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!!! :)

TEETH!!!

Need I say more??? Will is so very proud of these new teeth! We are too! :)

TRAIN TABLE

I've posted some pictures of Will's 1st birthday gift from "mom" and "dad." We decided to get him a train table with the wooden train pieces, etc. ....I know, I know ...everyone probably thinks we're crazy :) because all Will is probably going to do with the trains right now is to stick all the pieces in his mouth but in the next year or so it will be something for him to really start enjoying...especially with his dad....who loves trains!!!

Shopping with the Girls

On Thursday, July 13, 2006, we had a day out with the girls and of course...Will! I took the day off from work and my mom and sister, Elizabeth, came down for a visit. We went to Fazoli's for lunch...yummy! Will got to try some of the garlic bread sticks and a little of the marinara sauce...he seemed to really like it. After that we just did some shopping and hung out the rest of the day. We had a wonderful time together and can't wait to do it again some day!

Clean Bill of Health

We received a "clean bill of health" from the doctor today...the doctor said everything looks great and that unless something else comes up that all should be ok.

Will Starts Work Early

Will is attending work with me (mom) today and having a blast crawling all over the office, playing with my computer and last but not least...the toys that were brought for him to play with while in the office! He's come to work today with me so that we can just leave straight from here and head to his eye doctor's appointment (for his blocked tear duct). Hopefully the doctor is just going to give us a clean bill of health because while we were on our beach vacation the eye seemed to clear up...don't know if it was the salt water???? I'll keep everyone updated as soon as we get results!

New Shoes

Well...Tuesday at the beach was somewhat of a dreary day so Will and I headed out with his great-grandparents to the mall to find him some "walking shoes." We were looking for Stride Rites so we started off at Belk...they had some but not in the size that we needed but Granddaddy found some Keds with little baseballs on them that he wanted to buy for Will so they ended up doing that! They are soooo cute!

We actually forgot to pack the stroller so were having to carry Will for a while and that was beginning to be way to much work...we saw people all over the mall with the little car strollers...so...Grandmother and Granddaddy wanted to find out where to rent one of these. We finally found out where to get them and rented one to push Will around in throughout the mall....he loved it!!! I wish I would've had my camera to take a picture of him! He was steering the car and hollering at everyone that he saw at the mall....he had a blast and his great-grandparents did too!

After renting the stroller we ventured on to many other stores trying to find the "right" shoes and finally after about a mile or more of walking from store to store with a few "extra" stops to shops in between we "hit" Dillards and were able to find shoes there that fit!!!

What a day this way...it was a lot of fun for us all!

Family Vacation at Garden City, South Carolina

We headed to Garden City, South Carolina from June 24, 2006 to July 1, 2006. The weather was amazing that week...couldn't ask for anything better! We had lots of fun soaking in the sun, playing in the sand and jumping in the waves in the ocean that week....I don't know who had more fun - Will or us???


Our "sportsmen of the year" were back to work again this year...once again more sharks were caught!!!






We had our night out with the family to our favorite restaraunt, Nances, on 6/29/06 and had a wonderful time together.

Friday night was yet another night out for the "boys!" ....
it was also a much needed night out for the "adults"...so...the grandparents and great-grandparents were all very generous enough and did some babysitting....we went out to California Dreaming for dinner and then for a fun game of putt-putt at Runaway Bay at Tupelo Bay Golf Center....that fun game ended up taking about two very long hours waiting on a group of about 5 to 7 very young boys and a mom to "putt" through the course at a very slow pace while they played most of the time...needless to say...many were very irritable by the end of the night! We still had a fun time together though and that's all that matters!

Will's Teething

Will has really begun teething...he started right before we left for our beach vacation(6/23/06)! You could see the little buds "popping" through the gumline and it's not just the bottom two...he's decided to do about four at one time! He's done very well though, considering what he's going through! Once we actually get something worth taking a picture of I'll post it!