Busy Busy Busy!

Doesn't it always seem like this time of the year goes by too quickly?  2010 is almost gone and I'm not sure anyone is ready for that!  :)  Last weekend we had to make a quick trip to Washington, D.C. so  Dave could go to a meeting for work.  Will and I went along with him (mostly so I could help with the drive), but we ended up having a lot of fun in just a few days!

Will and I stayed in the hotel room for the most part since I think I would have a nervous breakdown if I had to drive in D.C. for more than a few blocks!  We explored the elevator, hotel diner, and made friends with some of the staff.  I think Will had more fun than all 3 of us combined!  He especially loved the view from our hotel room and the king size bed!  Who could blame him!

View of D.C. from our hotel room.

Will enjoying an indoor picnic with a view!

LOVING the bed!

One of the gas stations we stopped at was next to
a huge chunk of farmland.  They had this little
bench set up so you could take a break and
enjoy the view.  I caught a little "father/son"
moment here...too cute!

Alphabet Fun!

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

When you stop and think about it, an alphabet is a pretty amazing thing.  With this group of letters or symbols, we can communicate effectively and thoughtfully.  It's awesome to look at all the various alphabets in the world and think that somehow, they came up with something that made sense to THEM and kept it around long enough to show it to future generations.  Check out this link on Wikipedia to read up on alphabets and their importance to cultures and civilization worldwide.

A!  Why not start with the first letter?!  We are starting the fun journey of learning the alphabet with Will.  He loves to mimic what we say (and learns several new words a day), so we should probably incorporate the alphabet into this new found game.  In the quest to NOT make this boring for us as parents, I looked up fun facts about all the letters and thought I'd share them.  As we go from A to B to C...etc., we'll share interesting notions about each of the letters.  One should never stop learning, no matter how old (or young) you are.

Enjoy!

• A is the most commonly used letter in the alphabet
• The letter "A" does not appear even once when you spell out the numbers one  through nine-hundred-ninety-nine. 
• link 

"A" can be traced to a pictogram of an ox head in Egyptian hieroglyph or the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet.^[2]

Egyptian	Proto-Semitic ox's head	Phoenician aleph	Greek Alpha	Etruscan A	Roman/Cyrillic A

•  link 

It's POTTY Time!

Lately Will has been coming up to us and saying, "Poop!"  Every time, he has actually been correct!  We took that as a sign that it might be time to get a potty and let him get use to the idea of sitting on it.  We aren't going to go full on with the potty training just yet, but it's the first step to no more diapers!  :)

Will's new "Ducky Potty"

Oh boy, the bathroom door is open!

Hey, what's this thing?

My kind of chair!

Had to bring the potty into the living room after Will had
a minor meltdown when we closed the bathroom door.  :)

WORDS WORDS WORDS!!!

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the following are language milestones a child should reach by age 2:

• Points to object or picture when it’s named for him

• Recognizes names of familiar people, objects, and body parts

• Says several single words (by fifteen to eighteen months)

• Uses simple phrases (by eighteen to twenty-four months)

• Uses two- to four-word sentences

• Follows simple instructions

• Repeats words overheard in conversation

We are pretty amazed with our little guy in everything he does, but his verbal skills are astounding!  He's already doing every one of these milestones at 16 months! He can vocalize and identify over 20 words and understands many others.  We surely weren't ready for him to be communicating at this level so early, but it's kind of fun to see how excited he gets when you understand what he's trying to tell you.  :)

Halloween!

SO it has been a while since we shared updates on here....but there really hasn't been THAT much happening in our little world.  We got into the "normal" routine of things and just went about our normal days! 

Will wasn't too happy wearing his Yoda costume!

Mommy & Will going Trick-or-Treating

We had a nice Halloween this year, even though it wasn't very eventful.  We dressed Will up as Yoda, which he didn't like very much, and made it to one house before he had had enough.  Oh well, he's still young to have "fun" with dressing up and getting candy.  I'm sure next year will be different!

Going up to our first house!

Hooray for Mr. Andrew giving me candy!