{love}

Sweet Will hasn't been feeling 100% this week.  =(  

So we've had lots of these moments:

BUT - we have also had some of these:

On Thursday, after several days of hanging out inside, we decided to enjoy the nice weather and head out to the arboretum for a change of scenery.  And, SURPRISE!  The pumpkins are out!!  The main pumpkin patch didn't open until this weekend, so we couldn't play in it yet, but there were plenty of pumpkins to enjoy.  Since Will's favorite color is orange, he was totally loving all of the pumpkins - big and small!  Unfortunately, I didn't bring the good camera since I didn't realize there would be so many photo ops...but we still snapped a few cute pics. 

Then on Friday, Matt got to leave work a little bit early, so we all met up at the arboretum again.  Here are a few more pics.

Will is a huge fan of benches, and we found this one that is just his size!

Having fun with Daddy

Checking out the pumpkins:

And I have to share these two adorable moments from yesterday afternoon.  These are definitely cute little "Will-isms" that I want to remember.  Will found a coaster in the living room and brought it to me, so I explained how coasters work and that you put your drinks on them.  He loved it, and was super excited to put his juice cup on a coaster:

And then, my favorite part.  He carried it around on the bottom of his cup for the longest time, haha!  I just love watching him learn new things.

And finally, after he put the coaster away, Will picked up the house phone, and kept holding the back of it up to his face and saying "CHEESE!!"  I guess he's used to me taking camera phone pictures of him with my cell phone!!  Sweet sweet boy!

first day of school!!!

Well, hi there!  Sorry we've been missing from the blog world lately.  It's been a very busy few weeks around here!  Last weekend, we got to be part of Blair and Justin's AWESOME wedding, and don't worry - pictures will be coming soon!  But even before that, Will got to go to his first day of school!  {Matt laughs when I call it school, it's actually Mother's Day Out, but school sounds fancier.}  He is going to Park Cities Baptist Church on Fridays from 9-2, and I have to say that although I was definitely worried, the first day went pretty well!  Really, the only issue is that Will is a pretty regular 1-3pm napper.  So if you do the math there, you can see that school ending at 2 isn't ideal.  He surprisingly did a great job of falling asleep on his nap mat on the first day, but his teacher said that when he was awakened about an hour into naptime to start getting everyone ready for pick-up, he was not pleased.  NOT. PLEASED.  So when I arrived to pick him up, he was curled up on one of the teachers, clearly trying to go back to sleep. But once we got home, he was having nothing to do with any additional naptime.  So...what are you gonna do?  I guess he will adjust to a short nap on Fridays!

I was also worried about how he would handle being left, but I think I was the one who took it the hardest!  He definitely clung onto me at first, but they don't let mamas come into the room at dropoff time, so after we stood in the door for a few minutes, and I pointed out all the fun toys inside, he was off.  What I wasn't ready for was the door being shut on me immediately after Will ran off.  Ouch!  I know it's to keep him from seeing me and running back, but I definitely peered in the window like a creepster for a few minutes to see how he would do!  His teachers said that he did fine for the most part, although there were a few "rough moments."  Hopefully each week will get even easier for him, and he will LOVE going every Friday.  Here are a few pictures of the first day of school!

we started the night before by packing a special lunch - part of it was heart shaped tortillas!  {i do realize that I can only get away with things like this while he is this young.}

backpack and lunch box are ready to go!

breakfast of champions - star shaped cinnamon toast!

Will + Daddy

Will + Mommy

{he is one wiggly dude!}

Playing ball with dad before school!  {love}

time to go!!

Ah, Baby Will....when did you grow up on me?!

Will's first....

...fat lip!  :(   

Not a first we are excited for!  Today, when we got home from running some errands, Will was so excited to get inside that he tripped over his own feet and completely faceplanted on the tile floor.  It was AWFUL!  There was lots of blood, and once I got the bleeding stopped, it started swelling like CRAZY!  Poor baby.  He handled it pretty well - lots of snuggling and reading his favorite books helped take his mind off of it while it was hurting.  {and I definitely didn't mind that part!}  I think it's going to look like he got slugged in the mouth for a few days, but other than that, we are all OK!

18 months!

Guess who is 18 months old today?!

Once again - getting a picture of Will and the bear was next to impossible.  He doesn't love sharing his chair with anyone, but definitely not with Mr. Bear!

Still pretty cute, huh?

This month has been lots of fun, although it is SO HOT here that we're getting a bit bored with our indoor toys and activities.  At 1 1/2 years old, Will is hilarious, precocious, strong-willed, smart, and determined.  The doctor best described him on our little notes page from Will's 18 month check up:

You can almost see his stats on the page.  Here they are:

Weight:  25 lbs, 7 oz - 48%
Height: 32 3/4 inches - 70%
Head: 19 1/4 inches - 75%

This month, Will has added lots and lots of words to his vocabulary {gotta watch it - he will repeat anything!}, and he's getting very good and letting me know what he wants by telling me.  We have also worked really hard at helping him understand that "please" is the magic word when you want something.  He's great at it now, probably most especially when requesting his absolute favorite food of the moment, peaches.  It's been a tough balance to reinforce "please" when he uses it, while not allowing him to eat peaches 24/7!!   This morning, Matt prompted him to say "bite please" when he wanted some of Matt's breakfast, and it was so cute to come in and hear him saying a little phrase like that!  Sweet boy!

We've been working on colors this month, and he can identify several.  However, even if he knows the color, he will almost always guess orange first, and then when asked again, he'll give the correct answer.  :) Silly boy!  If he doesn't know the answer, he usually guesses in this order {his favorites}: orange, green, and then purple.

One of my FAVORITE new developments of the month is that I get a hug and kisses before nap and bedtime!  LOVE LOVE this.  Will also has gotten really good at blowing kisses to people, which is just about the most adorable thing ever.  {He is still pretty slow to warm up to new people, but he loves giving them a high-five or blowing a kiss once he decides they are OK!}

Will still loves his books, and he also LOVES puzzles!  His favorite puzzle right now is one that has lots of little vehicles.  He loves to take them out, and then tell me what they are {and make the corresponding noise if there is one} as he puts them back in.

reading next to the puzzle...his favorites!

Will had his third haircut the other day.  Thanks to Mimi for saving us trips to the kid haircut place!  I'm not going to say that Will LOVED it, but he hung in there!  :)

I'm sure I've mentioned this previously, but when Will is tired, shy, bored, or nervous, he still does his signature "thumb suck/ear pull" move.  I thought I should document it with a picture:

Will is super duper active {and has no fear of things like climbing, falling, running into the street, etc}, which can be exhausting at times, but he really couldn't be more fun!!  I just love that I get to play with him all day!   Happy 18 months, Will!!

ehhhhh-neeeeee!!!

Super find at Target today!  Many of you may be aware that Will LOVES Ernie right now.  You might have also noticed that most Sesame Street stuff is geared towards Elmo.  And I don't blame them.  Elmo was always my favorite too.  However, lately I've been on the search for an Ernie toy of some kind for Will, and until today, I hadn't found anything great.  And now, thanks to the best store ever {Target, duh}, we are the proud owners of a talking, singing, counting EHHHHH-NEEEE doll!  

Checking him out for the first time out of the box:

It's really him!

 {please don't judge the diaper on the floor.  it's clean. and it has Ernie on it.}

Kisses for Ernie!

Happy boy!

night night

Just had to share a little tidbit from our day today.  Sometimes lately, when we're playing on our big bed, Will will put his little head down and say "night night."  So cute - although he then pops right back up and gets back to playing.  Today during his nap, he woke up about an hour and a half in {which I initially was not excited about} and rolled around for a few minutes, and then laid back down, said "night night," and went back to sleep!!  

Love it!!!

comment away! maybe?

OK, so clearly I should be sleeping right now.  I just got back from a busy weekend of late nights and whatnot.  But I am instead messing around with the blog.  And I have found so many awesome updates that make things like adding pictures so much easier - how long has this stuff been on here and I didn't know?!

And also...some people have mentioned to me that they can't comment on the posts, but some can.  And I didn't get it.  Usually I would just respond with a shrug something explicit about blogger.  Ah, ahem, er...maybe it was my fault?  As I was clicking away to see what I could customize on the layout, I found a comments tab {second one, clearly marked, very visible, but whatev...} and I was able to change a setting that maybe will fix the comment problem!  So if you've had trouble in the past, will you try now?  See if it works?!

Oh, and also, I wish I could go back and make all of my previously uploaded pictures wider now that my updated settings let me put in larger pics.  Just sayin'.  So to give you an idea of the kind of fun huge pics you'll see in the future, here you go:

oh NOLA - we miss you!!