About Me (Will)

I didn't get tagged or anything, but Mom wanted to share a few things about me that you might or might not know...


1. I tell my mom I love her - without being prompted - almost every day. I also often tell her that I'm not going to like her anymore (!) when I get in trouble.

2. I love to pretend I'm somebody else. I get this from my mom. My favorite people to pretend to be are Mr. Randy, who cuts our grass, or my friend Davis, who is 4. I also like to pretend to be Grandma Nancy.

3. I am allowed to plug things in when a grownup is watching now! I love it!!! But sometimes it seems to bother Mom and Dad. For some reason they don't think that you should plug things in as a past-time.

4. I love fans and vacuum cleaners. But I think some vacuum cleaners are too loud, so even though I like to vacuum, I won't use Mom's best one. I go upstairs when she uses it because I don't like the noise.

5. I say good prayers before meals. I ALWAYS pray for "the people who were in the tornado".

6. I! love! getting! to! work! with! Daddy!!! Daddy is so cool.

7. I like to be called Copper. Will is OK too.

8. Once a long time ago, Daddy made going to the bathroom fun by saying, "Lotty dotty, Will likes to potty!" So now we call going to the potty "Lotty Dottying".

9. I behave much better if I know what's going to happen. If you tell me it's time for bed, I will protest and misbehave. But if you tell me that in just a few minutes it'll be time for bed, I will usually be ready before you are!

10. I eat Kid Cuisines every night for dinner right now. Mom says that when they are gone, she won't buy anymore for a while. She doesn't like that I don't eat what she makes and she hopes it is just a phase.

11. Sophie bugs me sometimes, but I love her a whole lot. I can't wait for Mom to get her up in the mornings, and I like to go in with Mom to say "Good morning!" to her.

12. Tonight after church I explained to Mom why people get baptized. She thought I did a really good job.

13. If Daddy leaves for work before I wake up, I am sad. Mom helps me call him on the phone to say good morning and I think that's fun.

Monkey Sea?

Look very closely at the picture above and you'll see... absolutely nothing. Apparently when you buy a deluxe sea monkey kit at TJ Maxx (not really known for their pet department) on clearance for $3, the eggs aren't quite as fertile as you might hope.

So our Sea Monkey tank is waiting for new tenants, which are on order from eBay. If we can actually manage to hatch any of these critters, we have an aerator, a key chain they can live in, and a Sea Monkey "leash" (which looks suspiciously like the aerator - I think they may have had a few extras on hand at the Sea Monkey factory and decided to throw another in with a different name).

Agricultural Enrichment

Last Saturday with my sister Sylvia in town, we decided to try out "Summer Saturdays" at the Agricultural Center by our house. They have different kid-centered activities each Saturday. This Saturday, we were able to groom and ride miniature donkeys, watch a mule play with her baby, visit sheep and follow the process of the wool being made into yarn, and even pat one of the Mounted Police's beautiful steeds.
Sophie's donkey "Eeyore" - the smallest - was perfectly to scale to her size, so she looked very natural riding him!

About 1/3 of the way through the ride, Sophie said, "All done!" and motioned to get off. "Sorry, Sophie - the ride is $3 and you've only spent $1." She was somewhat reluctant but we continued on and got our money's worth!

Will did not want to ride a donkey, but he enjoyed visiting Bear, one of the police horses, and watching a police officer wash and groom one of the others.

Mimi and Grandma's Visit

We didn't take a lot of pictures during Mimi and Grandma's visit. I'm very bad about taking pictures when we have guests, and in general about taking pictures of people other than my kids. I always hate to interrupt a good time for a picture! So you'll have to trust me that we had a wonderful time with Grandma and Mimi, and we did take a few pictures at the zoo.

Mimi, Will and Sophie had lots of fun on the swinging bridge.

Will tells Sophie it is time to leave the petting zoo.

This picture is notable because I took quite a few when Will and Sophie were swinging, trying to get them both in focus at once. In almost every picture, Sophie is watching Will in complete adoration, thrilled to be swinging with her brother and making sure she is doing everything like him!

Chocolate Milk

The last thing Will said to me as he was going to bed one night was this:

"Mama, I'm starting to want to drink chocolate milk every day."

"OK."

"Because I want to grow taller and taller and taller. I don't want to be three too much longer. I want to see what they learn about God and do in the four-year-old class."

A Classic Summer Afternoon

When Mom and Dad came last week, they brought watermelon! Sophie may have had a bite or two last summer, but this summer she rediscovered the joys of watermelon like the first time.

The Rubber Band

On the way to the 4th of July celebration at Crockett Park, Will asked, "Where is the rubber band?"

"What rubber band?" we asked.

"The one that's going to play music at the Fireworks!" Will responded.

Am I Officially Low-Maintenance Now?

I love Jon and Kate Plus 8. I think Kate is (sometimes unintentionally) hilarious. In a recent episode, Jon was trying to help her shop. She explained that she was hopeless when it came to fashion. She said something like, "I have no clue when it comes to clothes. I don't have time to pay attention to what people wear."

Although I only have a quarter as many kids, I guess that can be said of me now.


As some of my Facebook friends already heard, last week I wore two non-matching shoes to work. I went to the office kitchen, which is upstairs, for coffee a couple of times. I ran to Wendy's for lunch. Not until 5:50, as I was getting ready to leave, did I think, "Man, I think something is wrong with one of these shoes!" Whoops!

(I now remember putting on one of each, to see which one looked better with my outfit. Sophie was in my closet so I asked her, "This one or that one?" to which she replied, "This one or that one!" (She doesn't quite get the "either/or" concept yet.) Apparently at that point I got distracted and never made a decision.)

Independence Day

We hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July. While Andy worked on Oak Hill Manor, our day was pretty typical. It consisted of grocery shopping, a visit to a small park near our house, meeting Andy for lunch, and naptime.

After naps it was time to meet our friends the Sharpes at Crockett Park for the fireworks. We had a great time. All the kids loved the fireworks - no one was scared, not even 11-month old Maddox.

Sophie had an unfortunate run-in with my camp chair, resulting in the battle scars you see in the final photo. Ouch!

Still, she recovered in time to say said, "Ooohh, pret-teee!" after each and every firework (probably around 80 times in a 15 minute period). I'm pretty sure the people around us were hearing "Ooohh, pret-teee!" in their sleep that night.

Daddy's Partner

Will has started going with Daddy on some of his maintenance calls, or for shorter periods when he's working on the renovations. Andy says he is very good, although I'm sure he can't help but slow things down a little. Will puts the pressure on Daddy by saying the following: "Don't forget me, Daddy... your Partner!" If he's not sure that's worked, he'll add on a "Please don't leave me, Daddy!" for good measure. Poor Daddy is clay in his hands.

Fathers' Day - finally!

Belatedly, since I just uploaded the photos, I thought I'd share pictures of Andy's Fathers' Day card. He didn't really get a gift, since he said he didn't want us to spend any money. This was unfortunate for him, since I'd planned to get him an Ipod Touch. But at least he knows now that he has my blessing when he decides to buy one.

A New Voice (and a new opinion on EVERYTHING)

Sophie has started talking in short sentences (and sometimes longer ones, although I don't always understand those). Here are some Sophese phrases, with English translations where necessary:

Hair-ro (hello)

What doin', Mama? (I hear this one a lot, and I must say it's very cute)

(EVERY morning): Want ceryaya (cereal), pleathe! then, if I try to give it to her dry, Want bowl! Mulch! (milk), then Want more ceryaya!

(As Will throws all her toys out of her crib) That my bee-uh (bear)! That my bay-beeeee!

No besos! (Aunt Annie is teaching her Spanish and besos is Spanish for kisses. Sophie is sometimes miserly with her kisses, especially with a kiss-hog like Annie.)

Hush, Rentz! (Ranse is a nickname for Ransom.)

Want mun-eeee! (Sophie LOVES money. We don't know why. We use plastic, so we're not sure how she knows what money is.)

(As she is washing these various objects with a wipe...) Clean chair! Clean Mama! Clean (Mama's) arm!

Want to shut the gate! Want to shut the gate!

(When it's time to leave Mrs. Emily's, as she chases Maddox - who is crawling away with a sense of urgency - around the room) Want to kiss Magnux! Want to kiss Magnux!

(As we're passing by my jewelry in the bathroom) Bay-bee need a neck-ness. Bay-bee need a bay-bee neck-ness!

(After I unbuckle her carseat) Good job, bay-bee!

(To her Sunday School teachers) Bye-bye bay-bee!

There are a few words that are more difficult, so she has to pause to get her mouth set right to say them. The difficult word comes out slow and lower in tone that the rest of the sentence. Here are a couple of examples:

Want-the-Bob-the-Builder........... SPPPOOOWWWN! Want-the-Bob-the-Builder........... SPPPOOOWWWN! Want-the-Bob-the-Builder........... SPPPOOOWWWN!

I drinkin' Wool's..... JUUUIIICCCE. I drinkin' Wool's..... JUUUIIICCCE.