Sixteen Months

Will is just growing non-stop! At sixteen months he:

-Has finally started doing some walking! Wahoo!
-Eats with a fork
-Goes underwater at swim class (my heart stops every time)
-Reads, reads, reads all day long
-Is becoming so very particular about ev-er-y-thing
-Is happy to play with containers and lids all day
-Just got done cutting some molars (thank heaven that is over for now!)
-Gives the very best hugs and kisses!

***Does anyone have recommendations for toddler play areas in the Ypsi/Ann Arbor area? We're missing our free play areas at the libraries in Plymouth and Canton. Out here we've done Jungle Java and Briarwood mall, but we need some more cheap/free places to hang out.***

Will actually posed for the camera this month. Such a handsome guy!

Too bad I don't get as many hugs and kisses as all his stuffed animals!

Yes, my teething son's shirt is covered in drool all day long.  I've given up on trying to keep him clean. :-)

Some activities we've been up to:

I made Will this fun fine motor activity (I get all our craft and sensory stuff super-duper cheap at The Scrap Box - I absolutely love that place! If you live near A2 and haven't been with your kids, make a trip!) Will likes this activity a lot and is pretty good at it, but mostly just wants to put the little swords in the bucket and dump them out. (This is obviously a supervised activity!)

A little Easter basket sensory play, he loooooves making a big mess with this. :-)

Rice play, our standby. Last time we did this I put the table cloth on the floor and Will really quickly got the green tray and put it on the table cloth - he loves his rice play and he loves being a helper!

And painting, you can never do too much painting. Today I gave him some shells to use as painting tools, but he just wanted to play with the lids on the paint tubes. That kid is seriously obsessed with lids!

Fifteen Months

Fifteen whole months! Another month I could barely get him to sit still for a picture. He wants the phone so badly, he lunges at it while I try to snap a pic. This child will never have another decent picture taken of him.

At fifteen months:
-William treats everything like a phone, including the clementine he ate for breakfast this morning. He holds things up to his head and says, "hello!"
-He is obsessed with dogs. I think he wants to be one
-Everything is "all done" or "no, no, no!" all the time
-He hugs and kisses all his stuffed animals (mama and daddy usually get told, "no, no, no!" when we ask for a kiss :)
-Will is starting to move into 24 month clothes. Seriously.
-William is the cutest, wriggliest, sassiest, funniest guy I know!

A few super funny (and might I say, unflattering) William selfies. We've kind of had to put the kabosh on him using the camera on the phone. He's somehow starting to figure out how to open other apps, and he has the huuuugest tantrums when we have to take the phone away..... yikes.

The few non-blurry pics I could get of him:

Where's William?

 Peek!

When the day comes that a good game of peek doesn't induce huge belly laughs, I'm going to be a sad mama. (Well.... maybe an 18 year old who still thinks peek is hilarious might be a little weird...)

In case you haven't heard the news..... we moooooved! We've been trying to sell our old place for over 2 years. The stars finally aligned in our favor and we're out of there. We're renting an apartment right now, which has its perks and drawbacks (I can very clearly hear my upstairs neighbors doing heaven knows what right now at 10pm... thanks guys). Hopefully we'll be in a house within a year or so, but we're just playing things by ear right now. It actually feels really freeing and relaxing to not be tied down to a residence. Thanks to all our amazing friends and family who helped out in various ways during our move, we absolutely 100% could not have done it without all of you!

Fourteen Months

Will turned 14 months on Saturday! We had our very first sassy pants refusal to sit in the chair and do pictures. (In fairness, he's cutting two teeth and had a pretty upset tummy on Saturday). Happy 14 months, sassafras!

William also tried out playdough for the first time! He gave it a solid rating of "ok". I think he'll like it more in the future, he can be kind of slow to warm up to new things (No idea where he gets that from).

 He was more interested in the playdough containter and tools than he was the actual playdough. He loves putting lids on things!

 I was lazy and made "plain" playdough. I really hate using food coloring, I always end up with stained hands for days. Anyone have any suggestions for coloring playdough other than food coloring or kool aid? I think kool aid smells so terrible. 

What's Going On

Not too much going on around the Butler house. We're glad the brutally cold weather is over and we've been getting out for some stroller rides now that it's a whopping 40 degrees. While it was so nastily cold our pipes froze and we didn't have running water for two days. Ugh.... that was a treat. Glad it's over and done with though, and we're super lucky we didn't have a pipe burst.

Here's how we've been surviving winter so far:

We went to the DIA

 Here William meets (and rides) one of my favorite pieces at the DIA, Arty the Donkey

We've been doing a little sledding (when it's not negative 1 trillion degrees)

We played with some snow in the kitchen because hey, why not?

How do you survive winter with a toddler? Especially when it's too darn cold to go outside. Where do you go? What things do you do around the house? We're dying for spring around here.

Also, if you're still feeling New Year's-ish, or nostalgic for 2013 in any way, or you just want something to brighten your day, here is a super awesome mash-up of the top pop hits from 2013. Daniel Kim, the genius behind these mash-ups, has been making them every year since 2010, enjoy!

Adios, 2013

Ah, 2013. You were a wild year. 2013 was a big chunk of William's first year, so it was pretty amazing. On the other hand, there was some less than pleasant themes running through a big chunk of the year and I'm going to try my darndest not to let them butt their way into 2014 (at least the things I have some control over). 

2013 was a pretty William-centric year. I looked through all my old pictures form the year and they are 99.8% William (as they should be). I know Dave and I did things as a couple and with friends during the year, but it seems as though I was mostly interested in taking pictures when Will was around. Hmmm... wonder why?

Looking back on these old pictures is astonishing. I looked at the pictures of New Year's Day last year when William could barely hold up his head and leaving the house seemed like the most daunting, exhausting chore and I thought "Whoa! Was that my baby just a year ago? Was that my life just a year ago?" How things have changed! I really, really miss having a tiny little snuggly bug around the house, but life is so much easier having a young toddler! 

So, our year (William's year) in pictures. Just a few of my favs, it was hard to choose!

 JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH

 APRIL

MAY

JUNE

JULY

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

 We wish you a very happy 2014!

**not all of these pictures are mine. thanks to the hubs, the grandparents, friends, and anyone else who sent any of these pictures my way!**