fun friday

What do you bring to a playdate with 2 Cowboys fans and a girly girl?

Probably these:

On Friday, we got to play with Parker, baby Cole, and Madison, so I made some hats for them! I got to try a few new things on the hats, and after several versions of the Cowboys hat, I ended up deciding that I like doing outlines of designs rather than filling them in when I put logos on the hats. I feel like it looks cleaner and the design shows better.

So here are the Cowboys hats:

My hat model was a busy body that day.

And here's a pink & yellow flower hat for Miss Madison:

The flower can come off in case it starts to look too "Blossom"

Will didn't mind this at first...

And then he realized I had put him in another girly hat!

We had such a blast at our playdate. The kids had fun playing, and the mommas got to catch up, hold babies, and eat pizza. What could be better?

I love Baby Cole! He is such a sweet little guy.

Madison tried to put the moves on Parker. :)

And we tried to get some pictures of all four...

Very tricky to get 4 kids to look at the camera!

{I did get a couple of better ones but I snapped them before I fixed the settings on my camera, so they're blurry. Shoot! I am hoping Megan got a better one.}

After the playdate, we got to hang out with Brent, Tilly, and Carter on their way back through Dallas. It was great to see them again, plus we got to celebrate Mema's birthday. Very fun!

Carter + Will

Carter and his Aunt Kathy

Brent, Carter, Will, me

the birthday girl

Mema with Brent and Carter

Will and Mema

Mema with 2 of her grandkids and 2 of her great-grandkids.

What a special day!!

celebrating days of birth

Today we got to celebrate dual birthdays {sort of}. It's my dad's birthday and Will's 11 month birthday. {hence the "sort of." Not sure that 11 months specifically counts as a birthday.} It was a fun day!

We started by making Duke a card.

I wanted a cute picture of Will holding it. He had other ideas.

We also celebrated this afternoon by hanging out with Duke and Mimi, but I forgot to bring my camera. Although there is no photographic evidence, we had a very fun time. Happy birthday, Dad!! We love you!

Of course, we also did our monthly photo shoot with the bear. These photo shoots get more difficult each month as Will gets more curious and mobile.

Growing so fast!

Soooo happy!

However, Will was much more interested in playing here...

and here...

and at rock band...

And of course, he found some time for simultaneous reading/piano playing.

Here are a few things I want to remember about Will at 11 months:

• He is into everything! I find new cabinets and drawers to baby-proof all the time. His favorite "no no" items are the cat's bowls, the trash cans, and my stack of cookbooks.
• Favorite new activities this month: opening the drawers in his bedroom and pulling out all of his clothes, and putting them back in; and opening/closing any cabinets that aren't locked.

Exhibit A - opening

Closing. You get the picture.

• Will has gotten quite vocal in the last month, and his favorite thing to say is "da da." He has a very cute way of dropping the last "ah" and yelling something that sounds like a very well enunciated DAD. He says it at home, in the car, and anywhere we go. Sometimes it sounds like he's looking for his dad in Lowes, Target, etc. He also says several other syllables and will even combine them sometimes. A new development in the past couple of days - whenever Will is excited or happy, he says "da da." And when he is mad, sad, or distressed, he says wails "ma ma ma." Hmmm....

Here he is saying "DA DA DA" this afternoon:

• Sleeping has gotten back to normal for the most part {yay!}, although he was up a LOT last night. Maybe those top teeth are finally about to come in? And knock on wood, napping seems to be improving. Typically he takes a short nap in the morning and a longer one in the afternoon. Although he certainly keeps me on my toes by switching up when the long nap occurs, and of course, sometimes not ever taking a long one!
• This month, Will has started walking around by pushing his little musical push toy {actually Ben's toy - thanks Ben!}. He gets sooo excited when he realizes he's walking, and it's very cute. I need to get a video of this.
• Will is still a great eater. He seems to like pretty much everything he's had so far, and we found out on New Years that he LOVES black-eyed peas. I think he's going to be very lucky in 2011 considering the amount he ate.

Happy 11 month birthday, sweet boy.

I can't believe we are one month away from your REAL birthday!

snowy days are great for knitting.

When you look out the window and see grey skies and white roofs, you know it's time to knit some hats! {What? Everyone doesn't automatically make that connection? Huh.}

I've been working on a few new additions to the big box of baby hats that currently resides in our bedroom. The box is filling up because I seem to make lots of girly hats and/or hats that are too small for Will to wear. Therefore, they go in the box until I find someone to give or sell them to. I may need to buy a bigger box. I have lots of ideas.

This is definitely the most...ah, whimsical...one to date. A big pink cupcake with sprinkles!

My sweet hat model:

He has no idea...

Next up, I've been wanting to make college hats {yes, even though I am a 2 percenter through and through, I do realize that most people would like to show some school spirit on their babies' heads.} I think I want to make the logos a bit smaller in relation to the hat size, and I still need to do some fine-tuning on the stitching of the logos. Although I guess they're always going to look a little homemade. Because they are homemade.

Aggies and Longhorns seemed to be a good place to start:

These are too small for Will, so the monkeys modeled.

I also finally finished my green scarf from way back when I started this obsession hobby. So now I'm working on the matching hat. I'll post a pic when I'm done, as I am sure you are all on the edges of your seats. ;) Happy snowy Monday to all!

meeting Carter

Can you even stand how cute this guy is?!

Today we got to meet sweet baby Carter, my cousin Brent and his wife Tilly's new baby. We had such a great time cuddling with Carter and catching up with Brent and Tilly. We didn't end up with a picture of Will and Carter together, as Will is a bit of a liability around a 2 month old. ;) But it was great to get the boys together, and I know we will have many wonderful playdates in the future. We are already looking forward to seeing them again on Friday when they make their way back through Dallas at the end of their roadtrip.

Look at those dimples! I am in love.

Will loved spending some time with his Uncle Brent...

...and Aunt Tilly!

And I clearly enjoyed Carter.

So did Mom/Mimi/Aunt Kathy

And then it started snowing!

Brrrr!

Uh, mom....what IS this?

Such a fun day!

sorry dude...

Will - I am officially apologizing in writing for posting pictures of you wearing a flower hat on the internet.

OK - now that that's out of the way, I'm kind of excited about my flowers! The idea is that I put buttons on the back of these little flowers, so they can be switched out on plain hats to give you different looks! Fun, huh? In an effort to preserve Will's manliness, I did take some pics of the hat just sitting on the table, but I think it just looks better on.

But here's one of the pieces separately:

And I made a tiny newborn one too!

But it looks best on a baby, right?

I have lots of hat ideas, but apparently, many of them are girly. Probably because I'm kind of girly. After the flowers, I moved on to hearts. I wanted to learn to knit things into the design of the hat, so this was my first attempt. I made it in the tiny size because making the hat goes so much faster. Gonna need some tiny baby girls to give these girly hats to!

For now, George volunteered to be my model.

{His head is a little big, but what can you do?}

And finally - Will's girlfriend, Harper, wore the hat I made her the other day, and her mommy sent some pics! I just had to post a couple because she is so darn beautiful! LOVE!

Will sneezed...

...and then this happened:

Hope this made you giggle on this post-holiday Monday.

happy 2011!

Happy New Year! 2010 was pretty much the best year ever with the addition of Will to our family, and we had a great New Years Eve celebrating 2010 and looking forward to 2011. Will had a fun evening with Mimi and Duke, and Matt and I headed out to 2 NYE parties. We started the night at Club Wonderland, where we enjoyed delicious gumbo and fun times with friends. Then we headed over to Club Wilbur {No, he did not call it that. It just seemed like I needed a name.} where we played lots of Catchphrase and toasted the new year. It was a great night with great friends!

The three of us - Will was not so much interested in taking photos at this moment.

Heading out sans baby!

The girls

Mel got the party started with a little dancing. :)

Will had to wear my New Years crown the next day....

...because he wore one last year!