Growing Up

I can't believe how grown up my baby is! I am scared to think about how fast time will go when I realize how fast this first year has gone. Its hard to believe that he was a tiny newborn and now he is crawling, almost walking, eating normal food, has teeth and can talk a little too! So crazy...

Dubs loves to play in his tub... even if there is no water in it. And he likes to enjoy his bottle on the go now..

When we visit Gammy down in Orem... the french doors in the living room are his favorite. He has learned that if he squishes his face against the glass, he will get the entire room laughing. He sure does love to make everyone laugh. 

A couple weeks ago we took Dubs out for his FIRST SWIM. We went to an indoor pool at my Brother and Sister-in-Laws house and man it was SO fun. He absolutely loved it and would have stayed all night if I would have allowed. I am glad he likes water (for now)... cause I have always loved water and Lake Powell and the pool and all that fun summer stuff. Scott is not a big fan of all that.

This is the only picture I have of him where you can actually see his teeth!! They cut through in March. He just wont ever let anyone pull his lip down to take a picture. His top teeth are just about through as well. He is the cutest. That is all.

Easter

I logged in to catch up on my blogging.... and there is a whole new blogger set up that I do NOT know how to do yet. So my photos are all out of order... but we will continue on anyway :)

Easter was a lot of fun this year. We had an Easter Egg Hunt at the Halladays. Here is Dubs with his daddy getting ready to head out and hunt! :)

We also visited the family down in Orem. Here is Dubs chillin' on his Great-Papa's chair. Doesn't he look so much older than a 10 month old??

My parents gave William lots of treats (his favorite) and lots of cute shirts... including a Star Wars, Superman, Batman and much more!! He looks so cute in his shirts.

Here he is reading his favorite book from us, called "Peek a Who?". It is such a great book. I highly recommend it if you have small children. For some reason, he just loves it.

Here is his Easter basket from us. It's "Avengers" and we filled it with all sorts of books, baby sock monkey, monkey neck pillow for the car, an Easter tie and much more!! I think he liked it :)

 The spoiling never stops!!! Here is a portion of his Easter basket from his Grandma Halladay. She went ABOVE and BEYOND as per usual!!! She really spoils all the kids (and us too!!). He got all sorts of toys and treats and books. He just loves it all!

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter!

9 months

My baby is almost 10 months old now... but I am slow and never posted his 9 month old pictures. He is such a big boy!! He did drop from being in the 83% to being in the 60% for his weight and height. But he is SOOOO smart and happy and just moving right along. He has been crawling since he was 6 months old, and now he can stand on his own and take up to 3 steps on his own. I am blown away by how fast he learns.

I do not deserve this perfect baby. I am so glad that he is mine!!

He is ALWAYS playing with my glasses and trying to take them off of my face and put them on his. So he was pretty excited to play with Aunt Bri's fake glasses that look a lot like mommys.

I am starting to plan his big 1st birthday party. I am thinking of having a sock monkey theme. He LOVES Sock Monkey. It is between that or Superhero. Hm.... Any suggestions?

Luck O' the Irish

We normally don't do anything for St. Patrick's Day... I think the most we have ever done is go out to dinner at MacCool's (an Irish Pub in Salt Lake). However, since we have William- I want to make all holidays extra special. So for St. Patrick's Day we all wore something GREEN...

He is DEFINITELY my Lucky Charm

I also made us a traditional Irish dinner: Corned Beef and Cabbage! I purchased the all ready seasoned Corned Beef from an amazing butcher shop, Snyder's. All I did was put the corned beef in a crock pot, added cut-up parsnips and carrots, frozen pearl onions and 3 cups of water. I cooked it on high for 4 hours. After the 4 hours, I added 6 wedges of cabbage and let it cook for 1 hour and 20 minutes more...

It was seriously the BEST corned beef and cabbage I have ever had. William even liked it!!! His favorite was the cabbage and carrots.

I also made some traditional Irish Soda Bread. Our friend Eric gave us his recipe. All it contains is flour, baking soda, salt and buttermilk. You knead it for one minute and form it into a flat circle, cut a deep 'X' in the middle and bake it on 375 for 45 minutes. SOOOOO yummy!

I am NO photographer... but here is our meal!! It was SO good. We are definitely doing this EVERY St. Patrick's Day.. and maybe even more often than that :)

For dessert I made Green Velvet Cupcakes (found the recipe on Pinterest). I topped them off with an Irish Cream Frosting (also found on Pinterest AND not pictured). They were awesome as well!!!

Our little family!! I had a fun and festive day with my favorite boys. I am glad they enjoyed the food and we all had a great day. Hope everyone had a fun St. Patrick's Day!

Chinese New Year

Every year Scott's family goes to a Chinese New Year celebration at Joy Luck in Sandy. It is sooo much fun. There is always good food, good entertainment and of course great company. They even have a lion dance around the restaurant with some awesome drums! Some of the kids are scared...but the others will "feed" the lion money in red envelopes. Here comes the lion to our table...

Scott and Dubs are testing the waters.... he wasn't scared at all!!

I couldn't get a good shot of him feeding the Lion... but he did. Look at my cute boys!

I just love those rosy cheeks!!! They are ALWAYS rosy. We had such a great time celebrating the Chinese New Year!!

Our Days of Birth

We have just about finished celebrating our birthdays. We tend to celebrate all month long... First up is Scott's birthday: Scott with the cake I made him.

I can't take credit for this cake... I found it off of Pinterest (of course!!) and here is the blog that I copied: http://www.raspberricupcakes.com/2011/09/mint-chocolate-chip-cake.html

This frosting is PERFECT for Scott. Mint Chocolate Chip is his all time favorite ice cream. I only made her frosting recipe and of course followed her decorating pattern :) Scott's cake is marble though. I thought it turned out pretty well. I am not so much a baker as I am just a cook. I would much rather cook a dinner meal than cakes and cookies. BUT here is the end result:

Scott wanted car parts for his birthday, which seems to be the growing trend for birthdays... I also surprised him with a coin that he collects and some earmuffs for the trax stop! Lots of family came over to celebrate and gave such generous gifts as well. Here is the birthday boy opening gifts.

And Dubs with his Aunt Boots... he is always pretty excited to hang out with his favorite girls.

My birthday was next! (Just a few days after Scott's). This sounds so lame but all I wanted for my birthday was to watch the Bachelor in peace. Ha ha. So Scott made us a spaghetti casserole for dinner and a tres leches birthday cake! They were SUPER delicious. My family came over and watched the bachelor with me. It was lots of fun.

Scott spoiled me (as per usual!). He gave me every season of Parks and Recreation on DVD, as well as The Office Season 7. He let me get my hair done- and I LOVE it. My family also spoiled me with their generous gifts. Scott found these super cute slippers... they are basically the definition of Elise: Gray, Purple, Green and BIRDS:

They are from Fossil and I love them.

Thanks to everyone who made our birthdays so special!! Our families are the best and really do spoil us!! Happy Birthday to my man. I hope you had a great day.

100 Posts- Merry Christmas!

I find it fitting that my 100th post is all about Christmas!! We had a lot of fun this year with all our decorating, parties, presents, food and of course- family and friends.

We have a group of friends that we get together with and have game nights and an annual White-Elephant Christmas party. These were the best two gifts there:

This is the second year that we have WON the picture of Todd. We have started a Todd wall in our basement. And yes- it stays up year 'round. And Dano drew that picture on the shirt himself. Very artistic!! We always eat lots of good food at this party as well. We brought some artichoke dip with toasted baguette slices and some chai cookies.

Christmas Eve is our traditional family party at my Nana's house. (Dubs' Great Grandma). We sit around laughing at Uncle Steve's stories, read some scriptures, watch a movie on the birth of Christ, open gifts and of course... eat good food. We brought spaghetti casserole, veggie squares and tres leches! It was a busy day of cooking- but we have a ton of family and I wanted to help out. I need to do a post on these and give the recipes cause they are all delicious.

Here is the baby opening his very first Christmas gift- pajamas and a blanket from Nana, Papa and Aunt Jennie. And his favorite toys... a Sock Monkey from Uncle Eric and Aunt Colleen as well as a remote control from Grandma Halladay!

Here he is on "Santa's" lap. AKA Papa.

And the entire group! (Minus Alec and Courtney...) The group is getting HUGE. So many family members got married this year and we of course had a baby!

On Christmas Day we went to church where Scott and I sang in the ward choir. Scott's family came to watch and take care of William. Afterwards we all went back to our home and had a yummy Christmas Breakfast that included homemade Cinnamon Rolls (Cinnabon copies), Creamy Crockpot Hot Chocolate and fruit. (Again, I need to do a post with the recipes. The hot chocolate is SOOOO good!)

Before we went to the Halladay's we opened our gifts at home with William. Here he is with Mama opening a book. He loves books.

And here he is with his daddy... checking out daddy's comic books. Seriously- how cute are my boys?? I just love them.
We spent the rest of the day over at the Halladay's where we ate tons of good food and opened waaaay too many presents. We are so blessed to have such great family around us! William's first Christmas was a hit! Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas.