Strawberries

I'm happy to say that we have a camera again! Brian found a replacement part online for $10 and a local camera shop who charged us $12 for labor. Seriously! And all along I thought we were going to have to spend hundreds to replace the lens. This was a very happy blessing.

So now you can enjoy pictures of our everyday life . . . like Porter eating strawberries. He calls them pah-pies. And he likes to eat them frozen. Sometimes his words for things make complete sense to us and we don't realize how obscure it is until other people give him clueless looks. When my little sister was babysitting him, he kept going to the freezer and asking for pah-pies (strawberries, of course). But, unfortunately, it sounded a lot more like pot-pies to her.

And yesterday, when I picked Porter up from the babysitter's, I told him to tell her 'thank you' as we walked out the door. Being the well-mannered little boy he is, he complied with 'goo-goos' (which means thank you . . . of course). But the babysitter laughed and repeated 'crackers' instead. I never realized his thank you sounds like 'crackers.' It makes me laugh to think how many other people might think he's telling them 'crackers' every time they do something nice for him.

Oh well. Someday he'll be able to communicate with the rest of the world. But for the time being, I'll just enjoy the fact that we have our own secret language amongst ourselves. And really, I'm just grateful that we can finally communicate!

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!

Terrible Twos . . . Already

Victim: Mommy

Assailant: Porter

Scene of Crime: Post Office

Charges: Throwing larger-than-life tantrum in the 15 minutes we waited in line. Complete with smacking Mommy in the face, pulling her hair, kicking, and screaming for 14.5 minutes straight.

Witnesses: About 10-15 fellow townspeople. Not available for questioning . . . but we can all guess what they were thinking.

You can't? Oh, well here are a few examples:
"What is wrong with that mom? Why can't she control her kid?"
"That lady needs to learn how to give a spanking/timeout/(fill in your own punishment here). I bet she's never disciplined him a day in his life."
"What did she do to make that kid behave so badly."
"She must spoil him." 
"I saw him holding her iPhone when they walked in, she's exposing him to technology at too young an age."
"I hope she's not hiding a pregnant belly under that winter coat- she definitely can't handle 2 of those."

As soon as we got out to the car, Porter got a prompt timeout (nope, I'm not a spanker). Porter then cried the whole way home and I shed a few tears myself as I tried to figure out where I went wrong in my parenting philosophy.  When I got home, I pulled out my parenting books and read chapters about countless other parents who went through similar situations with young children. And some of them are even qualified to write parenting books now. So I can't be too terrible . . . right?

Last night, as Porter and I sang songs together while we baked and ate cookies, I found myself wishing all those people at the post office could have seen this moment instead.

But I suppose parenting will have its ups and downs. And unfortunately, the downs are probably bound to be witnessed by a room full of strangers more often than not.

2 years

It's official. Our baby is now a 2-year-old. Friday was the big day. I took the day off work so I could celebrate with him every waking minute! He started off by waking up to a room full of balloons (unfortunately I was limited to using our telephoto lens for that shoot and could only get a close-up of his face-- as I was standing in the hall-- but trust me, there were balloons!).

Then he and Mommy made crepes for breakfast. I think this was his first crepe experience and he loved every part of it- though he wouldn't eat any of the parts together, just straight crepe or straight pudding or handfuls of berries!

After crepes, Daddy set up Porter's new big-boy bed . . . because 2 years makes you an official 'big boy.' And because we have a baby coming in 5 months and figured this might be a good time to detach him from his crib!

Then we headed to the mall for a fun birthday Build-a-Bear experience. In our defense, we really thought Porter would like it. But he ended up running around the store, pushing a pink stroller and screaming at the top of his lungs while Mommy chased him and Daddy was left to build the bear (or dog, rather) by himself. It was pretty funny.

After nap time, we had the grandparents and Uncle Derek over for a birthday dinner, followed by a showing of Porter's yearly slideshow (as Porter did a live dance performance throughout the whole show in front of the tv!). This is one of my favorite traditions. Brian makes a slideshow for each year of Porter's life and puts them on a dvd. It is so fun to see the pictures and videos from the whole year. It makes you realize just how fast they are changing. And I love that it gives us a place to show off all the cute little video clips that you record then forget you have. (And I'm kicking myself for not getting a picture of Porter with his grandparents on his birthday. Maybe I'll make them all pose and pretend it's his birthday again next time we see them!)

Porter opened his presents, then we ate birthday cake.

And after everyone left, Porter got to spend his first night in his big-boy bed. He actually did really well! I love that he still sits up and cries for us in the morning to come get him out of bed. I wonder when he'll figure out just how much freedom he really has. Such a silly boy!

Birthdays are so much fun! And I love to see how much more Porter enjoys them as he gets older. I can't believe he's two!

College Days

Last summer, we moved back to the city where I lived when I went to college. I never thought I'd end up back here . . . again. But I have to say it's been nice.

Because the elementary school where I work is right across the street from the university, I get to drive past the throngs of college students every day making their way up to campus. It always brings me a touch of nostalgia. I loved college! I loved everything about it: the independence of feeling like a real adult for the first time; the roommates you get randomly stuck with who quickly become your life-long friends; the dorm rooms that make you claustrophobic after 2 short months; the silent library crammed with studying students; the hours of time you have to yourself each day; the late, late nights that are okay because you have 11am classes; the Sunday walks with your roommates; the church lessons that are all directed to your age group and the quiet, peace of a college ward; the cereal-for-dinner nights (oh wait, I still do those!); sitting in the student section at sporting events; the dating drama- oh, the drama; meeting people from all over the country; laughing hysterically for an hour with your roommate about mixing up laundry day (you wouldn't laugh if I told you, but it is still incredibly funny to me); being able to move to a new apartment with only 1 carload of stuff; spending Saturday mornings reading in the park; having a girlfriend nearby whenever you need a workout/jogging buddy; watching movies on your roommate's 12-inch tv/vcr that seemed perfectly adequate for the apartment; finding your own "perfect" study-spot on campus; living with girls who are always available to help pick out outfits and stop you from wardrobe disasters; getting to decide your new schedule every 4 months; eating lunch in the Cougareat while doing a crossword puzzle between classes; making elaborate plans for post-college life (that are all rearranged as soon as you graduate); and taking advantage of every moment as the four years quickly pass.
 
I'm in a new stage of life now, and I am so happy about that. But it makes me smile to remember my college days, to see all the college students experiencing it now, and especially to think about how much fun Porter and Baby Girl will have when they go to college someday.

What a fun stage of life! And how wonderful it is now to focus on the joy of my current stage. I know I'll look back on these starting-our-family days with even more happiness . . . and hopefully with the peace of knowing that I did all I could in this stage to enjoy every single moment.

Our Big News

Last night, after a quick trip to the doctor's office, Brian and I went shopping. Here's the shirt we bought Porter:

And then we bought a few more things . . .

 And in case you're not picking up on my subtlety, here it is:

#1- We're pregnant!

#2- It's a girl!

Due Date: June 26

I think Brian's still in a bit of shock about announcement #2 . . . but he'll recover soon enough!

Chef Porter

Hello blogging world! It's been ages. I won't try to catch up on everything that I haven't blogged about in the past several months, but I am going to try to be better about blogging. I realized that it's not so much for my millions of readers, but more for myself that I should be keeping up this blog. I need a place to record our life. My journals are even more neglected than my blog- and I prefer typing to handwriting, so it's time to start blogging again.

First thing to start journaling about:
Porter. Who else?! Mr. I'm-growing-up-so-fast-my-parents-don't-know-what-to-do-with-me! My favorite thing lately that he and I do together is bake. Over winter break, I made a homemade meal every night. I loved it! Half my break was spent in the kitchen, but it was wonderful because Porter became my little sidekick- my sous chef, if you will.

I discovered that he is an expert mixer. He's also really good at adding flour to bread dough to keep it from getting too sticky as you knead. And when you're done baking, he's pretty handy playing/helping with dishes in the sink- that kid LOVES water (which he calls ah-boe, no idea why!).

That's Porter's smile, by the way. If you tell him to smile for a pic, this is what you get. I love it!

Needless to say, we had so much fun! Now that I'm back at school, we'll see how long I'm able to continue making homemade meals each night . . . I am trying. Otherwise Porter might have to learn how to help me unwrap frozen pizzas, microwave cans of soup, and order chicken nuggets in the drive-thru. But I sure hope not! Brian's actually got into the cooking groove too and he's started making "healthy" meals. Maybe that will save us from the drive-thru for a few more months!

Merry Christmas!

We didn't quite get our Christmas cards sent out to everyone on our list this year. We have a stack of them sitting on our table, unaddressed, because I can't seem to find any of my lists of addresses and I haven't had time to email or call everyone to track those addresses down. So, if you are a close friend or family member, please know that one of these cards was printed just for you, because we are thinking of you at this special time of year . . . and maybe next year I'll actually get one sent your way!

Merry Christmas, Everyone!