Excitement!!!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and that my friends means pure excitement for me!!! I love Christmas!!! I love the meaning of the great holiday, the lights, the trees, the songs, the smells, the baked goods, the gifts, I love it all. So I was thinking last night, here are my top 5 things that I'm excited about right now!

#1- My cute little elf, Torbin!!! He's SO cute and getting cuter everyday! His smile melts my heart! I'm so excited for him to experience Christmas this year! And I'm excited about his hat, and the matching ones Jon and I have to take a family Christmas picture! Woot!

#2- SNOW! That's right, I'm a lover of Snow! I think it's beautiful! I don't mind driving in it, and I love making snow angels! This is the view from my front porch... Ah, the snow! I love our little snow covered mountain.

#3- Decorations!! I was a little bummed yesterday while I was decorating, and thinking of Nate Berkus and how my decorations were seriously lacking. But thanks to my muse, Jon, and inspiration from Heidi's house, we have this festive decoration! Once this was complete, I got excited about decorating again!
#4- Unexpected awesomeness! This is the CUTEST carseat cover ever that my sister-in-law's mom (Grandma Trudy) made for Torbin. It's so perfect and so Christmasy! It has made me smile all night! I'm sure Torbin is excited about it too, it's flannel so it'll keep him warm, but I was much more excited. What a pleasant surprise!

#5- Nativities! I love the nativity story, and nativity sets. This one is olive wood from Jerusalem and it makes me happy. :)

Happy Christmas to All!!! I hope you are excited about a few things too!

Halloween

Little monkeys, Optimus Prime, and a butterfly. (Torbin didn't like his hat)
Yep, here's Torbin hating his hat- but we had to take a family picture.
Grandpa Great singing to Torbin.
My little pumpkin!!

Our little man is still too little to appreciate Halloween, but Mom and Dad sure had fun dressing him up and visiting grandparents and cousins! It'll be quite the adventure next year, but we're excited. Having a baby around for holidays make them so much fun!!! We're already stoked for Christmas. :)

Family Vacation!

Once upon a time in October we went on a family vacation to California with the Hales clan! It was pretty exciting; the entire family got to come! We're up to a group of 14! Woot.

Jon, Torbin and I got to ride with my parents which was a nice break for us. Torbin loved the long ride and slept most of the way. First stop was Cedar City to see Megan!! Yay for Megan! It was fun to catch up for a minute- I miss her. (Don't you love how we're not looking at my camera?)

We got to Cali on Sunday. Monday the rest of the fam went to Disneyland, but we didn't want to brave the whole day with Torbin being so small, so we stayed at the condo which was right on the beach. Woot. We went to dinner at the Marina and just had fun relaxing.
Tuesday we went to Mickey's Halloween party. It was very wet. But we all looked good sportin our ponchos. :) Grandma and Grandpa were nice enough to watch Torbin while we went on some rides with Kolby and Cami, and some with Camron, Amy, and Bryscon.


To wait for the rain to go away we took a break on Wednesday from the parks and we went to the Newport Beach temple with Kolby and Cami. It was very nice.
Thursday we went to Seaworld!! (It was a much easier park with a baby because we could take him everywhere with us). Torbin watched the Sealion and Otter show... and that was about it. But he sure looked cute in his hat chillin in his stroller! We were seriously impressed with how they can train those animals! So cool.

This is the cutest smile in the world!!! Torbin was so excited to be talking to Amy! He seems to love his aunts the best so far.
We just had to cross the street to get to the beach. Torbin liked the wind... for a minute.
Mommy's little pumpkin for Halloween at Disney. He's so cute!
At the beach again. :) Yay for the Moby sling. It was chilly but a nice day so we had a picnic. We went to the "El Torito" restaurant on Monday and so Camron decided that Torbin would become El Torito!! I wish I could type in Camron's accent... it's pretty funny.

Saturday we drove back, stopped in Primm to go on the awesome rollercoaster!!! (Just me, Dad, and Camron went, everyone else cheered us on) then we went to the outlets in Vegas. After a poosplosion and a change of clothes Torbin got caught behind the wheel with Daddy! :)

We had so much fun hanging out with everyone!! It was a nice break for Jon and very nice for me to get to spend the whole week with Jon without work!! Yay. It's probably the last big family vacay we'll go on for a while since our numbers are always growing.