My Little Parrot

Will has really started to come out with a lot of words lately.  Aunt Hope was visiting last week, and she was able to magically make him say basically anything.  Since then he has started using his words proactively and repeating more often.  I wanted to get his words on video, so here is our latest best effort.  He says "Night-night" and "doggy" funny on here.  Typically he says these words much clearer, but hey, he did great.  :)

You have to excuse my camera drop on this next one.  Also, Will spaces out for a bit (this was taken right before nap time), but the best part is right at the beginning...he keeps squinting because he is waiting for the camera to flash.  Too funny.

Meeting Great-Grandma

While we were in Arizona Will got to meet his Great-Grandma for the first time.  Incidentally this was also the first time that she has gotten to meet a great-grandchild as well (though she has others).  Following this visit, she also got to meet two other great-grandson's, so she had a big Christmas!  It was wonderful to get to spend time with her and the rest of our family in AZ over Christmas.

Will, Great-Grandma, Daddy, and Pops.

Will and his two Grandma's!

Mmmmm....Oatmeal!!

Over our Christmas vacation Will started to feed himself with utensils.  He specifically started feeding himself oatmeal in the morning.  So, here's a video of one of him beginning to perfect his eating skills.  He has since become much more efficient and not quite as messy.  He now feeds himself anything he can pick up with a spoon.  He can use a fork as well, but we don't yet have any child forks, and even our big forks are still too big for his use (if we want him to keep both his eyes).  : )  

Sorry about the background noise.  

Sledding!

Upon arriving home from our Christmas vacation, we discovered about 2 feet of snow on the ground here.  We have been waiting for snow in order to take Will sledding.  We have an awesome sledding hill in the back of our house...I mean PERFECT for sledding!  So, we took Will out to sled.  It was lots of fun for both him and us.  He would grin and giggle the whole way down, as did we.  Great fun for sure.

Will was all bundled.  He stayed warm and dry, but he was a bit like a little turtle when he fell on his back. :)

Daddy and Will getting ready to sled down the hill.

Daddy rigging Will up on the sled.  After we went down a few times each with him, we let him go down by himself and he loved it!  Of course we put him on a lower part of the hill, so it wasn't quite as fast or as far as we went with him.

Will and mama sledding.

Will sledding like a big boy on his own.

Happy Trails

Over Christmas we visited Carl's family in Arizona.  We had a fun time, and Will was able to meet many relatives he had not met before.  One day we went out on a family trail walk and let Will explore a bit on his own walking on the way back.  This is pretty pic heavy...I couldn't decide which ones to put up.  :)

The lighting is poor, but I love the picture of these two.

Daddy and Will trekking together.

Will loves to give high-fives when he accomplishes something.

This boy LOVES the outdoors!

This was quite a feat...climbing this hill on his own.

Will made it up that hill!  : )

Will didn't fight being put back in the carrier after his time of exploring...he fell asleep shortly after AND took a long nap when we got home.  All that exploring was hard work!

Daddy carrying his precious cargo back to the car.

Pops and Deedee's Visit

Over Thanksgiving Carl's parents visited.  It was wonderful to have them visit, though unfortunately for them they were sick over the actual Thanksgiving holiday.  Fortunately for us, we never became sick.  Despite the illness, we were still able to have a nice family visit and Will enjoyed seeing his Pops and Deedee.  Here are a few pictures from the visit.  :)

Deedee and Will playing.

While they were here we celebrated Christmas as well.  Here's Will on the rocking horse Pops made for him by hand.  Pretty great craftsmanship, isn't it? 

On his way to becoming a real cowboy. ; )

At MIT in front of Carl's building.

Pops and Will hanging out in Daddy's study office.

A Day in the Life of Will

Will is a very active boy, always doing or into something.  :)  He is so much fun, I just wanted to share a few videos of when I was actually able to "catch" him doing something.  So here's some activities in the day of the life of Will...

Sometimes he dances...

Recently he has discovered this toe-tapping type dance and circle spinning.  Definitely takes some coordination and concentration.  :)

Sometimes he tells very ANIMATED stories...(sorry about video quality...I was trying to keep Will from seeing the camera)

And sometimes he just sits in his chair to play quietly...(please excuse the loud background noise--the window was open and they were leaf blowing outside)

No matter what he does, a day in the life of Will is always an adventure!  :)