Christmas found us once again!

Well, we had an awesome Christmas and a great new year! The highlights over the last month were Austin's 1st birthday party in which he decorated his face with his cake! The picture says it all. He was a little timid at first, but his sisters helped by plunging his innocent face into the cake. Yes, our daughters have wonderful manners. We are proud parents. :-/ Anyhoo, also shown is Austin playing with his new birthday toy, yes, a tonka truck. Yes, father is proud. Son has a new man toy. Cowabunga! One of the things we enjoyed about this Christmas was . .we did more homemade gifts for each other. It does my heart good to see the girls be so giving with each other and the family. . . also, we did something which was a first for our family and put together a package to send to the troops overseas. This was really cool. . .doing these kinds of things is what makes Christmas the most meaningful to me. The Christmas spirit is definitely not all about all of the cool stuff we can rake in. . . I am thankful to be reminded once again of that babe born in Bethlehem. I am grateful for him. Happy new year!

TEETHING BITES

READ THE SHIRTS, PEOPLE.

Teething bites. Look at these faces. Do we look like we enjoy swollen gums which are causing fevers, headaches, and general orneryness? Do we look like we revel in well-meaning parents and relatives inspecting our mouths bi-daily to see if anything has cut through yet? Leave us alone and stop touching our aching, red gums. Stop showing our mouths to anyone you can think of. Don't you have anything stronger than Infant Tylenol? How bout the stuff Dad has stashed in the back of the medicine cabinet from the last root canal. . . .yes, Lortab, that's it. Yes, just crush it up and dump a little right in my bottle. No, it's not going to hurt me. At least no more than this #@!*& tooth. Our gums are thumping and our mouths have a heartbeat.Teething bites!

Austin is petitioning heaven for help and Ollie looks like he wants to knaw on your head.

How do us moms get through teething? Good thing these babies are sooo cute even when they are teething! Austin is adorable, sporting like 6 new sharpies. They all came in, like, at once. Yes, I'm serious. He likes to bite things with them, it hurts too. He has another one coming in and his gums are kinda purplish and puffy. Poor kid! We also don't have to vacuum anymore because he is picking up every little microscopic thing off of the floor and eating it!

Now if the rest of the brood could just decide what they are going to be for Halloween my life would be super! They don't like any of my ideas (all of which are free or close to it) they like THEIR ideas which involve boo-koo $$$$$$$.

Has anyone ever played Wackee Six? It's a really fun game! I'd recommend it to anyone. Especially when your kids are smarter than you because then you never win and they make you look like an idiot.

Just kidding I win every once in a while. When I do I scream really loud.

I just went to the store. Sour cream is 99 cents. So are baby carrotts! What a deal! Cereal was like $1.50 a box but I had to buy like 25 boxes to get that price and I wasn't in the mood, so the cereal didn't happen. I bought whole wheat spaghetti and I think it tastes the same as regular. Eric doesn't think so though. But he ate it anyway.

Another day in the life of the Porter clan has just made history.

I am being dragged kicking and screaming into the blogging world by my well-meaning younger sister Jess! So here it is, MY BLOG! I know, I know, our baby boy Austin is not in the family picture. But it's almost 10 p.m. and this is the best picture I can find so we'll have to work on the family picture with Austin in it later! A summary.. . . Eric has been working in Texas for the last 8 months and so it's been just me n the kids. They are all still alive and I am not currently seeing a shrink so I guess we're hanging in there alright! So what have we been up to today? Well, Austin likes to eat and make gurgley sounds. He had smooshed peas for dinner, poor kid! Mckinlee has just started ballet lessons and Lindsay and Ashley just started tumbling, so today we've been pirouting and doing handstands in the living room, with Austin looking on and screaming at the appropriate times. Then I showed Ashley how to clean the bathroom (again) and Lindsay and Ashley got in a slapping fight and whacked each other in the face a few times. It's all fun and games until someone starts crying and then it's drama for the next 10 minutes and I'm wondering how many Tylenol I should take for the headache I've just developed. Bedtime . . . . . ahhhhhh. Goodnight angels. Now its "me" time and I'll probably horse around on the computer for awhile. I'm getting a sore throat too, darn! A day in the life of the Porter's!