Summer Dayz & Milestones!

Today was so gorgeous... and HOT! After a long day of rain yesterday and lots of stuff done around the house, we thoroughly enjoyed a beautiful summer day today. With bathing suits on, we played outside, Will "mowed the lawn" (or actually, the driveway) with his bubble mower, Craig repaired a window, and Sophie had several big milestones!

This weekend has been a good one for the kids. Will is doing better at bedtime for the last few nights since I tried a new technique for responding when he gets out of bed. And Sophie has started rolling from back to belly today!!! She had been rolling to her side quite a bit on Saturday, which was just a stepping stone to getting to her belly. So she made it onto her belly in the morning in an effort to reach a toy she dropped, and effortlessly continued doing it all day! It's so exciting to watch her learn new things. She's also discovered and grabbed her toes/feet, started "chatting" a little more (sounds like "gee!"), and loves to grab or swat toys when held out in front of her. We've been practicing a lot more with showing her toys and trying to get her to reach for them and now she loves it. Of course, they immediately go into her "little bird" mouth.

Okay, pictures.

This is last week - the new bike helmet Craig got for Will to wear when he rides in the bike trailer. Craig says he's ready for the X games now.


Sunday morning. Sophie was sitting in the bouncer seat while we were getting dressed and Will came up to bounce it a little more vigorously for her. :)


Followed by a kiss... which is always sloppy and wet... and now includes the "kiss sound".


Will, mowing the driveway. :)


On August 4th, my parents celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary. It's not always easy for our family to get together at the drop of a hat now that the boys are working and in school and Casey and I each have two kids in tow. So we planned to swim and cook dinner together on Sunday to celebrate mom and dad's anniversary. Casey & I prepared the meal and Sophie got to go swimming for the first time! At dinner, we toasted 30 years and dad said he'd marry mom all over again. Awww!!!

Here's me and Soph in the pool.


Dipping her toes in.




She liked it!


Will still prefers to enjoy the water on the steps playing with toys, or from outside the pool while throwing toys IN. And he's always within arms reach of an adult - I'm nervous with him around the pool.






Wes, Casey, Mya and Stella enjoyed the beautiful day too. My nieces are so cute! And can I just give a shout out to my sister... look how AMAZING she looks! She had two good size babies in her belly just a couple months ago! And now she's exclusively breastfeeding both of them like it's a breeze, they're growing beautifully, and she's back to her prepregnancy weight already. Casey is an awesome mommy.


Will doesn't have to worry about getting attention despite the three new babies in the family. He's still the only boy... and therefore Uncle Zach and Uncle Taylor love to play with him.


Sophie thought the pool float was just "okay".


Penguin towel from Nana & Papa.


Goofin' off with papa.


Miss Sophie - my little sunshine.

Aunt Casey and Sophie.

Uncle Wes and the kids.


This is Will's cool buddy, Griff. He lives next door to Nana and is a great, little athlete. Plus, we get lots of Griff's hand-me-down clothes and his mom has great style.

A Bittersweet (& Busy!) Weekend

Sorrow and excitement - lots of emotions these last few days!

We received some very sad news this past Friday. Craig's maternal grandmother had passed away... on his mom's birthday. It wasn't a surprise - she had been declining as of late. And she is much better off now, as is grandpa who had the stressful weight of her poor health on his shoulders. So we've spent the last few days with the Riedeman/King families, mourning the loss and celebrating the life of Mary King.

Craig & I also hosted his mom's birthday dinner at our house Saturday night and received some exciting news! Kelly & Steve are expecting their first child next spring!!! What a nice way to remember and appreciate the circle of life.

Will & Sophia were both so good this weekend between the birthday party, the showing, and the funeral service and luncheon. I just couldn't believe how smoothly it went today!... well, after we left the house...

Early this morning, Will woke us up by paging the house phones. He'd managed to get his little stool over to the counter, take the phone and push whatever buttons send a paging ringer between phones. Nice. So Craig went down to get him and found that he had also gotton ahold of a red permanent marker from the pen holder by the phone and drawn all over his hands and the tile floor in the kitchen (Craig managed to get it off the floor, but there's some still visible in the grout). So then he came upstairs with us and immediately grabbed my comb out of the cupboard and dropped it down the heating/cooling vent on the bedroom floor. But wait, there's more... Later, after Will finished his breakfast, Craig picked him up and found that he'd pooped so much, it was coming out his diaper and jammies and onto the sleeve of Craig's robe. Eew! What a morning! And yet, we still managed to get ourselves out the door in record time and make it to the funeral home on time. So I guess Will owed us some good behavior today, don't you think? It is also now official that we're going to buy one of those child-proof door knob covers that will keep him in his room. It seems a little creepy to me to basically lock him in his room, but after this morning, it's also necessary for his safety! He can open all the doors in the house and even turn on the sinks and tub, so he can't be roaming the house unsupervised.

Oh, and remember how Will calls his privates parts his "junk"? Well, Kelly got a funny picture on Saturday night of Will putting "powder on his junk" after the bath grandma gave him.


And here's a couple of the kids on Sunday before we went to the showing at the funeral home.


This cracks me up - I even made it my wallpaper background on the computer. Will was nice enough to let me put his arm around Sophie, but refused to smile. So she's all happy and smiley and he looks so irritated.


And, while I'm on a roll, here's a few more of my smiley girl. I just can't take how cute she is!




And another from last week:


Yep, she's a happy girl, all right!

More 3 Month Photos

For the 3 month post, I only included a few standing pictures. So here's a few more from today - right after bath and dressed up to go see Great Grandma and Grandpa King. Craig and I both love her smile and her eyes - two of her best features. Such a pretty little lady! She is really looking grown up now.

One new update since the weekend, Sophie is starting to reach the phase of being easily distracted while nursing. She often pauses to look up at me and smile her beautiful smile (the one where she looks like she's laughing at something really funny) or to look around when she hears Will or daddy. We've started sitting in her room with the door closed to minimize distractions so she can focus on the task at hand. :) Thankfully, she's still a really fast nurser. When Will was in this phase, it took FOREVER to finish a feeding.

Who's Who?

A similar pose of both my kids after a bath. Can you tell who's who?




The first is Will (at 4 mos) and the second is Sophie (at 3mos). They look very similar don't they?

Bike Trailer!

Look what arrived this weekend! I'm so excited that the weather cooperated so we could try out our new bike trailer. Will loves it and Brutus rode along too! It's so smooth and light - you can't really even tell anything is attached to the bike. We went for a couple rides this weekend and hope to go lots more this summer.





I can't wait for next summer for Sophia to be big enough to ride too. The trailer is designed for 2 kids up to 50# each, so we should get several more summers out of it. And next summer, we'll be able to go for rides as a family. I decided I'd rather invest in this than a double stroller. I just think we'd get more use out of it. It's so cool!

10 Years Already?

Wow... 10 years has gone by already since the Class of 1999 graduated high school. I remember sitting in my seat during the graduation ceremony thinking this would be the last time I would see most of these people. I also remember writing a paper my senior year about where I would be in 10 years. I was almost spot on with my predictions: married to Craig at 23, 2 young kids, working as a dietitian, living close to family... The only thing I'm not doing as predicted is traveling a lot more. But then I guess that was more of a pipe dream from an 18 year old who didn't realize that's tough to do with 2 young kids. :)

The president of our graduating class and a very good friend of mine, Amy, organized our 10 year reunion. She did a great job - it was unique, casual, and a lot of fun. We went to a Mud Hens baseball game and had a buffet dinner and drinks catered during the game. Out of about 110 or so, 40 of our friends showed up. Not bad! It was nice to see everybody and it was a nice evening out for Craig and I, sans children.

What's New with Will

I realized I haven't posted an update on Will in awhile. Between 6 and 18 months, there's so much going on - so many firsts and exciting new developments. Now he's just growing up... and way too fast! This age is particularly fun just because he's getting much smarter and able to communicate better. It's so neat to watch him learn and explore his world. He's like a sponge with all that he's absorbing and he has an incredible memory.

Will is speaking in sentences most of the time now and repeating EVERYTHING. He sometimes calls us by our first names because he hears us calling each other that. He even called Craig "babe" once. Craig & I laugh almost daily about some of the things he says and does. I've even started keeping a little notebook of funny/interesting/special things like that. I figure it's easier than journaling a long story about each thing, and the baby books simply don't have enough space for these little "tidbits". So it should be fun to look back on one day.

For example, I recently walked out to the living room to see Will holding his Mickey Mouse stuffed animal up to his belly button. When I asked him what he was doing, he said "feed Mickey". :) I guess the boys and girls anatomy discussion isn't too far off, huh? He also pointed to his nipples after a bath and asked "boob?" (Can you tell he's seen me feeding Sophie quite often?) And he now refers to his privates as his "junk", thanks to Craig. I was fine with calling the whole area his "bottom" until we started potty training, but apparently Craig thought otherwise.

Another funny Will moment was when we caught him checking himself out in our full-length bathroom mirror. I had been talking about feelings with him around that time and we'd practiced making happy/sad/angry faces. So he appeared to be doing those in the mirror, but also sort of flirting with himself with his facial expressions. And he didn't seem to care that we were in the room and quietly laughing at him. It was hysterical!

In other news, Will seems taller and thinner to me just in the last couple weeks. Kids have a funny way of growing up and then out, and then up and then out, etc. Well he'd seemed to be getting a little hefty to us for awhile there and now he looks taller and a little more slender. Also, since he turned 2 he's been climbing the stairs upright and holding onto the railing. He does a very good job usually, though we have to remind him all the time not to carry his toys with him. We often let him go UP alone while we watch, but I still like to hold his hand or stay within arms reach coming DOWN. I probably don't need to - he's doing really well.

This past week, he had the opportunity to go to the Ottawa County Fair a couple times with our families. And let me just say folks... I think our son is pretty much guaranteed to grow up to be a farmer. I don't think any other profession stands a chance... well, except maybe a fireman. On Monday afternoon, he went with my mom and brother to see grandpa's horse race. He ate dinner with Aunt Shirley's family at their camper and got to see lots of people he knows. And, of course, there were the animals. You should have seen his face light up that night during his bath and bedtime routine as he told me all about them. We always recap the day when we say prayers at night - I think that helps him to remember all the fun stuff he did and to be thankful for it. So he just talked and talked and talked about the animals! Then on Thursday, instead of going to the sitters, Craig dropped him off at Grandma and Grandpa Riedeman's house and he went back to the fair for another fun filled day. Aunt Kelly and Uncle "Steve Munoz" (Will calls Steve by his first AND last name now) were there too and Will even stayed overnight with them in their camper! Apparently, he got to ride around on Grandpa's back all morning while visiting the animal barns, stomped in puddles, ate almost an entire quarter pound hamburger on his own, and tried to convince "Steve Munoz" into buying a llama for THEIR farm! The llama was a big deal - we have a million animal books at home and he'd read about them before but never saw one up that close - and Kelly had to take him back to see the llama numerous times to say hello, goodnight, etc. I missed him a lot since he was gone overnight, but those are life experiences I want my child to have and that he will remember for as long as a 2-year-old possibly can.

Okay, now for some pictures.
Craig bought Will and himself matching Nike sweatbands (yes, I know, that's SO two decades ago, right?)




And these are his new shades from Grandma Riedeman. They don't stay on for long, but when mommy slipped hers on for our bike ride, Will decided he'd try them out too.

You'll notice: Will's wearing the same outfit in both sets of pictures even though they were taken on two different weekends. Fun fact: EVERY time Craig is responsible for dressing his son, Will wears the Ohio State jersey. Typical dad. With my dad, my sister and I wore Detroit Tigers t-shirts with ratty hair and candy necklaces. Will's jersey is a Chris "Beanie" Wells replica and Craig has nicknamed him "Beanie Wills" since Will has a big head too (like "Beanie"). :)