Laughs for Breakfast

Some mornings when I'm eating breakfast, this is what I get to see:

What a cute boy.  I'm so glad he helps me start the day off right.  Even if it does take him 40 minutes to eat the stupid pop tart.

Santa came early? What?

We've been telling Will that if he is a good boy that Santa might bring him a bunkbed.  Well, since the baby is due around Christmas time we thought maybe we could have Santa come a little early so Will could get used to his bed before the baby comes.  So on Thanksgiving night, our friends helped take Santa's early delivery up to Will's room and Jeremy put it together the next day while I went black Friday shopping (at 1:00 pm, I just don't wake up early).  Will was so excited, he was even happy to give his firetruck bed to one of his favorite little guys in our ward, Aiden.

He looked so small in his new bed, probably because we were used to him being cramped in his old bed and hearing him hit some appendage multiple times throughout the night.  We let him sleep with his Christmas lights on and even though he fell out of bed once, he slept like a champ.  Maybe someday we'll convince him to go up onto the top bunk.

Happy Thanksgiving

I have so much to be thankful for, it almost seems a shame to try and just make one day of it that now is turning into just another shopping day.  That is why Christmas follows right after though, right?  It reminds us that we can be thankful all year long and to become more Christlike in the process.  Here is a snapshot of our Thanksgiving.  We had a couple of friends over to enjoy Jeremy's turducken.

A couple of my favorite ladies and a delicious turkey leg.  Heaven for a pregnant lady right?

The final product, a chicken inside a duck inside of a turkey (thank you Liz for taking a picture!  I seem to forget to do this every year).  Yes there were plenty of leftovers, we ate them for 5 days straight and I enjoyed every time.

Will getting Arielle all nice and sticky with his "lick kisses".  It's like we planned it by giving him a sucker first.

 

Festus was happy to have some attention.

Alan and Liz getting mauled by Will and Megan.  They sure are fun, I can see why the kids won't leave them alone.

And how better to end Thanksgiving evening than with a nice Batman story?

Probably with this that Arielle made:

I am so thankful for many things in my life, but most of all for family and friends.  And I loved being able to spend the time with them on my favorite holiday.

Pictures of Fall

Every fall I look forward to the beautiful colors that burst forth with deep red, vibrant yellows and burnt oranges.  I love going to the Maple Grove forest preserve in autumn so that we can go crunch in the leaves and soak in the season.  It was a little harder to take pictures this year with Festus on the end of his leash going after some little animal, but it was a lovely afternoon and we enjoyed it thoroughly.

Are you ready for some football?

This year we haven't been able to get many of the Utah games on cable (hopefully we'll get more next year here in Chicago), so we've been watching more NFL this year.  So I'm a Packers fan and Jeremy is a 49ers fan and he has been trying to get Will to be on his side since Will was born.  The other night, the Packers game was on and this is what I hear from the TV room while I'm in the kitchen:
"Hey Dad, is that the Packers?"
"Yup, we want the other team to win."
"Go Packers!"
I was so proud, mostly because it didn't take any brain washing whatsoever. 

Here are a few pics of when we were able to watch a Utah game:

May the Force Be With You

Will has really been into Star Wars lately.  He builds spaceships with his legos and pretends that they fighting Darth Vadar.  More often than not I hear, "Hey Mom, want to be Leia?"  So this year, guess what he wanted to be for Halloween?  You guessed it, Luke Skywalker.  And we had to make sure that he had a blue lightsaber.  Good thing we already had one.  He really wanted Jeremy to be Darth Vadar, but we had a brown cloak and weren't willing to go all out on a new costume.  So it was Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi.  And I was pregnant.  Will wanted me to be Leia, but I thought that would just ruin every guys fantasy of the elite princess to have some pregnant lady be her, so I declined to dress up this year, maybe next year I will.  Will and Jeremy had a blast. 

The Friday night before Halloween, we went to Jeremy's school and Will got to play games and got lots of candy.  Then we came home, ate some food and went to our ward's trunk or treat.  Will played more games and then at 8:00 the trick-or-treating began and he got even more loot.  Jeremy and I helped ourselves to his candy that night...oh, and every night since.

This is at the ward's trunk-or-treat.

A couple of good looking Jedi's if I may say so.

Will had preschool on Halloween, so he dressed up and they took them trick-or-treating in the school.  He had so much fun and loved being able to make go with so many kids.

Jeremy had lab on Halloween night, so that meant he got home from school around 5:15 or so.  Downers Grove has some strict rules about the hours you can trick-or-treat and I think the cut off was 6:00, I'm sure it's for safety but man it's hard on dad's to get home so fast!  Jeremy came home, flew upstairs and changed and then he and Will were on their way.  Meanwhile, I sat by the fire and read the paper and handed out candy.  Once Will was to the point of ringing the doorbell and then sitting on the step waiting for the people, my boys came back home and we had some pizza.  It was a fun night.

At this point, I believe we've taken care of all of the chocolate candy, I think I'll finally leave the rest for Will since he worked so hard for it.

Will's First Day of Preschool

This week we hit a big milestone in our house.  Will started his first day of preschool.  I found out about the high school preschool program from my friend Nicole who was signing up her little boy that Will loves to play with.  So on Monday this week, Will and his friend Lorenzo started preschool and got to go to the "big kids" school to learn about pumpkins and to meet their new school friends.  Will has been counting down the weeks to start school for months now, so he was estatic to finally be able to go.  I made him eat lunch before we had to go since he goes from 12-2, and man, I have never seen him eat so fast in his entire life. 

Lucky for us, Jeremy got home just in time to help us get out the door and remember to take a picture.

Will was shooting his Dad

I think it was because he was just so excited. 

Yesterday when I took him back to preschool, he told me that this was his school and that mom and dad did not go to this school, it's just for kids. 

Going on a pumpkin hunt

This year we decided to forgo our tradition of going to Bengston's Farm about 30 minutes south of us to a closer location just in Bolingbrook.  I missed Bengston's a little bit because of their cute decorations and delicious kettle corn, but it was wonderful to only take a few minutes to get to this pumpkin farm and still have everything that a little kid could want.

Going on a hay ride

Lots of animals to feed and pet

What little boy doesn't love a big tractor?

Will in the corn maze right before I scared him.  I haven't heard him scream that loud in a loooong time.  Jeremy and I were almost in tears laughing so hard.  Good thing Will thought it was funny too.

It look awhile for Will to try out the bouncy houses, but once he got in he loved it.

Yup, they even had lots of photo ops set up. 

Will loved riding this train, loved it even more because it had a blue car he could ride in.

My favorite part (probably because it was Will's favorite part) was watching Will hold the little baby chicks.  He would pick up one and then put it back by the light so it could get warm, then proceed to get another chick for about 10 minutes.

And finally, we found the pumpkins.

Visit from G and G Curtis and the White Coat Ceremony

This last weekend we had a few visitors in our house, it was a lot of fun.  Jeremy's sister Stephanie and his parents came out for his "White Coat Ceremony" where every new med student receives their first white coat and are on their way to becoming doctors.  The only downside for them coming this particular weekend, Jeremy had a test every day and didn't get to see his family much.  But Will and I did (hopefully I didn't pass them my nasty cold) and loved the company.

We went downtown to check out the sites. 

Every kids dream, a huge mirror.

For some reason, Will was the only kid running through the water that day.  There were a lot of people snapping his picture, but the one guy that was trying to take a pic of a bird playing in the water finally gave up after Will chased the bird away for the 5th time.  Ha ha.

This was the "White Coat Ceremony".  You can kind of see Jeremy getting his coat put on.  Will and I missed the actual oath taking because as he yelled in the bathroom," I have a big poop coming!".

Dad wondering how many of the student's names he could actually pronounce.

After the ceremony, as a nice way to avoid traffic, we drove up to the Chicago temple.

Will showing off his noble steed Festus.

Will loved playing with Stef and showed her his beloved spaceships.

Hanging out before we had to go to the airport.

One last shootout with Aunt Stef.

Will with Grandma and Grandpa Curtis.

We were glad that Mom and Dad Curtis and Stef could come visit and hope that next time Jeremy will get to hang out and have some fun with us too.