Blizzard 2010!!!!

Those snow piles on the bushes remind me of the buttes in the southwest...



It's gonna take a while to clean off all that snow!

William is getting braver and braver at diving in to the drifts!

William and Mommy climb the mountain of snow by the town square!

Daddy continues the tradition of placing the baby on high surfaces...

The storm came in slowly yesterday, but picked up speed fast! We had at least 6 inches on the ground last night before we went to bed and it was coming down at 2 inches an hour over night!
Thankfully we are safe and sound here at home and Jason doesn't have to go into work till tomorrow. He has about a 5 minute drive so I think he won't have too much trouble. William loves the snow and we walked for about 45 minutes this morning, then we decided to go home when we realized that even Starbucks was CLOSED!!! Who knew that could happen? The panic that ensued before this storm was kinda comical. People were rushing to the grocery store on Thursday night and when we casually stopped by for milk and eggs we found a full parking lot, throngs of shoppers and everything so picked over, you would have thought we were going to be snowed in for months! There was NO BUTTER!, only whole milk left and very few eggs. All the produce was gone, even grapes and mushrooms! I have been struggling to keep William busy and avoid more TV time, so I brought out the Fisher Price Little People yesterday. I haven't been letting him play with them until now because of the choking hazard, but he doesn't automatically put everything in his mouth anymore, so I figured we are safe. He loves them! He has been having a ball and they are so much more fun than the new little people. I was having a good time too, reminiscing about all the fun we used to have with them.

Big Boy Bed Complete!

I finally found some cute bedding for William that I really liked and I felt like he could grow with. I think the monkey/jungle motif also matches his bed nicely. I think I may spray paint something with a stencil on the end of the bed like "This End Up- Live Animal!" I thought it might be funny, especially since this bed has a rustic, boxy look. William is fascinated with the new bedding, and wanted to sleep on it today at nap, to which I eagerly agreed. I went in to check on him about an hour later and he was fast asleep in his crib wearing his rubber frog boots, so I guess it will take time for him to transition. He is 23 months old tomorrow! It makes me kinda sad to see my little baby turning into a big boy. He is speaking more and more full sentences now, for example he said "Where is Richard?" We replied, "I don't know, Where is Richard?" Will said "Richard is in England!" So funny. He sings constantly, he loves Sesame Street songs, especially "C is for Cookie" and "Sunny Day". His absolute favorite thing right now is trucks, any and all of them! He knows most of them by name, Semi-truck, Dump Truck, Front End Loader, Cement Mixer, Bull Dozer, etc. He has memorized quite a few books and goes around randomly reciting them. He loves one called "Bark George" and he will randomly say "NOOOO George!" at various times throughout the day. He finally learned to drink from a straw and much to my dismay, actually ate some steak tonight! Who knew he had the molars for that!? He has become much more affectionate, and will not only kiss and hug us, but kisses and hugs all his stuffed animals and his rocking puppy. His "pretend" button has switched to full power and he makes cows drive tractors and sheep play the piano while making the sounds for the machinery. It is amazing to see his change and develop all these new skills! Jason and I are really enjoying this time with him, he is so charming most of the time right now, and it makes it really hard to discipline him at all!

It's Climate CHANGE, Not Global Warming....

We are having such a crazy, cold winter! 15 degrees tonight! William and Daddy braved the snow for some playtime today and I don't think I have ever seen his little cheeks that red when they came back in!!

One Flew Over the Baby Gate....

So, William as you may know has for the last 21 and a 1/2 months been a CHAMPION sleeper! He has been sleeping at least a solid 8 hours from about 10 weeks and has been sleeping 11 to 12 hours for the last year and a half. "We are so lucky!" we said to each other every day. Then Christmas happened. We had relatives visit, so Will had exciting roommates, first us and then Aunt Molly. This seems to have inspired a desire for communal living, something Jason and I don't enjoy one bit! The first obstacle: William can easily, and I mean EASILY climb out of his crib, he just couldn't climb back in. He also knows how to open the door to his room and our room in a snap! Combine that with the fact he is getting older and requiring less sleep, plus this new found feeling of Independence and you can imagine how life has been around here. Crazy. We still do the same routine for bed; bath,book,bottle,brush teeth, rock and sleep, and he seems fine with going to sleep then in a few minutes we hear the knob and the nightly floor show starts! "HI!!!" he says brightly "How you doin?" Then we catch him and take him right back saying simply "Night Night". ( A La' Super Nanny) We repeat it over and over and over. Ugh. So last night we got smart thanks to Dr Ferber and put up a baby gate to his room. Last night we only had to redo bedtime ONE time. Today at nap I had to repeat 3 times, but that's not as bad as it was. So, we will see. I can only imagine it won't be long before he can pole vault that baby gate and then we are in big trouble!

National Building Museum...

Once you've lived in DC long enough, you start to run out of new things to do. Hence, we decided to visit the National Building Museum, which was surprisingly delightful. Though it didn't have the best exhibits for us, there was a large area for Will to run around and a construction room that Will decided was also useful for his deconstructions.

What lovely towers. But can they withstand an F9 on the William scale?

Down it comes!

Guess the design could use a little work.

Will was fascinated by this checkerboard stage. He was running on it while the workers were installing it.

Playing with massive rubbery legos.

And only some of the mess in the background was due to Will. We figure they must use a large snow shovel to pick up the scattered items.

Look, Ma! No cavities!

Today was William's first visit to the dentist. We wanted to get his chipped tooth checked (from back in December). Thankfully, she said it didn't need treatment because it was a baby tooth. He had a great time at the dentist's office, though! His favorite thing was a display of diseased teeth. Everything checked out great, and they don't want to see him again for six months!

Sunny Day....