Traveling!

After a big day Thursday, we had an even busier day in store on Friday! We were joining the McGarry's to travel to my cousin Beth's wedding in Newport, Rhode Island. We were pretty excited because we haven't seen my cousin Beth since our wedding almost 6 years ago!

Our day started early: we got up around 6:30 am and got in the car to drive to the Park N Ride in Minneapolis. From the parking lot, we took a bus to the airport where we got through security with our 231234983264236 different carry on items. At this point, we decided that William was traveling and the rest of us were just his entourage. I had been worried about taking the baby food through the security as it is technically a liquid, but they didn't give us any trouble (by the way, we aren't really using baby food at all anymore - just about 100% table food. But, I wasn't sure about feeding him on the road and at the different events we had planned for our trip. We couldn't have brought very much regular table food because of the security restrictions and I didn't want to worry about finding a grocery store right away when we arrived to pick up food for William. So, we brought the baby food with). We boarded our first flight and William slept until we were getting off the plane. We made our connection and continued on to Boston. From the Boston airport, we took a bus to rent our car, which we drove to Rhode Island.

If you got bored with the last paragraph, that was a car, a bus, a plane, a plane, a bus, and a car. It was a full day of travel, crossing off the new states of Michigan, Massachusetts and Rhode Island from William's list of states to visit! William was UNbelievably good through everything. He wasn't even a little fussy or anything. He was such a trooper. He napped in his carseat and in my arms on the plane. He ate almost all his meals on someones lap or in his carseat. Amazing!

Riding the bus!

William's first plane ride!


William snoozed for the whole flight!

Snoozing with Mama

We arrived in Newport, RI just in time to catch the end of my cousin's rehearsal and to eat dinner with everyone. William got to meet my aunt Sheila, uncle Bobby and cousin Beth. It was
great to see everyone together and visit!

Hanging out with Aunt Megan

With my cousins Chrissie and Beth


With Great Grandma Gerry

Merry Christmas!

After Thanksgiving dinner and a little nap (hey! a guy has to sleep off that turkey!), we joined the Heidt's for their Christmas celebration. In order to celebrate both a first thanksgiving and a first Christmas in one day, we needed to be sure that naptime happened so there would be less chances of a meltdown later on. Luckily for us, keeping the nap schedule the same seemed to make this day a breeze for William. There were a lot of new people and...well, a lot going on. But, he did a great job and was his happy, busy self.

Last time William met his cousins, he thought they were pretty cool. He watched them very carefully. Now that he is bigger, he was so excited to actually play with them (I am not sure how excited they were to have him tagging along)! Here he is playing with the springy door stoppers with his cousin Michael.


Here the two boys are playing again! It was absolutely amazing to watch the bigger kids (and littler ones) interact. They were all so great with William. Ben, in particular was SO incredibly gentle with William! He let William crawl all over him and even poke him in the eye (oops). After the eye poking, I apologized and grabbed William to move him away. Ben just smiled at me and said "Don't worry Aunt Kelly, I'm used to it." You could see what a great big brother he is! Becca was also very gentle with William, although she spent most of the time drooling over Alex and Elena (can you blame her? they are adorable!). However, Michael was the one William wanted to follow and be around all the time. He would just watch him play, walk, talk, eat, etc with amazement. You could just see on William's face how very cool he thought his cousin was.


In front of the Christmas tree! William is wearing his "Baby's 1st Christmas" onesie. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a 1st Christmas shirt in size 18-24 months? I've been looking for one since October! I finally gave up when we came across one on Wednesday morning! How lucky!


Always a good helper! William helps Uncle Joe and Aunt Cathy set up the tripod. This is also the first picture we have of William with Cathy and Joe!


Opening his first Christmas present! A fisher price school bus! Thanks Alexander!

So many reasons to be Thankful....

Time to play catch up!We arrived in Rochester on Tuesday evening in time for William to have his bath, play a little before going down for the night. Wednesday we spent the day hanging out with Grandpa Heidt and at the McGarry's.

William loves the computer keyboard. Here he is helping Grandpa Heidt with some pictures.

Playing with Grandpa's remote control truck


Brrrr! It is so cold! It was 70 degrees when we left home. It was 28 degrees when we got to Rochester. Good thing we had our winter coats with us!


William helps Grandpa unwrap his birthday present - a TV pacman game!


And then he helps Grandpa play the pacman game. Where did his clothes go? I'm not really sure....


It's never to early to plan for the future! Aunt Kaye reads William a brochure about financial planning.

On Thursday, we had a lot of family at the McGarry's house for a late turkey lunch. William enjoyed all of the attention very much. He got to meet my Wennersten cousins for the first time on his first Thanksgiving! We have so many reasons to be thankful this year - I won't go into each one right here. But, we had a great day and a lot of great food with some of our favorite people. What more can you ask for?

William with Great Grandpa Budd and Great Grandma Nona


Grandma and Grandpa with some of the grandkids (and William)
Bottom row (L-R) Kelly, Ashley, Megan, William
Top row (L-R) Amber, Budd, Nona, Kyle


I'm not sure what you would call this game. Great Grandpa barks at William and William laughs uncontrollably. Every time.


William and the Wennersten cousins Ashley, Kyle and Amber


Climbing up the stairs to eat dinner - don't you love his reindeer socks?

Trying lefse for the first time! Mmmmm....he loved it! It was great this year - Grandma, Aunt Kaye and Aunt Megan did a great job making it together!

Home, Fine, Wonderful

We're home.

The trip/trips were fine.

We had a wonderful time.

More later. Tired now.

Merry Thanksgiving!

Merry Thanksgiving! Pictures are coming. John was supposed to update and let you know we are in MN. Tomorrow morning we leave for MA and onto RI.

Project...uncompleted

As always, the timeline I have in my head for completing a project is completely different from John's timeline. Apparently, mine was a little unrealistic. Imagine that. But, there was progress this weekend...

I almost hate sharing this picture. The before of our TV alcove. From the beginning, we always meant to do something to fix this area...almost 5 years later....


The cabinet in pieces. Stained and ready to go. John is attaching the backing to each piece.


William is organizing the screws for Daddy.


Big helper...


"Enough watching! I want to do it!"

"You go ahead, I got this...."

Oops...you'll have to turn your head. The TV alcove all cleaned out.

Here comes more help - with his hammer!

The lower part of the cabinet fits (after removing molding...)


Then we decided we needed to paint the walls on the sides of the cabinet...

Shucks! Turn your head again! Here we think the painting is done and the lower cabinet piece is installed. Can you figure out where needs more paint?


Where we are at right now. Both pieces of the cabinet are installed, some painting is done. Trim has been measured, carpet cut. Shelves are measured...and we are sort of at a standstill as we work out the finer points of the shelves (if anyone asks, I am right). Progress was made this weekend.


Busy busy busy busy....





And William practices standing.....


More standing - this time without a spotter...

New trick: opening closet doors. I'm not sure that we're excited about this one...

This may be the only post this week as we are leaving Tuesdayish for our wild Thanksgiving trip (MO, IA, MN, MA, RI). I have lots of laundry, packing, wrapping of gifts and general worrying to do! Unless William starts walking or reading, expect to hear from us Tues/Weds!

You thought I was kidding about those bubbles...

The rest of this post is not for the faint of heart. John and William spent some boys time together Saturday morning and tried to out snot each other. Unfortunately, William is unable to operate the camera, so we only have pictures of William and his bubbles....

FYI for anyone hoping to spend any time with us next week: when you go to wipe his nose, he gets quite upset which causes his nose to run and make the situation even worse. Wipe at your own risk.

PS What? You thought I was above posting snotty pictures of my kid? Think again.