happy holidays indeed!

This guy...

...is loving the Christmas season! {so is his mom!}

We have been very busy the past couple of weeks with fun holiday get-togethers and celebrations. Here are the highlights. {warning...this is a long post!}

Will got to meet Santa for the very first time at our baby bookclub's breakfast with Santa. We had some delicious food, and all the kids had a great time playing and seeing Santa. The best part? All the little ones wore Christmas pajamas. So cute!

Will was mesmerized at first.

And then quickly got pretty skeptical!

Although he wasn't allowed to eat any m&ms yet, he got a hold of someone else's container and had a great time shaking it around.

Here are some of Will's friends from the group:

Sweet Nolan

{thanks to Nolan's mom for hosting and inviting Santa!}

Caroline and Will sharing toys.

Happy Ben!

Precious Madison, who was very interested in talking to Santa. What a cutie!

I love a baby in Christmas pjs!

Next up on our agenda was a playdate with Will's girlfriend. Harper and Will had lots of fun playing, and Jennie and I realized that Will had a Santa hat and Harper had some reindeer antlers, so viola! Photo shoot time! We tried to make it safe by putting the pillows between the babes and the fireplace, but Will just kept reclining on his! It was hilarious, and sort of made it tough to get pictures. Here are their best shots:

love how Will has his hand on Harper's shoulder

{although he could reach better if he would sit up, silly boy!}

I think they were becoming disinterested in the headgear...

ah. lovebirds.

We also got to go to a fun holiday party with Mema - complete with live music and Santa! Will's favorite part was not necessarily part of the celebration. They have a birdcage full of colorful birds, and he absolutely loves it! And of course, he had a great time hanging out with Mema.

He loved the reflector on Mema's walker!

Will and Mema

We also recently went to dinner with friends, and it turned into sort of an early birthday celebration. I'm about to celebrate the first anniversary of my 29th birthday, so we enjoyed dinner and drinks at Bolsa. What a fun night!

Cheers!

{yes, our hands look huge here...}

I'm not sure what prompted this, but it makes me laugh.

that's better.

love these girls!

Next holiday party on the agenda was a Christmas cookie exchange hosted by Holly. This is one of my favorite Christmas parties because you leave with a box full of delicious cookies. {I find it best to eat these cookies for breakfast during the week after the party. Just sayin...it's awesome.} I stole this photo from Holly's blog to show the aprons she made for us. Impressive, huh?!

And to continue the fun, last night I celebrated again with a fun get together at Kim's house. We had tons of delicious food, a gift exchange, AND everyone wore an over-the-top Christmas sweater. It's hard to say who had the best one - they were all pretty awesome. Here's our prom-style stairway picture to prove it:

And of course, Christmas wouldn't be complete without some Christmas card photos! This is the first year we've done a photo card, mostly because now that we have Will, I can convince Matt to be on board! Probably I enjoyed this experience the most, followed by Will, and then Matt, who isn't a huge fan of staged photos. But I think we got some good ones!

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer!

And finally, we've had lots of fun decorating the house! I did most of the decorating when Will was sleeping, but he did help me hang his "baby's first Christmas" ornament. {thanks Mimi and Duke!}

Our tree!

{it's hard to find a good camera setting for Christmas tree pics!}

Merry Christmas to all!!

ten months!

Happy 10 months, William! Will actually turned 10 months old on December 11th, but I'm a bit behind on this post because we have been so busy! Plus, Will has had an eye infection (ugh), so I wanted to wait to take his monthly bear picture until he didn't have a swollen red eye. He sort of still does in these, but it's much better! :) Here he is:

holding his favorite book

chatting it up with Mr. Bear

I know I said this last month, and maybe the month before that, but I wish I could freeze Will at this age! He's so much fun, and so happy! Now, if I did freeze him at this age, I would probably develop superwoman arms, because he's not walking, but getting pretty heavy to carry around. {20+ lbs when we went to the doctor for the eye thing. They told me the exact number, but I wasn't that concerned with his weight at the moment, so I don't remember.} Here are a few things I want to remember about Will at 10 months:

• He is into everything. And he's fast! He is still most attracted to items like power cables, cell phones, and remotes {only the real ones that light up}. So far so good with the Christmas tree, because we don't really hang out in the front room with Will. However - whenever I take him in, he reaches out with both arms in excitement. He loves the lights, colors, and ornaments.
• I have a feeling that walking isn't too far off, because he has become an expert "cruiser," and can get pretty much anywhere he wants to go by crawling or walking along the furniture. It's very cute, but also a little {a lot} dangerous. Will is fearless and seems to like to live on the edge...
• Probably my favorite new development of the week - Will has learned to roll his tongue! You know, as if he was fluent in Spanish, except at a very high pitch. He has always loved blowing air through his lips, and this sounds kind of similar, so the first time he did it, I assumed that's what I was hearing. But nope - definitely rolling his tongue on the roof of his mouth - no lip movement at all! I need to get a video of this. It's hilarious, and pretty impressive that he now has mastered something that some adults cannot do. ;)
• Unfortunately, sleeping hasn't been all that great lately. Not sure what's up - he seems to wake up at least once a night, usually either around midnight or around 5am, and a lot of the time he just can't settle back down on his own. This could be because I'm a sucker and will go in there eventually, but I sort of got out of "sleep training" mode after he started sleeping through the night, and now I'm a softie. Hopefully this is just a phase and will pass quickly!
• Will loves to talk. He says all kinds of things, although no real words yet. However - when he wants something, he will look at it and say "nah nah nah" over and over. I feel like that's a step in the communication direction!
• This month, Will has totally gotten the hang of self-feeding, and he's eating lots more table food than pureed food. He still has oatmeal in the mornings and usually one pureed vegetable with dinner, but he really seems to prefer to feed himself these days. His favorites are pasta, cheese, tortillas, peas, sweet potatoes, carrots....you know what? He really likes most things. I do love that he can now show his preferences. If I put cheese and anything else on the tray together, he will always eat the cheese first. No contest.
• He is loving his books now, and I love it. He has a few favorites that he will sit through over and over. Still can't sit for the bigger-kid books with lots of words, but he loves the ones with just a picture and word on each page.

I can't believe how much my baby has grown up in just 10 short months. Can't wait to see what happens next. I love you, Will!!

my favorite...

...commercials? Yeah, that's a weird thing to blog about. I know.

But I signed on to the blog to write a big update on the last couple of very busy holiday weeks. Lots going on: breakfast with Santa, an early birthday celebration, 10 month old baby, cookie exchange, etc. And then I realized that it is late and I'm too sleepy to mess with uploading pictures and what-not. {is it just me? or is uploading pictures and getting them in the correct order kind of a pain on here?} But since I'm here, I will share two random things that have brought me joy this holiday season. These are especially unexpected, as I typically fast forward through commercials, but I simply cannot help but smile {and sing. ok ok, and dance.} when I see either of these. And I'm not gonna lie. I've actually rewound to watch these again.

Stay tuned for the other post...and watch a commercial while you wait! ;)

hats hats hats!

Sooooo...the hat factory has been in high gear these last few days. Sometimes when I get excited about something, I might tend to let it completely take over my spare time....or in this case, I just stay up waaaay too late making baby hats. Here are the latest:

Will sported his new red hat for dinner last night.

{I think it's a bit tall for him...he'll grow.}

Matt rocked his new hat tonight for a picture.

{See the butterfly bandages on his hand? Totally almost cut his thumb off sawing extra limbs off the bottom of our Christmas tree. Yikes!}

My favorite so far? The new and improved santa hat:

I like this design much better than the first one I made. I made the teeny one first {it has your name on it, Cole Hunter Jackson!} and I liked it so much that I made one for Will. Too bad he was already asleep when I finished, so I don't have a picture yet. No worries - plenty of time to subject my sweet baby to another photo shoot tomorrow. And on that note - goodnight all!

a new hobby

So, I have a new hobby. I now knit. I know, I know...sounds pretty cool, right? I got inspired on Thanksgiving when we were talking about how cute Will's pumpkin hat is, and we were looking at the website of the person who made it. She has some really awesome baby hats! Anyway, I decided that I wanted to make my own baby hats instead of purchasing them, because I quickly realized that in order to buy all the ones I liked, I would need to sell one of Will's kidneys. {joking, joking...of course I would sell my own first.} So last weekend, my mom gave me some of her yarn and knitting needles from when she got this same crazy idea awhile back, and I spent some quality time on YouTube learning how to knit. First attempt - a coaster. Not super successful, but I totally did use it the other day for my coffee cup.

It actually looks better in the photo because of the lights. It's supposed to be a square, but definitely is not.

After using the coaster project to figure things out, I decided a couple of things. 1) I can do this. and 2) I need more supplies! So, Will and I made our first of several trips to JoAnn Fabrics to buy some bigger needles and thicker yarn. Exciting, right?

Second project: a scarf! I originally was going to make a little scarf for Will, but it turned out a little thicker than I thought it would. Plus, that's probably a strangulation hazard, huh? So it's going to be a narrow scarf for me instead! I love it, and I have to say that the thicker needles are easier to work with, and this project is going much better.

And finally - project #3, which I started yesterday, even though project #2 is still going. I saw the instructions online and I couldn't resist. And once I got the yarn, I was too excited to wait. Typical. So here it is, just finished this morning.....Will's new santa hat!

I definitely have some critiques - but I won't bore you with them all. The most obvious one is that it's sort of too small - shoot! But it does fit on his head, so of course I got some pictures. Poor Will - one day he's going to look back on all of these pictures I take and grimace. But he loves it now! ;)

Santa Baby

Just get ready...who knows what I'll do next. I have lots of ideas! This should be interesting.