Witches and Pumpkins

We went to Gardner Village to visit the witches a few weeks ago, but Will's favorite part by far was the petting zoo! He got to walk right up to the goats, sheep, pigs, and ponies. He just got the hugest grin on his face when they let us in the gate and went running from animal to animal saying "hi" and petting them very gingerly before quickly moving on to the next. You can see in some of the pics how he would bend down to get at their eye level to say hello or make an animal sound to them. It was one of those moments, ya know? One that makes a mother think, "oh yeah, this is why it is so great to be a mom!"

Top left-Will getting on the pig's level to say hello; Top right-This is his snorting face; Bottom left-Baaa!; Bottom right-Checking out his favorite: the ducks

Left-He was so excited that the tiny little goats were just his size; Right-Pointing at his goat friend

My little artist painted his very own pumpkin all by himself, and shockingly it wasn't too messy!

Top Left-the boys doing the dirty work; Top Right-The results; Bottom Left-the girls and Graham; Bottom Right-I'm focusing people, don't bug me!

Little buddies...Happy Halloween!

(more pics of us in our costumes coming soon...)

Can We Build It? Yes We Can!

Progress on our basement has been great! We hired a contractor (Basement Creations) that we absolutely love, and things have gone really well. The quality of the work is very high and they have just flown through things in record time. After dealing with so many contractors in the past few years on other things that never do what they promise you, this contractor is like a breath of fresh air! It is hassle-free and just makes my life so much easier. Now, if they could erase the dust from every square inch of my house I would be in heaven! These pics are from awhile back and it is much farther along now, but I will post more pics when I take them.

Ry was hammering in a box and his sidekick, Bob the Builder, had to be just like dad.

Lovely sump pump in the corner, and Ryan is slave driving Will to hammer the next box.

A big hot mess, but you get the idea.

I have to admit I was a little ecstatic about my fireplace!

Zoo, Grave, and Our New Pool!

We were able to visit Hogle Zoo for Will's very first time with all of Ryan's family a few Saturdays ago. I claim that it was my first time as well, but my mom says I have been there and was just too little to remember. This summer there were lots of new babies born at the zoo, including the baby elephant (pictured) and baby giraffe!

We decided to get started on finishing our basement a few weeks ago, but since lots of neighbors have had flooding issues we decided to get an estimate of what waterproofing we would need to do before finishing to be safe. We really thought we were ok, but when they drilled the concrete out around our footings this is what they found (picture on right). Basically, we are sitting on our very own underground pool, about 9 inches away from our basement floor! Fun, right? We never even knew our homebuilder was so generous to include a pool in our home and not even charge us for it.

The picture on the left shows Ry digging up our yard to bury the pipe for the french drain/sump pump system we had to put in to clear out the river under the basement. Now we have a lovely little pipe drilled into our curb that drains all the water from under our house into the street.

Since we haven't been to Vegas in over a year now, I decided that a trip was long overdue. We were able to go a few weekends ago and visit one of my very best friends, Liz, and her family, my grandparents, and my father's grave. We stayed with Liz and Jes, and they are always so sweet and hospitable when we come. We were also able to go to lunch with Jenny, Emily, Rebecca, and Alexis. Unfortunately I only got pictures at the cemetery and not of anything else the whole weekend! Will loved watching the ducks in the pond at the cemetery so much that he almost jumped right in to catch them. He loves ducks, which is fun because I have loved ducks ever since my dad used to call me "Baby Duck".

Long Overdue...

...for a new post so here we go!

Summer Fun

Top Left-Will enjoying his brand new "Cars" table and chairs that he, of course, absolutely loves since it is just his size. I brought it home and he had to have dinner on it that night, so daddy joined him.

Top Right-Will & the neighborhood boys enjoying the giraffe pool that Uncle Joey gave to us.

Bottom Left-Our ward got tickets to the Orem Owlz game for our ward summer activity.

Bottom Middle-I was able to watch my friend Chrissy's kids all day one day so we all went to the Thanksgiving Point Children's Discovery Gardens along with Jacquelynn and her little girl, Anna. We splashed in the water around Noah's Ark and explored for hours. It was a little tiring, but a really fun way to spend a day with friends!

Bottom Right-Will's first time on a pony ride! We have a pass to Thanksgiving Point and really have been enjoying all the fun activities they have. This is at Farm Country and Will held on so tight that I didn't even need to hold him. I kept saying, "Hold on tight!", so he had a death grip on the saddle. It was adorable!

The Many Adventures of Mr. Will

Left-one day I sat Will in his high chair with some grapes to keep him occupied while I finished doing my hair. After quite a few minutes of no whining, which is rare these days, I thought I better go make sure he was ok. When I walked in the room this is what I found. No wonder he was such a little angel. Apparently he was occupied in a game of grape toss.

Right-We are finishing our basement and have contractors in and out all the time now, so we pulled out the kennel cause I have to have Rusty in it quite a bit during the day since he can't be in the backyard with the gate open. Will's new favorite thing is to entice Rusty into the kennel with him, then shut the door and just crack up! Rusty isn't too fond of this game of squished wrestling in a cage, but Ry did manage to grab a quick snapshot before we freed the poor pup. It was quite hilarious!

Sweet Smiles

My little Will thinks it is the funniest thing when I fake dropping something and it hits the floor. I know I can always get him to giggle for a picture by doing this, and I just love hearing his cute little belly laugh! I know it won't be very long before he grows up and thinks mom isn't funny anymore, so I really cherish these moments in my day when I just look and his smiling face and think how lucky I am to be a mother.

Labor Day Camping

We got invited by some friends in our ward to go camping up Cottonwood Canyon for Labor Day. There were 4 families with 13 kids in all! It was so much fun to be able to have Will around a bunch of other kids all weekend and just be able to hang out and play in the dirt. On Sunday we were able to go home to be at my nephew, Austin, and Ry's niece, Addison's, blessings. Ry was actually able to bless Addison. They were both great experiences and it was so fun to see both of our families in one day. Then we headed back up the canyon for another night by the campfire. It was a busy but relaxing weekend!