Congrats!

My favorite TV family had yet another baby recently. That makes 18! I can not believe that TLC continues to have the nerve to put their show on after John and Kate. How many times can one person listen to Kate nag John? I have been following the show for a long time and I just can not take it any longer. The story line is always the same. Kids running every which way while John is trying his hardest to restore order and all Kate does is mitch and bone, mitch and bone. To her credit it is clearly artificially imposed by TLC. On the other hand, the Duggar's are always up to something the puts me on the edge of my seat. For example, their oldest sons went to Flordia to propose to a girl before they even statred dating. You can't even find stories that crazy at Y-mount. It was so suspensful when the kid resisted the worldly temptation to kiss his future wife BEFORE MARRIAGE. John and Kate your show is tired. Kate has your fame provided enough free pedicures and vacations yet? Congrats on number 18 Jim Bob and thanks for letting us into your home.

December Update

(this picture shows how fun it was trying to get a Christmas card photo)

I feel like I haven't done an update on our everyday lives in awhile. It's fun to post about all the fun things we have been enjoying, but I also want to remember the little things. I thought this picture was funny and it shows how we are all feeling right now. Luke has been occupied in finals for what seems like months now. We are ready to have our dad back. Jack has been really feeling Luke being gone so when Luke does come around Jack is pretty rotten to him. He knows that Luke will have to leave again to study so he acts out. It makes Luke feel bad but we laugh about it and know things will get back to normal in a few days. He has two more finals, one Monday morning and then one on Friday. Luke is going to hang out with us all day tomorrow after his final and we are way excited. Jack and I fly home to Utah on Wednesday!!!! We are super excited to see everyone and ready to be home. Luke will join us on Saturday. If you ask us if we like Kansas right now we might not give a very positive answer but I am sure after a long Christmas break in Utah we will be ready to come back here.
On Christmas Eve Jack will be 22 months. He is a silly boy who loves to run. I swear all I do is chase him around, he is getting extremely fast! He thinks he is pretty funny (he gets that from his dad) and keeps us entertained. He has loved Christmas so far, and has found pretty much all of his gifts, but we are hoping he forgets about them and is still excited on Christmas morning. He has loved watching one of my favorite Christmas movies, Muppet's Christmas Carol, and he gets a little nervous an does a scared face when the ghosts come. He is starting to talk more and more every day. Last Saturday we were going to a friends and I ran into the grocery store and my friend Jenni sat with him in the car. Jenni told me later that he was crying and he said, "I want my mom." I couldn't believe he said a big sentence like that. Later that night I told Luke and Luke said he thought he said it earlier but he didn't think I would believe him if he told me. I am pretty sure one day he is going to just start rambling. He has gotten a lot taller and has moved into a 2t, we are lucky his feet haven't grown in awhile. He has lots of shoes right now and we are crossing our fingers he will stay in them for awhile. We usually don't get much use out of his shoes because his feet grow so fast.
He is a normal 2 year old that throws fits but he usually quickly gets over them and is usually pretty sweet. The other morning I got him out of his crib and went and laid back down, and he came in to see me an Luke, and when he saw we wanted to sleep he tucked us both in, gave us kisses, told us bye, and went and played in his room. He is pretty good to keep himself entertained. He still loves cars and horses.

white christmas

It snowed today and I was so excited to have Jack try out his new snow boots. I bundled him up and took him out to stomp in the snow. I am excited to hopefully see some real snow in Utah! Jack will love sledding! (ignore the wet spot on his jacket, that has become a little trademark of his) Oh, and I love that I have a big window in the front of our house for our tree!

This is him pointing at the moon.

christmas cookies

Of course we had to check making christmas cookies off the list, so on saturday night we started baking. We made Martha Stewarts cocoa shortbread cookies. They were simple and yummy. Jack loved helping with the cookie cutters.

This is him admiring our work.

He was very happy with how they turned out!

Of course he had to have a taste (or two).

old fashioned Christmas parade

Saturday we went to Lawrence's old fashioned Christmas parade. It was way fun. Jack is in love with horses so lucky for him all the entries were pulled with horses! Most of the horses were decorated and had jingle bells on them, way cute.

I love the wreath.

Jack is waving to the horses.

They even had miniature horses.

we might have some random posts for the next couple of weeks, luke's brain is fried from all the studying for finals. see the previous post

the slanket

http://www.theslanket.com/index.php?path=the_product

Gingerbread Houses

Last night we had our girl's Christmas party. We decided to decorate gingerbread houses without the kids, it was so fun! It was so fun to sit around and chat while we actually got to make decent houses. Mandy was so nice an shared a homemade house with me. I loved it, I am going to have to make this a tradition. By the end of the night we had made our own little village! I am grateful for these girls, I couldn't ask for better friends out here! Thanks Natalie for hosting, and we missed the girls that couldn't come!

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas......

Last weekend we set up our Christmas tree. Jack loves having it up, an every time we turn on the lights he says wow. Since we left all of our Christmas decoration in Utah I have been busy trying to make ornaments that are inexpensive. Thanks to the Cricut it has turned out pretty well, I will have to post pictures of our decorated tree later. (and a special thanks to Luke who got up at 5am to head to Walmart on black friday to get us our bargain tree)

We also put up our advent calendar. Jack has loved getting a special little present everyday. He tries numerous times throughout the day to push a chair over to it to help himself.The 1st day he got a new Mator from Cars. He loves those cars and we have gone through a few Mators and Lightning McQueens.

So far we are loving Christmas!

1st Christmas adventure

Friday night we headed downtown to see Santa Clause arrive. They have a lighting ceremony to light up the streets and then Santa arrives on the top of the department store Weavers. Every time we told Jack we were going to see Santa Clause he would do this cheesy grin, he was very excited!

We made a stop at the candy shop and the man working gave Jack some cotton candy. It was bigger than his head, he loved it!

This is Jack waiting patiently looking up on the roof for Santa to come. Isn't he so cute all bundled in his winter gear!
Santa finally came, do you see him?Then a fire truck arrived to get Santa down, it was way cute!The firemen went up and helped Santa down.Then the kids could wait in line to see Santa, when it was Jack's turn he ran right up to him. He was so excited.He looks a little frightened in the picture, but he really did like Santa!Santa gave him a candy cane and now he is Jack's best friend. Whenever we say Santa he says, treat, treat! Santa knows the way to a little boys heart!

a day of thanksgiving

We had a great thanksgiving yesterday. We missed our families and their traditions, but we had a wonderful dinner with some friends. I was very impressed that we could pull it off without our moms around.
We are very thankful for many things in our life.
1.Luke and I are very blessed to have our own little family. Living away from the rest of our family makes us really appreciate each other. Jack is the light in our life. We couldn't have dreamed up a more perfect son. Jack is so much fun and he can always get us to laugh. He is crazy but sweet at the same time.
We are also thankful for the rest of our family. They are a great support to us and they are always keeping us in mind. We are so excited to see them in 3 weeks!
2.We are thankful for this time in our life. It was an adventure to move 1200 miles away from all of our family and move somewhere we had never been before, but it has been a great experience. We have met many great friends that have become a great family here. We have learned a lot while being on our own and I know one day we will look back and miss this time in our lives.
3. Of course the gospel. One thing that we have learned since moving, is how thankful we are to have the church in our lives and how great it is that it is the same wherever we are. We are glad to know that wherever we go we will always have this great support system.
4. I am thankful for cell phones. I am so grateful for this invention. I love that even though I live 1200 miles from my family, most days I feel like I am just next door to them, because I can talk to them 5 times a day. My cell phone bill usually reflects this too :)
5. Luke is also very thankful for the gas prices right now, $1.49!

fully invested

"When you're doing what's right, on and off the field, the Lord steps in and plays a part."

Max, the guys in red are not on your team!

Rise and Shout!

Quest for perfection complete. Again!

dedicated Utes!

brother and sister Wirthlin choosing the right.

This one's for you, Adam:

Happy Birthday

It was Luke's 26th birthday on Monday.

in honor of election day

We are glad we vote for the right team.............................

10-0

see you in 2 weeks Cougs, then we will be on our way to the orange bowl

election day

November 4, 2008 finally came and we were very excited. It was a neat experience to be able to have a child that we could start to educate about the United States of America. For weeks Luke and Jack have have been watching School House Rock Election Collection and slowly putting stickers on their electoral map.
Yesterday they finally were able to finish their map as the results came in.

11/4/08

Happy Halloween

We had a great Halloween this year. It was a fun year since Jack was a little older and could go trick or treating.
We started out the day by going to the church for a Halloween carnival.

This is Jack being a scary spider.At the carnival he kept following Buzz Lightyear around, he loves Buzz.
Later that day we went and picked Dad up and headed downtown to start trick or treating. The different stores had someone outside handing out treats! It was a great way for Jack to get lots of treats in a short amount of time.
Jack got the hang of it pretty quick.
Jane and Jack got distracted by the scary monkey head in one of the windows.

He was pretty cute holding his bag up high for them to place the treat inside.
He was also very patient waiting in line for his turn.
Of course since we were downtown he had to ride the horses.
Then we ate dinner and headed over to the church for the trunk-or-treat. We got there a little late so it was ending but Jack managed to get even more candy.

I wanted Jack to knock on at least one door, so we took him to our friends, John & Natalie. He loved thier house and made himself right at home.
Getting calls from our family in Utah was a great way to end the night! Jack was surprisingly talkative and didn't want to put the phone down.
I told him to be a scary spider and get Uncle Andy, so this is him tickling the phone.

We had a great time, we missed not being able to show Jack off to our family, but we are thankful for our friends here in Kansas that make our holidays great!