game on.

So, this is how Will used to play:

Not anymore! Starting this week, we stand!

Everywhere!

On the chair:

On rock band:

Sometimes, with only one hand!

And this is how I found Will after his nap today. He's staring at the little blue light on the video monitor camera. Silly baby!

Now he can chew on his crib railing...super!

I can't turn my back for even a second! He's extremely adept at pulling up now, but not so graceful at sitting down. My favorite lesson in not taking my eyes off him came yesterday when I went to wash my hands after changing his diaper (gone for like 20 seconds) and came back to find Will standing at the chair in his nursery, on which the cat was resting. Oh, and did I mention that instead of holding on to the fabric of the chair, he was holding himself up by two handfuls of the cat's hair?! Ally was probably about 2 seconds from completely flipping out when I gently unclenched his hands, pulled out the extra cat hair stuck in his tiny palms, and moved him out of her way as she fled the scene. Will soooo loves the cat....I think this is gonna be a problem as he becomes more and more mobile!

Cutie!!

happy halloween!

Happy halloween from our little lion!

We had a fun Halloween, although unfortunately none of us were feeling 100% today. Will has had his first cold this week, and therefore, Matt and I also now have Will's first cold. But don't worry - we rallied tonight for a little bit of Halloween celebration. Will was a lion, which was a super cute costume, but I wish the cool weather had stuck around. The fur trimmed and satin lined suit was pretty toasty, so he just wore it for pictures and trick-or-treating at Mimi/Duke and Nana's houses, and then it was time for Halloween pajamas! We took as many pictures as we could get, but since Will wasn't loving his costume, it was tough to get many smiles.

I love this one - looks like he's saying "Hey! Come here!" (Note - this and the above picture were taken earlier in the week when it was about 65 degrees - much happier baby in a lion costume!)

First stop - trick-or-treating with Mimi and Duke (who missed the pictures)

Family picture

Will was ready to lose the costume, so I let him wear my cat ears.

Reading a new pumpkin book with Mimi

Next stop, Nana's house! (and back in the costume = disgruntled baby)

This weekend, we also took a short trip up to the arboretum. We are certainly getting lots of use out of the membership. It was lots of fun, and we saw tons of adorable kids in costumes. Will wasn't wearing his, but I do love the shirt he had on (courtesy of Parker!).

Lock up your daughters!

Matt and Will

Will and me (gotta love that belly!)

Happy Halloween to all!

party like a rockstar

Wow - what a weekend! I'm pretty sure that Will just had the busiest weekend of his life so far. We had playdates. We had birthday parties. We had a baptism. We had the whole family over for lunch. We went to the arboretum. And of course we had to have some power naps in between all of the action. We certainly took lots of pictures, so you can see how hard we partied. Here goes...

We got the baby bookclub back together on Friday. It was a small group this month, but we had lots of fun playing, eating, decorating pumpkins, and catching up.

Will and Nolan playing (Don't tell Nolan's dad that he most certainly enjoyed playing with a pink purse!)

My favorite - Nolan was sharing his mirror with me. How cute is he?!

Will had lots of fun practicing pulling up on this toy (super serious face here - but I promise he was having fun!)

Next up: My mom's birthday was Friday, so we got to celebrate with Mimi and Duke on Friday night. We had dinner and watched the AWESOME Rangers game. Helllllooooo World Series!

Will had a special note for his Mimi:

I love my parents!

Blowing out the candles

And the birthdays continue - on Saturday we got to celebrate the birthdays of two of Will's friends. Parker turned three and Ben turned one. So grown up! Parker had a gymnastics party, and the big kids had a blast jumping in the foam pit and playing in the huge gym. Will got to meet a new friend, Luke, and they had a great time sharing Cheerios and puffs and crawling around together.

Will and Luke

Next, after one of those previously mentioned power-naps, we headed to Ben's house for a fabulous animal-themed party. It was so much fun, and it made me realize how soon Will is going to be having a first birthday party. Yikes!

The Webster fam

Big cake for a little dude!

Yum!

Will and Ben had to step away from the crowd and play together for a few minutes.

Will finally got to meet Aunt Jessica and Aunt Kim!

And this picture just cracks me up. I believe the goal was to take a picture of Jessica, Kim, and Ben, but Claire sort of stole the show. Side note - Will received his first kiss at this party....from the lovely Claire!

After all that partying, we thought it was time to get this baby to church! Will was baptized today at Highland Park United Methodist Church. I'll be honest - we were slightly concerned about how he would react since we waited till 8 months, plus he has been known to freak out when handed to strangers. He did great! Since the baptisms are at the beginning of the service (smart thinking, HPUMC!), we took Will to the church nursery for the first time during the rest of the service. When I went to pick him up, he wasn't there...uh-oh! Apparently after playing happily for awhile, it got a little too close to naptime and they had to resort to strolling him through the halls. When I found him, his face was splotchy from crying and he burst into tears when he saw me - poor baby!! He pulled it together once I picked him up and fell asleep immediately on the car ride home. Hopefully his next nursery experience will be less traumatic.

Heading out the door - big day ahead!

After the service (and after the meltdown - Will was barely holding it together!)

We had everyone over for lunch after church. It was lots of fun, and we also got to celebrate Uncle Jonathan's birthday. (like I said - LOTS of birthdays this month!)

Post-nap and much happier!

Will + grandparents (hello, Will?!)

With Will's aunt and uncles

After everyone left, we all took a quick nap and then headed to the arboretum to walk around.

My favorite picture - Will is wearing one of Matt's baby outfits that Nana found. (It says "Superbaby" on the front - so cute!)

What a fun weekend!

Also, as I was writing this, I realized that I have been a little bit delinquent on my blogging lately (so busy!!), and I never posted anything after last weekend. Most of last weekend I was in Fort Worth for a work event, but on Sunday we got to hang out with Will's Uncle Brent! (Ok - so he's actually Will's "first cousin once removed" but that is just ridiculous to say, so we're going with Uncle.) Brent lives in DC and we rarely get to see each other, so this was Will's first time to meet him. However, we're hoping for more visits in the future, as Brent and his wife Tilly are expecting a baby boy any day now! (can't WAIT to meet him!)

Brent, Will and Mema

playdates!

Will and his friends have had some very fun playdates this week. Yesterday we went to the arboretum with Holly, Brian, and Ben. We had a great time. It was actually so fun that I joined the arboretum! So stay tuned during the next year for probably about a million and one pictures of Will with flowers, trees, and during the fall - PUMPKINS! Here are some fun pictures from our day. (A couple of these are stolen from Holly's facebook page - she got some that were better than mine. Thanks Holly!)

Ben and Will - friends holding hands!

playing in the pumpkins

baby swap

Will having a blast

lounging in the pumpkins

Will + mommy

sweet Will

they loved the hay

happy boys

Today we had another playdate - this time with Will's girlfriend, Harper, and his friend Parker, who is about to be a big brother! If you scroll through our blog, you will probably find at least one article of Parker's clothing in almost every post. Megan is very generously letting Will borrow many of Parker's baby clothes - what a great friend! We had such fun playing with Harper and Parker (and Jennie and Megan too!), and of course we took some pics:

Will + Harper (who is sporting some fancy new top teeth!)

Isn't Will's girlfriend beautiful?!

We tried to get a good picture of the 3 kids, but most shots came out something like this. Harper wins the "top model" award for smiling at the camera almost every time!

this was the best shot I got - all 3 are facing forward!

so happy to get to play together!

Will was doing this weird tongue thing all day - he's sticking it out in almost all of the pictures!

sharing toys (um...so cute!)

looks like Will is yelling, "I love Harper!"

i love how this looks like they're just chatting it up

It's been such a fun couple of days. Can't wait to see all of Will's friends again very soon!