MY NEW SWINGSET

Will received lots of wonderful birthday gifts and one that we have been enjoying lately is his new swingset that Rick's parents gave him for his 1st birthday...he seems to really be enjoying it! My parents bought him the 2-in-1 toddler swing to go with it for him to start off with until he is ready for the "BIG BOY" swings!!! :) Here are some pictures of him when he first got to try everything out!

WILL's BIG 1 YEAR BIRTHDAY BASH!!!

Here are a few pictures from Will's 1 year birthday party! He had a BLAST and so did everyone else!

This first one is of Will preparing for the BIG EVENT!


















These are a few from during the party:































































And...here's the best of all....the BIRTHDAY CAKE!!!

Our Wonderful Realtor

Our wonderful realtor, Shelly Garner, payed us a visit today to drop off a birthday gift for Will ... unfortunaltely Will and I were not around to see her so hopefully we'll get to see her sometime soon! She gave Will a "Thomas the Train Light & Sound" toy. It's a flashlight and it also makes whistle noises like a train and sounds of the wheels moving. Will had a blast with this!!! He was pushing it all over the house and playing with it all night long! This gift was a wonderful idea. Thanks so much Shelly!!!

Will Playing with His Bouncy Toy

Will loves this toy...he has now learned how to throw/bounce it and make it light up and just grins in delight when this happens!

Will Helping Dad with his New Swing/Play Set

Rick's parent's bought Will a swing/play set for his 1st birthday...it finally arrived the other day and Will decided that he was going to help his dad put this big thing together...they did what they could that evening in the garage because it began to rain that evening as soon as the set arrived. Rick also worked on it some this evening...he couldn't work on it much because he was called away for a flight today so the swing/play set still is not finished but it shouldn't be much longer and I'll post a picture as soon as it's complete!!!

WILL IS ONE!!!

Happy Birthday to Will!!! He's now one year old....it's so hard to believe that on this day last year we had us this precious little baby boy...
definitely not a little baby anymore though...
he's growing up so quickly and has become quite the BIG BOY!

As you can see in this picture Will is checking out his "COOL PAWS" on his jammies...he was very fascinated by them!






This picture was taken last night right before bed time...as you can see Will had become quite fussy with us at this point...he was very tired but like usual was fighting the sleep...maybe he knew that tomorrow was his BIG DAY and he was too excited to go to sleep! :)

FISH FACE

Will's Aunt Elizabeth has been working hard on helping Will figure this face out and I guess he finally figured it out somehow on his own yesterday....he was eating last night with Rick and Rick looked at him and saw him making this face and just had to start taking pictures! :)

Elizabeth was making this face at Will last weekend and he was very fascinated by it and he kept touching her face trying to figure it out...well....as you can see.....HE DID!!!

NJIT

Well....this shirt is a tribute to two things: Rick's 1st college (NJIT - New Jersey Institiute of Technology) and D. J. Kimbrell!!! This was a gift from D. J. to Will that she made herself because she couldn't find one in Will's size...why, you ask, would she be looking for this shirt since it's not the school Will's dad graduated from eventually? Well...Rick has his own NJIT shirt (actually had many of them) that he used to wear all the time...the shirt was awful (holes everywhere but he still wore it) and that's what D. J. called Rick...NJIT (NI-JIT) because everytime she saw him, he was wearing that shirt! :)

IT'S SNO CONE TIME!!!

Will's Aunt Elizabeth decided to make sno cones this past weekend....Will loved them so much!!!

Will also loves to have his picture taken so we decided to have a "photo shoot" with Will this weekend! :)

Will's Best Friend and First Words

Will loves his dog, Hawker! They sat by the window for quite a while with each other the other day just looking outside....Will banged on the window while Hawker barked at all the neighbors...they made a lot of noise together and made quite a PAIR!!!

"DOG" is officially Will's first word (He'll actually look at Hawker and say "dog"). He also likes to feed Hawker his food...he'll say, "Dog" and when Hawker comes to him, he'll throw his food on the floor for him....it's very amusing!

Will says a few other things now, such as "dada" (we think) and is starting to say "momma" or at least I'm working on it with him :) and uh oh....he likes to say "uh oh" when he throws stuff on the floor! He loves to mimic me and say "NO" like I do (He hears this word a good bit from Rick and me)...it's very exaggerated and then he smiles at you after he says it...we can't help but laugh sometimes. We're also working on our manners and trying to say "thank you" and "please"....I think he says "thank you" or at least something of the sort...hasn't gotten the "please" yet! :)

IT'S GOING TO BE A GIRL!!!

Well....as most of you know I'm going to be an aunt around the month of December and I'm so very excited! Elizabeth and Ben just found out on Monday (July 31, 2006) that they are going to be having a precious little girl! Her name will be EMMA ELIZABETH HOWELL! I can't wait to meet her and hold her in my arms! I'll finally get to buy some pink!!! :)