Teething, Sickness, & 13 Months Old

Porter spent a lot of February like this:

Teething and a cold made Porter super grumpy and he was either crying or wanting to be held. Thankfully, as the month continued, he returned to his happy self.

Porter loves soft blankets and I caught him snuggling with Brooke's blankets on her bed.
Brooke is such a great helper. She loves being a little mommy to Porter.

Even though he wasn't feeling well, I love these pictures of Porter being so sweet. I laid him down on the opposite end of his crib and his blankets were at the other end. I left to refill his humidifier and when I cam back I found him all snuggled up.

Sometimes mom gets lazy and we have baths in the sink.

There's our happy boy!

He likes to carry socks in his mouth.

And by the end of the month, he was all smiles and had two new teeth to show for it!

13 Months:

• has decided baby food is nasty and will only eat table food
• crawling on all 4's now instead of the army crawl
• can climb up the steps to the Little Tyke's slide
• can go up and down the stairs in our house by himself
• is starting to get interested in book and especially loves to see pictures of puppies
• I am trying to get him off his bottle and just to sippy cups

Birthentine's

First, I have to mention that the term "Birthentine's" was originally coined by my good friend Kali and belongs to her. She really does have a birthday that falls on Valentine's Day. I am borrowing her phrase because I am behind on blogging and combing my birthday and Valentine's posts. Sorry, Kali. I will never use your word again.

My birthday marks the end to our "birthday season" at our house. The next birthday in our family is Blake's in November. All I wanted for my birthday was to go to the library by myself and eat Cafe Rio. That wasn't too hard for Blake to pull off, but he surprised me by going above and beyond! This definitely makes up for the year when my birthday presents consisted of an oven mitt, a cookie cutter, and journal (even though I had just gotten a new journal for Christmas a few months before.) I love you, honey! And I tease him about that birthday often. Hmm...looks like I don't have any ammo now. And don't scoff at the loaf of bread. That is school lunch, homemade, honey wheat bread. Don't mock it people, I ate half the loaf by myself. Heavenly!

better enjoy the last year of my 20's!

 Yep, Cafe Rio leftovers and diet Pepsi deserve a picture. It can't get any better than this.

Now, for Valentine's Day. This was a pretty last minute decision to do something festive.

Making valentines

We made our famous sugar cookies, Brooke was excited to eat them

Thanks Pinterest for the Valentine's idea

Flowers courtesy of Blake

Brooke and I decorated

The finished product

We enjoyed a quiet dinner at home with the kiddos. And really, I love celebrating this holiday with my family.  It's so fun to see how excited Brooke got decorating and surprising daddy.

And while we're at it, we might as well throw in President's Day weekend. I love that our school district gives us the Friday before President's Day off from school as well as the Monday. My brother and his wife were visiting from Maine, so I packed up the kids and headed out to the Wasatch Front for the weekend.

We had lunch at Kneaders and  went to the aquarium

Looking through the otter peek-hole with Uncle Jared

touching sea creature

with Uncle Ben

Brooke, Porter, Aunt Katie, Uncle Ben

We made a pit stop at Ikea, oh man, how I love that store! This chalkboard/dry erase easel was too cute to pass up!

Even though I had planned on driving home Sunday morning, I wasn't expecting to leave quite so soon. Porter woke up at 3:30am and Brooke woke up shortly thereafter. After two unsuccessful attempts at putting Brooke back to bed, I finally gave up on sleep at 5:30 and loaded the kids in the car and headed for home!

A Day at Sea & Going Home

Our fourth day was a day at sea. Those are always fun because it forces you to relax. You don't have to worry about getting off the boat or planning activities that day. I loved the adult only Serenity deck--perfect place to nap, read my book, get a little hot tubbin' in, and enjoy those ocean views.

Blake and I also played some miniature golf. I won!! I never do that--I even got two holes in one!

After mini-golf, we saw some amazing dolphin action. Seriously, it was the coolest thing I have ever seen: hundreds of dolphins saw (or felt, maybe) our cruise ship approaching and you could see them clear out in the horizon heading for our ship--wanting to show off and play in the waves. The video doesn't do it justice.

As it started to get dark, we even spotted a whale clear out in the ocean. Way cool!

We enjoyed the day by eating, eating, and more eating! We went to some shows on the boat and there were audience participation game shows throughout the day and evening that were fun to watch, too. It was a good ending to a good trip.

We enjoyed a nice breakfast with friends after we woke up on the 5th day, then packed our things and said goodbye to this vacation & headed back to reality.