A brief break

Well, I've finally got another semester under my belt! My first full-time one too, and I still managed to get a 4.0!! Only four more to go!

On my last day of finals I took Will to the daycare and they had lots of fun things for the kids to do! They were all bowling when I dropped him off (his first time--you can see he enjoyed it), then they all took advantage of the unusually warm weather and played outside for a while. I had quite a time trying to get him off of the playground, so the whole group decided to walk down and see Santa and his real reindeer with us! Will love the animals...Santa, not so much. He didn't want a thing to do with him, which was fine with me! We took some silly photos at the Dr, Seuss mural, and headed home for a much needed nap.

Almost as soon as grades came in I came down with the worst flu I've had in years! Luckily, it came on after Terry's work party, and I didn't miss anything besides work. I'm heading into my second week off, and still have Christmas gift buying/wrapping/sending to do, but no strength to do it! (Sorry if your gifts and cards get there a little late!) My sweeties took great care of me though--lots of cuddling and movies and naps. I don't know how many times we've watched Toy Story 1,2 and 3 this weekend, but I sure hope Will enjoys his talking Buzz Lightyear on Christmas morning! He also helped me make his first cake this weekend, and you can see he enjoyed that too! He quickly took "like to lick the bowl" too literally and stuck his head in there! Only trouble is that I taught him to push the chair up to the counter to help, and the next morning he did it by himself and helped himself to two big fistfuls of cake right out of the pan! That's my boy!

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!

Camping and the 4th

It's my favorite holiday again, and time for a vacation! We decided to break in the new camper at Bear Lake and see how Will liked his first camping trip. It went pretty well for us, he seemed to enjoy it even though none of us got much sleep!

We got an early start Friday and found a decent spot before everyone else arrived. It was beautiful, and not close enough to the river to make me nervous, but it was right on the road and ATVs and dirt bikes are very annoying when you're not the one riding them! Will had a great time finding bugs, and telling us that he was camping (a new word), as well as trying to bait us into hiking up the trail every chance he got. He discovered s'mores, and chased the dogs around with the marshmallow forks much to their dismay. He zoned out on the fire and slept very well most of the night in the cozy trailer until our pilot light went out on the heater and we woke up cold!

The next day we drove over to the lake and visited with my family that are usually there too this time of year. After playing on the beach all afternoon and evening we headed over to their place and were just in time for the four-wheeler/golf cart parade and hamburgers. Will was totally pooped from lack of a nap for two days straight, but he managed to have fun driving my uncle Bob's golf cart and a random tricycle (sure to be a hit on his upcoming birthday!).

We then headed back for another night of "roughing it" and Terry and I fell asleep soon after Will from sheer exhaustion. In the morning we took it all down and headed up the trail for a little hike before heading home. We saw many different beautiful butterflies and learned from Will that horses have "big poop!"

We pulled back in to Ogden in the early evening on the 4th and my heart sank when I found that there were no fireworks on the 4th! ARrGH! It ain't right, I tell you! God would want us to barbecue and do fireworks to celebrate this great country on its Independence day, not reschedule it around the sabbath! But...I digress. We cleaned up, and did what good Americans do...we were too tired to cook so we headed to Famous Dave's for our barbecue and did our own fireworks in the driveway! Then we had a great night's sleep in our own warm beds! Good times!

Boat Party!

Finally! The boat party has arrived! Will woke up happy and ready to captain the mighty "Knot 4 Sail". He wore his pirate hat at breakfast, and helped me get everything ready. We cooked enough food for an army and planned lots of fun games. Several friends from my work brought their little ones, and of course Nick, Andi, Grandpa, Grandma, Chris, Shelly, Nana, and Uncle Harry came.

Chris, Dominick, Will and Nick even dressed for the occasion, and we had some very authentic activities. The kids had a sword fight, dug for buried treasures in the sand, pinned the eye patch on the pirate, splashed in the water, and decorated fish cookies. The final contest was for a parent to swallow the fish as quickly as possible, and Mike put us all to shame! We added up the gold coins and distributed the loot. Will even managed to pillage a few unattended plates during the event!
It was a smashing success!