Visiting my mom

Porter and I took a trip to St. George to visit my mom in the hospital. This was Porter's first trip out of California. It was a long road trip for just the two of us but Porter did great. Here he is taking a nap with Grandma in the hospital bed.And playing with his trains in the hospital room. Porter is so good at entertaining himself. He was such a good boy. We also went outside and played in the fountain and walked around the halls and said "hi" to all the nurses.This is a photograph of my mom's gallbladder. Some people get a few gall stones and have them removed. As you can see, my mom's gallbladder was completely full of stones so they had to remove the whole gallbladder. My mom didn't notice the pain until her gallbladder was this bad because she has such a high tolerance for pain!

17 months old

The cutest kid Porter knows is himself. He can have a full conversation with himself in the mirror. And the person in the mirror actually understands him!

Porter is lucky to have so many Mothers that take care of him. Here are the mother's day photos.

Grandma Sue
Grandma Care

and Denise

Porter loves Jeckle and Jeckle loves Porter. Porter tackles Jeckle, pulls his tail, and plays with his ears and Jeckle still wants to be right beside Porter.

Porter took his first trip to the Zoo on Memorial Day with his friends Everett and Connor. Here are the boys in the goat cage playing with the goat toys.

"Hello Goat. I'm Porter. What's your name?""This is a thumbs up!"

Hanging out with dad on the front porch now that he has his own little matching chair.

Relaxing on the floor after a hard day of playing.

Trying to be like mom. Porter likes to put my sunglasses on and sit in the driver's seat. It's amazing to see how much he is really watching me.

Getting a work out with dad's pull up bar.

Speaking of working out, Porter has some new exercises. Grandma Sue taught him to squat down and stand up to the "Up and Down" skit on Play With Me Sesame. It is so cute. The first time I saw him do this, Porter had woken up in the night crying so we were laying on the couch watching Play With Me Sesame. When the "Up and Down" skit came on, Porter got off the couch and started squatting and standing up. I was in shock. I called for Tom to come and see. It's fun to see him interact more with TV and people. He has such a cute personality. He is sensitive and sweet. He has so much love for Tom and me, it melts my heart. Porter gives the best hugs and is always excited to see us. He can't sit still for 5 minutes and is a picky eater. But I love his energy. He really loves to play and be outside. He also loves the trampoline and to laugh. His favorite game is hide and seek. There's no counting, we just run and hide behind something and when he catches up and finds us, we jump out and say "boo!". He loves to be tickled and cuddled.

16 months old

This is Porter's "I don't know" look. So cute!


Everett and Porter were playing on the trampoline. They had so much fun. It was so cute! I love these little babies!




Everett loves pushing this wagon. Porter loves sitting in this wagon.


Everett is so coordinated. Take a look at Everett using the wagon as a skate board!



Porter playing at the park. I wanted to video tape him going down the slide but of course he wouldn't go down the slide for me this day.




Everett pushing Porter around in the wagon. These boys are so cute playing together. I can just see them causing trouble together as they get older.
Everett mowing the lawn with the wagon...

15 months

Porter is 15 months old.He LOVES to be in my office. Mostly because we are trying to keep him out of it most of the time. He thinks that something good MUST go on in here. Here he is reading my email. And steeling my pens. Porter is obsessed with pens lately. Porter squats and plays like this a lot. He must have strong thighs and great balance!Helping Grandma Care make biscuits. Playing at the park with Everett.Porter's new favorite place is the playground at Chick-fil-A. He loves to climb and he thinks he is one of the big kids.River is ready to be fed. She sees us feed Porter when he sits in this chair. Where is her food?Porter got an ear ache. So we just cuddled and watched Sesame Street.Porter's first motorcycle from Grandpa Blair.We took a Saturday off of working on the house and went to the air show with our friends the Terrys. And then to Chick-fil-A.

Some home movies:

Progress

We have been making some slow progress on the house. Progress at the beginning always seems to go slow because you have to get everything set up and make a lot of decisions. We made a big decision last Friday by finalizing the design of the kitchen cabinetry and placing the order through Crownpoint Cabinetry. Below are some perspectives of what it will look like. We are going with the paneled refrigerator and dishwasher so they will blend in with the cabinetry. This kitchen will have a bar with bar stools, a desk at the end, and upper cabinet boxes for extra storage. These perspectives don't show the crown molding that will be added on after the cabinets are installed.We have cleared about every tree from the yard. The old trees were just too over-grown. We plan on planting some lemon and orange trees, some flowers, and a lot of grass. We also want to put in a fence around the entire yard. This might have to wait though because its not high on the priority list. We did start on the sprinklers though so that we can add some green in the front yard. This has been the biggest sprinkler job we have ever done, starting from scratch.Tom and Gerome have been working on the new electrical meter upgrade that will go on the garage and take the meter off of the house and the overhead electrical line back to the property line. Here is their trench and conduits they have run so far. We have a permit for the meter upgrade and are just waiting for Edison to schedule our meter installation.One of the first things we did was clear the basement. Matt Richins, Rafael, and I ripped out the ceiling, cabinets, floor, walls, and doors in one day. This is what it looks like now. Once we can open up the windows on both sides of the house we should be able to get some light down there.

We tore out all of the carpet on the second floor. My mom and Tom have been working on scraping the old melted carpet pad off of the wood and pulling out the staples. I think the wood's in great condition for being 98 years old!

Rafael is our door and window guy. He has been working on getting all of the windows back in working condition by replacing the ropes and resetting the glass. Tom is currently hunting down replacement glass for the broken windows, heavier weights for some of the windows, and a place to make vintage double hung windows for the places we want to add or change windows.