Visiting with Family

Oh... after Christmas meant that there were lots of new toys to play with. Some that make noise too (over and over and over). Will was fascinated with this toy for placing on a tray, so much so that he didn't get let a few hiccups bother him.

After Christmas we got to spend a few days with Michael's Aunt Vicki, Uncle Mike and cousin Jeff. Will enjoyed having even more people to entertain (or more people to entertain him). Will was a very good sport, letting us go out to dinner and not fussing much at all.

Christmas morning

Christmas morning came and it was wonderful to have Will's Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle David with us. The stockings were filled and there were plenty of gifts for Will to open under the tree.

Will liked ripping the paper, although he didn't really get the concept of moving on to more gifts. He liked holding on to the wrapping paper or whatever gift he had.

One of Will's favorite gifts from his stocking was his new raspberry teething pacifier. It must have felt good on his gums since his teeth are coming in, even if Will used it unconventionally. We were hoping he would get his two front teeth for Christmas, but they hadn't come in quite yet.

Catherine and Will got a new BOB stroller for Christmas. It has suspension and everything, so it should make for a nice smooth ride on those walks and and can even be converted into a running stroller with the turn of rod.

While we got our breakfast between opening some gifts, Will took the chance to continue to much on his new pacifier. Properly, this time.

Will helped for a while, until it was his nap time. Of course he did fall into to the classic story of the box being more interesting than the present on a few of his gifts.

Will got some good gifts for everybody too. Grandma got a new sign that says "Grandma's Garden" to put up by her garden.

And Grandpa got a mug that spells out "Grampa" using the amino acid structures.

All together it was a great Christmas time spent together. Michael's attempt at duck turned out pretty good, although it was a learning experience. We got the chance to play several games during the day as well. Looking forward to spending the rest of Christmas break together.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was a very relaxing day hanging out with family, enjoying some snacks until mass. We took a few family pictures in front of the tree with Will after getting home.

Then it was time for Will to open his first present. It's a Schowe tradition to open up pajamas the night before Christmas (in part so there are new PJs for when the pictures are taken Christmas morning). Will did a fine job ripping the paper. Of course after he got it in his hand, he was content with the paper.

Will looked good in his new pajamas.

After putting Will to bed, we had out dinner of Cioppino (and cheese pizza for David), along with some nice Washington wine. Time to hang the stockings then and wait for Santa to come.

Jump Around!!!

As we were getting ready for Christmas with Will's Grandma & Grandpa, Will demostrated some impressive jumping skills on his exersaucer.

He's even doing a much better job of sitting up on his own. He like to reach for his toes or other objects on the floor, which sometimes causes him to lose his balance, but he's getting better.

Rolling over on video

Although Will has been rolling around for a while, we finally got a video of him doing it.

Putting up the Christmas Tree

Today we decided to get a live tree to decorate for Christmas. The local boy scout troop sells trees a few blocks from our house, so we took a walk on this gorgeous day. Will was in his Ergo while we looked. In the end we got a Fraser Fir and a wreath. We were careful about the size (given our history of getting much larger trees than we think) and were able to walk it the short distance home.



Will found the tree selecting to be very tiring. Just wait until we take him to a Pick-Ur-Own tree farm...

We set the tree in the stand and Catherine put the lights up. Will got the honor of hanging the first ornament (at least helping).

He even got to help with topping the tree with the angel.

Our friend Lara was over to help with the tree and play with Will. She got this great picture of the whole family in front of the tree.

The tree looks great, even if Will is puzzled a little with what it is doing in the living room.

After the excitement of putting up the tree, Will could go back to playing with his new favorite toy: a spatula from the kitchen.

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.

Preparing for Halloween

We started preparing for Halloween since we are leaving in a couple of days to spend the weekend with Catherine's sister Cindy and her family in the Bay Area. We tried on the pumpkin costume that Grandma made. We think he looks cute in it. We'll be going as farmers as we carry around our little pumpkin.

Will also got a Halloween card from Grandpa and Grandma. With a little help he was able to rip open the envelop and then did a great job displaying the card...

... until he thought he would check out how the card tasted.

One other recent event was that we moved Will into his own room. Up until this point we had him sleeping in our room in a cosleeper. Will had started waking up every hour or so after being pretty good about only getting up for two feedings at night. We set up the crib and moved him into his own room. If he got up early, we decided we were going to do some sleep training and let him cry it out. First night he was up early, it was 15 minutes and he was back asleep. Second night it was 5 minutes and he was back asleep. Now he is back to a normal sleeping schedule, so what we tried worked for us.

Working out

Will has been getting a lot of practice at grabbing and pulling objects. He's doing so well that he can even do it in his sleep.

He's even taking steps to build his upper body strength by doing a few pull down every now and then.

And when he's done, he has time to support some of his favorite teams, like the Colts (no Bears shirts yet)

Will serenades us with song

After keeping Will out later than his normal bedtime yesterday for the Sounders game, Will repaid us by waking up at his normal time and an extra long morning nap. Not bad. Once he got up, he decided to demonstrate his singing skills. Clearly he got his "talent" from Daddy's singing "ability".

Don't have a Wisconsin shirt for Will yet, but he was decked out in red for the Badger game versus Ohio State. Way to go Wisconsin!