Hallow's Eve

LOVE Halloween. We never really even do anything... but for some reason it has always been one of my very favorite holidays. For those of you who don't know Will too well... he has some anxiety when it comes to new items... mostly new clothes and shoes. He has been a lot better lately, especially when we get the stuff home and cut the tags off and wash them. So I was worried about how he would react to his Halloween costume- he was going to be Peter Pan. I found the cutest costume at the Disney store and had to get all the accessories too. (A knife that makes noise and a bow and arrow). So it's from the Disney store... it costs a pretty penny. So we bought it way in advance and I kept it out all month and tried to show him and let him dress up and play. He would. not. have. it. Once he put on the pants and the hat and carried the knife around. But he just hates the boots, hat and other items. On Halloween morning we talked about it ALL morning- that we would dress up and go get candy etc. He said he was excited to dress up. LIES. He absolutely hated it. I forced him into it just to try and get a quick picture, but all he wanted to do was call daddy. So we Face Time'd him and he got to see Will in his costume. It was so funny- William just had this scowl on his face and kept saying "I don't YIKE it!" ha ha ha ha. So we took it off and he just wore regular clothes all day and was happy as could be. 

So we went out to lunch with Scott downtown. Then went back to his work for some trick or treating- which we didn't do since William wouldn't dress up. He even saw other kids dressed up and thought it was cool. But still didn't want to dress up.

Next we headed to Grandma Halladay's house. She always goes above and beyond, people. Seriously- she spoils all of us. There was this cute set up for everyone:

As well as some delicious food and treats, and all these cute kids: (See how happy William is that he is not dressed up? ha ha)

We dropped daddy off at home to hand out candy bars to all our trick-or-treaters and then  William and I headed down to Orem. We had yummy hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls and watched Monsters University. William loved answering the door and seeing all the trick-or-treaters and handing out candy. He also loved seeing his cousin Ky and his Papa (Great Grandpa) and of course his cousin, Miss Aeda.

I love these two kids. William is so funny. He LOVES Aeda. He seriously talks about her all the time and "needs" to see her. But then he gets jealous of her and ends up pushing her or something and getting into trouble. Tough Love, I guess. That's what happens when you have an only child. It is hard to teach him how to play nice!!

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!!

BIG Summer Update

I knew we did a lot more this summer that I never talked about... and once I found the pictures I thought I had better update! So for Memorial Day we went as a family to visit Nana and our other relatives in the Provo Cemetery. It is such a sad reality check for me. Since I live half an hour away from my parents (and Nana's home) I tend to forget that Nana passed away. In my mind- she is just down in Orem and when I go down to visit, it hits me like a ton of bricks that she is not here. Visiting the cemetery is worse... but it is also peaceful. Look at how beautiful her headstone/bench is... and seeing all the flowers and birds left behind is a great reminder of how much she is loved.

We also went out to Grantsville and visited all the Halladay relatives. I have never been out to the cemetery before. So it was fun to go and hear some stories that Scott shared. William had fun running around and putting roses on family members. We also went to the Salt Lake City cemetery to visit Scott's grandparents.

Our last stop was a Veteran's Cemetery. That is where my dad's mom is buried. I haven't been up there in such a long time. It was good to get up to her and leave her some roses as well. All of our family that has passed on are dearly missed and loved and never forgotten.

The 4th of July this year was full of parades. We went to the West Jordan parade in the morning and met up with Scott's brother and his family. They recently moved close to us! So we are excited to do more things with them. None of us were thrilled with the West Jordan parade tho. It was SUPER hot and the parade was waaaay too long. We left the parade and met up at the Halladay home for a fantastic BBQ.  After some good food, we left the group and went to the Sandy parade. Our friend plays the bagpipes and was going to be in this parade. So we went to support him! It was such a fun parade and we will definitely go back next year!

We topped the night off with going to Scott's brothers house and watching all the fireworks. It was fun to hang out with family and the kids. Everyone loved all the fireworks too! I love Independence Day- we are so blessed to live in this beautiful, free country. I am so grateful to all those who have and continue to keep us free!

The "lazy" summer days consisted of going to Orem and setting up little blow up pools for William. He loves to be in the water. We would also play in irrigation if we were lucky enough to catch that. One thing he LOVED was Uncle "Joshy" (as Will calls him) and Pop pop getting out the canoe and letting William ride the irrigation in the ditch. He thought that was just the greatest thing!

One night Scott took me out to meet our favorite Author- Terry Brooks!! We have met him before here and we were so glad that he was coming back to Salt Lake! He had lots of exciting news about books, a new TV series, and a movie. We were really nerding out and just enjoyed the whole evening. It was a LOOOONG wait to meet him and get our books signed, but it was worth it. He is such a nice man! If you haven't read his books- I would highly suggest you give them a try! 

We were invited to our friend's wedding this summer too. Dave is such a great guy and he and Scott played in bands together years ago. We are so happy that he met Sydney and that they got married! They are so cute together and seem so very happy. They got married at a Ranch up in Park City. I have never been up there and was blown away with how beautiful it was! One of the only pictures we took: us eating dinner with our friend Matt and his wife and girls. Congratulations Dave & Sydney!

I am finally all caught up with the year. I made some yummy food this week... so stay tuned for a Cooking update.

Cars Birthday

I was going through old files today and found a ton of pictures that I never posted!! So I will start with Will's 2nd Birthday Party. We did "Cars" since that is his all time favorite thing ever. I found most of these ideas on Pinterest and just tweaked them to add our own touch. Here was the set up:

I had the idea to make the food labels on black paper with neon markers to make it look like all the signs in the movie. It turned out really cute. I also came up with most of the ideas for the food:

Flo's V8 cafe- V8 Juice

Sarge's Surplus Hut- Plates, Knives, Forks etc.

Piston Cup Trophy- Gold Cups

Fillmore's Organic Fuel- Veggie Cups

Cozy Cone- Ice cream Cones

Luigi's Casa Dela Tires- Doughnuts

Ramone's Art Shop (not pictured)- Puzzles that the kids could color, tattoos

Saw this Sprinkle Cake on Pinterest and just loved it. I hate baking... so I thought it was kind of a pain in the buns... but it turned out really cute. William loves, loves, LOVES the birthday song:

Yet another Pinterest find... you can't really see the actual pictures, but his 2 year old pictures were taken by Papa's old cars and his mustang. Pretty cute. We also made a "road" that lead guests from the driveway into the kitchen. I will need to find those pictures. I made him a "Cars" banner too. 

 William really enjoyed his party. Thanks to all the family that showed up, spent time with us and spoiled William with gifts! He is one lucky boy. Happy Birthday my little man!

On his birthday we took him to City Creek Mall and shopped at the Disney store and ate at the Cheesecake Factory. We had a great time spoiling our boy. 

Hee Haw's

Last weekend my sister-in-law invited us to Hee Haw's! We were pretty excited to go because William has never been to a corn maze. This place was so cute and had lots of things to do for the kids. The first stop was of course the giant slide- William is a daredevil and went straight for it. He went down with Scott first, but then asked to go alone. I didn't think he would do it- I was wrong:

We took lots of pictures of all the cute kids: Will and his cousins; Miss Aeda, Viv, & Eli. Such adorable children.

Next we went on a hayride that took us over to the corn maze. Here is the group; US, Meemaw & Pop-pop, my brother and his family, my sister-in-law's family, and my bro.

The corn maze was lots of fun. William had a blast running all around, hiding in the corn, finding cobs on the ground and just being outside with family. 

We saw more cute family at Hee Haw's!! We ran into Alec, Courtney and Gavin. They all watched the Pig Chase and got to pet the little piglets as well. We are so blessed to have such great family and friends. Thanks for inviting us! We had a blast. 

Conference Weekend + Catch Up

Our Annual trip to the State Fair was lots of fun. We had more family join us this year so that made it extra fun. William loves seeing his Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and of course his Meemaw and Pop pop. He loved Viv's stroller with her toys hanging on the side. Here he is following Aunt Shanelle around the fair. The entire group went down the Big Yellow Slide as well. William went down about 4 times! 

September 12 is our Anniversary! This is our 5th year of marriage. To celebrate Scott took me around to a few places that mean a lot to both of us. First stop was dinner at Tucanos. We actually met at the Tucanos in Provo. But we ate at the Gateway instead. It was delicious. Next we went to Temple Square. We walked around the temple where we were sealed a couple years after we were married.

Then we went for a stroll to a gelateria. I love gelato- ever since I went to Italy in 2003 I have loved it! We got gelato pretty much every day when Scott and I went to New York. And last but not least, we went to the University of Utah hospital where William was born. Scott took me to the gift center and got me a Willow Tree statue as a gift. I had such a great night with my man. Love you Honey. Thanks for being the best husband, friend and father these last 5 years. I look forward to the next 5!

William loves his cousins. A couple weeks ago Viv and her parents brought their motorhome over and William was in heaven! He never wanted to leave. He and Viv loved playing in the sink too.

He also loves his cousin Ky. We haven't seen her in a long time, so he was thrilled to see her this weekend. We didn't do much but we got lunch and played around for a few. 

We also had cousins from Idaho in town this weekend! We did lots of fun things with them. We checked out Scheels and the kids rode the Ferris Wheel, we watched them feed the fish, we just wandered around the played. Then we went out to dinner. 

We also visited the local Pumpkin Patch. William mostly just played with his Crocodile and helped Jenna push the wheel barrow. He didn't even want a pumpkin. But it was fun! 

On Sunday we had a big, fancy breakfast and watched Conference. How cute are these girls? Sitting front and center to listen! We also ate dinner together at my Brother-in-law's house. Scott is popular with the babies!! We were so happy to see family and spend so much time with them. We are blessed to have such a great family. Love you all!

Car Show

One other mini-vacation we did was a car show up in Park City! Scott is a member of NUMOA (a Mustang Club) and had his car entered in the show, we thought it would be fun and adorable to have William's car entered in as well. We stayed at New Park and it was SUCH a nice place to stay! Here are our cars:

The kids got to participate in a "race"/parade for all the other cars there. William was pretty excited to be a part of it! Here he is getting ready to go.

He got a sucker at the end... and I think that was icing on the cake. He had a BLAST doing the parade. He didn't like dad steering him tho. But he can't quite steer the car yet. Smiles all around!

That night was a banquet for all those entered in the car show and a part of the club. We had a good dinner and had a raffle, an auction and then the awards were handed out. Scott won!! He received this award for his class. We were so excited for him! Good job Honey!

We had such a fun weekend away together.I am so proud of Scott and glad that he shared his fun weekend with us. 

Just had to throw this picture in here... William LOVES riding 4 wheelers. Papa let William ride his 4 wheeler around one Sunday. He had an absolute blast. William sure does love his Papa.

the rest of our Summer...

As I said, we had a busy summer and went on lots of mini vacations! Here is a quick-ish update for a few more things we did. 

In July we went to our favorite place: DISNEYLAND. My parents and sister went with us. We decided to split the drive up and drove to Vegas the first night. On our way we witnessed a semi truck run off the road and tip over. It was really scary and it delayed us for a while. By the time we got to Vegas, we just went to sleep. It was nice splitting the drive up tho. We only spent one day at Disneyland, but it was plenty of time to do all of our favorite things. We ate at Cafe Orleans, drank lots of Mint Juleps, hung out at Carsland, and rode Winnie the Pooh about 20 times. It was William's favorite ride:

My Sweet and Adorable Parents

"Dee-O"

We LOVE Carsland. William loves the Mater ride and the Luigi Tire ride. All of us grown ups rode the Radiator Springs Racers as well. SO FUN!

The next morning we drove to San Diego and went to the Zoo. William has never been and Scott and I haven't been in years. William enjoyed seeing animals and walking around. I was horrible and didn't take any pictures! I don't know what I was thinking! Here we are at the entrance:

Seaworld was our last stop. And again- I didn't take any pictures!! Our camera battery had died. But here is William touching some star fish courtesy of Bri. He really liked petting the sting rays and touching the star fish... basically any chance to get in the water was a good time. He really liked the shark exhibit as well. He was really excited about the Shamu show at first... then lost interest pretty fast. It was fun to go and to take William- but honestly, it is not my favorite place. I think we will stick with Disneyland. 

Since we finished so early at Seaworld- I asked Scott if we could go and do a session at the San Diego Temple. We have both always wanted to visit this temple and since my parents wanted to go to Oceanside (where my dad grew up) anyway, they took William along with them and let us go! It is seriously the prettiest temple we have visited so far. We had such a great experience and I am so thankful to be able to do this work with my husband!

My parents had such a blast taking William to see the Ocean for the first time!! Here they are walking along the beach: so gorgeous!

How perfect is this shot??? He is so excited about all that water!! I am sad that I missed this moment with him... but I am glad that my parents and Aunt Bree got to enjoy it with him. He had so much fun.

Once we got back from California... it was literally about a week later that we made a day trip up to Idaho to visit Scott's sister and her daughters! We rarely get to see these guys and we missed them. Sarah was chosen to paint a mural on this city wall at a park. Look at that talent! We are so proud of her.

Next we headed out to the sand dunes. Brett's (my brother-in-law) dad just got a fun new razor and was nice enough to let us all go out and drive it around. William thought it was the coolest thing ever. He really loves four wheelers... so he was thrilled to ride in this "car". 

I have never even heard of these sand dunes before... but man they were amazing! I pictured us sitting around in the blazing sun and heat just being miserable and waiting for your turn on the razor.. boy was I wrong! There were trees and shade and even WATER! There were really cool little ponds of clear water all around the sand dunes! We just parked the truck, pulled up some chairs and let the kids play in the water and take turns riding the razor. It was such a blast and William was in heaven! Thanks to the Thueson family for being such gracious hosts for a fun day in Idaho.

The next weekend we went to Vegas!! I am not one to just go to Vegas for fun. I just don't find much appealing about Vegas to be honest. I don't gamble, party, drink, go to strip clubs or any of that jazz. So unless we have a reason- we usually don't stay here. But- Scott and Eric had tickets to the Star Trek convention. So we all decided to go down and hang out. This is the view out of our hotel room:

William LOVED that pool. He wasn't a huge fan of the synthetic beach... but we had a blast swimming a couple of times over the weekend. Here are our boys at the convention: so cute. We also went to the Bellagio to watch the fountains, walk around and get some ice cream. 

Daddy swimming with his boy in the fun pool just before we headed back home

More updates to come. Including a Mustang show in Park City, the Utah State Fair and more! Thanks to Eric and Colleen for getting us such an amazing room and for letting us spend the weekend with you in Vegas!