Over the past year, Will's interest in large vehicles has shifted from buses to firetrucks - the bigger and redder, the better. This is evident in his treasured firetruck Easter basket (which has a working siren, awesome), and his rainy day getup. Shortly before Hallie was born, we went to the Michigan Firehouse museum where there were many cool trucks and fireman equipment. Then shortly after she was born, Erin took Hallie and Will to a local event called "Touch a Truck" where they had firetrucks that kids could climb on/in. Unfortunately every other child in the Ann Arbor area also likes firetrucks so they literally waited in line for an hour to get a turn with the truck. That didn't go over so well with little Hallie so they were not able to stay at the event as long as Will would have liked, I'm sure.
Anyway, one day a friend of ours saw Will's sweet firetruck rain boots when he wore them on a rainy day walk to church. Her husband was a fireman and she was organizing an event in nearby Belleville that was very similar to Touch a Truck. The day before we left for our vacation, we went to this event, and this time Will got to do lots more with all the vehicles.
Besides firetrucks they also had an ambulance and a POLICE MOCACYCAL!
YAAH!
Finally, Will got to shoot a firehose! what fun.
Then when we were visiting Grandma and Grandpa in Madison, Grandma Brenda took Will on a special visit to the nearby firestation. There firemen Will and Jeff (there were several of them with each of those names apparently, much to my son's excitement) each helped him on teh firetruck and gave him a fun coloring book.
When Hallie cries about something (happens all the time), Will is very good at comforting her - singing to her, giving her hugs and kisses, and helping put her sucker in her mouth. This time she was particularly upset so Will tried giving her a bunch of things that cheer him up when he's sad: his frog doll, cell phone, and firetruck Easter basket. It worked, she stopped crying!
After a lot of effort to get her started, Hallie has been smiling a lot lately. Sometimes she smiles at me, or Erin, or Will, or one of her grandparents or the cats or anyone else. She also likes to smile at the zebra we hang from her carseat. And sometimes she smiles at strange things.
Here we are at Grandma Brenda's and Grandpa Paul's house. Hallie is having a happy time in Don, looking at something that obviously is making her very happy...
Is it the refrigerator? That would be understandable, it can make daddy smile...
No, she is just very happy to see Grandpa's soccer schedule. Aww.
She looked at this for several minutes while we had a good laugh watching her and seeing how entertaining it was for her. Maybe she will be a soccer player. Or someone who works with schedules.
Hey everyone, we're back from our fantastic 2-week vacation visiting our family. We have lots of pictures which I will post/blog about soon after I get caught up a bit. In the meantime and to get the blog ball rolling, I wanted to share about the great father's day presents I got.
First, when we were at the Lodge, Will made Grandpa Mike and I some very nice pictures of the three of us riding in the back of Grandpa's Mario kart. These were made in secret while Grandpa and I were out running errands and playing, and it was a bit mysterious later in the day that Will had all kinds of paint and glitter on his face and in his hair.
I also got a really special present last night when we finally arrived home in Ann Arbor after 13+ hours in the car. Will and Hallie (and Erin) got me a Rubik's cube - one of my favorite puzzle toys - where the stickers on each face are made up of some of my favorite pictures of my two children - like this one and this one.
Erin also gave me a card, in which she wrote verbatim Will's response to the question of why he liked his daddy: "I yike my daddy because he pay Marna Race and bean bags and he yike to pay football wiff me and he make happy birfdays."
Hello from Wisconsin! We are on vacation visiting Grandmas and Grandpas - Hallie's first major trip. This week has been visiting Grandma Brenda and Grandpa Paul, Uncle Jeff and Aunt Sara in Madison, and tomorrow we're heading up North to the Lincoln Lodge to see Grandpa Mike, Grandma Susie, and AJ. Hallie was 2 months old on Wednesday so we took her bath pictures as she was bathed in the kitchen sink.
With children this little they don't do much that can be reported but the big story from the past month was that Hallie started smiling. And as long as she's fed and not sleepy she smiles quite a lot now, it is the best thing in the world to see. She is such a sweetheart. The other thing worth reporting is that Hallie is really good to her mom & dad with her sleep schedule. Most nights she only wakes up one time to be changed and fed, and (usually) she is not very hard to coax back to sleep. In that regard, Erin and I both agree that she has been much easier than her wigglemonster big brother.
We owe a lot of her sweetness to the bouncy chair, which we have named "Don Bouncy" for some reason I can no longer recall but had something to do with Will's infant utterances when he sat in it. The ultimate weapon for cheering Hallie up when she's mad is to put her in Don, turn on the chair's vibration, plug her with a sucker, and start bouncing her. Works every time.
Her hair sticks up in back perpetually, it's pretty funny to see Erin try to style it because it doesn't cooperate. I think it's really cute. You can see that even when her hair is wet it still wants to mohawk a little bit.
Even though she has her own look, you can see a lot of similarities with this guy.
