Cute Kiddo Pics

I feel like I atleast owe it to January to have two posts.  But this is probably not going to be a blog post to go down in history of bests.  Though, pictures of William making cute faces tend to save the day in all other situations - so here goes nothing...

Naked Baby!! I usually let him run around after bath for just a minute - apparently this time I let him run around long enough to locate the camera and take a picture...

This is one of his favorite new faces - tucking in his upper lip - he's not pouting though.  We've decided that it is his "plotting" face... lord help us now

A devious grin.  He thinks he's going down the stairs without holding anyone's hand...mistaken.

Grandaddy K & Mima came down for the day - William actually wanted Mima to pick him up first!  I think it made her year!! :)

Learning a thing or two from Grandaddy K while they put together his new, fabulous toy bins.

Always so helpful - "sweeping" the carpet with the fan blade cleaner.  He walked around all day with this thing - I'm considering taking up all the rugs and buying him a swiffer... just saying.

I know it's super fuzzy - but how cute is he?!

About anything suffices as a "paci" nowadays...  It's really kind of ridiculous the things we have to take out of his mouth...

The Night Night routine.  Daddy reads Goodnight Gorilla and then William reads it back to him.  

I again apologize for the lack of posting, and quality posting at that.  I will try to do better.  Oh and because I can't remember if I mentioned it before - William said his first (official) sentence a week or so ago... "Mama, Eat Eat Now."  Not a please in sight.  Guess that's the next word we will work on...

OH!!  Last thing - he will hold our hands now and walk calmly.  Most of the time.  If he thinks that it is his idea to hold hands - otherwise - he runs in the opposite direction in the middle of a very busy parking lot.  Well, it wasn't THAT busy, or busy at all actually - we were at Lowe's WAY early on a Sunday morning... but still.  It was a parking lot and he's little and there were big cars - so we're working on making sure that he thinks it's HIS idea - doing the "1 2 3 Weeeee!" game helps...  Moving on.

Loves.

I believe I can Fly...

....William certainly does atleast.  His climbing is getting seriously out of control.  Leave him unsupervised for twenty seconds and he is on top of the tv cabinet in the living room trying to push the buttons (and the TV over the edge).  Give him thirty seconds and he is standing on the console table looking out the window.  And in a mere 5 seconds he can be on top of his blue table.  I've already taken apart the blue table once this week - I told him twenty times that "We don't climb on tables" Monday, when we were home because of the weather, before I just couldn't take it anymore.  Ms. Carolyn told me yesterday when I picked him up that he was trying to fly all day...lord help us.  I don't wish a climber on anyone.  It was cute at first that he was so determined and had enough motor skills to make it happen - but not anymore.

He's convinced that the more he talks to Burnie, the more she will like him...

He's starting to follow directions now - and I guess has been for a little while.  But if you ask him to go do something, put something back... more often than not - he will do it.  The other night he was being super whiny and Sam told him to go to his room and find a paci.  So he immediately walked from the living room to his room and was searching his bed for one.  Insane.  When did my kid start to understand every word we say?  Guess I am going to have to start watching what I say...

straight chilling before "school" - he knows he's cool

He is finally talking when we leave daycare.  He used to play possum, put his head on my shoulder, and pretend that daycare was the worst thing ever.  But now, he still wants me to pick him up, but will say Bye Bye to his friends and teachers and even occasionally give them "what for" - which is perfectly adorable.  All babbles, but it's so cute.  Sam and I think he's the daycare darling - all the teachers want to play with him - and maybe they tell all the parents that - but I'm happy to believe that it's only my curly redheaded boy.

trying on Daddy's shoes

Oh - it's so cute! - he puckers his lips for kisses now!!!  Seriously - the most adorable thing ever.  He doesn't do it every time but when he does, I melt.  Sweet sweet boy.  And I'll have to say, I don't exactly miss the wide open kisses on the mouth.  Always a little strange...  :)

The Claw!!!  

The big boy bed is still a hit.  Though, yesterday morning I found him behind it trapped in the corner.  I hope he got back there the "safe" way (IE not falling head over heels - though I'm assuming there would've been crying involved if had done that).  He had discovered that we hid his tunnel back there and wanted it I guess...  Anyhow - he's been doing really really well.  Goes right to sleep just like he did in his crib and stays there all night.  Easy cheesey.  We got off very very lucky on this one.

How I keep him entertained while I cook

and fyi - rice in bowls is not such a good idea....goldfish are much better

I was a bad momma and didn't take him out in the snow on Monday.  I didn't know what to put on his feet, was pretty sure he didn't have anything warm enough to wear, and quite frankly, I didn't want to have to keep him from throwing himself down our driveway every two seconds.  I guess I'll go eat worms.  (plus, the "snow" was really more like white ice...just saying)

Henry came to play!!!

Loves.

Christmas 2010

Once again, I am incredibly behind in sharing a holiday, my apologies....but I'm sure y'all are used to it by now.

This past Christmas was the first Christmas in twenty years that I did not have to switch houses at a particular time.  There was no traveling clear across the  state the Christmas afternoon for the first time in 7 years.  and I loved it.  Being able to be lazy whenever we wanted/as much as pepito would allow us to, was nothing short of the best time ever.

William obviously has no idea who Santa is or how Christmas "works" but he did absolutely love being surprised by a giant red plastic firetruck toddler bed at 6am Christmas morning.  He jumped out of my arms when we turned the corner into the dining room and Sam was already set up with the video camera.  he thinks it's one of the greatest things ever.  He climbed in and out of all morning long to just sit and bring his BoBo and Hilbert up there with him.

On a non-Christmas note - the transition to a toddler bed has gone amazingly smooth.  The first night he was upset about it but who wouldn't be?!  but since then, he sleeps like a baby (ha!) or sometimes wakes up once, which he would do in the crib as well, so no big change there.  And up until this morning, he stays in the crib until we come in to say Good Morning.  This morning, I found him with BoBo picking up books and talking, but usually he's a good boy and stays put.  I'm not sure if it's because we switched him over before he learned to "escape" or because his teachers have taught him to stay on his cot until naptime is over, but either way, I'm counting us lucky to have missed out on the nightmare transitions we've read about.

Back to Christmas.  After our little Rumer Christmas, we headed over to B&B's for the big Rumer Christmas.  We were there just before am which is a success all on its own.  I think B&B were surprised when I called at 7:40am saying we had just left the house...  We don't mess around when it comes to Christmas!  As soon as we got there, William immediately spotted a Santa gift and made a beeline for the riding Firetruck toy.  Too bad for him, it took three people and 7 minutes to undo the packaging so he could play with it.  He wasn't happy with that at all.  Oh well.  Patience is a learned behavior.

We ate breakfast and then it was time for Christmas.  He ran around like a crazy man, flitting between rooms and toys, and I chased after him.  I did his Christmas first and he was kind of in to it - when he was standing there...  He got a great "anywhere Chair" from Pottery Barn with his name on it that already loves.  He immediately grabbed the phone and went to sit in it.  So cute.  and that's mostly how Christmas went.  The extended family showed up a little later, and he ran around the house like a crazy mini person.

He (and the both of us) were completed exhausted and overwhelmed by the end of the day.  William went to bed early and Sam and I - in the interest of having the house look a little less like Toys R Us threw up in it - we took the Christmas tree and the decorations down.  A little sad that we took all the happiness down so soon but the state of disaster our house was in was making us crazy.  There was some rearranging of furniture that was fun - we decided to lose the coffee table and that gives William SO much more room to play.  Funny how priorities change with a kid running around the house....

So, yeah, Christmas was pretty low key.  It wasn't the same not seeing my family ON Christmas, even though we saw them the week before, but it was REALLY nice not having to rush to travel and get to be home all weekend.

In other William fun, because who knows when I'll find time to blog again (I'm typing this at work right now to copy onto the blog later), he is saying lots of words now.  Night Night, eye, nose, shoes, BoBo, Hilbert, mama, Da Dee, Pup Pup, Hi, Hey, Bye Bye, Ball, Truck, Car, Choo Choo, Balloon, and then the always fun jibberish.  We watch the Good Night Show on Sprout every night and he says Bye to the tv and waves.  Too too cute - and he's even started saying by to his teachers and friends when we leave school.  He plays very independently now, which is nice.  He LOVES to drag out the pots and lids to put his toys, food, sippy cup in and then put the lid on top.  We never know what we're going to find in the pot.  Right now it's a rubber ducky with a couple Scooby Doo cookie snacks....  he loves to laugh and loves to give hugs.  I hope that never changes.  I'm hoping he stays sweet like my little brother has.  Oh - and we've started a new bedtime routine that includes sitting in Daddy's lap to read a book.  The wondrous part is that he is finally sitting still through a book and loves pointing at the animals.  It's kind of like a light switch got turned and he like to let you read to him.  and he will put his arms up in the air to have you pick him up and then he'll sit and snuggle for a good amount of time.  I love it.  I hate to think that this will end at some point.....

Happy New Year!

Loves!

December Pics

I am much too tired to do a full on post.  The two people I back up at work are on vacation and everything has blown up in their absence.  Not even kidding - I didn't talk to any of my work friends until after lunch today - and I didn't walk out of the office until 7:05 pm last night.  So, it's fair to say I'm exhausted.  But I know that if I don't get atleast the pictures loaded from our early Christmas - it just won't happen.

Please please please be happy with just pictures.  And know that I enjoyed spending the day surrounded by all my brothers and sisters.  It takes a lot of coordination to get all five of us together and I treasure it.  And my parents, aunts, uncles, and grand-parents are pretty cool too.

Turns out we let Daddy take most of the Christmas pictures...so here are cute December pics...

Obviously not a huge fan of Santa this year

Hugging on Henry

More hugs

Crossing his legs to eat

Uh Oh!  Caught Ya!

First spaghetti dinner

Not quite sure what to do with a popsicle...

Early Christmas present from Mommy & Daddy!!!

First Bubble Bath!

Stuffing his face with cinnamon raisin bread before school

Merry Christmas!

Loves!

Christmas 2010

Family Frame Christmas Card

Shutterfly has classic, elegant Christmas invitations for your party.

View the entire collection of cards.

William Meets Santa

Gotta love honest moments....

Loves.

Oh Christmas Card, Our Christmas Card

I'll be the first to admit that, as a family - meaning Sam and I, do not have a great track record when it comes to sending out Christmas cards.  Somehow we always fall short.  We didn't send any when it was just the two of us - mostly because Sam didn't think anyone cared and they aren't as fun if you don't have cute kid pictures to put on them.  I wholly disagreed, but never actually picked any out, just dreamed and surfed and looked at all of the adorable designs everyone had.  And there are a million different sites you can choose from.  I can't possibly be the only one that immediately flips over the card/invitation to see where it came from!

Last year's Christmas Card picture that was given with gifts instead of mailed

I'm not so good at dragging a baby to the post office...oops!

So another part of our problem is how to pick just one!  Since learning Adobe InDesign - I always had an obsession with making our own - but it's not as easy as it sounds and then there's the problem of having them printed, making sure the formatting is right, and making it look professional.  And when you really add up all the time I spend (wasting...) trying to work it out it's really not worth it.

ENTER STAGE RIGHT:  SHUTTERFLY Christmas Cards

After reading several people's blog posts (and flipping over several dozens of cards) about Shutterfly - how could we not just make it THAT easy.  Now, of course, I still kinda went into panic mode for a little bit looking through literally hundreds of designs, but once I finally scrolled down and I saw it - we both just KNEW that it would be this year's Christmas Card.  (Because we FINALLY have a cute kid to put on a card!!)  And I'm not going to spoil the surprise, because it really is THAT cute - but it is perfect.  Just perfect.  We couldn't be more excited to be getting our tushes on top of things and mailing them out this year.

One of the many FUNNY faces I wanted to put on this year's Christmas card

Needless to say, Sam did not agree....

Now, to be honest, I do have a small ulterior motive to this post.  By blogging about Shutterfly, I'm hoping to win 50 free cards (but that doesn't mean that I don't mean what I say and say what I mean - thanks Dad for that one...ha!), which helps us in seventeen different ways, most importantly gives us that much unspent money to spend on presents for Santa to bring to the cute kid, but also - by going through Shutterfly and not doing it myself, I don't have to deal with any of the hassle or spend any time picking up the cards, searching for envelopes, buying stamps...well, I guess I still have to buy stamps, but you get my point.

This face would've been perfect, except the picture has way too much of our not so

awesome kitchen floor in it.  People would be distracted, it wouldn't be good.

We have ordered 4x6 prints from them and they always come out lovely, but the most fun was working on a photo book for my Daddy.  I mean, seriously, how cool are photo books.  All the niceness of photo albums but none of the worry about breaking the plastic while trying to wrestle the picture in.  Or is that just me that gets violent with albums....?  Ok - it's just me.  But you get my point.  And I love the little ones - can we say Grandparent's brag book anyone?  Fun fun.  I'd like to think that's what Daddy does with his - except that it's a year's worth of William's funny faces - but you can brag on a picture of a little boy razzing right?  I thought so.

I considered a family picture, but really no one cares about Sam and I.

We learned that very early on.  But I get it, William is MUCH cuter than us any day of the week.

Something else that caught my eye that they offer, and maybe this is just because one of my friends is a photographer, but they have the Canvas Pictures.  I know every time I went to her house, there was almost always an order ready to go out of one of these, but how nice would it be to just have a cute candid picture of the fam, or the place you got engaged, or just a really cool looking tree that owns itself hanging on a wall looking like a professional did it?!  I'm just saying.  And as a professional designer in another life - I'm thinking that a whole bunch of 12x12 ones would look really cool all hung perfectly in a hallway or up the stairs.  Just saying.

The always popular razz picture.  This was also a contender for the Christmas card.

But only because it makes me smile, most of you would probably think that my kid has a problem.

And he does - he's obsessed with razzing...!

And if we're talking about gifts, I need a calendar for my cube.  I am sadly sitting in a little gray cube in an area that doesn't have any windows and to be perfectly honest, it's a little sad.  So I told Sam that he should buy me a photo calendar.  I also need a calendar with the Julian Date on it (yeah, I didn't know that even existed until 6 weeks ago either!) but a photo one would make me so happy every day.  So - HINT HINT BIG HINT SAM!!!!!!!!  We'll see how that not so subtle suggestion works out...teehee.  Love my hubs.

He's so cute - I can't stand it - I seriously pulled aside almost 100 pictures to choose from.

How in the world I chose just one baffles me.

Since we're talking about presents, I really think I should follow up with the ever important Thank You Note. My parents taught me well.  You get a gift, you send a note.  Even if you opened the gift in front of the person who was nice enough to give you something.  And I absolutely plan on teaching that to William.  (Family - don't hate me for falling short on this in the recent past...I've been busy with a cute monster)  And what's even funnier, is that a lot of thank you notes get written and put in envelopes but then they sit in the secretary unmailed.  Forever.  But, if the thank you note could be as cute as the kid who is "writing" it, then I'd like to think that I would absolutely make the effort to dig out the un-updated address book and then buy the stamp and mail out the picture of my kid that also happens to say thank you on the inside.  It's like a double gift to the recipient of the card actually....  And - bonus - it could be in a coordinating theme as the Christmas Card. Oh lord, stop me now, I'm about to spend our savings at Shutterfly.  Though, I'm sure Shutterfly encourages it, and their entire marketing strategy is geared at people like me who die over stationery.

I die over and over again over this picture - it's so my kid.

And this would've been the picture on this year's card, 

except Sam thought that people would think we 

were crazy for putting a picture of an angry kid on a 

So - there you have it.  My shameless plug disguised as fun and cleverness.  And a not so subtle suggestion of gift list for my husband.  Forgive me - but my kid is cute and deserves to be on a Christmas Card that is almost as cute as him.  Just saying.  :)

Loves.