Will's First Soccer Practice

Will has been looking forward to soccer for weeks now and tonight was the big night - his first practice.  He woke up at 7 a.m. this morning ready to go!  What a long day we had waiting until 6:15 p.m.

Will was actually excited for me to take pictures of him.
He said "You can take like 100 - No, more than that!"

They started with warm-ups - toe touches then jumping jacks. 
The jumping jacks were particularly fun to watch!

Will was excited to take his turn as goalie.  He had asked me on the way there if
he could be goalie.  I think he liked having an excuse to fall down!

Caleb getting his shot at the goal.



Natalee made a great shot and Will did a good job blocking it - they'll make a good team!

Will took one pretty good ball to the gut but got right back up.
Monica, his coach (and Caleb's mom) was proud of him for being so tough!



Our Family Vacation to Las Vegas and The Grand Canyon

Valentine's Day Cookies

We baked Valentine's Day cookies with Natalee and Brady again this year.  We all had so much fun this time (a big contrast to the stressful evening we had baking Christmas cookies)!  We planned much better this time.  Improvements included painting on the icing, taking a break between rolling the dough and icing the cookies, and encouraging Will to use larger sprinkles rather than the sugar crystal ones. 

Will's dough rolling skills have improved greatly.  He also got much better at
getting more than one cookie out of the dough each time he rolls it.  I was proud of them all
for sharing the two cookie cutters among the three of them without any argument!

This is Grandma Nelson's rolling pin.
I know she would be so proud to see Will using it. 

I talked him into one big smile for the camera!



All the kids were ready to sit down and focus on the icing after they ran
numerous laps around Lindsay's house while the cookies were baking and cooling.



Last time, the kids (especially Will) piled TONS of M&Ms on each cookie.  This time, to
make sure we had enough M&Ms and to practice counting, we made a limit of 5
M&Ms per cookie.  They really did good with that since there was only
one over-the-limit cookie by the end.

You'll notice there is much less decoration on the cookies this time.  That is due in part
to the fact that Will's motivation this time was to decorate as many big
cookies as quickly as he could.  He was operating under the
assumption that all the cookies he decorated were
his to eat!  He slowed down after I explained
they were all to share.

Playing with Daddy

Will loved playing with Jerry in the evenings - whether it's Wii, cars, or board games.  Tonight Will decided on a puzzle/numbers game he got for Christmas.  

A Rare Opportunity

It's almost 60 degrees outside today!  We took advantage of the nice weather and went outside to play after lunch.  It's been a long time since Will was able to get out his scooter and bike so he's having a great time!

Two Laughs for Today

As a point of reference, my son is not big on sharing information.  You will recall the comment I got previously when I asked too many questions about the story they read in preschool: "You should have just stayed there if you wanted to hear the story."  Along those same lines, on Sunday Jerry was asking Will what he did during Children's Church. 

Will:  "Nothing."

Jerry:  "Did you learn anything?"

"No."

"Did you read a story?"

"Yes, but it was boring."

"What was it about?"

"I don't want to tell you because it would make you bored too."

Today we went to the basement to expend some energy on the air mattress.  I sat on the edge and let him bounce me (relax, you don't have to worry about seeing any pictures of me jumping on the mattress!).  After several minutes of jumping he took a break and I asked him if he had stopped to catch his breath.  He said "Yes, and I can chase it too!"  He took off running around the room with his mouth open and his tongue hanging out!  During his next break he sat down beside me with a big sigh, then quickly inhaled several short breaths.  He explained that his breath was just outside his lips that time so he could catch it without chasing it!

Make that three laughs for today.  As I was typing this I just saw Will kiss his own knee after he bumped it!  Talk about independence!

Sharing a Milkshake

We stopped at Chick-fil-a for lunch today while we were in State College and we all shared a milkshake for dessert.  : )

Our Trip to New York with Jerry

Jerry had to travel to Sidney, NY this week for business so Will and I joined him to have something different to do.  There aren't many kid-friendly activities in the area but it was just a short trip and Jerry did find The Discover Center for us to visit while he was at work. 

We drove up on Monday and Will was SOOOO excited to get to the hotel.  He talked my ear off the entire time I was packing our suitcases.  On Tuesday he and I went to The Discovery Center.  It's basically a small science museum geared toward young kids.  They had plenty of activities to keep Will very busy for the day. 

This exhibit depicting the Susquehanna River was Will's favorite.  A stream of water
was running alongside the fish tank and flowing down the stream bed to the right.
I think he would have stood there watching it all day if I had not directed him
to some of the different activities!

You could make a huge bubble around yourself!

Will checked out the display of various bird eggs,
but was disappointed that they weren't going to hatch.

Will's response to the x-rays of the insects:
"Those are creeping me out!"

You can tell we don't eat many salads at our house - Will used the
stove to cook one for me!

Along with my cooked salad Will served me a taco, a burrito,
a hamburger, and a cookie.  What a meal!

He enjoyed playing in the airplane cockpit and taking me for a flight.

This computer game was cute.  You could build a bug and specify
the number of features you wanted it to have.  Will's had ten eyes, three
antennae, and six legs.

This was my favorite section.  It was a kid sized grocery store with
real food containers and very realistic meats, cheeses and veggies.

Will's first trip through was great!  He bought bread, peanut butter,
chicken, three boxes of snack cakes and two tubs of ice cream!
You can definitely tell what his favorite foods are!

The next time through we ended up with lots of fruit.  It was pretty interesting to watch
him though.  Most of the things he bought were the things he sees me buy
most often (bread, chicken, oatmeal, bananas, peanut butter, canned tomatoes, etc.)
I think it goes to show how early we establish our eating habits and how
likely we are to learn those habits from our parents.

He found the train table that is just like ours at home but he was disappointed
that the track wasn't already set up and connected.  This room had
lots of cool types of blocks that we enjoyed more.



Will liked this cute, cozy little reading space.  And so did I for a
little bit of quiet down time.

On Tuesday night we went to a Japanese Steakhouse for dinner.  I wasn't sure Will would care for the food, but then again I never know what he will eat!  Of course he didn't want the vegetables but he did like the meat.   

Will was very impressed by the onion volcano. 

I think the chop sticks were his favorite part!

He even managed to eat a couple bites of rice with them!  : )

On Wednesday we enjoyed the indoor pool at the hotel.  Will swam hard for 45 minutes, non-stop.  By that time we were both freezing (the pool was heated, but not quite enough!).  Fortunately all that exercise resulted in a really good nap on the way home that afternoon!  : )

A New Sink!!!

I have really hated my kitchen sink ever since we moved here.  It leaks.  The "spray" function won't switch off completely.  It's too shallow.  It's so scratched that no matter how hard I scrub it never looks clean.  I've often wished that I could have packed my kitchen sink from Covington and moved it along with us! Anyone who brings "everything but the kitchen sink" forgot to bring the most important thing!  A nice sink is easy to take for granted until you have a really crummy one!  I tried for two years to make peace with my kitchen sink but it never worked.  The final straw was when we realized the leak underneath was worse than we thought.  So purely in the interest of protecting the subfloor, we replaced the sink and faucet today!  YAY!!!!!!!!

Will was so excited to help Daddy with a project.  He and Jerry checked out
the pipes before they started work.  With a very official air, Will repeated
everything Jerry said or did.  It was priceless!

I had the best of both worlds today - getting a new sink and
watching Will help Jerry install it! 

   Will's quote of the day:  "We're doing man things now!"

A Snow Day!

We finally got a good snow this year!  We got about 5 or 6 inches overnight Friday and we were all excited to go sleigh riding today. 

We walked over to the drainage basin at the entrance to the neighborhood. 
The hill there is perfect.  Will could slide down one side, get towed back up by daddy
and then slide down the other side without even leaving his tube!

This side of the hill was less steep so Will was able to walk back up, giving
Jerry a little bit of a break from towing him.

Daddy took a few turns with Will too.

Unfortunately for Jerry, Will was not able to tow him back up.
He did give it a really good try though!

What kid can resist eating the snow?

I got a turn too!

Will tried out the disc slide too but it wasn't as fast.

And it was much more difficult to get back up the hill.

After rolling back down the hill several times, daddy sent down the
rescue tube and Will (along with the sled) enjoyed a free lift back up.

After sleigh riding Jerry shoveled the driveway and Will
helped by loading snow in his Gator.
That was his favorite part of the day!

Though he also enjoyed getting buried in the snow!

And no snow day would be complete without a nice
cup of hot chocolate!