Ode to Auntie Laura

10 of the many reasons why we love her!

1. She always posts on the blog under each category
2. She LOVES to see Will
3. She comes over to take Will for walks
4. She only gets mild hurt feelings when Will chooses to go to her friend over her.
5. She bought Will girly, but cute, Easter Bunny décor
6. When Will chose her as his spit up target on multiple occasions, she still wanted to hold him.
7. She is my best helper when I need it, especially yesterday!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!
8. She puts Will’s pictures as her desktop background
9. She is willing to change diapers
10. She tries to give Will tubbies and screeches when he soaks her!

The feminine side of Will!

Look how pretty! Will got to borrow Baby Marie's headband from when we were babysitting! FYI: I did not put it on his head! Britnie did! Jordan, I thought you would love to see your son! You better stop leaving us or else Will will not have a masculine influence!! Hee Hee!

Will's New Trick

Yesterday Will has been performing a new trick: spinning! You also get to see him in action destroying my cell phone.

Look at him go!

Here is yet another video of our little walker! Check out how he can change direction and bend down and pick up a ball while walking! He can actually pick up his ball with one hand! It is so cute to watch him walk all around the house from room to room roaming where ever he wants!

Will Walking on the Beach

Here is Will on the beach with his Daddy. He was a little hesitant at first, but by the time we took this video, he loved it!

Beach Babes

Home from the Reunion...

We had a wonderful time at the Monk Family Reunion. We were at Topsail Island right on the beach! There were about fifty people in Jordan's family that came! We were able to share a condo with Jordan's immediate family and it was so nice to spend all the time with his parents, sister's and brother's families. We loved being on the beach, but Will did not like it as much as we did. He loved walking (yes...WALKING!) on the beach and having his feet squish through the sand and a little bit in the water. When we tried to take him further in the ocean with us, he wailed!! A few more year perhaps! We took advantage of Will's nap time to hit the waves. Jordan attempted to surf board, but I think he is just going to stick to boogie boarding for now on. In my spare time, I had to prepare for a talk that I gave in church the day after we got home. It was so nice to interview a lot of the family to get their perspectives on "why the family unit is important to Heavenly Father."
The best part about the vacation was being able to see Jordan for a whole week. He just got back from spending two weeks in Houston, TX. We also LOVED to see the whole family since we haven't been to a reunion since 2002.
The worst part was Will getting sick. For the second time (out of two times!) we had to go the Doctor immediately on the way home from the airport. Will had an ear infection again, and sinus congestion/leaking nose. He is still recuperating. He does not do well on amoxicillins! He gets very crampy and has major potty trouble (well I guess I should say poppy trouble). We are looking forward to him getting better. We are going to try Tylenol with codine again tonight! I hope to get more sleep and so does my wonderful husband who has been letting me sleep when while he is up with Will at 5:30 am taking him for a walk!

Greetings from North Carolina!

Our Family is on a vacation in Topsail Island for the Monk Family Reunion (Jordan's Mom's side of the family). We are staying in a super nice condo right on the beach with all of Jordan's immediate family. We are having a great time relaxing. Here are a few details of our time...sorry no pictures yet...I did not bring my camera cord for the computer!
Will did pretty well on the plane. Luckily for us, Grammy Pammy had an empty seat right next to her and she was sitting behind us.

We drove about 3 hours after our flight to get to the beach. There was a huge traffic jam of everyone trying to get to the beach.

We have wonderful family meals every night as a whole group of about 50 people.

We play in the ocean and walk on the beach everyday.

Will loves the sand/having his feet in the water, but HATES going in the ocean further than that!

We play games (Settlers) everynight with Jordan's siblings/spouses.

We finally are on a vacation!!!
Tonight is skit night. I hate skit night. The two themes are: a) Reality TV or b) unappreciated Super Heros. Clearly, if we have to participate, we are going with option B (Super Will anyone?). Hopefully, we can bipass it, though.

Willy Mammoth (Jordan's idea for a title!)

Here is another adorable video of our little walker! I cannot believe how he is just taking off walking everywhere! He also waves all of the time. He'll just start smiling and waving at nothing! It is slightly bizarre. I feel like he can see ghosts or something. I can hardly believe that he is 28 days away from being a year old! Where has the time gone? Why am I still not sleeping a full night??

Our Little Monkey

Will figured out how to climb on furniture recently. The other day, he crawled up on our file box that blocks the TV, which by the way, we can't imagine how he pulled up when the box is so high. Today he used his piano to climb up on the coffee table. A few hours later, he used the same piano to climb on the couch! I'll post pics on the coffee table and the file cabinet box in a minute. Here is a video of him climbing on the couch for the second time!

Climb every mountain...

Here are pics of our little monkey climbing on the file box and coffee table. We almost died when we saw Will on the file box on Saturday. We were paying bills and all of a sudden we looked over, and he was on the box playing with our DVDs on the top shelf. He had no help to get up on the file box, either, and it is up to his waist at least!
Today he used the blue piano to climb on the coffee table. I moved the piano away from the table so he couldn't do it again, and then he used it to climb on the couch! Check out the video!

Evidence of a baby boy in our home

Will gets into everything. If it is a door, it will be opened and shut. And opened. And shut. If it is a drawer, it will be opened and shut. And opened. And shut. You get the idea. Now Will not only likes to manipulate his environment, but he also loves to create a mess. Cabinet doors that once hid dishes, personal items, etc, are now useless. The living room is one big dumping area of Will's toys. Toilet paper no longer is on a roll, but rather a pile of unraveled paper heaped back together. Luckily, we already baby proofed hazardous things, but I miss my tidy house!

Super Will and the Super Readers

Will LOVES the PBS show Super Why and the Super Readers. He is addicted to this show! Seriously, he cannot peal his eyes off of it, not even to eat breakfast. So every day at 9 am, I turn on the show and enjoy a half hour of freedom!! All we have to do is sing the songs of the show when he is fussy, and he calms down. It seems as though the show really does have the power to help!

I LOVE snacks!

Will loves to munch on his snacks. I often put Cherrios on his tray on his walker, and he crawls right on it to eat them. The funny thing is he doesn't pull up to the front where the tray is, but rather he climbs up over the back and stretches to the front to reach the yummy treats. What a personality he has!

Schaefer Family Rollin' In

Our new favorite thing to do as a family is to go roller blading on the paved path that once was the railroad tracks. We actually get a good workout and Will enjoys the ride. It is a beautiful path of trees and goes from the south side of West Bend all the way to Eden for about 25 miles. There is only 5 miles of paved surface, but luckily, it's right near us!

Will in the Wagon

Will got this wagon for Christmas from Grandma and Grandpa Mazur. He loves to go for rides in it! I think he likes it better than the stroller since he can see in all directions. He sits very well in it and only tries to stand up when it is not moving for a while. And yes, that is a snowman pillow in the wagon for lack of a better cushiony pillow!

Crawling Everywhere

Will is a natural crawler. It is hard to image the days where I used to worry about if he ever would take those first few movements. He is very mobile with crawling and climbing up on everything around. My favorite thing that he does is crawls in a circle around my vacuum cleaner. I'll have to get that on video soon! It is so dang cute the way that he eyes it down!

Stair Master

Will loves stairs. He finds them in every house. I really don't know how he learned to do the stairs, except I know that it wasn't me who taught him. I think it was the two sassy Grandmas!He is very fast at crawling up them, and loves when stairs have the banister poles. He holds them and shakes them as though they are jail bars!