Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Love,

The Collins

Meeting Santa! (Round 2)

Last year we took Scott to meet Santa and it was a huge success. Scott is a very friendly boy by nature, but last year the unknowing happy trust of an 11-month old made meeting Santa the greatest!

This year we went to the Riverwoods in Provo (the most Christmas-y place on earth, seriously amazing!) to enjoy the holiday lights and have Scott meet Santa as a more discerning 21-month old.  

The Christmas Boy!

 Scott's working understand about Christmas at this point in his life is that Santa says ho-ho-ho, something about Jesus, and "LIGHTS!!" on houses as we drive by.

I had to post this. Let's be honest. This is what trying to force a toddler to take a picture looks like 75% of the time.

 Round 2 trying to get Scott in a picture resulted in lots of semi-awkward pictures of me on a bench.

 Checking out Blickenstaff's while Nate waited in line for Santa! 

Note: Scott is the best dressed member of our family. 

Fact: Scott can locate all lions in any toy store every time.

 Scotty loves stuffed animals! Here he is saying "hi" to each one he picked up.

 Meeting Santa! He loved him! He was slightly more cautious than last year, but no tears here!

"Santa Mail" - too cute! Happy December to everyone!
It was so great Thanksgiving was early this year, so we've had extra time to get into the holiday spirit!

Lately...

Here are just a few pictures from my phone as of late! 

We had a little family outing to Chipotle (gluten-free paradise!) and the new Scheels store up in Sandy. Future golf buddies right here!

Scotty loves to wear hats. He asks to put them on every time he sees one.

We had the first real snow a few weeks ago! We bundled this little guy up and took him sledding.
It was so funny to see his reaction to the snow. He loved it!

That same snowy day Nate and I went to the BYU football game with Emily and Richard.
I used a total of 8 of those "little hottie" hand warmers. It was freezing but so fun!

A Sunday tickle war ;)

We made a grateful leave banner for Thanksgiving!

This is how Scott eats a cupcake. Well done Scotty!

It's definitely chilly enough for winter pajamas! Scott kept saying "hi!" to the polar bear feet on these jammies.
He even pulled them out of the dirty clothes hamper the next day to give them more hugs. So funny to me...

Sometimes Scott and I go play at the Provo Beach Resort when it's too cold for the park. 

He doesn't even notice if he is actually playing the games for real or not...

Here is shot of our playgroup from last week. 2 of our friends are moving and we are so sad!
I got Scott to sit on the couch this time by putting him in the bumbo. 10 little boys and 1 girl. So crazy and fun every week!

Emily and I went to the Breaking Dawn premier at midnight! We've seen all the other ones at midnight and knew we must carry the tradition (surrounded by 13-year-olds) to the end. I liked this movie best of them all! 

Halloween Pictures!

Here are some pictures from Halloween this year! Scott was a lion because that's his favorite animal. He was thrilled to wear a lion costume!

The weekend before Halloween we went to our church Halloween party...

Lion on the loose!

Well this is awkward...

The week of Halloween we had a little Halloween play group party. 

We brought food and toys to our community clubhouse and had a "parade" around the block.

Taking a picture of 9 little boys at the same time is pretty hard. 

Especially when your kid is the one who won't stay on the couch. This is the best shot I got ;)

On the actual day of Halloween Nate came home a little early and we carved pumpkins! We also had a fall feast of butternut squash soup, salad and pumpkin bread.

 Taking the pumpkin carving very seriously...

He was so amazed when we put the candles inside!

 Time for costumes! Can you find which lion is Scott?

 Practicing roaring!!

We went trick-or-treating with Scott's friends Bradely and Benson. Aka my friends Merrick and Leanne.

 Oh don't mind if I do... 

At the first couple houses he wouldn't give me his candy to put in the bag. Like "why would I ever hand this over Mom?"
He tried to eat every piece immediately. He eventually got the hang of it after a few houses.

Scotty loved trick-or-treating! So much so that the next night he kept going to the door saying "side?" "trick treat?"
I'm sure he wonders why we don't do that every night. 

Loving Fall!

Last weekend Nate's parents came in town to watch his sister Emily run a marathon. 

It was a great weekend cheering for Emily, going out to eat and visiting with family! 

 We woke up early on Saturday morning to go stake out a few places to cheer for Emily.
Scotty loves his Grandparents!

 Waiting for Aunt Em. She did so great and ran the whole way! 

 She even had enough energy to take this awesome shot around mile 18!

 Proud parents!

  Yay for Emily! We are so proud too!

While Nate's parents were here they took us to Costco to get some groceries. Spoiled? I think so! 
They are so generous. 

We also went swimming at their hotel and watched the debates with them.

It was so fun to have them in town! We are excited to see everyone again at Christmas time.

Last week we also took Scotty to pumpkinland! He loved it. I love fall-like things like pumpkin patches.
October really is the best month!

We went with some of my friends and their kids. 

Scott is often to busy to stop and take pictures these days. So I will take what I can get!

He loves farm animals. He kept saying "HI!!" to them like he fully expected a response. 

Bunnies!

Chickens!

Exploring! Scott kept saying "wow!" to everything he saw.

On another note, we recently discovered that I can bring my own gluten-free Udi's bun to places like 5 guys and then we can all eat there! I'm sure this was good news to the boy LOVES french fries. 

 We also went to the fall farmer's market a couple of times at the Riverwoods.
Last time we went we bought Scotty this soft alpaca sweater. I think it is the cutest.

 This weekend we went to the Hale Center Theater to see South Pacific.
The show was fabulous as always!
Nate's brother Mike babysat and Scott didn't even care that we left. 

Scott thinks his Uncle Mike is the coolest, because he thinks of fun things like building towers out of paper towels. So fun right?

 Yesterday we went over and took some pictures in an apple orchard. I wanted to get some pictures before winter comes and all the leaves are gone. Here are some of my favorite shots! 

We are so excited for Halloween! A few days ago I made my favorite caramel corn to get in the spirit. This week we have a playgroup party and treat-or-treating with Scott on the itinerary. I also have raiding Scott's post-trick-or-treating candy collection on my itinerary.
Oh the joys of parenthood!

Happy Halloween everyone!