Willem took his first steps today. He thought it was pretty funny.

6/5/09 Pizza dough

Willem helps mom make pizza dough. He did a lot of taste testing.

6/3/09 Lunch friends

Ivy came over for lunch and brought her daughter Katelynn. Katelynn was born 2 weeks after Willem on Sarah's birthday. She is already walking. They were actually playing together, but I didn't have the camera out yet. After watching Katie for a bit, Willem started standing a lot more.

Aunt Rachel's 19th birthday

We went to Stingray's on Rachel's birthday for sushi.

Rachel forgot that it wasn't her 21st birthday yet.

Willem loved the fishtank in the floor. The puffer fish kept swimming under him.

May 21st-26th Torry Family Vacation to Edwards, Colorado

We went to Colorado for Memorial Day Weekend with the Torry family. We stayed in a nice, large house in a ski resort near Edwards, CO.

Everybody participates in the bath

Willem eating with a fork

We took a nice drive to Camp Hale. It was the winter training base for the army.

Riding the gondola at Glenwood Springs

Shoes taste great

Taking a nap at the airport

Plenty of legroom

May 16th-20th Move In Cont...

With lots of help from our family, by Sunday we were able to have our first home cooked breakfast. It was great having so many people help us get settled, we definitely felt the love! Not pictured are the Torry's, I don't know how they didn't get caught by our family paparazzi but we'll get you next time!!

Tia Julie arrived just in time to join us for fun in the pool:) Our neighborhood has a community pool, which is much needed with the heat. We are very excited to teach Willem to swim here. He loves hanging out on the stairs and jumping off one step onto the next like he's doing in the picture above.

Willem loved having so many electronics out that he could play with. Some of his favorites in the new house:
-The kitchen drawers and cabinets. He is in heaven digging through the drawers!
-Our new bed. He loves pretending to scoot off of it and then crawling back up
-Our closet, he loves hangers right now and really enjoyed helping when Grandma and I were hanging up our clothes
-His bath tub. It's a very low tub and he seems to enjoy that he's far taller than it and can easity get in and out ( a bit scary for Mom and Dad)
-The TV being so close to the ground that he can turn it on and off (Dad has since covered up those buttons but that was one fun week!

May 13th-15th The Big Move

Willem loved having a new BIG toy to play with--The moving truck! Om Rik walked Willem up and down the ramp over and over again. (Yes, we do feed the little guy, he just keeps a thin frame)

How did we accumulate all this stuff? We thought the truck as WAY too big when we picked it up, but we were wrong.

Willem loved wheeling around on packed suitcases, getting to hang outside most of the day while we loaded up the truck and his special time with Aunt Laura and Grandma who watched Willem while Jason and Erik were driving cross country. We got the easy part, on Friday we flew to Erik with Grandma and got to see our new home for the 1st time.

Willem loves the new house. Those first couple of days he was in heaven--he had the run of a empty house with lots of room for him to roam all around. He still loves the house but it was funny watching him go from empty room to empty room exploring.

May 12th: Om Rik and Dad take Willem to the Zoo

Oom Rik arrived last on the 11th to help us with the big move out to Phoenix. But before we put him to work, we went to the St. Louis Zoo. There was a Stingray exhibit there that had just opened and we didn't want to miss it!

The way the exhibit was set up, you could put your hands in the water and pet the stingrays and you could feed them as well. Willem was excited about the water and kept trying to reach in the pool. The girl next to us had food for the stingray in her hand so the hungry stingray swam to the top of the water to eat. The stingray flopped around while eating and sprayed us all with water. Willem didn't like that at all refused to be down near the water after that.

We also went to the monkey house which is one of Willem's favorites! Although he's torn--watch the monkeys or watch the other kids--both are equally entertaining for him.

May 1st-3rd The Rowlands Visit St. Louis

Our good friends the Rowlands visited us in St. Louis this weekend. Since we've been in St. Louis Willem hasn't played with too many kids, so it was exciting for him to have two playmates. He learned a lot that weekend from watching Jonah. Since that time Willem has been signing more and Jason and I have as well as we learned quite a few signs from the Rowlands. Jacob and Willem did the parallel play most of the time but all three boys played very well together. Hopefully they'll get to play together again soon!

On Saturday we went to the Zoo and the boys loved seeing the animals! We had a fun picnic lunch and the kids got a chance to crawl/walk around for a bit. One highlight from the trip was watching fellow guests at the zoo feeding the giraffes. We were so close to the giraffes, we could reach out and touch them.

The trampoline was a favorite with the boys!

One night we threw all 3 boys in for a bath. This was during Willem's phase where he didn't like to sit down in the bath , so Willem just hung out for a few minutes before getting out.

We went to the Arch on Sunday, the kids didn't pay too much attention to the Arch itself but they loved the big grassy area around it where we had a picnic. The kids all did great going up in the Arch, we were quite impressed!! What a fun weekend with great friends!!

April 28th: Willem uses a spoon for 1st time

So we are a bit behind with our blog... It seems like everyday Willem is doing something new so we are going to try and catch up tonight.

Jason took us out to get ice cream on April 28th. Willem doesn't usually have sweets but it's hard to deny him a treat when we are enjoying an ice cream. We didn't offer him any at first so he took it in his own hands to help himself. He grabbed my spoon and took it straight to his mouth! Now he's played with spoons at meal time before but this is the first time he actually fed himself. He must have been motivated, because he ate about half the ice cream and was immensely proud of himself the whole time as were we.