Grandma's birthday

We celebrated grandma's birthday at Uncle Chris and Aunt Shelly's house. Shelly made her delicious "white chili" and a great salad, as well as a beautifully decorated glazed lemon cake. Will loves when Shelly makes cake! It was also his first bite of ice cream, mmm!

Irresistible bath pics from Grandma's

Today was my first Friday off on my new four-day work schedule, and hopefully we can keep it up without completely exhausting ourselves. It's worth an extra night together! I took Will up to Grandma's for a bath so Dad could have a nap at home for a while. He had a great time, and as you can see, he LOVES bath time! He likes Grandma's new pets: sea turtles, and got dressed up like a big boy for a fancy dinner out with the folks. Plus check out his new crawling skills!

Uh Oh!

Our boy started crawling (real crawling) and pulling himself up in the same week! It's been very cute, but also nerve-racking! He crawled over to the end table and rocked it just enough to send an 8x10 framed photo of us crashing down on his head (and it left a dent according to dad, ouch!). Then there was the day that I walked past his room and noticed him standing at the edge of his crib (yikes!), and the dog's water being continuously knocked over. So we're busy around here. We learned a lesson about tiny digestive systems not liking eggs too. See the diaper-clad photos from the day the threw up three times all over both of us before I decided to let him stay in the buff. He was so cute and sad at the same time! Even with an upset stomach, he's still the sweetest and happiest boy I know. After he felt better on the weekend, we met Aunt Shelly, the kids, and some of Mom's friends from work at the Thai New Year festival in Layton, and went to the Gateway to have the computer fixed and watch kids play in the fountain. Sunday we drove up to visit Grandpa Jim's grave and let Will play on the grass for the first time! We had a picnic there, then drove up to the reservoir to let the dogs swim. Well Baby swam, Doyle took a few steps in and just barked until she came back to shore. That silly dog even grabbed her leash and tried to pull her back in several times! We had a busy, and wonderful weekend!

Easter!

My computer has been down for a while, but it's time to get caught up!
We had a great Easter with Grandma C, Grandpa D, Uncle Chris, Aunt Shelly, and cousins NIck and Andi. Even Doyle, Baby, and Peidy came along! We had a delicious feast (of course) with lamb, ham, some silly cakes that Nick and Andi helped make, and carrot cake! Will loves carrot cake! We watched Nick and Andi search for eggs, then collected real eggs from the neighbor's chicken coup, and had a stroll around the block. The day was full of firsts, including our first trip to the grandparents house in our new truck!! (Mom's wanted one like this for thirteen years!)

First Friend's Birthday!

Wow! Corbin's 1st birthday bash was off-the-hook! Will had the most fun he's had in his WHOLE LIFE!! Corbin is the youngest child of my friend Teresa (who makes the most beautiful kids, as you can see...). Corbin's quite a live-wire, and his guests partied hard with a junior-sized ball pit, balloons, a slide, Rock Band on the Wii, a house full of beautiful, extremely friendly older women, food, cake and ice cream (of course), and even Will's favorite...a ceiling fan! My friends from work passed him around like a party favor, and he and the boy of the hour even swapped pacifiers a couple of times!

It was great fun to see from the other boys (Corbin 1 year, and Teresa's nephew Hayes 18 mos.) the kind of development we can expect to see from Will over the next year! It's amazing...Corbin crawls like lightening, and is almost courageous enough to start walking! And Will may not even be the youngest at his 1st birthday party in July...Tiffany, from work, will have a brand new boy by then!

We had a great time, and look forward to future get-togethers with our new buddies!

Belated Birthday Blog

Sorry we're a little late everybody, but it's birthday season! After Nana's in January came Aunt Shelly's and cousin Nick's in February. We had a great little get-together with a family convoy around the park, a most-delicious brisket and homemade mac & cheese provided by Shelly, and live acoustic music provided by Uncle Chris. Will enjoyed both very much, though the former he received second-hand.

After endless teasing about not being able to find a much-desired "clown helmet" (Clone...Star Wars thing) anywhere, we made the birthday boy very happy, and Mom and Dad maybe not so much. This silly contraption has built-in push-button phrases, and can change a perfectly acceptable young boy's voice to sound like that of a drive-thru restaurant employee's. As you can see, it is quite large and the voice-modifier-unit was too low to pick up Nick's commands. So, the world's smallest engineer hardly missed a beat as he connected a cardboard tube to the mouthpiece that enabled his voice to travel the necessary distance! That kid will be at work helping Dad and Uncle Terry solve problems in no time!

Valentine's Weekend

I love this holiday, no matter what anyone says about it. Sure, like any of them, it can be completely commercialized, and cheapened, but when you have someone to love as much as I do Terry and Will, you relish any excuse to celebrate and dote on them.

My fondness of Valentine's started way back as a kid, when my mom or Nana would put together a little gift basket for me to open, usually during breakfast. She'd write a little love note to me and throw a few goodies in with some little gift. (She even had one for me this year!)

I started this weekend by bringing home some burgers and a shake to share with Terry after work Friday, about midnight. We cuddled and watched one of our favorite childhood shows--Stephen King's Stand By Me. We made the deal that I could sleep in Saturday, and he could sleep in on Sunday. I awoke to the sweet smile and cooing of my baby boy next to me, and the smell of a delicious breakfast being cooked by my other Sweetheart in the kitchen. He did chocolate chip heart-shaped pancakes, and even heart-shaped scrambled eggs for me! They were perfect, but still not as sweet as him!

We played on the floor, and fed Will his newest dish--prunes and oatmeal. Later we got cleaned up, and headed out to pick out eyeglasses for me, furniture shopping (a gift in itself by any man's standards), and a candlelit lunch. By the time we got home, it was too late for the crab dinner that Terry had planned for me, so I took a rain check and we had a pizza picnic on the living room floor instead. We took turns telling each other what we love about one another all day, and marveled at how we still get googley eyes for one another after nine years. (How could I not for such a handsome guy who is so wonderful of a dad, AND makes heart-shaped pancakes?!) Will had seemingly endless energy, and didn't fall asleep until almost 11:00 PM, shortly followed by us, and the best night's sleep I've had in a while.

I thank God every day for the wonderful men He has given me in my life, and the love and happiness that we share. Every day is worth celebrating them, Valentine's is just one more.

P.S. My gift to them was finally becoming a Wilke! It took a while, but I'm glad I came around finally. =}

New things: the chewing face, the bitter beer-face, the GargDoyle statue, foot reaching the mouth, old man pants, sitting up for 5 minutes or so, a second tooth!