A Day At The Park

It started out as a pleasant day at the park, hanging out under a tree....





Then the ducks spotted a little Will under a tree...



They needed to get a closer view of the cutest little boy they have ever seen...



Will is distracted by his shoe coming off and is oblivious to the situation...



He suddenly senses something behind him...



Will decides he is not a big fan of ducks and mommy has to run up to them to scare them away (too bad we don't have a picture of that!)...



And the day at the park is ruined. We didn't even make it to the swings.

7 Months!

Already!? Didn't he just turn 6 months?

























A lot has happened this month!

- Will got his first two teeth!

- He is crawling! He doesn't have it down perfect yet, but he can get where he wants to go. Chris predicted tonight that it will be a matter of a few days before he starts really going.

- He has tried all of his veggies and seems to like them! I think he does the best with squash and carrots, but time will tell what his true favorites are. We are starting fruit tomorrow!

- I had to cut his hair for the first time. He had a piece that stuck out over his ear and I cut at least an inch of it off.

- He is really getting attached to both Chris and me. Sometimes it is even hard to leave the room without him getting upset.

- He talks! I can think of three different occasions that he has repeated something he heard. The first time was one night last week. Chris was telling him, "Say Daddy!"...."Say Daddy!"...after a few times, Will actually said, "adadadada." Then yesterday, one of our friends, Travis, got right in his face and said, "Hiiii!" and Will said it right back. And finally, last night, I was showing my mom something on the computer and she said, "Go back...go back." Chris was playing with Will nearby, and he said, "Go baaa." You might think I am crazy, but my mom, my grandmother, Chris, and I all heard it! Amazing!

- He also babbles all the time now. It really makes me laugh. I wish I could understand what he is trying to tell me.

- He does what I call the "I have the best life ever" dance. Basically, he lays on the floor, kicks his legs, flails his arms, and just laughs and laughs...all while no one is paying any attention to him. It is hilarious. I've gotten it on video a couple of times...so maybe, just maybe, you will get to see it one day. You would really be lucky if you got to see it in person.

- Several people have asked us recently, "Is he always this happy?" And the answer is, "Yes, most of the time, if he's not tired or hungry." He is an extremely happy baby. You can probably tell from the pictures. :) He has brought so much joy to our lives!

A question for someone that may know the answer (anyone?): Why do my pictures look so much better on flickr than on here (especially the horizontal ones)? Does blogger compress the file or something? How can I fix this? Okay, that was more than one question.

To see the "better" pictures, click here.

Update: I figured out the picture thing (thanks Amber!), and had to reformat my whole blog because of it. I think it was worth it.

Valentine's Fun!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day! Mine was fun! Chris cooked me dinner and it was nice to just sit around and relax while he slaved away in the kitchen. ha! He made steak with some kind of dijon mustard and parmesan cheese sauce on top, asparagus in this delicious cheese sauce, baked potatoes, and cheesecake! Okay, so he didn't make the cheesecake...but it is my favorite cheesecake from Market Street. He did really good! He had also planned to make a salad, but didn't remember until after we ate everything else. :)

My cousin, Brandi, watched Will for a little while on Wednesday and Chris was supposed to pick up Will from her when he got off work. When I tried to call him to make sure he had picked up Will, he didn't answer his phone or the house phone, so I called Brandi and she said that he had picked up Will. When I finally got ahold of Chris, he told me that he was at the grocery store (with Will)...he had been there an hour and still couldn't find everything he needed. He got home about half an hour later and only spent $70. Keep in mind, this is for one meal...Chris is a great cook, but this is why he is not allowed to cook very often. We would be broke!

Anyway, Brandi called me yesterday and told me that she knew that he had gone to the grocery store, but she wasn't sure if it was a surprise so didn't want to tell me anything. She also said that Chris originally wanted her to go with him to the grocery store so that he could find everything, but then, after getting some help from his coworkers, decided that he would be okay by himself. She said that his grocery list had where to find the item next to each thing on the list. Funny.

Will had a Valentine's party today for some of his friends. He had lots of fun and I think his friends did too! I tried to take a picture of all of them together and this is the best one that I got...

Will's first kiss (on camera)....

Oh...nevermind! Looks like Will chickened out....

Don't feel bad for Ava though, she did end up giving Will plenty of kisses. I can't believe I didn't blog about this, but it was actually Ava that gave Will his first kiss last Sunday. You gotta watch out for this girl!

And for another milestone...

Yes, that's right...Will has already learned how to take toys away from other kids! I think he better watch out though, Connor could take him if he wanted to!

Oh, did I mention that Will already has a second tooth!? Chris discovered it at lunch on Valentine's Day!

A tooth!

About a month ago or so, I just knew Will was teething because he was drooling more, he was constantly putting things in his mouth, and he was a bit cranky. I even gave him teething tablets a couple of times...but there was never a sign of any teeth. I hadn't felt his gums in a couple of weeks because he hasn't been showing any signs of teething lately. I had given up on the teeth.

Then, on Saturday morning, Will stuck my finger in his mouth and I felt it! I couldn't believe it! He hasn't been cranky at all. It made me sad because I wondered how long he had had it and I didn't even know. I actually had a dream one time that someone asked me when he got all of his teeth and I was stunned, because I didn't know he had any teeth! It was just a little stub on Saturday and today you can see a lot more of it...so I think I did catch it pretty early.

Here he is...the same happy baby...

Kiss Me

I did a Valentine's photo shoot of Will today. He was pretty tired when I took these pictures, and I wasn't sure if I got any good ones. I actually thought I would have to redo it sometime, but I was pleasantly surprised!

By the way, I've decided that I'm going to start a part-time photography business. This is not the first time that I've decided this, but this time I'm going to do it. I've had so many excuses. The biggest one is that I don't have the time, but I could use that excuse forever. I'm not going to be able to do much until I can get Will into a Parents' Day Out program...which may be in the summer.

My other big excuse is that I'm not good enough yet. But I've got to start somewhere, right? I love doing it and I would do it for free for everyone if I could. But since there is time involved (and a lot of it on the post processing side), I can't really do that.

Anyway, I just wanted to write that on here so that I can be held accountable to it. I'll keep y'all posted on the progress of it.

Almost Crawling

Will has really been trying to crawl since last week! He will get up on his knees and he can even go forward a little bit. It is tricky to get good pictures of it, because he is easily distracted by the camera.

And he gives up! Relaxing is a little easier.

Why do I not sleep?

It's 12:55 am on Sunday morning and I just can't make myself go to bed. I've been telling myself I would since about 11. At 10:30, I was even thinking what a great night of sleep I would get because I was going to bed so early (11 would be early for me). Obviously, it is not happening. I find myself in this position quite often.

What am I doing? Well, I am reading blogs and checking my email every five minutes. Even though I'm pretty sure no one is going to email me at this hour. Just a habit, I guess. Oh, and tonight I changed my "About Me" section...check it out. After I wrote it, I decided to count how many blogs I have written that have not been about Will. There were 4...maybe 5. That is including the blogs that were written before Will was born. It's hard to imagine that I even had a life to write about before Will was born.

I would say sorry to you, blog readers, for Will overload, but I don't see that changing anytime soon. Parents out there, tell me, will I ever get bored of talking about Will? I have a feeling that this will be a lifelong obsession. I'm okay with that.

Goodnight. I'm going to bed. Maybe.