Friday night we had our friends (and their kids) over for a gourmet dinner of pizza. The adults were able to catch up while the kids had fun playing. The youngest of the group, Lucy, went to sleep in her pack and play around 7 pm. We had them set her up in our room and it had a very lasting impression on Will. All weekend he talked about the baby that was napping in "momdads" room. The baby was in the dark. And we had to "hush." They also had a noise "make" on. I think he told us about it 50 times.
On Saturday, we took Will to the Children's Museum since he's been talking about it since we went a few weeks ago. He had a great time with the bubbles, the ice fishing pond, and the kitchen/grocery store area. After 2 hours we went home and he took another great nap for us. Then we went to the big mall (he knows the difference between the big and little mall - only the big mall has esca-owders) so he could run around. We grabbed dinner before heading home.
On Sunday, we stayed in since Will's nose was dripping like crazy. We read a lot of stories, listened to music, and played in his fort. Now it's back to work...
Phil had to go to California for work this week so Will and I were on our own. On Tuesday night, I was actually hosting book club and Will was on his best behavior. He charmed everyone and managed to sneak a few extra crackers from the table. I put him to bed about 45 minutes in and he slept like a champ. On Wednesday, we decided to take a trip to the Children's Museum. He had a great time and wanted "more" when we had to leave after an hour and 45 minutes to get home for lunch. He loved the grocery store area and spent about 30 minutes playing in the bubbles. He also ran around the farm and spent a bunch of time watching the glass elevator going up and down. After lunch we went to Gymboree and then Will took an almost 3 hour nap - he was worn out! Then it was out for a quick dinner and home for some coloring before bed. It was a great day! Phil will be home half way through the day and I know Will is going to be happy to see his daddy!
Playing with the balls
Yum - Jimmy Dean Breakast Croissants. Great choice.
William has started saying his name. It is very cute. His vocabulary continues to grow - he picked up "Nice Throw" and "Home Run" watching us play Wii a few times. He also says bubble bath, music class, and dishwasher. He mostly talks in 2-3 word sentences now.
We had our friends over for dinner Saturday night and Will charmed them before we put him to bed. They brought him a special treat - kid sized Krispy Kremes and a paper hat. We let him have one as a special treat while they were there and he really liked wearing the hat.
Phil left for New York City Monday night for a conference on Tuesday. While he was in the air, I got a phone call saying his flight home on Wednesday morning had been cancelled due to the approaching winter storm. When Phil landed, he was able to get on the flight back to GR for later in the day Wednesday. On Tuesday, he got a call that all flights to GR on Wednesday were cancelled. He's now scheduled to come home Thursday morning. He was able to walk around the city last night and enjoy the snowy weather.
Uncle Art sent William a great new truck for Christmas. Will loves pushing it around the house and will fill it up with his "babies." He also will climb into it and will sit and play with the little blocks that came with it. He's such a boy...
I took Will to the botanical gardens on Wednesday. The trains were still up so I figured he'd get to enjoy them one more time before they took them down for the year. Will loves it there. He knows his way around and has a routine. The first video below is quite long - just over 5 minutes. I started filming him after we walked through the gates. He leads the way down the corridor to the conservatory. As you will see, he loves the sliding doors. Then we make a loop around the large path before heading to the waterfall and tunnel. We ran into some birds which was a fun surprise. The second video shows the train set-up although it was hard to get both Will and the elevated trains in the shot. You can see how interested he in in them though!
Will is quite the chatter box. He pretty much gives you a play by play of his entire day: what he's doing, what he sees, what he did, what he wants to do, etc. We've lost count of how many words he actually knows, but it is probably close to 500 at this point. A few of our favorites:
Bobble Head (Bob-head) Sit-up Outside Football (oot-ball) Popcorn (bop-norn) Escalator (es-ader) - he loves going to the mall to go up and down on the es-ader choo-choo And our favorite sentence:
Mom Dad home... happy!
He will also tell us when he wakes up whether he has a poopy diaper. Not that we can't tell by the smell in his room...
Happy New Year! We had a very nice, although quiet, New Years Eve. On the 30th, we went to dinner with friends to the 1913 Room so that was our big night out. Yesterday we braved the stormy weather in the morning and ran to Meijer to pick up the fixings for a nice dinner. When there was a break in the weather, we took Will outside to play for a bit. He wandered around the yard, played in his sandbox, pushed his lawn mower, etc. Then it started to rain again so we had to head inside. Phil and I started cooking around 6:30 and ate after Will went to bed. Then we just relaxed, had a fire, and actually stayed up until midnight. Will slept in until 8am this morning which was a nice treat. It was still somewhat warm and very sunny when we got up, so we went for a walk and made a stop at the playground for a bit. Will played for a bit but the slides were pretty wet so we didn't stay long. It also started to get pretty windy.
A few days ago, Will learned how to say football (oot-ball). He was also introducted to popcorn (op-norn). We promised him that he could have some popcorn when the Michigan game came on. He sat in his little chair and had a treat out of a "big boy" snack cup. It was very cute to watch. Much better than the actual game...
