All the single Willies

This is an interesting video of Will watching TV. First, you see him dancing the choreography to Beyonce's "All the Single Ladies". Which is hilarious. But then you see that he's not watching a music video, but a football game, and he gets appropriately enthusiastic when the game is won with a long touchdown pass.



If you are as confused as you should be and want to know what's going on, it is from an episode of Glee (one of Will and Erin's favorite shows to watch together). Consider yourself warned: this cannot be unwatched.

Will and Hallie help rake leaves

A few weeks ago we raked leaves together outside on a beautiful fall afternoon. Will already knows how much fun it is to play in the leaves, but this was Hallie's first experience. Will was technically "helping rake" with his plastic toy rake. But much of this helping involved bellyflopping in the leaves and then having me rake more leaves over the top of him. There were several leaves in and under his clothes for the rest of the day.

Hallie started in the 'stein but quickly deduced it would be much more fun in the leaf pile with her brother. She was right.

whistlin' Willie

Will demonstrates his new ability to whistle. Pretty good, huh?

the Halloween adventures of Captain Will and his pirate posse

We had a great Halloween, highlighted by a couple fun parties. Last year Will was just barely old enough to understand that there was some reason to be dressing up in costumes, and there was candy. This year, he was very excited to be dressed up (plus he got to hold a "thord" and take it to school) and he was a very active participant in trick-or-treating. Above is a very nice picture at the beginning of the day. Will was, of course, a pirate, Erin dressed as some kind of cat for the morning, and Hallie was a chili pepper. Hallie, like her mother, had several outfits that needed to be worn at some point during the day, so you'll see multiple costume changes in this post.

First stop: Will and Hallie's school for their Halloween party!

The kids got to do a bunch of special activities, like decorate pumpkins and cookies (and eat the cookies).

Here Will's playing "pin the ...mouth?... on the pumpkin"

Then when the parents came to pick everyone up at the end of the day, they had a costume parade!

Here Hallie's showing off costume #2: the classic infant pumpkin outfit.

Here Will's posing with the pumpkin he decorated at school, and two pirate pumpkins we made together. We had to make sure they were all set to impress our trick-or-treaters.

This year some of our neighbors hosted a neighborhood Halloween party. Lots of kids about Will's age and their families congregated at a house with a pirate fort in the backyard, perfect for Cap'n Will! There was even some pirate booty that Will found and got to take home.

Here Will's posing with his best pirate matey.

We had a whole pirate posse at the party. On the left, Erin was a pirate wench, and Hallie dressed as a pirate parrot (ok, so she it was a chicken costume, but she looked so cute nobody minded if we called her our parrot).

Then the kids went out trick-or-treating, followed by the crowd of parents. Will did a great job - he made it all the way around the block, said "thank you" at every house, and was very excited to get so much candy (sadly, most of the candy he got had milk chocolate or nuts in them so they became dad's candy).

After about a half hour, Will had been walking long enough and had to go potty so we thanked and said goodbye to our friends and went home to prepare for our own trick-or-treaters. Just like his mama, Will really enjoyed offering the bowl of candy to the trick-or-treaters, and was very excited whenever someone new came to the door.

Erin always keeps track, and we had a pretty good year for trick-or-treaters - nearly 70 kids came to our door. Good thing Will got so much candy for dad because there was very little left over from our home stash!

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!