Hallie takes a seat

Check it out: Hallie can sit up all by herself (without aid of bumbo or bath seat)! She has a more solid seating posture than Will did with his first self-supported sitting, and can sit happily for a minute or so.

Hallie's bath pictures: 7 months

Here's my baby girl. Lately she's been really growing up. She "talks" a lot now, holding conversations composed of grunts (not quite this sophisticated yet but she's getting there). Her motor control is rapidly developing: she can roll over from her belly or back, and is showing some initial signs of wanting to crawl. She's also very grabby, and everything she grabs - toys, mom's hair, the cats, TV remotes and video game controllers - goes right into the yap. At least this helps her be a good eater. Very sweetly, she has also begun "kissing" - or as I like to call it, giving "little frenches" - by putting her open mouth on parts of your face. She was giving frenches to Erin in church the other day and wouldn't let up - hilarious.

She is still quite the flirt with her daddy, just about every time she sees me I get huge smiles. She smiles for her mom too but I get some very special daddy smiles. Also you can tell how much she loves and looks up to her big brother.

Here she's mimicking Will's goofy arm movements, very happily playing his game.

visits to Will and Hallie's page as of this post: 20,045

Will won't stop believin'

Check out this masterful air-guitaring (and air-keys/air-drums) by Will of his favorite rock ballad: Don't Stop Believin' by Journey. Will started loving this song during last year's NHL hockey playoffs - it is the themesong of the Detroit Redwings (as far as I can tell, because the "city boy" featured in the song was "born and raised in South Detroit"). But what really put him over the top is that Erin's new favorite TV show, Glee, featured a pretty excellent version of the song in the pilot episode. Since we have it recorded on the DVR, Will and Erin watch it frequently (ok, sometimes me also), and Will busts out the air guitar at just the right point - see for yourself at the end of the video.



We are working on a family version of the song: it is not difficult for me to play on the piano, Erin likes to sing the song (thank you Glee for closing some of the gap between the music interests of Erin and I), and of course Will has his new guitar to rock with.

a pirate party, matey!

The weekend after Will's 3rd birthday, we held a pirate party for captain Will and all his mateys. It was a really great turnout - almost 20 kids and their families came by to join in the fun. We played outside for a couple hours - soccer, tag, and sword fights - while I grilled hotdogs for the kids. Erin made a really impressive pirate cake (above) which was delicious.

The kids ate their lunches inside in the basement, where we set up a "picnic covering" of blankets, expecting (correctly) that the place would get very messy. Then we helped the kids make pirate hats, and decorate them with stickers before singing Will a rousing pirate version of "Happy Birthday". Arrrr!

Birthday movies

Here are some vids we took on Will's birthday:

Will (and dad) open his cool red guitar. Good thing because he's quite the rock star lately (you'll see what I mean in an upcoming post).


Here is a quick video of Will feeding the baby goats at the petting zoo. The same baby goats that he was quite afraid of last year.


Singing and blowing out the candles on his rocket cake!

Birthday boy

A few weeks ago we celebrated Will's 3rd birthday. On the day itself we had a very nice family party, and a week later we had a pirate party for all Will's friends (more on that party in a later post). Anyway, as a 3-year-old, he clearly understands the role of presents in birthday celebrations. Thanks to everyone who sent something - he had a great time opening all his presents and playing with his gifts.

Among some of the cool gifts which we played with right away were a birthday ribbon and a new pirate towel. He wore the ribbon the rest of the day to let everyone know it was his special day.

Check out Will's sweet new guitar! Thanks Grandpa! Dad had some fun with it too.

After a birthday breakfast, we went to the petting zoo. This was the first time we had been to the Domino's Farms zoo in over a year.

It was Hallie's first trip.

We told the petting zoo admissions people that it was Will's big day so they gave him free admission - and a free ticket for a pony ride! He wasn't so sure about it, but we thought about it for awhile and met the horse, then Will decided he was brave enough to ride.

After the pony ride, we headed home for birthday cake. Mom made a sweet rocket ship cake, isn't it impressive? Yes, it is, but wait until you see the pirate cake...

My sweet baby likes to eat

Ok, she finally gets it. In Hallie's most recent bath pictures post, I related some of our adventures in getting her to eat "solid" foods. Last week, she finally took down her first entire bowl of rice cereal. For whatever reason, it took Hallie much longer to figure this out than it did for her big bro.

So having mastered rice cereal, we now get to move on to other, more interesting baby foods. Will chose her first non-cereal food: carrots. This past weekend she got to eat them for the first time, and it totally blew her mind. She also had pears yesterday and today, and this weekend she gets to try peas!

If only there were some nutritional value in piggies...