Wednesday

This is a picture I took yesterday at our neighborhood Starbucks. We met up with the babies from our PEPS group for a little play date. After our play date we went over to Kristine's house to play and then Kristine/Kyan and Layla/the girls joined us at our house for play time in the play room while William slept. After his nap, Layla and I and the kids and Rowan had a nice walk around the neighborhood.

Today we got up early and met Kristine, Layla and the kiddos at Kidzbounce for a fun time. Kristine took a video of William sliding down the slide on my lap. He had an amazing time. He LOVED going down the slide and playing in the bouncy houses. He has figured out how to kneel on his knees all on his own now...He continues to love to climb over obstacles and has acquired a couple bumps on his forehead from his adventures...

To the zoo...

This morning, I got to sleep in!! Yahoo! It was amazing. Then I drove into Bellevue to meet with my Jenny Craig consultant. I lost almost 5 lbs since I started on Tuesday and 25 lbs since William was born. Only 75 more to go!!

After William's AM nap, Andrew and I took William to the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, WA. The weather was beautiful and William enjoyed exploring the zoo grounds. He seemed to like the giraffes and gorillas best.

When we got home, we did a few chores and made plans with Autumn and Jason. Andrew and Jason had a good time golfing and drinking some beers at the neighborhood brewery while Autumn and I walked into town with the boys and had dinner at Mike's. William was pretty good and enjoyed eating the Child's Plate and part of a grilled cheese sandwich.

Tomorrow, Andrew and his father are planning to go to the Boeing Classic Golf Tourney while Andrew's mom comes to visit William and me. We'll likely get out for another walk while the weather is so nice. The rainy season is just around the corner!

It's Friday

Today William and I met Kristine and Kyan at Costco for some much needed grocery shopping. Then we headed back to our place to play some Wii!

After a quick nap for William, we headed into Redmond to go to the British Pantry to celebrate Roy and Jenny's birthdays! It was great to see everyone! It was great to catch up and see William and Maya playing together.

A fun day from start to finish

William now knows how to clap when we prompt him...He will also clap when he is excited...

This morning we got up early and met Kristie at University Village. It was great to have a chance to catch up with a good friend. Next we called Andrew at work as we were on our way out of Seattle. He worked until midnight last night and was planning on doing the same tonight so we popped in for a quick visit with Daddy. William had a great time crawling around the office and tiring himself out for his afternoon nap. On the way home, William fell asleep in his car seat so he finished his nap at home. After nap time, I fed William dinner and we met up with Kristine, Layla and the kiddos for some fun on a Tumble Bus and Bouncy House. William had an amazing time and LOVED crawling around the Tumble Bus. I'm considering using the Bus Stop play house for William's 1st Birthday Party...More on that soon...
I forgot to mention, William can now drink from a juice box straw...Hooray!

More photos...

Today we went with Autumn and Lucas to the Seattle Aquarium. William had an amazing time and really enjoyed looking at the fish swimming in the tanks. In one of the tanks there was a scuba diver swimming around and feeding the fish. William's response to seeing the scuba diver was to laugh and smile.

Andrew has been working around the clock these days to finish up a work project. The earliest I expect him home is midnight...It's lonely without Andrew here at night.

William has another tooth!

Here is one of the photos Wheatley took of Brett and William during our hike...William loves his future Uncle Brett for good reason...He was so sweet with William...

We had a great day today. William is doing all kinds of things for the first time these days. Yesterday he clapped for the first time. Granted it was his first attempt and he did it by slapping his left hand against the palm of his right hand. Today, his second bottom left tooth broke through and woke him up from his morning nap. Only some Mommy hugs and Motrin could make him feel better. M&Ms...

He is also laughing a lot lately. I took a video of him at mealtime today where he was laughing hysterically for a long time because I was tickling him. He loves eating cheese and felt like a big boy last night while he was feeding himself blueberries at our anniversary dinner. He knows a few words. He definitely knows Rowan, Bah Bah (bottle), and seems to know that Da-Da means Daddy and might know Ma-Ma...Watching him grow is so much fun...

While we were playing in the bonus room, William did the cutest thing. He was playing happily with his toys while I tried to catch up on an recorded program of Oprah that I had wanted to see. In the background, I hear William kind of grunting as if he is climbing over something. I didn't really think anything of it because this is William's favorite thing to do lately. He loves to climb over his toys or any obstacle in his way. Well a couple of minutes later, I look over at William to check on him and see that he is sitting in his toy box, playing with his toys. He is sitting on his toy phone and it is going off and making all kinds of noises. It was adorable. He was perfectly happy sitting on his toys and playing with his toys in his toy box. I took a bunch of photos with my cell phone and will upload them soon. Too cute! I didn't even know he was capable of this.

This afternoon, we went for a walk into town with Autumn and Lucas and then played at their house until Andrew came home. William loved watching Lucas' trick of knocking over his stuffed giraffe. He would laugh super hard, and bounce around and crawl around and around every time the giraffe fell down. Is he easily amused or what? He's such a joyful little man...

Today was my first day back on Jenny Craig. I'm about to run out and get a few JC staples to help me on my weight loss journey. I have a minimum of 50 lbs to get back to my wedding weight and 70 lbs to get back to my high school weight. I figure it will take at least 9 months to get down to my ultimate goal weight...Fight the Fat...Fight the Fat...Fight the Fat...

Today is our 2nd wedding anniversary!!!

Sadly, it has been decided that we will not be able to make it to Memming Familienfest 2008 due to the extremely high cost of airfare...I just got off the phone with Jenny and am getting super excited about Andrew's family from N. Ireland coming to visit!!! It's going to be so great to see them!

This afternoon, William and I met Layla and Alyse (who is getting so big) at the North Bend Outlets for a little walking/shopping. Then Will and I drove out to pick up the wedding anniversary cake from Starry Nights Bakery. Today is our wedding anniversary. To celebrate, Andrew, William and I will have a nice dinner out at Ray's Boathouse. It will be really special to celebrate our first anniversary with William.

I'm also excited for my mother's upcoming visit in the early part of September. It'll be so much fun to spend time with her and William.

Been a long time, baby

Today is Wheatley's birthday. Happy Birthday Wheat!

I am sure she is having a great time in California with her boyfriend. I haven't posted since her visit because I was waiting for her to send some of the photos we took with her camera. She isn't back from her trip yet, so I still don't have the photos to post here. I will post them as soon as I have them.

We had a great time with Wheatley during her visit. We also visited with her boyfriend, Brett and his sister, Jill. While they were here we did a small hike at Rattlesnake Lake. We went shopping at Pike Place Market and to lunch at Ivar's. We also had dinner at The Dahlia Lounge in Seattle. After dinner, we got to meet Tom Douglas. He also signed one of his cookbooks for us. I wasn't all that impressed with the dinner, but the desserts were incredible. William couldn't get enough of the Creme Caramel. We have a photo of him biting on the spoon as Jill is trying to pull it out after feeding him. He was very well behaved at dinner. He enjoyed eating bread and cheese and noodles and puffs. He didn't seem to be all that in love with the tiny bit of salmon I gave him. But, other than that, he seems to like pretty much everything I have fed him over the last few months. Avocados and bananas are still his favorites.

As soon as Wheatley left, I missed her terribly. It is so hard to be so far away from my family. I can't put into words how wonderful it was to see how much Wheatley loves William. It's totally different seeing William with my own blood relatives. She was so good with him and he ate up her attention. I can't wait to see her again for Thanksgiving in NY. I can't believe that William will be over one year old then. Wow. I am going to try to ensure that William knows my family and gets to share Thanksgivings, Birthdays and Christmases with them over the years. It's worth the cross-country flight just to see him with them.

I think missing Wheatley reminded me how much I miss my mother, aunt and friend, Holly. Until then, I think I managed to force these feelings out of my mind, but now I can't get them out. I'm so homesick. We've already invested so much in our lives out here that it would be quite a challenge to move back East. Difficult but not impossible. Until now, I didn't really realize how difficult it would be. I think this is one of the challenges of getting married and having children. Things that would have been relatively simple in my single days are no longer. Even travel, holidays and vacations present a whole new set of challenges.

Speaking of vacations. Andrew has been hard at work for several months now on a project for work. He has been working evenings and weekends and the summer has just flown by. I can't believe it is already the middle of August. It looks like the only summer vacation we will be able to manage for this year is a week-long trip to Andrew's parents' Island House over a long Labor Day weekend. Here's hoping for good weather...

Today was another gorgeous NW summer day. In the afternoon we walked over to Autumn's house to hang out for a while. Then we came back home and William went down for a nap. The only way I can get him to nap these days is to put him into his crib with his crib aquarium on while he is feeling sleepy. Somehow this morning I was able to rock him to sleep and we both fell asleep with him in my arms. After William's nap, we met up with Beth and her two boys for a nice walk.

Tuesday was pretty uneventful. I think William is teething because he is drooling like crazy and has a runny nose. On Monday, we carpooled with Autumn and had lunch at the Nordstrom Cafe at the Bellevue Square Mall.

Here is my 10 month letter to William. I feel like such a slacker...Better late than never...right?

Dear William,
You are getting so big. I weighed you yesterday and you were 20.6 lbs. You feel even heavier. Carrying you is getting more and more difficult and I am tending to put you in the stroller over carrying you in the Ergo or Bjorn.

You have finally begun to show an interest in books. You like for us to read to you and seem to be interested in the flow of the story. These days, Daddy reads to you at bedtime and puts you to bed in your crib while you are still awake. You put yourself to sleep and almost always sleep through the night. If you wake up during the middle of the night, you sit up for a little while and then cuddle your blanket to sleep. It's adorable. We love you so much. The same is true for your two naps a day, except for the fact that I am the one reading to you. Right now the Poky Little Puppy and your Touch and Feel books are among your favorites.

This week, I started to work on your baby book. I can't believe you are already 10 months old. You are working on so many new skills these days. You are beginning to cruise and will walk when I hold your hands. You loved riding on Rowan's back yesterday and couldn't stop giggling. You love to pull yourself up to standing and have become a speedy crawler. You love to practice making Baa-Maa-Daa sounds. You like to make other sounds like lip smacking, raspberries and a silly laughing sound. I love you little guy.

This week you have become even more snuggly. You will be playing and then will crawl back to me and stand up by holding onto my leg and lean your head on my lap or into my chest. It's the best thing ever. I hope you will always be an affectionate person. I will make sure to give you lots of hugs and kisses and I love yous over the years. You are such a good kid. You are still as smiley as ever, but you do not like for me to be out of your sight. You are fine with someone else holding you as long as you can see me. I am considering letting a baby sitter watch you so that Daddy and I can go out to dinner for our anniversary. Of course we'd (and you'd) prefer to have your grandparents watch you, but I think I remember that they have company this weekend.

One of my favorite times of day right now is when Daddy comes home. I love seeing the pure happiness in your eyes when you realize he is home. You bounce up and down and laugh and smile at Daddy with the most beautiful baby grin.

I can't wait for another day with you!! You are already such a fun, wonderful little guy.

Love,
Mama

William is 10 months old today!!

Okay. So you might be wondering why there is a photo of Snoqualmie Falls in this post. I thought you might be interested in seeing the famous waterfall that we have near our house. It's spectacular as far as waterfalls go.

William is crawling like a pro these days and pushes/pulls himself to standing all day long. You could say he's obsessed with practicing his new skills. He's starting to cruise and walked behind his walker/car yesterday.

Photo from SnoValley Moms Picnic

Busy summer weekend

I can't believe that it is already Sunday night. Today was the day of the SnoValley Moms Annual Picnic. It turned out to be a great success and the families seemed to have a great time.

The picture above was taken on our new patio and shows some of the plants. It's also a cool action shot of Astrid jumping into the pool.

William has been refusing to nap for the last two days and Andrew and I aren't quite sure what to do.

My beautiful little sister

I'm just so excited for my sister and her boyfriend, Brett, to visit us. She sent me this photo of the two of them and since it's such a great shot, I thought I'd post it. They will be with us for a couple of days next week! Can't wait! We've got lots of fun things planned like a sunset kayak trip and a nice dinner out (adults only) and a hike up Rattlesnake Ridge. Should be fun.

We've been super busy these days. Andrew has been working around the clock on a project for work. William and I have been doing all kinds of fun things.

On Thursday, William and I met up with Layla, Astrid, Alyse and Kristine and Kyan for pizza and story time at the library in honor of Kyan's 4th birthday. We're looking forward to going to his birthday party this afternoon!

Yesterday, William and I went blueberry picking at an amazing blueberry farm in North Bend, WA. I could not believe the size of those blueberries. Some were at least an inch across and the bushes were very plentiful since it was opening day. We joined Layla, Astrid and Alyse in picking several pounds of blueberries. After that, William and I met Lindsey and Phoenix for lunch in Issaquah. By the time we were done with lunch, William was very ready for a nap so we headed home. After William's nap we went over to Layla's house for dinner and made two delicious blueberry desserts with some of our blueberries.

William is getting to be one amazing stander. He pulls himself to standing and then stands with no support for a few seconds. He's really working on his balance. He only uses one arm for support. He has begun cruising along the outside of his exersaucer toy. He ate an entire pear and a half yesterday and couldn't get the pieces fast enough. He also enjoyed eating a grilled cheese sandwich while at lunch. He likes tv and I will sometimes let him watch some Sesame Street while he is playing. He loves the puppets.

We've got a busy weekend planned. In addition to getting the house ready for Wheatley's visit, we've got lot of things to do. Today we have Kyan's 4th birthday party in the afternoon and then I have a water balloon filling party at Kim's house in preparation for the SnoValley Mom's Annual Summer Picnic tomorrow. Then on Sunday, we've got the picnic in the afternoon and then lots of house preparations.