Merry Christmas (better late than never)

Christmas was really fun this year. This was William's second Christmas, but it felt like his first since he was so little last year. It was great watching Will get into opening gifts, but we also learned that with a 13 month old, less is more on Christmas morning. All he wanted to do was explore his gifts (he would have played with the strap on his sled for hours...Santa should just have brought him straps and he'd have been thrilled), but we were on a bit of a time crunch so we kept having to take gifts away from him and he'd get upset (understandably). Next year we'll either get him far less or spread the gifts out over a few days.

Here are a few snapshots from our family Christmas!:

 Will painted pictures that we framed for some of our family and friends!

Dave made this ball ramp for Will with his own two crafty hands. I'm super proud of him for making it, and Will loves it. I think its going to be a hit for a long time coming.

 

 Will's buddy Myles gave him this bowtie for Christmas. This is one of the only pictures I got of him wearing it. I love it.

Christmas was a bit busier than we had planned on (as usual), but all in all it was pretty great this year. I feel pretty lucky to have so much family around, which is the reason for our Christmases being so busy.

What are some Christmas traditions you have with your family? Do you have tips and tricks for surviving busy holidays with little babes?

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and are ready to ring in the New Year!

All the best to you and yours. Happy Holidays from the Butlers!

Thirteen Months

 

So big... in his Christmas Jammies. 

(just in case you haven't seen this yet, a link to the Christmas Jammies video. I mostly love this. :)

Life is Good

November was busy, busy, and I feel like I took hardly any pictures!

Twelve Months (and other things)

Oh hey there, blog... nice to see you.

We've been a bit busy lately, and I have a million things I wanted to post about, so here is a mass post!

Will turned 12 months:

Will had a birthday party!!! You can see all the amazing pictures my friend Lindsey took for us here, but these are a few of my favorites:

check out the cute smash cake and cupcakes made by the lovely heather jones of bite me cake shoppe!

i asked for some simple cupcakes and she surprised me with these adorable gems! look at the little chocolate handles that make the hot chocolate cupcakes look like little mugs of hot chocolate... couldn't you just die? the other two flavors were white cake with vanilla bean frosting and pumpkin spice with cream cheese frosting and caramel sauce. that girl is amazing!

will and daddy! plus... check out that cute ribbon skirt i made for will's high chair :)

after cake Will was just about done with his party :)

There are about a million, trillion great pictures of Will with all his grandparents and great-grandparents at his party on Lindsey's flickr page, check it out!

Then... we went to Florida! 

will packed his bag, wouldn't it be great if that's all you packed for a baby?

 will took his first airplane ride! he did pretty well on the way there, he even got a compliment on his good behavior from the guy sitting next to us. on the way home he was pretty worn out and i think the poor girl who was our seat mate was cursing her bad luck.

will did some touristy sight-seeing

 we got in some pool time (though FL was unseasonably cold this year, i had to put on a scarf one day!)

dave and i went to disney one day... somehow these were pretty much the only pictures i took... but hey, a mickey shaped soft pretzle has to be much more magical than a regular old pretzel shaped one, right?

we took will to the central florida zoo, it was just ok, maybe we're spoiled by the detroit and toledo zoo? will was a little crabby and his favorite part of the zoo trip was that creepy zoo safari ride above, go figure.

So that's what's going on with us right now. We hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving!

Happy Birthday!!!

William celebrated his first birthday today, can you believe it?  This year has been the most fantastic, wonderful, amazing year (oh, and a tad stressful too... but hey). We feel so amazingly lucky to have such a wonderful baby boy! Looking forward to the toddler years already!
We went to the Hands-On Museum to celebrate Will's big day! He had been there one other time when he was a bit younger, so it was fun to see him do more exploring while we were there.

 Using the ball ramp in a completely inappropriate, but hilarious way. He looks like Oscar the Grouch!

Will got to explore an ambulance just like Daddy's!

Wouldn't you know that with everything going on I forgot to do his 12 month chair pictures? I guess the birthday celebration will have to continue tomorrow!

We had his first birthday party last Saturday. Pictures coming very soon!

Life is Good

Halloween

Oh, Halloween.... you were a trip. Lots and lots of rain, a teething baby who hadn't napped all day, a trillion people to pay trick-or-treat visits to (most of whom we didn't actually get to  - sorry if we ended up missing you this year!), and I was doing it all on my own. Who knows what I was thinking!

I think Will mostly had a good time, and I know the people we did stop and see enjoyed getting some Will snuggles! He was a spoiled little baby and got lots of trick-or-treat surprises - lucky baby :)

I couldn't even get Will to sit still for a picture in his monkey costume. I was so excited about this costume I whipped together, and I couldn't even get a picture of him in it. I really, really need to learn to stop having such high expectations for holidays and events and just go with the flow. It will make everyone happier, especially me. These are the pictures I ended up with before we went out for the night:

 busy monkey crawling away!

sad, crying monkey because i made him sit down (yes, i feel like a jerk)

three seconds of being still so i could get a blurry picture! this costume had a monkey tail that i sewed, but do you think i could get him to stand up so i could take a picture of it? no way! he was all rubber legs mcgee last night.

 sliiiiiiding off great grandma's lap :)

getting a trick-or-treat surprise from aunt biz! (thanks for the picture, uncle randy!)

my friend lindsey made this cute little felt banana to go with will's halloween costume. couldn't you just die? in the craziness of getting ready to go out on halloween, i forgot it at home. bummer!

Luckily we had gone to Plymouth's Halloween event earlier this month and had gotten some cute pictures of Will in his monkey costume then!

Thanks to everyone who helped make William's first Halloween special! Sorry again if we didn't make it to you, let us know if you want a special post-Halloween visit. :)