Being this cute...

doesn't come easy :)

Note: Lately William has only been getting his paci at nap time and bedtime.  Yay William!

Trying to brush his teeth like Mommy!

We love our cute little guy!

Big boy Car Seat!

 For Christmas, we decided to get William his big boy car seat!  We finally got around to ordering it...I know way after Christmas, but he got so many toys between his birthday and Christmas, he doesn't know what to do with them all!  Well, he is definitely loving this new forward facing car seat!

Trying it out for size.  Check out the snazzy cup holder!

The car seat sat in our living room for a few days before we ever installed it, and William loved sitting (and playing) in it!  I think this means we need to get him a chair that's his size :)

Our official first trip in the new car seat!  He looks like he doesn't know what to think.  He kinda held on tight the whole time, but maybe that was because Daddy was driving ;)

It must sleep pretty good!

He still hasn't forgotten his old car seat though.  He enjoys making trips to visit and sit with it now and again. (haha...love the one sock look by the way!)

My little guy is growing up too fast!  Doesn't seem that long ago when the infant car seat looked like it could carry 3 of him at once!

Happy Birthday Adam!

Adam's Birthday was January 13th, and we all went out to celebrate at The Pit in Raleigh.  If you've never been, they have really great BBQ!  This was a "no kids invited" party, so we got a sitter for William, and it was really nice to have an adult night!  Well, if you can call it an adult night with these guys!

I love that we are all so close that we can still get together for dinner once in a while!

Happy Birthday Jason Pratt!

We went out with our good friends, Ashley and Jason Pratt for Jason's birthday!  We went to one of our favorite places, the Cheesecake Factory!  Thank you to David's brother, Jason, for the gift card!  David was very excited to make Jason wear the big goofy party hat, which would have been hilarious except he bought us all smaller ones...haha.  Everyone looked at us a little funny, but the girls really enjoyed them so I guess that's what matters!

Birthday girl...again :)

Birthday boy!

Livia really enjoyed buttering her own bread - so much in fact, that she used a couple of butter packs per piece!  I can't believe she and Annecy are getting to be such big girls!

William didn't miss out!  He enjoyed the cheesecake too, but mostly enjoyed wearing the whip cream!

Yay for great friends!  and cheesecake!!!

Poor baby :(

So, William has climbed out of his crib twice now when David was home, but a couple of weeks ago, I had my first real scare with William.  He fell down the stairs.  Now I don't think it was all the way, but it was probably half way.  I keep saying I'm a terrible mother because I knew he was on the stairs, but in my defense, he had been climbing up and down stairs without any problems for months.  Anyway, next thing I know, I look up and see him coming head over heals down the last 5 steps.  He finally landed face down on his stomach on the hardwood floor.  Of course there was much screaming on his part, which was expected.  The poor baby looked like he landed on his face.  He didn't have a single bruise on him, but his face looked like he had been in a boxing match :(  I thought he broke his nose, so I called the pediatrician.  Of course they didn't have any openings that day to see him, but the nurse said they wouldn't be able to do anything if it was broken and that EMT would have to fix it.  She said to wait until the swelling went down and see if it looked broken.  Thankfully, it was not broken and all the bruising was gone in just a few days, but he definitely gave his poor mother a scare!

 

Happy Anniversary!

My and David's 6th Anniversary was January 8th!  We had a wonderful night out.  We went to McCormick and Schmick's for dinner.  Then we went ice skating!  Downtown Raleigh has an outdoor skating rink.  Neither one of us had been ice skating since middle school, and then it was only once.  David was much better at it than I was, but it was sooo cold I could hardly move anyway!  I can't believe how cold it's been lately!  6 years ago, it was 75 degrees when we got married!

I'm so blessed to have such a great husband!

Birthday Dinner #2!

How lucky am I?  Another birthday dinner!  This time we went to Longhorn.  Even though we had a terribly long wait, the manager was nice enough to give us free appetizers.  It was still really great to get together with everyone!

The whole gang!

William's buddy, Casey!

The funny thing is...we went to Krispy Kreme again after dinner!  David must think it's his birthday!

Thank you to everyone for all the birthday wishes!!!

Birthday dinner with family!

My 27th birthday was January 1st!  To celebrate, we went to Mellow Mushroom with Kristy, Adam, Clarkson, Campbell, Beth, and Spencer! We had a great time!

 

After Mellow Mushroom, we went to Krispy Kreme!  You know who was behind that!

Thanks to everyone for celebrating my birthday!!!

Santa!

 

I can't believe I almost forgot to post William's picture with Santa...considering all the trouble I went through to get one!  It only took three trips to the mall!  The first trip was to Crab Tree.  We soon realized that the line was much too long and we would never make it to Lauren's party on time.  The second trip was to Cary Towne Center.  Santa stopped taking pictures at 9:00, so we get there about 8:00, and were basically turned away.  We were told we could chance it, but at 9:00 he was out, and if you were still in line you were out of luck.  So, the next day I decided to go during the day.  David was working, so it was just me and William.  We got in line around 4:00.  Then a few minutes later, one of the helpers came by and said Santa took an hour break at 5:00 for dinner, and if he hadn't gotten to us by 5:00, we would have to wait for him to come back at 6:00.  Ugh!  Well, I decided to take my chances.  It was 4:59, and we were next in line.  It was a Christmas miracle!  We were the last people they let go before Santa took his break.  Of course, by that point, William was getting fussy, and for the first time ever he cried when someone else took him.  We still managed to get a cute shot!  Then while I was talking to the guy taking the picture, the helper took William from Santa, and William was perfectly content with that guy, who happened to be a large guy like Santa.  I don't know, maybe it was the beard :)  Anyway, I'm glad we got a picture with Santa nonetheless. 

Playing like a Big Boy!

I can't believe how big William is getting.  I feel like he grew a foot over Christmas!  After Clarkson and Campbell left, William started walking all over the place!  I think he realized he didn't like getting left behind :)  So, I guess he is officially a toddler now :(  Either way, he is still my baby!  

As far as what he's been eating lately - just about anything we eat.  Some of his favorites include pizza, fried eggs, macaroni and cheese, cereal bars and yogurt!  We are still working with using a cup.  He will drink water out of a cup, but we are still using the bottle for milk.  Part of the problem is he is too lazy to hold is own bottle!  He will actually pick it up and bring it to me to hold for him.  He does hold the cup better, but still wants us to do it for him.  

William talks all the time now - but as far as words I can understand, he says "Mama", "Baba" (bottle), and "bye".  He will sign light (all the time), bye-bye, and eat.  He loves throwing Layla's ball for her, and will clap when she goes and gets it.  He loves singing and dancing!  It's so cute when he hears singing, he just sings right along!  The first time I noticed him doing this was in church.  A lady even came up to him after and told him what a great singing voice he had :)  He enjoys giving kisses!  And getting into everything!  He is still not a cuddler, unless he is very tired. 

He's also been having such a great time with all his new stuff he got for his Birthday and Christmas!

He's such a sweetheart and I couldn't imagine our lives without him!

White Christmas!

Well, a white day-after-Christmas :)  It started snowing late Christmas night, and when we woke up the next morning, everything was covered in snow!  It was the prettiest snow we've seen here in years...probably since I was a little girl.  I've never been much for snow, and once a year is more than plenty for me, but it was nice because this snow was beautiful.  Not the yucky stuff we usually get in NC.

William actually was napping when we all went out to play.  I'm not sure he would have lasted very long as cold as it was anyway!

Building a snowman!

Layla loved the snow, and poor Sippi was begging to come back inside!  Here Layla is doing her bunny hop through the snow!