More Fargo Reunion

Turns out chasing after a toddler is enough to keep 2 people more than enough busy. While we were visiting with John's family, we didn't take ANY pictures! This weekend, Kendra gave us some of their pictures that I thought I would share with you all.

William hanging out with his Great Uncle John
Cousin Mike, William and Great Uncle Mark (William loved Uncle Mark because he kept feeding William candy AND let him play with his car keys)
Entertaining the toddler tornado

Playing with his second(?) cousin Delaney. Aren't they cute?
Playing on the monkey bars with Daddy and Uncle Jim
Entertaining a toddler: William was obsessed by the stroller and pushing it around. However, he was not at all concern about his cousin, Alexander's safety. He would rock the stroller and attempt to tip it over laughing hysterically the whole time. Although it clearly entertained William, neither myself nor Alex's parents were okay with this. So, John and I took turns wheeling poor Alex around the pavilion with William's "help". Cousin Mike saw this and decided that making a train out of people would be a lot of fun - and it was! Cousin Alex in the stroller, William peeking out of the top of the stroller, me and the Mikey behind me.

And, to be fair, a picture of Alex's sister, Elena! Isn't she pretty?
Heidt boys (and Moore) playing badmitton
Getting ready to rescue the birdie...or dancing on the tabletops
Coming down with birdie in hand. My job during all of this was laugh and point along with keeping William out of sight so he wouldn't get any new ideas.
Here is everyone in a group picture
I think this is all of the cousins and their spouses
The Heidt's
Someone thought it would be fun to give the kids some water to splash around in. It was fun...and messy!
When all the water was emptied, cousin Mike decided that the water could be deep enough to make a swimming pool. Here he is testing it out!

PS Also working on posts about our Karlstad reunion, trip to Grand Forks, the rainy weather, my plans for swimming classes, 18 month old post, etc. Should be done by the time William is 18 years.

Rainy Rochester

We got to Rochester yesterday evening in time for dinner with Great Aunt Sheila and Uncle Bobby at Bilatti's. William put away close to 2 pieces of pizza himself after he was allowed to "dip". Everything is better with dip these days. It was nice to visit for a short while before it was time for William to go to bed which allowed us some adult time for Rack-O and dominoes until late in the night. I have some great pictures of William and Bobby playing cars together - will post later. Today is rainy and humid so we're looking to do inside activities...I'm glad for the break in the heat.

More later.

PS John, the first thing William said to me this morning was "Dada? Dada? Dada?". Like I do most days, I told him you went to work. I wonder how long that will satisfy him? We'll be calling to chat with you this evening.

PPS Is the basement done yet?

Off Again

I'm packing us up again. We're meeting Grandpa tomorrow in Iowa City. William and I are going to a reunion in very, very Northern Minnesota this weekend. John is coming back home to work - poor guy (or lucky guy?).

Hurricane William

William has always been a busy boy. Things haven't changed at all. If anything, he is getting busier and busier by the day. Here is a sample of his handiwork from yesterday. Please note: all messes pictured were made within a 15 minute time frame. This is what happens to me when I try to get ready for the day. What is sad to me is that I am capable of getting ready in less than 15 minutes for my day. However, I cannot get ready that quickly when I have one foot on the toilet lid and the opposite knee holding shut the cabinet doors (mind you, they do have "locks" on them) while ensuring he doesn't dig in the trash or play with the plunger.

Exhibit A: the living room
Exhibit B: the bedroom/bathroom
Exhibit C: The bathroom cabinet.
Not shown: Exhibits D-L including the kitchen, laundry room, pantry, his bedroom, and the hall closet.

In other random cuteness, we keep finding him doing things like this:

I was working on dinner when I turned around to find William cooking...
Frying up some goldfish while Mama makes dinner

I can't seem to find this one in any of my baby books? Does anyone know approximately how old babies are when they first master this?

Trying very hard to figure out the can opener
This would be one of his favorite things lately, except I've taken to hiding it away. Otherwise, when I need it, I'm reduced to checking under couch cushions and inside toy cars to find it. The problem with this set up is now I can't find it because I put it somewhere where William can't find it. I can't win.
Still working at it.
A few days ago, I was getting us ready to leave the house to run some errands. William disappeared. I finished rounding up the library books and putting together the stuff I was dropping off at a friend's house when I heard William crying. I found him here: in his exersaucer. The exersaucer is currently sitting out in his room because we don't have anywhere to store it currently. He figured out how to climb into it himself, but then couldn't get back out again. If you look carefully, you can see how outraged he is by his inability to get himself out of the exersaucer. Great mama that I am, I ran to get the camera and snapped a few pictures before rescueing the poor kid. Gotta get my blackmail now!

Funny kid

Today for breakfast, William and I both had bowls of cereal with milk on it. I finished first and then sat to watch him finish eating. After several minutes, he reached into the depths of his cereal bowl and pulled out a very squishy cheerio. He examined it for a few seconds and smashed it between his fingers before offering it to me. I wasn't interested, so I turned my head away. Then William put his hand up in the air and said "Oooooooo", trying to sweeten the deal. I still wasn't about to put the mushy, squishy cheerio into my mouth. He then upped the ante by turning his hand into a car and saying "Vroooooooooooom!" and swirling his hand around. He was really working it - I still wouldn't consider putting that cheerio into my mouth, but I was laughing very hard.

Why?

It was a dead on imitation of what I try to do when he isn't interested in eating.

Realization

Our carpet is a poop brown color. Ask me how I now know this. I dare you.

We shouldn't have laughed Part II

Tonight at dinner we had peas. Well, peas and other stuff. William is either gobbling up the peas faster than I can put them on his plate (this is NOT my child, we all know how I feel about peas) or refusing to let them get within 3 feet of his mouth. Tonight he was a'gobbling away with the peas when he suddenly stopped to examine the pea in his hand. He turned it around and around, carefully looking at all of the sides.

After maybe a minute he held the pea up in the air and pronounced "Ball!"

"What??!" We asked him..

"Ball" he said even more clearly and then he threw the pea. And then did it over and over again. This would be the part where we should not have laughed and did anyway. I'm not sure we'll be able to eat peas without the throwing for some time to come.

PS In other news, we pulled up to the gas station tonight to fill up the car. John hopped out to fill the tank and I was left in the car with William. Trying to be a good companion, I made some conversation to fill the time. "Where did Dada go?" I asked William. "Gas." was his reply. Good thing he was there to explain it to me - although I did have to giggle at the gas part...