Shameless Babyness

These two are so cute - I can't resist posting some of them. I can't believe how much they have grown! Watch for the A-Dorable smiles! Coming soon...us at Lizapoolza. The first two are from earlier this month and the second three are from photos I received today!

This one is my favorite!

Nice Weekend

We had a great weekend! I started it out a little early by meeting Jennifer Hawn at the park on Friday for a picnic and some playing with the kiddos! Even though it was kind of on the warm side (90's), we had a fun time. It was great to get out and get some exercise and play with the kids with such great company. I think I could comfortably talk to Jenn for two weeks straight and not run out of things to talk about. Rereading that, it sounds like I talk a whole lot (although it's true). What I meant is she is a great friend to talk to about everything under the sun.

Charlotte and William packed up to do some walking (or watching their moms eat)

Charlotte on the swings. We are already working on sharing - you can see William behind Charlotte in the same swing. Aren't we great moms?

Charlotte and William swing! And Charlotte is hot and...

most of the time William was trying to either pull her hair or pull the adorable pink bow out of her hair. Ouch! No wonder she isn't smiling!


William's first time down the slide!


Jennifer and Charlotte play tic tac toe. I love Charlotte bow. I may be taking the blog to an all time low. Time to let this rhyme go. Although...

Saturday we got up and hunted around our subdivision garage sale for bargains. We found some great stuff! Some stuff we didn't even know we were looking for! We found: corner clamps, fort making kit, baby clothes, baby bibs, Halloween costumes, DVDs, a travel lap desk, a quilting hoop, and some old quilt squares. Lot of fun, although it was getting pretty warm out. After William's morning nap, we went to Boeing's Family Day. This is the first time I've ever gotten to see where John works the whole time he has worked for Boeing. We also got to have lunch in the steamy 92 degree heat (why did I wear jeans? I don't know!) and look at a lot of airplanes that start with letters like A, B, C, and F. I don't know where all the other letters in between went. Ask John. We don't have any pictures of this event because there were NO CAMERAS OR CELLPHONES ALLOWED. Someone told us they had a photo station set up for people to get a picture taken of the fam together. We couldn't find it though. I asked a few people working and freaked them all out. The most I could get from them was "No, photography is not allowed in any area..." "No, no cameras are allowed in any area...." etc. Most unhelpful.

Today, we did some relaxing and John did some work on our new TV cabinet. I didn't even get dressed today. Very nice. I'll leave you with one last picture from last week: our remote obsessed channel surfer.

Channel Surfing boy. Kind of hard to tell in this picture, but William has 2 remotes - 1 in each hand. He is crawling with one in each hand ("surfing")! Surfing is when William picks up something and slides it on the ground while he is crawling. He does this ALL the time with different toys/household objects. I think he likes it because then he can crawl really fast without picking up his hands.

Memo from William: I'm a big kid NOW

Yesterday we went to the Y in the early afternoon. William had been fed, changed and just woke up from a nap. Should have been a recipe for a great mood. But, I was a little nervous as last week he was crying and I had to be paged from the fitness center. So, I dropped him off and hurried away so I could hurry back (nothing makes me run faster than thinking about getting to pick him up when I'm done). When I came back to get him, he wasn't where I left him. The childwatch area is divided into two sections with an accordion door inbetween. One is for babies and the other is for older kids through age five. I left him in the baby section and when I came back, he was on the "Big Kid" side of the room. Apparently, William played for a few minutes with some toys and then crawled over to the bookcase that sits in the opening between the two rooms. He pulled himself up and whined/moaned while banging on the bookshelf. He refused to be distracted by toys, songs, the TV, or someone reading him books. When they finally put him on the "Big Kid" side, he got a huge smile on his face and crawled away to play. Which is what he was doing when I came to pick him up.

I get it. The message: I'm not a baby anymore! Let me play with the big kid stuff! The staff in the room told me the only restriction to being in that room is the kids need to wear shoes. So, I guess the next time we go, he'll have shoes on! (I'll still try and drop him off on the baby side. Even though I got the message loud and clear, it doesn't mean I want him to not be a baby anymore)


Some pictures up of William yesterday!

He actually climbed on this by himself. He was so proud of himself!

I can't believe he did it himself! Here he is starting to get mad because he can't get off...at least he still needs me for something :)


One of our new favorite past times: Waiting for Daddy to come home. William got SO excited when he sees John coming up the walk!


Kisses! The tricky part is getting in the house without William falling on his face to the concrete!

Another Big First

I wanted to make sure I got online tonight to share with you a huge milestone that occurred for William today. In the mail today, William received his first credit card application. Preapproved and everything! We didn't get to it tonight, but I'm sure we will carefully document this tomorrow. Seriously, who sends an eight month old a credit card application?

Anyhow, the other big news from the weekend I [think I] forgot to report is that tooth #8 has now broken through. We are almost half way done with teeth!

Over the weekend, we picked up a puzzle at a garage sale. William is only interested in taking OUT the pieces and carrying them around. Three at a time!

Behind him is another one of our finds: a Nemo riding toy!

Party Time

This was a busy weekend. There were several very fun events we were invited to this weekend. All were fun and exciting in their own way. But Saturday, woah. We were tired after Saturday. Saturday morning, we got up early to go to a subdivision garage sale (okay, I lied. William got us up early and we decided to go to the garage sale). Then we ran errands and William napped. After lunch, we went out to the visit my club from the middle school during their annual fund raiser Peanut Days. It was so much fun to see the kids and hang out for a little while and everyone enjoyed seeing William. Then, we were off to our friend, Charlotte's first birthday party. We got to eat fabulous cake and watch Charlotte demolish her first birthday cupcake before it was time to head off. William decided to nap in the car and were able to attend a "the deck is finished" party for one of John's coworkers. It was fun to finally meet some of John's coworkers I hear about all the time as well as enjoy the deck.

William was in serious need of a nap outside of his carseat and some time on the floor to crawl around by this point, so we came back home. I woke William at 7 in order to attend the 50th birthday celebration for one of my coworkers called "lizapalooza" (the party, not the coworker). It was wonderful to visit with everyone and catch up on all the newest developments. William had a great time until he stopped having a great time and then we took him home. A few minutes later, he was conked out in his bed and our lovely neighbor came over to listen to him snooze for us. Yes, we left him with someone for a few hours and we went back to the party. It was amazing and we both agreed we weren't (that) worried about him. We also agreed on the way home that William is an amazing baby who is perfect for us. Who else would nap on the fly, eat a meal in the dark in the car, nurse at strange houses and go go go all day long. Even with all that going on, he still managed to smile on demand, giggle like crazy, crawl everywhere, spill every drink in my hand and charm all the ladies. What a great kid!

William's newest accomplishment:climbing. He so far has figured out how to climb into the dishwasher and onto the top of our coffee table.


William's lizapalooza onesie. Spit up and all. John and I both have matching lizapalooza shirts also. Maybe Jeff will send us a picture?

Other highlights from this weekend (to help me remember when this stuff happened, feel free to skip): crawling with toys in his mouth and lots more babbling. We also had a breakthrough in the solid feedings. We finally have him eating the solid baby foods again with gusto and delight. However, he is really uninterested in going more solid that the pureed stuff. We've had success with the puffs and cheerios and nothing else. No on the green beans, cooked carrots, peaches, pears, bananas, watermelon and crackers. I was feeling so frustrated about wasting so much food after he squishes it up and drops it. Or puts it in his mouth and spits it out again. I'm starting to feel like he is going to still be eating out a jar when he turns 2. On a whim, I made some toast today and cut it up into tiny pieces to put on his tray. Holey Moley did he make a mess out of that - but HE ATE IT. I didn't even have to put it in his mouth! He did all the work! Is this a breakthrough? I sure hope so...

Cute stuff William is learning

It would appear the gross motor skills are slowing down a little bit (no, I didn't say HE was slowing down. If anything he is crawling even faster). William is still learning and picking up some new things all the time. Over the weekend, I caught John teaching William how to do this:

The bonus of the toilet paper roll is that the toilet is RIGHT there. It is so LOUD when he bangs on it- he loves it!

Crawling while holding the t.p. in his hands

Now, every time we are in the bathroom, he heads straight for the toilet paper roll. I'm sure he would have figured it out eventually -but thanks Daddy!

His other favorite pastime is pulling himself up on you. No problem unless you are wearing pants that have an elastic waistband. Consider yourself warned.

Yesterday when I was feeding William, he started smacking his lips together. Sort of like..."Mmmm....good [smack]". Either that or it sounds like he is blowing kisses. I'm not sure what he is trying to say/do, but I'm calling them kisses. Just 'cause I can.

He is also babbling a LOT more than before and I feel like he is trying to imitate words when he hears them. Yesterday we had an eye appointments and I was trying to entertain William with a container of Cheerios. He somehow managed to grab a whole handful and then drop them all on the ground. I said "Uh oh" and William stopping his wriggling and looked back at me and said something that sounded a lot like "Uh oh". Both John and I stopped what we were doing to look at him. He just kind of giggled, but wouldn't do it again. Maybe because I refused to dump the equivalent of half of box of Cheerios on the floor of the doctor's office. The talking is coming though...!

Out Takes from 8 Months

There are always a few pictures that don't turn out exactly as I envisioned in my mind. Lately, there are more than ever as William does not care to hold still for even 1/100th of a second. So, here are some of the funnier ones from yesterday :) Enjoy!

Tough guy! Who is this kid and where is my sweet baby?

A cute blanket to slow him down? He will cover the critical area of his body.

New skill: Fake smile on display

Okay...this one looked terrible and then I cropped it. It might be one of the better ones now. But, he is moving my backdrop and chewing on it!


John painted the underpart of the deck this weekend. I'm too lazy to rotate this picture. You'll have to turn your head. It actually looks really nice when you look at it from about every other angle (and you can't see the other unpainted portions). I'm not sure why he didn't take a picture like that. Now it just looks like it isn't completely done.


Ewww...one of several very large spiders outside our kitchen window. The scale is hard to see, but the spider is a little larger than a half dollar coin.