good times with our funny man

seriously, we've created a monster.

it will come as no surprise to those that have known me for awhile that i would create an apple loving son who would be enamored by all things mac. fortunately and unfortunately we were wildly successful.

here you see william basking in the glow of the iPad. if he's in the mood for Thomas the Train, he launches the Netflix app and finds Thomas in the recently watched section. Thomas has to be the most annoying children's show ever. (next of course to sponge bob). anyway, we taught him how cool headphones are and all of sudden, william turned 13 years old and can't be bothered by his father.

he also thinks it's cool to wear tight pants, sport oversized glasses, and a mustache. who knew 2 year olds could be hipsters.

and he can be too cool for school too. like when he rocks his thomas glasses straight from vegas, hangs onto the stage instead of sitting reverently during sacrament meeting, or when he's kicking it at the REAL Salt Lake soccer games.

seriously, i think this kid is awesome. forgive me for the bias.

mater, mcqueen, and vegas

this week, will, peter, and i had a pretty fun week. a week ago, peter turned the big 3-0. yeah, he's totally old now. . . anyway, for his birthday, all he wanted was a little getaway to vegas. so . . . before we left, we decided to take will on a fun little outing.

tuesday morning we woke up and got ready and took william down to the energy solutions arena plaza where they had a big Cars 2 exhibit advertising the release of their DVD. it was pretty cool. there was a huge Mack truck (not quite the same Mack as in the movie, but still cool), and three life-sized cars characters: Mater, Finn McMissile, and Lightening McQueen. will was in heaven. he could not believe that his buddies were sitting right in front of his very eyes. so we took some pictures and then went and posed in front of some posters for a few more pictures. it was a really fun exhibit and will loved every second of it.

after Cars, we dropped william off at peter's mom's house (thanks, shauna!) and we began our jaunt to probably the grossest city in america. seriously, have you guys seen the caliber of people that go to vegas??? anyway, they've got great restaurants and shopping, and only being 5 or 6 hours away, it makes for a convenient little retreat. we slept in, watched tv, ate waaaay too much food, and shopped and shopped! perfect. just what we needed.

on the way home, we stopped in gunnison to say hello to peter's grandparents, and then made our way back up to salt lake to return to our favorite little boy in the whole world. it was a fun few days and hopefully a fun birthday celebration for peter!

king for a day

although we celebrated will's birthday on saturday with family, yesterday was his actual birthday. and lucky for us, since peter is a government employee, he had the day off for columbus day. it couldn't have worked out better. so we took the whole day and made our new little 2 year old a king for a day. we did all of his favorite things . . .

we started out by going downtown to ride trax. (will is just as obsessed with trains right now as he is with cars, trucks, and tractors.) we waited for the train to arrive . . . and by waiting i mean, we had to keep chasing will down from running away/onto the tracks. that kid is always on the move!

will opened the doors and climbed on-board all by himself. and then we had a fun ride. every time the train would make a stop, will would say, "all done." and then, "go" as soon as he was ready for it to start moving again.

we rode trax from gateway to temple square. will loves open spaces to run around and temple square has a lot for him to explore. he was being pretty funny. he would run or gallop away from us and wait for peter to chase him down.

after our trax rides and temple square, we took william to the discovery museum at gateway. will loves that place. here are a couple of pictures of daddy playing with will: dressing up as birds, and flying the helicopter.

we don't have any pictures of the evening, but after will's (and mom's) afternoon nap, we took him down to the dollar movie theater in sugar house to see Cars 2. peter and i were completely amazed at how well will did. he loved it and sat through the entire thing! this is a really big deal. a first in the frandsen household. we took will to see that movie a couple of months ago and he was a little maniac running through the theater the whole time. i guess he really is growing up . . .

william's second birthday party

will's birthday is just around the corner. in 2 days he will be 2 years old. it's crazy to think that will has been with us for 2 years now. where did the time go? it seems like just a bit ago we were cleaning up the house and throwing will's killer ninja party, fully equipped with a team of ninjas.

well one year later, here we are doing the whole thing all over again. this year, we kept it a lot more simple and went with a cliche Cars theme. it had nothing to do with paying homage to pixar's steve jobs. instead, will sorta picked the theme all by his own almost 2 year old self. as you can see, he loves Cars. here he is carefully decorating for his party.

what can i say. he loves mater ("meh") and lightning mcqueen ("keen"). so cars was fitting. it's also super easy since there is cars paraphernalia at just about every store you walk into. so we bought red and brown balloons, emily made this killer cake, and we waited with great anticipation for will's cousins to show up to start the shindig.

i'm not sure when he figured out that all those boxes were for him and totally full of things he loves. but it was fun for him to run up and punch them in the meantime.

when everyone showed up, will went into party mode. for the first 10 mins he didn't stop running around in circles around the living room and kitchen. i think he knew something awesome was about to happen, and i think he might have known it was going to be for him. at least he figured out pretty quickly that everything was going to be perfectly suited for his likes.

the first game we played was pin the buck teeth on mater. will waited with excitement as each cousin took their turn, took the spinning, and stumbled forward to pin the buck teeth. finally it was his turn, and he nailed it.

next, we played chew the "tire" (chocolate donut) off the string: kids version and adults version. it was pretty fun as you can see for yourself. zach and steven were crowned champions, like father, like son.

and the video footage.

finally he got to open presents. he absolutely loved everything he got. except for the bat and ball he got from emily and me. he had no idea what it was or what you do with it. but he loved his tractors, his choo choo bike (thomas trike), his plasma car, and his mcqueen grand prix race track. i think the other kids and a few of the adults loved his toys too. it made for an awesome toy-fest manic crazy town at our house for the rest of the night.

it was near impossible to pull will away for a moment to get him to sit by his cake so we could sing to him and blow out the candles. but he was kind enough to oblige.

before his cousins went home, we gave them their silly eyes and had more laughs all around. it was a great night and a really fun birthday. will was pooped at the end, but i think he had a great time too.

william was definitely king for a day, he ruled the roost, and at the same time, he wanted to share it all with all of us too. he's such a sweet boy. he loves having fun and wants everyone to have fun with him too. we can only hope he wants to keep sharing all his things as well as his kingdom, especially some time around april 14th, 2012 too. time will tell.

little witches

last week, will and i went with grandma, aunt jill, and cousins lucas and simon to see the witches at gardner village. it was really fun, and not crowded at all. although we went to see the witches, will definitely had way more fun just running around with his cousins. these pictures aren't totally awesome because william refuses to ever look and smile for a picture, but they do show his little personality.

we watched the ducks in the pond for a while . . .

and then tried on some witch hats . . .

a fun day--perfect for getting us in the halloween spirit!