Temple, Babies Everywhere, and BYU Bball

Better late than never, but I finally made it to the Provo City Center Temple open house.  James had gone a couple months ago with the youth in our ward, and I felt like every person I know had been, so I was so excited to go!  It was truly breathtaking!  I remember crying the day it burned thinking about this beautiful building being destroyed.  I had a lot of stake conferences and other meetings in the Provo Tabernacle when I was a student at BYU, so it held special memories for me.  It makes me so happy to see restored as a temple.  It always amazes me how perfect and immaculate these temples are.  They are truly houses of the Lord.

 

Our reservations were for 7:15pm so we didn't take Porter with us, but we both wished we had when it was over.  He would have loved it with all the pretty lights, and when will this opportunity happen again in Utah?  Nothing for a while.  Parent fail!  But it was a fun date night with dinner before and dessert after.  I can't wait to go back and spend time in this beautiful temple!

A couple of days later, Olivia and Jake welcomed sweet little Ruby June to the world.  She is so tiny and so perfect!  We grabbed some pizza and spent the evening with them a couple days after they got home.  I can't believe Porter was ever so small!  Olivia and little Ruby are both doing great!  A new little buddy for Porter!

 

 

Kara was just a couple weeks behind Olivia for her due date, so we had to go get our baby pedi all together last Saturday!

 That pedi got things moving!  Kara started having contractions on Sunday, and then Tuesday morning Ryan texted me saying it was go time!  James and I grabbed Porter and headed over.  Ryan and Kara headed to the hospital, and then we took the boys to get donuts for this exciting day!

 Once we heard that Kara had been admitted and this was happening, we took the boys over the Amy's so James and I could go to a funeral.  My dear friend, Tricia, lost her grandma a few days ago.  She was almost 98-years-old and in quite a bit of pain, so it was a blessing, but still so sad!  James, Porter, and I were sitting in her funeral when we got the text saying Hudson had arrived!  It was really touching to experience all those parts of the plan of salvation at the same time.  The book ends to life in mortality and then they aren't even really ends or beginnings...just steps we have to take to return back to our Heavenly Father.  The gospel is truly amazing!  Maybe Helen and Hudson fived it up in passing and Helen told him to get down here and be a legend!  These are the types of things that I like to think happen.

Hudson MacKay joins the fam!

And let's just make a comment on how Kara leaves for the hospital at 7:30am, gets admitted by 8:30am, and has a kid by 11:30am.  I can only dream of such a thing!  She's wonder woman!  After the funeral, James headed to work, and Porter and I went to Amy's, and I left Porter there and grabbed Isaac and Wyatt to head to the airport to pick up Becca.  Everything really worked out so perfectly that day, and what a great excuse to not work!  Becca dropped me off at home so I could grab my own car, and I headed back to Amy's while Becca took the boys to the hospital to meet their new brother.
A few hours later, Amy and I took our brood to the hospital and we swapped turns going up to meet Hudson while the other watched the kiddos in the waiting room.  He really is perfect!  Love him!

 

It still always blows my mind that this baby was living inside of Kara just a few hours before!  Don't get it!
A few days later my cousin, Kimberly, was in town from Virginia, so we went to her baby shower.  It was fun to see her and other family that we don't get to see very often!  She's going to be a great little momma!

 Amidst all the baby madness, we have entered into March Madness!!  The Cougs really choked every time it mattered most (sounds familiar, I know), so they didn't make the real tournament, but we still went to support them in the NIT.  It was fun, Porter made friends with everyone around us, and the Cougs won! 

We took the binkie hoping he would fall asleep.  Who are we kidding?!

We are rolling right on through March!  I can't believe this boy will be 1 next month!  Seeing all these new babies has made me realize that Porter is a full blown kid now and not a baby anymore.  I can't believe it!

Porter 10 Months

Happy 10 months to this happy and busy boy!  He is SO fun!  It is so exciting to watch him grown and learn new things.  He is becoming a kid before my very eyes and isn't so much a baby anymore.

 Here are some pictures from throughout the last month of Porter and what he has been up to...

First real haircut.  It was just way too out of control!

All he wanted to do was look at the clippers and not hold still for even one second.

 

And just like that, he looks like a big kid!

For the most part, Porter is so good to play on his own while I'm working.  He's the best little colleague!

He likes to look at himself in windows, in the reflect on the oven, and especially in mirrors.

He really took a liking to Nana's homemade bread.  I mean, who wouldn't?!

This boy loves yogurt!  I'm pretty sure he would have it for every meal.  He cries when it's gone.

He's using his walker more and more and loves help from Sophie!

We just can't get over how cute these dinosaur jammies are.  Look at those feet!

Porter loves books and will sit and look at them for a while.  He especially loves books with animals in them.

People always comment on how he has the most beautiful brown eyes.  Couldn't agree more people!  And I love that he can hold his own bottle now!

This is how we have Porter-proofed the book case.  Please tell me he will grow out of trying to destroy our books!

We had a little selfie photo shoot while James was at YM's.

He loves his bath time!

Those top two teeth are coming in!

Teaching this kid about epic greatness from the get go!

He has really become a good little sleeper (thank the heavens above!).  He has to have his binkie though.  We are in big trouble when that disappears in a couple months!

Raspberries gone wild and the picture doesn't do it justice!

• He had the biggest poop blowout on record.  It was all the way up his back to his neck.  It was horrifying!
• He has found the toilet paper rolls and thinks they are so fun!
• He had his first time out.
• Changing his diaper or getting his dressed is like wrestling match.  He doesn't like being in one place that long!
• He loves blue berries, grean beans, canned carrots, kiwis, bananas, and black beans.
• He has become very interested in the stairs.  He is pretty good at going up, but still hasn't figured out the going down safely technique.
• He likes to lead the music when we sing in church.
• Now that he has teeth on the top and bottom, he likes to grind them together.  Makes me ill!
• He says "baba" for bottle.
• He has started to get a little opinion about things and will let you know if he is not pleased about something, like taking our phones or the remote away from him.

What will the next month bring?   He is so happy and such a people person!  We love this kid!

Progressive Dinner and Hints of Spring

Somehow January (and most of February) got away from before we could get all of our schedules lined up to have our annual besties progressive dinner.  We started at the Schofield's (chips and salsa and cheese dip and little taco bites) with appetizers, then headed over to the Ellison's for the main course (grilled salmon, broccoli, potatoes, and mixed berries with cool whip).  The final stop was our house (so we could put Porter to bed) where we watched the Cougs lose to Gonzaga (like they always do when we watch it together), and ate apple crisp and Golden Graham s'more bars.  It was a perfect evening with all these people I love.

Sadie had no interest in smiling!  Hope these two littles will carry on our besties tradition when they grow up!

The whole gang!

Deeds and Kimmy were also in town this weekend, so we spent time over at Kara and Ryan's.  Porter loved their little tricycle.  Bring on spring!!