A Very Special Kind of Party

On Thursday, we were invited to a very special party at the Harper's House: The Babies of the Eighth Grade Floor's First Birthday Party! Remember this? Well, it was time for a reunion! Not everyone could make it, but it sure was fun to see how everyone has grown!

Kids everywhere!
William is showing some interest in Judy's Star Wars collection. This has one of his parents very worried and the other very excited.
One of us is hoping that his interest is due to the fact that the robots danced and talked. The other is just very excited.

How do you get 4687535241 kids to look cute all at the same time? You don't! Here are some funny pictures we took of all the kids on the stairs.
Cheesy grins going on in the back row - I love Nathan's!
More cheesing!
Look out Reagan! William is going for the hair!
Some romance happening in that back row!
Emma puckers up!

And the required couch shot. Our babies have gone from this:

To this:

Last year we had a tough time getting William to keep his hands to himself, especially with the beautiful Reagan. This year was also an issue. Here he is leaning in...
And moments after stealing a kiss!*
Although, there is plenty of love to spread around, here he is after kissing on the super cute Charlie! We think it was his irresistible cheeks! Needless to say, most moms grabbed their babies off the couch after this incident!

**Please note! This is not the first time this week William has stolen kisses! We were hanging out with our friend Charlotte on Wednesday when he leaned in a gave her a very sweet kiss! I was so surprised! He won't give kisses to me or to John! He's holding out! So, William's first kiss will go down as occuring on 5/7/08!

It's Little Changes

I've been thinking a lot about how much William has changed in the last year and how much I write about him every day. Last year it seemed like I couldn't get in to blog it fast enough. The milestones and growth were just astonishing. His growth and development are still amazing, but now he is working on bigger things. These bigger things take longer and he works on them over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over until I think "ENOUGH already! I'm tired of spotting your fearless climbing of the kitchen chairs!" And then, all of a sudden he masters it. But, it seems silly to run to the internet and shout: "He can scale the kitchen chairs!"

And yet here it is: the first independent scaling of the kitchen chairs. Please note two of our children are sitting at the table. I am certain the kitchen table is next.

We are doing what feels like an extreme amount of no-no-ing and William has had several of the all out down on the floor tantrums as a result today alone. His vocabulary is growing and improving everyday. Last week he told John "Me milk, milk me". Which we believe means :give me my milk, please. We are hard at work identifying parts of the body (eyes, nose, mouth, ears, hair, belly, toes, legs, arms, hands, feet, fingers, and knees) and I feel like we are close to knowing all of the list. We are also working on animals (dog, cat, cow, pig, lion, bears, duck, chicken, sheep, birds, snakes, monkeys, fish, and giraffes). Again, I think William knows all of them. Last night we were in the car when I handed him a book. "ow, ow, ow de deba..." is kind of what I hear. I turned to look at what book he had and it was: Row, Row, Row your boat. I think we sang that song close to 45638746874163521354 times in a row. Just because we were so excited about him learning that song. And because we totally rock it out when we all sing that one together.

Here are some pictures from last weekend to hold you over until I get the ones from a very special first birthday party we went to on Thursday.

I thought it would be fun to go to O'Fallon's heritage days last weekend. William very much enjoyed riding on the old style trolley.
Too bad it was freezing cold and windy! We enjoyed a little music and took 1/2 of the tour of the historic house before heading back home.

15 Month Appointment = Baby Jail

We had our 15 month appointment with the ped. all the way on last Monday. Tuesday through Saturday William ran a fever, was irritable, and wasn't eating very much. Saturday the fever was gone, but the coughing, gooey green nose and continued disinterest in eating came around. Its been a fun week people. We are finally seeing some improvement in the all around attitude and congestion. The eating has yet to see any improvement. What this all means is I have been living in the equivalent of baby jail for over a week. I haven't been to the Y, to church or to play dates because of our infectious mess of a son and it is starting to take a toll. I'm going a little stir crazy staying home and not seeing other people.


So, to sum up the appointment, everything looks good and is normal. 1 shot was given and William cried like a baby for several minutes afterward. His growth continues to be upward and his development is..."advanced" in the words of our pediatrician. She advised us that he does not need the baby toys any longer and we should be using toys and books appropriate for age 3+. I'm not sure how I feel about that....we'll have to see what we come up with. I wanted to tell her that we don't really have any control over what he plays with, etc. He really has a mind of his own...wonder where he got that from? The quick facts:

Height: 32.75 inches (up 1/4 of an inch from 3 months ago)
Weight: 26 lbs 3.5 oz (up 3 lbs 1 oz)
Head Circumference: 48.75 cm (up .75 cm)

Everything else looks either "great" or "totally normal". Remind me to tell you about the diaper and kiss incident tomorrow. Tonight I'm tired.

Big Boy

It was time for a lot of reasons: the food in the hair, the tantrums over washing hair, the rising temperature, etc. Thanks goodness for Elmo. Here is the new haircut:

The after shot...and do you like the toy? Trying to plug both ends of the extension cord together. Nice!

PS Update on 15 month appointment coming soon.

Wheee....Wii

So I was reading an article in a magazine the other day about a new game coming out for the game system called Wii. It is a fitness game that focuses on your core muscles (read:stomach) and gives you points for doing yoga/pilates/strength training moves. And the people at this highly reputable magazine (Glamour, if you must know) even thought the game was fun! Yoga for points? Core muscle training that is fun? I thought it sounded interesting, so I mentioned it to John yesterday. The look on his face was priceless. Less than 24 hours after casually mentioning the game, the Heidt Household is now the proud owner of the Wii.

I was laughing in the car on the way home from purchasing the game system and said to John "We don't waste any time do we?"

In all seriousness, John turned to me and said "Did you think I was going to wait for you to change your mind? When opportunity knocks...."

Very funny. We got the game home tonight just after 5pm, but had to wait until after William went to bed to open it/play with it (see previous entries about William helping Daddy) at 9pm. I'm sure John was on pins and needles the whole time. I am surprised he didn't try to sneak out the instruction manual to read up after dinner. But, he was good and waited. And how did I reward him? I totally beat the pants off of him at bowling on the Wii's first test run (Me:187 John:116). Apparently ones actual skill at bowling has no bearing on ones skill in virtual bowling.

Onto some pictures:

This is a much nicer 15 month picture...except for the funny face.
This one is better, but I swear I didn't pose him. This is his "telephone" sign.

Hanging out in the rocking chair

He is getting so big!
And serious!
Today, asking for a smile was too much...he discovered he can rock this chair and was pretty focused on...well, rocking.

PS Just because I know you are interested, we didn't purchase the fitness game because it isn't actually out in stores yet. Ask John if you want to know the release date (or anything else about anything else for that matter).

15 Months today

I didn't get a picture today of him awake as we were busy busy busy busy. Garage sale - ing this morning, helping friends install a shower stall (Ta da! Home improvement projects not at our own house!), a meeting at church and dinner with the same friends. Excellent day, but not much time for pictures. Here is the best 15 month old shot from tonight.

Although it was hard to maneuver around the crib, it was actually easier to take his picture because he was holding still. Will try to get some awake shots tomorrow.

And these three pictures just because they make me laugh. William just wants to do everything like his daddy. John can't lift a finger to do anything around the house without William trying to get involved. Here we are trying to put in some drainage pipe and some new flowers in our front yard - assisted by William. Please note the very hilarious, yet serious face he has.


Finally, here are two pictures from last weekend that got left behind!

We have (almost) a door! Middle right of the picture for those of you who don't see it.

Isn't the painting called American Gothic? Here is our take on it: two guys with their sanding gear after painting, scraping, sanding, and repainting a ceiling for two days.

Free Cat

Free cat to any home:

-Runs away when you want to hold him/pet him/give him treats
-Brushes up against you/sits on your lap only when you are wearing black, dry clean only pants (he has orange fur)
-Eats plants, spreads dirt& dead plant pieces around the house.
-Vomits plant pieces/food when he is in a hurry to eat (several times a week)
-Purrs only when eating
-Ignores everyone around him unless you are allergic to cats. Then he is cuddly and totally annoying.
-Stands by the baby's room and yowls at 5:30am. Wakes the baby and then runs away. As soon as the baby is asleep, repeat.
-Hides when the doorbell rings
-Eats insulation
-Rips plastic off plastic covered insulation walls in order to eat insulation
-Tips over all containers full of potentially staining liquid
-Follows small household pests around (spiders, flies, etc) but does not kill them
-Yowls at 6am if he hasn't been fed.
-Likes to chew on electrical cords
-Fights with other cat when she is laying in his favorite sleeping spot


Do we have any takers? I guess it doesn't matter because I wouldn't and won't give him away anyway. He will always be my first baby boy! However, this mornings antics did have me seriously contemplating alternate living arrangements for him...