Halloween Costumes

Paul and I went to our friends' annual Halloween party on Saturday night. Since we were wearing our costumes we took the opportunity to get some pictures with Will, since on Halloween he will probably be too occupied with candy.

Grandma Rhonda found Will a dragon costume so we built our theme around that. I was the fair princess and Paul was the dashing knight.

Isn't he just the cutest thing!?!

Will's costume has little wings and spikes on the back, but he wouldn't hold still long enough to get a good shot, and the light was pretty low. I'll see about some better shots next weekend.

Here are some shots from the party. This group is crazy and that's why we love them! Most of them used to wrestle with Paul.

Bill and Shauna always put on a great party. I would have taken more pictures but I was laughing too hard half of the time. Our friend Bill was the one dressed as the old man. He kept asking everyone if they wanted some candy. We usually judge the caliber of a costume against what Bill wears. He set the bar pretty high a few years ago by dressing as Ash from the Evil Dead movies. You just can't top Bruce Campbell! Paul always complains that his costume isn't going to be as good as Bill's, but Bill has a way better imagination than we do.

Weekend Birthday Celebrations

We celebrated my birthday over the weekend.

On Friday night Paul and Will took me to our favorite pizza place across town. There was a herd of little girls all celebrating a birthday there as well. Between the cake and all of the root beer they had they were on a sugar high. I felt bad for the staff who had to clear up the chaos once they left. I also don't think that I will ever be able to get the ringing sound of high pitched little girl screams out of my head. I am so glad that we have a boy. I'm cool with clearing up a mess, but the noise that all those little girls made is like nails on a chalk board.

Saturday night Mom, Dad, Erin, Paul, Will, and I went out to celebrate. We ate at a local Indian restaurant that has been ranked the best in Utah for almost a decade. Mom had only had Indian food once, and Dad had never had it. The food was really good. Will ate his own weight in rice. Most of it landed in his mouth, but the rest was on the floor.

Afterward we went back to Mom and Dad's house and ate cake, which Erin was kind enough to bake for me. It was really good spice cake with cream cheese frosting. YUM!!!

Will and I went to church with mom and dad yesterday. Afterwards we decided to get some lunch at the Arctic Circle down the road. Mom wanted to go because she and dad get the senior discount. (See, there are some perks to getting older.)

I grabbed my camera from the car because Will had the entire play area to himself.

Here he is running along the bench seats.

Here he is playing peek-a-boo through the play equipment.

I actually took a few more shots, but they all came out blurry. It's hard to get a toddler to sit still long enough to take a picture.

After lunch Mom, Will, and I went shopping. I had coupons and birthday money, which was a deadly combo. I probably spent more than I should have. Oh well...

Last night we had dinner at Nina's house. She cooked meatloaf and bought my favorite kind of cake from the store. DOUBLE YUM!!

After all of the celebrating this week I am tired and about 15 pounds heavier. I also have a ton of leftover cake sitting around. Everyone insisted that I take the left overs home with me.

Pray for my willpower!

Dad's are Funny

In an effort to show everyone how weird and wonderful my father can be I am posting what he sent me via email last week.

"T-minus 7 days and counting!"

It's the 7th day of October,

the days are growing cold,

her thoughts turning sober,

'Am I getting old?'

Is this a prank or trick?

Is that awful day so dirty,

approaching so quick,

and soon she'll be thirty!

The teens went so fast,

the twenty's just a blur,

she thought youth would last,

how'd this happen to her!

Is this the apex of life?

Is the rest all downhill?

No, 'cause she's Pauls wife

and the mother of Will!

With a loving husband,

and a delightful son

Life is not ending,

it has only begun!

LOVE, Dad

If you didn't already know, my 30th birthday is this Wednesday.

Dad thinks that he is cute... and he is.

Eating Mac 'n Cheese

Last night as Will and I were eating he was being weird and cute, so I pulled out the camera.

He was talking up a storm... which just goes to show that he is definitely my kid!

He's learning to use more words. He says "thank you" now. When you hand him something he says it. It's so freakin' cute!

Lagoon 2009

We went to Lagoon on Sunday. One of Paul and Ed's friends from school was in town so we decided to use the tickets that we had. (Thanks to Uncle David and Aunt Kathy for the tickets.)

Will seemed to have fun. He and I mostly waited for the big boys to ride on all of the stomach churning stuff. We did ride on a few things with Will. The guys were good sports to ride with us so that I had some extra hands to hold onto the camera and Will.

Here's Will waiting for Daddy to get off of a roller coaster.

We took Will on the little train that runs around the park. He seemed to be unsure at first, but once he saw the animals and we let him stand up he felt better about it.

Later in the evening we rode on the Merry-Go-Round. Will liked that.

I was a bit concerned that Will might be scared because in September and October the park starts what is called Frightmares. They decorate the entire park with Halloween stuff, there are multiple haunted houses, they have dance groups doing shows all over the park, and a roving band of zombies wanders around. Will actually was really excited about it. He pointed at all of the pumpkins and when one of the zombie girls walked past she blew him a kiss. He started to laugh and watched the group stumble around. He kept turning his head to see where they had gone.

I think that he is going to grow up to be like his dad. Luckily this will be good because then Paul will have someone to go on all of the rides and haunted houses with. I can't do the thrill rides anymore. My anxiety gets too high. I'm perfectly content to sit and watch everyone else scream bloody murder!

Germs and Aliens

Okay, I have solid proof that I am, in fact, not from this planet.

I've decided this based on the movie "War of the Worlds".

As I was lying in bed last night starring at the ceiling fan, hoping that sleep would eventually overtake me, I came to the realization that I must in fact either be an alien or descended from one.

Once again I am fighting off a cold. What should have been a simple sniffle has turned into an all out battle for control of my head. For the last two days I have waged a war against disease, and I'm not sure that I am winning. Right now I am surviving (barely) by living off of Tylenol Cold, hot tea, and hope.

The stupid part is that my entire family has been exposed to this bug, and yet I am the only one who has had to lay in the bed wishing I was dead. Paul and Will have had a cold, but it was not much more than a sniffle.

Which brings me back to aliens...

As I was lying in bed, listening to Paul snore, I got to thinking about why I seem to be so much more susceptible to disease than he or Will. The only conclusion that I could come to was that either I, or my parents, are not from this planet, and therefore I do not have the natural immunity to this worlds diseases.

For anyone who has met my father this is not such a far-fetched idea.

Hey, don't laugh. It made perfect sense to me at 11 pm last night when I was hopped up on cold medicine and trying to sleep.

I'm going to go get more tea...

End of Summer

This summer has been a lot of fun. Now that Will is big enough to enjoy being outside we have done a lot of running around. I've been trying to keep up with a few shots of each thing that we do, but it's hard to hold a camera and run after a toddler at the same time. Most of these pictures have Paul in them because he can hold Will in one place long enough for me to click.

This one is from our outing to the swimming pool. There is a big recreation center next to the Olympic Skating Oval. They have lots of pools and a splash pad for little kids. I only managed one picture though. Will wasn't in a great mood and the wind was making me cold.


These shots are from the local SLC Farmers Market. Will had fun running Daddy all over the park. We ate some great pancakes and Will was sticky from top to bottom. I was trying for a picture of that, but I had a hard time keeping my camera out of reach of sticky fingers.

We went to the Utah State Fair this weekend. Will liked looking at the animals. There was a bunch of piglets in one pen that he was laughing at. That picture came out all blurry because I was laughing, too.

This was a really cool Lego exhibit that they had at the fair. There were parts from all of the Lego types that they carry. The little signs on the sides had fun things to look for. I had to practically drag Paul away from this!

So, the lesson that I am taking away from this summer is that I might need some classes on action photography!