Christmas Cheer!

Click here for some Christmas Cheer!

My Mom sent this to me and said "Looks like Weston picked up those famous Nielson moves!" I thought it was hilarious. Weston has made me watch it at least 10 times in a row now! He's mesmerized so I had to share!

Happy Birthday West!

Wow! We can't believe he's already one! Sorry we procrastinated our blogging and had to do 3 posts in one night, but we'll start off with Weston since he's our favorite!

My Mom, Sister and Brother-in-law got to fly out for the big party (unfortunately grandpa got left behind, but we're glad we got to see him a few weeks ago!) West loved having Grandma and Aunt Taylor and Uncle James around. He couldn't stop showing off. He exhausted himself so well everyday that he actually stopped doing his 2am wake-up and is sleeping through the night (knock on wood!)

We started the day off with a trip to our favorite place EFRC (the Exotic Feline Rescue Center)


Everytime Weston would get upset James would blame it on the gloves (sorry buddy, we didn't come too prepared!) In reality, he just wanted to get inside the fences with the lions and tigers!


We ordered pizza to eat while we got ready for the party and Weston decided that he was still hungry and wanted to eat Grandma's pizza too...he snatched it right out of her hand. I guess he gets the pizza gene from his dad!



Weston loves balls right now so Taylor made a darling invitation and we had a ball party. I bought a bunch of balls and balloons for the kids to play with and we had all different kinds of "ball" cupcakes. It was a lot of fun.




West was a little distracted by all the balls and his friends playing with them to open presents, but he eventually figured it out!

His big present was a basketball hoop from Dad. He still needs a little help, but LOVES it when we cheer for him!



He was a little timid at first and even cried during the song, but he figured out it was cake in front of him pretty quick! Eric's favorite was watching him eat the handful of ice cream!




I had to throw this one in...I love the look on Weston's face watching the girls play with his basketball hoop!


We had so much fun at the party and hanging out the rest of the weekend with the fam...

I have to say... I think Sadie was the favorite guest. Weston kept following her around, tackling her, and hugging her. She was so patient with him!

Grandma got Weston this book for his birthday and when I sat down on the floor to read it with him, he picked it up and took it over to Grandma...I guess it's going to be "their book."

West was pretty wiped out from the weekend and enjoyed some cuddle time with Grandma.

I'm pretty sure he would have gone home with them if we let him...It's back to the same old same old now, but it was a GREAT weekend! Thanks for coming guys!


Weston Update: He's now 31.5 inches tall and 25Lbs 13oz. That keeps in the 95th percentile for height, but he's tailing off in the weight catagory...only 90th percentile.

We love this guy. He's all over the place now, and loves being the center of attention. He's learning to communicate more and more. If he's upset and you guess right at what he wants he says "yeah." If your wrong...he keeps crying. He's got a few words down: Mama and Dada, yeah, nana (Banana), dader (Danger), and eh-O (Hello-only when he's on the phone)

We're so grateful for the amazing friends and family we have that have been able to share his 1st year with us! Thank you!

Black Friday in Cincinnati!

We decided to do an overnight trip to Cincinnati the day after Thanksgiving. We did some outlet shopping, which Weston hated, and then headed to our hotel for dinner. We lucked out and our hotel was right down town with a skywalk to the mall (love priceline!) and the city was doing the annual tree lighting right in front of the skywalk that night! So we got to enjoy the festivities and Weston met Santa for the first time!

(We didn't realize we were going to run into Santa...so we only had our camera phones)

The next morning we got up and ready to go to the Newport Aquarium, and realized our car keys were missing. We tore our hotel room apart, no keys. Retraced our steps to and from the car, no keys. Called the front desk, no keys. After praying and doing this all again a second time, Eric went down to the front desk and they had our keys. Apparently, they found them "right after we called." Not sure why they didn't call back, but we were REALLY grateful we found them (and just in-time to make it to the penguin parade!)


Although the 20 minute line for Scuba Santa was not worth it, West didn't mind because he got to play with the Starfish! (However, we do now know what every type of sea creature would like for Christmas!)

Weston loved running from one exhibit to the next and didn't have an extra second to actually look at the camera for a picture!

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving with friends this year. Thanks for getting us all together Catherine and making the dreaded turkey! We had a great feast. I love only making a couple things and still getting to have a GREAT feast! (Sorry you got abandoned at the kid table Matt!)



Weston couldn't decide if he belonged with the little kids hanging out with their parents or the big kids watching Santa Buddies in the bedroom!




And I just thought this was too funny. These guys were playing pretty good, but nice hugs kept turning into tackles. I guess he's quite the ladies man.

Our Little Family

A couple weeks ago we had our first family pictures taken! We're so lucky to have the Williams out here in Arizona, and grateful that Joy is willing to share her talent with us! Thank you Joy...We love them!

joyalicephotography.com

Adventures in Walking! Football! and Halloween!

West took his first step a couple months ago and it seemed like he was happy enough with that for a while. Then he really started to get courageous a few weeks ago and he could walk all the way across the room if tempted by ice cream. Now he's a pro...and he LOVES it! He can bend down, pick things up, and keep going, and the second video shows another talent! He will just walk around forever checking things out. He's so curious about everything and now he can get to so much more...so much faster:)


Just your standard walking...



Taking it to the next level...



He loves putting things over his head. It's usually clothes or a blanket, but he discovered this bowl and it fits perfectly!

Go 49ers! Well, they didn't win, but they did pretty well and we had a blast. Eric was pretty excited to get to see Alex Smith and the new Crabtree in action. Eric bought tickets to the game on Ebay and we thought we'd take Weston with us (I don't know what we were thinking...the last time we took him to a sporting event he was much less mobile.) Anyway, a couple days before the game we found out that you can't take babies to the game even if you are crazy enough. So I was going to stay home and sell my ticket, but it turned out that some friends of ours want to go to a Broncos game in December so we arranged to swap babysitting and I got to go!! Thanks Mike and Laura!





And finally, we failed as parents this Halloween. Weston was a darling tiger, but the only picture I got was on my phone. At our ward party, he started screaming like something was hurting him so I tore his costume off trying to figure it out and never got a picture (I think he was just tired and hated the fact he was wearing shoes) Anyway, he had a little face paint and I did manage to get a picture of it before his bath...



That's about as good as it got with this wiggly guy!

Happy 30th Anniversary!

I just wanted to say Happy Anniversary to my wonderful parents and I'm so grateful I've gotten to be part of 26 of their 30 years together! I love you both!




My sister photshopped this picture from their wedding to send to them and a bunch of their friends today and I thought it was TOO GREAT not to share!

Grandpa's boy!

My dad was working in Chicago this past week and decide to take a detour home and see us!! We didn't do much Bloomington sightseeing, but we had a lot of fun. My dad is a Hamburger and Shakes kind of guy so we went to Opie Taylors for a late lunch on Saturday and made shakes that night and I think that's all we ate for the day. (Probably still more than anyone should eat in a day if you saw the size of the hamburgers my dad and Eric ordered:)

Saturday afternoon may dad was on a work call and I went back in my room to get ready for the day. When I came out Eric was watching TV and my dad was holding Weston and talking on the phone. Of course my first reaction was to ask Eric "Why aren't you watching Weston!!" It turns out, Weston kept walking or crawling into the office and then Eric would go get him and bring him back and he'd just cry and cry. SO after this happened a few times my dad came and got him so that he could sit with him while he talked on the phone. So I decided he was turning into a Grandpa's boy. My dad thought it was just because he was on the phone. Then as I was trying to get him ready to leave for lunch, he kept reaching for my dad. Then he blamed it on Weston wanting his glasses. I think he was just excited to see Grandpa!...and so was Danger:)