The Unbearable Cuteness of Will

Not saying his ABCs... yet. But still unbearably cute nonetheless.

The Unbearable Cuteness of Lyla

Lyla waking up from her afternoon nap.

Lyla being super cute.

Will fans

First off, Will is 6 weeks old. We can hardly believe it. He's growing a lot to and has really filled out in the past week or so.

Since Will was born a lot of people have been wanting to come by and see him. Especially the people from our church (seeing as we missed four weeks of church - two of the Sundays we were in the hospital), so we've had a bunch of visitors which has been great. Unfortunately I don't always think to take pictures because either we're busy and I can't remember where the camera is, or our stinky camera from 2002 is slowly dying and replacing it is not top on our list of priorities, or our friends insist that you don't take their picture even though for the past 3 weeks they've given you a tremendous amount of grief for not taking their picture when they visited you in the hospital... you know who you are.

Here are some, but not all, of the people who've visited us in the past 6 weeks.

The McDowells:


The Wammacks (sorry other Wammacks, I don't know why I didn't get pictures of you):
The Hawkins's:


The Greg (Greg is my roommate from college who drove into town while he was on a work trip. Unfortunately the rest of his family couldn't come visit):
The DeBoers (I guess Luke was camera shy):


The Adams's (except Tom who was, well, busy with other plans... and didn't invite me... grrrr.):



We're looking forward to many opportunities to visit with more friends and family this summer. We're planning a vacation in July to visit St. Louis and then Branson, Missouri - first for the Ring Family Reunion where we'll see my dad, Fei, Matthew and Anna, hopefully my brother and sister, plus a number of my aunts and uncles, cousins, my dad's cousins and other family. Then we're headed to Branson to spend time with Katherine's brothers and parents. I can't wait for Emily and Ally to meet Will and to see the three girls running around and playing together. Yay summer!

Congrats Laura and Andy

I woke up this morning to the wonderful news that my (little) cousin Laura (aka LoLo) gave birth to my "1st cousin once removed" and Lyla and Will's 2nd cousin: Axel Andrew Gibson at 1:30 am. 9lbs 7oz 22 in long. Pretty darn awesome.



We're looking forward to heading over to the Detroit area in a few weeks to introduce the cousins, until then rest up and enjoy your new blessing. We love you and are excited for you!

Love,
Kevin, Katherine, Lyla and Will

Easter egg hunt 2009

This Easter, all of the East Grand Rapids Play Group moms decided that it would be really fun to have an Easter Egg Hunt for their little kids. They were right, it was a lot of fun. It happened the morning of Good Friday in the back yard of our friends and old next-door-neighbors, Andy and Mandy. All in all about a bazillion people showed up and it kind of was chaotic, what with thousands upon thousands of under-two year olds milling about everywhere I tried to step.

But it was cute to see the kids chase after eggs, to see which kids "got" the concept and which didn't. For me, I really enjoyed seeing Lyla hunt for the eggs. She definitely picked up on the concept and knew when she saw an egg to pick it up and put it in her basket. (It helped that we had practiced the day before in our living room.)

After the egg hunt, we went inside for lunch... also chaotic... but good. It definitely was a lot of fun and there's a good chance that it will be come and annual tradition... except that eight of the moms in the group (including Katherine) are either pregnant or just gave birth to their second child. Will is the first of this new group and I fear that the addition of a second kid to the mix will change the dynamics of the group and it's questionable whether or not the group will be able to hold together. I hope the moms are able to figure it out...

Lyla planning out her strategy:
Ian on the hunt.
Kind of overwhelming...
Liam had a disadvantage not walking yet.
Sadie stopping to enjoy the spoils of her labors... while Lyla moves in for a hug.
And Sadie's off again.
Charlie looking sharp.
Charlie trying not to get distracted by the slide.
Julianna cleaning up.
The moms of East Grand Rapids. (imagine trying to get all the adults and children looking in a single direction for a picture... quite comical).
The lunch after... that's Lyla standing in the center.
Rockin' the double ponytail. Nice.
Oh yeah, QT with Daddy!
And Will. Slept through the whole thing. All the moms fawned over him (this being our first trip out since he was born) and he missed it. Probably for the better, don't want him getting full of himself.

Happy belated Easter everyone!!!

More sisterly love.

I am overjoyed to see how much Lyla loves her little brother. We weren't sure how she would react to the new addition, so to have this response is another wonderful blessing on top of all the other blessings we have been blessed with. Bless.

Not sure what inspired this other than Lyla sitting in Will's chair and a desire to see her holding him. I think it's hilarious that she laughed everytime his arm jerk hit her in the face. We're still working on teaching her to be gentle and, well, as you'll see at the end of the video there are a number of other things we're going to be on guard for as well.

Yes, she bit his finger.

Will's fist doctor visit

Last Tuesday we took Will to his 2-week doctor's appointment. It was quite the adventure for the little guy as he hasn't really done much other than sleep, eat, get his diaper changed, and lie around. He has continued to impress us with how calm and good-natured he is. I'm sure there are going to be plenty of circumstances in the future where he and his sister will have us pulling our hair out, but I must say that Katherine and I both are amazed and appreciative of what a calm baby he is. Especially given all the things we've had to deal with in the past three weeks.

Given how good of a baby and now toddler Lyla has been, we were expecting (and our friends were secretly wishing) that Will would be more difficult. If anything, he's better than even Lyla was. I'm not sure why we're so lucky, we definitely don't deserve it but we also not complaining. It's just one more thing on a long list of wonderful attributes of our beautiful children.

Here are the pictures from the visit to the doctor's.

Getting ready to go... Will sure doesn't like being put in his carseat.
LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!! LET ME... (tuck him in with a fuzzy blanket) ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ..............

He awakens in a strange place... hmm, this can't be good.

Hey, Beardy! What's going on? Where am I? Where's Lyla?

What the deuce?!?! That thing is freezing! Where are my clothes?

Oh, mom's finger! Excellent, I'll use this to call Lyla. She's come rescue me!

Seriously, Bearded Guy. What the heck is going on here. p.s. Do you have your tickets?... To the GUN SHOW? POW POW!!

Okay, that wasn't so bad. I got my shirt and socks back. I guess we'll go home soon, nothing else is going to happen to me.... wait, why does that guy have a needle?

Ow. That really hurt. Do you not see how scrawny my legs are? Why would you give me a shot in one? And I don't even get a Snoopy band-aid. What the heck!

Mom, you and the Bearded Guy better take me back to Lyla. I'm so over this place.

According to the measurements, Will has already grown an inch and a half and gained about a pound and a half. Surprise, surprise he's going to be tall. Who knew?

Last weekend

Last weekend, Katherine's mom (who had been in Grand Rapids since Will had been born) went home to Marion, IN and took Lyla with her. When she asked if Katherine and Iwanted her to take Lyla for the weekend, we were conflicted and had mixed feelings. Katherine's never been away from Lyla for multiple days, while I have had to be away for days at time before for work. So we both didn't want her to go because we knew we'd miss her. On the other hand, Katherine was still recovering and the idea of taking care of Katherine, Will and Lyla was daunting. So in the end, we decided to let our little bird fly and spent Thursday through Monday just me, Katherine and Will.

While we did miss Lyla a lot (I mean A LOT!), it was a relief to have some low-energy, quiet time. In fact, one day at lunch Will was sleeping and I said to Katherine, "The lack of noise is almost deafening. What did we used to do before Lyla?" Her answer: talk to each other... seems vaguely familiar.

The weather was somewhat nice a few of the days so we did get outside for a short walk up to the corner and back. Here we are at the apex of our walk:
Here's Katherine and Will getting ready.

Here's Will in the awesome hoodie that Mandy loaned us (Ian sure is a stylish kiddo).

Another shot of cute Will.

And here's our first thought as to what Will could wear if we took him outside. Unfortunately it was bigger than we needed. Which is too bad because he sure is cute in it. It reminds me of another cute kid I know...