My baby boy is...
Okay - I can't seem to even utter it.
O.N.E.
William is one.
12 months ago my life changed forever.
It was a blistery winter day that we brought junior into the world.
But my life has never been as peaceful and as rich as it is now.
This last year has gone by WAY TOO fast.
I feel like I've done such a poor job of documenting his first 365 days of life.
But that's okay.
We've made precious memories that I will forever cherish.
And ya'll don't need to know all of them.
Just know living with my little man is nothing short of complete joy.
He is joy.
There is no better word to describe him than that.
JOY.
While William's physical appearance was constantly changing in the first few months,
it's the developmental part that is growing the most now.
It seems that every day he has a new trick.
We giggle.
We give (really wet) kisses.
We blow kisses.
We walk all over.
We climb on everything.
We fall off everything.
We get stuck.
We make lots of messes.
We clean up lots of messes.
We LOVE to eat big-people food.
We really don't like baby food.
We have EIGHT teeth and are currently cutting some molars as well.
We still eat every two hours.
We put everything in our mouth.
We love playing outside.
We love grass.
We love our voice.
We can say:
Ba-ba (bottle) This was his first associated word.
MaMa
DaDa
Hhhaaat (Hot - which he uses for just about everything interesting)
Sssaaa (soft)
Gum-pa (Grandpa)
Buh-ba (Bye-bye) - and that's accompanied by a wave. Always.
Whf-whf (what the doggie says)
Eee Eee (what the monkey says)
Assa-Assa (Outside)
Bbbbbbbb (while he pushes his little cars around)
Whoooo-Whooo (when he sees trees)
Naa Naa Naa Naa (No - ya, he's heard that word a few times) I think he's imitating the sound wind makes when it goes through the trees.
He is a smart little kid.
I'm sure every parent says that.
But I truly believe Will has Brian's brain.
They both love to know how things work.
It is so fun to watch him watch things, figure them out and then try it himself.
He always wants to be "in" on everything.
Will is constantly moving.
But he does take time every once-in-a-while to stop and read a book.
His favorite is one he got from his pediatrician that has lots of pictures of other babies.
We're still a little light on the hair.
But part of the issue is that his hair is getting pretty blonde.
The new stuff is basically white.
But there is quite a bit of red actually and he's got the complexion of a ginger.
The little man has HUGE hands and feet.
We're already wearing size 6/7 shoes.
Ya.
Huge.
We're also in 18-24 month clothes.
Ya.
Huge.
Needless-to-say, Will is growing like a weed.
But a very cute weed.
One of those weeds you never want to get rid of.
Do those weeds exist?
No?
Okay - maybe it was a bad analogy.
Restart.
Will is growing like crazy.
And being able to watch it all happen is such a privilege.
Happy Birthday baby boy!
And if you're still reading and have 2:30, watch this.
Will's last six months as captured by my iPhone.
I think I used a lot of those same adjectives to describe parenting.
We never thought we would be building a house this early in our marriage,
let alone building one in Utah.
We've been completely blessed to be in a position with our careers that we're able to settle down in a market where we feel we could stay for a very long time.
When we first started talking about getting out of our little apartment
we thought we were looking a couple years into the future.
We were looking at homes and thought that whenever we did move
we could move into an older, smaller home.
But then, one fateful Saturday, we came across a new development in Midvale.
We both fell in love.
Within two weeks, we had signed papers and we were picking out colors.
Right now, the process seems slow.
Our plot. On the end.
It's a multi-family development so they're giving us 150 days until completion.
That means we're looking at March until we can move in.
Hello, two-car garage!
Our soon-to-be front door!
In the meantime, we are hanging out with my parents in American Fork.
I think that's basically the case with every holiday.
But celebrating Halloween with my little monster was a blast.
The day started early as all of the babies, kids, and animals of the KSL morning team showed up early to Trick-or-Treat with the Harmon's brothers and Gardner Villages' witch, Lucinda.
As always, Will was Dino-mite!
He stole the show.
And he *tried* to steal my reporters hair.
Silly baby.
After hanging out with Aunt Amy for the day,
Will and I headed home for an early night of trick-or-treating.
Daddy came home early so he could spend the baby's halloween out on the streets with us.
Will LOVED it.
At first, he mostly just enjoyed being outside.
The first house we went to, we got a pack of nerds.
And baby boy WOULD NOT let them go.
He didn't want to have much to do with the next few houses we went to.
He was FIXATED on the candy he already had.
But then he realized something.
He figured out he was getting candy at EVERY door.
So by the end of the night - we had a pretty good system going:
1. Stand with Mama on the porch.
2. *PAT*PAT*PAT* on the door.
3. Pick a piece of candy out of the bowl.
4. Put the candy in my bucket.
5. Enter the house of the nice people who just gave me candy.
He never quite picked up on the fact that we don't go inside.
He wanted to check EVERY place out.
We really need to work on that "stranger danger" thing.
He's just so darn friendly.
Now, I'm no expert on first-time Halloweens.
I've only had one myself.
But I'd call this one a MONSTER success.
So this post is going to be a bit of a cluster.
A LONG cluster.
That's right.
You've been warned.
Christmas with a little one was fun.
I was so excited to shower him with gifts and presents and love.
But I soon realized that morning that he wasn't the one opening all of his presents.
It was me.
Brian made fun of me because I basically undid everything that morning that I stayed up all night doing,
but I would do again in an instant.
Even if that makes me silly.
I didn't have to produce a show Christmas morning so it was great to spend the time with my family.
The biggest development in William's 2nd month of life was his facial expressions.
It seemed every time I turned around he was crackin' some strange face.
I'm glad a caught a few of these gems for history's sake.
Oh and another thing we got in month two were CHEEKS!
I mean come ON... it doesn't get much better than that.
He is now lovingly called "baby cheeks" by my co-workers.
In January we took a trip up to Idaho to visit Brian's relatives.
Both his mom and dad grew up in Idaho so he has quite a bit of family there.
I had never met his dad's mom,
(she was too sick to come down for our wedding)
so we decided it was time to drop in for a visit.
It was a lot of fun being with his family.
Amazing how I just fit in like they've always been my own.
On our way home we stopped by Pocatello to drop in on THE Jake Taylor.
Love him and so proud of him moving up in his career - from Pocatello to McAllen, TX.
Also, we discovered we have an Albino child.
But he's a really cute Albino child.
THIS guy came home and little Will is totally infatuated with him.
Uncle Jon is possibly the best uncle around.
(It's cuz he's still a kid a heart!) The biggest event in February was Will's blessing.
He was blessed by his father on exactly his 3-month birthday.
It was a big day for the entire family as my brother delivered his homecoming talk
and my dad celebrated a birthday that same day.
We were also excited to have Brian's parents in town.
We love it when we get to see them!
And of course - Will's emotions continued to expand.
By now, he's totally MASTERED the adorable look, don't you agree?
Also, what kind of first-time parents would we be if we didn't have our cameras constantly in his face?
Here is a compilation of my attempts to catch William's most adorable moments so far.
Just so you know -
I sifted through HOURS of iPhone footage to bring you this condensed version.
Just kidding.
But really -
be grateful I didn't post it all.
Of course, my attempt is nothing compared to this little vignette that my very talented husband whipped together while watching William one afternoon as I slept.
Seriously?
Too cute.
The funny faces continued in March.
It's so fun to watch the newborn saggy skin disappear
and get replaced by this chubby, round, happy baby boy face.
Now if only that hair would grow faster...
Will and I started a new competition titled "Fat Face Friday."
So far - he's winning.
He started doing several new things this month.
He blows raspberries.
He reads books.
He sings himself to sleep.
He sleeps in his own bed.
In his own room.
And he grabs on to everything!
