15 Months

Will had is 15 month well baby visit yesterday. Dr. H was pleased with his development, but was a little concerned about his size. At 15 months he weighs 17.8lbs and is 26.5 inches tall. His height is below the 3rd percentile for a 9.5 month old and is the average length for a 6 month old. So he wants him to be seen by an endocrinologist. Dr. H doesn't feel that his height can be attributed to his prematurity any more. He does know that genetics is working against Will but feels that it can't hurt to get him checked out just to be sure. Will's appointment with the endocrinologist is on March 11.

If you are interested, there is a pretty neat chart on the CDC's website.

TBR Challenge

I stumbled upon the TBR (to be read) Challenge and decided to give it a try. I haven't been reading as much as I would like over the past 15 months (I wonder why?!?) and think that this might give me a push in the right direction.

The rules:
* the challenge is to read 12 TBR books in 12 months -- you can read those all in one month if you want, or one a month, or however you wanna do it.
* you need to have a list posted somewhere for others to see (even if it's in a comment here)
* you CANNOT change your list after January 1st, 2009!!!
* you can create an Alternates list of MAXIMUM 12 books, if you want, in order to have options to choose from (you can read these in place of books on your original list).
* audiobooks and e-books ARE allowed
* re-reads are NOT allowed, as they aren't TRUE "TBRs"
* you CAN overlap with other challenges
* OPTIONAL: you can join the Yahoo! Group created for participants of the TBR Challenge, if you want to have a place to keep your list, or just to share with others about how you're doing! :)

Here are my TBRs:

1. Twilight finished 1/6/09
2. In Defense of Food
3. Mothering Your Nursing Toddler
4. How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk
5. New Moon finished sometime, forgot to post a review, oops!
6. The Last Lecture
7. Scarpetta
8. Animal, Vegeable, Miracle
9. Black and Blue finished 2/7/09
10. Eat, Pray, Love
11. Silent Knife
12. Odd Hours

Alternates

1. Schindler's List
2. The Choice
3. Lightning
4. The Time Traveler's Wife
5. Running with Scissors finished 4/11/09
6. Eclipse finished 3/18/09
7. Breaking Dawn
8. A is for Alibi
9. Love and Respect
10. Friday Night Knitting Club finished 5/30/09
11. The Thirteenth Tale
12. The Audacity of Hope

My personal goal is to read 18 of these. We'll see how I do.

Spaghetti and Sleep

We had spaghetti for supper tonight. Will tried to use a fork for the first time with it. I guess it wore him out because I looked over at him and he was nodding off. A few minutes later he was fast asleep.

I Got Tagged!

Casey from The Beautiful Letdown tagged me for the Seven Random Things meme.

The Rules:

1. Post the rules on your blog.
2. Write 7 random things about yourself.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post.

1. I am thankful for a working furnace. Ours has gone out twice in the past week. It's working now. Hopefully it will stay that way.
2. I am about to have to leave for work (probably before I get this posted) and am going to freeze. Who thought that soccer made a good winter sport anyway? Again, I'm thankful for a working furnace.
3. Infertility, a failed IVF cycle, a successful IVF cycle, the birth of my twins and losing one of them have changed my life more than I could have ever imagined.
4. I never knew I would have such a wonderful group of friends that I met online. If that makes me a nerd, so be it.
5. I love Christmas ornaments. At last count I have about 250. I also have a spreadsheet documenting when I got them, where I got them, who gave them to me, etc. This also may make me a nerd.
6. Despite my last two facts, I really don't think I'm a nerd.
7. I have finished shopping for Christmas, but I still need to wrap the presents. I have yet to figure out how to do this with a 14 month old trying to "help."

Tag! You're it!

Four Martins
OpheliaZepp (I haven't been ignoring you, but for some reason your posts haven't been showing up in my Google reader account. After I get this posted, I'm off to catch up.)
The Perkins Pack (Anyone who has posting privileges here can do this.)
Life in the Eyes of a Child (Only post if you have permission from your Mommy. I don't want you to get in trouble for blogging when you shouldn't be!)
Lindsey
Mindy
Summer

My Poor Baby!

Will is sick. I noticed that he had a few bumps on his leg the day before Thanksgiving, but didn't think too much about them. Thanksgiving morning he woke up with a fever and bumps all over. The bumps continued to spread and get larger throughout the day. By Friday morning, he looked like this:

I took him to the doctor later Friday morning and he said that Will had erythema multiforme minor. Basically, this means that Will had a virus that caused the fever (and a runny nose) and that his body reacted to the virus by getting this rash. Fortunately, the fever and runny nose should be gone within a few days. Unfortunately, the rash may hang around for a few weeks.

One Year Pictures

We had Will's 1 year pictures made at the beginning of October. Stacey made them and she did a great job. I am so happy with how they turned out. I found her from Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep which is a great organization that takes pictures for families who have lost a child to stillbirth or infant death. There is no charge for this service and the families are able to have professional photographs of their child to remember him or her by. We were blessed to find out about NILMDTS before Lila died and had some wonderful pictures made by one of their photographers. We decided to have Will's one year pictures made by a photographer that volunteers for NILMDTS in order to show our appreciation.

Here are a few of my favorites.





If you are looking for a photographer in the Memphis area, I can't recommend Stacey enough. If you aren't near Memphis I suggest looking at Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep to find a photographer and support them as they support so many parents.

Walking!

Today Will has walked more than he has crawled. I am having so much fun watching the determination on his face as he keeps his eyes on where he is going. He looks so proud of himself.

Ok, I had to take a break while I was writing about his walking because I looked up and found him sitting in his truck. I wasn't able to get a picture of him actually sitting in it, but I was able to get a few cute shots.

I just found out that my best friend from high school has breast cancer. Please pray for her and her family. I know she'd appreciate it.

One Year, One Month, One Week, and One Day

I had every intention of posting this on November 4, 2008, but my hard drive had other plans. I'm back up and running now so I thought I'd post it anyway. No pictures since my old hard drive took them with it to it's grave. Don't worry, though. I have them all on the memory sticks from the camera, I just haven't re-uploaded them to the computer yet.

Will is 13 months and 8 days old today. I thought this was a fitting day for a post about what he has been up to.

He is crawling very fast and if you set him down for just a second, he will be gone before you know it.

He can walk if he is holding on to something (a truck, a play table, a small basketball goal, a couch, etc.).

He loves playing with balls and likes turning off the light before bed.

He still enjoys bath time.

He likes to brush his tooth. Yes, he still has only one tooth.

He can say dada, mama, and bye bye. I think he is saying "fan" when he points to the ceiling fan, but it sounds more like "daa."

He likes to wave and clap.

He points at everything and likes to hear you name what he is pointing to.

He loves to play with Daddy's cell phone, but is not allowed to play with it very often because Daddy is worried about it getting water damage from all the drool.

He really enjoys eating and the only thing that I have found that he doesn't like is oatmeal.

He is fond of rearranging the kitchen chairs and looks so proud of himself when you catch him in the act.

His eyes light up when Daddy gets home from work.

He is still not a fan of diaper changes or sleeping.

It's hard to believe that it's been over a year since he came home from the hospital. It's also difficult to remember what life was like before he arrived.

First Steps!

Will took his first step yesterday! I had finished loading the dishwasher and Will "helped" me close the door. He stood there for a minute looking at his reflection in the dishwasher door. Then he looked at me and took a step toward me before he sat down. I was so proud. He is so proud as well. He has so much fun pushing anything and everything all around the house. He goes pretty fast when he's pushing his big Tonka truck.

Happy Very Belated Birthday Will!

Ok, since I have received numerous requests (mostly from Nana, Meme and her PS buddies) for birthday pictures, I thought I better get some put on the blog before I get disowned. Sorry it took me so long, but Will has finally decided to get some teeth! As a result, he has decided that he doesn't want to sleep. Oh yeah, he'd rather play than sleep too. Makes for one tired mama! Yesterday he napped for all of 30 minutes...

Anyway, here are some pictures from his birthday.

Eating yogurt for breakfast. It's one of his favorites (of course, he likes everything, so who can tell?).

Nana giving him a bath so he doesn't have yogurt all over him for his big day

Our first stop of the day was his cousin Anna's soccer game.Will hanging out with Aunt Debbie

Laughing with Uncle Bryan

Mommy, why won't you let me crawl on the soccer field?

Our second stop of the day was the Tiger's football game. Pouncer's Pals got to march around the field before kickoff, so of course we had to go do that.

The TSF kids before the march

Mommy and Will marching

Will eating Daddy's credentials

Will thinking that it is very hot and he wants to leave

Our last stop before the party was Memorial Park to visit Lila's grave.

And finally, the main event: Will's first birthday party at Aunt Debbie's house. Thank you so much for letting us have the party there. We all really enjoyed it.

Will chillin' with Papa

This cake took me forever to do and it is only about 6 inches tall. I don't think I have cake decorating in my future. My hand cramped up about half an inch into it. I had planned on making several of these so that each of the little kids could have one, but that idea quickly changed.

Sitting on Great-Granddaddy's lap This is my favorite picture of the day.

Opening the Duplos from Meme and Granddaddy.

Will and his cousins, Taylor and Wyatt, in the wagon

He's not quite sure what to do with the cake that I made for him.

He figured it out!

What a mess!

He loves sharing his food with his Daddy.

Daniel, Will, and Daddy swimming after the party

I guess it's better late than never. I did manage to get these pics up before he turned 13 months, so I think that's an accomplishment.

I Made 66 Cents!

Ok, that may not sound like a lot, but it's the first time I've made money by going to Walgreens. I bought 1 bottle of Garnier conditioner, 2 bottles of Garnier shampoo, 2 candles and 1 package of Breath Savers. I bought the candles and Breath Savers so that I could use all my coupons. I paid $9.44 and will get back $10.10 in rebates on a Walgreen's gift card in the next week or so. Then I can use the gift card to get even more good deals!

Another Walgreen's Trip

A small trip, but it was well worth the time and the money saved. I came home with one bottle of Pantene shampoo, one bottle of Pantene conditioner, one jar of Pantene styling wax, and two bottles of Walgreen's body wash. After my register rewards (RR) and coupons, this rang up for $9.56. I received $2 RR as well as a $5 rebate. Since I had my rebate put on a Walgreen's gift card, I received an extra 10%. So when it's all said and done, I got all this for $2.06!

Will and the Dishwasher

This is my favorite photo from this evening. I was trying to clean up the kitchen after dinner and I found a little helper. Of course, I had to stop cleaning and take some pictures. 

$18.78!

It wasn't the most nutritious trip to Kroger that I have ever taken, but I saved a lot of money. I got 2 cans of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup, 2 cans of Campbell's Tomato Soup, 3 boxes of fruit snacks, 2 packages of Pillsbury cookie dough, 1 package of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, 1 package of Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls, 1 package of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish, 2 packages of Toaster Strudel, and a package of Chex Mix. I got all this for $18.78. That's a savings of 48% off regular price! I was so excited. I think I'll make some shipwreck (a supper-yummy casserole that I haven't made in forever) with the tomato soup, use the fruit snacks for goody bags for Will's birthday and eat the rest.