Big Shirt

William got some cool clothes for Christmas. Most of them are "real" t-shirts (without the onesies buttons down low), and this one is for an 18 month old. He fit in it until nap time, when he got mad and figured out how to get his arm out of it. :)

Plum Pudding Take Two!

At Mom's house we had plum pudding from Marjorie from England for Christmas. Long sentence. Sorry. Just know Mark Crozier came for Christmas and he ate some too. Know there was a lot of rum butter involved. Which had a lot of rum in it. :)

Christmas Day Cont. . .

One of the best parts of Granny and Grandpa's house is the windows. Did you know you can watch the dog run around the yard from here? AND there are these cool curtain things that are so much fun to hide behind.



Meeting Eliot. . . again!

Christmas Day

We did crosswords. . . okay, Croz and Shannon did crosswords. . . Mike amused himself with the camera.



Crozier and William hung out again. . .

William Meets Maddy! Christmas Eve

Maddy is my cousin Jenn's baby! She is super sweet, and terribly content! :)

Learning from the Prof

Here's William being taught how to put blocks in certain holes in a container. I've been trying to teach him this for a while (with absolutely no interest from Will at all), but the minute Grandad Murphy starts to explain, William's all ears! He learned pretty quick from the prof!

Plum Pudding!

Marjorie got the Murphy's some plum pudding for Christmas this year! I made rum butter, and Mom cooked the pud, and then we lit it on fire. How cool is that? ON FIRE!!!

Mom and I Chill Out.

Just hanging out while Mom and Grandma decorate the tree!

Opening Gifts on the 20th

See GG Francesca, I told you he was kissing it!!

William Laughing. . .

Christmas at home. . . on the 20th! Part 2

Our traditional hold the camera out in front of us and take a picture of ourselves - with William for the first time!!

Christmas at home. . . on the 20th!

Mike and I decided to unwrap all Will's presents on the 20th here at home so that he could have them before Christmas. . . this is the start of the evening.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Dear Friends and Family,

It is with great happiness that we send out this Christmas "Blog" Card to you! We hope that this finds you and your's healthy and happy.

It's been a crazy year for this Knotts' family: In February we welcomed William Jackson into our family. He is truly our pride and joy. He's gone from little newborn to extremely impressive smasher in the last 10 months. He's currently working on walking, and we've got bets placed as to when he'll get that first step in. He says "mama" and "dada" and signs "more banana" all the time now. We're fully recovered from the shock of adding a little one to our lives, and happily plugging away at parenthood. It definitely the biggest adventure we've ever had.

After a year of searching for the right job, Michael is happily installed at the GSA. He walks to work (in Orange County no less), and Will and I meet him for lunch at picnic tables outside his office. I was laughing with him today that it's not such a bad life eating lunch outside in December with his family! Government work seems to be where its at!

I'm still writing articles every now and again, and happily raising William. It's been quite a good life here in Aliso Viejo: Mike and I run on the beach that is ten minutes from our house, I can walk to the grocery store and to WalMart or Target if we need something, and we've got good friends, a great church and more friends on their way here! We've had a bunch of visitors this year, and enjoyed every minute with them: we hope you'll consider a trip down to Southern California soon!

Much love,

The Knotts'
Michael, Shannon and William

BOB Sport Utility Stroller!

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Murphy for the stroller - this is a picture of the glee that William had when he saw it. Seriously, he was so happy, he kept trying to get into the stroller even before it had the wheels on it, and he had such a good time at the beach.

Christmas Stocking!!

My Grandmima Knotts surprised me and made me an amazing Christmas Stocking. It's cool to wear Christmas stockings on your head. Is that true? Mom and Dad said so, but the glint in dad's eye makes me wonder if he's trying to pull the wool over my eyes. . .

Train Set from Gloria and Ken!

William just got this train set today for Christmas from Gloria and Ken, and has spent this afternoon in happy contemplation of the new toys. :) Thank you, thank you!

Stacking Blocks

Okay, I admit it. This is only really for me and the grandmoms. We're going to think this is awesome. The rest of you are going to wonder why I posted a picture of two blocks. I spent the last day teaching William about stacking. This is his first stack. It's the greatest stack I've ever seen.

Pow Wow Indian

Pow wow Indian, Pow wow Indian.

Pampers Box Car

Going around in the Pampers Box Car makes William very happy. :)

Check out this sweater!

Oh my goodness, Will loves the fire truck sweater he got! It finally fits and he's so excited because fire trucks are his favorite thing. So much so that when a siren goes by, he looks at me gleefully, crawls quickly over and waits for me to swoop him up and take him outside to hear the sirens out there! :) (Sometimes we even get to see them!)

GG Francesca's PJ Outfit!!!!

Man o man, this is the best, warmest Christmas PJs Will has ever seen. I wouldn't mind a pair myself.

Christmas Outfit #1

"William's First Christmas" red pjs. . . Thanks Gramima Knotts. . .Enough said.
PS - Tomorrow it's Gr8 Gramma's pjs. . .

Christmas Bib

Family Portrait

Kissing

A lot of girls like to kiss me. Seriously. I must be pretty cool.

I love the Hannulas. Happy new town, my friends!

Dad and I really get along!

He's very funny, my dad.




Note: When thinking, or doing something new, it's important to stick your tongue out. I don't know why though.

In Jail

Sometimes you have to pretend like you are in jail to make all the adults laugh. They do though. It's pretty awesome. Also, for some reason they think that having climbed this high up the stairs I'm doing something special. . . that's nothing. . . just watch me try to go down them - now that's something really spiffy!

Climbing Stairs - GRRRR!!!

William learned to climb stairs at Auntie Joycey's a couple weeks ago!

Juice!

William learned to give five a couple of days ago. . . or as Mrs. Carlino would say - "JUICE!"

Grandparents Murphy and William!

Okay, one more!

More Friday after Thanksgiving Photos

William's Bruise

The other thing that is official is we officially owe the Aliso Viejo firefighters some cookies. William, after falling backwards with a chair crashing on the bridge of his nose decided to cry so hard that he stopped breathing, passed out, scared us new parents so badly that we called 911 and only after we had done so did he wake up completely unharmed except for a rather bad bruise and a shocked manner that there were these really cool firefighters in our house. He's fine. We're fine (although Mike and I didn't sleep great for a couple of days). . . :)

Friday after Thanksgiving

It's official - it's now going to be a tradition - the Friday after Thanksgiving when we're in California will be spent with mom and dad and Gary and Cheryl - we had so much fun together!

Meeting Mark Crozier

Catching Moths Together

Yup. Mike's teaching Will to catch moths. It's hard when you don't have complete control over your fine motor skills.