Gun Show anyone?

Ellery would like to welcome you all to the GUN SHOW!!

Miss Ellery loves to lay with her arms up by her head. And I just have to chuckle every time, I think it looks like she is putting up her "muscular" dukes (chub rolls)!

One year ago today....

We are so glad you are here with us! We love you!!

(Picture courtesy of my sister Haylee)

A year ago today my Brother and Sister-in-law were in a horrible head-on car accident. Jordan was life-flighted to the hospital were he was fighting for his life in the ICU for just about a month. We are so blessed to have them here with us. I was kind of scared to have this day come, thinking it would bring back bad memories. But I was SO WRONG! This is a day that my Heavenly Father gave me to remember how much I love my family. I want each one of you to know how much I love you. Happy Birthday MOM, this is a good day!

Tag and Opposites

The rules are as follows:
List 3 Joys, 3 Fears, 3 Goals, 3 Current Obsessions/Collections, and 3 Random Surprising Facts About Yourself. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names.

Three Joys

1. Jason

2. My babies

3. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and all it entails. It is so true about what people say when you don't live near your family, how your ward becomes like family. I love my "family."

Three Fears

1. snakes, spiders

2. someone in my family dying

3. needles

Three goals

1. loose baby weight

2. start selling bows

3. better scripture study

Three current obsessions/collections

1. Finding "treasures" at Good Will and Garage Sales (It's bad, but I've found great things!)

2. Making bows

3. Trying to get Ellery to smile, and trying to get Porter to say new words.

Three random surprising facts about me

1. My feet are claustrophobic, I hate wearing lace-up shoes and boots, anything I'm not able to slip on and off. As soon as I get home or in the car, my shoes are off! And I sleep with both feet out of the covers. (Which has upset quite a few people in my life.)

2. I am obsessed with the smell of Grapefruit, I am tempted to buy anything with that scent even deodorant!

3. I never take off my jewelry, and only change out my earrings and necklace like 2 times a year

.........................................................................................................................................................................

Something to get used to!

If anyone knew porter as a baby, they know the only way he would fall asleep is wrapped up supper tight. This lasted until he was like 9-10 months old, everyone would always laugh at us. But as soon as we wrapped him up he was out in seconds.

Well since I was so used to Porter being that way I just figured I would wrap Ellery up nice and tight too. Well.... that doesn't last long, this girl likes to stretch. Total opposites!

HUNGRY?

Lunch was a little past due today witch made Porter a little grumpy. I put him up on the counter and started to mix some canned chicken for sandwiches. Porter kept grabbing for the fork I was mixing with, so I handed him a spoon and here is the result...

(sorry I couldn't get the pictures to go the right way!)

I guess he was pretty hungry!

Swimming

Cute swimmers Cute kids

Who said you could grow up?

It's official he's too big, he's off to bigger and better things! I know that everyone says it is so hard to see your baby head off to kindergarten, 1st grade etc. No one warned my about NURSERY!! Ya, ya.... I know it's not a huge deal, and NO I did not cry or anything. But honestly who said he could grow up?

I stinkin' LOVE this kid!!!!

This is how I found my cute little boy earlier today........wonder what he is looking and longing for?

His new favorite toy!!! Grammy and I were at Good Will and found this car for $3.99 and Grammy just had to get it for this car loving boy!! We have absolutely no room in our apartment for big toys like this, and even though we live on the second story and have no easy way to get it downstairs often. We had to get it!!

Just to warn you, you are in for some dang cute pictures of my little man. I think it just shows how much he loves this toy that I was able to get such good happy pictures of him LOOKING at the camera. And the first picture of him in the car makes me happier than anything. Porter pulls this face every 5 min. throughout the day. But can I get it on camera? NOT UNTIL NOW!!! I LOVE IT!

Honestly it doesn't get better than this. Porter makes me smile every second of the day. He is such a happy, easy going, loving, sweet, handsome, independent, playful, funny, BEST EVER little boy! I LOVE YOU PORTER!

And oh how he loves his sister. At first it seemed like he thought that Ellery was just something new I brought home from Target or something. But more and more each day he realizes that she is here to stay! He is so sweet and loving towards her, I have yet to see him do anything jealous or mean to her. Anytime she makes a peep he comes to check on her. Neither of my children enjoyed "tummy time" as babies. So Ellery was squeaking a little bit on her tummy this morning and here is Porter to the rescue! I hope it is like this the rest of their lives, it almost brings me to tears to think about what a good big brother I KNOW Porter is going to be to all of his siblings!

All good things must come to an end

Well it's official my parents are on the plane back to Utah :( Here are the rest of the pictures from the awesome visit! (I was too busy having fun to remember to take lots of pictures, sorry!)

rudy, Rudy, RUdy, RUDy, RUDY!! Here is a picture of my Dad at the University of Notre Dame Stadium! I'm pretty sure Rudy is my Dad's favorite movie of all time. And I love it too, probably because my Dad loves it so much!

Here we are in KIRTLAND, this is a picture of Porter up at the Morley Farm he loved exploring! Check out the big scab on his head, as soon as we got to Kirtland he jumped out of the car and headed over to the curb, he got on the curb just fine but the street won on the way down!
Porter and my Mom in Historic Kirtland.
Do you think this Grandma was excited to see her newest grandbaby (number 24)!!Grandma and Grandpa Butterfield with the kids. We could not get Porter to cooperate!
And yesterday was Ellery's blessing day, It was a wonderful day and the blessing was super sweet, Jason did a great job. Here is the proud Daddy!! Ha, Ha, sorry she's pulling a silly face, we yanked the binki out to take the picture!

Lincoln Park Zoo

My MONKEY boy! When Porter was a baby, only months old, he would make this little look on his face where his forhead would wrinkle up and his mouth made a big "O" and it looked like he was a little monkey! Ever since then I have been calling him "Monkey!"

It was so much fun watching the monkeys, they were so active. They were running around chasing eachother and sitting right infront of the glass. The big monkey laying on the ground was so cool. It is a huge "Silver Back" the picture does not do it's size justice!! I love the last picture of Porter pearing around trying to see the monkeys face. He loved every second of it!

The Zoo was the very last part of our day in Chicago. So needless to say we were all very tired and had walked all over all day long! So once we got to the zoo we didn't see much we saw lots of big "CATS" (lions, tigers, leapords, etc.) we saw Sea Lions, and Penguins. And then Porter zonked, so we decited it was time to go home. All in all the day was a lot of fun!

CHICAGO

Ellery's first trip into the city at exactly 3 weeks old! (These aren't great pictures, but they are on the train ride to town!)


Here's Jason and my dad on the water taxi. It was a cool little boat ride through the middle of down town. It took us right to the Magnificent Mile, which is so nice because last time I went down town Jason and I huffed it all the way from the train station to Michigan Ave. The $2 for the water taxi was totally worth it!! And they had a lot more at H&M than at my mall (maybe because it is 3 stories)!!!
After the Magnificent Mile (Michigan Ave.) We took a nice long walk through Lincoln Park with all the girls in their skimpy bikini's to get to this Pizza Place! Now....way before Jason and I knew we were headed to Chicago we saw this restaurant on Rachel Ray's Tasty Travels, on the Food Network and Jason thought it sounded SO yummy. They are known for their pizza pot pies, Jason and my parents could not stop talking all through lunch saying how yummy each bite was. As for me and the picky eater I am, it did nothing for me and my taste buds! But that's ok, it's the first food place I have been to that has been on Food Network, that I know of. (I love the Food Network!) Next we are hitting a Diners, Drive-In, and Dives food joint!!!
The next stop on the trip was the Lincoln Park Zoo, but that's a whole other post! So stay tuned for lots more pics. And Tuesday we are headed to Kirtland with my parents, to go and see Jason's parents! Wow, fun stuff to look forward to!