18 Months Old

It's REALLY hard to believe William is ONE and a HALF. Didn't we just celebrate his 1st birthday?! Not a lot has changed since I did his 17 month post. I think he's about to turn a corner in the language department and start saying more. He understands pretty much everything we say to him.

Some new words I've heard over the past couple of days include sick (stick), sues (shoes), tuck (truck) rock, sock, wah-wah (water).

He can identify almost all major animals, body parts, and makes animal noises for dog, lion, monkey, elephant, duck, snake, and pig. Truth be told, Grant and I are probably the only people that would recognize the animal noises ;)

This is probably TMI...but at school they've been working on telling the teacher when they need a diaper change. He will let us know when he goes poo poo now. I've tried to sit him on the potty a couple of times and he just laughs hysterically. By no means are we going to potty train soon!!!

 Pottery Barn outing with Mommy ended in William getting to run around the Summit for a while. Something must've been really exciting/funny :)

 

Something I've noticed over the past month is that in some ways he's still such a baby and in others he seems like such a big boy! The picture on the right cracks me up...he's never taken a paci. He found this one in a drawer one day and carried it around for the remainder of the day and night. Thankfully, he hasn't acted interested in it since. 

 We went to a pumpkin painting party. William had a blast and I had fun chatting with other moms. 

 We've spent a LOT of time outside on the deck and in the backyard playing on the swing set.

William ripped the baby gate out of the wall. Yep, we have our very own Hercules living under our roof. 

A couple of nights ago I tried on some of his winter clothes from last year to see if they'd still fit. Believe it or not, this jacket is a size 9 month and fits him relatively well. He did NOT want to take it off OR get out of the laundry basket. Toddlers are so funny!

Happy 18 months William!!

Young Love

This past weekend we went to a gorgeous wedding for a third (?) cousin of mine on the Shaw side. In true William fashion, he found a little girl (distant cousin of his) about his size and decided she was HIS lady for the evening. I din't have my real camera so these are all phone pics from various people's phones :) These two were quite the attraction of the evening after the bride and groom themselves!

Love at first sight...

 William started off with a hug...How precious is that flower girl?!

 Sweet Sarah Jane was such a good sport. Believe it or not...she is 14 months older than William!

"Would you like to dance with me?"

 They started off with a little innocent hand holding while dancing.

 Then William moved in for the real deal...

Now William has documentation of his first kiss. We all joked that this is what kissin' cousins is all about...hahaha!

Pumpkin Patch 2013

We headed south of town to Calera for our traditional (2nd time) family trip to the pumpkin patch. The most fun part was riding the train to the patch!

 Our wiggle worm bounced from seat to seat while we tried to keep him from diving out the window onto the tracks!!

He loved running around and sitting on ALL of the pumpkins.

 He took pumpkin sitting very seriously ;)

 I think he thought the pumpkins were balls. 

 "What now, Mom?" 

Right as the conductor said "All Aboard" to leave the pumpkin patch, William discovered the sandbox. He wasn't quite ready to leave.

Just to compare...here is baby William from our 2012 pumpkin patch trip.

Such a little bit then!

Styles' 1st Birthday

This past Saturday our little family of three headed to Montgomery to celebrate Styles' 1st birthday! William is just 5 months older than Styles and I LOVE getting these boys together. I know it'll be fun watching their "long distance" relationship blossom over the years. In true Kat fashion, she put on the perfect 1st birthday bash. We had so much fun visiting with our special friends!

All of these pictures were from Kat's camera. I take no credit! I told Kat that she and Robert should go into the photography business. They've got serious skillz :)

William had THE best time socializing, blowing bubbles, eating chalk, running around their house, and eating lots of sugar. He stayed up until 9pm Saturday night and was up at 4:30am Sunday morning. Eeekk!!

 Before long, baby Jack will be able to keep up with the big boys!

 William ate SIX of those sugar cookies with minty icing in the center. They were so good and kept him somewhat tame ;)

 Checking each other out. I could just eat them up!

 William was trying to give Styles a little love in this one. Hilarious!

So fun to get together with best friends from college with our little ones!

17 Months Old

William is 17 months old today! It's hard to believe he's one month shy from being one and a half! He's becoming quite the spunky, opinionated, super loving little boy. Over the past month, we've seen the first of the toddler tantrums/meltdowns. Those little moments of terror come out of nowhere and there's not much we can do to stop them. They usually begin by William going limp and hitting the ground like a sack of potatoes. It's practically impossible to pick him up and remove him from the situation when he goes limp like that ;) All of these pictures are from my phone over the past month! The layout is kinda funky but I don't have the time or energy to fix it!!

When we ask him "where's {Dada, Mama, the dog, your shoes, etc...} we get that expression on the left. William and I go to the library every Tuesday morning for story time {picture on the right}. I've really enjoyed taking him! It's a great outing and we always go a little early to play with puzzles, and "read" books.

With the occasional tantrums has also come LOTS of hugs and kisses from William. He loves to hug necks and give kisses when we drop him off at school, say good-night, or even leave to run an errand. Our bedtime routine involves me singing "Jesus Loves Me" to him while rubbing his back in the crib. Each night after that song I say "night night William," and he stands up, puckers his lips for a kiss, and hugs my neck. Then he plops down and immediately goes to sleep. MELT.MY.HEART. It's by far my favorite part of every single day. He goes to bed every night at 7pm and usually wakes up between 6-6:30.

He's had a ball playing on his car and motorcycle from Granny and Juju! If you mention the word car he goes and stands at the door until we take him outside. He takes driving very seriously :)

This past month he got the small tube removed from his tear duct procedure that he had back in July. He did great while the opthamologist pulled the tube with tweezers. I, on the other hand, almost fainted!! It was a little more intense than I expected and I didn't have Grant there for back up. In true William fashion he found a little girl to become friends with while we waited for the eye doctor to have the tube removed. William LOVES girls. Anytime he sees a little girl, he'll get right up in their face (like 2 inches from their lips) and then hug them. He's obsessed with our 4 y/o neighbor and goes ballistic if he sees her playing outside. It's really quite precious. William is extremely social and loves being around other children.

We've spent a LOT of time at Overton Park over the past month. We go several times a week! William LOVES it.

Favorite things: bubbles (buh-buh's), taco meat, nutri-grain bars (he eats 2 every single morning), girls, wheat thins, MILK, bugs (buh's), dogs, balls, cups, yogurt.

HA 2003 Class Reunion

A couple of weekends ago, I had my TEN year high-school reunion. I still can't believe it's been TEN years. In some ways high school seems like yesterday and in others it seems so long ago. I was in charge of the slideshow that we played Saturday night at the dinner, so it was fun going through old pictures and reminiscing on old times. We all looked like such babies in high school!

The weekend started with a family cook-out for lunch on Saturday at my classmate Rachel's family farm. Go check out Rachel's blog ilikewhatimherring.blogspot.com, she is very talented. William didn't get the memo that I REALLY wanted him to behave and act remotely human in front of old friends that I hadn't seen in a very long time. He quickly gave me a dose of "mommy reality" when he acted like a complete lunatic until I had enough and we decided to leave. Phew!!! As silly as it sounds, I think my patience was tested more that day than it has been throughout my entire mommyhood. I felt completely helpless and totally out of control. Annnnyyyyway...the rest of the weekend was wonderful. Here are some pictures from Saturday night at Maria's Vineyard where the reunion was held!

 There wouldn't have been a reunion without these two ladies!

 I think we had a pretty good 10 year showing for graduating with only 48 ;)

The most fun part of the night was getting to open our letters that we wrote to ourselves on the last day of high school! I VIVIDLY remember writing mine after I finished my last exam. I remember sitting there wondering where I'd be in ten years. Would I be married? Would I have children? Would I live in Alabama? What type of job would I have? Would I still keep in touch with my childhood friends? My letter was pretty much what I would've expected my 18 year old self to write :)