Big Boy

Happy Birthday to the "CEO*."


It's hard to believe that we've gone from this:


to this:


to this:


to this:

in just one year.

We love our little Wilbur, he makes us laugh every single day.


*Anthony calls Will the CEO, a term of endearment he has borrowed from the Sportsguy. It is very accurate because Will pretty much has the final say on everything we do in around here, for better or worse.

Baller

We got Will a basketball hoop for his birthday. When it came in the mail I decided I didn't want to wait until his birthday to give it to him, so we didn't (I really struggle with waiting and surprises). I was really excited by how much he likes it, but for the first few days he just liked to carry the basketballs around our apartment and didn't do too much with the hoop. To help Will understand that the "point" of the game is to get the ball through the hoop, Tony cheers loudly. As you can see, Will really likes the cheering. It is probably his favorite part. He is such a funny little guy, at least he makes us laugh.

On the road

Anthony and I have always liked attending BYU basketball games together. Since the closest the Cougars are playing to us this year is in Omaha, we decided to take a mini-road trip to see the game. My dad came too and we had a great time cheering the Cougs to victory.

*Sidenote: I really hate the word Cougs.





Will was awesome. We were a little concerned with how he would react to all the cheering, being that basketball games can get pretty loud and he freaked out at his first Royals game back in April when TJ went wild. This time he seemed excited by all that was going on. What a difference 7 months can make in maturity. It also must be noted that he spent a good portion of the game beaming at the 4 year old girl in a BYU cheer outfit sitting behind us.

It was fun visiting with other Midwestern BYU fans and doing something out of the ordinary. And of course, it was fun that BYU won. Anthony could probably give better commentary than me about the actual game, but Brandon Davies had a great night. And BYU snapped the Blue Jay's 26 game home win streak.

All bundled up. It got cold!

We were tired by the time we got home, and for sure the next day, but if was definitely worth the trip.

Blahg

We are still alive.

Our blog has been a little blah lately. I've gotten on a few times to post a quick update, but then our internet would be slow or Will would distract me or I would decide to not publish the post and now here we are, a whole month without something new and that is just no good.

So here are a few of our highlights and low lights from November:

Happys

• Eleven months of Will--our little guy has now lived in every month.
  
• Amazing November weather--no snow, lots of unseasonably warm days...we were spoiled and I am not enjoying the colder weather we've had the last few days.
  
• Gamers--lots of fun game nights with friends.
  
• Giving Thanks--a great thanksgiving weekend filled with great food, good company, and lots of blessings for which we are grateful.
• Great Deals--we didn't stay up all night or wake up early to brave the Black Friday sales, but we were able to find some deals that made us smile.
  

Sads

• Travels--Anthony had training in DC so I had to run the roost all by myself. I can do it just fine, but it is a lot more fun when he's around.
• Stomach flu--Will and Anthony caught a nasty bug. I got thrown up on for the first time (in my mouth, no less). This was a big time sad.
• Pathetic blogging--No excuse really, I just dropped the ball.

Here's to better blogging in December!

Pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere

We recently decided we needed some more agritourism in our lives, so we headed over to Shaake's Pumpkin Patch near Lawrence.

I love Anthony's face in this one. He looks so enthused.

We let Will pick a pumpkin, kind of. Mostly he just beat the pumpkin. Like a drum.

Nice family photo.

Pumpkin Patch 2009

What a difference a year makes. And what was I thinking posing like that for a picture? Ugh.


We had to take a picture of Will by the height chart. I wonder how tall he will be next year?



Not sure how accurate the height thing is anyway.



Me and my baby sis. I officially look "old." I think I may be in denial about my age, because I really do feel like I am about 21 or 22. What happened to the last 5 years of my life?


The boys. Sorry Mom, your eyes are closed in every picture I took. I'll need to get copies of your pictures from you so I can prove you were there too.

Happy Halloweekend

Trunk or Treat 2010

Will is a frog and I am a chocolate chip cookie. Anthony just got a haircut so that was enough dressing up for him.



Will was a pretty cute little frog, at least he was when he would wear his hood. He wasn't in the mood to take a nap this afternoon, which made for a grumpier trunk-or-treat than we would have hoped.



Passed out on the way home.

no contest

Anthony won his work's Most Awkward Photo contest earlier today by a landslide.

Behold, "Head gear, Super Nintendo, Mouth Breathing, Enough Said."



In other news, our softball team went 4-3 this year.

Flashback

Anthony's work is having some sort of "spirit" week this week, and as part of the festivities employees are encouraged to bring in cute baby pictures as well as a most awkward picture. Naturally, we've spent a fair amount of time this evening going through our photo archives and we've found some great pictures that just might need to posted on our blog sometime soon.

In the meantime, check out this picture we found while looking for a cute baby picture of TJ:



Maybe it's just me, but I think he looks a lot like Will in the swing video.

With a bit of this mixed in:

Snip, snip

Will's hair was getting kind of long. So, I decided to give it a trim.

He wasn't too excited about the clippers, but a nice orange dum-dum distracted him enough to get the job done.


Here he is post-cut. I think he looks so much older (and so much more like his dad!).


Here is a video I took of him at the park today. He really loves to swing.



Will is so much fun right now. Sometimes I wish I could bottle up moments like this so I can experience them again during those not so fun times. Dumbledore was really onto something with his pensieve.

Saturday is a special day

You know you are a parent when your Saturday mornings are a lot busier than your Saturday nights. Sometimes it seems like one of Will's main goals in life is to make sure we never sleep in. He must love Poor Richard and his proverbs because he has really taken the whole "early to rise" thing quite literally his entire 10 months of life. So, since we never get to sleep in anyways, we have been busy the past few Saturday mornings.

October 2nd--City of Shawnee Scarecrow Festival

This festival was awesome. Why? Because it was inexpensive, had tasty food and fun activities. We got to draw on a pumpkin and then stuff a scarecrow.


My artistic skills leave much to be desired, so I'm looking forward to the day when Will can take over for me as head family artist in a year or two. We bought some award winning-pumpkin bread to keep us energized.



It was delicious! Then we stuffed our scarecrow and brought him home just in time for General Conference and Will's morning nap. Perfect.


October 9--JDRF Walk at the Legend's


My sister, Laura, was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes 8 years ago. Each year the family members in the area participate in the KC area JDRF walk. This year, we got to attend, along with several of Laura's friends from school. It was a good time walking around the Legend's and then consuming lots of foods low in sugar. Laura's Lifesavers Rock!

October 16th--Kansas City Marathon (and 5k)

Anthony and I ran the Kansas City 5K yesterday. It wasn't exactly how I pictured it in my mind when I signed us up back in July, but it was fun. We had intended to run the half marathon, but after a series of setbacks we ended up running the 5K. I'm glad we switched. Traffic was terrible getting to the race and we ended up parking a ways away from the race and had to book it to get to the starting line of the race in time. We literally just made it. So we probably actually ran a 7K when you add in all of that pre-race craziness.


The race was really neat because you got to run through cool parts of the city. I really want to run a half marathon in the downtown area sometime because those runners got to see even more of the city.



In this picture Anthony's work is in the background. Obviously we were super concerned about our race time because we were taking pictures during the race.

Da-da da-da da-da da

Will babbles "da-da-da-da-da-da" all the time now. We aren't exactly sure that he is talking about Tony when he says that, so I am doing my best to help him learn that Dada means Tony. In order to help him learn this, whenever he says Dada I insist that Tony address his current need. It is awesome to hear Will yell "DA-DA-DA-DA-DA" at 6:00am and to look over at Tony and say, "He wants you," and then to snuggle back into my pillow for awhile. Ahh, the sacrafices I make for my child's growth and development.

miscellaneous

Sometimes I have a hard time updating our blog when I feel like nothing terribly exciting has been going on. Here is a recap of some of our recent happenings:

--Enjoying the cooler weather (especially Tony, I actually really love summer weather, minus the humidity) and being able to go for walks at all times of the day.


--Tony and I are playing co-ed softball. It's pretty fun. We've played 3 games and I am finally starting to feel confident*. So far we're 2-1. I play 2nd base and Tony is SS. It's fun to have some time where we get to hang out without worrying about Will. Thanks to my dad for watching Will while we play (our games are way past his bedtime).

(*Side note: I had a bad experience a few years ago. Tony and I went to the Trafalga batting cages with Carly & Daniel and Meredith & Steven before we moved to Springfield. We each took a turn in the cage and when my turn came I swung at and missed about 30 pitches. When I finally made contact with the ball--just contact, not an actual hit--everyone cheered. The John's are not ones for pity cheers, so I knew I must have been pretty pitiful site. I did appreciate the attempt to make me feel better though.).


--Tony is loving football season without worrying about school and looking for a job. He is doing his part to indoctrinate Will into the ways of BYU. He sings the fight song to him each game day as well as declaring our apartment Cougartown during the games. Doesn't Will look cute in his jersey?


--Will has discovered his tounge. I will glance over at him at different times during the day and he will just have his tounge hanging out. He's a little loco.


--Will is 9 months old. He has 8 teeth. He likes to read books and turn pages. He likes his mom. A lot. He likes to babble, especially da-da-da-da-da. His favorite food is applesauce. Sometimes he gives kisses. He hates naps.


--I'm keeping busy taking a class and trying to dejunk our apartment. My class is sort of a capstone of all I've the things I've learned thus far in my program. I have surprised myself a few times at how much I remember, but I've also gotten pretty rusty on a few things too. As for dejunking our apartment, we just have too much stuff and Will is proving that to me as he gets into things all the time. It is a work in progress, but it feels good to get rid of things and have (a bit) more order.

Is it really October this weekend? This past year has flown by. Even though I love summer, I always get excited for fall. Maybe because Christmas is just around the corner? It seems like there is a lot happening during the fall, so maybe we can get some more exciting posts up in the coming weeks.

Yay for Grandparents!

Today is Will's first Grandparent's Day.

He's a pretty lucky kid. Not only because he has such awesome grandparents, but also because he has been able to spend so much time with them.



He has also had the opportunity to meet all of his living great-grandparents. I am very jealous because all of my great-grandparents passed away before I was born. We need to make sure we get a picture of Will with Bobpa next time we see him.


Happy Grandparent's Day! We love you!

Do you like spinach?

If you answered yes then you should come visit us.

You should come visit us even if you answered no.

Why, do you ask?

Because Lenexa, (our neighbor to the west) was hailed the "Spinach Capital of the World" circa 1930. And today we celebrated this distinction by attending the 2010 Spinach Festival.

It was a gorgeous day, and for that we were grateful, because we invited our friends the Divines to go with us. Last time we hung out with them we got stuck in a crazy summer storm. Yes, today was gorgeous.




Upon or arrival we immediately headed to the paddle boats. Will was NOT a fan of the life jackets, but once we were aboard he relaxed a bit.





Love that wind in his hair.




The paddle boats wore us out so we had to check out their food offerings.




In addition to the traditional festival fare, they had a variety of spinach dishes, including the world's largest spinach salad.




We didn't actually try it, but heard it was delicious.


There were all sorts of crafts, games, and activies for kids. Will is a bit too young to fully enjoy them, but it was still fun to walk around and check everything out. Popeye and Olive Oyle were there, but we didn't see them when we wanted to get a picture. We had to settle for this cut out.



And in case you were wondering, that sweet necklace Anthony is wearing he won playing washer toss. Will loves it, and now Anthony understands why I rarely wear jewelry.

All in all, a great day.

The kid knows how to get comfortable

Before I go to bed at night I check on Will to make sure everything is fine in his room. This past week I've found him laying like this when I come in.


Apparently once he settles down from the very loud crying that has unfortunately become routine at bedtime, he gets nice and comfortable. Anthony tells me there are some pics of Will's Uncle Matt as a child in a similar position, so it must be a John thing. Whatever it is, I think it is cute and it makes me smile as I head to bed.