wrc . 9 months

that smile. you light up my whole heart with it.

you continue to win your brothers over day by day. they now fight for your attention and play time.

oh my you love to play. you play so well alone when you have the opportunity. your brothers keep you busy in all of their make believe. you eat it up and love to be a part of what they are doing.

you are talking talking. you say "woof woof" when we ask what the doggie says. you are waving lots. you are starting to sign back to me. you have your own signs back but they are consistent with what you are trying to communicate.

you prefer to feed yourself. you will only let us feed you yogurt and sweet potatoes. other then that, you want something that you can do by yourself. everything i have made for to eat, you refuse. but if i cut up little pieces for you to feed yourself, you will eat all day! i guess it's better that way.

your top two teeth poked through last saturday. you were a sad little man that afternoon but after a good snuggle with mommy and a nice walk by the river, you perked up!

tucker has started ONLY calling you william. this is a step up from willie which he insisted was your name a couple of months ago. grey still calls you will buddy most of the time. and mommy and daddy call you all sorts of things. like will baby, wilbur, sir william, wills, pooks, and whatever else happens to come out in the moment.

you love when daddy comes home from work. he scoops you up and throws you into the air. you giggle, giggle, giggle. and enjoy some time with him until your brothers come inside and then it's a constant wrestling match until bedtime. but you are starting to join in on that a bit too.

i snuck in to get a few snaps of you sleeping the other day. you were all snuggled up with your little lamb. your sleeping habits are moving backwards yet again with your two top teeth making an entrance. thankfully you are a happy happy boy regardless!

as we have been doing lots and lots of christmas baking, you haven't missed out on it. you are right at my feet wherever i go, watching a waiting.

your favorite toys are paper, magazines, and the christmas tree! you enjoy taking all the ornaments off, looking at them, and letting us redecorate. my small magazine basket is a treasure trove in your eyes. you love to tear them all up and leave little trails behind you as you crawl off to some other exploration.

we are praying for that little heart of yours even now at such a young age. the Lord has great things in store for you to be and do for Him. we love you william reeves.

donuts and lights

we headed out this week for our traditional "donuts and lights night!" this one may come back around again this season because everyone's a fan. even the william! 

tucker chose a donut with pink frosting and sprinkles and grey had one with white frosting a sprinkles. matthew and i shared a donut with each other and will may or may not have gotten a little taste. and he may or may not have LOVED it. naturally.

then we set off around town to "oooo" and "ahhh" at the festive displays!

the weekend

poppie and marmie joined in our christmas festivities this past weekend. 

the four of us dropped all the boys off at church friday evening for parents night out. (sidenote: this is quite possibly one of the best ministries to families. twice a year our church offers FREE childcare for the evening complete with dinner for the kids. how awesome is that?!) then headed to cantina 1511 to eat some of the absolute best mexican food around. just the four of us.

we sat down and i thought about how long it had been since we got to eat a meal with JUST my parents. and have conversation. and eat an entire meal sitting down together. it was great! then we stopped into amelie's to grab some coffee and dessert. what a nice evening!

saturday morning the boys woke up so excited to go to cracker barrell! they were so good and ended up eating more than any of us adults. 

their advent box for the day was to make ornaments at the pottery painting place. this is a tradition with poppie and marmie.

saturday afternoon as my mom and i were out doing a little shopping, i got a call from matthew that someone was offering us tickets to the ACC Championship game that night. what?! when we woke up that morning i asked matthew if he wished he was going to get to go to the game. of course he replied yes! he has been to at least one clemson game since 1997 for heavens sake. neither one of us had the opportunity to go to one all year. 

the senario was perfect. my parents were already in town planning to babysit for us to go on a date so we adorned ourselves in clemson attire and rode the train downtown to watch the tigers play. now matthew and i had totally prepared ourselves for a big loss. not that we don't have faith but come on. the end of our regular season was a sad one. but instead, the tigers played like they were playing at the beginning of the season! and i found myself jumping and cheering my heart out right smack dab in the middle of all the VT fans! thankfully we made friends with most of the people around us so they didn't mind my out of control excitement just to sing tiger rag in the stands with at least 40,000 other clemson fans. i sure am thankful we got to go see the tigers win!

it was a better date than we could have dreamed up.

{notice all the VT fans had cleared out of there}

we rode the train back to pineville after the game and i was crammed in next to 2 current students at clemson. we talked for a few minutes and then i proceeded to sound like a 90 year old woman when i said, "live it up, these are some of the best days of your lives!" but i was totally serious. and they totally agreed. 

the boys had a date at home with poppie and marmie. movie night and milkshakes. i think we all came out with a win.

we were all sad to see poppie and marmie hit the road sunday afternoon after a delicious birthday lunch for poppie. but marmie will definitely be back soon. it was such a nice relaxing (and exciting) weekend!

a tale

i caught the boys playing in will's room yesterday. they had their own story and i would never break into their world but to snap a few shots of moments i want to remember forever. will was even in on this one. i watched as he loved every second of being toted around and told what to do and where to sit. 

beginning advent 2011

the boys are loving the christmas season.

matthew and i are enjoying sitting back and watching the joy in their eyes. it's just as i remember it as a child. 

we started our advent boxes a little early this year as to finish all 25 before we leave for our christmas travels. the first box revealed that we would be reading the story of when God placed the star in the sky to lead the shepherds and wisemen to Jesus. along with this we would put our star on top of the tree and decorate it. 

it was tuck's year to put the star on and he did an excellent job trying. more so, matthew did an excellent job balancing both boys to take part in this.

and oh my word! they LOVED decorating the tree!!! they would have stayed up all night. in fact, tucker couldn't go to sleep he was so excited about it. he kept coming downstairs just to sit on the couch and look at it. he would say, "ooo! i put the star on top and decorated the tree. it's so pretty!" we couldn't resist letting him stay up just to look at the pretty tree. 

it's fun to hear grey ask about specific things he found in our boxes last year. he remembers! and is looking forward to each day. and oh that tuck man. he is thrilled with anything we do together.

all of our boxes are different. some boxes reveal bigger, more involved things than others. some are very very simple. the other morning we read the entire nativity story as a family and used our little people nativity to act it out.  the boys really liked this. they added some other props to the story but nonetheless, they enjoyed it! i'm sure there were dump trucks, alligators, cranes, and excavators at the manger.

here's a few other favorite snapshots from the past couple of weeks. matthew remembers making box cars when he was a little boy. and now i know why! they played in this thing for a good long while. will even got in on the action and had a blast!

marmie and poppie were here this weekend for our christmas fun! that's another post.