20 pictures of some things we've been up to

This represents a summary of the last few months since school started and the baby came. Pictures are in reverse chronological order.

This is Nicholas. We've spent lots of time with him lately.

This is Stripes. He is our pet gecko (at least until he decides to leave.)

Here we are at my "white coat ceremony". I thought it was way overkill for presenting an article of clothing, but it was very nicely put together. Nicholas is sporting his tie too!

The moment I put on my first white coat. Very touching.

A 3 generation picture! Maren's mom was an invaluable help to us in the week after Nicholas arrived and we were happy to play host.

A fortunate meeting for my dad in Dallas led to another 3 generation picture! My mom also got to see Nicholas during a layover but it was a very abbreviated visit that had no picture taking involved.

We start 'em young here.

More fun with Nicholas and dress up.

More Nicholas.

More Grandma Wells and grandson Nicholas

Papa and son playing on the floor during Nicholas' tummy time.

More Nicholas. This time looking very contemplative.

Sleeping. (We really do spend lots of time with this kid.

Papa and son caught napping.

At the hospital.

Yeah...

Nicholas' first picture ever.

He wasn't always on the outside.

It's hard to see from the picture, but this guy really did get huge!

Pulling out our old living room carpet in preparation for our new wonderfully soft and clean carpet.

Nicholas James Wells Muhlestein

Nicholas was born at 5:00 pm on Oct. 8, 2009. For those who are interested, here are some more details of his birth. (We'll let the pictures speak for his cuteness!)
Weight: 7 lb. 4 oz.
Length: 20.75"
Name origin:
Nicholas - We like the name and it was also Joseph's great-great..grandfather. (First Muhlestein to join the church!)
James - We like the name and it is prevalent on three of the four parental lines (not very common on the Wells line).
Wells - Continuing the tradition of using the mother's maiden name for the sons.
Muhlestein - It seemed appropriate. We sure want him to be identified with our family!!

Everything went well with both mother and child and the father was okay too. All are home again now and we are adjusting to this new adventure in our lives. Thanks to all who offered their support and prayers and we would be happy to show off the new arrival if you want to come visit us.

Man Child!!!

He's here!

Texans

I know you might think that all we post any more are license plates, but it was too new and cool to have Texas plates not to post about.

The Crooked Z

I know many were wondering what would become of Joseph's much loved 2-wheeled transportation after he sold his little Yamaha and his Honda Rebel. You need wonder no longer, as I am now the proud owner of a brand new 150cc scooter. There are a myriad of opinions on the low-priced Chinese scooters that are on the market. The general feeling as that they are probably of inferior quality to the Japanese/Taiwanese/European scooters out there, but that they are still of reasonable quality. As I have had some poor luck with the reliability of my used Japanese bikes, I decided I would try out a Chinese scooter which I bought brand new for a very comparable price to my other used bikes. So far I have loved it. It is easy to drive, comfortable to ride, looks great, and sips gasoline. The only negative so far has been the extreme inaccuracy of the speedometer. However, it has been consistently inaccurate, so once I figure out the right offset at a given speed, it isn't a big deal. I'll try and keep you posted on how it goes.










As a side note, the spacing on the license plate holes is too big for the Texas plates, so I put it on crooked. It has since been dubbed the "Crooked Z" in honor of this quirk and because it sounds like a ranches brand name which seemed Texas appropriate.

The weekend!!

I decided that I was going to take the weekend off from studying and we did a variety of things. Here are a few pictures describing them, including the Mustangs at Las Colinas (in northern Irving), the trimming of the front tree, and my new axe. The angel is just for enjoyment and the bug is an exoskeleton that gets shed and are all over our tree.

We FINALLY have Internet!!

This morning the Time Warner Cable man finally came and hooked up our internet. A lot of things have happened since we last posted. We went to Indonesia for two weeks and then we went to Snowflake, Arizona for the Boone family reunion. We came back to Utah for one week and I finished my job at Utah State Developmental Center. (I've worked there for the past year as one of the building nurses.) We moved to Irving, TX on August 4th. Moving into our house has kept us busy for the past three weeks. Joseph started medical school August 17th. He is very glad he picked UT Southwestern. The school continues to impress him. We were surprised to discover that 7 other BYU students were in his class of 237 (8 total). This is an even more impressive statistic when you consider the fact that only 10% of his class consists of people from out-of-the state!! We will provide more details about all these events, but we are currently lacking pictures as Father Muhlestein has them all on his hard drive.

IT'S A BOY

We found out yesterday that we are having a boy, or a man-child as Joseph likes to call him. Joseph and I both guessed it was a boy because my mother, who is notorious for guessing wrong, thought for sure it was a girl. Our son is due to make his appearance still in mid-October. Now we have begun to seriously discuss what to name him. If anyone has a good name suggestion, please let us know. Just to warn you, Joseph wants the boys to have four names--a first name, a middle name, Wells (my maiden name), and then Muhlestein (i.e., John Doe Wells Muhlestein). Hopefully, this won't scar the child too much.