Whew!

Will licking his plate after his strawberries and cool whip. He looked and sounded a little bit like the brother from A Christmas Story.

My sister let me know that I have not posted in awhile. She checks my blog daily, hoping for a new update on Will and our life. She is anxiously awaiting the arrival of her sweet baby boy Tate, who is due any day now. Linny, this post is for you! I love you!
Since I last posted we have had an interruption in our internet service that lasted about a week and a half. All we had here at home was Mike's blackberry. It is rather annoying to check e-mail or facebook on that thing, so I didn't even want to attempt a blog post. Ok, with that explanation out of the way, let me fill you in on a few things.
First, we went back to Hiram for our nephew Caleb's 1st birthday. It was good to go "home", but we missed Charleston. After being here for 2 and 1/2 months, we know that this is where we are supposed to be, that we made the right decision in moving here. Anyways, Aunt Joy came back with us and spent a few days of her Spring Break with Mike, Will and I. We went to the beach, strolled around downtown and went grocery shopping with coupons at Publix. Poor Joy, she works at Publix and she went with me while she was on vacation. But, she offered, and seeing as how she is the "coupon nazi" at her own Publix, she taught me a thing or too. Thanks Joy...we love you! :)
Will enjoying his free ice cream from Ben and Jerry's last week.

Let's see...after Joy left, we got ready for a River Church wedding. Our children's director got married to a great guy in the church. It was a beautiful wedding in a beautiful Charleston church. But I was a little sad. At the reception, my wonderful little boy Will, who I adore and love with all my heart and who I do everything for everyday, decided he no longer wanted me. He wanted Kim, the bride, so he followed her around for awhile. Then he wanted Courtney, Kim's sister. He actually went to her table and grabbed her hand and brought her out to the dance floor. She thought it was so cute, but she had to do maid-of-honor stuff, so I had to take Will from her. He screamed like I was taking him from the most precious person in his life. A few people stared. But then, he got over it and decided that he would play with Caitlin, a sweet 5th grader from River Church. And he didn't just play with Caitlin, he fell in love with her. He would scream when I would try and take him from her, to either give her a break or even to offer him cake. The only thing that would make him not scream was to have Caitlin holding him. It hurt, and I suffered from a little bit of jealousy. Don't get me wrong, I loved having other people wanting to play with Will or hold him. I'm just not used to having him choose them over me, or Mike for that matter. I guess that whole wanting independence from your parents thing starts early, especially when there is a pretty girl involved.
(Funny thing...he remembered Caitlin when he saw her at church the next morning. He went straight to her, and fussed again when I tried to take him so we could go get lunch. She ended up walking us to the car to help put Will in his car seat. All so he wouldn't be upset. Geez...that kid has it bad!)

Will dancing at the wedding. You can't keep this kid of the dance floor!

Will and Caitlin...his new crush.
Will and Courtney.


Other than that...the weather here is beautiful! Upper 70's all week, even going to dip into the 80's tomorrow and this weekend. Will is obsessed with going outside to play, and I am trying my best to get him out in the backyard everyday. He is getting so big and is having so much fun. Just tonight he and Mike played hide-and-seek for about 30 minutes and laughed the whole time. He is also trying to count to 3. He kind of skips 1 and goes straight to 2 and then 3, or as he says due, tree! He calls a dog "woof, woof" and gets so excited to see one. He says "cack, cack" a lot, but we are not really sure what he is referring to. Sometimes he is talking about a bird, but other times it is something random that he is pointing to. He calls Gracie "Gace" and makes sure she comes everywhere with us in the house. He is so concerned about her. He points out every ball he sees, and he can spot them out anywhere. He also loves to look up when an airplane goes overhead.
Oh yeah! And great news! We have a name for our 2nd baby boy. His name is Luke.

Will and me...his one and only true love! :)

Beach and Books

Walking the boardwalk to the beach with our friend Carson.

The weather this week finally has been warm...like in the 70's warm. It has been so wonderful. Mike, Will and I have literally lived on our little screened-in-back porch. We sit, relax, eat, read and play out there. I love it!

Monday, since it was so nice, Will and I met some friends on Sullivan's Island for a play-date of sorts. Let me tell you, a play-date at the beach is my kind of get together. I think I could get used to this!
playing with friends.
Will did play with his friends, but he found that chasing seagulls was a lot of fun also. That's him in the back ground, on the move again!

Now, I know I've said it before, but Will now loves to read. He will bring us books constantly and want us to stop everything and read to him, which of course we do. Unfortunately, he always brings the same book: Brown Bear, Brown Bear or Farmer Will.
Brown bear is about to drive us crazy! We hide it, but he always seems to find it. Anyways, I found this tonight. I think I might let Will watch this a few hundred times to see what he thinks!

Baker Will?

Our cake of choice: chocolate with cream cheese icing
Today Will was playing in the pantry and pulled out the cupcake liners. I hadn't baked a cake in awhile, and I had all the stuff, so I figured why not. I even thought, you know, I'll let Will help me. I let him help pour in the water and oil and let him touch the eggs as I cracked them. His little face was so funny! Each time we poured something in the bowl he would say "Oh!" and laugh. He watched as I put the batter into the cups and even watched as I put them into the oven.
After we had mixed the batter, he didn't want anything to do with the hand mixer, but he loved waving the spatula in the air like a sword!

Now, everybody knows the real reason that you make a cake at home: so you can lick the spoon and the bowl! I let Will have one of the beaters from the mixer and this is what happened:




He loved it...and was covered in cake batter. But, good things must always come to and end. Here's what happened when I took his mixer beater away:
Wow! Talk about a meltdown! Don't worry, he didn't stay upset too long!

Our day at the beach

So...its been a few weeks since this happened, but we had a nice weekend in mid-February. Now that we live at the coast, we decided to spend an afternoon at the beach. We packed a picnic lunch, a bucket, shovel and a ball and drove the 25 minute drive to Folly Beach. I wondered how Will would do, the last time he was at the beach he was 10 months old. He liked it then, and he liked it now. Granted, we only played in the sand, but still he had so much fun. He filled up his bucket, chased seagulls and had fun dumping sand on us. It didn't seem like we did too much, but as always, a day at the beach makes you tired. Needless to say, all three of us took a good long Saturday nap when we got home.

Another Boy!

This morning Mike and I went to the doctor for an ultrasound. Around 18-20 weeks they like to take a look at the baby's heart, brain, spine, etc. to make sure that all is developing well. They can also tell you the sex of the baby, which in my opinion is the main reason you want to have the scan done. The first thing the lady asked was, "Do you want to know?" to which I answered "Um, Yeah!!" So, we got the news that we are indeed expecting another boy, which we are thrilled about. I would love to have a girl one day, and if God sees fit for that to happen, then I will be happy. But for now He has chosen to bless us with 2 boys. Yes, I know my life is going to be crazy chasing after these two little ones, having impromptu wrestling matches in the living room, and living at the ball-field, but I can hardly wait to do it!

17 months

Our little Gap model!
Here are some new pictures of our little man. He is getting bigger, faster and smarter everyday! He finally said mommy, but prefers to say daddy. He also loves to say yes and he is trying his hardest to jump. He is a little booger, but we love him!
Playing at a playdate at our friend Laurie's house. The hat and the push toy were the popular toys of the day!


It looks like he is saying "What did I do?". We were at Barnes and Noble after going out to eat for Mike's birthday.
Playing in his turtle classroom at church. He was the first kid that day.
Driving mama's car, or so he thinks!

Snow? In Charleston?

Will and Mike making a snowball.
Yesterday we got the first measurable snow here in Charleston in 10 years. They'd been predicting it since Thursday night, but we had to see it to believe it. I mean, we live minutes from the beach, and beach/snow just don't go together. The crazy thing is, we didn't get a dusting, we got a couple of inches. And they are already talking about more snow for Monday. Wow...and we didn't think we would see snow for awhile after leaving the Atlanta area. All in all, Will like playing in the snow. It was his first time to be out in it and he loved running and crunching in it. When we finally decided to come in, he cried to go back out.