School is Out and Christmas is Coming!

I finally am done with my finals! Always a happy day when finals are done. Only one more semester of finals to deal with now.

Too bad being a TA means I will need to still work for a few days next week, but the tests are done which is exciting.

Here's a little Christmas cheer from Joseph!

time flies

our little J turned 6 months! can you believe it? he is just growing up so fast! on the very day he turned 6 months he got a little dot of a tooth emerging, and now it has broken the surface. so cute! he can sit up all by himself now (although he took a dive into the presents and got some cuts on his nose today), is finally starting to roll from his tummy to his back (he hates tummy time), laughs the most adorable belly laugh, has started sucking his lower lip while blowing causing oodles of spit to go down his chin, and he officially had his first solids today. we love our little guy so much! last week my dear friend Stacy took our family pictures. from the little glimpses we got i already love them. i mean, i thought the place we took them at was really neat, but she made the place look absolutely spectacular through her camera. it was fun to see her and her husband Pierce (Mike's great friend). they are such a fun couple! here's a little sneak of our cutie from her website!

fantastic christmas cards!

Christmas is right around the corner! If you're looking to send some Christmas cards you should check out shutterfly.com. My sister sent a father's day card for my dad that she made from here, and she personalized it and made it really cute. They have adorable cards that fit any style from flat to the folded type, and you can also make photo albums and calendars and other such wonderful things at great prices. I actually designed and made our Wedding sign in book through this fantastic site. I loved it, and the site is so easy to work with in creating your own personalized gifts and items. The quality is great and the prices are reasonable. With Christmas right around the corner this would be an excellent source for gifts. You could create fun calendars for friends or loved ones that have that are personalized making them more meaningful. You could also create a book that is a recap of the year for your family, or highlighting a special event like a wedding or graduation or fantastic trip. I still need to make a wedding album and think this is just the site to get the job done! Here are some of our favorite items they offer:

aren't those cards adorable!

what a fun gift idea! great for grandparents to see their grandkids, or anyone!

another fun gift idea!

I'm sure my husband would love a gift like this at work, another way to display pictures of your family and in a very convenient way!

We will definitely be getting our Christmas cards from here. If you don't know what you're doing yet, go check these out! Great prices too!

holiday catch ups

Halloween was a blast this year. We finally had an excuse to go trick-or-treating, although somehow everyone knew we would be eating the candy and not J (don't know why!). Our little munchkin made an adorable monkey, and his daddy was a charming man in the yellow hat. We went trick or treating at the freshman dorms and heard many calls of "we LOVE the man in the yellow hat!" There were also two girls waiting in their car for us to come by again so they could take our picture, and another girl took it when we went trick or treating at her place. If it weren't for the ran we could have lasted forever, fueling ourselves with candy and complements :) One girl even told us that when our baby looks back at these pictures when he is older, he'll think how cool his parents were to dress like that (I like to think so). We were fortunate to have cousins and Aunts come by for pictures after our evening of fun.

the adorable Curious George and Man in the Yellow Hat

J trying to attack Ella's luscious curls (he couldn't stop touching her hair while we were taking pictures)

first Halloween for these cousins. J can't get enough of Adele

with wonderful Aunt Bessers who J loves so much

One weekend Mike's mom was in town, and Lindsay was awesome enough to find out about the North Pole Express on the train in Heber. It was fun to go on the train, and J enjoyed his little bell we got him. It was hilarious when Santa came on board because just about all the kids starting bawling. But not our J! He just held Santa's finger and looked at him. I think it made Santa feel a little better that at least one child wasn't scared of him. After a little bit Ella was able to whisper that she wanted a pink microwave phone (aka microphone).

our cute little family

cute Stark Family

J and Grandma Wilson

For Thanksgiving we went to my parent's in California, love the warmer weather! Mike brought his bike with us and was able to go on some rides while we were there. Not always being the best with camera's I forgot to take pictures of Thanksgiving! J took a nice long nap the entire time we were eating our meal, which was very convenient and allowed for optimal eating! My dad took us to the awesome LA Auto Show, where they had all these new cars that are coming out next year. It was pretty sweet. They even had the new Lexus LFA which engine's acoustics were designed by Yamaha

our new family car- our friends just wanted to sit in it

this picture makes me smile. J never looks like this in pictures, but he just took his finger out of his mouth

Mike's dream car