Tuesday, April 22, 2014

William's First Birthday

It's only been two weeks since the party, so I consider it a pretty good success to be getting these photos up already (especially considering everything else that is going on...). When I started planning William's party, I had ideas and plans a-plenty (thank you very much Pinterest!). Of course, what I didn't plan on was moving less than a month after the party. Once that stuff started going full swing I majorly eased up on the party knowing that I just wouldn't have time to make it super over-the-top and that I would only stress myself out if I tried. So we settled on a simple Ice Cream Social theme (I had to pay homage to the fact that he was born during the Ice-pocalypse somehow!) and called it good. And naturally, we took way too many pictures, so I'll stop with the meaningless babble that you aren't really interested in anyway.

Our (very!) simple décor and our ice cream sundae bar

Couldn't resist putting him back into this outfit from his newborn photo shoot!

Pretty much the only "craft" project I tackled for the party and I'm really happy with how it turned out!

Digging into his gift from Aunt Macy and Uncle Mike

Playing with his new cars with Uncle Mike



Apparently Great-Grandpa got in the way. Whoops

Sifting through all the packing materials to get to the gift from Aunt Amanda and Uncle Nick

Finger Puppet Books!

Not too impressed with the new outfit from Grandma and Grandpa...

But loving his new wagon!!

Wagon rides with his buddy Caleb

Family picture!


As Darrell puts it, food is too precious to William for him to have done any cake "smashing" and subsequent wasting of it. He instead opted to very delicately pick at the frosting.

But, he did enjoy it!!

Almost forgot to put on his birthday hat!

Which was a very short-lived endeavor

Back in the wagon--and outside which makes it even better!

Too cool for his shades

Already picking up the ladies in his new ride

Packing stuff in his new suitcase--he's ready to go see Darrell's family in the Carolinas!
So, there you have it. A crazy day, but so much fun. We're so fortunate to have such wonderful friends and family--near and far--who not only helped us celebrate this wonderful day, but also helped us GET to this wonderful day. Because it does take a village to raise a child--and we've got ourselves a very good one. 

Friday, April 18, 2014

William: Twelve Months!!

Well, it's official: We have a one-year old!! A full-of-energy, constantly on-the-go, starting to develop a little bit of attitude one-year old. It's certainly trying at times, but I don't think we'd have it any other way.


At our twelve month well-visit, William weighed in at 19 lbs, 15 oz, and was 28.75 inches. We did have to make an unplanned doctor's visit shortly after eleven months due to a double ear infection, but that cleared up pretty quickly. He's still wearing size three diapers, and pretty consistently in twelve month clothing, although some nine month stuff still fits as well as some eighteen month stuff (is it too much to ask for clothing sizes to be consistent?!?). As of his birthday he also had six teeth--four on top and two on bottom. All four of the top teeth cut in the span of about two weeks, which was a little brutal to say the least (and resulted in drool EVERYWHERE).

Probably the biggest "new" thing we had to do this month was buy a pair of shoes! I don't know that I would fully consider William a "walker", but he walks often enough and is outside often enough (although in his option he could probably never be outside enough) that we figured it was time to invest in some shoes. And truthfully, I think the only thing holding him back from being a full-on walker (aside from being a little wobbly) is the fact that he can't get himself to a standing position from the middle of the room. Once he is pulled up on a toy (or couch or table or anything), his first inclination is now to walk away from the object instead of going back to the floor to crawl.

Babbling is still inconsistent at best, and it doesn't seem like his "ma-mas" and "da-das" are directed at anything, but that hasn't stopped him from figuring out other ways to communicate. He has the pointing thing figured out, and if that doesn't get your attention, he will grab at your hand and direct it toward whatever it is he wants. He's also started making up games for us to play with him--he'll hand us a block for us to put on his head, shake it off, and then hand it back to us to repeat. Of course, we'll usually end up tiring of his "games" before he does, but oh well.

It's still hard to believe that we've been parents for a full year; as Darrell likes to say he can't believe how quickly the year went but it simultaneously feels like William has been a part of our lives forever. I could probably spend an entire post reflecting on our first year as parents, but I'll save you the sappiness and cliches and just say that it was nothing like we ever expected. Sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a not so good way, but we wouldn't trade any of it for where we are today.



Sunday, April 6, 2014

Still Here!

Life = crazy. There are no other words. But it's all good and I promise that I'm working on getting some intelligent, note-worthy posts put together, but I can't promise how soon I'll get them out. But, things are going so well that I got to break these out today for the first time this year:


And now it's thunderstorming!! Hopefully the week stays this good!