Fall!

After lots of debating, we finally settled on a theme for our Halloween costumes just as Dad was about to lose his mind! I'm excited about the holidays now that Will's old enough to get into them with us, so I insist on having us dress up in relation to each other. Hey, it's a pain, but he'll only let me do this for so long...I want to do it while I can! Since everyone knows we love dogs, 101 Dalmatians seemed like a natural. My only problem was that this theme seems to be out this year and I couldn't find costumes anywhere! I finally decided to dust off the old sewing machine and give my creative muscles some exercise. The helpful staff at the fabric store helped me find a simple pattern for Will's costume, and I winged it on my cape. We found some great accessories like Dad's dogcatcher net and some robotic Dalmatian puppies to whimper and wiggle in it! It was a hit, and we got plenty of use out of them. We had a kid party at Weber State for the nontraditional students Friday night (as you can see, Will is a totally party animal!), trick-or-treating with the Moores in the rain on Saturday, and then Terry and I got to go out again, thanks to Uncle Harry, for an adult party with some long-ago friends. He and Will had their own monster truck party until about midnight and he talked Harry into reading six books before bed! He was thrilled to see him again in the morning, and Dad made a big breakfast for all of us before we headed outside to do our fall clean-up. It was just another typically wonderful weekend for the Wilkes!

Summer recap in one post...

Not only did we finish our awesome boat, but we purchased a John Deere tractor for the backyard (can't wait until he's old enough to take that chore over for real!), and we had a second birthday! We celebrated at the "splash pad," a really cool new feature popping up at local parks, and Will learned to drive! He's still not quite sure about that tractor, but he loves cruising in his pirate ship. Now he even climbs to the top by himself and has sword fights with us while he yells, "Arrrrggghhhh!" and, "Aye, mateys!" By now there's nothing that he doesn't say except for a clear, "yes" when asked a question. He does say "Yes, sir!" out of nowhere occasionally, and he'll confidently tell us, "Don't look at me," and "Don't talk to me" when he feels like it. I don't know whether to laugh or swat him for it... ; ) He also has an adorable way of getting us to do whatever he wants by very sweetly saying, "Come on, Mommy/Daddy. Let's go downstairs/outside/jump on the trampoline/get some Lightning McQueen fruit snacks/watch monster trucks," etc. He's totally got us wrapped! He's also thrilling us with his mental prowess on a daily basis. Now only does his extensive vocabulary grow daily, but he's memorizing movie dialogues, singing songs along with my iPod (AC/DC is one of his favorites), making friends at school (Josh now brings treats just to share with Will), and playing pretend (in the car he says, "Help Mater, he got stuck!" and similar adventures with other toys/movie characters while he's playing and eating. He's absolutely the best, and we tell him every day!