welcome to miami!

Matt and I just enjoyed a fabulous long weekend in South Beach, Miami!! {Don't worry, we sang the Will Smith song almost exclusively while we were there. Even debated the authenticity of his lyrics based on our observations...} It was our first vacation since Will arrived, and we spent 100% of our time doing pretty much nothing! We laid on our padded beach chairs, fell asleep on our padded beach chairs, and had a few cocktails on our padded beach chairs. And then we went out to nice dinners at night. Ahhhh...... {honestly, we only had one thing scheduled during the entire 4 days - a pedicure for me! again...ahhhhhh.....}

The only negative thing about going on relaxing, baby-free trip is that you have to leave your baby at home!! Eeekk! We talked about Will a lot and definitely enjoyed getting updates and pictures from the grandparents while we were gone. We are so lucky to have such wonderful families who allowed us to take a trip by ourselves! And Will absolutely had a blast spending time with his Nana, Mimi, and Duke. They had so many fun activities planned for him that he probably hardly had time to miss us! ;)

Matt and I are terrible about taking pictures when just the two of us go somewhere. I guess it's sorta boring to take pictures of each other standing alone...but we did get a few. Here they are!

Will helped me pack up his clothes for the weekend.

First picture of the trip - right after we landed in Fort Lauderdale

Matt loves frolicking in the ocean. LOVES IT.

and who wouldn't? how pretty is this!?

Date night!!

the view from our balcony

my fun vacay hat!

Such a fun trip!!

blog book!!!

I am so excited! Just ordered my blog book for 2010! {Yes, I do realize that we are over half way finished with 2011. Clearly I am behind, but still excited!}

I was originally going to use one of the sites that just pulls your blog and puts it into a ready-made book, which seems super convenient and quick. But then I realized that I am slightly OCD, and it was really bugging me that the automatic formatting wouldn't let me include captions with my photos or make any of the pictures larger than the standard...or really do anything. So I found a cool site {blurb.com} that will import your blog and do the autoformatting, BUT then lets you completely customize it! I got to pick from tons of templates, make my own templates, whatev! It did take me awhile, since I only work in bits and pieces when Will is sleeping, but I am super excited about how it turned out. Since I hardly ever get pictures printed anymore, this is going to take the place of scrapbooking for me. {And that's why you, dear blog reader, get so much detail and so many pictures in my posts!}

On another note, Matt and I just got back from a relaxing long weekend in Miami. More on that later...

growing too fast for me!

Just had a little conversation with Will, and while it was awesome and fun, it made me realize just how fast he is growing! Our conversation went something like this:

{after Will has been playing with my spice rack, which I had placed on the kitchen floor for his amusement}

Me: Will, we are missing one of the spices. Do you know where it is?

Will: Nooooo.

Me: Are you sure? Did you maybe carry it into another room?

Will: Nooooooooo.

Me: Can you help me look?

Will: No.

{hm. must work on helpfulness}

Me: Ok, well we need to find it. I might want to use......whatever is missing...

Will: Oh mama. {then he proceeds to give me a big hug and pat my back...sigh...so sweet!}

LOVE.

And for those who want closure to this dramatic plotline, the unknown spice is still missing.

Will also had his second haircut today! Since my mom has cut my dad's hair for years, we decided to let Mimi give it a whirl instead of going back to the baby haircut place. She did a fabulous job!

Thanks Mimi!!

catch up time!

It's been awhile since I've posted, so I have lots to catch up on! We've been busy. We've been sick. :( But we've still had lots of fun!

Here are a few pictures from a recent visit with family. Will and Carter got to play together again, and we all had a blast watching them!

reading before bedtime

playing with Gran/Aunt Christa

Carter and Mema

Carter and his Gran

We also have been harvesting from the garden. {We = Matt} Lots of tomatoes!!

And 3 sad peaches. They look pretty here, but so sad...full of ickiness inside. And these are the only three we got out of like 100 on the tree! We learned that bluebirds are pretty, but not great for your peach crop.

And we had a very fun playdate with Harper! Clearly they were not interested in looking at the camera, but they did have a great time playing together {ok, next to each other}.

And they played with the new water toy.

Will showed me the sun.

Played with the water table, too!

And then, later that afternoon, Will got sick. {We are still praying that Harper stays well!!} It was the first time he's really been sick with anything other than a little cold, so it was scary! He had a virus that gave him a fever, but the fever caused him to have trouble breathing. Because of that, we ended up at 2 doctors for 5 hours, enduring a strep test {actually 2, and each resulted in Will being gagged by the Q-tip tester thing and throwing up all over himself and me}, a breathing treatment {unsuccessful}, a chest x-ray {clean, whew!}, and a blood test to check for elevated white blood count {also good}. So final result.....just a virus! Yay! However, the whole process was a bit stressful and tiring, so we both needed to rest the next day:

I am happy to report that we are all well now, and ready for more fun!

sweet sixteen!

Will turned 16 months old on the 11th! What a busy boy we have! We are having lots of fun this summer, and Will is keeping me on my toes as I chase him around all day. Here are a few pictures of Will at 16 months:

You will notice a trend....he had to have the books in order to stay still for the pics:

LOVES reading - this is one of his favorites {Big Bird's ABC book}

he also loved lounging in our big reading chair

Here are a few things I want to remember about Will at 16 months:

• He is still super active {anyone surprised?} and of course still loves to be outside! We are not loving the extreme heat and mosquitoes, as this limits our playtime in the backyard. But after a very fun playdate with Will's friend Ben, we purchased our very own fun water toy/splash pool for the backyard, and Matt sprayed our backyard for bugs last night, so maybe we'll get to spend more time outside this week!
• This month, Will surprised us by learning his letters! He has lots of letter books and a laptop toy that says the letter sounds when he presses the buttons, so one day he just knew a couple of them! I got excited about that, so we've been working on learning the rest of them for the past couple of weeks. He can either say the name of the letter or make the sound for pretty much all of them - maybe with the exception of a few tricky ones, like Q. I mean, come on....how weird is that letter?! Will also randomly knows the number 8, and loves to point it out anytime he sees it.
• He has lots of words now, and it's so much fun to watch him learn new things! I love that he is starting to communicate with us now!
• He is going through a bit of a stranger danger phase, and he always wants to know where I am, what I am doing, and why I'm not sitting and playing with him {if it's one of the rare minutes when I'm not}
• Our house looks like a tornado has hit at the end of every day. We have lots of fun, but we get messy! And I find things in the strangest places now that Will can walk around carrying stuff and leaving it wherever he wants.
• The peek-a-boo game is still a favorite, but now Will can say "boo" back! It's so cute. Sometimes he will bring a book or blanket up to me, cover my face, then move it and say "BOO." {love}
• I think he is about to sprout a new tooth somewhere {must be a molar?} because for the past three days, we have had to change shirts multiple times a day, and he is drooling down to his belly button!
• During this month, Will has transitioned from loving to simply flip through books and look at the pictures to really wanting me to read the books to him. Sometimes I feel like he would sit all day and read books! It's a great thing, and sometimes when he's having a wee tantrum over something, I can grab a book and totally distract him! Sweet sweet boy!

Here are a couple more of Will's new favorite activities:

He retrieves and organizes the mail for me:

He loves to help dad pick the tomatoes from our garden
{he pretty much insists on picking one anytime we pass them. daddy loves this.}

Happy 16 months, sweet Will!!

Will, are you going to enjoy swim lessons?

ehhhh, not sure, mom!

Will had his first swim lesson last Monday, and while he had a good time overall, I would say he was probably the hottest mess of the group. He did great - just had a few little meltdowns. I think the main issue was that Will is going through a bit of a phase during which he is not a fan of being removed from his comfort zone of mama, dada, or grandparents. So having a sweet swim teacher grab him away and dunk him under water unannounced was not high on his list. {most of the other kids were younger and pretty cool with whatever} Also not high on the list - being given a fun ball to play with, only to have it taken away 2 minutes later and put in plain sight, but not to be played with. This resulted in lots of longing looks at the side of the pool and lots of yelling "BALL" during the non-ball-related activities. :)

But Will LOVED playing with Nolan during the free swim time at the end. They played with the ball, they climbed on the floating island, and they splashed and kicked like big boys.

So all in all, swim lesson #1 was a good experience, and we'll be back tomorrow for more!!

{And also - GO MAVS!!!!!!!!}

family pictures!!

We had our pictures taken a couple of weeks ago at the arboretum, and we received the disc of images today - so exciting!! I love them all - even considering my previously mentioned humidity-induced hair issues...

Here they are!