Christmas 2009

Christmas Eve started with our traditional breakfast of sugar pancakes. My dad makes them for us every year on Christmas Eve morning. After breakfast was done and all cleaned up, the boys went out ice fishing while the girls stayed at my mom's house and baked desserts for the family Christmas party.
Look at Justin all ready to go out fishing! I think he thought that if he wore goggles that made him look bug eyed that the fish would think he was a big bug and jump out of the water to try to eat him.
It was only 8 degrees while they were out fishing which was very different from the baking department where we had two ovens running and heating up the house. My dad caught the first fish.Dan also caught a decent size fish.
Justin's fish was the most impressive though. Look at the size of that thing. I think that they had a good time and were even more excited to not have to help bake. Brady wasn't able to go though because he had to work. Poor guy.

On Christmas Eve we had an unexpected visitor come and see us.
It was Santa Claus. My nephew was a little weary of him, but once Santa gave him a toy he seemed to like him better.
He was the best looking Santa I had ever seen! Very cheerful and jolly.
We were all able to get our pictures taken with him.
The Laraways (Nathan wasn't cooperating very well).
Jillian and Brady
My dad and mom
Santa and my dad - don't you just love Santa's Nikes? We weren't able to get a picture of Santa and Justin though, maybe next year. After Santa left Nathan walked around with his Thomas the Train radio Santa had given him and said, "Ho ho, train" which translates into Santa brought me this train. It was pretty funny.

It is a tradition every year to get new pajamas for Christmas. We open them up on Christmas Eve and change into them to watch a Christmas movie every year.Nathan got Elmo pajamas this year. He really likes Elmo.
Brady's legs blend right into the Christmas tree. Crazy! I didn't get a picture of Cammie and Dan, but Dan had Elmo pajamas too!

We all spent the night at my parents' house on Christmas Eve. Matthew and Lisa weren't able to make it and we all missed them and think they should plan their vacations a little better in the future.

Christmas morning we watched everyone open their presents. Nathan was pretty entertaining because he would go and get a present, sit down, open it and then he'd just want to play with it. Then you would tell him to open another one and we would do the same thing again. After a while he didn't want to open anymore, he just wanted to play.
We were definitely spoiled this year (as we usually are). Justin got me this really cute statue. It is of a little girl and her puppy on her horse. I love it!

On Christmas night we all get together at my grandparents' house for a Christmas dinner with all of the cousins and aunts and uncles. I think there were over 40 of us this year and some of the cousins weren't able to make it.
It is always fun to get together with everyone. Sometimes it is a little noisy, but always fun!

As always Christmas comes and goes way too fast, but we enjoyed it and are excited to have the baby here next Christmas.
Here is the picture of me at seven months or thirty two weeks. Still not quite as big as Santa.

Justin the Master

It's official. Justin is officially done with school. On Friday he graduated with his Masters of Science in Civil Engineering!!! I am so proud of him and his accomplishment. He had a choice of just doing course work or a project and he chose the route that was a little bit harder and completed the project. That meant a lot of extra hours of homework and stress on top of the other classes he was taking.
Justin is pretty humble about things, but I'll take the opportunity to brag that he had over a 3.9 GPA! I don't know about you, but to me, that is pretty amazing!His parents and his grandma were able to come up for St. George to watch him graduate. We both appreciated them coming.

The graduates all meet at the Field House and then walk over to the Spectrum where the actual ceremony takes place. It was only a few degrees on Friday when they were walking over. Poor graduates. It had to have been so cold for them (and also cold for my little sister who so graciously waited outside for them to walk past so she could get pictures for me so I didn't have to be in the cold. What a good little sister. Oh yeah, did I mention I also made her go back and forth in the Spectrum to get different angles for pictures too. Thanks Jillian).I'm so proud and Justin and all of his accomplishments. He is truly an amazing guy!!!Justin on the podium after graduation.This is Justin and his buddy Jake Southwick.

Grandma Stirling, Justin's mom, Justin, me, Justin's dad after the ceremony.

Justin and the Aggie bull.
Justin after I asked him how it feels to be done! Congratulations again Justin!!!

Lots of Posts

I finally updated the blog. I realized that the last post I had posted was about Halloween and a lot had happened since then. Keep scrolling down so you make sure to read all of the new posts.

In an update in the baby world. I am now 29 weeks along. Justin makes me take pictures to show how "big" I have gotten.This is me at five months.

Here I am at six months.

I am not a huge fan of posting these pictures, but I am doing to humor Justin. We are both getting more and more excited to be able to welcome the new addition into our lives. We have slowly been getting things ready for her to come and will be able to get more ready now once finals are over and Justin can think again about other things again. We had an ultra sound the other day and the baby was holding her hands up by her face and holding onto the umbilical cord up against her face also. It was fun because that is how I sleep with my hands up by my face and I always hold part of a blanket up by my face too. We are so excited to be parents soon!

Temple Square

For my work Christmas party we had dinner at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in downtown Salt Lake City, and then the partners pay for us to stay at the Little America over night. It is always fun to be able to get away for a night.
We rode Trax from the hotel over to Temple Square so we could look at the lights before dinner. It was pretty cold outside.We were able to get some fun pictures. I love Temple Square, and I love it even more at Christmas time. It always amazes me at how many lights they put up and how well they do it. It has to take so long to get everything just perfect.
We had a lot of fun and enjoyed being able to just hang out and relax a little before finals week.
I absolutely love the Salt Lake Temple. It totally amazes me when I hear stories about the early pioneers building it and how they were inspired to leave space in the ceilings for air conditioning and heater vents, along with a space for elevators. It is truly amazing. I definitely love to see the temple!!!

Thanksgiving in Mendon

Since we had just barely gone to Leeds we spent Thanksgiving with my family in Mendon. It was the "off-year" so all of the cousins were at the in-laws so there were only a few of us there. We had my grandparents, two aunts, two uncles, and two cousins, one sister, one brother-in-law, one nephew, one mom, and one dad. Normally there is a lot more of us there. It was still a lot of fun though.

Justin and I didn't do too much over the weekend. He mostly just worked on homework all weekend long. He has been so busy with school. It is his last semester of his Masters degree and he was been working on his project and getting it ready to defend. He presented it this past Wednesday and only has one more final (an oral exam) and a small presentation to do and then he will be done with school forever. In case any of you are wondering what he has learned in all of his years of schooling, I've included some pictures for your enjoyment.
This is the hole in the ground that Justin is going to run tests on.
This is the tool that he is going to put into the hole.
This is the piece of equipment that will tell him the results of what they are testing in the hole.
These pictures are of Justin doing engineering stuff. I have called Justin an Engi"nerd" since I met him because it takes a true nerd to get enjoyment from this. I love him so much and am so excited and proud of him for being done.

Cory and Mindy's Wedding

Justin's buddy Cory got married the weekend before Thanksgiving. We were able to go down to Leeds to celebrate with him. He got married in the St. George temple. It was the first time that I have been in the St. George temple so it was a lot of fun.
Justin was one of the groomsmen so he got to be in some of the pictures with Cory and some of their other buddies. It was fun to watch them pose and interact with each other. (They went out the night before the wedding and had a bachelor party until 2:30 in the morning. The first thing Justin said when he got back was that they did what they did ten years ago. It made me a little nervous because I've heard stories about the so called "Leeds Mafia" while they were younger).It was a lot of fun to watch them. This is Cory and Mindy. Her dress was gorgeous and Cory actually cleaned up pretty nice too!They had a lot of fun decorating his truck during the reception too. They got into the car by cracking open his back window and using a fishing pole to unlock the door. I think they might have had too much fun doing it though.

Thanksgiving in Leeds

We were lucky enough to get to have two Thanksgiving dinners this year. We went to Leeds the weekend before Thanksgiving for a wedding of one of Justin's buddies and we decided to have Thanksgiving with his family while we were there. We were able to talk his sister into coming up from Vernal to celebrate with us too. His brother-in-law wasn't able to make it, but other than him we had the whole family there. It was a lot of fun. Justin's mom is an amazing cook and we always eat well while we are there.This is Justin's mom finishing up the last touches on dinner.

Justin's sister Michelle, brother-in-law Clayton, and his dad waiting for dinner to be served.

It was a lot of fun to be able to spend time with his family. It was a busy weekend, but we still had fun!

Halloween Festivities

Our Halloween festivities started by going to the Pumpkin Walk that they do in Logan every year. It wasn't as good as last years, but it was still good. Here are a few of our favorite scenes.
I don't really remember what this scene is or why we decided to have our pictures by it, but here you go.
Good ol' tribute to Michael Jackson.My mom by the Keebler elves.
This was the Green Giant scene. It was probably my favorite. Great use of pumpkins and other veggies.
Justin decided to support the cows in their effort to promote eating Mor Chikin.

Justin and I also were able to carve some pumpkins. We weren't as creative as last year, but still had fun doing it.
And here are the finished products.
We especially like Justin's new hat!!!

Our ward had a Halloween party this year. It was a lot of fun. We had dinner in bread bowls and then played some games. Justin and I dressed up as Robin Hood and Maid Marian.We had a lot of fun. Justin makes a very good Robin Hood!This is the game- Eat the donuts off of the string without getting chocolate or glaze all over your costume. It was pretty entertaining to watch.
Here Justin is playing musical chairs. He was having a stare down with Charlie Brown.

On Halloween we went over to our neighbors and had dinner in a pumpkin with witches finger bread sticks and punch with hands in it.We also made chocolate, caramel apples. They were delicious! Thanks again Patrick and Nicky for inviting us over. It is such a fun tradition.