Our first night out!

John and I had a milestone event Friday when we went out for dinner with the Gaedke's without William. We were a little sad, but we knew he was in great hands with Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Mike. We went to a place called the Westfire for dinner and drinks - all in all we were gone about 2 and a half hours. Afterwards, we all came back to the McGarry's to visit and check in with our babysitters. Everything went just fine.

Saturday we celebrated Mother's Day by working in the yard and working on the deck project. It was nice to be outside and William liked using his stroller at the nursery gardens with Grandma. This afternoon, we had to say good bye to Uncle Mike as he was leaving for Maine. His flight is early on Sunday morning, so he was leaving for the cities tonight. Then, we went to eat dinner with Grandpa Heidt and Mike & Tien! We were a little late. We were supposed to meet them at 4:30, but William decided it was a good time for a nap! It was good to catch up with them and hear about William's new cousins to be some more. Only 16 more weeks before they will be ready to come and play! After dinner, we came back home and played some cribbage with Grandma and Grandpa after putting William to bed. John and Grandma won twice and Grandpa and I won once - we had a great time!

William has discovered he loves pop cans. Diet Coke especially (the cans, not the contents)


Reaching...


Reaching again...


Someone found my old pair of Mickey Mouse ears...they are still a little big!


Grandpa's big hand - 28 points! WOW!

We are leaving to go back to St Louis today, so I'll write more when we get back home. Happy Mother's Day!

Daddy's Back!

We are so glad that John is back! He was able to get out of work a little bit earlier and be back to Rochester in time for dinner! Valentino's! Double woohoo!

William decided it was a good idea to wake up this morning at 4:30am. Not my idea of a good time, especially because we were up until 1:30 am last night playing cards. Not sure why we are going from waking up at 8:30 am to 4:30 am. We're working on that one. We spent the morning snoozing and laying low to let me recover and then we went for a nice long walk. We walked "the parkway" and stopped off at Ed-Ventures to say hello to Jessica. William had a fun time looking at all the stuff on her walls and helping her answer the phones.

Uncle Mike sleeping on the couch with William's bear. Mike was awakened this morning by William's morning bathroom break.

William at work with Jessica

After leaving Ed-Ventures, we walked up Elton Hills Drive to Grandpa Heidt's house. We were able to visit with him for quite awhile before walking back to the McGarry's this afternoon. Uncle Mike did me a HUGE favor today by watching William while I took a shower. It was WONDERFUL! Thanks Uncle Mike! Then....John arrived! William was SO happy to see his daddy - even though he looked crabby because he was just waking up from a nap.

Happy Anniversary!

William would like to wish his Great Grandpa Tom and Grandma Gerry a happy 59th (WOW!) wedding anniversary. He even picked some flowers for them! He is so impressed and happy for them! Congratulations!

We got out for a nice long walk this morning and then went to see Grandpa Heidt this afternoon. Aunt Kaye came over for a spaghetti dinner and John is coming back tomorrow! What a busy day! More later, I have a headache (allergies?). Blech.


**Special thanks to Aunt Kaye for the floral subjects :)

What is the plan? I don't have one...

Well, it seems that teething has all sorts of things changing. William is now the proud owner of some pretty fuzzy hands compliments of having his hands in his mouth constantly and putting them down on fuzzy things like carpet, blankets, clothes, my hair, etc. He also has been changing his eating/sleeping patterns quite a bit in the last few days. I don't know if he is coming or going or vice versa. He refused 2 feedings today and woke up at 5:40 am instead of his usual 8:30 am. We don't actually see the teeth, but the swollen gums and indentations are there. Makes visiting and planning a little difficult.

Any way, we have had two very nice days in a row regrouping after seeing so many people over the weekend. William was thrilled to see his friend Jacob today (and Robyn also)! They drove in from the cities today to see us (and his grandparents). William was fascinated by Jacob's crawling, standing, sitting and rolling talents. He couldn't take his eyes off of Jacob until he decided to crash for a little nap. This evening, we also had some great guy time (not counting me of course). It was Grandpa, Uncle Mike and William at home tonight because Grandma had a meeting to go to. He really enjoyed the one on one time with both Uncle Mike and Grandpa - both of them are really good at sharing him when other people are around. Uncle Mike taught William a little bit about playing a pretty violent video game and Grandpa and William spent some time looking at tools in the "shop".

In other news, William is sitting up by himself for longer periods of time without tipping over and today I noticed him reaching for toys while he was on his stomach. We are getting soooooooo close to rolling over from his back to his front. It is so fun to watch him change! The other big thing happening for us is that we have started giving William medicine for a suspected reflux condition. I'm not really sure how I feel about the whole thing yet, which is why I haven't talked about it. Some days I am sure we are doing the right thing, other days I feel the opposite is true. Right now, we are just trying out the medicine to see if things improve and we will be talking things over with his ped. during our upcoming 4 month visit. Here are some pictures from today...

Reaching for toys during tummy time...

Starting to use his toes to push off when on his tummy...


Another new hobby: we love to watch TV! It is great incentive for rolling over!



I just love these feet!

Quick!

Well, things have really been going on high around here. I have logged in twice to start an update and just haven't gotten it done! I just said good bye to Great Grandma and Grandpa McGarry and William is still sleeping. For now.

On Friday, Grandpa Kevin has the day off! Hurray! To celebrate, we helped him start a deck project :) We took down all the overhead pieces of wood and scraped and sanded...until it started to rain. Then, we hung around the house until Grandma Kim came home. For dinner, we were able to go to Valentino's for dinner (mmmm....pizza). We were extra happy that Grandpa Heidt was able to join us as well as all of William's Great Grandparents. After dinner, we came back to the house to visit some more and eat some yummy cupcakes made by great grandma Gerry. Of course, what would a night be without phase 10? So, we played! (I lost)

Saturday I would rate as one of the hardest days we have had with William so far. John and I have been wondering if William was teething and on Saturday we had our answer. Yes. Oh yes. William got up at about 9:30 and ate a little bit before he began crying. As soon as we stopped trying to feed him, his mood got a little better. He was a little bit fussy and chewed his hands like they were made out of candy for the rest of the day. We tried to feed him again around noon and he refused to eat. He cried and turned his head and refused to eat. He has never EVER turned down food. Grandma Kim was the only one brave enough to put her fingers in his mouth. She confirmed she could feel at least one tooth on the bottom pushing through. We can't see it yet, but we feel a little better knowing why he is fussing so much. William refused to eat for the rest of the day until 7pm, missing 3 full feedings. It was more than a little stressful for us! The good news is that he slept great through the night and has been okay since then with the eating. Hopefully, we'll get this tooth through...and then the next 20 he is supposed to get.

In happier news, we also helped Grandpa Kevin some more with the deck project. We did some more scraping and sanding. We helped take down some hardware and enjoyed a trip to Home Depot. For dinner, we were treated to Culvers by Great Grandma Gerry (mmmmm). Most importantly, we played a game of Phase 10 tonight and I came out on top! Hurray!

On Sunday, we had a nice family picnic for my brother, Michael. The great grandparents were all here, Kaye, Scott, Megan (and puppies), Ryan, Kevin Wennersten, and of course us were all together to visit and see everyone. It has been awhile since we were all together, so it was a very nice day. We had picnic food: hamburgers and chicken on the grill, salads and baked beans. We had a very nice time! One of William's favorite things was getting to meet his Great Uncle Kevin for the first time. He also really liked showing off his sailor suit in honor of Uncle Mike!

William and Great Uncle Kevin

On Sunday, William played a little tune to entertain everyone before lunch.

On Sunday, we got to take some "generation" pictures. Here is Great Grandparents Wennersten, Grandma Kim, Me and William


William and his Great Grandparents Wennersten


The Great Grandparents McGarry, Grandpa Kevin and William


The Great Grandparents McGarry, Grandpa Kevin, Me and William


The 2 sailor boys: William in his sailor suit and Uncle Mike

After lunch on Sunday, John, uncle Kevin, Megan and Great Grandparents Wennersten all left. We were sad to see them go, but enjoyed visiting very much. We also know that John needs to go back to work for a few days and he'll be back as soon as he can. After dinner, William impressed us all by going down to sleep at 8:45 pm (and slept all the way through until 8:45am). We were able to squeeze in another game of phase 10. I am totally AMAZED by the self titled "amazing one" AKA TA McGarry. It was a close game, but in the end I came in second to the card shark.

And that bring us back to today! Everyone has left to go home or go to work. I thought about going to help (harass) Grandpa Kevin at work today until I realized I don't have a car. If it stops raining, we might pull the stroller out and go to visit Grandpa Heidt this afternoon. The other plan is start looking at our flight options for when we go to my cousin Beth's wedding in November. Whew! If you read all this, you should e mail me for a gold star!

We Remember Grandma Heidt

Today is a sad day for us as we remember Grandma Heidt. She was a wonderful mom and Grandma. We are sad William never got to meet his Grandma for us all to see. We spent some time talking with William about his special "angel Grandma" today as a way to remember how special she is to all of us. We decided to take pictures of William in front of "Grandma's Tree" in our front yard to help us remember the day. We thought it would be a nice tradition to take a picture every year to remember her as well as show how much the tree and William have grown every year. Here are some of our pictures from this year.

William in our front yard by Grandma's tree on his blanket from Aunt Susie Heidt.

Kelly and William by the ash tree planted for Grandma


Kelly and William measure up to the tree in our front yard planted for Grandma Heidt

John and William


Big Smiles from a big boy!

We spent part of the day with Grandpa Heidt. It was nice to visit with him and remember Grandma Heidt. Then we had dinner with the McGarry's. William got to meet his uncle Mike McGarry for the first time early this morning, but we got our first official picture with him this afternoon. William enjoyed visiting with Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle Mike, Aunt Kaye, and all of his Great Grandparents. We especially were glad to see Great Grandma Nona up and feeling better after her surgery last week!

William and Uncle Mike McGarry

Loading up!

Do we have everything? I don't know...but the car is full! We decided to try and take the smaller car this time because it gets better mileage. Technically, we can seat 5 people in this car. Today, I think we'll be lucky to get all three of us in! I'm going to try and take pictures of us loaded up this time. We'll be leaving this afternoon as soon as John gets home from work! See everyone soon!

Edited to add pictures!

Last night, William helped us pack some stuff and practiced sitting up in the laundry basket.

Hanging out in my laundry basket

Today was Derby Day at WMS! William had a great time helping "teach" 3-4 classes and even helped Miss Ellen answer a few phone calls. "Hello! This is West Middle School!"

William on the road to Rochester to see everyone! What a happy guy!

We didn't bring our baby tub, so William had his first bath in the big boy tub at Grandma's house!