Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! We arrived safely home this evening. We are all glad to be home and a little sad that our time with family is over. Check back over the next few days. I have lots of updates : Christmas pictures, Christmas pictures, Christmas pictures, anniversary celebrations, etc. I'm trying to keep this short, so I won't be reflecting on how far we've come or think too much about how this time last year John pointed out my first belly stretch mark to me.

I'll close with this thought: I'm so glad I'm not pregnant this New Year! It was hard work being so pregnant over the holiday. It was so much more fun to be down on the floor and chasing my baby around than....this:




[picture coming...or not]


Happy New Year! Weee! Off to celebrate. I think we are going to stay up until midnight playing games or unpacking! Wow!

11 Months Old

William is 11 months old today. We did some pictures and hung around trying to recuperate after this flu bug we all caught over Christmas. Although we are all feeling better, none of us feel great yet. I'll upload the pictures of him later along with some Christmas pictures. For now, I'll leave you with what William typed to us on the keyboard earlier:



Nrfftfff cffffffffffffffffff fc ffffvc b nc cdx xv vvvvvvvvvvvvccccccc0063



I'm not sure what it means.....
____________________________________________________________________

The 11 Month Photo Shoot

Finding the right toy to help William hold still for more than 0.35768785631465 seconds. He is totally in love with Grandpa and Grandma's nativity set. We had to keep a close eye on him with it so pieces of it didn't go missing! Here he is checking the Baby Jesus out.

Whoa! Blown away by the flash!

Examining Baby Jesus. Somehow that seems like that might be wrong/bad to say...sorry God!


Smiling for Mama...and yes, that is Baby Jesus now in William's mouth.

I love this expression!


Trying to crawl off the chair

Thoughtful baby - also highlights his nose scratch. Where did the scratch come from? Not sure....

Surprise!


All done! With the pictures, at least. Baby Jesus is still on duty it appears...

Our Christmas Card

We're leaving for Rochester this afternoon. Have a merry Christmas everyone!

Is 2007 already over? Where did the time go? It is so hard to know where to begin - I don’t think I could begin to put everything in one short letter! So, here are the highlights from this year for each of us.

At the beginning of 2007, we welcomed our son, William August Heidt into our family. As William has accounted for many of the changes in our lives this year, we will start with him. William was born on January 26, 2007 in Chesterfield, Missouri. As expected, he turned our whole world upside down for the first few weeks. After some adjustment, we found ourselves with a laid back, sweet little boy who is intensely curious about the world around him. It is incredible when we look back how much he has already grown and learned this year. It seems like everyday he is able to do more things by himself and getting a little bit bigger. His current interests include anything he can get his hands on and learning how to walk.

John continues to work at Boeing as a structural analyst for the F-15 program and has picked up a second job with the title “Daddy”. Both of his jobs keep him busy and challenged in many ways. John has also been working hard at home with a number of different home improvement projects including finishing our basement. We are getting closer to completing this project, but work has slowed down considerably since the arrival of William. We hope to be priming and installing flooring sometime early in the new year. Hopefully by the time we write this letter next year, we can call this project done. We’ll see how that works out.

Kelly arranged to take a leave of absence from teaching this year to stay home with William. She is really enjoying being able to spend lots of time watching him grow and learn everyday. In the spring we will have to make a final decision about her going back to teaching for the following school year. No decision has been made, although lots of different possibilities have been discussed including selling the house and moving to Tahiti. Although free time is a little harder to come by, Kelly continues to find time to quilt, read, run and practice her photography skills on one of the most photographed children ever.

Our first babies, Mango and Mudd have adjusted well to our newest arrival. They both are quite tolerant of the noise and chaos William creates in their world. Both cats allow William to “pet” them while supervised, but neither seeks him out for companionship yet. They both lost a little weight since William started crawling after them, although we are quite certain neither one of them intended to become more active. Their biggest accomplishment this year is successfully finding ways to scale the unfinished wall in our basement to eat our insulation on more than one occasion.

Although we have slowed things down, we still love to travel and enjoy the outdoors together. A great deal more planning is required when adventuring with a baby, but it is still possible. William has turned out be a pretty adventurous guy as well as a flexible traveler. In just eleven months, he has traveled to six different states including a big trip to the east coast for Kelly’s cousin’s wedding in Rhode Island over Thanksgiving. We also made a trip to North Dakota this summer to visit Kelly’s Grandparent in Grand Forks and John’s relatives in the Bismarck area. There have been multiple hiking adventures locally with our hiking friends and a few on our own as well.

We hope this holiday season finds you both happy and healthy! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

John, Kelly & William Heidt

Our Pride and Joy

As you will see below, William has learned a new....skill. I can't tell you how proud we are of him!

PS This new talent actually showed up about 2 weeks ago - it has just taken us this long to capture it with a camera....

Videos, As Promised

Here are two videos from earlier this week. The first one is walking and the second one is...well it is cute. Enjoy!

Busy Busy Busy Busy

Holiday parties, packing, wrapping, picking up the toys, laundry, snow to shovel, we're out of milk and bananas, baking, John needs a haircut, and sending out the last minute Christmas cards. We are busy busy busy busy! I can't believe it has been so long since I've sat down to update!

Anyway, we got a bunch of snow today (quit laughing Grandma - I think we might have 5 inches so far and it is still snowing) which was beautiful. We bundled William up and took him out to play for a few minutes. We were very surprised how well he did. From the beginning, there was snow up his pant legs and in his shoes. But, he kept on going. I think we were all out there for around 10 minutes or so.

The is the super wonderful Big Bird lamp we won at a Christmas party on Friday. I know you all are jealous (and the answer is YES! Of course I traded away something else for the Big Bird Lamp!) It is so COOL!

Mama and William watching the snowflakes. William likes to be outside because we say "Brrrrr...!" and he tries to say it also. Then, he giggles.


First steps in the snow. Checking it out. Please note he is wearing: a onesie, a long sleeved T-Shirt onesie, a pair of flannel overalls, a pair of water resistant wind pants, socks, shoes, a hat, two mittens, a fuzzy hat and a winter coat with hood. Oh yeah, and a diaper.


Helping Mama make snowballs to throw at Daddy...you can see the snowball right above my head.

Crawling in the snow.


Tasting the snow...mmmmm! Yummy!


We kind of held our breath here, I thought he might not like how cold it was. But, he put it further into his mouth!


Hmmmm....

Not sure...


And a big smile before eating the other mitten.


Time for more crawling...if you look carefully, you can see that he is about to lose his mitten which explains the sad look on his face.


Mama to the rescue!

Coming soon as John transfers the video over: new video of William walking and doing this weird mouth thing.

Ice Storm Pictures...and a few more

Working in Santa's workshop is a full time job around here. We're not even close to being ready. Good thing we have another week to be ready...except we have at least 3 different holiday get togethers and a Christmas program to attend. All which require treats and preparation. I love this time of year. I really do - but...I wish I was more on top of things. This time last year, I had it all done and was sitting back and waiting for a baby (okay, maybe not sitting back. Make that obsessively cleaning our house). Anyway, here are some pictures of what we have been up to this last week or so.

Better late than never, the turkeys come to dinner in our backyard.

Icicles hanging off our deck after this weekends ice storm.

Icy trees in our backyard (may need to turn your head)

William trying on my glasses. He always grabs them off my face and tries to put them on. I was just helping him out.

Peek a boo has evolved into this. What fun is this game if you can't see the person peeking at you?

Super funny story: we were playing in the family room when something beeped (oven?). William picked up John's phone and said "Eh?" I don't know that I've laughed so hard ever.

So, after that, we kept making "beep" noises to see if he would pick the phone up again. Turns out: yes he will. And it was cute every darn time.*

* I believe this current cuteness is payback from William for waking me up at 5:30 AM this morning. He went back to sleep, but still.

Swimming with Grandpa

Oh how we love grandpa. He makes funny noises, funny faces, and plays funny games. Every time Grandpa walks into the room, William's face lights up - here comes the FUN guy! As you can see above, they like to hang out and make faces at each other. Finally, here is the swimming video I have been promising you : Grandpa and William!

6-9 Months Slide Show

Well, it is probably about time. I've actually had this almost done since before Thanksgiving. It has just taken me this long to put it up. Still coming up: video of William swimming, photos of our backyard after the ice storm, and a Christmas card preview. I know you're all just sitting on the edge of your seats.

Now, back to Santa's workshop!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

First Steps

Well, it is official. We have a walking baby...wait! Doesn't that make him a...toddler? I'm not ready....



Anyway, we got some video of him taking steps. He took a lot of them today unassisted. I would say somewhere in the hundreds. However, the video we got wasn't great. We'll try to get more tomorrow to post.

Also coming soon: William's 6-9 month slide show, video of him learning how to dive and a Christmas Card preview. We are busy busy busy busy busy....back to work! Here are some pictures from earlier this week to hold you over until then.

Standing up

I'm not sure what the appeal is with the medicine dropper...but it sure is a fun toy!


Come on to Mama...

Not sure how we feel about this one....

Seems like this is a tradition. I know we did it growing up. But, I really hate waiting in lines. I hate crowds, the stress, ugh. I also don't know if I agree with paying so much money for a few medium quality prints. Ack. So we did it - because I was worried I would regret it forever if we didn't.

William and Santa

The good news is that it only took 3 minutes to do and was relatively painless except for how much this print cost. Of course they do not allow other photography. I handed William over to this guy and William spent one minute just checking Santa out. Then, he cried. We (we being the Santa staff and myself) successfully distracted him with a squeaky reindeer in order to get this half smile. He still isn't totally sure about this whole thing. Neither are we. But! It is done and now I don't have to worry about doing it over the weekend when the mall is crazy. I just wish it didn't have the stupid snowman border thing. Blech. I just wanted a picture of my kid wearing his reindeer sweater sitting on Santa's lap. For a few bucks. Is that too much to ask?

Ick. I guess I better go and find my holiday spirit somewhere around here....

Thank you Great Aunt Bonnie!

William has obviously been a very good boy this year! In the mail today, we got a very special handmade Christmas stocking from my Great Aunt Bonnie with William's name on it! It matches all the other stockings in our family and it is perfect! Thank you so much!

P.S. To My Family: Please note I understand this does not constitute a thank you. A hand written one will be sent in a timely manner. With pictures.

Take a Walk with Me

Last night we were in the kitchen discussing the reorganization of the pantry area. Glass jars and heavy cans are regularly being dropped on the floor these days. Bags and boxes of pasta are continuously being opened and spread out upon my kitchen floor. As we discussed, I set William up on his feet in front of me. He got his balance and leaned forward towards me. Usually at this point, he just free falls towards me until I catch him or he bangs his head on something. Last night, the ending was different. Last night, William leaned forward towards me and picked up his feet. I could hardly believe my baby walked to me. So, I did it again. William did it again, this time walking 4-5 steps to me!

Then, we got the video camera out. Of course, William was not super cooperative. But, we did manage to get this one little clip of him doing a little walking...

P.S. Turn down your volume. I was pretty excited.

The Wedding, Newport, A little Boston

My cousin got married on Saturday afternoon. It was a very pretty service in which I did not make any huge mistakes during my reading. The shoes I wore were maybe a mistake. But, no mistakes in the reading.

My cousins: Beth and Chrissie


William all dressed up and ready to go...somewhere, anywhere


Favorite activity: climbing up the stairs used during the ceremony


Sheila, Bobby and Beth


Us in front of the huge Christmas tree in the lobby


Great Grandpa Tom and William at the reception


After the wedding reception, we had time for a little dip in the pool - William's first time swimming! He was a little unsure at first!


But, once we were in, he had a great time! Swimming lessons next year? We'll see!


Swimming/drinking the water


Brrr...mama is cold! Is it time to get out yet? William says NO!

On Sunday morning, we had breakfast with the family and then spent some hanging out in Newport. Here is some of what we did:

Took a cliff walk. A lot like it sounds. Walking along the coastline.

(Turn your head) We toured the Breakers mansion, formerly owned by the Vanderbuilts

The Breakers from the back (by the way, this was their summer cottage)


Kevin drives, Kim navigates...


William eats


A drive along the coast at sunset....


William kisses himself in the mirror

Newport road sign : Yes, your butt is litter!


Monday morning, we squeezed in a little historical walking tour. The tourist information center was out of the tour materials, so the person working there just gave us directions. So, here is some historical stuff. We're not really sure what or why some of it is historical, but it is according to the tourist person. This is the Quaker Meeting House built in 16something.


This is the colony house built in 17something


The Hazard house...

This is Trinity Church. It has a very old cemetery next to the building.


The old stone mill in a park.

How William currently feels about history. Yes, we know he is missing a shoe.


Back to the beach!

William wanted to take a dip into the Atlantic Ocean. We agreed, but only his toes!


William dipping his toes into the Atlantic Ocean

It was hard to get ONLY his feet wet without getting mine also!


Sandy toes


The empty beach


Outside our room in Newport

Playing peek-a-boo in the car while he was supposed to be napping...can you see him anywhere?




We had a little time before we had to be at the airport, so we decided to check out the U.S.S. Constitution. It was closed, so we went to Bunker Hill.

John climbing the first of many steps at Bunker Hill

The monument

The USS Constitution from the top of the monument


Kelly and William (in the dark lower right) at Bunker Hill