Our 2 year old

Well, it has happened, our little baby is turning 2!

Here's a re-cap of some of the highlights of the past two years. Will dove into his cake at 1 year - it was a mess, but worth it!
Will is never afraid to express how he's feeling -

here's a face we see a little more often than we'd like :)
The dinosaur obsession begins!
One of my favorite pictures of Will, he was such a fun, chubby, baby!

So SMILEY!
HUH?
Our little Michelin Man
All bundled up ready to face the MN cold!
He is our little jokster, and LOVES to make us laugh!

We LOVE YOU WILL! Thank you for being such a fun loving, sweet boy. We have enjoyed every second we've spent with you and love watching you grow and learn new things. We can't imagine life without our little Willie, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Just Checking In...

We had a very relaxing week! The weather was gorgeous at the beginning of the week, we even got up to 72 degrees! YIPPEEEE! It was great, Will and I played outside so much we both had rosy cheeks and little sunburns on our arms. I love the beginnings of summer. BUT, all good things come to an end, especially here in MN. By Friday, it was down to 40 degrees, Saturday was snowing and we still haven't crept out of the 40 degree hole. Oh well, more rain is predicted and we know how to stay inside and have fun!

My sweet sister in-law was due to have her baby on April 23, alas, she has still not had the baby, yep, almost 5 days overdue. It will be interesting to see this little creature and see if her overdue-ness shows in her personality. Will she be VERY laid back, calm, and easy-going? I can't wait to find out! Will and I are supposed to head south to help out when the baby comes, so we've been on pins and needles (not as much as my sister in-law has, I'm sure!) waiting for the littlest Mortensen to arrive. Our week was completely unscheduled and we had absolutely nothing planned, so it was nice to relax, catch up on some projects I wanted to finish, and spend some good time with Will.

This morning, Will and I were just taking it easy. We've both been a bit under the weather, so I didn't feel like going anywhere. I remembered I had bought something for Will during Christmas time, but never gave it to him. I was holding onto it for a winter bordem emergency. I figured today qualified, plus it is the end of April! It is called MOON SAND and it was SO FUN. They sell it at Target. Basically it is just really soft, nice, colored sand. It entertained both Will and I for over an hour. We really had fun, and it was relaxing to just sit, and play with our hands, laugh, and make a big mess. Big mess, yes, sand all over the place. Easy to clean up? DOUBLE YES. I am a big fan of this stuff now, even though it makes a mess, it cleaned up in like 30 seconds with my dust buster.

Now we're back to waiting for the babe! Good luck Lorinda, we are thinking about you, and love you! You have been so patient, I know I would be very grouchy if I were you, but you are so sweet and patient!

Jersey Boys

On Saturday night, Scott and I decided to go on a date. We wanted to go see the muscial Jersey Boys, but it was sold out. Being the creative business man that he is, Scott said "let's just go down there, and see if anyone is selling tickets..." being the obedient wife that I am :) we did just that. We stood on the corner of downtown minneapolis, looking like sneaky criminals trying to get tickets. Is scalping tickets illegal? Well, we saw this many standing right by the door holding up his two fingers - so I told Scott "Do that, I think he is telling people he needs two tickets." So, being the obedient husband that he is, he stood there with his fingers up! Then, people really started looking at us. It was pretty funny. Needless to say, we didn't get any tickets, so we went to eat at a really nice restaurant, where the waiter put in Scott's order wrong, so we got 1/2 off our meal! Yipee! It was such a fun night, we had a great time, and we hope Jersey Boys comes back so we can see it! We heard great things about it. The scalper.... he he he
Anxiously waiting for tickets... we look like honest people, don't we?

We were so proud of Will after general conference. Here's what he learned! Oh, and don't forget to notice the hand-full of glow-in-the-dark dinos. He has 10 of these, do you think all 10 fit in one of his chubby little hands? Well, they don't. But he sure thinks they do. He walks around dropping them, bending down to pick one up when another one falls, etc. etc. etc. It is cute, I love my little guy!

Rochester Nature Center

We had a wonderful weekend! Scott, Will, and I headed for Rochester on Friday to visit Wes and Lorinda. It was great to see them, we haven't seen then since January. Rochester is only about 1 hr. and 15 minutes away, so it is always a wonderful get away! We LOVE spending time with Wes and Lorinda, they are like best friends, and we love to laugh with them and talk to them.

Will had a great time playing with cousins! We went to the nature center and got to see

lots of snakes, bugs, turtles, fish, and we got to look at birds through binoculars.

I'm sure Will's most favorite part was following Caleb and Ivie around!Trying to take a picture of a 2 year old is virtually impossible! Most shots of Will are action shots, unless I'm holding him... he does not hold still!
Look at these cute kids! I just love them!
See, I finally had to get in the picture to hold him still.

He really liked this T-rex skeleton!

Welcome Spring!... and bugs

This morning I hosted playgroup at our house. It was great, we had a lot of fun! In order to TRY to welcome Spring, we did some Springtime crafts. We made blossom trees with popcorn (I think eating the popcorn was more fun for the kids than the actual craft, but they turned out beatutiful!) Then we made Melting Snowmen (from Family Fun). However, the most fun/interesting/unexpected activity was "diggin" for bugs in chocolate cake... read on for more details! Isn't Will's melting snowman cute? Okay, actually I did it,

but he did help stick on the carrot nose.

And he liked holding "Melty"Here's some of the crew - thanks for coming guys, it was great!!
Here's Will showing his snowman to the camera... I think he was asking me to "open" it. Ever since Easter, he thinks that all sorts of random objects "open" like Easter eggs. Sorry Will, Melty was glued on TIGHT!
The best part of playgroup was our end activity. I told all the kids that I had some bugs in my garden, and that I didn't like bugs and needed their help digging them out of my dirt. So, each kid got a cupcake paper serving size of chocolate with a fake plastic bug at the bottom. Well, little did I know that most of the kids were going to be TERRIFIED of those plastic bugs. It was actually quite funny to watch. The little girls were panicking because they could see a green leg here and there, and some of the boys were a little a suspicious. There was a boy or two that thought it was great. And most of the kids were okay with continuing to eat their cake after I showed them that the bug was just pretend, and completely harmless. I guess I should always expect the unexpected. I had no idea the kids would think they were real, I just thought they would be excited about digging around in chocolate cake!
The aftermath of the chocolate cake! All you party throwers beware, if you'd like to hide pretend bugs in food, make sure you know who you're dealing with! The moms just stood there and laughed and tried to calm down their freaked out children, it was great. I'm sure these kiddos will think twice the next time they come to MY house, especially with food involved! Sorry guys! Hope to see you soon!

General Conference

We LOVED watching general conference. Sunday was a very dreary day outside, so it was so fun to be in our little apt. as a family watching conference on our laptop. Before conference started, I went outside and got some sand, rocks, and pine cones. Will was thrilled that he got to play with sand inside (we drew with glue and then sprinkled sand on top... Will's drawing of choice? A brachiosaurus, of course!), we paintend the pinecones and rocks, and glued the pinecones on our sand art paper. Once we'd run out of projects - about an hour into conference - I pulled out a little "Conference Journal" I had printed off SUGARDOODLE and Will spent the next hour and half, coloring with markers. I didn't know it would be such a hit. Every now and again he would pipe up and say "President Eyring?" or "Nephi writes?" and once when Scott said "Who's that Will?" He correctly responded "Uctdorf (sp?" It was great. We had a wonderful weekend together watching conference and feeling the Spirit in our home - we are SO blessed! Will found Scott's sunglasses and loves to put them on and off - all himself of course! Here he is, giving me lots of hugs and slobbery kisses - THANKS WILL!

What a handsome little devil! Oh, and don't forget the extra LONG necked brachiosaurus or brontosaurus named "Bronta" - he was SO proud of this long neck!

A Trip to the Conservatory

Will and Daddy - nice cheesy grin Scott! :) This picture does not do justice to how gorgeous it really looked... and can I just tell you, the smell was so overwhelmingly good, it smelled like Bath and Body works, but better, because it was all natural! Oh, and do you see the train of people? It was so busy, we were in a big line going around.... it was still fun though!
Sniff sniff, mmmmmm, yummy!

This is Will all the way at the other end, looking at the goldfish in the little pond.

A couple weekends ago (it has taken awhile for me to get the pics off my camera) Scott had a pretty low key weekend, the weather was beautiful (meaning about 40 degrees and sunshine - we are so warped by the weather here!), and we wanted to do something as a family. We had heard from several people about the Spring Flower show at the conservatory and zoo near our house, so we headed down there - and apparently so did the rest of metro area. It was crazy busy, we still had a lot of fun.

Dip in the smoothie

Since living in MN, one thing we have desperately missed is CAFE RIO! So, tonight for dinner, I made creamy tomatillo dressing and we made our own Cafe Rio... it was DElish! I thought it was yummy, and almost the exact same. When I was making the dressing, in my blender, I kept dipping chips into it and saying "YUM!" So Will wandered over and said he wanted a chip. I gave him a chip and he said "I wanna dip it in the smoothie!" Except is sounded like "moofy" it was pretty cute. What was even cuter was his face when he tasted the very zingy, limey dressing! He shivered and puckered his face, it was great..... but he kept coming back for more!

We love our little guy, he sure keeps a smile on our faces!!

Please?.....

Yesterday Will so very politely came up to me and said "Please have a jelly bean Mama?" With such a cute little grin on his face, I could barely resist. BUT, we were minutes from dinner so I said "You can have a jelly bean after dinner, we are going to eat in 2 minutes, okay?" Sadly he responded "Ask so nicely!?" As if to say, "but I asked so nicely the first time, and even said please!" Whenever he asks for something politely I always tell him "thank you for asking so nicely!" - and then he gets whatever it is that he wanted.... it was pretty hard for him to figure out that just because he asks nicely doesn't mean that he gets anything he wants.... it's rough being a 2 year old!