Got to love Menards!

William had a ton of fun today at Menards, there's the garden center just being set up (no fountains on yet), the door area with lots of doors to open and close, the patio set area with swing chairs, mailboxes and other fun stuff, and seed packets.  I swear we have enough seeds to plant our whole lawn with, we are going to have to pick and choose when we finally put in our garden.

Pictures from the week...

Chilling watching Sophia while Daddy reads.  I had to order 5T pajamas to keep the long torso covered.

William and I made Turtle bread, found an old cookbook with A to Z recipes for kids.

Grandma Mc's new quilt has become a favorite in that it has to come every he goes in the house!

Funny faces at our art table.

William is pretty well potty trained now and prefers underwear to diapers.  We still put them on for sleeping, but he is doing better at telling Mom and Dad when he has to go.  And the accidents he has are smaller, stopped before they get too big.  So that is good, diaper consumption is finally decreasing!

We have been doing a lot of cooking together, William wanted to make pink ice cream the other night so off to the store we went.  And it had to be Pick and Save, because they have the "medium carts" the carts with a small storage area but full height that William can now barely see over.  I am missing my Festival foods, but hopefully the lure of free jello will call William back to Festival soon.  Our strawberry ice cream turned out wonderful; we used a jar of our strawberry jam and might have to make another batch again soon.

Earlier today I saw big fluffy snowflakes again, urgh.  I am so ready for spring.  I want to see flowers and grass and birds and go outside with out hats and mittens.  I hope things turn around in April or I am going to go bezerk with spring fever.

We are off to Minnesota for Easter and look forward to seeing lots of friends and family!

Happy St. Patricks Day

Having fun with our train set...

Out for a walk in the not so springy weather.  We had our puddle boots on ready for splashing, and they were put to good use.

The guys with their Irish shirts on...

Thanks Mom and Dad for a great visit, good food, a chance to get out sans child, and fun with William's toys.

Humor

William is deep into finding out what makes him laugh...Toots top the list, both him and Daddy laugh and laugh when one of them toots.  Funny noises that Daddy makes, that sound like... you guessed it farts is also high on the giggle list.

This week he discovered "Sophia the First" on the I pad and has had fun laughing at their silly dances on the sleep over show.  "Jungle Junction" wasn't on there this week so Sophia has become the thing to watch.  It's about a princess, but has good morals for boys or girls.

William is showing more character when he doesn't get his way.  First the frown comes out, then the head drops down, and then if we really need some drama, we fall to the floor to pout.  The changeable 3 year old in pictures:  

One minute completely sad because Momma said no to something.

The next moment laughing a funny noises Momma was making from behind the camera.

 

William and Murphy playing "tug-o-war" together.

 

Sporting a new dress up hat Will found at Target.

Showing off our sock puppets we made this weekend.

Modern Marbles

Quotes from William this week...

"I need more hole!" as he was climbing through my legs.  Guess he is getting a bit bigger these days and needs a larger hole to climb through.

"Where did the firefighters take the fire?", after we talked about a house that had a major fire a ways up the street.  I told him the firefighters put the fire out and he wanted to know where they took it after they put it out.  I didn't have a good answer for that but I explained that fires should only be in fireplaces or in the campfire ring.  That got him starting talking about G&G Mc's cabin and marshmellows.

"I want to watch Modern Marbles", referring to Modern Marvels the TV show that apparently he,  G&G S and Daddy were watching while I was traveling.

We also tried some interesting science experiments this week...

Pickles dipped in huckleberry jam are apparently very tasty. 

We melted "icebergs" (mini ice cubes) in hot water.

We found some large floor puzzles at the mall and are having fun with them. The farm one is especially fun as you have to find and count all the animals after the puzzle is put together.

And had fun painting water on the basement floor as seen below with Murphy.

I feel guilty but that is all the pictures I took this week.  I am sick of the snow and need it to melt so we can get outside and take some spring pictures!

Random stuff...

My laundry helper, busy at his job.  We have to help out with the laundry every once in a while, just so Adam can't say that he does it ALL the time.

Zooming around on the scooter in the basement, followed close behind by his "friend".  William now calls Murphy (or Nurphy, as Will calls him) his friend.  They play tug-o-war, fetch and even do tricks together.  Meaning that William follows the commands, "sit, lay-down, roll over" while Murphy follows too.  Then William rewards Murphy with treats.

 William has had a stubborn, dry, bloody nose for the last week or so.  We have the humidifier on, torture him with Vaseline, but still it remains.

William and Adam have been big into Spaceship books lately.  William can now tell you lots about planets, rockets and his favorite the lunar modules.  Come on over if you want an education about NASA and space!

Let's see, what other random stuff can I tell you.  I am finally starting to feel better, I went into the doctor on Monday and was diagnosed with Strep Throat.  I think William and Adam had it a couple weeks ago, but as they didn't have fevers we never go them into the doctor and on meds.  We will have to see if they flare up again.  William was very fragile emotionally, wasn't sleeping well or eating well.  Now I know to suspect Strep with those symptoms.

Adam surprised us with another Dynamo, yes, we now have two.  The old one only printed black on white, the new one apparently does white on black, which is just want we needed.  That is if you buy a different cartridge.  Sensing a little sarcasm I hope.

William has become fascinated with toe-jams, every time the socks come off he has to sit for 5-10 minutes searching between all toes and removing any found fuzzies.

I am off to the hopefully warmer state of Georgia for a business trip early this week, so Grandma and Grandpa S just got into town to help watch William.  Should be a blast of puzzles, coloring and fun!

From the World of William

Concerns this week:  William was afraid that Noah was going to roar at him when he gave him a valentine.  Thankfully the report was that Noah did not roar.

Comparing sizes:  Anything big is compared with Uncle Kevin, Dad and Uncle Dan as they are all big.

Poor Daddy, trying to get in a nap during bath, but was interrupted by a diaper clad guy and his froggie.

Puzzles and more puzzles!

 We headed to the sledding hill last Sunday.  Will and I made it down twice before William wanted to do other things like make snow angels, throw snow balls, eat snow or get pulled in the sled while saying "Whee, I'm sledding!"

Best I could get of the two of us.

Puzzles

William is mad about puzzles right now.  We pulled out some he got a couple years ago that said 3+ and now he is doing those well.  We also had fun singing the alphabet song while we put together the Alphabet train puzzle we have.  He recognizes almost every letter, just sometimes gets M and W confused.

His recognition of the letters mostly centers around the kiddos at school and other familiar favorites so ...

A for Aiden and Alison
B for Bentley
C for Connor
D for Danielle (teacher) and Daddy
E for Eli and Ella
F for Froggie (his stuffed animal)
G for Gina
H for Helen the Hippo (Character in the Spot series books)
I for ice cubes and ice cream
J for Jackson and Joy (teacher)
K for Killian
L for Lacey and Lexi
M for McKenna and Mommy
N for Noah
O for Olivia
P for Patty (teacher)
Q for queen and quilt
R for Rhonda (his main teacher)
S for sea stars and sand castles
T for Taylor
U for umbrella
V for Vivian
W for William of course
X for x-ray and xylophone
Y for yo-yo
Z for zebra

Getting yelled at for taking pictures.

A little out of focus, but loved the pose.

Stickers seem to all of a sudden be a big thing.  Will went into a big story about a sticker board and Momma getting stickers because she was a good girl, Daddy on the other hand apparently miss-behaved (something about not picking up his toys after he was done playing with them) and didn't get a sticker but got a X next to his name on the make believe sticker chart.  This morning I was plastered with stickers from my head to my toes, and then again when I got dressed.  I am guessing they started something at school with a behavior board or something and stickers.

Last night I was awoken at 3am to crying, somehow in his padded and cannopied bed he had hurt his finger.  We had to go get a band-aid (thought that was interesting as he usually wont allow them to be put put on) so we could show Rhonda his daycare teacher in the morning.  I didn't correct him that it was going to be Saturday as I could foresee an argument about what day it was.  The then annouced he was done sleeping, as I wasn't, I convinced him back into his room.  We rocked for 20 minutes had another long conversation about how Daddy was getting an X near his name for not picking up his toys. 

After a diaper change and a demand for fresh water (what he had apparently was no longer good) I hastily deposited him back in bed at 4:30am, closed the door and shuffled back to bed.  Only then to have to deal with Murphy who had now roused himself and decided it was time to go outside, get a drink of water and then cough for 5 minutes after drinking (something he does almost every time after drinking water), very annoying.  I think I got back to sleep at around 5 and was very glad to be able to sleep in till the very late hour of 8am as Adam didn't work last night and didn't have to kick me out of our room to sleep.


Sad to think that 8am is now sleeping in.  Ah the joy's of motherhood.  Will and I had fun at the library this morning, got groceries and had lunch at Culver's.  Who knows whats on for tonight, maybe some more stickers, we'll see.