Someone's A Sexy Lawyer

 Did you guess this guy? Yep! He's finally all done! The final hoop to jump through to being an official lawyer was the Utah State Bar swearing in ceremony. May 15th we got a sitter (Thanks again, Shauna!) and dressed like grown-ups to attend the admission's ceremony at Abravanel Hall.

  Together, I am so proud of my man!

 Along with both our parents, my brother Adam and his sister Monica both attended as well. Here is Clayton and his sister in front of the Chihuly sculpture.

Us again.

 The proud parents.

 Convening of the Court.

 

Administration of the Oath. He's the dot in the back row... yeah, you can't see him.

 

 And the rest of the proud group. We went to lunch afterwards at Chunga's in Salt Lake and had an awesome spread of dang good Mexican food. Always worth a stop.

 Now we are still looking for a job while debating whether go out on his own. He got his LLC (business license essentially) and we are just at the jumping off point, so we will keep you all posted as to where we end up!

Christmas and December 2012

Last year we missed seeing Santa, despite a few tries, so this year I was determined to make it. We got to the place right before he went on his hour dinner break, but when the kids are dressed up for the friggin picture, I was not going home. My poor mom got wrangled into coming with us so I dragged her around while we waited for Santa and then waited in a crazy long line. Winston does not like waiting in one spot, especially when there are a thousand decorations to try and touch/ruin. Luckily, right next to the "North Pole" they had set up a bell station where you could try your hand at bell playing. Eleanor loooooved that.

 

 She then got to go on the carousel to kill some time.

I didn't trust Win on the carousel, so he got a smaller ride, which he was fine with.

 Hooray for quarters!

 So cute together.

Here is the official picture with Santa, however...

 I loved them all so much that I ponied up for the rights to all of them. I had never seen Winston respond to a camera this way before! Each picture was cuter than the last so all in all, best $5 extra bucks I ever spent. (Although, I do say that a lot.)

 I know, if you aren't blowing them up, they all look the same. Still, SO CUTE!

After the long evening for a few pictures, we stopped at Taco Time on the way home. (Have you had their crisp chicken burrito? No? Go get one, one of the edible fast food options out there.) Eleanor was being hilarious so I took out my camera to take a few pictures. I got a different expression each time.

 

 My favorite.

 The old pirate look we don't see as much anymore. Remember how often we used to see it?

Hey, this is Winston's look.

 For patting myself on the back, December was the month of embroidery. I made this for Shagan for Christmas. The line at the top is from "their" song. They are kind of the most adorable couple ever. Just so you know.

I made this for my mother-in-law, Kathy. There are 7 little seeds sewn on to represent their kids. (I was too lazy to add spouses, and grandchildren would be an ongoing project.)

I gave Kathy this one too. This is what started it all, my mom embroidered dish towels for all of her daughters and grandkids so I did one too. Now I am kind of hooked and think of things I want to embroider all the freaking time!

 

Miscellaneous, little Win (like all tiny people) likes to reorganize the cupboards. He's gotten really good at stacking my mom's Tupperware canisters in ascending order. I'm pretty sure he's a genius.

 I also need to note that he is wearing his guitar shirt. He freakishly loves guitars. He has a little picture book with animals on one page and cars on another and so on. Well, he would carry it around, open to the music page and then sit down and rub his fingers up and down across the strings (on the one dimensional page). My parents got him a ukulele in Hawaii and he is in heaven. He is very into music, drumming, guitars, piano etc... I can't wait til he is a little older to start him in lessons.

 For Allie's present from us, I wanted to make her a balance beam for her American Girl doll that she asked Santa for for Christmas. However, my pathetic and lame skills fell way short and so I had my dad help me out. He freaking welded together a steel support for the wood piece I bought and helped me get it all together. It turned out so incredible! I love it! She loved it too, lamely, I don't have a decent "after" shot. I'll work on that.

 Christmas Eve! The kids got superhero pajamas, complete with capes!

 Fuzzy pictures, I know. It's always challenging to get a shot of them both looking at the camera.

Cute!

The next morning the kids were delighted to open their presents. Eleanor asked Santa for: A toy buffalo?, a doll that looks just like her and a squishy purple heart pillow. (Remember the micro-bead pillow she destroyed?) My mom took care of the heart pillow, Santa got her the doll (Only the hair is almost imperceptibly lighter, so she still wants one that looks JUST like her. Oh brother.) and the toy buffalo was a no-go. I think it's important that they understand they can't get all the things all the time. (She got it instead for her birthday in March, sooo lesson not exactly taught there.) Eleanor said Winston wanted all the exact same things, so Santa got him a basketball hoop that was a total home run!

 As you can see, they also got superhero capes and masks.

Clayton got them both some Thundercats toys online.

 

 And then I apparently stopped taking pictures for the rest of the holiday. Nice. It was all fantastic. The other cute moments from the end of the month, Winston helping grandpa clean the oven.

 I love it when he thinks he's super-helping.

Clayton turned 32! Or giant fire number, apparently.

Winston watched me shovel snow from his desk.

 Gave us more frowny looks.

And more darling ones, too. 

Hot dang! I finished the year! Now I am only 5 months behind. WOOO HOOOO!

MSU Law School Graduation - May 11 2012

 I've been wanting to blog this since the day it happened, alas, that's when the crazy-busy part of graduation and moving kicked in, then I was very behind and so here we are. Anyhow, GRADUATION! 

 We decided to take some graduation pictures the day before the ceremony as the Spartan statue gets wildly crowded on graduation days. Also, we have kids and didn't want to stress about it, I highly recommend it. Here are the shots. We only got a few (crooked) pictures of all of us from a passerby but it's better than nothing. ( I straightened, zoomed, cropped, lightened etc...)

This is one of my favorite pictures, ever.

 

  I am so proud of Clayton!

 The Spartan statue, designed by MSU art professor Leonard D. Jungwirth, was originally made in 1943 out of terra cotta due to WW11 rationing. Due to the fragile material, they made a cast of the original and had a bronze statue cast in 2005 and moved the terra cotta statue inside. It's a tradition to take your graduation pictures with Sparty.

 You'd better believe I took this picture. Pinch pinch.

 That night I went out to dinner with a few friends. Nothing to do with graduation, but I had to include this shot of some of my favorite people! From Left to Right: Marissa Christensen, Laurie Johnson, Emily Becker, moi, Brittany Frampton, Delicia Coupe, Kim Bowles, Angela Johnson and Ashley Stevens. I miss them! (Ashley, if you are reading this- I suck. I need to come play with you soon!)

 The next day was graduation and Angela watched Winston for us so Eleanor and I could go and not worry about constant fussing. We dropped Clayton off and had about an hour to kill before it started, so we wandered around the campus a little. Here is the MSU Rock. Each graduating class of each college or school paints it the night before graduation. Sororities and other types of groups paint it for stuff throughout the year as well. Here is Eleanor modeling next to it. I'll admit, I had a dang good time taking pictures of E in her Easter dress I made her.

 The Red Cedar River runs right through campus. It is so so pretty.

 Geese! Man, she was so excited.

 Under the bridge right next to the Auditorium there is a lot of graffiti. Which makes sense as it is just a few feet from the painted rock. Lots of left over spray paint, ya know.

 Inside the auditorium we found some seats right above the area where the graduates file by when going to their seats. Eleanor put her face through the slats pictured behind her in this picture and hollered at all of the graduates, saying "Claaaaaayton, Claaaaaaaaytoooooon. Dad! Dad! Where are youuuu?" The nice thing about being 3 and cute is that people find otherwise bad behavior adorable. Of course Clayton was in the last 5 people in line, but it was fun when she finally saw him.

 That's Clayton down there in the black robe and hat. Ha ha, yeah, luckily they take some professional pictures so we got a decent one of him actually receiving his diploma.

 See! See! I know, you totally can't see. It was such a sweet experience, I am normally not a very sentimental person, but I was overwhelmed with pride during this part. When they started the Pomp & Circumstance? Forget it, I was a mess of crying. I was just so so proud of Clayton!

 His biggest fans.

 After the ceremony. They had a cookie and punch thing on the lawn where I got to meet a lot of his classmates. He was the only one graduating in law from our ward that year (normally there are 2 or 3) so I didn't know many of his friends from class. It was nice to put faces to names.

 Sadly, I only took one picture of some of his friends.

 

 I like him.