Christmas #2

So I got a message this morning on the answering machine... (guess I had that music turned up a little too loud) Anyway it was from my next door neighbor asking if I wanted to buy 1/2 a pig!! We had already talked to him about 1/2 a cow which will come in a couple more weeks but his other guy bailed on him so he called me! He is headed down to the farm right now to pick it up and I am so excited!! Pork, sausage, ham, bacon... 80 lbs of meat at a fraction of the price. Fresh! Oh my goodness its like Christmas all over again. Jumping up and down over here! YEAH!!!!!

Merry (belated) Christmas

So I'm a few days late. I'm enjoying my vacation - alright?? Christmas was great. As you can see we have a white Christmas. It was just the 4 of us and I enjoyed every minute of it. The boys loved their toys and are playing with them even as I sit here typing. Eli got a remote control car from us, a dinosaur and sticky hands from Santa, and a scooter (similar to a Razor) from Grandma. He is in heaven. And Mom and Matt - yes those are the same Superman pajamas he got last year from you guys. He still wears them ALL the time.

Nathan got this ball twirling thing that is actually kind of cute and some magnet blocks. He didn't get into the whole tearing the wrapping paper, but once the toys were out of the box, he was having a great time. I guess he had fun pounding on the boxes too which was what he was doing in this picture.

And I got a wheat grinder!!! I'm so excited, but I'll admit I'm a little scared. Now I have no excuse not to make my own bread. I want to talk to some girls in my ward before I get too carried away and maybe have them come over and do it with me. I need a little hand holding... I also got my Veronica Mars seasons 1&2. YEAH!!! Here is our little mess when we were through with presents. I'd say we made out pretty good!

The rest of the day was made up of me cooking spinach triangles, pie, ham and sweet potatoes... etc while Chris and Eli were making this snowman. Unfortunately it started to snow the next day and the face got covered up. Oh well. I have to laugh, the mouth is a green bean from dinner...


Anyway, overall we had a great time. Merry Christmas everyone and I hope you had as good a holiday as we did. (and Kyle, yes those bacon mints were BY FAR the worst part of my holiday) ...thanks...

6 days and counting!!

I can't wait for Christmas!! The holidays always make me happy and it'll be especially nice this year because my sister will be here and it'll definitely be a WHITE Christmas. I don't mind it when its not, but when it is it just feels right. you know? I think I finally got my shopping done and now I need to wrap. I SERIOUSLY need to wrap. Actually I take that back. Shopping for presents is done. I still need to grocery shop for Christmas dinner and a few other essentials while Erin is in town. I guess grocery shopping doesn't really count, but I swear to you those stores seem to be more crowded than Walmart at this time of year. Understandable, but it makes me dread going. Maybe I'll go tonight to avoid the Saturday rush...

Things with us are good. We are all happy and healthy and doing well. Eli has been obsessed with counting the days till Christmas and asks over and over and over when it'll be here. He is going to be bored to tears though because school is out for the next 2 weeks. Guess I'll actually have to entertain him... hmm... Nathan is doing good as well. I've found his aversion to milk was merely a temperature thing (thanks to a conversation with Erin) so I think we have a way to finally get him off formula when he is ready. yeah!! He isn't walking yet, but he can balance when he stands up by himself. I'm not ready for him to walk. It almost makes me sad. He is still such a baby to me. I'm not ready!!! I actually meant to do this back when Nathan turned one, but I never did. I was going to compare my two boys at the same age. Well this is both of them at (or around give or take a month) a year old.

Eli


Nathan
Hmmm.... are they brothers?? I love that. I'm just looking through some of Elis old pictures and its not that they look exactly alike or anything, but looking at the pictures of Eli remind me of Nathan. I don't know. I'll have to take some of Nathan wearing Elis old Christmas outfit and compare those two pictures. :) I actually forgot I had his old Christmas outfit. Good thing I found it so I could take the one I bought this year back. Is it sad that Nathan is going to wear the same outfit Eli did while Eli was only 6 months old and Nathan is 14 months? I'm sure it won't fit exactly the same, but nevertheless... I'm almost positive it'll fit. Whatever am I going to do with him... My 22 lb chunker baby who is painfully short. I just love him. :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!! We love you and we hope you enjoy your holiday.

Giggle monster

When people ask me if I'm liking being a stay at home mom, I always answer yes. Its true. My life has changed since I've gotten to spend this extra time with my kids. My house still isn't where I would like it to be, but they have been so much fun to be with. Little moments like yesterday (in this video) are the main reason for my answer in the affirmative. Nathan was supposed to be eating his lunch, but I guess he was done because he started throwing food over the side for the dog to eat. Usually I try to tell him to stop, but he was laughing so hard I figured a video would be better. ;) Unfortunately about 4 hours later he had a temp of 102° and was feeling a little less happy.

First blog in weeks! nothing to report...

Well I wish I had an excuse for my lack of blogging. Usually its because you're crazy busy but to be honest, in the last couple weeks its the opposite. We haven't been doing anything and that has just included blogging. We had a great Thanksgiving, we went and saw Santa Claus (at the mall), my sister came out here and we went to see Twilight again (better the 2nd time), we had some friends over for Family Home Evening and now we're headed straight for the Christmas season. Its snowing outside pretty good today... first snow since I think around Halloween! I think I'd rather have it in the 50's like its been though. We've been able to enjoy the outdoors much longer than normal. A few of the girls in my ward and I were out with our strollers and the older kids were riding their bikes. We all laughed saying we were the stroller parade - and in December no less. Here are the kids when we took them to the mall. Unfortunately the camera wasn't picking up the light so all the pictures were dark but this one... and its blurry. Oh well, better luck next year.


Eli is already begging to go ride his sled down the hill at the park. Mind you there is only 1/4" of white stuff on the ground so far and my guess is that it'll be gone by this time tomorrow... This is going to be a seriously long winter. But I'm excited for Christmas at least. Erin is going to be out here and... Erin, Eli is already asking when you're going to get here. :) I feel like there is still so much to do!! I have to send some things - I really better get a move on and I have Christmas cards to mail (if you've moved - let me know). Eli is usually my easy one to buy for, but this year I just don't know what to get him! We got him some pajamas and a dinosaur, but I'm at a loss as to what else. I guess thats probably all he needs. I would like to shift it so that Santa brings only one toy so he doesn't expect a ton of things every year. He is young enough its probably a good time to start. Mommy and Daddy got Guitar Hero World Tour for Christmas... which we opened like 6 weeks ago. ;) Excuse our messy family room (and me in my pajamas). This is the family band - ok, so Eli is usually replaced with Chris but someone had to take a picture.

Eli playin' the drums

Nathan playing the drums too.

Hmmm... Twilight

Well I went yesterday. And BOY was that an experience. Now I don't consider myself as old... as I am not yet 30, but I felt it. Man, did I feel it. I went with a group of 4 and sitting just to the side of my group was this little girl. (I'm thinking 13 or so) I seriously thought we were going to have to sedate her at some point. She was shaking! For the full 2 hours, she shook. My friend who was sitting next to me kept leaning over to me saying to look at the girl and she was making these facial expressions that were just hilarious!! (while she shook of course) LOL! And of course, when Jacob came on screen and Edward and Carlisle and every other decent looking male the audience erupted into screaming that you missed their first few lines. And the kissing scene you couldn't even enjoy because there was a hum of anticipation and then more with the screaming...

So I don't know if my review is based more in my prejudice against my fellow Twilighters in the theater or the actual movie itself, but I was kind of sad. I liked the movie - I really did, but I didn't feel the connection between Edward and Bella (which I guess you could say would be KEY to the whole movie). They just seemed cold and forced like they weren't really enjoying each other. They acted the part where they had to be careful around each other, but they never seemed to smile and be happy they were in love! I don't know, maybe they did and I was too busy watching this hilarious 13 yr old sitting next to us. :) (very possible)
I'm glad I get to take my sister on Monday so I can see it again hopefully with a new perspective. The 13 year olds will be in school and I already know the plot changes, so I won't have to try and figure it out. I can just enjoy it as a movie. I have tons more to say on scenes that they left out or did wrong, but for the sake of people who haven't seen it yet - I will hold off. All I can say is that even though Alice had only half a dozen lines, she was great and I can't wait for the next few movies because something tells me she will steal the show. I just love Alice.

Happy Birthday Chris!!!!

Yesterday was Chris' birthday. My wonderful husband is 32 years old now. What a good man to put up with my craziness for the last 7 1/2 years.

We didn't do much, but we went out to eat at a Mongolian BBQ place and came home to eat cupcakes that Eli and I made in the afternoon. As you can see, we all got candles in our cupcakes and we ended up singing to both Chris AND Eli... I swear to you, the kid loves birthdays.


Sorry honey, I just had to share this gem... Can't tell whether this guy is the 32 year old or the 4 yr old in the family. You decide. ;)

And the happiest one of all. Nathan enjoyed a cupcake as well and loved every bite. Too bad he still woke up at 5am this morning. ugh.

Very very tired

You reach a point where "tired" becomes a word that doesn't mean anything any more. Nathan has gotten up at 5:45 every morning this week. I've tried to go to bed a little earlier, but its never been before 10:30 unfortunately... and with as long as it takes me to fall asleep - lets just say 5:45 comes very very early. I think the worst part of it is that he is ready for his first nap by 9:30 or so and sleeps the rest of the morning which in turn throws off his afternoon nap. Its a vicious circle!! Oh well, I guess there isn't much I can do but don't worry about calling me early in the morning.
I'm up.

2 days left!

::sigh:: Twilight...
Is it wrong that I find the actor who plays James better looking than Edward? Hmmm.... there is something very wrong with that.

Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

Slackin'

I have no excuse except that I don't like the women in my ward very much... they keep giving me books to read and I can do nothing else while I read. I seriously have a hard time putting them down at all.

Anyway, Saturday was Eli's first pinewood derby! And wouldn't you know, he came home with 3rd place and Chris got 1st. Chris thinks it probably should have been the other way around, but thats a whole other conversation that you are never allowed to bring up in his presence. LOL! Whatever. It was a fun night and Eli had a blast. Chris made a spiderman car for Eli, and he let Eli paint his car... a very interesting combination of black, orange and yellow. They both came home with a chocolate bar, so it makes Momma proud ;)

Chris got 3rd place in the 'anything goes' race. I don't remember what it was really called, but they didn't worry about weighing the cars. His was under the regulation weight and still made the top 3. Not bad honey!!

I've still been reading. I guess I feel the need to make up for the last 10 years of not reading in a single month. Yes, I'm crazy. But I will admit that I have had more fun in the last month than I have in a while. I just finished another book called "These is my words" by Nancy Turner. Excellent. Its set in the 1880's on the Arizona frontier and is written like its her diary. I'm pretty sure its based on a true story, but I don't think its an actual diary. Anyway, Carrie has a couple more books that I need to read to finish up the Goose Girl trilogy and then I'm going to take a break. I really want to buy the Twilight series for Christmas, so maybe my break can last until then and I will reread Twilight at the beginning of next year.
Only 11 more days until the movie comes out!!!!!!!! And yes, I'll be there opening day.

Emergency!

Emergency at the Porter house. We're fine, no harm done, but the CO detector was going off all last night. We left at 1:30am to go to a hotel and Nathan wouldn't go back to sleep. Lots of fun. Chris took him on a drive, but still he only slept an hour or two. I'm hoping we can all sleep in today. Anyway, we came home this morning and called the gas company. He found no CO in the house, but whether that was because it had aired out or there was never a problem - he wasn't positive. He found a couple potential problems that could have caused it - mostly because of the pressure in the storm we're getting right now. We'll just have to change a vent and bore a hole through our house... no biggie. ;) I'm grateful that we called him so we can get it fixed. I swear the whole 'home ownership' thing is just a learning curve. So much to learn.

But for now, we're fine. We can turn the appliances back on when the storm passes. For now the biggest problem will be taking a cold shower.

Happy Halloween

Finally got around to uploading some Halloween pictures. Eli was a Ninja Turtle this year (Raphael to be exact). He had a blast. We hit the trunk or treat and a bunch of houses and he started complaining that his bucket was too heavy. I guess that means he made out good.


sorry... this one is blurry...

the "man" behind the mask.

Political Funnies

I don't know about you, but the more I talk about the upcoming election and videos and news out there... it just gets meaner and meaner. Thank goodness it'll all be over in a matter of days. So to hopefully lighten the mood, I have some links for you. ENJOY!!! And every one of these are not meant to be serious at all. Please don't think that I get my actual news and information from such things. I just needed a day to smile. ;)
**disclaimer: the last one has a few off color jokes. Please don't watch if you're easily offended**

http://www.palinaspresident.us/

Bush on Global Warming

Obamas Experience level

Negative Obama Ads

Sarah Palin and the "Gender" card

I've missed a lot!

Alright, so I thought I would start and maybe recap this last week. It doesn't seem like much has happened, but its just my life... so of course it isn't that interesting. ;) And of course things happened in the middle of my reading, so this is my attempt to catch up before all the Halloween posts come.


I got to volunteer at Eli's preschool last week which was of course lots of fun (ahem). I honestly don't know how teachers do it. I would go insane having to take care of all those kids day in and day out. I enjoy my nursery calling - but that is once a week. I can do once a week. Anyway, back to the point. Eli has a new teacher! Her name is Ms. Fatma. I'm not exactly sure what country she is from, but she has an accent. She is very nice and I think Eli is really going to like her. I like that she has started making them journal everyday. His last teacher mentioned it, but that first day Ms. Fatma was there they had never been cracked. Oh well. Unfortunately Eli is going through an anti-camera stage, so he isn't interested in pictures being taken of himself. That is going to have to change for Friday what with Halloween and all. Gotta get my "Ninja Turtle" some good camera time. :)

I also took the kids to Black Island Farms with some of the other moms in my neighborhood. What a fun time!!! There were huge slides and a corn maze and a little cow train made of 55 gallon drums, a corn husk launcher (potato gun), a sandbox with corn kernals, a large pumpkin moon bounce... it had EVERYTHING! They took us on a short ride out to the pumpkin patch and pulled some carrots right out of the ground for us and fresh onions that were the size of a softball. Then we got our pumpkins and headed back. Of course I couldn't leave without buying some of their produce. The cabbage... I need to take a picture of it. Enormous. and only $1. Can't beat that.


Nathan is of course wonderful. He has been slightly cranky this last week which I am still unsure is because of teething or uncomfortable ears. I took him back to the doctor wondering if his ear infection had gone away (he started running a slight temp) and the doctor was concerned. He said the infection was gone, but the eustachian station tubes (had to google it) weren't functioning properly and he didn't know if it was because of a chronic problem or if his ears were still healing from the last infection. All I know is they weren't responding to the air the doctor was pumping into his ear. Its still a wait and see kind of thing. I REALLY don't want to go the ear tube route, so we're just praying it clears up completely.

As for me, I'm still trying to find the energy to clean my house. My friend and old college roommate came up to stay last week and then we went to the temple. It was so fun to see her again! It just reminded me of my life pre-marriage and kids. How different it was to stay up late and just play all the time. Ahhh... those were the days. LOL! Its too bad though Dana, we just got the new Guitar Hero (with the drums and microphone) would have been fun to challenge you!!
I started reading another book yesterday... well, I started reading Austenland and I finished reading it during naptime (it was short) and now I'm going to take the boys to the library and see if I can find a few more by the same author. Who would have thought I would become a reader?? Ok, so I probably won't, but its nice to see that (1) I haven't forgotten HOW to read and (2) I can enjoy fun, easy books as much as the next person. All of you who have those "What I'm reading right now" posts... I'm going to be paying closer attention (Chrissy) ;) Its funny how my tv time has taken a serious hit and I don't seem to care. I started watching Greys last night and just turned it off after about 5 minutes. I wasn't in the mood... Eli Stone however. I was in the mood for that. ;)
Anyway, I think that about covers it. I'm off to make my list of things to do for the rest of the week. My main goal is to scrub the bathroom floors. eeeewwwwww....

I'm going to re-emerge

Well, I'm going to take my nose out of the books I've been reading and reemerge... I think. The reason I say "think" is that I thought I would be done after I finished the small portion of Midnight Sun - but all that did was fuel me to reread Twilight where she had left off trying harder to imagine Edwards thoughts in all of that. Dang... if she could have just gotten to the part in the meadow. Thats the part I wanted to really see through his eyes. Click Here if you want to read the first few chapters of Midnight Sun (from her website - not pirated)

So my last week was as follows... I started last Friday night and finished Twilight and New Moon by Sunday night. I started Eclipse Monday night and finished Tuesday night at which point I picked up Breaking dawn and finished Thursday morning. Then I read Midnight Sun Thursday evening into this morning. I don't even want to count how many pages that was and how many hours I spent. Can I just say that I LOVED these books?? Breaking Dawn was by far the best because it seems thats when everything happened!! Everything I wanted to happen and didn't want to happen... everything I could imagine happening and didn't have a freakin clue... I seriously want to reread that one a little slower. I feel like by that point there was so much going on, I was just reading too quick just to find out what would happen next. I'm sure I missed a ton. I would like to wait a month or so to try and recover from what little sleep i've been getting, but we'll see if my will power is strong enough for that. ;)

For now, I'm going to be excited along with the rest of the country at the movie. ::sigh:: Here is the link to the movie trailer... I couldn't find it on youtube. http://www.twilightthemovie.com/
I always pictured Edward a little more broad and with a square jaw for some reason. Oh well. If its mildly entertaining (which it looks to be) I'll be happy.

I have a new obsession

I started this book last night... I'm 3/4 through it and New Moon is thankfully sitting on my counter ready to go. I will admit that I have TRIED to avoid these books. I don't know why. Everyone keeps saying they're good, and fun... but I'm usually not much of a reader. Ok, not much of a reader AT ALL. A few friends from Salt Lake were going to get together to go see the movie next month and asked if I wanted to come along. I admitted that I had never read the books and wondered if I would even enjoy the movie. They said - ah, you have a month. Then after Girls Night out we went to Barnes and Noble. It was over. It took a day to pick it up and evidently another day to finish it. :) I'll probably be MIA for the next... ok, maybe 4 days? (4 books, 4 days) LOL!

Food storage and coupons

Ok, so I got a blog post comment a couple weeks ago with a food storage website. It took me a couple weeks to get around to looking at it, but I finally did... hello!!! They make it sound so doable! I need to start having nights where we just eat from food storage. I have book that says if you eat it twice a week, you'll have a years worth rotated in 3 1/2 years. ... I might start with once a week. My next task though is to buy all these gadgets. Ok, not so much gadgets as necessities. A wheat grinder, both electric and manual, a decent bread making mixer (aka Bosch), and I would like a food dehydrator and one of those Victorian sauce makers that I used to make applesauce. That's only $1000 worth of equipment. Kill me now...

Anyway, this website has re energized me into thinking that it is possible. Then I look around at our ward and realize that I am SURROUNDED by people that do this already. I knew we moved to this area for a reason. I've decided though that I need to start writing down all my questions because the more I learn the more questions I have. If anyone is interested its http://safelygatheredin.blogspot.com/ I haven't spent too much time on there, but I clicked on the recipes and looked through those. She posts every Friday a recipe that uses food storage. Its like she read my mind...

So another thing that I've been (trying) to do more of is couponing. I don't think I'm very good at it though. For one thing I can't ever make it to the store when the sales start. This area is HUGE with coupons and so, for example, this last week Green Giant vegetable steamers were free if you had the coupon. You could be sure that those veggies would be sold out by Thursday morning. Don't even bother trying to go Monday morning (which is when I think about grocery shopping) UGH!!!

My question for any couponers out there is how do you stop? How do you tell yourself that you have enough cereal and even though its $1 a box you don't need it? I end up spending more money on groceries using coupons because I buy what I need then I buy the coupon stuff. And it is stuff that we use, but its not something I've always planned for. I need to start merging my meal plans with the coupons. Oh well, I just started...

My day in review

This is a post about yesterday. I got to go down and see my old friends from JUB. It was so good to see them (and see that nothing has changed). They're still the same great people I worked with just 2 short months ago. Man, has it been 2 months already? I guess some days it feels like a week ago and some days it seems like a year ago. I certainly don't miss waking up everyday and dragging the kids to Julies, fighting traffic and sitting in my cube for hours but I do miss some things. I guess its to be expected. Anyway, it was fun and I hope they'll do it again with me. Heck, we met up with our old co-worker Griffin for a couple years and I'm not sure we even liked him. (just kidding of course) Griffin, if you're out there - we love you.

Then on my way home I took Legacy Highway. Does it make me a total nerd if I got goosebumps driving down a road? But this isn't just any road. Its a brand new road that is multi-use. This was the 2nd time I took it. The first was the Sunday of conference weekend between sessions. I guess that was when the goosebumps happened. I was just thinking that if anyone were to ask what it is that I do (and we do in my old company) I could say the Legacy Highway. No, we didn't have any part of it, but designing a road with the slopes and alignment and superelevation... the guardrail and bridges, the box culverts and fences... and then I saw it... the trail. And not just any trail - a trail being used!! There were bikers and people walking on it. I even saw a biker who was taking a break on one of the benches. I've designed a couple trails - they're "fun". (right Gary?) LOL! Then I drove a little further and there was a lake. There were people spending time with their kids at the lake. It was just so perfect. It was like a break from the world. There are no trucks on this road and the speeds are a little slower. It was just so peaceful and calm. Then I got dumped on 215 and reality hit. I had to remind myself to speed up and be an aggressive driver again. Oh well. at least it was a nice break from the everday.
Ok, I'll go take my nerdy self and sit in the corner now.

Look Ma! Look what I did!!

I canned. I am a virgin canner (and it showed) Note to self, next time you want to try something new, enlist someone who has at least an IDEA of what they're doing. LOL! Chris has canned a few times in our married life, so we have not been without the tasty delights, but I had never gone near it. In fact if you had told me a year ago that I would be canning for 2 days I would have called you a mental patient. Alas, we are now the proud owners of 35 pints of applesauce and 6 quarts of apple pie filling. I did pints for the applesauce because we are still a small, young family that don't go through most foods very quickly. I was merely thinking of usefulness. At least I got something right!!

So the good news is that I borrowed a friends 'sauce maker' which is the only reason that I am still mobile. I didn't have to core or peel the apples because it did it all for me, and yet I am still growing blisters on my fingers from cutting. Go figure. I did this for 2 days. Now had I been a seasoned veteran, these 35 pints might have taken a day, maybe a day and a half. For a novice such as myself, I'm lucky it didn't leak into day 3.

So after all this, I have compiled a small list for any novices out there who might be just learning themselves. I have also been thinking about a list comparing canning to having a baby... but I'll spare you on that list. LOL!

1. Buy all cans BEFORE starting and have them washed and sanitized - ready to go.
2. The canning water takes a good hour to boil. You might want to start this process before you are actually ready for it
3. Pack the kids a day pack of things to do. You will not be seeing them during the canning process. Playdates would be nice too.
4. Don't wear clothes that you like. You may not see them again either.
5. Keep bandaids close
6. Have a step stool nearby so that you can sit while washing or cutting. If not, wear your comfortable shoes... your VERY comfortable shoes.
7. After a long hard day, don't bother cleaning. Rinse the really bad stuff and leave the rest.
8. Don't invite friends over that night. They might accidentally walk in your kitchen
9. Accept the stickiness. Embrace the stickiness. Everything washes. And when in doubt, you can wash it twice
10. I wouldn't suggest learning to can in the summer. Your kitchen gets really hot and sticky. Although the sticky might be from the apples. Only time will tell.
11. Again, invite someone over who knows what they're doing
12. 8 hours of sleep. No less. 8 hours..
13. Plan something fun when its over for the kids to re-get to know you. For us, it was a "FUN" trip to Costco. (no really, thats where Eli wanted to go)
14. Last of all - don't look at another apple for at least 72 hours.



This is most of it. 2 of my apple pie fillings didn't seal (sob) and I had given away a couple applesauces.