Porter Antics - December

Here are all the random pictures from December...

One of my favorite pictures ever taken.  He loves his bear and blanket!

We visited the dinosaur museum one morning with Amy and Luke.  A picture must always bet taken by this "soy-your".

Because sometimes you need to read the scriptures with your swimming hat on.

Taking Huddy buddy for a test drive.

This is what happens these days when I won't let Porter have candy for breakfast or watch Mickey Mouse all day.

Porter loves his dips just like his momma!

Playing with Sadie and Ruby

This is Porter's favorite thing at Costco, and this is his favorite picture ever taken.  He will look at it forever with the biggest smile on his face.

The only thing that slows this boy down...his shows.

Sometimes you choose to learn about a legend for your bedtime story.

And there you have it folks...a year of Porter antics...with many, many more yet to come.

Christmas Day

Our Christmas day was not what we expected it to be.  With James' new job, any time it snows, he is pretty much M.I.A.  Of course it started snowing late Christmas Eve night.  James left around 1am to go check all his properties and get his crews started on snow removal.  I got up with him so we could see what "Santa" had brought us.  I was going to keep our tradition of watching a movie, but I thought it was pretty silly to do by myself, so I headed back to bed when James left.  James got home a little before 6am.  It was just in time for Porter to wake up and to open presents. 

Just waiting for Porter to wake up!

When we finally heard him making some noise we ran upstairs to get him.  We were so excited for him to come downstairs to see all the presents and to open them.  He immediately saw his gift from Santa...a night light that projects stars all over his room.  We found the candy in his stocking too, and then he was pretty much good to go.  He didn't have much interest in opening presents.

It became like pulling teeth to get him to open a present.  He just didn't have the attention for it.  He did love his new broom and dustpan though!

We couldn't even get him to hold still for a family picture, hence his is blurry!

We had to go to church shortly, so James and I quickly made our traditional Christmas bacon and threw it on a yummy breakfast bagel.  Then we got ready for church.  I had to speak in sacrament meeting, so that was on the back of my mind all morning.  Talk about putting a little damper on Christmas morning!

Post-church family Christmas picture

Christmas outfit

I can't be more excited about my new shelf for the laundry room and my new BYU hoodie!

Immediately after church, James headed back out to work, and Porter and I headed up to Amy's.  We played and ate and played and ate all day.  I'm so grateful Amy was in town and so close!  It would have been a real bummer to sit at home alone all day!

A Christmas IBC cream soda!

James finally got to Amy's a little before 7pm running on about 3 hours of sleep.  Poor guy!  And the forecast does not look good for snow for the next 10 days...booooo!  Luckily, James has a great boss who is promising they will have comp time for all these hours worked.  In the meantime, Porter and I are keeping busy with our new presents...

My gift from Santa was a dot-to-dot of cityscapes.  So awesome!

We completed Porter's Babylit book collection.  I'm obsessed with these!

Deeds, Kimmy, and Lynlea got Porter this fun bath toy.

Hopefully Porter will be more excited about presents next year and hopefully it won't snow!  He wouldn't even open his last 3 presents so those are up in the closet awaiting his birthday.  Haha!  One thing I did love was going to church on Christmas.  It was a great way to focus on what was most important about this day!  Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

We had our annual Taylor family Christmas Eve party and dinner Saturday night.  We had a delicious dinner, read Luke 2, exchanged gifts, and read the Polar Express.  It was wonderful to be gathered with family to celebrate this season.

I can't remember what this grumpy face was about.

Matt, Liz, and Max got Porter the cutest little rocking horse. When he opened it, he said, "Apples!" 

Porter had a front row seat for The Polar Express

We played a couple of fun games.  One involved rolling a pair of dice and any time doubles were rolled, that person had to put on the Santa hat and the oven mitts and tried to open the Christmas present.

Another game was trying to hook as many candy canes as possible in one minute.  James was the big winner!

Porter had lots of kisses for baby Wren.

Love this family of mine!

'Tis the Season!

We are busy doing all things Christmas around here.  I could hardly wait to decorate our house and get our tree up after Thanksgiving.  We have nearly Porter proofed the tree.  He can only reach the bottom few branches!

Decorating g-thug style!

Checking out all the ornaments on Nana and Papa's tree.

James and I were able to go to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert and see the lights.  I failed to take a single picture. A few days later we continued our gingerbread house making tradition.  We upped our game a little this year and already have grand ideas for next year...a small village perhaps?!

 

 Tickets were super cheap to the BYU basketball game earlier this week so I tagged along with Ryan and Kara since James had meetings.  Porter was 150% exhausting (never sat still, up and down the bleachers, down our aisle, trying to take everyone's drink around us, up and down, up and down, up and down) but it was fun and Kara scored us a bunch of In-N-Out gift certificates afterward so it was totally worth it.

 

 

 

  

 

I seriously should strap a Go Pro on this kid and just hit record.  It is unreal how busy he is!  James and I finished all our baking for our friends and neighbors, and now we are all set to celebrate and enjoy this wonderful holiday!

Can't wait to consume this!!

Master P and Me

I had a genius idea the other day for a Christmas present for James, and it was nearly free!  Amy took some pictures of Porter and I at a park near her house, and then I put them in frames for James to put on his desk at work.  I think he's going to love them!  The photo shoot was easier said than done.  Porter doesn't hold still long enough to take photos really, and all he wanted to do as play in the snow.  This was the best we could do...

 

 

 The bulk of the pictures looked like this...

So I am grateful for the ones we got!  I don't have too many pictures of Porter and me since I'm usually the ones taking the pictures so these are priceless!  Thanks photographer Ame!!

Porter Antics - November

This boy is getting more and more fun and more and more opinionated every day.  He does the funniest things!  There is never a dull moment over here.  The only things that slow him down are Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Finding Nemo. He definitely a TV head just like his momma!

Getting a ride in this dump truck!

We had dinner at Nana and Papa's one night.  I went to the bathroom and came back to the kitchen to find Porter running around with an ice cream cone.  Panic struck as I pictured chocolate ice cream covering the entire house.  I quickly secured him and he actually did pretty well with it.  He was in heaven!

I sacrificed a roll of dental floss for approximately 3.5 minutes of uninterrupted getting-ready-for-church time.  It was a fair exchange!

Porter fell off our kitchen chair directly on his face.  I saw the whole thing happen.  It was horrible.  Luckily the only damage done was a fat lip.  He snuggled with me for almost 45 minutes afterward.  That is 44.75 minutes longer than he has ever snuggled with me before which was wonderful but also made me more worried about him.  He was completely fine after that.

We had one of Porter's nursery buddies over to play one morning.  It was fun to watch them play.

He still loves sleeping with his bear.

It was warm forever in November which was awesome.  We went to a park one afternoon and Porter went straight for the highest slide.  He went on it about 7 times and then tried to walk off the platform (don't worry I was right below him ready to catch).  Then he was spooked and wouldn't go on the slide anymore.

He usually won't leave anything on his head for more than 2 seconds, but when he saw Wyatt wearing a hat, he wanted a hat too.  We borrowed Isaac's and he ran around the house like this for over an hour.

He has been down to one nap for quite a while now, but sometimes he falls asleep while we are out running errands in the morning.

We did a gratitude tree for the month of November.  It was fun to ask Porter what he loves and then write down whatever he said first.

On to December already!  Can't believe it!