Fun weekend!

The weather has been beautiful this weekend. We have been trying to spend as much time outside as possible. First we cleaned off the deck on Friday and have had a few meals out there.

We also had Roman and his parents over to Grandma and Nana's house to play in the kiddie pool and in the water table.

Will and Dad spent sometime in NW Portland while Mom got her hair cut. It was nice of Will to take a break and sit down a few places to watch the world go by and give Dad an excuse to rest his feet.

Today we went to the Audobon Society near our house and hiked the Jay trail and saw the Salamanders in the pond.

We hope there are a lot more weekends like this this summer!

<--We are also awaiting our 4 millionth visitor. Check out the (inaccurate) counter in the side bar.

Father's Day

Mom and Will gave Dad a great Father's Day. He slept in, had a big breakfast, opened gifts, did the Portland Sunday Parkway Bike Ride with the family, hung out in Peninsula Park, had a nice dinner, then settled in at home with a movie and strawberry banana milk shake. A pretty good day!

Here are some pics from the Rose Garden at Peninsula Park:

Alphabet

Will almost has the whole alphabet down: ABCDEFGHIJK.. MNOPQRST.. WXYZ

We have some great talking fridge magnets from LeapFrog that have been a big help. Also a lot of alphabet books; Child's First ABC Book, Sleepy ABC's, Curious George learns the alphabet, and more. He even has the order down and knows the lower case now too.

Will gets really excited to recognise letters when we are out. Here are some pics of him waiting for Mom outside Anthropogie...

Theo's Birthday

Theo Refi turned one year old and had a fun birthday party. There were kids of different ages and Will played with lots of toys and had some birthday cake.

Will gave Theo a birthday pat on the shoulder.

The guests had delicious monkey cake.
Theo had his very own banana shaped cake. He really dug into it. Will enjoyed playing with the other kids and checking out the vegetable garden, the watering can and bugs.

Watering Cans - Will's favorite things, part 8

William loves his watering cans. He waters the flowers around the house, he waters the plants on the porches, he waters everything. Here are some pictures of Will with some watering cans:

18 month doctor visit

Will had his 18 month doctors visit on Friday. He is doing great! Mom works very hard on getting him a balanced diet and it shows. Will's weight (73%) and head circumference (90%) are still tracking around the same percentages as the last few visits, but his height is leveling off some; down to 90% from 99%. Hopefully this will help make his clothes last longer!

The Creek - Will's favorite things, part 7

We have a small creek outside our back door. William loves to visit the "ceek". His favorite spot is a small bridge that crosses it just about 50 feet off of our back steps.

Lately he has discovered throwing rocks into the creek. We made a "plop" or "kerplunk" sound when he hit the water and he was mildly entertained, but one day we ran into Grandpa on a jog. When Will missed the creek completely Grandpa said "foul ball" and Will doubled over in laughter!Mom is a big baseball fan and has been coaching him to throw overhand. His aim and range are quickly improving!The bridge is the easiest place to hit the water, so we get big piles of rocks and set them on the edge of the bridge for (literally) hours of enjoyment.

Mail Man - Will's favorite things, part 6

William loves the Mail Man. He says Mail Man a lot. He is also combinding words with Mail Man: Mail Man Car, Mail Man Key, Bye Bye Mail Man. He has a little song he sings to the tune of "Mary had a Little Lamb". Mail Man Mail Man Mail Man Car, Mail Man Car, Mail Man Car, etc. He gets really excited when we see a Mail Carrier out and about:

Will also has a toy Mail Truck that he loves :

He has one chore and that is to check the mail. He opens the drawer where the key to the mailbox is kept, saying "Mail Man Key" over and over again.

We get the key and walk to the box. He knows which box is ours and recognises and says the number 8.

He gets the key in the slot, turns it, and opens the box.

We always get one piece of junk mail just for him. It is so difficult to get the key away from him that we have started giving him an allowance of coins to put in his piggy bank as a means to get the key out of his hand.

Fountains - Will's favorite things, part 5

Will loves fountains. He likes to reach into the water and get his hands and feet wet. Here are pictures of him with fountains:

Bike Ride

We got William a bike trailer and took him out on his inaugural spin yesterday. Here are some pics:

This was just before the ride home from the Grandparents house. Mom got on her bike and we did a lap around the neighborhood park and pond. We stopped for a bit to see the new baby geese!