More pictures

Well, I guess it is time for another picture round up.  Is anyone enjoying these?  I am pretty good at saving a picture each day to the computer, but don't get it on the blog.  

 Tanner and I had preschool about snowmen.  We made this cute little edible snowman with marshmallows, mini chocolate chips, and a popsicle stick.

 Does anyone enjoy book orders more than their kids?  I love books!  Anyway, Vance brought home some books we'd bought through book orders this day so I made him show them off.

 Stephen was making funny faces at Porter this night and I needed a picture so Porter helped me take this picture of him.  I am sure he'll appreciate me sharing it with the world, but hey it was fun.

 Porter loves apples.  He is picky about a lot of foods sadly, but he loves anything I juice (even the yucky green stuff I don't really like) and he loves apples and a few other healthy foods aside from snack foods, which is more than I can say for Tanner...

 Here are the boys ready for church.  Stephen was doing something funny right behind me which is the only reason they are all smiling, but hey whatever works.

Here is a picture of Vance, busy doing his homework.  He had a wellness check last Friday.  He weighs 50 pounds and is 46 1/2 inches tall.  That puts him in the 75% for both his height and weight.

Well, there is a glimpse into our lives the last week or so...

New TV and other photos of the day

Here are my photos of the day from the past week.

Tanner and his cute face.  Check out those eyelashes!

At school they have a prize drawing every Friday for the kids who didn't have discipline issues that week.  Vance's name was drawn on Friday and he picked this fun coloring page with markers.  It's now hanging in his room.

Porter enjoying the piano.

Porter enjoying some Sunday dessert.

We bought a new TV.  It feels really big compared to the old one and really thin too.  We are enjoying it.  I personally, am looking forward to watching Harry Potter on blu-ray sometime soon.

I know I take a lot of pictures of Porter.  I suppose it is because he is the one that changes the fastest.  He is also the one exploring and learning about things the most and it is sure fun to watch.  Today he grabbed my phone and lounged across the stairs while he tried to figure things out on it.

Magic Stars

Stephen's folded several "Magic Stars"  lately.  They are pretty cool.  They rotate around and look really neat and are pretty sturdy.  Porter is in a stage where he loves to put things on his head.  He loves these Magic Stars and puts them on his head too, but his head is really too bad for them so Stephen made him a huge one.  It is a big hit and fits a little better on his head.

 The one on the left is Vance's and it is the normal size so you can see how much bigger Porter's is.  Fun.

Playing at the Mall

Stephen didn't have the day off, but he also doesn't leave for work until the afternoon and so we met up with his parents and one of his sisters because they were fortunate enough to have it off of work.  Our boys love it when we let them play in the play areas they have in malls so we did that this morning.  Vance posed for a picture too.

Exciting times...but not really

I spent two days this week going through the boy's bedrooms.  I have been feeling like our entire place has been over taken by toys.  I went through and got rid of lots of things in June before we moved, but it was time again.  I don't know how we collect toys so quickly, but we don't need them all especially when toys just get scattered and never played with.  Anyway, one day  I took a picture of Porter's closet because that was the main interest of the day.  I did sell a few toys to the Kids to Kids store near our house.  I got $10 from that.  Not a whole lot especially considering they took everything I brought in (5 different toys).  However, it was more than I would've gotten donating them somewhere.

 On Friday I took a picture of the boys hanging out on the couch.  Not too exciting either, but I love them.

 Porter is so cute when he plays.  I took a picture of him playing with some Cars Squinkies.  I don't even think those toys are supposed to be for kids under the age of 3, but he never tries to put them in his mouth and is really cute with them too.  In fact, I have gotten after Vance many times for having them in his mouth, but not Porter.  He is really into cars stuff still.  It's cute.  I should post a video of him doing his Lightening McQueen sound.  Instead of ka-chow it sounds like "cow" or "chow".

 We have afternoon church (again) so I took a picture of Stephen and Porter bumming around in their pjs this morning.  Moving so much we always end up with lame times for church over and over.

Learning

Porter doesn't like to wear just socks on his feet (me neither).  It's got to be shoes and socks or bare feet.  It is fun to watch him take his socks off though and that is what I took a picture of him doing yesterday.  He pulls some pretty cute faces working those socks off of his feet.

 I have been teaching the older boys to read with a book that I learned to read by (my siblings too).  I figured if it was good enough for my parents to use then it was good enough for me to use as well.  There are 100 lessons and today we hit lesson 50 so I thought I would take a picture of the boys with the book.  I do their lessons separately in case you are curious.

(I have no idea what Vance is looking at, by the way... )

A New Week

I didn't even bother trying to upload my picture or making a blog post yesterday with how slow my computer was acting.  The last two days have been pretty typical.  I didn't think to take any pictures of boys in their church clothes so I took one of Vance after dinner.

 Today I took a picture of Tanner pulling one of his many faces.  The kid is full of expressive faces.  It's fun to just watch him pull faces sometimes.

Snowy Day

One of the things I dreaded the most about moving here was the snow, but as it turns out so far this winter we haven't had a whole lot.  I have been happy about that.  However, we woke up to plenty of snow this morning and it snowed on and off today.  The boys were anxious to play in the snow because they were afraid it would melt.  Clearly, they do not remember living in Idaho.

 I picked this picture of Porter as the "photo of the day".  The reason for this is because today was the first time he has really gotten into playing in the snow and I thought this picture capture how fun he thought it was.

Skylanders

The boys enjoying their new video game "Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure".  Vance is playing while the other two watch.  Vance  and Tanner got this game from Santa Claus.  It has been a big hit with all the boys, including Stephen.  It is a pretty cute...er...fun game.

Juicer

I have been thinking on and off for a couple of years about buying a juicer.  Well, today I took the plunge and did it.  It's a Jack LaLanne model that I found at Wal-Mart. I didn't want to spend the $300+ or even half that, but I still wanted a good juicer.  I researched around and I hope this one works well for us.  The main reason for my interest in a juicer was for Stephen's benefit.  He doesn't like any fruits and hardly any vegetables.  While I have gotten into drink green smoothies (sometimes better than others) he will taste it once in a while, but never more than that because of the texture.  It's all about texture for him which is where the juicer comes in.  I think it will be good for the rest of us too.

We used it three times today.  The first time we tried straight orange juice.  The next time we mixed cucumbers, carrots, apples, and a lemon.  Tanner and Porter loved it.  Stephen and I thought it was okay and Vance hated it.  The last thing we did today was apples and a lemon.  We all liked it, but Vance.  Anyway, I am hoping having a juicer helps us all get the nutrients we need that these fruits and veggies have. There are also recipes out there that use the pulp from these fruits and veggies.  Wish us luck!

P.J.

Porter is only a couple of months away from turning 2.  Oh my!  He is obsessed with electronics still.  This has been an obsession since he was a baby.  He loves phones, cameras, hand held gaming systems, our Wii, the dvd player.  If it is electronic, he likes it.  He loves watching his dad and brothers play games on the Wii and wishes he could join in the fun.  He also enjoys books, cars, trains, and pretty much any "boy" kind of toys.

Porter isn't much of a talker.  He is really good about answer yes and no questions with a "yeah." or "no." Those are the words he uses the most.  He will say other words, but not a ton and not often.  He does enjoy making some animal noises.  His favorite seems to be a "moo" for a cow, but he will do monkey, dog, cat, pig, and horse noises too.  Of course, this is all when he wants to, not when I try and get him to.  :)  This is my photo of the day and I thought I would share it along with a few things about my little man.

Cleaning up

After we sent Stephen to work I made the boys go upstairs and we worked on reclaiming their bedroom.  It seems to have gotten a little out of control with additional birthday and Christmas gifts.  We went in and conquered.  Mostly, I conquered and tried different tactics to get the boys to help me.  After we got their room clean I hung up a bunch of posters that they'd had on their walls before we moved.  They were excited.  Anyway, that leads me to the photo of the day.  Vance with one of the posters he helped pin up.

Their posters are either Nintendo related or Cars related.  What can I say?  Following in their Dad's footsteps.

Photo a Day

I am sure most of you have seen the idea of taking a photo a day for an entire year.  I think it is a fun idea.  I even started to do it a couple of years ago, but it only lasted a couple of months.  It was a random time of the year.  I thought I would take a second stab at it and start with the new year of doing a taking a photo a day every day in 2012.  I take pictures several times a week so it shouldn't be too hard, right?  I hope.  I may or may not post them on my blog everyday.  Haven't really decided yet, but I thought I'd share the first two days.

January 1st, 2012. 

 I couldn't help but take a picture of Tanner playing a new video game he and Vance got for Christmas (Skylanders).  He was getting so into it and he has the cutest facial expressions.  Also, he was still in his Sunday clothes and had on a CTR necklace they'd made in his class.

January 2, 2012

I already realized after dinner that I had not taken a picture yet (got to keep that in mind earlier in the day) so I thought about what I could take a picture of and since I upgraded my phone today I decided that's what the picture should be about.  I would much rather have cute pictures of my children, but I suppose this was the most noteworthy thing of the day so here it is.  And no, it's not a smart phone or anything fancy, but it serves it's texting, calling, picture taking purpose which is all I really need for a phone.