Porter is 5 months..WOW!

My little baby is 5 months!! I can't believe it! Our little guy is growing up so fast. I can't believe how fast he is learning and how many changes he has experienced even in just the last month. We weighed him at home yesterday and he weighs about 15lbs5oz.. so he has gained about 2 pounds since last month..so he is catching up wonderfully. Porter is such a little ham. He has the most beautiful smile I have ever seen and always has a smile for everyone. I can't even count the number of times that people have come up to me and commented on his gorgeous smile and even say that they have never seen a baby smile so much. He has brought so much sunshine into our lives. Whenever I am stressed or worried or just need a little pickup..all I have to do is grab my baby and hold him and everything is better. Just yesterday he tipped over his bumbo and bumped his head on the table. I was so scared because we didn't know how hard he had bumped it and if we should take him into the hospital or not, etc. He was just screaming and it made me so sad that I got tears in my eyes. The minute he saw that I was sad, he started smiling at me and could sense that something was wrong..even at just 5 months. What a sweetheart!!!! He already has such a big heart and is so aware. I cant even begin to describe the strength that he has been to me and my family. I love him with all of my heart and still can't believe how blessed we have been since he came to our family. Porter is so expressive which is very helpful because you always know what he is feeling. He is very interested in his toys and grabs them and holds them very well now. He has so much energy and has a hard time sitting still. Even when he is in his bumbo, he is always reaching for anything that may be near him. He is just so curious and interested in everything. He still hates laying on his back and will do everything is his power to try and sit up. He will grab your hands and fingers and try with all of his might to lift himself up. When you give him a toy, he grabs that and tries to have that help him get up. He is so funny. He loves his exersaucer and plays in it every day. He also loves watching Baby Einstein and gets so excited every time we watch it. He usually eats 2 small bowls of baby cereal everyday and drinks a full bottle about every 3-4 hours. He is sleeping very well at night and usually goes to bed around 10:30PM and wakes up around 8:00AM. Then he drinks a bottle and goes to sleep for another 1-2 hours. He still hates car rides, but is getting a little better with them. He usually just fusses instead of screaming on top of his lungs..so that is good. He loves our dog Maggie and just giggles everytime she comes into the room and always reaches out to touch her. He is also getting so big that he is too small for his car seat. We will be going shopping for a new bigger one next week. WE LOVE SO MUCH PORTER! HAPPY 5 MONTHS!

Playing catchup

Ok, so I really need to get out of the habit of playing catchup and be more on top of my blogging. So much has happened since the last time I blogged, so I will try my best to include all of the highlights. So just to warn you.. there are TONS of pictures..and this blog is gonna be super long! First of all, last week I took my 3 little redheaded nieces (Paul's oldest brothers 3 oldest children.. Whitney 15, Hailey 11, and Brooklyn 9) to 7-Peaks for an awesome day. We first went out for lunch at Appolo Burger and that was super tasty! We then got icecream at McDonalds and then headed for 7-Peaks for the rest of the day. WE HAD SO MUCH FUN!! I was so impressed how brave the 3 girls were.. we went on almost all of the scary rides. It was 102° all day so it felt so good to spend the day in the water. Our favorites were: The Vortex, Shotgun Falls, Flashfloods, and swinging on the rope at the Adult Pools. Thanks so much girls for spending the day with me!!
Next, my Mom finally taught me how to can fruit.. and I am totally addicted. We have picked TONS of choke cherries and received TONS of apples from my sisters garden. We have juiced and canned tons of apple and choke cherry jelly, syrup and apple pie filling. IT IS SO MUCH FUN!! There is such a satisfaction when you are all through and start seeing the jars start piling up. And it feels so good knowing that all of this food will go right to food storage! I also spent a day at Donna's house with Porter canning apple jelly. It was awesome and we made about 13 quarts of apple jelly. We also got to have lunch with our cute nieces and nephews. Hannah ( the youngest girl-10 years old) basically helped me watch Porter the whole time we were there. She even put him to sleep twice. She was such a big helper and Porter loves her so much!!
We also had a big family barbecue yesterday for the 24th of July and combined it with a family birthday party for my 28th birthday.. yes.. I am getting super old. My Mom gave me a fruit juicer (which I am super excited about), Paul gave me a gift certificate to get a manicure and a pedicure which I greatly needed. My hands and especially my feet were super gross and definitely could use some pampering. It was so relaxing and they turned out super cute. (Please don't laugh at my feet..just look at the cute toes!!)He also took me out for a fabulous dinner at Tucanoes Brazillian Steakhouse for my birthday!! My Mom babysat Porter and we had such a relaxing and wonderful evening!! Thanks so much sweetheart! I also got a cute adidas bag and an awesome relaxing neck wrap to use after I run from my brother Erik and his wife Dara, and I got another gift certificate from my little sister Natasha to use at Royal Nails which I think I will save and use for a facial soon! I got an absolutely adorable "Willow Tree" hugging sisters figurine which was so beautiful and lots of canning jars and lids from my sister Donna and her husband Geoff. My Mom got me an amazing Oreo cake which was to die for. Thanks everyone for such an awesome birthday. We also had a blast at the barbecue. It was so much fun to have the family over. My neices and nephews (Donna's step kids) are visiting for the summer and it is always so much fun spending time with them. They are such great kids. The food was amazing. We had bratworsts, hotdogs, hamburgers, potatoe salad, fruit salad, chips, lots of veggies and lots of treats. Pretty awesome!! Natasha's friend Colby came over and he is an awesome kid, and had a lot of fun getting to know him better. We also took some way fun family pictures!! I love my family to death. Porter was sleeping so unfortunately he wasn't in them. To end the night, we lit of lots of fireworks. Porter was a little more scared of them this time, than he had been on the 4th of July so I ended up having to take him inside...poor kid. He is so sensitive to sound. Paul ended the fireworks by blasting yet another famous homemade firework. Ok.. this was definitely his best one so far. It shot higher than the huge lampost which was right next to where he set it off. INCREDIBLE.. and the kids loved it. For some reason the video of Paul's firework won't upload so I will have to add it later..sorry!! On this 24th of July, I am especially so incredibly thankful for the many wonderful pioneers. They crossed the plains at profound personal sacrifice and often under severe hardship. They definitely demonsted great faith, courage, and endurance which set a example for us to follow. I am so thankful for them and for the many blessings that we enjoy because of them.

Awesome weekend

We had a way fun weekend!! On Friday evening, Paul, Porter and I, Pauls Mom and sister Cerra went out to eat with Pauls cousins (I guess they are actually his cousins children) since they were in town visiting from Idaho. They were passing through Utah on their way to Disneyland and thought it would be fun to get together for dinner. We had a lot of fun and it was a lot of fun to see them again. I think that Paul and I need to take more trips to Idaho and visit more with the family over there so that I can get to know them better. After dinner we hung outside in the parking lot and talked with Pauls Mom and Cerra for almost an hour.. they are so much fun and we love them so much.
On Saturday morning, my youngest brother Shane and I were talking about how much we wanted to see the Dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point, and decided to go for the afternoon. IT WAS AWESOME! I was kind of nervous that it would be geared toward younger kids and that we wouldn't enjoy ourselves, but we loved it and learned a lot. The Museum had a handful of interactive exhibits including a water table with sand and plastic dinosaurs that you can burry which we loved, all kinds of interactive games, hundreds of dinosaurs on exhibit, short films, and a sand pit where you can dig up fossils. It was amazing to see all of the huge dinosaur bones that they had pieced together. We even saw a HUGE sea turtle that existed during the dinosaur era. It was incredible! They had a window into the room where the workers would clean the bones, and that was very cool to see! It's the kind of museum that I will keep going back to, and never get bored of. We had an absolute blast! I wish that Porter could have been a little older so that he could have enjoyed it a little more, but he did do well and slept for the first hour we were there. We ended up staying for over two hours and didn't even look at everything. I would definitely recommend this museum to anyone.. regardless of what age.
Saturday night, Paul, Porter and I went to visit my brother Erik and his wife Dara up in Salt Lake. It was so much fun visiting with them. We hadn't seen them for a very long time and it was so nice catching up with them. We ordered pizza and yummy cheese sticks from "The Pie" (the most tastiest pizza place that I know of)http://www.thepie.com/enter.htm. Dara and I split the 'extreme veggie' pizza and it was honestly the tastiest pizza I have ever tasted...DELICIOUS!! Paul and Erik split 'mountain of meat' pizza and they loved that as well. We brought brownies and sherbit icecream for dessert and ate that while we watched the movie 'Secondhand Lions'. Ok, so that movie is now one of my most favorite movies. It is absolutely halarious. I haven't laughed so hard in a very long time. It was such a good movie. I ended up watching it again on Sunday night with my Mom. That will be the next movie that I will be purchasing. If you haven't seen that movie, go and see it right now.. honestly the best movie! Dara's parents and brother Josiah and his wife Eva and baby Kaaja came and visited with us for a little while and it was a lot of fun seeing them again. It had been a long time since everyone saw Porter and they all couldn't believe how much he had grown. Thanks so much Dara and Erik for having us over and for the awesome fun that we had with you guys! Love you both so much!!

Happy 4th of July

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY EVERYONE!! We had a lot of fun this 4th of July weekend!! We started out the festivities on Friday and went to my Grandma Haslam's house for a barbecue and fireworks. It was so much fun visiting with family, especially those that I hadn't seen for a while. Porter was so cute and had a lot of fun seeing new faces and meeting some family that he hadn't met before. He always has such a big smile for everyone. On the 4th of July, I started out the day by going running with my sister Donna. We are training for a half marathon and were so excited that we ran 6 miles. It was a lot of fun and it is so nice to have someone training with you. It is so motivating! She is such a wonderful sister and I am so thankful to have her in my life. The rest of the afternoon was spent getting the house in order for the big 4th of July barbecue. My Mom was so cute and put up the cutest decorations outside in the backyard. I think it is so much fun how much she loves going all out for the holidays. My sister's stepkids are here for 2 months and we were so excited that they spent the 4th of July with us. They are so adorable and the 2 little girls.. Hannah and Katharine helped me take care of Porter the whole night.. they were absolutely adorable with him!! The barbecue was amazing full of hotdogs, hamburgers, pistachio pudding, red white and blue layerd jello salad, fruit salad, chips and dip, veggie tray and an assortment of yummy popsicles for desert. YUMMY!! Paul was so excited because he had a bought a lot of fireworks and again (2nd year in a row) made his family homemade firework. We had a lot of fun setting the fireworks off!!!! We all were excited to see what Paul's firework would turn out to be like this year. It was absolutely amazing. I tried to take a video of it, but it was so big that most of the video is of me trying to back up from it so I wouldn't die. We had a lot of fun. Porter loved the fireworks. He is extremely sensitive to sound and so we were worried how he would do with the fireworks. He just sat there and watching them in amazement. The only time he started fussing was when Paul set his off and everyone started cheering and were really loud. So I think the people affected him more than the actual firework. We had a great day and it was a lot of fun celebrating Porters first 4th of July! We are especially thankful that we live in America and are so thankful for the freedoms that we enjoy here!! :-)