Thrillsons

Snow Storm!

2012-02-12T20:03:00.001-08:00

It has been a fairly mild winter this year, but a couple weeks ago we got about 18 inches of snow in 24 hours. I think most everyone took a snow day. The plows don't come down our street and I think I saw one set of car tracks the entire day. We shoveled twice the first day and again the next morning. Weston was in HEAVEN!

Weston and Danger enjoying the snow. (Actually Danger was pretty freaked out!)

Trying out his sled-

He was threatening to throw a snowball at me if I took anymore pictures-

This was after shoveling twice earlier in the day-

We had a lot of fun and Eric was also in HEAVEN! He can't stand it just being cold without snow. He's probably one of the few people that loved how horrible the roads were.

Happy New Year 2011!

2012-02-12T19:36:00.000-08:00

We celebrated New Year's Eve this year with some Ice Skating and dinner downtown. We headed down early around 5 and we're luck to have no traffic, no problem parking, and not much of a wait for dinner.

I'm not the most confident ice skater so for the sake of the baby girl I decided to just take pictures. Weston had so much fun. His favorite was for Eric to just hold him up and he would move his feet back and forth on the ice as fast as he could. All was going great for about 30 minutes until somehow they ended up on the ice and Eric landed on top of Weston. There was some blood and crying for a few minutes until a horse and carriage walked by and he was completely distracted. We ended up heading home around 8:30. We didn't even make it for the 9pm fireworks, but Weston was asleep within 2 minutes of getting to the car and we enjoyed a movie at home:)

Showing off his smashed up face...at least he's still smiling!

Happy 29th Eric!!

2012-02-12T15:46:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday to a GREAT husband! Between Christmas and January Eric was with us or home for about 5 out of 6 weeks. It was fantastic! We had fun, got a lot done, and just got to hang out a bunch!

When we came home from Utah after Christmas, Eric went down to his office to find it had received a make-over! I framed his diplomas and some pictures he's bought in his travels and my family came over and did all the painting and put everything together while we were out of town! I think he was pretty excited about it:)

On his birthday, my family came over to celebrate with Pizza and Kinect, and a little hopper ball.

Weston got Eric a hopper ball just like his for Christmas and was pretty excited to get it pumped up. The kid is amazing on his hopper ball and legitimately won all of us in a race:

We're expanding!!

2012-02-12T15:25:00.000-08:00

We're so excited to be expecting a little girl coming this June!!

The day we found out she was a girl, Weston kept saying, "but I wanted a boy." over and over.

Since then he's been pretty excited for her to come. Every baby thing he sees he tells me we need to get one for the baby and he's always telling me the things she's not going to be able to do (that he can do). He usually follows it up with an offer to teach her.

I'm a little nervous about being a mom of two as I'm still trying to get down just Weston, but I couldn't be more excited for her to come!

3 Years Old!

2012-02-12T12:51:00.000-08:00

Weston turned 3 a couple of months ago, and he's still as fun and lively as ever! He's growing like crazy and taller than most of his friends.

He is super into Jake and the Neverland Pirates and Captain Hook. We missed dressing up for Halloween with our Hawaii trip so we had a "pirate party" for Weston and let him dress up like a pirate for his birthday. Life was a little crazy around his birthday so this blurry picture is the only one I have.

Earlier I asked him what his favorite things are to do now that he's three. He told me: Play with toys, go for walks, watch shows, (and then really enthusiastically) RUN REALLY REALLY FAST!

"Going for walks" includes his scooter, bike, walking, and anything he can do around the block. For a little while he was obsessed with his goggles:

Other things he's into:

*Airplanes and Suit Cases- He loves to pretend our stairs are an airplane and pack up his bags, load them onto the "moving thing", put his seat belt on, take off, get a drink, throw it away, land,and pick up his bags.
*Firefighters- He runs around with his firefighter hat on and the bike pump putting out fires all over our house.
*Phones- he likes to pretend call us and chat. Today he told me to call dad. I picked up the phone and said, "Hi, sweetheart." He looked at me so disappointed and said, "I said call Dad." I told him that I was, I just was calling him "sweetheart." He looked so confused, like I must be joking. He pointed to himself and said, "I'm sweetheart." So I asked him what I should call Dad. Again he looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Dad or Eric."
* The Utes- I know. I failed miserably in the BYU vs. Utah battle with Weston. At least daily he asks me, "Mom, Do you like the Cougars?" I respond yes which is always followed by a very enthusiastic "THE COUGARS ARE YUCKY!!!"
*Swimming- He just started swimming lessons and he's LOVING it. I brought him without goggles the first day, and most of the other kids had little goggles (just regular ones, not like the snorkling ones above) so we had to go get him some. It's so fun to watch him. He's so proud of himself for going under water with his goggles:) On another note, he's a little crazy. He actually pays attention to his teacher pretty well, but in his classes, the second the teacher is helping someone else he is climbing the guard rails or splashing the other kids, or popping up and down in the water while all the other kids sit there quietly on the stair waiting for their turn. I'm glad he has so much fun, but I'm trying to figure out how to get him to pay attention when it's not his turn. Any tips are welcome!
*TV- he's all about his shows and movies lately and unfortunately he's been watching a lot of them. The funny thing is that he insists on sitting on the spot on the couch that is directly centered in front of the TV whether we are upstairs or in the basement. Whether someone else is already sitting there or not. He's a little OCD when it comes to his TV habits.
*Burps and other bodily functions- He's quite the boy and thinks that all these sounds are HILLARIOUS! He can make himself burp more easily and more often than anyone I've seen. He is addicted. I think we made the mistake of laughing the first time and are having to do serious back peddling for it not to present itself in the most inappropriate of places. He now has to leave the table almost daily to go burp in the bathroom. That's the best we could think of to try and control it since he insists that it's a necessity.
*The dishes- He kind of over unloading them already, but LOVES to hand wash dishes. It usually just means everything gets really wet and we waste a lot of water, but I can usually bribe him to eat by offering to let him help do dishes when were done.
*Nephi- We've been trying to read scriptures to him and teach him about people in the scriptures. He has really latched on to Nephi, Laman and Lemuel from The Book of Mormon. Unfortunately he always wants to pretend he's Laman or Lemuel. The other day he said to me, "Mom, were Laman and Lemuel. Dad is Nephi. Let's tie him up and throw him in the sea!!" I guess I can see how that's more exciting than being the good guy, but I'm still trying to push how cool Nephi is:)
*And of course, PIRATES. We watch a lot of Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and the Movie Hook around here. Once again, he much prefers being Captain Hook than Jake or Peter Pan. He occasionally likes to be Peter Pan if I'm Rufio and throw a "coconut" for him to slice with his sword!

He loves to play the bad guys, but he really is such a sweetheart. At night when either of us puts him to bed we'll lie down with him for a second and almost always he'll turn to us out of nowhere and say, in the sweetest voice, either, "How was your day mom?" or "I really love you Mom." I love it!

Merry Christmas Part 4

2012-02-05T14:58:00.001-08:00

After returning from Utah we headed up to my parent's house to celebrate Christmas with them. We started out letting Weston test out his new sled. He tolerated taking turns with Eric, but really just wanted to go with Luke every time. On the way back from the sledding hill Eric said, "I thought he'd be older before dad wasn't cool anymore."

Weston was in heaven running up the hill with Luke. For Weston, there is no one better in the world than Luke. The rest of us will have to settle for 2nd best.

After sledding and dinner we all exchanged presents. Weston got a mini bouncy house that is housed in the ever growing playroom at Grandma and Grandpas.

Merry Christmas Part 3

2012-01-02T22:19:00.001-08:00

When Eric came back we headed out to the Nielson house to hang out for the next few days for some good cousin, sibling, and Grandma/Grandpa time.

The Girls:

The Boys"

Weston and Hannah enjoying his present from Santa:

Uncle Time:

Uncle Cole was giving Piggyback rides...

...so Grandma got one too:

We got all the grandkids together to get some pictures and these were some of my favorite:

Merry Christmas Part 2

2012-01-02T20:58:00.000-08:00

For the next few days Eric left on business/football game with his friend Jordan and Weston and I got to hang out with Grandma Beverly. I don't have many pictures because Eric had the camera.

One night while I was wrapping presents my Grandma busted out a bucket full of paints, sponges, paper, and other crafty stuff and she and Weston went to work. He was a pretty happy guy!

Merry Christmas Part 1

2012-01-02T15:35:00.000-08:00

Eric was out of town until the day before we left to Utah for Christmas. Then we decided to have a party the day he came home:) Not sure what we were thinking, but it was a lot of fun!

Anyway, given the craziness, we really enjoyed a couple days of Christmas time with just our little family. We decided to drive to Utah and were were planning to drive up to Ogden the next day for the annual Nielson Family Abelskiever Day so my aunt was out of town and let us stay at her house in Ogden to make all the drives shorter. It turned out to be such a nice treat!

We went to see the downtown Ogden Light Display, got pizza, and rented a movie! It was GREAT!

I promise I was there...I'm just usually behind the camera:)

A visit from Ashley and Max!

2012-01-02T15:12:00.000-08:00

Ashley came to stay with her sister again so we got to spend the days hanging out while Alison worked! One day we ventured out with Ellen and Gavin to the Museum of Nature and Science.

Weston LOVED it!

Pretending to be archeologists-

Playing with scarves and fans-

Pretending to be astronauts-

Playing the drums-

General Conference 2010

2012-01-02T14:31:00.001-08:00

My efforts to make the General Conference fun for a 2 1/2 year old actually paid off:

I found a couple ideas online. One was to have a bag for each apostle with something fun it and he got to open it when they got up to speak. His second favorite was a BINGO game inside one of the bags. He loved getting to put skittles on the different pictures when he heard someone mention one of them:)

The guys after conference. I can tell it must be football because they weren't nearly as engaged as Weston during conference:)

I tried out my Abelskiever pan and it worked out pretty well!

Weston and Grandma Tyresha playing the keyboard-

Hana Hawaii!

2011-11-20T16:28:00.000-08:00

I am back to blogging, and I am back in a big way! This is my (Eric) first post in years, so I apologize if this falls below the standard Chelsey has set.

Our good friends, Andy and Alex Thomas, invited us to join them in Hana, Hawaii on the island of Maui during Andy's break from residency and we couldn't have been happier to go. If you are friends with them, I recommend you check their blog for full details as Alex has done a far better review of the trip and all the activities we were able to fit in during our 10 day trip.

The trip started with us renting an awesome 4-door Jeep for the trip- I mainly did this so that people in Hawaii would know that I went to Skyline High School. Andy and I both fell in love with the Jeep and are now in the process of convincing our wives to let us buy one. I will probably just do it and surprise her, she loves that kind of stuff.

We had a great time- the Hana House (Alex's grandma's house) was amazing, check out the view we woke up to every morning.

Hana has so many great pools, beaches, places for cliff jumping, caves and hikes that we almost didn't need to go to the main part of the island. However, we did make it up for a day for some beach and pool time, and also to go to a real restaurant as Hana doesn't have much to choose from.

We had a blast and most of all, enjoyed great company from the Thomas crew. West still talks about Meg and Cole, but mostly Meg. What can I say, my boy likes girls! He even held her hand, meaning he did this about 20 years sooner than his dad!

On one of the last days, we also decided to take advantage of having a semi-pro photographer with us (Andy) and take some family pictures.

Thanks again to the Thomas crew- you guys are awesome!

Weston Memories

2011-10-19T18:12:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to write down a couple more things Weston's been saying that I want to remember!

Lately when we say something and he doesn't hear us or understand he says, "Say again?" He says it in the sweetest voice and I hope it lasts awhile before turning into something else.

We usually go on at least one walk a day. Usually I'm walking Danger and Weston is riding his bike or scooter. He'll take off from me and say "See you later! Love you!" Then meet up with me again 10 or 15 feet later and say, "Hi, how did your day be?" or "How did your walk be?" I tell him it was great and ask him and he replies the same and we do it all over again.

There was one more thing and I couldn't remember it. I just looked over at Weston and said, "What do you say that's so cute?" He replied, "YOU! You are so cute, Mom." I love this guy!

A visit from FRIENDS!!

2011-10-09T14:26:00.000-07:00

Weston and I have been having friend withdraws since moving to Colorado. We love it here: We get family and we've been meeting a lot of great people, but it takes time to build relationships. Weston always asks if his Indiana friends will be anywhere we go. We've been so excited to see the McRaes and get to meet baby Brynn. It took West and Piper a minute to warm up, but you can tell by the pictures they enjoyed each other:) We're so grateful we will get to see them every once in awhile. It makes good byes a little easier. However, West keeps asking if Piper is going to fly to her grandma's and come to the park with us:)

Nashville

2011-10-08T13:49:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, Eric's company had a national sales meeting and invited out everyone's spouses to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville. I had so much fun getting to see a few Bloomington friends and getting to meet a few more or Eric's co-workers. We ate A LOT, relaxed, and danced more than I have since before we were married.

I guess we were having too much fun to take pictures (I had to steal this one off facebook!-thanks Joy) The night of the Gala we enjoyed dinner and some great impersonators. Tim McGraw was first, but they didn't introduce him as an impersonator so there was a mass flood to the dance floor/stage. I had to convince Eric he wasn't really Tim McGraw:) He was followed by David Bowie and Micheal Jackson!

One afternoon we took a "Mansions of the South" tour. It was fun, but we maybe could have choose better. When we first got on the bus our tour guide started naming off all of the "cool" things we could have done and asked "So why'd y'all choose this one??" However, it certainly doesn't get much better than these tour guides-

Day of Festivals!

2011-10-07T19:22:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we hit up the PBS kids festival downtown in the morning and the Italian festival that night! It was a full day, but we had a lot of fun:)

He was pretty excited to meet Curious George:

His favorite part was the Urban Zoo:

Abusing the geese-

This picture was my favorite. He was getting brave and close to all the animals and then this guy decided to look at him. He almost fell over backwards into the trough in his fright.

The Italian festival was great food, great friends, and fun music!

Making Little feet wine-

Cleaning the grapes off-

Checkin' out the band with Lydia-

Labor Day 2011

2011-10-06T14:57:00.000-07:00

We decided to drive up Mt. Evans for Labor Day.

We stopped at one of the lake's on the way up to skip rocks:

Weston is still (a month later) telling people, "We saw mountain goats and I hiked up the rocks with My Dad." Apparently I wasn't there...

...but this is my proof!

Summer Fun!

2011-10-06T14:30:00.000-07:00

I've been lazy about posting, but we've had a lot of fun this summer!

At the end of July our neighborhood had a block party! I was so excited to get to know some of our neighbors. It was fun and we at least recognize some of our neighbors now:) The lady who put it together asked some firefighters to come out and talk to the kids. They LOVED it. They got to check out the truck and run through the "sprinklers" or freezing cold firehose water!

At the end of July Weston also hit another big milestone! He's potty trained! He did such a good job and was so easy! I have no complaints-he's a rockstar!

This is him with the prize he chose after filling up this sticker chart:

Weston and I have been trying to learn our new city and we hit up the Children's museum on their "free" night. It was CRAZY! I think he still had a good time, but it might be worth paying next time.

I can't believe I only have one picture from this weekend. A few of Eric's highschool friends came out to visit us and we had so much fun. My mom took Weston for a day and a night and it was like we went somewhere for vacation too! The guys golfed while the girls went to the pool followed by a night down town! The next day we hit up Elitch Garden's (Denver's Six Flags). We picked up Weston at the end of the afternoon and brought him back to the park. He loved it! I feel like I've got to have pictures somewhere?? He went on the kid rollercoaster and could barely keep his head up, but he still cried when he had to get off. Weston loved having friends over. Especially big guys that played football and hide n seek with him!

Here are the guys minus Trav (I think they're watching a PBS kids show?) We hope they come back!!

We love getting to live close to these friends! We met up at a great park with everything a kid could want (playground, water, train ride, and petting zoo)

This post wouldn't be complete without a painting picture. We've been painting, re-painting, and more painting since we moved in. Weston loves to help, but this is probably the most I let him do. He did most of that wall and without any disasters!

Our 1st talk about girls!

2011-09-14T19:45:00.000-07:00

I took Weston to dinner tonight and while we were sitting there eating we had the following conversation out of nowhere:

Weston: "Mom, let's talk about girls."
Me: "Okay, what about girls?"
Weston: "Do girls have heads?"
Me: "Yeah, girls have heads."
Weston: "They sure do! Okey Dokey!"

Hopefully our talks about girls stay this easy in the future!

Weston Lately

2011-09-11T18:59:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of pictures that need to update the blog with, but that will have to be another night. For now, I just wanted to put down a few things Weston's been saying and doing lately that make me smile:)

He is so passionate about everything. He doesn't "like" or "not like" anything. He either "LOVES" it or he "doesn't really love it berry much."

Today he told me that if I do a lot of golfing I would have a baby in my tummy.

They other day we were talking about Jesus, and I told Weston that when He was on Earth he asked all the little children to come to him and talked to them and blessed each one of them because He loves kids so much and wants them to be happy. Weston responded, "Mom, I'm a kid, He can talk to me!"

In the car the other day he said, "Rusty doesn't love cats very much." This came out of nowhere so it took me a minute to realize he was talking about the wrench on Handy Manny that Eric always calls a "scaredy-cat".

When Eric and I are talking to each other, Weston will often pop in with a "Hey guys, what are you talking about?"

When I ask him something and end with "Okay?" He responds "okay, okey dokey poopy dokey." He thinks he's hilarious:)

He's somehow caught on to peer pressure. The other day we drove past a tire store and he thought it looked pretty cool and wanted to go there. I told him, we don't need new tires right now and they are pretty expensive so we don't buy them all the time. He responded, "But EVERYONE is getting new tires, they're not too expensive." Then later that night I was putting him to bed and I left his door open because he'd been asking me to that past couple weeks. As I walked away he yells, "Mom, shut the door, ALL the moms shut the door."

This is just a drop in the bucket. I need to record what he says more often. I love this little guy. He can be a handful, but he makes me laugh everyday!

Park City!

2011-08-26T22:32:00.001-07:00

We spent a couple days in Park City with my parents and had a lot of fun! The best part was that we just got to relax and have fun and everyone came to us to visit:)

Cousinly Love! Weston hadn't seen Jax since he was a baby. I guess he's only 9 months now, but he's almost walking. By the next time we see them the 2 year age difference will be nothing!

I had to throw this one in there because I can't get enough of this little guy.

I think we went swimming at least once and maybe twice everyday we were there. There could never be too much swimming for Weston, and it looks like Jax is the same way. He was hilarious. He was crawling for the water before we could even set our stuff down, if I sat him on the edge he dove right in and he didn't stop the "swimming" motion the entire time I was holding him in the pool.

The lift up to the Alpine Slide! Weston was pretty nervous the entire ride, but had no hesitation one we got on the slide:)

I kept trying to show Weston how to go fast and especially how to slow down on the slide. He just wanted to floor it the whole way down.

My mom and grandma coming down the slide. They were a bit slower than Weston...that poor guy behind my mom! (In her defense, he shouldn't have been on the slow track.)

The airplanes may have been Weston's favorite! We came back up to do this and mini golf with our friends Carson and Erika, but we were rained out after one hole. It was still fun to chat though!

Weston and Kayla enjoying a dip in the hot tub. Aren't they cute little curly haired cousins! Weston loved this hot tub on the deck so much that he ate breakfast there a couple of the days:)

*I've been playing catch up so there are a few posts below!

Family Reunion

2011-08-26T22:11:00.000-07:00

The week we went to Park City also happened to be the same time as the Larsen family party so Eric and I headed up with Tim and Lindsey! We had a lot of fun getting to see my grandpa and his new fiancee (I can't believe I didn't take a picture), and a lot more family that I haven't seen in YEARS!

Weston was in heaven with the never ending Pace's popsicles and lots of room to play!

Isn't is gorgeous up there!! I can't remember the name of the city, but it was close to Morgan, UT.

Who knows what this kid is up to? He was going nonstop the entire time we were there. I think he'd love a little more country life style:)

Two popsicles is definitely better than one!! I think Kayla was pretty happy with her situation at this point in the evening:)

I love this kid!

2011-08-26T22:05:00.000-07:00

Yes, he's eating a cucumber like a popsicle. (Weston loves to "snatch" food from me while I'm getting dinner ready- I would normally at least cut it up for him:)

I love that Weston likes healthy food. He cracks me up! Today he was pretending that grape tomatoes were Starbusts. He put them in the candy dish, and then kept going into the kitchen to "sneak" one while I wasn't looking.

Highlands Ranch Rodeo!

2011-08-26T21:45:00.000-07:00

Yes, our little metropolitan suburb had it's own rodeo:) We had a good time and there was some fun stuff for the kids:

They got to ride horses:

And sit on a Bull. Weston was a little hesitant on both and for some reason he had his arm up the entire time he was on the bull. It was such a crack up. I don't think anyone told him to, he was just doing it.

The boys heading out for the "bunny scramble." They had no chance at catching one against the big kids, but they did actually try:)

We are loving getting to hang out with these guys more! Weston already asks about his new friend daily!

More Visitors!! and Rec. Centers

2011-08-26T20:31:00.000-07:00

I feel like this was 6 months ago, but it hasn't even been two yet. Just as Tony was leaving Ashley, one of my best friends, and her little guy Max came to visit! Lucky for my Ashley's sister and new husband live close to me so I might get to see them a little more often!

We had a good time in our house full of boxes, but I didn't take very many pictures. They helped us explore our neighborhood and all of the rec. centers. Weston loved that Travis was willing to help him play basketball over and over again!

Isn't this little guy a cutie. I thought Weston loved balls, but I have never seen a kid that loves balls more than Max:)

This whale slide has become a favorite over the past few weeks!

Thanks for coming guys and we can't wait to see you again in October!

Happy 4th of July! - 2011

2011-07-28T15:32:00.000-07:00

We had a great 4th of July! We started at the Highlands Ranch Parade. We meant to be on-time so that Weston could ride his bike in the Bike/Pet parade, but we weren't very good parents this year. We still let him ride around before the big parade started. He was a little slow to grab the candy getting thrown, but luckily the kids around us started to notice and either shared or helped him:)

We already for Uncle Tony to come back and visit again!

I love this picture- An unsuccessful trip to grab candy (But seriously, look at his competition)

Success! A little boxing out help from Daddy!

Then we headed over to the town center for the festivities and breakfast!

Weston did both of these a couple of times. The T-ball took him a few shots to get the hang of it, but on his second turn he hit almost all of them (even if a few were on the back swing;)

That evening we went up to Arvada to celebrate with family. We went to the park for fireworks and spread out a wagon worth of treats and played some crochet and football until it got dark (pictures to come...I forgot my camera) Weston was in heaven with the wagon full of candy. I think he ate more candy that night than in the rest of his life put together. He loved pulling it around and taking whatever he pleased from it!

After the firework show we went back and did a few of our own:

Giant Sparklers! Weston was a little too comfortable with these. As I was trying to get his picture he decided to start chasing me with the sparkler.

SNAPS! - Stepping on them seemed to work best:)

Happy late Anniversary to us!!

2011-07-21T14:55:00.000-07:00

We had casually been talking about all the fun things we could do for our 5th anniversary throughout the year, but instead we moved and closed on our house two days before our anniversary which I guess is a pretty good present:) We didn't really celebrate, but we happened to have a BBQ that night with Tony and Taylor and James which was a lot of fun!

It's been a great and crazy 5 years. We've lived in 4 different houses in 4 different states, made a lot of friends and had plenty of adventures along the way!

My cousin got married a couple days before us and she posted some old pictures on her blog that I LOVED looking through so I thought I'd do the same since that past 5 years is pretty well documented on our blog already:)

This picture is just to show that we really haven't changed much. The day of our wedding Eric left his car keys in the locker at the temple and we were running late to our reception so we had to call someone to go get his keys and car while we hitched a ride with the videographer:) Still sounds like something we'd do today!

Visitors!

2011-07-16T22:05:00.000-07:00

Two days after closing on our house we had our first visitor, Uncle Tony! Weston and I hadn't seen him since before he left on his mission. Although our house probably wasn't the most comfortable place to be staying we had a lot of fun hanging out. We checked out the pools at the rec center and Eric and Tony got in a little basketball and batting cages as well:) We hiked around up at Red Rocks, and had lots of 4th of July fun.

These are a few of the pictures from Red Rocks (notice Weston's cute Utah Jazz hat Tony brought him...he LOVES it).

Thanks for coming to visit Tony! We loved it!

Colorado!

2011-07-16T21:58:00.000-07:00

We made it to Colorado with Eric driving a 26ft Uhaul pulling our Pathfinder and me following him in our other car. The drive actually wasn't bad at all. We took our time, enjoyed calm dinners out, and saw some of the church history sites in Missouri on our way.

Saying Goodbye

2011-07-16T21:24:00.001-07:00

The night before we left, my sister and her husband flew out and flew with Weston back to Colorado so that he wouldn't have to do the drive. THANK GOODNESS!!! The drive was a breeze on our own:) I had to document him leaving on a plane without me or Eric for the first time. He looks nervous in the second picture, but he wasn't at all. Just excited to get through security, find James, and get on the plane! Luckily he did pretty well for them!

It was a sad day to say goodbye to our home and friends in Indiana. I didn't take many pictures, but I had a couple from one last play date (Weston and I are both missing our friends and I get pretty frequent requests from Weston for his Indiana friends).

Charlie

2011-06-17T05:57:00.000-07:00

We're watching Eric's co-workers dog, Charlie, for the weekend. He's a sweet dog, but BIG and PLAYFUL. Of course Weston loves him and so far we've only had a couple minor incidents of him getting plowed over:)

Just relaxing...I thought this was too cute!

This morning we took Charlie out for a walk and he was getting right in West's face. Weston says, "I'm NOT delicious Charlie, I'm NOT delicious!"

Weston had been trying to "scare" Charlie all morning and it didn't seem to phase him at all. Then he got down and put his head right by him and out of nowhere did his "scare." I think he finally got him:)

Hanging out with Will

2011-06-17T05:38:00.000-07:00

We're getting really sad to leave our friends in Indiana. Weston's buddy, Will, came over the other day to play in the water. These two can get into some pretty good trouble together.

West concentrating so hard to make the hose spray like Mom and Dad do.

Trying to show Will how to make it spray!

A little baseball!

DOUBLE TROUBLE!

Garage Sale Find!

2011-06-11T08:43:00.000-07:00

We definitely don't need anymore junk right before moving, but every neighborhood around ours was having a neighborhood garage sale today so we couldn't resist checking it out and now we have one more thing to move, but isn't he cute!

The clubs in it are a little big for him, but my dad made him some for his birthday that will fit perfect. He was pretty excited to have a bag just like Daddy's! And I was pretty excited to get the bag, clubs and about 20 golf balls for $5!!

Piper!

2011-05-10T18:41:00.000-07:00

We had to say Goodbye to Piper yesterday and Weston has already asked about her a couple times today:( We were lucky enough to get to watch her while her parents finished packing and cleaning:

Watering plants with their sippy cups:

Pumping up the stroller tires that haven't been used in a while:

We went for a couple walks! (Thanks to getting to ride in the stroller with Piper, Weston is liking his stroller again! He stayed in it all the way to the park and back today:)

We made granola bars. I'm not going to lie, this was a little tricky with two kids. We forgot to put the eggs in, but they're still edible:)

They had fun pushing each other up the hill in Weston's bike. I was really surprised that Piper could push Weston!

We sure will miss this little cutie and her family!

We've been pretty busy lately and I've been going picture crazy so there are more new posts below (YIKES!)

Summertime!!

2011-05-10T17:49:00.000-07:00

Bloomington is an odd place to be in the spring. You wait all winter long in anticipation of spring and warm weather, but then it gets here and it also means goodbyes as you inevitably lose a friend or two to IUs graduation. Of course we are excited for all of our friends that will be leaving to start the next phase of their lives, but we sure will miss them!

We started a little pre-school/play-school with some friends back in the fall and last month was my turn to host. We do two weeks of play and two week of school. The first school week we learned about school buses. The kids had a lot, but I think their favorite activity was red light/green light. This is them making their school bus place mats and eating their sack lunches:

Are play week was right by Easter so we couldn't resist having some Easter fun! I saw this cookie painting idea on my friend Catherine's blog, The kids loved it! Weston has requested to do it a couple times since (too bad we don't always have sugar cookies lying around) We followed that up with an indoor Easter Egg hunt, that was pretty competitive for 2 year olds:)

The next week we went to a park and learned a little bit about magnifying glasses. The kids did a little treasure hunt and then colored the things we found on the hunt!

We decided to go to Pizza Huts lunch buffet after the park. Turns out that is a great place to go with kids!

We've been trying to squeeze in as much fun with friends as possible before they leave. One rainy Saturday we took the kids to see Rio. The girls loved it and were so good the whole time. Weston loved it, but had a little trouble sitting still. At one point he told me, "All be right back mom" and tried to walk out? Later he was trying to escape again, and I asked him where he was going, he told me, "I'm going to walk home." All in all, he did pretty good for him:)

About a week ago we got to go to another friend, Daniel's, 3rd birthday. Weston is still talking about the party and all the bubbles and balls!

These two boys are REALLY glad that springtime is here!

We had a "Good Bye" BBQ with the pre-school group since the McRaes and Carlstons would soon be leaving to start their new jobs, and we hopefully will soon be moving to keep our same jobs, but enjoy our family! It's a little sad that these little kids that have become such good friends will all be living in different states by the time summer's over:( Gratefully Piper and Ella both have grandparents that live in Colorado so we might get to see them every once in a while! Now we'll just have to work on Scott getting a job in Colorado so that we can still hang out with the Jones:)

Weston LOVES to "scare" lately. He will, out-of-nowhere, put up his hands and say "RRARRR". He especially loves the response he gets from family on Skype.

The Dads:)

The pre-school group (Nicol and Will, Lesly and Piper, Me and Weston, and Laura and Ella)

Eggs!

2011-05-10T16:52:00.000-07:00

Better late than never! Weston found the Easter Egg dying kit that we never used and has been begging me to do it so I decided to see if any of his friends wanted to come do it with us. He and Ella were quick, but had a lot of fun. Weston loved eating the eggs for dinner. I had to take a picture of his plate because I still can't believe he likes such healthy food, and yes he ate almost all of it:) Then at about 8 o`clock he told me he was ready for bed and he went to bed. I'm not sure whose kid this is???

Happy Easter! (and Happy Everything else with the posts below)

2011-04-24T15:23:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter! We are having a pretty low key Easter over here. A couple days ago Weston was sick and asleep on the couch so I was trying to think of something productive to do. I decided to take Weston's basket back to my room to help the Easter bunny fill it up. As soon as he woke-up he says, "Where's my basket?" I told him that the Easter Bunny had taken it, but he would bring it back on Easter full of treats! A few minutes later he was looking for his little kid table (that we moved out of our kitchen a few months ago). He said, "Mommy, where's my table?" I didn't answer right away and then I heard him say "...the Easter Bunny took it :(" That dang Easter Bunny was really starting to mess with Weston's stuff, but he came through this morning and brought lots of fun things!

Weston LOVES sunglasses so the Easter Bunny brought him two pair!

The binoculars were also a great closet cleaning find. Weston knew exactly what they were thanks to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse:)

Weston has pretty much destroyed his Easter baskets from previous years so he needed a new one. I let him pick out which one he wanted at Target and this is what he chose. I was kind of surprised out of all the colorful, cheesy baskets he chose this, but it definitely was the biggest one there. Maybe he already understood that if he had a big basket the Easter Bunny would probably fill it up??

Our little cowboy!

2011-04-24T15:21:00.000-07:00

Happy Closet Cleaning?

2011-04-24T13:43:00.000-07:00

A great closet cleaning find! Our little student body officer in the making:

Why not throw in a Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-04-24T13:40:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Eric and Merry Christmas everyone else!

2011-04-24T13:06:00.000-07:00

My parents gave us all minutes to do Ifly (indoor skydiving) for Christmas and we decided to go do it for Eric's birthday. We also found out there is now a Cafe Rio in Denver so, of course, Eric chose it for his birthday dinner!

Grandpa Fred

Grandma Tyresha

James

Taylor

Nic

Jess

Eric

Chelsey

After we got into the chamber and learned how to move a little our trainer would grab on to us and take us up and down in the chamber! We had so much fun:)

We thought West would just watch, but they let him suit up and get in. He was pretty excited. He sat totally silent watching each person and was very brave on his turn. They turned the wind down quite a bit for him and the trainer obviously never let go of him, but I think he was pretty proud of himself!!

We had so much fun! It was just as much fun to watch everyone else as it was to actually go:) Thanks for the present Mom and Dad!

Merry Christmas!!

2011-04-24T12:38:00.000-07:00

We spent Christmas in Colorado with my side of the family. Weston is the only grandchild so I think we were all a little excited for Christmas morning. Taylor and James even slept over so that we could all hang out together:) When Weston woke up we let him go wake up everybody else and then we all went downstairs with him to see if Santa had come. Santa had brought Weston a Mickey Mouse train and a couple other things. The train was going and everyone was looking at Weston waiting for a reaction and he just started crying. I think all the attention scared him, but it was pretty cute. Once we turned the train off and let him into his stocking he cheered right up!

Gummy Worms!

Checking out the hot wheels with Grandma

Reading with Daddy

Opening more presents with Aunt Taylor

This is what we got for about 4 months straight when we asked him to smile??

Opening probably his favorite Christmas present (a scooter and helmet) from Grandma and Grandpa

Shoveling Snow with Grandpa!

Happy Birthday Eric!- Keystone

2011-04-24T12:27:00.000-07:00

We went to Colorado for Christmas this year and decided to take a quick trip to Keystone for Eric's birthday since Weston could hang out with Grandma and Grandpa (THANK YOU!!). We had a great time, shopping, ice skating, swimming, and eating lots of yummy food so calmly without a 2 year old!

The atmosphere at the resort was so fun!

This display in the lobby was made completely of chocolate. There was even a moving train and chairlift!

Great Grandma Beverly!

2011-04-10T18:27:00.000-07:00

We were so lucky to get to have Grandma Beverly come hang out with us this week while Eric was gone. Weston was so excited days before she came to show her all of his things. They had A LOT of fun together, but still probably not as much fun as I had with Grandma. The week flew by and we really didn't "do" very much as neither of us can stop talking, but we only get so many chances to stay up all night talking so it was GREAT!

First things first, we played some baseball in the back yard. Weston got some great tips from Grandma and LOVED being chased:

Next, showed off some bike riding. I guess he just needed a little extra opportunity to show off. He actually used his pedals all the was down our driveway and sidewalk!

Weston had his mind set on going to get a kite with Grandma:

He loved Grandma reading him stories:

They even had a sleepover on the couch one night:

(One night Weston just wouldn't go to sleep. He was wide awake. I had been in and out of his room several times and then tried bringing him into my bed. My grandma wasn't very tired so she was going to stay up and watch TV for a little while and said I could send him out if I wanted. It took me about 2 minutes to decide I wanted to send him out. He was thrilled and I woke up to this. I had a doctor's appointment and got home about 9:30 and they had just woken up:)

My Grandma does some commercials here and there and needed some new photos to send into her agency. I'm not exactly a professional photographer, but we had fun messing around and Weston had to get in on the action:

But SERIOUSLY, isn't she one Gorgeous Great Grandma!

Weston could have spent all day throwing rocks and sticks into this creek on campus.

A little more kite flying and then we called it a night.

We had so much fun! We made some yummy food, ate out a couple times (some good, one really quite bad), took a little trip to Nashville (IN) and talked, talked, and talked some more! Love you Grandma!

11th Annual "No Sugar February"

2011-01-28T11:26:00.000-08:00

Okay, So the name may be a little misleading, but I love it still every year!!! It is a great way to get back on track with healthier habits and stay connected with GREAT friends!

The rules:
* Eat at least 4 servings of fruits/veggies a day (this tends to lead to healthier choice in the rest of your diet as well)
* Exercise a minimum of 20 minutes a day four times a week
* Do 20 push ups a day (You can space these throughout the day if you need to the first few days)

If you do this, you get one treat that week! For regular "non-treat" food, just use your best judgment as to whether it contains too much sugar (i.e. if you are making bread and it calls for 2 Tbs of sugar for the 3 loaves of bread...you're probably good!)

So it's pretty easy, not too strict, and a lot of you probably already do these things, but the more the merrier!!

Great imagination or Extremely delusional??

2011-01-17T17:16:00.000-08:00

We've been traveling so much lately that Weston has decided he no longer like planes :( More about all the flights later, but I thought that his exhaustion might be contributing to his craziness. For records sake, here's how our weeks been going:

-Weston has decided that he no longer should sleep in his crib. He should sleep in his big bed (a twin bed that we have in his room) and that he needs us to stay with him until he falls asleep so that he can wake up several times a night crying that we aren't there??? Okay this one isn't funny.

-Two nights ago he refused to put pajamas on. I convinced him to put a diaper on, but he ended up sleeping otherwise "naked."

-This morning I told him we were going to go buy a gate for his bed so that he wouldn't fall off. He said, "So chickens don't get on." I wasn't sure if I heard him right so I repeated him. Sure enough, he wants to keep the chickens off his big bed. Even after he woke up from his nap he told me "no chickens on bed"????

-One of Weston's friends has a new little brother. This morning Weston told me, "Weston want wittle brother" I asked him where he was going to get a little brother? He responded, "a box." So I asked where he was going to get the box. He responded, "in the closet." Of course, where else would you get a baby from? Turns out when we went to look in the closet, there wasn't a baby. A few minutes later he told me "baby brother under couch" I was busy doing something so I told him we shouldn't keep him under the couch either, but then went about doing what I was doing. A couple minutes later I looked in on him, and he had taken the cushions off the couch and was scooping up something imaginary with his hands. He told me "lots of babies" and he ran with this little brother, put him in the closet and shut it???

-Also, in the store today, he was itching his ear and told me "get bug off"?

He just cracks me up. He makes up things that make sense (more or less) all the time (phone conversation with his friends, taking care of his stuffed animals, cooking pretend dinner), but his imagination is really taking to the next level these days:)

We have a lot of blog catching up to do, but I wanted to jot down these crazy things while I was thinking about it!

Oh...and this is what he does when we tell him to smile?

Happy Birthday Weston!

2010-12-04T17:34:00.000-08:00

We can't believe Weston's already two??? He really loved his birthday this year. It is so fun to see him get excited and understand so much. We bought Mickey Mouse plates and cups for his party so the night before I asked him if he wanted Mickey Mouse pancakes for breakfast on his birthday (of course he said yes). Then I asked what he wanted with them, and he responded "orange juice...Mickey Mouse cup" Fast forward to his birthday morning at 6:30am. Weston wakes up, I tell him Happy Birthday, and immediately he asks for his orange juice in the Mickey Mouse cup :)

I told him he could have candles on his pancakes and forgot, that's why we did them on half eaten pancakes:)

He requested Pluto too...not quite as easy as Mickey and Toodles.

And Lots and Lots of Blueberries!!

After breakfast we opened presents. The poor kid got mostly "outside toys" for his December birthday, but we let him play with them in the house for a little while :) Grandpa and Grandma sent him his very own golf clubs. An 8 iron and a putter. He was really excited!! After one swing with the 8 iron we had to take it away, but we let him play with the putter for a while...

(Don't mind his "hospital PJs"...they were given to us and they're 3 sizes too big, but he always picks them because of the puppy prints on them)

Mommy and Daddy got him a baseball tee. He started out the day missing the ball half the time, but by the end of the day he got a pretty good handle on it and it really should be an outside toy now too!

We woke up this morning to our first snow of the season and West was SO EXCITED! He's been wanting to shovel snow since last year! I considered it his little gift from Heaven for his birthday...

The big shovel was a little big to handle so we got out a small one and Weston went around shoveling off all the trees and bushes

Next he decided to try out jumping face first in it like the rain puddles...

After doing that 30 or so times he realized I had cleared the drive way so he decided to pull out his bike...

For Weston's birthday party we went BOWLING with his friends. They had a ball. Their excitement was contagious...they loved to clap and jump and cheer for/with each other.

Lots of moral support...

The gang...these kids are too cute together. We are so blessed to have such great friends!!!

What Weston's up to at 2:

Weston cracks us up these days. Most recently....HE'S OFF THE BINKI!!!!! It went so much easier than I expected. Earlier this week I was putting away some of his baby toys and I explained to him that he played with these toys when he was a baby, but he doesn't anymore so we're going to put them away. He went and got two of his binki's out of the crib and brought them to me. He told me "give binki's to babies." So I asked him if he was sure and explained that he wouldn't have them when it was time for a nap and he kept telling me to give them to the babies. So I thought, well let's give it a shot. When it was nap time, I could not get him to relax. He wouldn't let me rock him, he was whining a lot, but never asked for his binki. After about an hour of trying to get him to take a nap I asked him if he wanted a binki, but it might be broken (I didnt' want to completely give in). He nodded yes, so I went and got one of his binkis, cut the tip off, and gave it to him. He was so frustrated. He kept telling me "broken, broken" He didn't want it. I tried "cry it out", but since he can get out of his crib, turn on the light, and open his door that didn't work very well. Next I tried sitting in the chair in his room. He played for about an hour in his crib with his stuffed animals and never went to sleep. Eventually I gave up on the nap, but that night he went to bed with no problem. We were completely shocked. Day two, no nap, but went to bed completely fine again. Day three, fell asleep on the couch for his nap, we moved him to his bed and he slept fine. Day four, wouldn't take a nap, finally let him watch Mickey and he was out in 2 minutes. Day five (TODAY)....normal nap and went to bed fine!!!!! YEA!!!!

He's got a great imagination and actually plays by himself really well. He loves to play with his stuffed animals. They play basketball or "backelshoops" with him, they do ring around the rosies, he puts them to bed, and takes them for rides in the car.

He's talking quite a bit and has started to sing and dance a lot lately. Mostly Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. It's pretty cute.

We sure love our little guy! Happy Birthday West!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

2010-11-28T12:08:00.000-08:00

We had such a GREAT Thanksgiving this year! Eric was out of town right up until Wednesday so Weston and I had a lot of time to just hang out in the evenings. For pre-school we painted turkeys and Weston had fun with it so I let him do a few more. While he was doing this, I entertained myself by making place cards out of the other turkeys :)

The day of Thanksgiving, friend's of our from Thunderbird happened to be intown visiting family, so Ryan drove down to play in the ward Turkey bowl with Eric. Weston was so excited that friends had come over that he lost it when Eric left with them :( I think he was sad the friends weren't staying and even more so that Daddy was leaving. He kept saying "Dad drive away..." through his tears. Poor guy. So we bundled up and headed over to the park to watch the football game in the pouring rain. Weston loved it!! By the end he was pretty much soaked from playing at the park so Eric decided to teach him to run and slide in the puddles. He caught on pretty quick and we had to pick him up drag him away soaked and covered in mud and grass from head to toe. I didn't get any pictures, but a friend in the ward did so I may post one later :)

We then went home, relaxed, made a little food, and enjoyed a fun and relaxing dinner and football with the Carlstons! Again, I didn't take any pictures. I guess we were having too much fun?!

Weston was very proud of his turkeys!

I asked Weston if he and Ella wanted to sit at the big table or little table and he picked the little table. It was kind of fun to have a "kid" table and they actually sat there for most of the meal!

BLACK FRIDAY
I actually got up and went out shopping Friday morning for the fun of it. I didn't get there until 5 though and that might as well have been 10, but I didn't have anything specific in mind so it was okay. I got a few good deals on gifts and even a couple things for me:)

I guess Weston just needs bags for Christmas. He's always picking up bags (suitcase, purse, whatever) and telling me that he's going to work or on the airplane to grandma's. All morning on Friday, he carried ALL of my shopping bags around. He's such a crazy kid.

That evening we headed out to the "Canopy of Lights" downtown Bloomington (the lighting ceremony for all of the downtown lights). Weston loved it. He got to see Woody and Buzz, Santa, eat cookies and cupcakes, and sing all sort of christmas songs while dancing around with Daddy! When it was over we headed to the Bakehouse for hot chocolate and he was crazy by then from all the sugar:)

Before I got the picture he was a little concerned about Woody and kept touching his face, but after we left he kept asking for Woody and Buzz.

We also got our Christmas decorations up on Friday. Weston LOVED helping. He calls our tree, "Weston's Christmas" and once we turned the lights on he kept jumping around saying "Yea, Christmastime...Yea, Christmastime" I think it's a combination of the decorations and that he knows he gets to go back to Grandma and Grandpa's house at "Christmastime." Every time we get in the car lately he wants to bring a suitcase and he thinks we are driving to the airport. It's kind of sad that I keep having to tell him, not yet.

This kid is full of it...

2010-11-07T15:20:00.000-08:00

We're heading into the 2's full steam ahead....

I have no idea what makes him do thing???

I went October Blog crazy below...

Happy Halloween!

2010-11-07T13:38:00.000-08:00

Happy Halloween and Happy Birthday for me! My Mom and Dad knew Eric was going to be out of town a lot this month and miss Halloween so for my birthday they bought a plane ticket for Weston and I to come spend the weekend with them! Thanks!!!

Weston LOVED Halloween so much more than I expected. For some reason, he really like the movie Elf so we decided to make him Buddy the Elf for Halloween. My mom made his costume and he was ADORABLE:)

Weston was exhausted from traveling the night of Trunk or Treat so he had a lot of fun mixed with a lot of tears...

But Halloween night we went Trick or Treating and he loved every second. He just ran and ran and ran. Then when we'd get up to the house and when the owners would open the door, he'd just walk in like he owned the place. It took about three houses before he figured out we weren't staying at each house :) To get him to stop running and get through the houses a little quicker we told him to hold Lucy's hand (and he loves holding hands so he didn't have a problem with this). They were adorable. He didn't care too much about the candy until we got to the house passing out dum dums. Then nothing else mattered so we headed back to grandma's, dumped out his bag, and he picked out all the suckers.

The Trick or Treaters...

Suckers, Suckers, and more Suckers!

Going for two at a time!

A little help cleaning up :)

Cute stories of the night-

Weston ran so much that twice he ran over to me saying, "Mom, Buddy Elf pants fall down." Sure enough...his tights were around his knees:)

On the way home we were walking in front of Lucy and her mom. Lucy says, "Mom, where's Weston?" She tells her that he's up with his mom. She then jumps off the curb, hugging her mom's arm, and says " I LOVE HIM!" It was pretty cute!

Pumpkin Pre-School

2010-11-07T13:32:00.000-08:00

I love Weston's little pre-school group. The kiddos are so dang cute and the mom's are pretty fun too:)

Carving Pumpkins!

2010-11-07T13:20:00.000-08:00

I didn't get a picture of all three of our pumpkins once we were done, but Weston's mini pumpkin turned out pretty cute!

Weston's favorite part was coloring on the pumpkin and then hiding all the markers and tools inside it:)

(Oh...and Weston didn't get hurt, he has just decided that he LOVES bandaids. I'm not sure how he got from HATING them to LOVING them?)

Pumpkin Patch!

2010-11-07T12:57:00.000-08:00

October has been so much fun! We started out the month with a visit to the Pumpkin Patch!

First was the train ride. Weston was super excited about it and kept taking about if for days after; but he wasn't so sure about taking off by himself as you can tell by his expression.

I think Weston's favorite part of the pumpkin patch were all the old toy cars, tractors, horses, and tricycles...

When we first got went in to the barn he had no fear and was trying to stick his fingers up this donkey's nose. When we came back around with the camera the donkey stuck his head out quickly and Weston got a little nervous:)

Weston had no problem picking his pumpkin. When we told him to pick out his pumpkin he touched the one right next to him. We then told him he could pick out of any of the pumpkins in the patch and he ran clear across the field and without hesitation picked his pumpkin.

Then Daddy wanted to get in on the action. They rode this tricycle down the hill together, hit a bump, caught some air, and thanks to Weston's death grip on the handles there were no major injuries:) I have a video that I will some day try to post.

Weston, Weston, Weston

2010-10-11T17:34:00.000-07:00

I had to post some of the funny things Weston has been doing and saying lately for record sake. He's developing such a personality and is so much fun (depending on what time of day you ask:)

He's putting a lot of words together now. Sunday I actually had a 10 minute conversation with him about something that happened at the park the day before. He had been talking all about the tunnel at the park and riding the other kids bikes so we decided to take him back to the park with his own bike on Saturday and ran into a couple friends there. From what I remember of the day, I think Weston was mixing a few stories, but it was still pretty cute. "Ellie hurt park" Then I'd repeat him, "Ellie got hurt at the park?" He'd reply, "Weston hurt...hand" I'd say, "you hurt your hand?" We went back and forth like this for 10 or 15 minutes with me trying to guess what he was saying and then he'd move on to tell me something else when I'd finally repeated the right thing. I'm still not exactly sure who got hurt (and I was there?) but someone got hurt, someone held a hand, Gracie had a ball, it went into the street, her mom said "no street", and something about "time out"

His imagination is really starting to grow too. He's been practicing a lot of his daddy skills lately. It's usually Woody or the Mouse. It started a week or two ago when he came running out of his room with a blanket and laid it on Woody telling him "sleep tight" Then he ran back to his room and grabbed a diaper, laid it out flat, tried to put Woody in it. I didn't seem to work very well so he got out five our six more until we stopped him. He's started doing this everyday. It's moved mostly to Mouse. He gives Mouse drinks of his sippy cup, tries to put his binki in his mouth, pretty much everything. Today was probably the best. I don't know what I was thinking. He comes out with an armful of hand towels and I say "What are you doing? Giving Mouse a bath?" Then he just kind of looks at me. A couple seconds later he takes off down the hall and I hear the water turn on. I guess he decided that was a great idea! We had to talk about Mouse having "pretend baths without water" I don't think he got it...we'll see:) Later in the day he tried to teach Woody to golf using one of Eric golf clubs and his 7 inch tall Woody doll!

Weston is also currently potty training himself. We're not really ready for that stage and I don't think he totally is, but every other day lately he ends up using the potty. Maybe if we cross our fingers and we're really lucky he actually will potty train himself!! This may be too much information, but I thought his phasing was too funny. I ask him, "Are you all done?" He'd say, "No, more coming down."

Other funny things he's said lately-

"I'm not" He uses this way too often. For example, I say, "Weston, Do you want to get dressed?" Weston, "No, I not" or we're on a walk and I ask "Should we turn around and go home?" Weston, "No, I not"

The other night Eric was getting Weston ready for bed and Weston was talking all about his friends. Eric asks him, "Do you like Will or Daddy better?" Weston, without hesitation, "Will" So Eric switches up the question (sometime this works to get him to switch his answer) "Do you like Daddy or Will better?" again..."Will" Eric, trying to make himself feel better asks, "Do you like mommy or Will better?" Weston says, "Mommy" It made my day :)

Last story, Eric brought home some gummy worms tonight and gave Weston a couple after dinner. (I'm pretty sure his first experience with them) A little later in the evening, I was feeling like a treat and asked Weston, if we should have ice cream, chocolate, or a gummy worm. He replies "Yummy Worm! Yummy Worm!" He learns words really quick if they go with the right object :)

Weston still won't use the petals, but he loves to go down hills and just lift his feet up!

Yes...it can be a little freaky sometimes...

But he usually makes it...

He loves this little "tunnel!"

The "Yummy Worm!" He shoved 2 in his mouth after dinner and they were gone in a second so we told him to eat this one slowly...he decided to just lick it.

Working in Utah

2010-10-02T19:02:00.000-07:00

Weston and I headed to Utah last week for a banking conference. I spent a lot of time at the conference, golfing, and lunches. Weston got to hang out with Great Grandma Beverly! Thanks Grandma :)

Weston LOVES the airport and airplanes. We were lucky on the way out and the seat next to us stayed open so he was able to have his own seat. He checked out all the magazines in the seat pocket, loved watching out the window, and eventually fell asleep sitting up. He's so dang sweet!

My dad was in Utah on business the week before and decided to stay the weekend so he could hang out with us!! We had a lot of fun going to the driving range (I was getting some tips from the expert for my tournament) and checking out downtown Ogden. I think Weston and Grandpa could have kept looking for more horses all night if Great Grandma and I weren't dragging them down. (I liked the licorice mane on the candy horse:)

We stopped for Smoothies after checking out the horses. Weston loved his "treat drink" but one at a time just wasn't enough. This kid cracks me up!

We met up for lunch at a park with a bunch of friends and it went by so quickly I didn't get a picture with everyone, but Joslin and Eden stayed to hang out for a little while!! Eden is probably the happiest little girl I've ever met. What a sweetheart! And Weston decided Joslin was a much better play date at the park than Mommy. He's still mentioning her every time we see the swings.

I had to get a picture of Weston and Grandma B picking Hazelnuts...

Saying Goodbye...

Anderson Orchard

2010-09-10T19:48:00.000-07:00

We went with our new friends Will and Nicol to Anderson Orchard this morning. Weston loves our one little tomato plant so I've been excited to take him to an orchard. We just missed the blueberries in the summer, but we finally made it out.

Weston loves his new friend Will. They were so funny playing together on the drive up- clapping, laughing, and kicking their feet and copying each out in everything they could think of.

I think the boys each ate at least 6 apple (sometimes 2 at a time) and Weston kept going for the bucket of raspberries. We were lucky to make it out of there with any!

On the way out we bought apple cider slushies...Yumm!!!

Pre-Pre School

2010-09-10T19:42:00.000-07:00

Weston had his first day of Pre-preschool this week and loved it!

Labor Day Weekend

2010-09-10T19:33:00.000-07:00

We had a great Labor Day Weekend! We finally made it to the farmer's market on Saturday and we're really sad we didn't make it out more ofter over the summer. Eric pushed back all summer, but he ended up having fun and found himself a great hamburger for breakfast.

We don't have any pictures of me with Weston since I'm always taking the pictures so Eric tried to get one...Weston wasn't thrilled about it...

He's a major daddy's boy lately...

Monday we did a lot of cleaning...I had a fun girls afternoon out for lunch and a pedicure, and then we had a BBQ at the park with some friends!

First IU Football Game!

2010-09-10T19:17:00.001-07:00

We met up with Eric's co-workers for some tailgating and football. Weston had a lot of fun, but didn't make it for too much of the game. Our seats were a little too far from the action to keep his attention.

We got a little closer on our way out to get this picture and all of the sudden he's supper interested in the game:)

Enjoying the first few minutes!

A little weary of the chick-fil-a cow, but loves looking at these pictures...

We were excited to see Jessie again. This is one of Eric's co-workers in Asia. She had Easter dinner with us the Easter before last and I think she was legitimately disappointed Weston didn't remember her. He started to warm up by the end of the night!

Park Days

2010-09-10T19:07:00.000-07:00

We are REALLY going to miss when the park when winter comes!

Sharing! I think Piper was the only with a smile...

It was so fun to see Bethany and Ainsley again...We started doing playgroup with Ella, Ainsley, and Isabelle when Weston was about 4 months old. They're so big now :)

21 Months

2010-09-10T19:00:00.000-07:00

Weston is full of life and we're loving him! He's still exploding with more words everyday. I love that he mixes up me and you. He'll point to a picture of himself and say "you" (or Westons...He can say his name, but he always pluralizes it) And if he wants to be held he'll say "hold you." He's starting to put two or three words together and it's so fun to be able to talk to him.

He loves Caillou. I'm pretty sure he'd watch it all day if I let him and then try to do everything Caillou does:)

His little mind is always going. He's pretty good at entertaining himself and he'll make games. The other day he was laying out different cloths and blankets on the ground and jumping from one to the next. I have no idea where he got it from, but it was cracking me up!

He LOVES to color and still LOVES anything to do with a ball!

We love this guy....he's so smart and always keeps us on our toes!

Doesn't he look brilliant! He decided he needed to put on every shirt he owned. He kept bringing more out to me to help him. We got ten on before he couldn't move his arms!

Lesson Learned...

2010-08-31T18:37:00.000-07:00

We had a blast this weekend visiting Andy, Alex, and Meg in Chicago this weekend-

Everytime we drive around town Weston start screaming "GET OUT...AHHHH" over and over. We were a little nervous about the drive, but he was a rockstar and didn't start the screaming until about the last 20 minutes :) (Thanks to WallE, The Tigger Movie, and Thomas the Train!)

Meg and Weston and their daddies had some good clean fun after dinner!

Eric was a virgin toaster oven user until this weekend. After about 30 seconds in the oven he was ready to eat the pizza. This is Andy showing him how to get a perfect piece of pizza. It took everything Eric had in him to wait:)

After the kiddos went to bed, Eric and I went on a little date to Navy Pier. I forgot how really fun the swing ride and mini golf really are and we had a great view of the fireworks from the swings!

Eric kind of tricked me into this picture. I guess you could say he technically won...but let it be known that on two holes my ball went all the way in and popped out (not jumped over the hole...all the way in!)

The next morning we headed out for an excellent breakfast!

Our Gracious Hosts-

Then we headed up to the top of the Hancock building...what a beautiful city-

Weston's first beach experience

He LOVED it! We had to stay right by him at all times. This kid is fearless and really wanted to get out to the deep water where all the teenagers were hanging out.

Getting in a little baby sign movie time before church..Aren't these two cute!

And these are just fun pictures Andy took at the sandwich shop:

We had a fun filled day Saturday, but our headlining event was the White Sox vs. Yankees game that night. Eric had been looking into tickets for awhile, but I think he was hoping to get better tickets for the price so when game time came they were sold out. We decided to go and try to buy tickets from a scalper. Alex and I dropped off the guys to do the negotiating and we went to find parking. On our way in, they called and said the guy they were working with sold the tickets to someone else while they were waiting for us to come with the rest of the money. Luckily we ran into more scalpers. With my incredible negotiating skills I got them down from $50 a ticket to $25. They headed off with our $100 and we headed to the stadium with our FAKE tickets! We had a good laugh...not sure it was a $100 dollar laugh, but we had fun (Sorry again guys). The best part looking back is picturing the scene of the crime. Alex and I with diaper bags and camera bags and our babies hanging on us as we hand over $100 to these guys:)

Loving Activity Days!

2010-08-31T17:44:00.000-07:00

I love doing Activity Days and love these cute girls. I was completely useless at our last activity with zero sewing skills, but luckily we have a lot of talented and generous women in our ward that agreed to help :)

Weston had a great night to (Thanks Laura!) and loved helping with the clean up!

Summertime!

2010-08-05T17:52:00.000-07:00

This week has seemed like the longest week of the summer by far. It seems like it should be next Tuesday by now. I'm not sure why, it's been a good week, other than Tuesday.

Monday we played at the splashpad and park, Tuesday I accidentally locked Weston in the car at the grocery store and had to call 911, Wednesday we took Weston to see Toy Story 3, and tonight we went to the driving range! I don't have any pictures of my horrible parenting moment on Tuesday, but here are the times we like to remember:

I thought it would be fun to take Weston to see Toy Story so a few weeks ago I rented the original Toy Story to see if he'd sit through it at home and he LOVED it! So I rented the second one and he LOVED it! He loves Buzz and Woody. I'm not sure who he likes more because it usually turns into "buddy" when he talks about them. We finally made it to the theater and he wanted nothing to do with it. He actually did pretty well at first, but the 45 minutes of previews killed us. We ended up leaving about 40 minutes into the movie, but it seemed great. I'm sure he'll love it on DVD.

Weston loves golfing at home with any ball and his "bat" (a long plastic tube Eric's demo devices come in) so we decided to take him to a driving range in town that no one's ever at. We thought he'd have fun playing on the putting green, but he wasn't interested in that at all...

A swing and a miss...

...but he saw an airplane so it was still pretty exciting.

Then he finally got ahold of one!!

Oreo's and Milk!

2010-08-04T10:18:00.000-07:00

I know...Gross! and that's the work of one little dissolved cookie!!

He LOVED it and now wants to put all of his food in his drinks :) Oops!

County Fair Time!

2010-08-01T11:50:00.000-07:00

Food, Rides, Food, Rides, Food...We had a great time!

Eric asked me how many men in sleeveless shirts we'd see from our car to the carnival. I guessed seven. He guessed more. It was an easy win for Eric :)

July Happenings!

2010-07-27T18:33:00.000-07:00

Lately we've been trying to keep busy without melting! Weston doesn't seem to notice the heat or humidity, but I can't handle it...ughhh.

Weston LOVES helping Eric mow the lawn

Weston's books were getting a little trashed and starting to overflow the drawer they were in so we decided to get a little bookshelf. Weston and I put it together one night while Eric was gone. I thought it'd be pretty quick and easy, but having the help of a one and half year old makes things a little tricky. Weston LOVED it. I couldn't keep him and his hammer or screw driver away from the shelf, and he had to work on the same screw/nail as me. He spent the next couple days hammering everything...

Making our own fun!

Wonder Lab (Bloomington's smaller version of the children's museum)

A little bored, cute, and trying to get mom's attention..

We've spent a few days at the pool. Weston LOVES the water slides and can't get enough of the water. If you even mention swimming (or bowling) he won't let you forget it. He has exploded with words lately and I'm pretty sure he'll figure out how to say something if he wants it bad enough; which means "bowing" and "swimming" came very quick and easy!

We heard about a petting zoo that was being put on as a fund raiser for autism so we went to check it out. It's a good thing it was for a good cause :)

The lady was trying to convince of that rats are GREAT pets and we should buy one. Weston's face shows exactly what I was thinking.

West was pretty excited about the goose. He loves The Little Red Hen book, and was pretty excited to see a real live goose:

If we go early enough in the morning or late enough at the evening we can still venture out to the park.
Once he found the drinking fountain it was tough to drag him away from it.

He caught some air jumping on the spider web with Cooper-

Weston LOVES his big kid friends "Cooker" and "Uby." We are really going to miss them and their great parents when they leave us this weekend!

Chuck E. Cheese

2010-07-15T06:28:00.000-07:00

Mom had to miss out on all the fun at Chuck E. Cheese too, but Daddy and Weston sure had fun with the Williams!

The day didn't end here...After the Zoo and Chuck E. Cheese, Weston and Eric headed off to Cold Stone to meet up with some more friends, the Browns! I guess they know what to do without me:)

Zoo with Grandma

2010-07-14T18:32:00.000-07:00

Weston and Daddy had a day out without Mommy- starting with a Zoo trip with Grandma!

Checking out the Gorillas

Weston wasn't quite sure what Daddy meant by "put your arms up" :)

Happy 64th Anniversary Betty and Reed!

2010-07-13T19:44:00.000-07:00

Eric's family had a surprise anniversary party for his grandparents and we were so excited that we got to be there. We had such a blast and we LOVE Grandma Betty and Grandpa Reed!

Hanging out-

Bubbles!

Tree Swing!

WATER FIGHT!!!

We convinced Weston to try and get Uncle Chase...It didn't turn out great for him:)

I love this picture. It looks like Hannah's just had a great idea and Weston LOVES it!

Playing with the boys...

Weston sure loves his Aunt Cheyenne...He couldn't get enough of her:

At one point he made his way over to Chey and Hailey hanging out an the grass and just plopped himself down with them.

Grandpa Reed helping Weston sneak some Lemonade-

Hanging out at Aunt Tiff's

2010-07-13T19:30:00.000-07:00

I'm a little worried about the fact that Weston has ZERO fear when it comes to dogs. Even this big kiss from Posh didn't phase him.

Idaho - Part II

2010-07-13T18:08:00.000-07:00

Testing out the inversion table...Grandma wasn't quite sure about it.

Weston and Emmy became pretty good friends-

Weston loved this little 4-wheeler at Aunt Leslie's house-

We took a drive one evening to show me where everyone used to live and I took tons of pictures in hopes of one day recording some geneology. This is just a few:
Grandma June's house. Leslie knows the family that lives here now, so we got to walk through it!

My grandma lived in this house with her brother and parents when she was young.

Across the street was her grandparent's house "Pop" and "Mom"

Pop's airplane hanger-

Too short of visit with some of the greatest friends...

2010-07-13T17:43:00.000-07:00

While we were in Utah we met up with Ashley, Erica,and Lindsey for a quick lunch. We got to see Kayla all grown up, meet little Max, and say hi to baby girl bump Wilkinson! The lunch went way too quick so Weston and I went with Ashley and Max back to their house to chat for a few minutes.

Doesn't he look great in blue! (As soon as daddy got to Utah he took Weston to the U of U bookstore to get outfitted in red)

Everywhere we went in Utah, Weston ended up soaking wet...no difference at Ashley's. He loved this fountain near her house.

You'd think I would have learned as this was the third time on the trip he ended up soaked without a change of clothes, but he had to drive back to grandma's naked and exhausted. I think he was a little cold...

Utah - Father's Day

2010-07-12T20:11:00.000-07:00

Eric celebrated Father's Day alone, but I'm pretty sure he enjoyed himself! He is a great daddy and we sure missed him.

Weston and I started off Father's Day with a lunch in honor of Grandpa LaMont:

This is my cousin Chad and his wife Casadee. They went with Weston and Grandma Beverly to the park one day while I was working and from then on out, if you mentioned either Chad or Casadee it got a "more, more" The funniest part is that he thought Chad was both Chad and Casadee:)

Next, we surprise crashed the Father's Day dinner for Grandpa Stan. Eric called on Skype at the same time that we showed up at the door...It was pretty fun and I think they were pretty shocked to see us!

Cheyenne got the "more, more" response from Weston too.

He's giving her the puppy dog eyes to try and get her to take him back outside. The picture does not do it justice...

Utah Trip- Part 1

2010-07-12T19:30:00.000-07:00

Neither Eric or I had been to the dentist in a while so we recently both went in for an exam. The results...Eric needed a cleaning...I need 2 root canals, a few couple crowns, and a few fillings totaling several thousand dollars. While this initially seemed to be HORRIBLE news, it turned out pretty good...

I have an uncle in Idaho that's a dentist and he and my aunt offered to do the work for MUCH cheaper. Eric's family was also having a surprise party for his grandparent's 64th anniversary that we really wanted to go to, but were having a hard time justifying the plane tickets. We were thinking we might just send Eric or something like that. Anyway, thanks to my horrible teach and generous family, we had a great excuse to go to Utah and we could actually feel like we were saving a bunch of money!!!

Weston got to spend a bunch of time with Grandma Beverly since I was either in the dental chair or working most of the time. He loved Aunt Leslie's back yard and moving all the dirt and rocks to different locations. Even if some of the dirt may have had carrots growing in it:(

Aunt Leslie also took us to the circus...turns out the circus was pretty lame, but Weston didn't stop clapping and yelling "Yay" for the first 45 minutes. I think everyone within 15 of us were more entertained by Weston than the circus-

yep...that's it. That's about as exciting as it got.

I'm pretty sure 90% of the time was spent trying to get people to spend money on inflatable toys and elephant rides...Weston didn't get to go, but he was just as happy watching!

Over the weekend, we headed back to Salt Lake. We got to have a play date with Carson and Erika. Carson wasn't quite sure about Weston at first, but they warmed up to each other before we left!

18 Months and Loving Life (at least when we do things his way)

2010-06-09T18:34:00.000-07:00

***Warning, if Weston doesn't call you "Grandma," this post might be a little overkill:)

The stats are in...our little guy is 35 1/2 inches tall and 29 Lbs (he's actually lost 6 ounces over the past month) This means he still off the charts for height and down to the 75%-90% for weight.

He is cracking us up more and more everyday. I'm pretty sure his favorite thing right now is 2, two of anything. When he tells me there's two of something he holds up both index fingers and says "two." When he's tired, and I ask him if he wants to take a nap, he says "two" and runs back to his bedroom. This means, yes I want to take a nap and I want 2 binkis. When we are reading a book, he finds everything that there are 2 of; even if that means he has to have one finger on a few pages back. He does this 2 thing 30 times a day, but this is the best picture I have. (the towel is keeping him from pointing that finger) He's telling me he and Daddy are washing "two" cars.

Tied for 2nd is being outside and driving...

This kid would stay outside all day if you let him...Playing with water is probably his first choice, but riding bikes, pushing his stroller around, or just running down to the mailbox (pointing out every bird on the way) are all good too...

If driving isn't a tie for second it is definitely a close third. Nearly every time we get in the car he throws a huge tantrum as we try to force him down and buckle him into his carseat. Not because he doesn't like his carseat, but because he wants to drive. As soon as we park and I unbuckle him, he jumps out of his seat and into the front seat to "drive." The city had a "touch a truck" event today, and I could barely manage to take pictures chase him and catch him as he was climbing up one truck and jumping off to run to the next. He LOVED it...

Other things he's into:

Clothes- mostly hats and shoes, but he'll try to take off or put on his clothes by himself too (so far unsuccessfully)

He has one pair of his own shoes that he's been able to put on by himself, but he usually goes for one of our pairs.

Hats...yes, it is always "two" hats

Mimicking us (or Danger) Everyday when we come in from walking Danger, Danger lays out on the kitchen floor to cool off. Weston has decided to join him lately...

Coloring!!!

And the Potty...

He saw another little kid use the toilet and has been obsessed ever since. He kept acting like he wanted to use the bathroom. Once I sat him on the toilet, and I think it scared him to death. He kept acting like he wanted to, but he'd run to the bathroom and when I got there to help him he'd run away. He is nowhere near ready to be potty trained, but we bought a little potty to help him with his fears. It worked in about two seconds. He loves it and goes back and forth sitting on the "two" potties.

We decided to celebrate Weston's 18 month birthday by breaking out this tricycle we bought him about a year ago. He loves it. His legs are just barely too short so his feet slip off the petals pretty easily, but I'm sure he'll have it down in the next month or so ...

His initial reaction was priceless (too bad the picture turned out blurry)

He concentrates REALLY hard trying to figure out the petals. Sometimes he gets frustrated and tries to push his feet with his hands like we do when we're helping him.

This is probably his favorite way to ride it right now...

And to top it off...her are a few of the ladies in his life (at least the ones we have pictures of:

"Ella" - He's got quite a thing for this little girl. She'll tolerate him, but I don't think she's feeling it:

...and this may be why-

We had to say goodbye to this little lady (and the pictures speak louder than words, that West was quite fond of her)

Believe it or not, she's got a belly button just like him. (We might have more than one thing to teach him is not appropriate)

And finally, the older woman.

We babysat this little girl and her brother a little while ago and we took Danger for a few walks. When we crossed the street, we said "okay, we need to hold hands" and Makenna ran right over to Weston to help him. It was so cute we had to get a picture. (And Weston thought he was pretty cool!)

And this in not even half of what he's doing lately. He's keeping us busy, but we sure love our little guy!

Bowling!

2010-06-05T14:48:00.000-07:00

We're so excited that Eric is home from his trip! Weston really missed him this time. Occasionally he'd say, "more, dad, more" while signing more. He's really into more of everything right now. It was sad, but sweet. Anyway, to celebrate Eric getting home we decided to take Weston bowling for the first time and he LOVED it!!

We started with the ramp-

But he decided that he didn't need it...

He also loved the blowing ally food and video games (He loves to "drive")

And lately, we can't get him to stop doing this, but it seemed appropriate at the bowling alley so I took a picture??

Brazil

2010-05-24T17:35:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my great job, we were able to do a Brazil trip on the cheap a few weeks ago. I have been wanting to swoon Chels with my Portuguese skills for years now (sadly it didn't work) and because I had to spend time in Brazil for work, she was able to fly down and meet my for week 2 of my trip.

The weather was pretty hit or miss (sadly it was hit often while I was away working) but we still were able to get some good beach time in. The day we dedicated to sightseeing was probably the worst- heavy fog that ruined the views, which later turned into rain. However, it also meant that we had the sights all to ourselves- in fact, we were the only tourists at the Christ Redeemer statue, which was very cool. (even though it is currently being restored)

We left West with Grandma and Grandpa Sumner for a week, which was surprisingly easier than expected for both parties. Chelsey didn't cry- not even once.

Overall, we had a great time, and Chelsey is way better looking than the guys I normally travel with.

The Urca

Hotel Rooftop

Sugarloaf

Christ Reedemer

Scriptures and Church Clothes

2010-05-24T17:22:00.000-07:00

Thought we would throw in a few photos of our little guy gettin all spiritual on us. He is big time into scripture study (nerd) and has just started going to nursery, as evidenced by this handsome new outfit that mom made us take pictures of and blog. The new challenge is leaving church without making too much of a scene as he could stay and play all day.

Sprinklers!

2010-04-17T10:35:00.000-07:00

We had some friends over to run through the sprinklers the other day. It was pretty funny. Weston had just woke up so he just stood in the sprinkler letting it go back and forth over him. He would just stand there and then do a little shiver every few seconds. None of the girls were shivering and he sure didn't want to get out of the water so I figured he was okay. Then I brought out popsicles and he walks over to me shivering with his hands out. He finished eating, while in the sprinkler, and shaking the entire time. He finally started running around more towards the end, but he sure was happy to wrap up in his towel!