It's Fun to be One!

Our little groundhog turned one on February 2! Wow, how this year has flown by. 

Milestones:

• Weight: 19.9
• Height: 30.8(90th percentile)
• 
  Dr commented on Porter's big hands
  Is getting good at climbing the stairs, now we are just working on how to come down. Usually he just sits at the top and cries.. 
• no more formula! I stopped nursing at 9 months and have been looking forward to not buying formula for the last three months. Next step: get rid of bottles and to sippy cups only. 
• eating and sleeping habits are pretty much the same as 11 months
  Is getting his top two incisors. He'll be a little vampire for a while
  
• still not walking or crawling on all 4s--the army crawl suits him just fine.
• Will pull himself up to kneeling or standing position, but won't cruise on furniture yet.
• claps and sometimes waves
• says "uh-oh" (his first word), "ma" and "da" Brooke is "Ba"
• I finally got smart and decided to give Porter and Brooke a bath together. They love it. Not sure how long I can keep bathing them together, though. I guess maybe when Brooke starts pointing and asking questions.

I used my camera to take some one year old pictures and am disappointed with how they turned out. This is one of the down sides of using a film SLR camera: you can't see how your shots are turning out. I don't know if the lighting was bad, or if it was a bad roll of film, but I have never had my pictures turn out so bad. I even took them pics over a 3 day period. Luckily with some Photoshop help, I got them to look somewhat decent, but still not what I was hoping for. Oh well.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar fits our little guy perfectly! He loves to eat! 

Oh how we love Porter and are so glad he is part of our family.  Can't wait to see him grow and develop more this coming year.

Little Mister 11 months

Our little mister is 11 months, can you believe it? This year has gone by insanely fast! Porter definitely has a personality of his own and we love watching him show it. Some things about Porter:

sleeps on his stomach even though we lay him down on his back--and on the opposite side of the crib, I might add. He also LOVES his soft blankets. As we lay him down and put the blankets on top of him he eagerly reaches up for them.

is experimenting with the kneeling and standing thing. Right now the stairs and standing up in his crib are his latest feats.

As soon as I go to change his diaper, he immediately flips over on his tummy and crawls over the edge of the changing table...

and does this:

Some more pics of our big boy:

You can see in this pic, he's gotten his two bottom teeth. Both came in December and I think he is getting some more

• morning nap is touch and go. You never know what you'll get. Sometimes it's 30 min, something he won't nap, sometimes it's 2 hours. You just take what you can get.
• will nap for a good 2-3 hours in the afternoon
• goes to bed early and usually sleeps until 6am or later--but he gets off his schedule so easily! Even one night off his schedule messes him up for weeks it seems like.
• loves to eat table food and prefers it over baby food
• catches on really quickly to games we play like peek a boo or tickling. If I am tickling his neck and then stop, he'll bend his face towards mine as if saying "come on, do it again!"
• loves to play with Brooke, especially when she is on one side of a closed door and sticks her fingers under the crack. He thinks this is hilarious and gets so excited
• speaking of doors, an open door is his favorite toy. He will crawl right over and push it closed. Also loves drawers for the same reason.

And now onto Miss B. She decided that she wanted to be like a princess and cut her own hair. I was furious. I am not particularly a fan of bangs and now Brooke has some. You can kind of see in the pic below ho uneven the sides are. She cut a huge chunk out of the left side.

Luckily curled and a bow pinning it back, you can't really tell

Brooke has started to ask if she can babysit Porter. This means I either put them together in her room or down in the TV room in the basement and they play together. It's actually quite nice for me!

Belated New Years Celebration

It's an M. family tradition to get together with Blake's family over New Year's Eve. This year, Blake's niece was also baptized on January 5, so we decided to combine the two events and have a major family get together. Our family drove to Logan Friday night and stayed with Blake's brother and his family. Saturday morning was the baptism, followed by lunch at Steph's house and sledding in her awesome back yard. This was Brooke's first time sledding and she loved it!

Brooke has the BIGGEST smile on her face!

Getting pulled up the hill by dad

Get ready!

Get set!

Going...

Gone!

 Blake and I even joined in the fun!

Saturday night was our traditional family party at Kent's house. Lots of yummy food, the kids (and Blake and Kurt) had a giant nerf gun war in the basement while the other adults had a karaoke marathon. 

It's well known in the family how much Blake loves Oreos  Some of the nieces made Blake a special Oreo  It's all of the filling from all the other cookies in the package in one giant cookie!

 Brooke and "Yabba" are best little buddies. They are only a few apart in age. One time I walked by and these two were deep in conversation. Brooke looked up at me and said, "Mom, we're talking" as if that were my cue to keep moving and just let them be.

Thanks again for another great party. See you in the summer for the next reunion!

Christmas Adventures 2013

This Christmas was an adventure, that's for sure. It started Saturday, the 22, as I drove to visit my mom and brother and younger brother who came up from Arizona and I hadn't seen since Brooke was 15 months old.  While I was driving on the freeway I felt my little dodge neon make a huge lurch. I knew immediately that something was wrong with the car and decided to keep driving and get as close to my mom's house as possible. As I was getting off the exit to her house, my car died. I was able to get it off to the side of the road and then it would go no more. The plan was for me to spend Saturday and Sunday at my mom's house and visiting with my family. Instead, I had to call Blake and he came with his truck and trailer to load the neon and take us home. I was able to visit with my family Saturday afternoon and into the evening, but we headed home after dinner Saturday night. That made for a LONG day for me and the kids!

Sunday the 23 on the way out the door to church, I went to close the garage door and accidentally slammed it on Brooke's finger. It bled. A LOT. Brooke screamed. A LOT. And now I get a guilty, "Mom, make sure not to slam my finger in the door again" every time we go anywhere.

Monday the 24 we invited some of our friends to have dinner with us at Blake's parents house. It was fun, but Brooke was so excited for Christmas and to play with our friend's little boy that 1) she was a holy terror, melting down at the littlest things and 2) she threw up. By the end of the night Blake and I were so fed up with Brooke's behavior we almost didn't have Christmas the next morning. I seriously thought we should post pone it until Saturday or something when Brooke was acting better. Then Blake and I calmed down and decided we weren't that mean.

My cuties on Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas!

Christmas morning was actually very relaxing and fun. We didn't have an agenda or any plans. I was going to stay up late and make a breakfast casserole to chill in the fridge overnight, but after the drama (plus I had cooked all day in preparations for Christmas Eve dinner), I bagged that idea and we settled on our usual breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and hot chocolate. I don't know why I get so worked up about things being "perfect" when "normal and ordinary" make our family just as happy.

Santa Came

 The days after Christmas:

And on Saturday the 29, Blake and I got the best Christmas present of all...a new car! Our poor neon that we drove faithfully for 10 years has kicked the bucket. We needed to upgrade to bigger, more family-suited car anyway. We decided on a Chevrolet Equinox and love it so far. And thanks to the unexpected timing of needing a new car at the end of the year when dealers are anxious to clear their lots, we got a steal of a deal!

obviously this isn't our actual car,
but it's black and looks just like it

Yay for more storage and not being smooshed anymore!

New Years Eve was spent eating Chinese food, playing Candyland with Brooke, putting the kids to bed at 8, folding laundry, having a New Year's toast of sparkling cider down by the fire at 8:30, and being in bed by 9. 

HAPPY 2013!