Apple Picking

In honor of Fall, we also ventured out to the Afton Apple Orchard. It is only about 30 minutes from our house and we had a great time. It was beautiful, it is right in the middle of rolling farm hills. We picked two bushels of delicious apples and we've been eating them everyday since. Will has at least ONE everyday.....usually more like 2-3. He loves to just eat them without being cut, except he eats the seeds and core and every last bite! I guess it is good fiber? Here we are on the hay ride going out to pick the apples. It was hard to decide what kind of apples we wanted so we sampled some right off the tree on every row. Will ate about 5 while we were there. We had to keep an eye on him because he wanted to pick the ones off the ground and put them in our bag.... most of them were mushy, brown, or had worms. But Will didn't seem to mind.

YUM! Hard at work trying to walk and eat apples at the same time... no easy task!
Isn't the farm pretty? We left with great apples, plus apple cider, cinnamon creamed honey, apple donuts, and apple butter. Plus all our picked apples. It was worth it!

Fall...

Will and I took advantage of a slightly rainy day and headed to the Children's Museum this week! It was a BLAST, it was so good to just spend time together doing what HE wanted to do, and watching him enjoy himself. We picked a perfect day to go because it was EMPTY. Will really had a great time, he loves the earth room, full of bugs, ants, frogs you can put in water, and he even got to touch a real live snake! I even touched it! Yuck. He also practiced his driving skills, driving us to California, to the beach, and to Utah State... go aggies!
This is a baby ant from the ant tunnel. He carried it up and down the tunnel saying "it's okay ant, I've got you. Don't worry little ant, I will carry you." What a sweet boy!Will loves to paint.... especially when I let him paint on ME! He painted both our faces and loved every minute of it. People were looking at me wierd because I had paint all over my face, but it was a small price to pay to make your little guy so happy!
The only way I could get him to even think about leaving was to bribe him with chicken nuggets from McDonalds. He really was lovin' it! I was sitting there thinking about my yummy leftovers at home! :)

We also had some fun painting pumpkins this past week. Will thought it was really hilarious. He just kept laughing and laughing and couldn't wait to show it to Scott when he got home.

30 is NERDY

Our friend Monica turned the BIG 3-0 this weekend, so of course we had to celebrate... in style! We had a 30 is Nerdy party for her, it was hilarious. We made pretty good nerds out of ourselves. We had special clothes for the birthday girl when she arrived that she just loved.... a beautiful pink polyester suit that really smelled great. We had great food and lots of laughs!

Tina was a hit.... it doesn't get any funnier than that!


The PINK SUIT.... isn't it cute?
Happy Birthday Monica! Thanks for letting us share your fun birthday!

Golden Gophers!

We had a wonderful weekend, full of fun things going on! Will got to have a sleepover with his cousins Caleb and Ivie, and Uncle Wes. He was in heaven! They stayed up playing past 10pm and had a blast. Will and Ivie just giggle and laugh at each other, and Will has been asking to go to Caleb and Ivie's house ever since they left. While they were here, Scott and Wes took the kids to the Gophers Football game. The kids had a lot of fun, ate lots of snacks and treats, and of course got to meet Goldy the Gopher! When we ask Will what to say when someone scores a touchdown he says "GOOOO COUGARS!!!" I think he takes after his grandpa Hopkins and loves BYU football!

Aren't these the cutest kids you've ever seen? They had a lot of fun going to the game and riding the bus back and forth! Will and Ivie held hands the entire time.
A silly shot!

Thanks for coming up to our house Uncle Wes and kids! We loved having you and can't wait to see you soon!

Bumble Bees and Bugs

Will is really into bees and bugs lately. Pretty much anything that crawls, slithers, or is an insect he loves. We found a huge dead bumble bee on the sidewalk the other day and had to bring it home for Will to exam, it was very interesting and he loved it. He's been asking ever since what happened to it!

It's been awhile!

Well, time flies when you are busy raising a 2 year old! I've been pretty terrible at blogging the past few weeks. Scott started school and Will and I have had lots of fun adjusting to Daddy being gone all day! This is a very exciting semester for us, we hope to have a job when it ends this December, or shortly after! So, here's an update:



Scott is doing great. I am SO proud of him. He would be really embarassed I'm writing this, but I can because I'm his wife and I really am so inspired by him. He is such a hard worker, he wants the best for our family and he is not willing to settle until he gets what he wants. We went to by him a suit for his interviews and I was almost giddy, he looked so handsome and so professional, I thought "Who wouldn't give this boy a job?" Scott has impressed me from day one, he's always been a friend to everybody, regardless of personality, nationality, athletic ability :), and whatever else. He's professional, he's kind, and he's a wonderful dad. Today I told Will that Daddy was taking him to a football game tomorrow and he got all excited and said "With Daddy?" And I said "yep, and I'm going to get some treats for you and daddy to take to the game!" Then Will looked at me for a minute and said "No mama, just daddy will get treats for me!" He is excited to have Scott all to himself tomorrow and doesn't want me to have any part of it!



Will is also doing great. His little two year old self comes out occasionally and I don't really know what to do. Other times, most of the time, he is such a sweet heart. He's doing great at going on the potty and wakes up dry most mornings, and always from his naps. He LOVES sticks outside or as he calls them "sharks." He gives them each a name and tells me exactly what kind of shark it is. He wanders all around the playground picking up sharks and bring them to me. Even little tiny sticks he says "Oh, look mom, it's a cute little baby shark!" and then he pets it and sets it down by me. Although I don't like it, he brings those sticks home almost everyday, so we keep a special bucket by our door full of sticks that we empty when he's not looking. He is also LOVING anything that is creepy crawly or an animal/sea creature. He usually plays with his squishy lizards, or his whales, or his pipe cleaner snakes. Not only does he play with 1 pipe cleaner snake, he plays with like 50 and tries to carry them all. He notices if he even drops one and wanders around looking for that lost pipe cleaner until he finds it.... he usually recruits my help for this, and is often dramatic when we can't find it! He's going to sleep in his bed and usually sleeps MOST of the night there, we're making progress! Will also listens to everything I say. It is scary because he repeats things I didn't know he was listening to! Yikes. Will also really likes reading his Scripture Stories for Children books. He pays attention, asks questions, and usually can't to bed until we've read. He amazes us when he tells us in church "He said Lehi!" or something similar that we've read in the scriptures. Bottom line: we love our little guy endlessly, and he is the light, hope, and reason for our lives.



As for me, I'm doing great. Loving motherhood more than ever. Trying to find a balance in all things is a tough job, but I've been recently inspired to do better. I can tell you this, it feels so great to lay out your priorities, put down on paper what you want to do each week and actually do them! We've spent more meaningful time together as a family, I've been consistently excersizing and Will and I spend more time doing things together and talking to eachother. My health is doing much better, mostly I believe because of the wonderful father's blessing I recieved when I was in Utah and got to see my parents. I stay busy with all the everyday things that make up life, and I love it! The occasional break is always needed and appreciated, but life feels good for me right now and we are so excited for what is to come!

Sorry no pictures.... I'll have to take some of something interesting!

Fair Food!

Yes, I am dedicating a whole post to the food at the fair. That's why you go, right? Okay, that's why WE go. Anyways, we had some yummy stuff. I had a gut ache for like the rest of the day after, but it was worth it! Our first stop was deep fried cheese curds, and then another round of cheese curds, they were awesome. Then, Scott moved on to the corn dog, it was bigger than his head! After the corn dog, we tried deep fried ravioli, lemonade, chocolate chip cookies, donuts, milk, and corn on the cob. This is our sweet little niece Lia. She loved the fair and is such a fun little girl! We miss her already! She really liked the corn on the cob, and chewed on it a little.

MN State Fair #3

For our third and final trip to the MN state fair, we were so happy to have Scott's family with us! After a very crazy night of travelling, his brother finally arrived at our house at 4am. Nonetheless, we headed to the fair the next morning for some very exciting family fun! Here is Will petting a little baby pig, the baby was cute. The mother was not. The super huge pig was disgusting. But, I still love bacon.... but not chocolate covered bacon (yes they were actually selling that, and people were actually buying it!)
Grandma and Grandpa doing what they do best, entertaining the kids! Grandpa was afraid his minimal hair coverage on top was going to leave him with a sunburn, so he had to wear his really cool and stylish bandana!! :) We loved it. And he fit in at the fair perfectly!
Who DOESN'T love fresh, cold, all you can drink milk for 1$? We drank glass after glass, it was delicious. And of course, we had to have fresh chocolate chip cookies and tiny donuts with our milk.... YUM
Will and Grandpa looking at the fish, and Will holding his whale that grandma bought for him. He sure was spoiled!

Will in his "cage"

Remember our sleeping dilemma? Well, this is how we found Will one night after trying and trying to get him to stay in his bed. He was playing with Scott earlier and kept saying, "put me in my cage!" So, Scott was throwing pillows on top of him. Then we found him completely asleep with our pillows on top of him.... what a boy. We also found him one night laying the wrong direction, cuddled up on his pillow, in his toddler bed. He wasn't even touching the matress in any way, just in a little ball on his pillow with his head against one rail and his feet against the other.

Our Performing Artist

Will LOVES to sing. Lately, that seems like it is all he's been doing. Here he is singing "I Am A Child of God" He knows most of the words, but gets a little mixed up. He knows all sorts of church primary songs, and lots of his favorite "the Laurie Berkner Band"