William is 4!

Our little guy just had a birthday and he is officially 4 years old! William has hit many milestones in the last year and we are so proud of him.

Some facts about William:

• He has gotten over his shyness and loves to be around other people! This is great since we are trying to get him prepped for kindergarten next year.  
• He is a very compassionate boy. If he senses you are in pain he will ask you if you are okay and offer to rub you or kiss it to make it all better. Sweet boy.
• William shows great discipline. I have to credit having a strong father for that one. It is amazing how well he will listen and pay attention. 
• I get told all the time what a mature little boy I have. Most people are amazed that he is his age and behaves the way he does. That makes me proud.
• William wakes up full of joy. He greets you with "good morning" and a lot of times starts the day singing the "good morning song" that his daddy taught him. 
• William shows how much he retains what you teach him. If you are caught doing something wrong he will be the first one to let you know "That's not a good choice". Trust me, I get told about my bad choices all the time!
• He loves animals, trucks, robots, all things Disney, fishing, playing outdoors and hanging out with his daddy. Daddy is his favorite person. I have becomes alright with that. Sort of.
• He is showing so much more independence and I have been working hard on letting him do things for himself. Operation un-spoil the child is progressing well so far. It turns out that he really likes doing things for himself! Again, I credit his father for that. He helps so much with the boy child. 
• William has become very talkative and asks a lot of questions. I love it! I love helping him learn and understand things. He asks some really good questions too! 
• William is into Scooby Doo, Phineas & Ferb and programs on Animal Planet/ NatGeo Wild. It is amazing how he really gets into some of these shows. He loves to go down to the man room and watch with his dad. The part I don't like... he puts his hand in the front of his pants like most men do. Gross. Of course his daddy is proud of that! 

Overall William is a vibrant and loving little boy. We are so excited to see all the new things he learns over the next year. We are so proud of him!

Halloween 2011

It's that time of year again...the time for silly "holidays" and although I don't believe in the whole Halloween thing, I still let my kid be a kid. Dwayne was in charge of the costume for William and decided on a pirate. Good choice, eh? Good thing Will loves all things pirate so he really enjoyed his costume. I drew on a mustache with eyeliner since I knew there is no way he would keep an eye patch on. Glad I did because the mustache was the hit at the Halloween events we attended!

Check out the mustache! 

One day he will look enthusiastic about getting his photo taken. One day.

He enjoyed yelling out "Trick or treat!" 

The bounce house. He LOVED it! It was so funny how when kids would fall from bouncing too hard William would ask them "Are you okaaay?!" and when William would fall he would yell out "I'm okaaaay!" 

Pumpkin patch fun

Look very carefully in this photo and tell me what you notice.*Hint- look what is in his hand?

He just doesn't like looking at the camera.

This was the "punkin" he chose to purchase.

He looks like he is up to no good!

Being like dad

Every time Dwayne is around William tends to want to hang around him and in some cases imitate his daddy. This can be a great thing and other times... it can be a very bad thing! Thankfully the good outweighs the bad and Will gets to learn a lot of things from his dad. Dwayne has taught him how to cast a line out in the water, catch a fish, take out the trash, throw a football and so many other neat things. I love when he sees his dad reading and wants to do the same. When I see the two of them together I realize how important a father's role is most especially for boys. After all, a boy can only learn how to be a man from a man.
Now some days Will takes his manliness too far. Yesterday I caught him pulling the cushions off the couch and destroying the family room so I asked him why he was doing that. He responds with "Go back in the kitchen and wash the dishes!" I tell you what, he is lucky he is so adorable or else.... Now you know Dwayne was proud and pulled the old "That's my boy!" Men!!!

Go Dwayne!!

I just had to share that Dwayne won some trophies in a recent Toastmasters speaking contest that was held locally. He took home 2nd place for Humorous Speaking Contest & 2nd place in Evaluation Contest Division D. He also won 2 first place trophies in the same categories last week! He has made it to the finals that will be held in Charleston, South Carolina next month. My hubby certainly has the gift of gab! We are all so proud of him!! :-)

Sometimes I just want to say....

I am sure some of you will not be surprised to know that this post is about my dear husband Dwayne. He gets these ideas in his head sometimes and because I am a great wife, I humor him. We live on a pond and he LOVES to go fishing as often as he can. Our pond has all kinds of fish in it although we have never eaten any out of there before. I took him to the store so he could buy some new fishing supplies. He was going to wait until it cooled down a bit this evening to see if he could catch anything. That was all he was supposed to do.

How about an hour before he went out there he starts rummaging through MY kitchen looking for items to cook fish with. He went on and on about how he was going to catch the fish and get it straight into some hot "grease" as he calls it (country ain't it?). I'm sorry, when we lived in Miami we used to catch fish and eat it all the time. Here in South Carolina, we just go up to Publix or Kroger and buy it ready to cook. I will spare you all the gross details of his stanky fishes he caught. I cleaned the 3 fish he brought in and cooked them. He sat at the table feeling like a King, bragging about his catch. Then all of a sudden things got quiet. Very quiet. I asked him if everything was okay. He looked at me out the corner of his eye and said next time he wants fish he will just send me to the store to buy it. I just giggled a bit and almost said "I told you so". He knew he lost this one. I am going to talk about him for a very long time. Sometimes men get into this "manly-man, I want to conquer the world" state of mind and as a good wife you just have to let them have their fun. I am quite certain Dwayne learned his lesson! Now I am off to go get the fish funk out of the air :)

I have learned my lesson

You see this adorable little boy in the picture? He's not so adorable when he is forced to sit in an auditorium that has no music playing or performances. Boring awards ceremonies just are not for him and the 3 other boys that had to be dragged out for being too "active". At least I got to see my Chardie get her award for being the top student for Spanish III Honors. I had to get up outta there and thankfully the high school has a nice courtyard area with a little pond. Next time he is staying HOME! Lesson learned!

Wordless Wednesday

Boys like to spit huh?

I have discovered over the past week that William enjoys spitting for no reason. He will make spitty sounds and start laughing. I am feeling like he is going back to the baby days. I try to get him to stop and he still does it. I can't figure out what caused him to start this. I had a couple men doing some home improvement work on my house and I asked them if their sons did it. They immediately said "oh yeah" Then they go on to tell me that it doesn't stop. Eww!! I was so disgusted! The girls never did anything like this so I guess it is a male species thing. Gosh, boys are some gruesome little creatures :p

What William loves

Every single morning when William wakes up he goes into my bedroom and looks through my window. He tells his daddy that he loves to throw rocks in the water and catch a fish. He repeats this at least 6 times.
Since the weather has warmed up, Dwayne takes him out in the backyard to the water to throw a few rocks and to toss the line in (with a live worm). William will swear that he caught a fish. Poor guy, the fish are not biting quite yet. Dwayne can't wait for the day William pulls up his first real fish. I can hear William now saying "FISH ON!" Hopefully we will be able to get a photo or video when that day comes. I have a feeling it will be soon.

He's old school and not changing one bit

If you have been an active Momfiles reader then you might know that Dwayne and I are very old school. I however know when to get with the times. For example, these are my ear buds. They are cute, small and can fit in my pocket.

Here is Dwayne's version~ the bulky headphones. He has had them since about 1996. It finally came apart a week ago and he was heartbroken.

He went and bought new headphones. They are HUGE. It is like he specifically needed to seek out the biggest ones he could find. Not only is it enormous but it also has a 50 foot cord attached! WTH!?

You can compare the size of the old ones with his new ones. My husband takes old school to his own ridiculous level. Oh and he likes to listen to his cassette tapes from his boom box with these. He has even tried plugging this thing into his BlackBerry! bahahaha!

I did go and buy him some plain ear buds for his phone so he doesn't look like a fool. Bless his heart, what do I do with him? ;)

Wordless Wednesday

William in a laundry basket~ He said "Help! I stuck"

In "the lab" with dad

Please excuse the low quality photo but I just had to snap this one. You see Dwayne has a mini studio set up downstairs in his man room and William has been watching his daddy closely. It is not unusual to see Will talking into his Carmex tube or anything else that he can use as a pretend microphone. He saw his dad practicing a speech and Will said to Dwayne "Arriba!" and he goes straight for the mic and chats away. It is so funny when you play his voice back on the computer. His face lights up at the sound of his own voice.

What makes my day right

Every morning is always a struggle getting Dwayne out the door for work. The kids are a breeze, they are always prepared to leave on time. Dwayne is a lounger. He wants to chat and chill in the morning. I am the clock watcher and the nag. I am constantly pointing at the clock telling him he needs to leave. The problem is, we are both engaging in conversation and it is so hard to stop. Dwayne is so silly in the morning with all of his corny jokes and foolishness. I can truly say that my weekday morning is never complete without our long "see ya later" kisses and hugs at the front door before he leaves for work. Some mornings he will even call before he gets to the office to tell me he misses me already. He is going to get me for telling his business!! For the record, he is still the manly man he makes himself out to be to everyone but underneath that athletic chest (haha!) is a warm and loving heart. I love that crazy man!

It's not just a hat

See the hat in the picture? Well it has been in Dwayne's life for about 10+ years now. He LOVES this hat dearly. A friend he used to work with (who is now deceased) in his 911-communications days gave it to him for Christmas. Dwayne used to work the graveyard shift and the center would be freezing due to all the high-tech equipment. So regardless of what it felt like outside, he wore it for 12 hours straight inside the workplace. He loved this hat so much that he would wear it to bed at night during the winter months. Sexy huh?

We were in Walmart together (hat included) about a week and a half ago and when we got back to the house he was frantic. He ran back out the front door and was down in my car, the yard and even his car. He runs back in the house to ask if I had his hat. I told him that I didn't. He freaked out and declared that he has lost his hat. He was thinking he dropped it in Walmart. I asked him if he wanted I would go with him to look for it. He was so sad. He was even teary-eyed. This hat was filled with sentimental memories. We did not return to Walmart that night. He had a mini-memorial via YouTube videos of old songs that reminded him of his dawg that gave him the hat. He said good-bye to his hat.

We went to Walmart a couple nights ago and I suggested we see if there was a lost and found. Indeed there was. Dwayne described his hat and viola, there it was! I think he almost cried tears of joy when he was reunited with his precious and very filthy hat. He was ALL smiles. I was happy for him. We brought it home and I washed it up and made it Downy fresh. He was whole again. He knows he will keep better track of his things. Bless his heart, he's a simple man. Can't be mad at that :)

Cowlicks

I just can't seem to get any really good photos of William these days. He is more interested in looking at the pictures on the camera more than getting his actual photo taken. Look at the funky wave in the front of his head. It does not matter how much you brush it, it always goes in whatever direction it wants. I think I am going to let his curls grow in just a little bit and see what it looks like. If he looks too girly then we will have Dwayne shave it off. I tell you what though, having a boy is a dream. I went through way too much doing hair for so many years with the girls. I am so glad that they finally pretty much have a handle on it although they still ask me to help them sometimes.

The Man Room

We recently did a little home improvement project in Dwayne’s Man Room. Yeah, I let him have a room all to himself. I say he is lucky. I would have otherwise turned it into a playroom. I really wanted to get some new bathroom furniture, a bedding set or repaint the kitchen but the Man Room project won.

So the Man Room project was to replace the old carpet with new flooring and we opted to go the frugal way by doing the work ourselves. We went with a higher end vinyl tile (self-sticking) since the base of the floor is concrete. Dwayne let William help with the rolling of the first few tiles. Don't laugh at the rolling pin, I did say we were doing things frugally!
When the boy started doing wild things like this it was time to send him upstairs to his sisters. Things started to get rather sticky (literally) It took us about 7 hours since we had to cut all the detailed edges and corners. Those were the moments I wanted to jump out the window. I could not wait to be DONE!
We were both is so much pain we could not believe it. Your boy Dwayne behaved like the usual fool and I did have to say a few (dozen) choice words. Let's just say he likes to try some really dumb things instead of doing it the proper way and I have to get on him. Thankfully we made it through and it came out really beautiful~ besides his wall art. His favorite stuffed bass. People always ask him if he caught it. He tells them "Sho nuff, caught it at an estate sale!".
I am kind of jealous now. I think this color is so nice with his custard colored walls.

Now we are thinking about the next project.... Who knows what the next Shelly & Dwayne adventure will be!

Wordless Wednesday

William was about 10 months in this photo.

He is so annoyed with me :)

Remember back when I posted this? If you have been reading Momfiles long enough then you know how proud Dwayne is of being a manly man. He was so annoyed today when I took out this raspberry shirt for him to wear to work. You should have heard all of his snarky comments haha! He was even more irritated with the name of the color. He was like " Now that's some bull%@(^!"