BIG days

Mother's Day has been kind of weird for me the last 3 ish years... I only think of MY Mom on this day and forget that I am a Mom myself. I know if you are pregnant on Mother's Day you sometimes don't feel like a Mom yet either... but you are! My cute cousin Erin is just a couple weeks behind me this pregnancy and it is so fun to see her and  compare notes. I know she doesn't feel like a Mama yet- but she IS and she is going to be one of the best Mom's around. Such cute belly's...

We had a lovely lunch at Papa's house with all the cousins and family. We gave Meemaw her gifts and just spent time with everyone. William absolutely loves to hold his cousin Ellie. He is going to be the sweetest brother. He is so protective and loving. He is also quite the worrier. He is always looking out for all the kids and making sure they aren't going to get hurt. My heart melts to watch him with the babies. He is going to be my big helper in a few short weeks for sure! 

We drove up to Scott's parents house and wished Grandma Halladay a Happy Mother's Day and dropped off her gifts. Scott's parents are always so thoughtful and giving. They gave me a bunch of gifts as well. I am so blessed to have the Mothe'rs I do. My Mom is my best friend and I am thankful to be so close to her. My mother in law helps me SO much. I love you Mom's.

My William is 3. I seriously can not believe it. Where did my baby go??? On his birthday we woke up and let him open his gifts: a few books, Minion t shirts, Cars, and a couple other small things that I can't remember at the moment. He was pretty happy with it all.

We then ate a waffle breakfast and sang happy birthday (the birthday song is his all time favorite thing. We always have to sing it more than once). I told him he had a surprise downstairs- so he ran downstairs to find his very own trampoline. He has been wanting a tramp for a long time and was really excited to have one in the basement. 

Daddy took the day off from work to play with us. So we decided to try out the new Museum of Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point. We spent ALL day there. They have a bunch of different areas and activities and things to do. We spent time at every area as well as the gardens and park. He loved feeding the fish and watching them through the glass:

He also loved the caves and the slides. He had a blast and did not want to leave the museum. I would recommend giving this place a try- although try to find a deal or coupon online because I felt like it was WAY overpriced. 

After the Museum we met up with Meemaw and Pop pop for dinner at Zupa's (William LOVES soup and salads lately) then we drove up to Cold Stone by our house and had some ice cream with Grandma and Grandpa Halladay as well. All the Grandparents spoiled him and gave him some gifts to open. He got a Thomas the Train Book and water shoes from "Meem" and Pop and Grandma and Grandpa gave him some aquarium trains for his train set. He loves all the gifts!

Big W had a great birthday. We were so happy to spend the day with Daddy. That is an extra special treat! He had his Minion birthday party just a couple of days later.... Coming Up.

Odds & Ends

I can NOT keep up with this blog lately! Our life has been extremely hectic the last few months. We decided it was time to move- so we had a couple MAJOR projects to finish in about 2 weeks so we could put our house up for sale. It went up and about 8 days later it sold. So then we were house hunting like crazy- found a house and we close next week. So now I am packing up and cleaning out and have been doing all this with a very active 2 year old AND a pregnant belly. So the blog has been low on the priority list. Here are some odds and ends from this year so far:

January- Birthday Month. We spoiled Daddy with some gifts (that to be honest- I can't even remember what we got him... Some Legos, a Movie or two, some comic books, something electronic and an herbal tea maker perhaps...) Big W loves to hep open the gifts. We also went out to dinner with some close friends of ours- Scott and Toni have the same birthday so we celebrated by going out to Ruth's Chris. They are such a sweet couple and I am so heart broken to be moving AWAY from them. Good thing it is just down the street a few minutes...

 My birthday is in January as well and we had a great relaxing day. The boys got me heated curlers (that I need help learning how to use properly), a new curling iron, my own tea maker, and Tangled. We just hung around the house to my recollection and it was a fabulous day :) My boys make me feel so special and loved. I am so lucky.

During our busy house hunting days- we had one Saturday where we looked at about 9 houses (maybe more). We didn't want to drag Big W around and so we arranged to have my dad (Pop-pop) ride the Frontrunner train up to Draper to pick up William and ride back down to Orem. William LOVES trains. And he is always fascinated to watch trax or frontrunner zoom past. Here they are at the train stop and getting on the train. He was ALL smiles and just loved the ride. 

I am horrible at taking pictures- but William and I spend pretty much 24-7 together and I LOVE it. I am so blessed to be able to stay at home with him and raise him and play with him and teach him. I am not going to lie- being a mom is the hardest thing I have ever done. Some days I really question what I got myself into. But it is all worth it. When he gives me hugs, cuddles, kisses, smiles or anything- I just melt. He is my favorite. And he is the sweetest, smartest boy I have ever met. I am lucky to have him in my life.

Speaking of being lucky... our little GIRL will be joining us in July. I am still kind of in shock that we are having a girl. I just always pictured myself having a bunch of boys. I am really nervous about raising a girl- but I am getting more and more excited every day. She sure does love to move and stretch- she moves pretty much constantly (just like William did). So far the pregnancy has been great and everything looks good with Baby Girl. I couldn't ask for more.

My little sister (Dee-O to Will) got married in March! This handsome man was the ring bearer and he did such a great job.  He just loves Dee-O so much and is always giving her kisses. He has such a great Aunt and now a new Uncle. Welcome to the family Kaden. Congratulations to both of you. We love you!

I think that is all the major updates for now. I have lots of recipes we have been cooking up... so look out.

Christmas-- finally!

We had a very nice and laid-back Christmas this year. We did our traditional Orem Christmas Eve party at my Papa's house. It is so great to see family members that live elsewhere and those that we just don't get to see very often! There are lots of us expecting babies this year so that is the biggest topic of conversation. It is so exciting to see our family grow! We got our traditional stockings and blankets from Papa and Nana. We also had our traditional pizza dinner. One fun thing was our neighbors had ordered way too much crab- so they brought us a TON of crab legs! Scott and I (and we now know William) love crab! After the party we went to Meemaw's and Pop-pop's to open gifts there. William is one spoiled boy and got tons of Cars stuff as well as Monster's Inc. stuff. His favorite toy from them is his cat Figaro. Scott and I got Hale Center Theater season tickets- which we are so thrilled to use!

On Christmas we hung out at home all day and let William slowly open gifts. He loves to open one and play with it for a while. Then later come back to open another etc. We didn't rush him through opening gifts. I like that he enjoys each gift and doesn't care if there is a big pile of gifts to open or not. We ate breakfast before doing anything because Scott had to work for a little while. We made eggnog french toast with scrambled eggs. Then we got to the fun stuff. He was most thrilled to get Woody and Buzz:

Scott and I opened gifts while William was playing with his toys. I made this gift for Scott and Eric: a Rubik cube tissue box. If you watch the Big Bang Theory- in Leonard and Sheldon's apartment on the side table by the couch, they have this. We are Big Bang enthusiasts so when I saw the tutorial on Pinterest I just had to do it.

The gift that he picked out and bought for his self: a straight edge razor to shave with! It was really nice and William and I took it downtown to get sharpened so it was all ready to go with all the accessories. I think he was happy with his choice :)

William came back for more presents and opened up Mack (from Cars) that held I think 8 other cars. Luigi and Guido are his very favorite. He has ALWAYS wanted them and we can't find them anywhere. So I was super excited to find them. He is also dying for Doc- so if anyone sees him anywhere, tell me!!

While Scott and I were opening gifts I went to see what William was doing and found him curled up in his new Cars show couch/bed with his new cars blanket, Figaro, Monsters Inc toys and Cars toys watching his new show Monsters University. I think he had a very memorable Christmas. Such a cute boy.

We were lucky to have Eric and Colleen stop by for the afternoon and exchange gifts. They always spoil us and spoil William. They are such great people and the best friends. Later that day we went to the Halladay's and opened many gifts and ate way too much food. We also shared our Service Projects and just hung out. The Halladay's are so generous and sweet. I am so blessed to have such great in-laws. 

Hope everyone had very Happy Holidays!

Family Pictures

We actually got these family pictures done back in November. My entire immediate family decided to get these done for my parents for Christmas. It has been a long time since we had family photos done, and now we have new babies and family members moving away and new members of the family... so it was much needed! They turned out really nice. I am so thankful for my family- Love you all!

I love the picture of Pop-pop and Meemaw with the grand babies. Aren't they WAY TOO YOUNG to be grandparents??? And I just love Vivee, Miss Aeda and Mr William. Such cute kids. Aeda will be a big sister in March. And William will be a big brother in July!! I made a ton of Christmas cards with all these cute pictures on them to send out for Christmas and misplaced my Address Book- so I never got them sent out! (Pregnancy Brain) So I thought I'd share them on here instead. 

I have lots of Christmas pictures, birthday pictures and recipes with reviews coming up.

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.