It's been a LONG month!

It seemed like we packed in a year's worth of activities into the month of July, but it hasn't slowed down, yet, and it's already the middle of August! The best thing that happened was Christopher getting baptized. After much stress about when and where he would be baptized (Aaron couldn't get the scheduled day off work). He was baptized on the 25th, in Preston. It was a very nice baptism, with Grandpa Garth (Aaron's dad) able to preside, and many family members able to participate. In Christopher's letter to my parents (on a mission in Hawaii), he said he felt really really happy and did the right thing by being baptized and following Jesus Christ. I am really proud of his decision.

The week of his baptism was packed with events. On Monday, the 20th, we went to South Jordan to the Ocquirr Mountain Temple Openhouse. It was neat for the kids to be able to go and I think they all enjoyed it. Christopher has been wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese's for a long time and I happened to get an e-mail to join their club a month or so ago, so I thought I might as well, even though it's far away. It was perfect timing because I got some really good coupons, plus free tokens for Tacy's birthday and they kids were able to play as much as they wanted.

Wednesday, the 22nd, was Tacy's 4th birthday and she had a 'Princess Pajama Party'. It was really cute with 7 of her friends able to come. Aaron did an amazing job of decorating and setting up the 'tea party' with cupcakes, Kool-Aid, and candy. That night, Aaron had a work bbq/meeting and the kids played at the park for a long time. Tacy was finally able to open her presents from her family members later at night.

Thursday, the 23rd, was Christopher's 8th birthday. It started making me feel old when I had to look in the 'older boy' section to find clothes his size! We have only let our kid's have a friend birthday party every 2 years, so he didn't get one this year. We were doing fireworks for his birthday and since we had to wait until it was dark, he didn't get to open his presents until after 9PM, when Grandma and Grandpa Porter came.

Friday, the 24th, I was exhausted. Despite this fact, we went to the Logan Parade, which was pretty un-exciting. That night we were able to go swimming, and then to my brother Craig's for pizza, with all of my brothers and sisters and their spouses and children, except one niece and I don't think my brother, Craig, went swimming. It was really fun to get together with all of them.

Saturday, the 25th, was the baptism and then we went to Grandma Gayle's, in Preston, to eat and celebrate birthdays. Aaron's brother, Evan, and his family were there from California and it was really fun. That night we had the Chamber's Family Reunion in Smithfield. That is my mother's, mother's parents. For several years we have had it at Adam's Park in Logan and it was fun to go back and see my kids climbing up the trails like I used to do when I was little.

Tuesday, the 28th, we celebrated Aaron's parent's 40th Wedding Anniversary (it was in May) at Maddox, in Brigham City. All of Aaron's siblings and their spouses and children were there and it was really neat. Each family wore a different color so we could match kids in the picture, and our color was Navy. I took these cute pictures at home, right before we left.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday was Rodeo Weekend in Preston. Thursday we went to the carnival and Friday and Saturday we went to the Parade. Aaron had to work all of those days, so we just went up each night.

To keep things going, Chris, Bryce and Tacy had swimming lessons the first two weeks in August. I let Rachel play in the kid's pool during the lessons, but had my neighbor watch her the last day so I could see the other's swim. It was so neat to see how they'd progressed and to see Bryce swim half the width of the pool, back and forth, on his front and back! They all passed their levels and want to take lessons again. I want to get Chris and Bryce in again, soon, but we'll have to see.

Yesterday, we had a garage sale and although it had a really slow start crammed in our garage because of the rain, it ended up being a good success - even though we didn't even set out some of the big items. If I'm crazy enough, I will do it again this Saturday. Tomorrow Aaron, Chris and Bryce are going with our neighbor Scott Cooley and his son Kenton, Aaron's brother Val and his two boys, Anthony and Cameron, are going backpacking until Wednesday. I love to go camping, but with a new baby I'm happy to stay home! Hope it goes well, there was snow in the mountains where they are going!

Raspberries!

This is Rachel. Rachel LOVES raspberries (even the white ones!).

This is what happened to Rachel for eating so many raspberries.

OK! That's really what happens when you go swimming with a regular diaper on - I don't recommend it. Hopefully we can find these pictures when she's 16 and her date wants to see some baby pictures!Actually, we ALL love raspberries and last week I was finally able to keep the kids from eating them as fast as they picked them, and had enough to make a few batches of jam. The kids were so excited to help me make it, and Saturday night we were finally able to do it. I thought it would just be me and Christopher - or I was hoping - but they ALL wanted to help. This made me nervous it wouldn't turn out right and so I was trying to make sure they didn't spill on the table, etc, etc. I had Christopher mash up the raspberries, the whole time remembering how my mother taught me to measure the raspberries so carefully. I guess I was concentrating too hard and I completely forgot to even measure them at all before we added the sugar! That batch turned out OK, a little too sugary, but it'll have to do! I could tell I didn't have enough raspberries because the next batch made 1 jar MORE of jam! I have enough raspberries to make two more batches today, and I am hoping to NOT have so much help! It probably would have been fine if Rachel wouldn't have been ON the table trying to 'help'! Maybe I'll wait for her naptime!

Proud to be an American!

We were lucky because Aaron's days off last week were Friday and Saturday! (He could have gotten Thursday off as well, since Saturday was a holiday, but volunteered to work). He took Chris, Bryce, Tacy and Rachel up to his parent's house in Preston Thursday night while I stayed home with AJ. They took our tent and put it up in his parent's front yard. It was kind of weird having the whole day, Friday, to do whatever I wanted - between feeding AJ and playing with him. I ended up finishing most of my 'Maternity Tops' section on my website - something I have been trying to do for a long time - and finishing several pages in our Family Scrapbook - something I have been wanted to do for even longer, as I am still catching up and in 2006! Aaron wanted me to stay home to get some rest and it was a very relaxing day. Aaron brought the kids home that night and we watched the fireworks before ALL going back up to Preston to 'camp'.

We wanted to go into the stadium this year, but didn't dare get the tickets early in case the weather was bad so we went with Aaron's brother Val's family to a church in North Logan. It was a really good spot and our kids had fun running around before it got dark. Tacy fell asleep during the fireworks and Rachel climbed all over me and Bryce during the show! Saturday we went to Lewiston to the 4th of July Parade/Celebration.
My favorite part of parades are the bands playing and although there were only two bands, I loved it!
The best part about the Lewiston Celebration is running through the water! Every year they hook up a fire hose and spray whoever is crazy enough to run through it. We all did, even AJ got a turn, since Aaron had him in the tummy-carrier when he went through! I missed seeing them since I was in line forever to the bathroom with Chris, Bryce and Tacy!

We 'camped' until Sunday night and then went back up yesterday (Tuesday night) to eat with Gayle's brother, his wife (they live in Indiana), his son, daughter-in-law and 2 of their kids. Rachel was really tired and sat on Dale's lap the whole time Aaron's wonderful dutch oven potatoes were cooking! All the kids had a really fun time, and it was a great weekend!

It's A Wonderful Life!

Life is good! Here is a re-cap of some of the things going on with the Porter Family:

Jacob (or AJ, whatever you prefer) is two months old! At his check-up he weighed in at 10 lb 9 oz. which is only in the 25%! I've been meaning to compare all the kids 'stats', but haven't put them all together. I do know that Christopher was 3 lbs heavier at his 2-month appointment! It will be interested to see how they compare when they are teenagers. He is 23 1/2 inches long, which is average (55%). He is a wonderful baby and so much fun. When I change his diaper or get him dressed, he likes to coo and 'talk'. Bryce was so excited when Jacob did it for him!

I noticed Rachel wasn't playing with the other kids downstairs in the playroom so I went into the boys room and found her on the bed, just playing with lego! She'd climbed Christopher's ladder and having a great time. She just went to her 18 month appointment (at 19 1/2 mos) and she weighs 22 lbs (only 20%) and is 31 inches long (50%). She is talking and talking - which is much better than when she's screaming - and it is fun to listen to her. She is a sweet girl, but I can't find either of her last two binkies, so we'll see if I have to make a late-night trip to the store! She didn't take her nap without it (I tried to give her Jacob's and she looked at it and put it up to her mouth and then gave it back!) so we'll see.

We went up to my bro-in-laws campsite for Father's Day where we ate with his family and Aaron's parents. It was really nice and the kid's had a great time. There was a heavy rainstorm while we were there, but luckily we had just finished eating and they had a canope for the adults and the kids went into the trailer. Rachel climbed on a little rock and fell face-first and ended up with scabs all over her face, poor thing!

I'm rarely in any of the pictures, so I took this self-portrait. Aren't I gorgeous!!!

We went to a Family Reunion - The Charles Otto Peterson Reunion (my dad's side) - in Kaysville last night. Anyone can go camping at the Cherry Hills Campsite, but luckily they had the big dinner at a pavilion nearby - there was a huge rainstorm, with lightning, too. I guess Logan had lightning and one of the 'old-folks-homes' got hit! This picture doesn't do it justice, but it was pretty cool! We went to SummerFest at the Tabernacle and the kids LOVED the cotton candy! Christopher must have loved it the most - he ate his as fast as he could and lots of the other's, who didn't finish their's!

The Last 2 Weeks...

We have had a busy two weeks and there are so many pictures I want to share, I'll try to control myself!

Sunday the 24th - We went up to Preston and went to several cemeteries with Aaron's family. I saw a friend from growing up and one of my Young Women Advisors and her husband at one of the cemeteries. It was really fun talking to them. The kids had fun and fell asleep on the way home. Wed the 27th - Because of the rain, we didn't get our garden planted until Wednesday. The kids really enjoy helping. After, Aaron tied up Bryce and Christopher with the hose!

Thur the 28th - Bryce's last day of Kindergarten!

Wed the 3rd - We (OK, Aaron) finished painting the girls' bedroom and while we were picking out carpet for their room (green just didn't look good with the pink and purple walls), we decided to finally get new carpet for the hall and livingroom, too! It came on Wednesday and it looks, and feels so good!

Thur the 4th - Christopher's last day of 2nd Grade!

Saturday the 6th - I took this cute video of Jacob cooing. He was 7 1/2 weeks old.

Sunday the 7th - Aaron Jacob Porter was blessed by his dad, Aaron Burrows Porter, today. We had a lot of family support and had a great dinner after, with Aaron's wonderful dutch oven potatoes. We wanted to eat outside the church, but as it was pouring, we ate inside! We finally did it right and made the potatoes ahead of time and just warmed them up today, instead of thinking we can get them done the day of! Luckily, I had changed Jacob out of his blessing outfit when he decided to explode all out the front and back of his diaper! It was a good day and we are exhausted!

Testing - me and the kids!

Just thought I'd see how this time works. It seems the kids think it's more fun to play around when they are supposed to be cleaning off the dinner table, sweeping and unloading/loading the dishwasher (not that I blame them) so I have a test for them and we'll see if it works! I've let the kids know that I am coming into my room to read (I thought I better blog first) and I will come out at 7PM. They are to have the table cleaned off, the floor swept, the dishwasher unloaded and the dinner dishes loaded. This gives them 20 minutes, as they've already wasted 10 minutes playing around. If it's done when I go out, we can go play on the field at the church, if not we'll read for a while and they'll go to bed. While coming to my room, I heard Christopher say something to Bryce about it and when I got here, Bryce knocked on the door and asked what they were supposed to do! It's kind of funny because they have had these exact same responsibilities for at least a month! They only have 9 minutes left and I am tempted to check their progress, but I will refrain. I'll let you know how it turns out!
It looks like we're going to the church to play! Unfortunately, I didn't get the quiet time I was hoping for and this laptop is really irritating me because the cursor keeps bumping me around to a different line of text and I keep having to erase and re-position my cursor!

Sorry It's Been A While!

It's been several weeks since I posted and I'm having a hard time deciding what to write (there are too many things to choose from) so this post may be really long! I'll just make a list...

*Jacob is almost 6 weeks old! I can't believe it. He is keeping his big eyes open quite a bit and it is so fun to see. It's not too different being the mother of 5 versus 4, I just find myself counting to make sure I know where 5 kids are now, instead of 4. Christopher and Bryce are very good at helping me so I can shower or get some work done. Since Bryce is only in school in the morning, he has had to help out A LOT! Luckily, for the most part, he is very willing and very good to help play with Tacy and Rachel, or hold Jacob. He held Jacob for over two hours the other day while I got a ton of work done for our business! Of course, it did help that he was able to watch TV the whole time! I was already having a hard time balancing our business and being a mom, so now it is even more of a challenge. Our business is doing very well and I am grateful it's online and I can stay at home and work when I can. I haven't done a lot of extra things for the website, but this time is very important to me to spend with my children right now and I feel like we will be blessed in the long run. I still think it's amazing I am able to get as much done as I do - for the business and with the kids - although the housework has suffered.

*If you want to put everyone, including yourself, in a bad mood, try to take a family picture before you have to be somewhere! It doesn't matter what we do, someone always has to try to be silly during a picture and ends up getting in trouble and being grouchy. This picture was taken on the way to church on Mother's Day. I'll bet no one can guess who wasn't cooperating during this picture! :) Aaron was in charge of the Post Office Food Drive again this year, which was the day before Mother's Day and was so busy he didn't get a chance to go with the kids to pick out presents for me, but the things the boys made at school were so much better than anything they could have gotten at the store. I had just bought a new diaper bag, so I had Tacy give that to me! We had a lot of fun helping Aaron pick up food. This has been a tradition we look forward to. Even Rachel got to get out and help at one stop. It was pretty exciting how much food they were able to pick up this year and I am pretty proud of the job Aaron does with it. He is really dedicating to working with the radio station and other media to spread the word so the Food Pantry can get food.

*Well, I'll have to post again, Jacob needs to eat and now is the countdown for church - hope we make it with cheerful faces!