Some Christmas pictures

I am way behind posting pictures from our vacation and we are turning around and going to my in-laws for News Years so this will just have to do for now. I will try to post more pictures from the past couple of weeks after we get back.

The boys are Christmas morning. Vance was ready to open presents!

Here is a picture of Vance and I that isn't too bad! Kind of hard to believe although some cropping needs to happen...Here I am with my brothers and sisters. Eric, Holly, Glen and Rosemary.Here's a picture of our family.We were all together for Christmas and that hasn't happened since before I got married so of course we needed to take a family picture together. You have to love self timers on cameras.

Vance's birthday pictures

Vance's birthday was yesterday. I can't believe he's three! I won't be able to blame his bad behavior on him being a "terrible two" anymore...darn... Here are some pictures from his big day.
Vance got a train set from Grandma and Grandpa Porter. Vance loves opening gifts!

My mom helped me make this Kung Fu Panda cake. I was pleased with how it turned out.
Vance blew candles out of this little cupcake so we wouldn't have to figure out where to put candles on the panda bear.

Black frosting equals black lips and a black mouth!

Headed to Washington

We are headed to Washington early tomorrow. I thought I would post this picture to tide you all over for the time being. We've been working away this week cleaning out all of our place and reorganizing. Here is a picture of the boys playing in the closet.
Wish us luck driving for 11 or so hours with two little boys. Fun times. This is our first LONG trip with Vance potty trained!

Mario Galaxy

Vance loves to play Mario Galaxy on the Wii with Stephen. This lovely woman, Rosalina is one of the characters from that game. Whenever she comes on the screen Vance calls her Mom. Even as I posted the picture I walked away to do something and Vance came over and said, "Mom." I guess this makes up for the fact that he thought I had a hurt eye the other day. She's a pretty cute lady. I don't mind being mistaken for her at all.

We are busy getting ready to leave on vacation in a couple of days so I may or may not have time to post more in the next couple of days. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday! (although I'm sure I will post sometime before Christmas)

Vance's slideshow

Vance will be three next Monday. Oh my goodness! Here is the video I put together for his birthday. All of these pictures have been taken in the last year. I put it to Jack Johnson's song "Upside Down" from the Curious George soundtrack. Why? Because Vance is our very own Curious George. Just listen to the words of the song....

Early Christmas and Birthday

Stephen's parents were up for the weekend so we did some gift exchanges with them. We had a fun little Christmas party Friday night and then Vance opened some birthday gifts on Saturday and we had cupcakes. Here are some pictures.

Vance thinks he needs to help everyone open their gifts (beware those who will be around him on Christmas). Tanner seemed to enjoy the unwrapping himself.
Here are Vance, Tanner, and Luke all enjoying the little Thomas the Train set Vance got for his birthday.Tanner is showing off his new outfit from Grandma and Grandpa. He is also posing (as you can see) as he plays the Wii.

Vance showing off a cool gift from Mandy, Jake, and Luke.

Reindeer Puppets

I took several pictures of the boys with their reindeer puppets this morning and this was the only one where both of their faces were uncovered. Tanner looks mad, but he really wasn't. We are having a good time doing different Christmas activities and crafts.

Thanks Vance

Last night we had our tithing settlement so I put on a little eye make up as to not scare anyone. When I was bending down to help Vance put on his shoes he started to say, "Mom's eye is hurt." Then he pointed at my eyelid and then repeated himself several times over as he pointed at his own eye lid. I told him my eye was fine, but apparently he did not believe me. Now, from that reaction one might think that I never wear make up. True, when we are home all day I do not put make up on, but I do when we go out so it's not like I NEVER wear make up. Maybe it was just a bad make up day. Having your son think you have a black eye because of your make up is not a real confidence booster, I must say. So, thank you Vance, appreciate it...

P.S. where have all my commenters gone?

Gingerbread Fun

As usual, you can find out more about what we did today on my Mommy's Little Helper blog. I mentioned there that nothing we actually made was gingerbread, but hey you do what you have to. I wanted to do stuff that everyone would enjoy and would be easier on me. :)

Here is Vance helping make some gingerbread men with our sugar cookie dough. He loves to say, "Squish" and did so everytime he made a new gingerbread man.

Vance is checking out our graham cracker gingerbread house. He had fun decorating it, but he especially had fun eating the candy while he decorated.

Vance showing off his finished product and Tanner wanting to be part of the action too.

Tanner enjoyed a sugar cookie I gave him and yes you can clearly see it was a burned one. I gave him one that was burned because I knew he would eat it and like it...sue me! :)

Vance and Tanner both enoying their gingerbread men/babies.

Putting Up the Tree

Vance, Tanner, and I got the tree up this morning and started decorating. Since then they've both helped redecorate. It needs some more decorations, but it'll have to wait until we make some more. Here are some pictures of the boys enjoying the tree.

Christmas Tree Decorations

The boys and I are working away on decorations for our Christmas tree. I am planning on just putting homemade things on the tree (candy canes may be an exception). We'll see how it works out. Here are the boys having fun decorating our gingerbread ornaments. You can find out in more detail what is going on our tree by visiting Mommy's Litte Helper (my other blog).

More vacation pictures

Here are some more pictures from our vacation. Sean, Holly, Jillian, and Eric all came to my in-laws for Thanksgiving this year so that's why I have a picture of Sean and Jillian. Poor little thing was so tired and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to take a picture of her and her daddy looking so sweet.

I have tons more pictures so I'll probably post some more at some time.

Thanksgiving in Utah

We spent Thanksgiving with my in-laws in Utah. We had a lot of fun. Here are some pictures for our vacation.
The first picture is Tanner eating his Thanksgiving feast. He was actually in a bad mood and was sent to the crib for a nap immediately after eating.
Here is the rest of us. It is hard to get a good picture with one kid. We didn't even try both kids and us together.Christmas stuff was soon pulled out after Thanksgiving day. Here are some pictures of the boys enjoying the Santa hats that Grandma Jeppson has.I have a lot more pictures so I'll probably post them another day. Here is the finished list of things Vance is grateful for that we put on our count down turkey. They aren't in order (I didn't put them up in order so I don't remember when he said what).

Tanner
Dinosaurs
Snacks
Ducks
Dad
Apples
Mouths
Charlie Brown
Play Doh
Eyes
Vance (important to be grateful for yourself)
Hands
Outside
Wall-E
Mom
Little Einsteins
Monkeys
Cars
Dancing
Panda Bear
Popcorn
Nursery
Trains
Cats

And now you know what goes on in the mind of my soon to be three year old!

More pictures and other things

Obviously I didn't get around to posted more pictures yesterday. Here they are today though. You can see that Vance's mood had improved after church.

We saw Twilight on Saturday. When we walked in a group of women cheered for Stephen (there were only a handful of guys at our showing). I then bragged that Stephen had read the books. Yes, my husband is not only cool that he was willing to go see the movie with me, but he is extra cool because he read the books and liked them! I know, I'm lucky. :)

We are headed to Utah for Thanksgiving. I may or may not post while we are there, we'll just have to see. If not I am wishing everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Life Can Go On

We are saved! We bought a second camera so you don't have to go without pictures for a while and neither do we. YAY! Good thing too because the boys were failing on their instructions to not be cute while I didn't have a working camera. Vance and Tanner have matching Sunday outfits. Don't they look cute? I have more pictures. I'll probably post some of them tomorrow. Vance hates wearing ties which is why he is pouting in his picture. Stephen HATES having his picture taken so I don't get to do it very often, but I wanted to show off what we bought for him to wear to interviews. How do you think I did (because of course I did the picking out for everything)?

NO!

I was going to write last night, but when it came to it I decided I was too grumpy and my post would be really negative so I didn't.

Yesterday evening Tanner was in his high chair eating dinner. Vance wanted me to take pictures. He is like that sometimes. Well, he likes me to flip the screen around and take pictures of us together so he can watch. He thinks it is pretty funny. I humor him and then generally erase the pictures because 99% of the time they aren't worth keeping (beauty of digital cameras). When Tanner finished his dinner he started to get noisy wanting to get out so as I'm trying to get Vance off my lap and stand up to get Tanner, the camera (which was still on) slipped out of my hand and went flying to the floor. NO! I picked it up hoping I didn't do too much damage to it, but I could get it to do anything. Stephen came home shortly after and tried to fix it as well. I made him call customer support (fixing things is his job) and he told us to send it in to get it fixed. Unfortunately, the repair shop is in Illinois so we get to package our little baby up and send it off to be fixed. It'll take two weeks. Darn.

This is bad news people. I am obsessed with taking pictures. I take pictures all of the time. I feel naked without a working camera. We will have to get a backup camera of some kind. We could handle having a camera for Stephen anyway, right? But oh the timing of it all... The good news is that our camera is still under warranty so it should be covered (at least we are hoping).

Here are the pictures I took before the camera bit the dust or should I say the linoleum?

Not worth a broken camera, for sure!

I actually have news and cute pictures

Here are some cute boys to brighten your day. Well, at least they brighten my day. Don't you just love their blue eyes?

Okay, enough drooling over my children. This post in not suppose to be about them so much.

This may or may not be a shock to you to find out depending on what you've been told or not told. We've kept things pretty low key up to this point, but since it is official I am spreading the news the quickest way I know how. Stephen is quitting his job. His last day will be November 26 (the day before Thanksgiving). He does not currently have a new job to go to, but we are hopeful. Things are looking promising at this point to work for LithiaMotors. There are a few different possibilities there and we are hoping one will pan out for us. If not them, then somewhere else. We are looking outside of this area, but would stay if we found the right job for us.

Stephen still has a little less than month left in the semester so he will be concentrating on school while he looks for a new job.

Things at his current job have been on the decline for sometime now. I would say since about last January. Stephen would be more generous and probably say August. Let's just say it has gone in waves, but the past few months have just been a steady decline and we feel good about having him quit now.

Since Stephen put in his resignation I have had a warm feeling inside me that I haven't had in a long time. The future is unknown and when that is the case it is kind of scary, but we have an optimistic outlook. We know that Heavenly Father is aware of us and we have faith that he is guiding us in the right direction (whatever it may be). We are looking forward to this change. If you would like to pray for us please feel free to do so because we can use all the help we can get!

Musical, Sleeping, and Food

Sometimes you just need to have posts with random things that have nothing to do with each other lump together. This is what I've got for you today.

First off, here is a picture of Holly and I in front of the high school where they filmed "High School Musical". Stephen wasn't excited about pulling over so we could have our picture taken, but come on it was by the zoo so why not?

Here are the boys on our drive home from Utah....so tired....Lastly, remember me posting a picture for a contest a few posts back? Well, I'm not a semi-finalist but the good news is that my sister-in-law is, so go over and vote for her picture. The person with the most votes win and we'd all like to see her get that $500 grocery card! Mandy's picture is #16 of her cute son ready to dig into a big pie.

To Utah and Back

We made a quick weekend visit to Utah to visit with Stephen's family. His sisters were all there for a New Kids on the Block Concert and since Erin won't be able to come again for Thanksgiving we took the opportunity to see her the past couple of days. Since they are the reason we were all brought together here is a picture from the concert from Mandy's camera. And, yes I did pass up the offer to go to the concert although I was a fan back in the day (when I was like 6) :)...On Saturday morning we went to the Hogle Zoo. My sister, Holly and her daughter, Jillian came with us. We all had a lot of fun. Here are some pictures.

Tanner telling me all about the monkeys we are looking at. We were both fascinated if you can't tell.

A lot of us (like everyone minus Holly, me, and our little ones) got on the Carousal. Vance really wasn't too sure about it even though he didn't even get on anything that goes up and down.

Jillian looked like this the entire time we were at the zoo minus when she ate and minus when she fell asleep.

Vance was enjoying all the animals. We couldn't figure out what he was saying, but today it occured to me when I heard him say it again that he was saying "animals" over and over again.

Vance tells Tanner all about the cool giraffe they are looking at. He's an expert, you know.

We had a fun quick trip. We're headed back for Thanksgiving. :)