Grandma visited last week and we had a lot of fun!! One outing we went on as a family was to the Arizona Museum of Youth in Mesa. It was our first time there and you thoroughly enjoyed it. Most of the activities were designed with you in mind so you wandered around from activity to the next. You especially enjoyed the slide, drawing with chalk, the grocery area, and sweeping the ground.

8-22 Arizona Museum of Youth

Grandma visited last week so we went on a fun outing to the Arizona Museum of Youth. It was our first time there and you thoroughly enjoyed it. Most of the activities were designed with you in mind so you wandered from one activity to the next, drawing with chalk, doing a craft with Dad, going down the slide and more. Here are a few pictures from our outing...

Misc from August

Drinking water midstream is really cool right now. You like drinking from the hose and the kitchen sink as well.

Hanging with Gigi... very stylish. You are all about the accessories lately!

So cute!!!

You love mowing the lawn with Mom, you also love gardening. This past week you have taken a liking to walking between the 2 rows of tomato plants and smelling the leaves. You really enjoy working in the yard!!

8/18 Trip to the Children's Museum

A couple of weeks ago we got together with our cousin Sara Vance and her daughter Cassidy for an outing to the Phoenix Children's Museum. You two had so much fun serving us ice cream, shopping for groceries, playing on their gym equipment and you loved running through the maze of pool noodles hanging from the ceiling.

You kept picking items from the shelf and asking me to open them for you. When you found the animal cracker box you were so mad that I wouldn't give you any! You didn't believe me they were pretend boxes.

Most of the activities were at your eye level and you just loved it. There were tons of buttons to push and new areas to explore.
They had a motorcycle that you could sit on, you weren't too keen on this but you posed for Mom.

We had such a fun day with the Vance's!!

8-16 Visited Dad and Aunt Rachel at Work

It was Saturday and Dad and Aunt Rachel were working so we decided to go and visit them. Dad was on call so we hadn't seen him all day, then all of the sudden he was looking at you through the car window and you just giggled and giggled. You love playing with Daddy!
















After visiting Daddy we stopped by Starbucks to see Aunt Rachel. You loved that there were so many things to play with at your eye level. We got a smoothie to share and someone ended up finishing the whole thing by himself!

8/14 1st Trip to Chuck E Cheese

Today we went to Chuck E Cheese with our friends Heike and Sophia. You loved exploring and checking out the different games they had to offer. Your favorite was climbing up the slide backwards. You were able to climb up by yourself--you were so proud!! .

Things Willem Enjoys (15 months old)

Willem loves his fruit! Especially grapes and blueberries. Paw Paw taught him how to take grapes off the vine and Willem is very proud of this new trick!

Willem "The Pacifier Hunter": Willem throws his pacifiers out of the crib at the end of his naps and if I forget to put them back in the crib right away, Willem notices and as soon as he's down on the ground he's hunting for pacifiers. They usually bounce under the crib, so he lifts up the skirt and crawls under looking for them. He has this mischievous look on his face the whole time because he knows Paci's are only for sleeping. I just sit back and pretend to not be noticing. He'll collect them all up and then wait for me to notice so he can proudly show me his winnings. Then I pick him up and he throws each of them into the crib and claps.

Willem "The Budding Chef": Willem loves being in the kitchen. He enjoys opening all the drawers and re-arranging. When we first moved in we gave him the two bottom drawers full of towels and tubberware. But he has grown so much that he can now reach the top drawer! Two weeks ago Jason and I were in the living room cleaning up and suddenly the house was quiet.... We walked into the kitchen and this is what we found. We laughed so hard and couldn't grab the camera quick enough. A few days later we finished babyproofing the kitchen. Willem isn't really appreciating our efforts at this point though, he is still checking everyday to see if he can play with his old toys.

Summer Visitors at The Weiss Inn

This summer we've been very blessed to have friends and family come and visit. Tia Julie stayed with us for an entire month and we so enjoyed our time with her! We are missing her a lot but are excited for her to return to school and continue on her adventure in Columbia!

The day Julie left, Amber arrived, so it couldn't have been more perfect! Willem and I thoroughly enjoyed our weekend with Amber. We spent a lot of time catching up and even made a road trip to Sedona. Willem really enjoys being in the car and just soaked up the scenery along the way. Hopefully we'll get to visit Amber and our other friends in Iowa soon!

And then of course Grandma came to town but somehow escaped the camera!! She returns next week so we'll be sure to make sure I'm behind the camera this trip.

A Typical Morning at Work for Willem

For a few weeks our routine in the morning was to bring Willem to bed to snuggle and slowly wake up in the morning. In reality what would happen is I would be half asleep (I'm working on becoming a morning person) and Willem had a lot of fun playing with my phone. He likes calling people but his favorite game is to unlock the phone. We realized he was spending too much time with our phones when he could unlock the phone over and over again on his own.

Anyway, we took these pictures and when we look at them we can't believe how old he looks now, he's no longer a baby, he's truly become a toddler!

We are officially blogging from the phone!

Our Trip to CA

We went to LA to celebrate Erik's 25th Birthday (or so he claims..:). And of course we had to spend some time at the beach. Willem thoroughly loved playing in the sand, he liked the water okay but preferred it from a distance. On Erik's Birthday we went to Santa Monica with Lita, Opa, Oom Rik and Opu.

The walk from the sidewalk to the water was a good ways but even Opu thought the view of the ocean was worth the walk. (Opa seems to escape the camera, he was with us but must have been the camera man).

Willem loved seeing his Lita and Opa!


The next day we went to the beach with The Nespers! It was fun watching Willem and Josiah play next to each other. They are still at the age where they don't really interact much but they had fun sharing the beach toys and eating sand(that was more Willem than Josiah).

Oom Rik was telling Willem he was going to bury his legs and Willem showed him that he wouldn't let that happen.

A few minutes later....

And Willem was asking for more... He had a lot of fun playing with Oom Rik and the Nespers at the beach.

And of course no trip to the beach could be complete without "snack time". Lita had sent watermelon with us and the kids loved it!! Willem and Josiah couldn't get enough. Unfortunately Willem is really into feeding himself right now, so the watermelon was covered with sand. We figure he ate a few cups of sand that day but he seems to be doing well:) It was hard for me to watch but he was happy which is what matters.

At the end of the day we had one sandy, happy boy!

Phoenix in the Summer

Thanks to some help from Paw Paw, lots of water and a little luck we officially have grass in our backyard now. The yard has been a family project since we moved in and we are beginning to see the fruits of our labor.

Starting back in June we planted a garden and are growing tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers (the strawberries didn't survive the heat). Willem gets up with Mom most mornings and helps me weed the garden and make sure the plants are doing okay.

He especially loves moving the dirt around for me (and occasionally eating it).

Willem and Tia Julie and I went garage saling a few weeks ago and found some great toys for the yard. Willem loves playing house! There is even a phone in there for him to talk on.

One of Willem's favorite games to play with the house is to throw objects out the window then exit the house to collect them and start over again. He's very into organizing and repetitive games right now. When the grass first came up Willem wasn't too keen on walking in it but he has gotten over his shyness and practically takes off running.

I have to keep the shades closed until 4 pm or he'll be banging on the door all day to go out. He doesn't mind the 110 temperatures we've been having lately, he is happy as can be outside, so we've had a lot of fun playing with the hose and his toys in the afternoons while we wait for Daddy to get home.

One day we turned on the sprinklers and Willem would put the cup into the spraying water and it would fly out of his hands since the water was so powerful. Then he would debate whether to get wet in order to get the cup or to move on. It was so funny watching him trying to decide what to do, finally he waited until the sprinker had turned away from the cup and he'd go into the grass, grab the cup and run back out of the sprinkler's reach.

Willem's 1st Car!! By far one of our best garage sale finds... Willem loves this car. This is the first toy Willem runs to when we go outside. He loves to sit behind the wheel and honk(lucky for Mom it doesn't actually make any noise). He hasn't figured out how to move it with his feet yet so when we wants to change locations he gets out and pushes. But he loves it when Dad drives him all over the yard at a super fast speed!