Our First Photo Shoot

Chris did a photo shoot for our friends Halsey and Mark yesterday, and I went along to make the baby smile. We had a lot of fun even though it was the coldest, most rainy and windy day we have had yet. Their adorable baby KJ did amazing for how awful it was outside, and we were able to get some fun pictures. Don't judge too harshly, as this is the first time we have ever done something like this. Here are some samples.

Hayley Westenra

We discovered Hayley Westenra a while ago and absolutely love her. Chris wasn't sure that he loved her voice at first, but she eventually really grew on him, and now he loves her music. I was hooked the first time I heard her. Honestly, I usually like listening to men's voices much more than womens, but something about Hayley just grabbed me. Listening to her music just makes me happy, so I thought I would share!

This is one of my favorites, and I also love this and this.

And while I'm at it I might as well share another favorite-Celtic Woman. Love this group! But really, I think you have to watch them on video to get the full scope. I would absolutely love to see them live, but as that will probably never happen, I will have to just be content with the DVD.

Enjoy this and this as a small sampling.

William's Third

Yesterday this wonderful boy turned 3 years old.

I love this picture. To me it captures a whole lot of William. For example:

-William is hard to get good front pictures of because he is way to busy to stand still and look at a camera, even for a second. By the time you take the picture he is off to do something else.

-In this picture he is wearing his rubber boots with his jeans pushed up. He loves to be outside helping in the garden, digging in the dirt, making rivers and lakes and mowing the lawn. He likes to refer to himself as "A working man".

-Water holds a special fascination for William. He is drawn to it like flies to honey! When on walks, he can sense a hidden canal about a mile away, and though I usually protest that there is no water around, he is invariably right.

-Right along with his love of water goes his love of fishing. It really is hard to believe something like that can be genetic, but it must be, because I'm telling you...this boy was born to fish. The other day we went on a drive and ended up down by the river, so I decided to get the kids out to look at the ducks and the waterfall. As William was running around he kept saying, "I should have brought my fishing pole! I should have brought my fishing pole!" I replied that he would have had to come with Daddy because "Daddy is the one who knows how to catch fish." Without missing a beat he said matter-of-factly, "But I know how to catch fish."

-William has a very vivid imagination. He seemed to start playing imagination games very young. In this picture William had made a "river" in the backyard where Chris was working on putting in a fire pit, and then was perfectly content to "go fishing" the whole morning. It's actually pretty handy that he has such a good imagination because he will often be content with pretending to do something (or eat something) that we can't do or eat at the moment. It has helped sidetrack many tantrums!


Some other fun facts and pictures:

*Last Sunday one of William's nursery teachers told me, "He talks like a 12 year old!" And it's really true! Not only is his vocabulary amazing, but also his ability to pick up on concepts, to talk about weird things in context, and to form complex sentences . I have to be really careful what I say around the kid because invariably I will hear it will come back out of his mouth at some point down the road.

One funny example of this was a time this summer when we were driving somewhere in the car. I started trying to read some of one of the Narnia books to Chris in the front seat, but in the back seat the boys started having a screaming contest. They were both yelling at the top of their lungs, trying to top each other. I made it about a page in the book and then gave up. Later that evening we were back home eating dinner and William was playing with a toy giraffe. He started telling me about the animal and then told me, "His name is Aslan." I asked him what he had said and he told me again. I then asked him what he knew about Aslan, and he told me, "Well you were just reading about him." In the car I had barely been able to hear myself so I have no idea how he heard me at all, especially over his own screaming, but I really shouldn't be surprised anymore.

*William always wants to swing higher, go faster and play louder

*William knows quite a few letters of the alphabet by their sounds (he doesn't know the letter name, but can tell you what sound they make, and usually has a word or two to associate it with). He is especially good at finding W's (WUU for WILLIAM!!) everywhere and likes to go through the newspaper and circle all of them that he can find.

It was amazing to me how many pictures we have of William with a stick in his hands

*William loves music and dancing. He stole the show at our Relief Society activity the other night by getting up and dancing his heart out to the modified version of YMCA we were singing. He is always begging to play the violin, and sings constantly. He often makes up his own silly songs, sometimes with nonsense words, and sometimes with real words.

*William gives amazing hugs, and says, "I love you Mommy!" or "I love you Daddy!" several times every day.

*William loves having his back and neck rubbed. Often after crawling into bed he will turn over, pull his shirt up and say, "Rub my back soft mom!" I love that he and Chris get the exact same expressions on their faces when I rub their backs. They remind me of cats purring while you stroke their fur.

*William needs to be involved in anything that grownups are doing. If my mom is sewing he wants to be right beside her playing with buttons, or zippers or whatever, just as long as he's a part of things. He'll also make sure to ask, "Oh, Why?" at least 100 times during the process.

William loves to ride Isaac around in the back of his bike, I just haven't managed to get a good picture of it yet

*William loves snuggling up and having books read to him. When you read a new book to him he usually wants it read over and over and over until he understands everything about it and has asked about every picture. He loves poems, and also non-fiction children's books (about various kinds of animals, the seasons, different cultures etc.)

*Every time William prays you can count on him either saying,"Thank Thee that Daddy got home" or "Please bless that Daddy will get home soon".

He walked straight into this creek before we could say a word, and proceeded to reel in big fish with a stick

*William adores nursery and his nursery leaders. They are a couple of really wonderful grandmotherly women, and he loves them so much!

*William is a jokester!

He was laughing so hard about this monster bag that he threw up-gross, I know!

*If there is any kind of mischief going on you can be pretty sure that William is front and center and most likely the mastermind.

Happy Birthday Kiddo! We love you!