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My baby is growing up way too fast! And oh how I love this munchkin of mine. I love his sweet smiles, giggles, chubby cheeks, and how he just adores his big sister. Porter at 6 months:

• Weighs 15lbs 14 oz and is 26.8 inches long
•  LOVES his feet and Loves to kick. Also loves to chew on anything and everything.
• Is happy most of the time. Except we've worn him out in the car. We've done several day trips that have been a few hours ride. Now, if we are in the car for more than 45 minutes, the screaming begins.
• Has mastered rolling over from his back to his tummy, which is what he does immediately after being placed on the floor. The down side is he's forgotten how to roll back over onto his back so when he gets tired he will lay his head down on the carpet and cry.

• Still is on a 2 and a half hour nursing schedule during the day. Yikes, that's exhausting. My dr encouraged me to try to get him to go longer between feedings.  I have been better about introducing solids into his diet, though. He now eats baby food with breakfast and for dinner. And he is loving veggies! That is something I am really excited about.
• Goes to bed around 7:30-8pm and will sleep until 4 or 5am. I feed him and he'll sleep until usually 7 or 7:30. I would really love for him to sleep until about 6am, but haven't figured out how to make that happen yet.
• Porter is a binky-loving man. The first few months he didn't really care for it, but all of a sudden he can't get enough of it.

For our first Christmas, Blake bought me a really nice Nikon SLR camera. It was film because way back in 2003 (hehe) digital photography was still expensive, especially DSLR cameras. A few years later we bought our first digital camera and I've hardly touched my SLR since. Well, I pulled it out of storage for some 6 month photos and am pretty happy with how they turned out. It was hard taking pictures and not knowing if any of them were turning out. It was also kind of a pain that I had to take my film and pay to get the images put on CDs, but it was really fun to use my camera again and see how much better (I think) the images are using a nicer camera. I could never be a children's photographer, though, it was so much work!

 Porter can't sit up yet, so Blake served as my backdrop :)

Brooke at 3.5: 

• Has such an active, wild imagination. 
• makes up songs and sing all day long,  also loves singing primary songs
• loves reading and going to the library
• LOVES dress up, helping mom cook and doing crafts
• is a good helper with Porter
• naps have pretty much gone to the wayside...even getting her to stay in her room for quiet time is getting more difficult
• we are practicing use nice words (aka not yelling or throwing fits) I fear my toddler has some serious anger issues. She made a little girl cry at playgroup because Brooke got angry with her and said, "I'm going to spank you!" She now knows that is not a nice thing to say.
• loves to play with friends. I think that is why she and Porter get along so well. She is just so happy to have someone else in the house!

Day-cation

The vistor's center is on a cliff over 1,000 feet above flaming gorge reservoir. these glass windows look all the way down to the bottom.

I love our family adventures. We don't have to go far our pay a lot of money to have fun. We love exploring the area where we live and revising some old favorites. On one of Blake's last days off, we decided to visit  Red Canyon. We went to the visitors center, did some surrounding hikes, and had a picnic near the lodge. This is something we haven't done in a long, long time.

Doesn't Brooke look thrilled? Actually, the vistor's center was very kid friendly with play areas and lots of stuffed aniamls (the taxidermy kind) for Brooke to look at.

 At the lodge there is a kid's fishing pond. We didn't fish, but had lots of fun feeding the ducks.

 And this happened this past Sunday at church. Brooke tripped and fell right onto the corner of a metal chair. Ouch! She ended up with quite the nasty goose egg and lingering bruise.

Down at the Pond

Blake and I have utilized the pond by our in-laws house ever since we were married. This is where Blake tried to get me to get a fish off the hook, where Blake caught his monster carp, and where we developed a friendship with the 80 year old plus owner of the house and pond. It's so fun that we now get to bring our children down to the pond to develope their own memories.

 

 Our disasterous attempts at taking some family photos. In every one someone is either crying, not looking a the camera or has some other weird facial expression. Oh the joys of taking pictures with children!

  at least we had fun!

August Already?!

Holy cow, where did summer go? I can't believe this is our last month of summer before heading straight into the fall/winter season. I am also down to my last three weeks of being at home before I go back to work. It's going to be quite the adjustment after being home for 6 months. Luckily, I was able to secure a half time teaching position this year. I will only be teaching 3 classes and I am really excited about that. Not sure if paying for daycare for two kids on a part-time salary will be worth it, though. Blake and I figured we'd give it a try this year and see how it goes. Luckily, we are in a position where working for me is not neccessary, but I do really enjoy it...so many parts of it: getting out of the house, interacting with my students and coworkers, being social, being creative with my lessons... and the extra income isn't bad either ;)

beautiful rainbow after a summer storm

Brooke's imagination is in full swing. I love listening to her talk to imaginary friends and play pretend. She is really into playing doctor/vet right now. Here she is giving her puppy a checkup.

 I think since Brooke was born, Blake has been living for this moment. We got Brooke her very first waterski. We've been waiting for Brooke to master swimming on her own before we tried this and finally she is ready! It's an easy ski for kids to use too. The ski rope goes from the boat to the bottom of the board. Brooke holds onto a different rope attached to the board and just leans back. Easy-peasy for little kids to learn on. Unfortunatly, at the end of her ride, Brooke got a huge face full of water and that scared her and she was reluctant to try again. There's always next time, right?

I do not lie when I say that Brooke and Porter are best friends. He adores her and Brooke loves talking and playing with him. She is always asking me to put Porter by her so they can laugh and play together.

 And finally, my baby is six months old! He's turned into quite the little chunky monkey too.

Loving his feet 

He is constantly moving and  I love that this picture captures his blurry arms and legs.

 So happy to be six months old!

Love those baby blues...

 And this is probably my favorite photo ever! He is so cute with his hands tucked up under his face. Playing in the jumperoo is hard work ;)