A Glimpse of Porter

I know someday I'll forget all these little details that make up our life with Porter. But I don't want to forget them. So here they are:

1. Porter can spend 15+ minutes just running back and forth across the length of the kitchen while declaring "Fast!" or "I fast!" That kid is very proud of his speed!

2. Porter is a picky eater, but will never turn down "treats." As a result, we have told him that go-gurts, peaches, strawberries, and fruit snacks are all called "treats." Now when he demands treats and won't eat anything else, we trick him into eating fruit instead!

3. He calls waffles "Foffles." It's really cute.

4. He calls his grandpas "papas." When we're going somewhere, he often asks "papas?" to see if we're going to see them. Or he cries for "papas" when he's sad. He only sees Grandpa Nye about once a month and Grandpa Sudweeks even less, but somehow they've become his favorites and he talks about them everyday!

5. Orally, Porter can identify about 24/26 letter sounds on his first try. Visually, he can identify about 20/26 letter sounds. He calls letters "E's" and has starting telling us whenever he sees any letters on signs, papers, or anywhere.

6. Porter loves receipts. Mostly because they have letters on them.

7. Some of my favorite Porter words:

Oink - "Ike"

Water - "Ah-boe"

TV - "Gigi"

Phone - "voe-muz"

Arthur (pbs show) - "Hey!"

Love - "Mama"

Porter - "Poe-poes"

Farm - "Eieio"

8. Current obsession: trains

9. When Daddy tells Porter to tickle Mama, Porter goes all around the house, whispering, "Tickle, tickle, tickle" until he finds me.

10. Porter loves singing and dancing. He sings along with Old Macdonald, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, I Am a Child of God, Hot Dog (from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse). He dances to anything.

11. We taught Porter to say "Sorry" after he hits or does something rude. But lately, he also says "Sorry, sorry, sorry" when we're passing and bumping into people in a crowded hallway. No idea how he picked that up, but he sounds very polite!

12. Porter loves things that fly: balloons, papers he throws, himself (when Daddy throws him on the bed). He shouts, "flies!" The other day we took him to the aquarium. He kept saying "flies!" when he saw the fish swimming/flying in the water!

13. Porter sleeps from 7pm to 7am usually. We are very spoiled. 

14. Porter would play outside all day, everyday, if we'd let him. We don't . . . poor kid.

15. Porter knows more about navigating an iPhone than I do.

16. We started putting Porter to sleep with a cd recording of vacuum sounds when he was a baby. Two years later, he still sleeps with it.

17. Porter refuses to be covered up with blankets. Ever. Even at night.

Picture-Less

I have this unspoken rule that I usually will not post on my blog unless I have a picture to go with it. I'm sorry, but that rule's going out the window! I've been holding off on posting for weeks because I don't have good photos, but it's time to get back to documenting our life whether I have photos or not.

It's a funny story really . . .
About 6 months ago, our point-n-shoot camera died. Brian took it apart and somehow fixed it so it would start taking pictures again. But the screen was officially dead. We got to go back to the old-school way of looking through the view-finder and not seeing our pictures until we uploaded them to the computer.

That was inconvenient, but still okay since we had our big dslr camera. Kind of a pain to lug around, but it worked- and took better pictures than the point-n-shoot anyway. Until about 2 months ago. Someone broke it. Someone very carefully set it on the top shelf of the closet, in it's protective, padded bag . . . and it fell. Then someone assumed it probably survived the fall until a week later when she took the camera to a restaurant, pulled it out of it's case and the lens was completely detached. A piece that keeps the lens on the camera was laying in the bottom of the bag. She sheepishly told her husband, then burst into tears . . . in the middle of the restaurant. She sobbed for about 10 minutes, then continued bursting into tears throughout the meal. (Well, she is pregnant, after all!)

Now it's been terribly inconvenient since the broken point-n-shoot has been our only option for taking pictures. Until a week ago. No, I didn't drop that one too! It just finally gave up the ghost and stopped working altogether.

So while we're in the process of repairing and/or replacing our cameras, there won't be too many pictures on this blog.

Far Away Family

My family is pretty spread out- living in different states. It's hard being so far from my brothers and sisters, but it's gradually getting harder and harder as we add more nieces and nephews to the family. I hate knowing these little kiddos are growing up so fast and we aren't there to see them.

But we've been very blessed in the last little bit. We've gotten to see each of the nieces and nephews on my side recently. And, of course, it's only made us miss them more!

For Thanksgiving, we went to Texas to see my older sister and her family. Her kids were the first to get into my heart, so I've had to miss them the longest. Texas is way too far away.

At Christmas, we finally got to meet our nephew, Mark, for the first time. He just turned 1 and it took us this long to meet him! But, oh my goodness! He is so handsome! We loved having them near for those few days before they headed home to Arizona.

And when my little brother came a week ago for business, we finally got to meet his little miss Claire. She cried when I held her, but she still managed to tie a string around my heart to make me miss her. She is such a cutie and it was hard to see them go back to Washington so soon.

Everyone's doing great things in the places where they live, but I'm determined to find a way to see them all more often. In the meantime, we are feeling very blessed to have Brian's family all within driving distance!