laugh from Will this week, and guess what caused it?

That's right. Our sweet baby is a huge backstreet boys fan! Apparently they are back together (who knew?) and were performing live on a random morning talk show on Tuesday. Will happened to be hanging out on the boppy pillow in my lap at the time, so in my standard fashion anytime music comes on, I subjected him to my horrible singing, paired with ridiculous goofy faces. (He must think I am absolutely nuts.) William loved it! Tons of smiles and even a chuckle here and there!

I got some even better laughs yesterday playing peek-a-boo with Will, and his little laugh is so devious sounding! I love it - it's kind of an evil "heh heh heh" right now. So much fun!

a lot of gear...

Something happened today that made me realize just how much stuff our tiny man has brought into our lives.

Many of you are aware that we have a Roomba vacuum cleaner. You are aware of this because I talk about how completely awesome it is anytime anyone will listen. It's like having the robot from the Jetsons live in your house - no joke. You just set Roomba in a room and come back to a clean floor in about 45 minutes! So anyway, typically before I run Roomba in a room, I go in and pick up all the moveable items from the floor, so they don't get bumped, sucked up, etc. Well, this morning, I got Roomba out to clean our kitchen and back living area, so I started to move everything that would be in the way. To put this into perspective, about 3.5 months ago, the process of moving items out of these rooms consisted of making sure no laptop cords were on the floor, moving our trash cans into the hall, and moving the barstools into the dining room. Now I will list the items I just had to move out of the room: barstools, trash cans & laptops, PLUS an exersaucer, bouncy seat, swing, foam floor mat, tiny elmo that talks, books, bumbo seat, carseat, and a basket of laundry (this one is on me, but it WAS baby laundry). My goodness! It cracked me up! Lots of gear for a dude who takes at least 3 naps a day and can't even pick up toys yet! :)

This weekend, Matt had a great idea for an adventure. We went on a LOOONG walk to find the Lake Highlands Community Garden, which he had read about. Not only did we find the garden, which was really cool, but we also found a neighborhood with multiple peacocks living in it! I am not kidding. We saw at least 5 peacocks - colorful ones as well as solid white. We had such a fun time, and here are a couple of pictures we took at the garden (not sure why we didn't get any peacock pics!):

well played, dr. brown. well played.

Some of you are aware that we had some bottle issues last week. For some reason, William decided that he was no longer interested in our Dr. Browns bottles. He's always been a bit skeptical of the bottles in general. Typically, when we would start a bottle feeding, I would get a look something like this:

But eventually, he would take the bottle...although it always took a LONG time for a feeding, and he never really drank much. But it was working well enough for me to unpack, wash, and disinfect approximately 20 (expensive) Dr. Browns bottles and all of the tiny hard-to-clean pieces that go with them. But then...William turned 3 months old. And for some reason, he decided to completely reject the bottles! It's not just that he wouldn't drink...he would scream as if the bottle was full of poison. I don't know what caused this, but he just would not take them - from me or anyone else. Even when he was clearly very hungry, no dice. After this experience, I have started hearing of other babies who did the same thing at 3 months with the Dr. Browns bottles. Strange, huh?

So even though Will really doesn't get many bottles, once I thought he might stop taking them all together, I definitely had a moment of panic. So I went out and got several different kinds to try. I'm happy to report that we found a clear winner! Will loves the MAM bottles, and immediately pounded 4 oz of milk like a champ the first time I tried it. Since then, he has had 2 more bottles, and he did great both times. Whew!! These new bottles really made me realize that he never drank out of the other ones well at all, but I just didn't have anything to compare to. I guess we chalk this up as a new mom lesson with 2 parts: #1 - bottles don't have to be a long painful process, and #2 - don't unpack and wash bottles before you need them!

I do feel like I have to give credit to that sneaky Dr. Brown for whatever trickery he uses to make babies take his bottles at first so that moms will stock up on them, only to have to bag them up for storage at 3 months. You win this one, Dr. Brown...

On a more fun note - we took some pictures of Will in the backyard yesterday, and we got some cute ones! The first set was taken in the grass:

Then we moved to the bumbo seat, which we have just started using. At first, Will was a bit skeptical:


But then he got the hang of it and really had fun! Here are a few of my favorites:

Will has such a fun and playful personality these days. I just love hanging out with him!

3 months!

I can't believe it...William turned 3 months old on Tuesday! The past 3 months have been so much fun. Will is doing something new every day, and I can't wait to see what he'll do next! Here are a few pictures from his 3 month birthday.

Happy!

Had a tough time getting a good one with the bear. Will, here's your best shot:

We didn't have a 3-month doctor's appointment, so I don't have official stats, but my very scientific "weigh myself with and without Will" trick indicated that Will weighs about 15 pounds! He has reached a few milestones recently, including rolling over from back to front! (possibly an accident? happened only once so far...) He also found his hands, and LOVES to put them in his mouth. I feel like he is changing so much every day! Here are a few of Will's likes and dislikes at 3 months.

William loves:

• eating
• sleeping (although the 11 hour nights were definitely a fluke - he usually wakes up around 3 or 4am for a feeding, but I'm not complaining too much because he goes back to sleep right away!)
• babbling
• smiling (my favorite!)
• being outside
• bath time - loves to splash!
• being carried around
• kicking his legs in the air when he's laying on his back
• riding in the car or stroller (aka sleeping)

William does NOT love:

• being awake when he wants to sleep
• being hungry
• tummy time after about 1 minute
• Dr. Brown's bottles (more on this coming in a later post...)
• hiccups, and he still gets them several times a day!

Overall, Will is such a happy little boy, which makes me super happy. I can't describe how much fun we have had in the last 3 months, and I know it will only get better and better.

As I was looking through pictures, I realized that I never posted anything from Mother's Day. We celebrated by having everyone over to our house for a cookout, and it was a blast! Here are a few pics from the afternoon.

Family pic:

Will with the grandparents:

Will and the moms:


Me and my sweet baby (check out his red hair!):

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! :)

mr. chatterbox

What we're dealing with these days is a:

William has been cracking us up with his babbling this week! He has been making cute little noises here and there for a few weeks, but he has really turned it on in the last few days. He will "talk" for such a long time, and the past two mornings, he's been talking to himself in his crib when he wakes up. It's the most hilarious thing to listen to! I love it! Here's a video of him chattering the other day:

Will and I also went to a very fun play group this week. There were several adorable babies there, and William played the most with his friend (and birthday buddy), Nolan. Of course, their playing consists of being placed next to each other on the floor, but someday they will be best friends!

Here's our best picture of Nolan and Will at play group:

And here's a cute pic I took this morning. William loves his daddy!

so much fun!

We have been having so much fun lately! There has been lots of family time, a birthday party, fun times in the bathtub, and of course, tons of pictures!

Here's William at 11 weeks - such a sweet little guy!

Last week, we discovered that Will absolutely loves to lay on a blanket in the backyard. We already knew he enjoyed the outdoors, but usually he's being held or riding in the stroller. But last weekend, Matt was working in the backyard, so I brought Will out and put him down on a big blanket in the shade, and he was mesmerized by the trees. It was so cute - he just stared up and around for quite awhile. It's amazing to think that he's just constantly soaking things in and learning! So we've been spending some time in the backyard every day.

I've also taken on a "spring cleaning" project, which is going so very slowly. I decided to clean and organize every room, closet and cabinet, because we just have too much stuff in a not-so-big house! This project would normally be very time-consuming, but when all work must be done during little man's naptimes, it makes it take even longer! Matt doesn't believe I'm actually cleaning because every night when he comes home, the house is even messier. Hopefully I'll get into the "putting things back into place" stage of this little project very soon! Speaking of clean, here's a cute picture of Will enjoying bathtime.

Matt was going for the "Santa Claus" look with the bubbles:

Another first for Will - he attended his first birthday party on Saturday! His friend Nolan turned one and had a very fun party at the Dallas Zoo. Will had a great time hanging out in the party room and riding the monorail!

The birthday boy:

My favorite animal picture - a giant bird & giant nest:


William on the monorail ride:


Getting soooo sleepy!

Also - as an update to my previous posts about Will moving to his crib....we have been successful! He didn't have any problems making the move, although I didn't sleep so well the first night. Actually, neither did Matt, since I had the monitor turned up to the highest volume possible. Every time Will made the slightest noise, we were both startled awake by the monitor! I have now learned that half volume is plenty loud enough to wake me up when necessary.

Other fun things coming up....we are going to our first play group tomorrow and having lunch with friends on Wednesday! Plus, Will is going to be getting a brand new playmate this weekend. Can't wait to meet Baby Girl Bowen!!