Porter's A Sledder

Porter loves sledding too! We are going again in two days and maybe we'll get some more video.

Walker is Extreme

It was a cold, cold annual sledding party on Boxing Day. But the boys braved it and they have been asking to go back ever since!

Happy Birthday Luke!

Today was Luke's birthday!!! My baby is ONE!!! We celebrated with the entire family on Sunday so that we could have a joint party with his cousin Gavyn, who turned one just three days ago.

The boys were a little confused when we all sang to them. I guess 10 cousins and 12 adults can do that to a one year old!

As per tradition the boys each got their own cake to do what they wished with. Luke wished to demolish his. Heartily.

And the kid couldn't leave the whipped cream alone. He bawled when we took it away. So I may, or may not, have given him a whipped cream yarmulke.

This was Gavyn's present but Luke was thoughtful and helped him open it.

And once again, I was out of birthday wrapping paper. No Christmas paper for Birthday gifts in this house so I made my own again! LOVE IT!

We are so blessed to have Luke in our family. The kids a little spit fire of red headed attitude but we love him anyway :) If he's angry he'll let you know it but if he's happy he'll let you know too. He likes to snuggle by leaning his head on yours and he thinks his brothers are pretty cool. He likes to mimic them and we just love having him around. We love you Luke!

Twas the Night Before Christmas...

...and all through the house...


The stocking were hung...

The boys were pretty pumped Christmas morning. We heard them come running up the stairs shouting that Santa had come and getting any sleep after that was pretty much not going to happen!

Luke decided to help himself to the cookies and milk that Santa didn't finish off.

Walker go the best present he could imagine... more costumes!

And the boys were happy to show off their new backpacks and BYU sweatshirts courtesy grandma and grandpa Hurren. Thanks!!!

And I was super happy that Luke liked his awesome sock monkey that I found at www.etsy.com

Plus he made a huge breakthrough and learned how to share! Care for a piece of gnawed on chocolate Santa?

We had such a great Christmas and we are so grateful that we could spend it with family and friends. Of course we missed our family in Utah but hopefully we'll get to see them this spring.

Back to Bethlehem

Our ward did a Back to Bethlehem this year for the Christmas party. It was a great success!



And while Mike looks less than thrilled to be here, if you know him at all, you know that this photo is greatly deceiving. He was STOKED the entire night!

School Christmas Concert

We got to go to our first ever elementary school Christmas concert this year. Well, the first one that neither Mike, nor I were in. It was hilarious. Porter's class sang "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth". They did a great job!

Luke loves his cousin McKay!

Holiday Fun

For Family Home Evening the other night we decided to make a gingerbread house. It was a blast!

Fun Little Craft

I didn't post about these sooner because I was giving them as a gift to someone that reads this blog occasionally. Anyway, of you're looking for a fun and quick little gift to give this Christmas look no further!

Happy Birthday Porter!

Porter turned 5 yesterday! Mike and I decided that since it was his birthday he was allowed to do pretty much anything he wanted. Well, he took that to heart and did the following:

2:30 a.m. - woke up, got dressed and came out of his room. Luckily I was still up, making some Christmas presents. I let him know that it was a little early to be getting up and he shuffled back to bed.

5:00 a.m. - woke up and decided to play Lego Star Wars on the Xbox.

8:00 a.m. - let me know that for his breakfast he would like a coke zero and taquitos. My response... why not?


9:30 a.m. - cousin Justin comes over to play.

10:00 a.m. - cousin Bridger comes over to play.

1:00 p.m. - feed the boys grilled cheese sandwiches and open presents.


2:00 p.m. - Mike loads the boys up and takes them to Prince George to swim and go to McDonalds. (Porter's choice!)

8:00 p.m. - Mike returns with three very happy, very tired boys!

Birthday Successful!!!

We Love You Porter!

On another, somewhat related, note...

When I found out I was having a baby that was due in December, I was quite excited, until a ton of people started telling me that I probably should have planned it better. According to them, a December baby was not a good idea because December birthday's always get mixed in with Christmas stuff. Frankly, I was just happy to be having a baby but right then I made a goal to be sure to keep his birthday separate from anything Christmas. And then I went to wrap gifts and realized all the paper I had was Christmas!!! AHHHH!!! What's a mom to do?!? Luckily I did have some butcher paper, some scrapbook paper and a glue stick and ... voila!

Family Christmas Card

I am seriously getting to love Photoshop! I made these cards using a photo I got taken at the mall with the boys on Santa's lap and then the rest is Photoshop. I'm loving how they turned out and just in case I didn't have your e-mail or address, you can see our card here.

Merry Christmas!

(you should be able to click on the image to make is bigger)

My bestest friend from Hogi Yogi days nominated me for this fun award!!!

This is not a difficult BUT here are the RULES for presenting this, hopefully soon, sought after award:

1. Pick 5 Bloggers that you consider as your best blogging buddies and deserves this award for their contribution towards the blogging community, no matter what language.
2. State the name of the author of each blog as well as a link to each one's blogs.
3. Each blogger (upon acceptance) of this award should do a post and show the award on their blog and put the name and link to the blog that has given her/him the award.
4. Link to MY blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5. Show these rules...SIMPLE!

Here are MY picks:

Kelli
(ok, so I know she is the one that voted for me, but I can't not pick her. Her blog is totally a fave of mine!!!)
Jyl
(She's just so crafty! and her blogs crack me up! eg. click here.)
Kara
(I steal ideas from her often! Plus she has a cute new baby girl you should see.)
Mindy
(Sorry, her blog is private but her kid is adorable and she has great posts about the everyday things!)
Lauri
(Oh goodness! Scroll through old posts to see some beautiful wedding cakes she has decorated!)

Dear Santa...

Porter recently got his first report card and while he met all the expectations for a kindergartner, he exceeded the expectations in two areas... READING and WRITING. I was super excited for him! His teacher (Mrs. Rancier), is now sending home books for him to read and sign off each school day. I think I am going to have to go in on Thursday however, and ask her for some that are a little more difficult. It takes him about 2 minutes to read them and he's done. I think he needs a little more of a challenge. Anyway, Mrs. Rancier suggested we practice writing at home more often, to allow him to progress even further. One of her suggestions was to let him write his letter to Santa all by himself. She suggested not worrying about the spelling but just to allow him to sound out the words phonetically. We did just that and this is his letter to Santa:

Here is what he wrote:

dEar SaNta

For Krismis i Want a
Baddl droid Costum ENd
oBEWuN ENd LiTsaBr
ENd aNuciN Costom
EnE SdoWarS

LUV POrtEr

I'll translate:

Dear Santa,

For Christmas I want A
Battle Droid Costume and
Obi Wan and Light Saber
And Anakin Costume
Any Star Wars

Love Porter

I think he did a pretty good job for a 4 year old! (Okay, so he's almost 5 but still...)

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

It's finally starting to look like Christmas around here! I've been so busy doing so many other things that my Christmas decorating was put on the back burner. Thankfully, I found the time to make it a priority and the house is DECORATED for the HOLIDAY!!

"Kitchen Tree"

"Living Room" Tree
All of the ornaments on this tree are homemade!!!

This is the main tree in the house. I LOVE it and yes, I can see that it is crooked. I didn't notice that until I took the photo, but rest assured, it will be standing straight and proud tomorrow!

And the main tree with all the lights on!

Yes, you did count three trees total. But that's only because I wasn't able to get a picture of the fourth tree in the house. It's set up right by my boys' room and they were trying to go to sleep. I didn't want to wake them up! It's decorated with some pretty ribbon and nativity ornaments. I was finally able to find a place for my collection of olive wood nativity ornaments I got when I was in Jerusalem!

Shameless Copier That I Am....

I loved Kara's Advent Calendar that she posted about here. I thought it was too cute to not do one of my own and so I did! My favorite part? The GLITTER!

Kindergarten Pictures

I love this kid!

Long Time Coming...

This project has been about 4 years in the making. Kara took these awesome photos of Porter when he was about 9 months old. They were part of the Nativity photos that we do every year. I loved how they turned out and wanted to frame them a long time ago. I was going through some stuff the other day and pulled them out and finally decided to get them done. Now I just need to do the same for Walker's and Luke's photos!

You can tell by the complexity of the project why it took me so long to complete :)