First solid food

Will turned 5 months old the day after Thanksgiving and we picked this day to introduce him to solid foods. He's been very interested in the food we put in our mouths while eating. Plus Rupert who shares the same nanny is eating solid food, and Will very intently watches him eat. We started with rice cereal.

For all that is written about it possibly taking a few times for your baby to take to solid foods, Will got it right away. He scarfed up the Rice cereal the first time around.

The food certainly got Will in a good mood. He appeared to come up with his own song about his morning.

Very thankful for Will

We are thankful for many things this year, but especially for Will. He brings a constant smile to our faces and is a very happy baby. He's starting to try to support himself by standing up.



He also likes sitting at the "big person" couch while we watch him.



Happy Mommy and child before our guests come.





Our friends AJ and Sean joined us for Thanksgiving dinner. Will liked having new people to play with.



I was in the kitchen dealing with Teresa the Turkey.



And we had some wonderful pies to finish the meal.

Will's first snow

Will got to experience his first snow today. Seattle got about 3-4 inches since yesterday, I believe. This was enough to shut down the city through the combination of all the hills, a city that isn't well prepared to deal with snow, and drivers who don't know how to drive in this weather. Both Mom and Dad got to stay home with Will as the University shut down. It gave us a chance take out Will to experience the snow. He seamed to like it. Then again, he likes being outside not matter what the weather.

Raspberries

Will's new trick is that he will blow raspberries. Part of it probably came from me doing it to entertain him (or blowing them on his stomach), but I think he just likes hearing the noise it makes. He also does this little fake coughing noise just because we think he likes to hear it.

As for getting under the playmat in the video, Will did that all by himself. He grabbed and lifted the bar and pull it over himself/scooted under it. I can sense greater mobility in the future...

Visiting Grandpa and Grandma in Eastern WA

We went for an extended weekend visit to Grandma and Grandpa's in Kennewick, WA. It had been a while since they had seen Will, and he impressed them with how much he had grown. Will enjoyed having so many people who were willing to hold and/or play with him.

On Saturday, we went drove to Walla Walla to visit a few wineries. Will has been very fascinated for the past couple of weeks with anything food or drink that we put in our mouth. He seems to want some of it too. He would reach for wine glasses whenever the person holding him would take a drink.

Not quite as much fun as a wine glass, but a plush toy would also work.

At one of the wineries, Will finally got a hold of a glass. He was so happy with himself. We didn't let him get any farther than just holding it, but that didn't seem to matter to him. The chase seemed to be where the fun was, at least for the time being.

One item at Grandma and Grandpa's house that caught Will's attention was the soccer pillow in Uncle David's room. He would grab and roll around with it.

If somebody would keep putting the ball at his feet, he would try to kick it...

... although at this point he's much better at being a goalkeeper. Needless to say, the ball made the trip back with us to Seattle, at least for the time being.



A November Konopka tradition is opening of the new Christmas ornaments from Grandma. Will got to open his first ornament and did fairly well with some assistance from Mommy.

He even did well displaying the ornament for the camera.

Although, it didn't take long for the wrapping paper to become more interesting...

We had a great time visiting and we sad to head back to Seattle. We are looking forward to seeing them at our house for Christmas in just over a month though.

You can tell you're a parent when the empty bottle of breastmilk finds it's way to the cup holder on the drive home.

We have a thumbsucker and a roller

Getting back from Halloween in California and Will was soon back in the swing of things. He's very good at finding his thumb now (we've decided that he gets that from Catherine since she was quite the thumbsucker as an infant).




About the only thing that didn't go as smoothly was the ending of daylight savings time. Will really didn't understand on Sunday that we got an extra hour, so he was up a little after 5 AM. He did reward us by rolling over back to front for the very first time. In fact, he spent the better part of the day rolling over. The only thing is that he's not too fond on being on his stomach and he's not yet mastered rolling back to his back, so after a bit he's crying and we are helping him over. Of course almost immediately his back on his front and wanting to roll back over.

Who can resist help such a cutie pie though...

Visiting cousins for Halloween

We flew down the Thursday before Halloween to San Jose to visit Catherine's sister Cindy and her family. Cindy picked us up from the airport and Will's Uncle Ramon was waiting for us when we got to their house. Will's cousins were all in bed, so he would have to wait until morning to meet them.

The weather was a bit warmer than what we had been getting in Seattle, which made it nice to be outside. Emilio enjoyed getting a push on the swing from his Aunt Katie, and Will took a turn on the swing, with some help from Mommy.

Will was a source of great entertainment for all. He demonstrated a new trick of sticking his tongue out of the side of his mouth.

That wasn't the only new trick Will showed us. He rolled over front to back for the very first time. It sort of surprised us, but everybody was in the room when he did it. From that point on, his cousins kept waiting for him to do it again, especially Gabriella and Aiyana, but it wasn't to be. They did spend a lot of time playing with him on the floor though.

I think they enjoyed having him over to play with very much.

On Saturday, we went to the Harvest Festival at the girls' school/church. Here is a picture of everybody plus two random guys (in basketball jersey and with their hands on their head). There we all kinds of games and activities to do, although mostly Will hung out in our arms.

Even long enough to take a catnap...

Halloween morning we went to a pumpkin patch to pick up a pumpkin to carve. You can tell we weren't in Seattle from all the sun.

Come the evening it was time for everybody to get into costume. Here are the farmers with their little pumpkin. He did quite well in it, although that's probably because he got to be held most of the time.

Here's the whole crew with a knight, cowboy, witch, pumpkin and 80's rock star.

Will made it through about half of the Trick-or-Treating before he got fussy and the three of us headed back so that he could go to bed.

We left early the next morning. It was a great visit and Will did well throughout, even with the changes in scenery and additional kids around. We'll look forward to our next trip down to visit.