In the picture you can see him holding it up and saying "Balloons! Up High!" while he looks at the balloons. Silly kid. After looking at the balloons for a couple minutes we found a place to sit and watch the parade. We sat for an hour before it even started and then we were at the very beginning in the "staging area" so even after the parade started there were long pauses between everything. It got really hot and sitting on the curb was getting really uncomfortable so Mom and Dad would have left except that Will was having such a good time. He didn't fuss at all even though we made him stay strapped in his stroller the whole time. 
He got a balloon animal which lasted under 2 minutes before he dropped it and it popped on the grass. He also got an American flag which he enjoyed waving everytime there was music. We didn't take him to the parade last year so it was his first time and he got a kick out of it. Afterwards we went to IHOP for breakfast along with everyone else in the world and it took us almost 2 hours to get in and out. By that time Will was ready to go back to bed and when we got home he slept for 4 1/2 hours. Then we went to a neighbor's for dinner and watched the Stadium of Fire fireworks from far enough away that we didn't have to deal with traffic. Will was really good all day...but made up for it the next day...and today.
Will is getting to the point where he has to do everything himself- except for the small problem that he is too small to do most things for himself. All day long I hear "Will do it! Will do it!" He had to pick out his own clothes the other day and out of all the clean clothes I had just folded and put in his laundry basket he chose the wife-beater (I don't know what else to call it...sleeveless tee?) that says "I'm the star" and came free with a pack of onesies that he outgrew a long time ago. He spent about 1/2 an hour trying to put it on before I gave in and helped him and he wore it all day...with no pants. That is high-class right there.
Yesterday I took a quick shower and when I got out I could hear Will coming up the stairs. He walked into my room and I discovered that he had taken it upon himself to get dressed for the day. He managed to get a pair of shorts on...however they were on backward, both legs were through 1 leg hole, and they still had the price tag hanging down. He was obviously very pleased with himself which made it that much more amusing. I told him we were going to take a picture to show Daddy and he said "Smile. Cheese!" and gave this lovely pose.
After the train ride we drove home and went over to a neighbors for a barbeque and Will had fun playing with the other kids. By the time we got home it was late and I tried to get Will to sleep, but he was way too excited. He wouldn't stop talking about "Thomas--helicopter--monkey--train--conductor--ride." It is funny because he doesn't talk in sentences yet so he just lists off words related to whatever he is thinking about. Thomas combined with the fact that he 
was wearing new pajamas from the outlets with race cars on them and he had a lot to say! He kept talking for about 45 minutes before finally dozing off . . . only to wake up about an hour later with more to say. Then he woke up about 5 more times during the night talking about Thomas until about 4 a.m. when he woke up screaming for "Milk!!!!" Usually I don't give in to feeding at night, but it occurred to me that with all the excitement he really hadn't eaten much during the day so Dad finally went and got him some milk and then he fell back asleep until 11:30 in the morning. He woke up talking about Thomas and we had to read all of his Thomas books multiple times today and I let him skip his bath because he is so interested in his tattoos and shows them to everyone he sees. So I guess his Big Day Out was a success!
Pics: #1 Will wearing Easter bunny ears--he wasn't into posing for a picture. #2 Will's birth announcement. He used to be so small...and uncrazy!
This child will do anything for an audience. Like wear a bucket on his head. When Will sees a camera he says "Smile! Cheese!" and strikes a pose. Then after you take the picture he immediately runs over to check himself out on the display screen. Usually he then announces "Cute!" which sounds like "Coot!"
This picture is from when Will and I went home for Mollie and Megan's high school graduation about 1 month before Will's first birthday. He liked to smear his nose down the entire length of the glass door in the front of the house.
As far as Baby #2 goes: I had a check-up yesterday and set my c-section date for August 6th. However, if this one is anything like his older brother he will have other plans and will arrive whenever he pleases.
Halloween: Will went trick-or-treating as a monkey and was adorable. Last year I ran out of candy by about 6 o'clock and spent the rest of the night ignoring the kids knocking on the door. This year we bought about three times as much candy so we would be prepared and ended up seeing about 12 trick-or-treaters. Maybe it was because Halloween night was freezing this year! We stuck around until about 7:30 and then decided to take Will out to a few houses. We realized another reason why our street might not be getting much traffic when we went outside and saw that there were only 2 other houses with their lights on in our neighborhood. Will was more interested in people's front steps than in getting candy. We took him to about 5 houses total, but he was content once he had a piece of candy for each hand. He wasn't willing to let go of his candy long enough to put it in his bucket and get more so we decided five pieces of candy was plenty.
our house this year. In attendance were: Megan and her roommate who came down from BYU-I, Kyle and 2 of his roommates, Mollie, Becky (Bryce's older sister) and her boyfriend John who came down from Oregon, Bryce, Will, and I. Megan and Mollie brought pies and appetizer, Kyle brought rolls and fruit salad, Bryce made the turkey, and I (with M&M's help) made corn, peas, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, pumpkin pies, and I don't remember what all else. You can see pictures of the spread on Mollie's blog. Considering I've never hosted a Thanksgiving dinner before I thought it went well. I decided against getting out the china since we didn't have enough for everyone anyways, but we did use our fancy (which isn't that fancy) silverware. The silverware is, however, still stuck in its box waiting to be put back into the individual plastic bags on my kitchen counter. The day after Thanksgiving (or sometime that weekend) we drove up to Salt Lake to ride the free train (Bryce thought Will would like it). So ride the free train we did...it is only free for about a 5 block distance so we went 5 blocks one way and 5 blocks back and that was about it. The Christmas lights were on at Temple Square but there wasn't a lot of interest in the group so we didn't go see them. We also ate at The Pie...which is a pizza place across from the U that puts ridiculous amounts of toppings on their pizzas. Just what everyone needs right after Thanksgiving dinner.
Christmas: Pic. 1: This is as close as Will would get to the very frightening Santa at our church Christmas party--note Santa was a 14 year-old 90-lb boy...it actually was kind of frightening. We were planning on staying in UT for Christmas because plane tickets were so expensive, but after Michael and Mom offered us enough money to pay for all but $30 of our costs we decided to go back to CT. Plus Bryce got tired of me saying it was all I wanted for Christmas. I was more than excited because I had not been looking forward to Christmas in UT. Will is not old enough to care about Christmas and I could picture Bryce and I just sleeping in and then opening a few presents and then having Christmas be just a boring, lonely day around the house. We flew in on Christmas Eve and flew out on New Years Day so it was a quick trip. I do not do well on planes in the first place and Will does not do well with sitting still for longer than 1 1/2 seconds so the plane rides felt like eternity and I don't think I'll be eager to travel long distances with him again anytime soon. I spent my entire week in 
Connecticut laying on my parents' couch because I felt so sick---which leads to some news of general interest: We are expecting another baby at the beginning of August! It was nice to be home because Will had a grandma and 2 aunts to take care of him so I was free to do nothing. Will seemed to enjoy Christmas. He was nervous about the dog, but mostly got over it after the first few days. On Christmas Day we were all sitting in the family room opening presents and one of the twins took a bow and stuck it on Will's shirt. He thought this was a great idea and went around the room ripping bows off of all the presents and sticking them on his shirt and looking very pleased with himself. I'm not sure if someone got a picture, but it was awfully funny. Will figured out how to open presents and had a great time ripping the paper off of everything. Will also enjoyed having Grandma give him sugar cookies for breakfast or any other meal of the day. Will got to go bowling for the first time, but I didn't get to see it because I was home on the couch. I wasn't sure if I was going to survive the plane ride home, but thanks to the generosity of a Target pharmacy (long story) and some very powerful anti-nausea drugs I made it back to Utah in one piece.
Valentine's Day: Valentine's Day was not terribly exciting since I didn't get out of class until 6 and Bryce had to work and then go to Mutual (weekly activity for teens at church) at 7. I dropped off some Valentine's treats to Grandma Hurst, Mollie, and Kyle and made a Valentine's dinner, but Bryce and I postponed our celebration to the following weekend. At least that was the plan...I ended up having to work Friday night so we went out for a Valentine's lunch on Friday instead. Will got a Valentine from his friend Sophia which he figured out how to open by himself and enjoyed in the car on the way home from Soph's house.
- The other day I sat down to eat lunch and Will took off upstairs. I was pretty sure all the doors were closed except for his room so I didn't care. Just to be sure I looked up the stairs and saw that the bathroom door and the door to my bedroom were closed so I figured he was just playing in his room. I finished eating and went up to find Will. He wasn't in his room and then I heard noise coming from behind the closed bathroom door. I opened the door and found Will standing in the middle of an entire unrolled roll of toilet paper and an empty box of 300 q-tips. Will saw me and dove behind the toilet to hide. I went downstairs to get the camera and when I came back up Will hid again (see picture). I guess he knew I wouldn't be too happy about the mess.
- Will loves Church. Ever since he started going to nursery where he gets to color, do puzzles, sing songs, have a snack, and play with toys he thinks Church is the best place in the world. Almost every morning he gets up and says "Church? Church?". Last Sunday morning we told him it was finally the day for Church. I put him in his high chair for breakfast and he threw his food all over the kitchen. I took his tray away and made him sit in his chair in time out for throwing food. After about 30 seconds he started howling "Chuuuurrrrrccchhh? Churrrrrrccchhh?" I think he was afraid we wouldn't let him go because he was being punished. I guess I'd be pretty excited about Church too if I got to play with friends and have a snack! :-) We went for a walk the other week...meaning Will walked and I followed him and he headed straight for Church. Once he got to the parking lot he said "Go, go, go!" and ran across the whole lot to the doors. He was very disappointed to find the doors locked. The picture is of a different day when Will was purposely trying to gag himself by sticking his hand in his mouth. This is one of his favorite tricks. Once he was doing it repeatedly so I held his hands down and he looked at me defiantly and gagged anyways. He was very pleased with himself.
school, but I will add the pictures to this post at some point.
I can't believe my week off went by so fast! I think the week off from school makes the rest of the semester harder than if we just kept going and got out a week earlier. It is hard to get back in the routine.
A couple weekends ago we took Will to the Rowley Farm in Santaquin to visit the Pumpkin Patch. We took a hayride out to the Pumpkin Patch which Will loved. 
Of course, he loves any time he is in a moving vehicle without being strapped into his carseat. Will had fun rolling a little pumpkin around the field and trying to pick it up. Between the rows and vines in the field Will had trouble standing up for longer than a second at a time. 
Mollie and Bryce thought I was having more fun than Will though---which is quite possible! They had the cutest little mini-pumpkins for a quarter each so I had fun picking out a bunch for our house. 
Will's Halloween costume came in the mail the other day. He is going to be a little monkey...because he already is so it seemed fitting. He hasn't worn the whole thing yet, but I've put the hood on him a couple times which has big monkey ears and it is just too cute. Really what else could a little boy who climbs on everything and whose first word is "banana" be for Halloween?
Will has his 15-month doctor's appointment today. His doctor changed to a different office so he will be seeing a new doctor. I am curious to see how much he weighs...which I don't think has changed much since 12 months and how tall he is. He was playing with a little boy his age at church last weekend and I noticed that he was a good 2 or 3 inches taller than the other boy.
Will's latest tricks:
- saying "bat"....I hung some rubber Halloween bats in the front window and Will is slightly obsessed with them. He points at them and says "BAT!" and wants you to pick him up so he can see them better. Most of the time he reaches out his hand like he wants to touch them, but if you move him closer he gets scared and tries to claw over your shoulder away from them. Last night he seemed to get over his fear and kept hitting the bats and making them swing and then laughing hysterically.
- the other day I left Will downstairs and ran upstairs to use the bathroom. On my way up Will sees me and says "Uh oh! Mama!" and came crawling up the stairs after me.
- Will got a haircut much to my dismay. I left him home with his Dad on Saturday while I went to a training and when I got home all his blonde baby locks were gone! (Well, not all but a substantial amount) It made me sad because now he just looks like a boy and not a baby.
- Will was looking at his truck book the other day and when Dad pointed to the tractor and said "Tractor" Will repeated it right back..."Tractor!" It is funny to hear him say things because they all require so much effort...he purses his little lips and then starts trying to make the sound until it just bursts out all the sudden....."BAT!"
Our quest to get Will to sleep in his own bed has taken a downhill turn. As usual just when we started making progress Will got sick and couldn't breath at night and kept coughing, and coughing, and coughing...so I kept him in bed with us several nights in a row and now he refuses to even start the night in his crib. He clearly thinks that our bed is his bed. He will go right to sleep on our bed, but if I try to get him to fall asleep in his room he screams and screams and screams. In the mornings he wakes up and just grins like he knows he won the battle for another night. He is a loving little guy. His Dad and I were watching a tv show last night and sitting on the couch and Will just had to be up there with us crawling back and forth between us both. He likes to be the center of everything.
Thanks to a very generous donor Will now has a broom of his own. Here he is doing his chores and sweeping up all the food he threw underneath his highchair. Okay, maybe it is more accurate to say here he is having a great time using his broom to push around the food he threw underneath his chair.
I wrote all of the above the other day, but didn't post it until today when I added the picture. Will's check-up was actually last Tuesday. He weighs about 23 pounds. This appointment was the first time that they tried to weigh him on a regular scale, but Will wouldn't stand on it for longer than half a second so the weight is kind of a guesstimate. He had to get 3 shots and will have to go back in a couple weeks for a flu shot because they were all out at the time of his appointment.
I took Will to the law school Halloween party on Thursday. He wore his monkey suit and about 50% of people thought he was a monkey and 49% thought he was a mouse and 1 lady thought he was a buffalo. Go figure. He trick-or-treated and got 4 whole pieces of candy which was all he could carry in his little fists. He loved wandering in and out of all the aisles in the library.
Yesterday night was our ward (Church) Halloween party. Will got to fish a little jar of play-do out of a bucket of water. As soon as Dad put him down he ran right back over to the bucket and tripped and ended up a wet monkey. I think we are going to take him trick-or-treating to a few houses on Tuesday and I will have to take lots of pictures then because I haven't gotten any of him in his costume yet.
Will has learned to pull the kitchen chairs out from under the table and then climb up on the chairs and then climb up on the table. He does it about a thousand times a day and is very proud of himself every time.
I am seriously debating buying him a smaller broom so that he will be less likely to put the big broom through a window or tv screen. Yesterday we went up the canyon for a picnic with my Grandma, Mom, Dad, Kyle, Mollie, and Megan. Megan was down for the weekend from school in Idaho and Dad had just flown out in preparation for the ride back East with Aunt Karen and Uncle Tom. It was a very pretty day and would have been very relaxing except that Will was very intrigued by the stream running by. 
We tried to get a good family picture, but Will is the more photogenic member of our family so I prefer pictures of him.
