The Family

This is my handsome boy ready for church. I realized that I dress him up for church, but haven't really got a picture of him all dressed up. This one isn't the best, but he sure gets compliments from all on his grown up boy look. He even took the sacrament for the first time last Sunday. He got his own piece of bread, but needed a lot of help with the water. It was so cute. His latest developement in communication is his ability to shake his head no. He loves to do it. He thinks it is a little game. He also loves to walk while holding your hands. He would gets mad/scared if you let go of one hand or if you quit doing it.

Me and my little buddy. This week on Monday was my first day of work. I have had to do some orientation which has made me go everyday from 8am-5pm. It has been hard, but good since Donna, Terry's mom has been more than willing to tend Porter. I am so appreciative because she not only doesn't mind, but I get the impression that she loves to do it. She loves to teach him new things and play with him all day. On the other side work has been pretty good. I have to sit through classes all day, but they have let us go home early many of those days. Some information is new, but most of it I have heard a thousand times before and think it is a waste of time. I am anxious to start doing the real work that I am going to do.

I got a picture of Terry and his buzzed head. The whole swimming team did and also the other coach. They say that shaving all the hair of you at the end of the season right before the big competition will make you swim faster and hopefully win. I don't think it really helps and even Terry said that it really didn't. It's all a mental thing and hopefully gets you the boost of spirit to do better. State is this weekend and hopefully they do good. I'll keep you posted.

Stars dethrone Jasper to win first sectional crown since 1985!!!

I think the late night arrivals from our dear husband and father for the past 4 months have paid off as we saw him read the front page of the sports section of the newspaper this Sunday morning. He read in a loud voice and tears in his eyes the wonderful news that was given to the world this morning that BNL won the sectional title.

The paper reads: Bus ride to Jasper secional: $75. 14 nylon spedos:$150. Two water-logged sets of coching attire (shirt, tie, slacks, and dress shoes): $250.
First Bedford North Lawrence High School boys IHSAA sectional title in 24 years: Priceless.
In other words, the BNL boys swimming and diving trip to the 2008 IHSAA Jasper sectional finals Saturday was well worth the cost. After an intense-and at times breathtaking -battle, the Stars detrhoned perennial powerhouse Jasper. 312-306, for their first xectional title since theeir 1984-1985 campaign.
After four lead changes and trailing by several points, Taylor Sanders boosted BNL with a sectional and school record time of 59.92 in the 100 yard breast stroke...gave the Stars a slim advantage with only the 400 yard freestyle realy remaining in the competition.
Silence fell, however, when Jaspertorpedoed its way to decisive win in the realy that left everyone unsure as to which school had captured the sectional crwon. After several dynamic minutes of tabulation. BNL was announced champion and the entire team (including shirt and tie donning BNL coach Marc McCay and assistant coach Terry Tlustek) plunged into the pool and celebrated the victory!!

It was good to hear how excited both coaches were for their boys that they had worked so hard with all season. Mark McCay also won coach of the year. It was a good accomplishment and I am happy for Terry and the swimming team.

Ice Storm

Its crazy to think that I grew up in Ashton Idaho where it is notorious for freezing wheather, but have never experienced what I did this week. I lived through an ice storm. It was my first one. I had heard about them, but never really knew what they were about. We looked outside on Tuesday morning and the world was covered in a sheet of ice!! It was amazing. It almost looked like snow on the deck, but when you stepped on it it was as hard as a rock. You could literally ice skate in our driveway or anywhere for that matter. School was closed for two days straight. I loved it. It was almost like having a normal family again. Terry was home and so we had breakfast, lunch and dinner together as a family for both days. We played monopoly and Lord of the Rings RISK. I am sad to report that I lost every game. AGGHHH!! I couldn't believe my horrible rolling of the dice luck. Anyway despite the poor losing streak we had a fun filled two days.

Porter is growing still (I think)!!? We went to the doctor's office today and he had lost weight, about a half a pound. He got taller though. I've got to feed that little busy body more!! Anyway, he weighs 16 lbs. 4 oz. He only has one bottom tooth on the left side and one on the top coming in. He loves to crawl everywhere and pull up on everything. He has figured out how to climb up the stairs so our latest investment was a gate. He loves to click his tongue and he does it all the time. He loves grown up food. It doesn't matter if he just ate a ton of food of his own. If he sees someone with food he'll crawl over to you, climb up you and grunt until you give him some. It is crazy. He just learned how to play patty-cake and I can't believe how fast he learned. Kids are amazing.

I got offered a job and I accepted. I am going to start working next Monday. I am really nervous and stressed out just because of all the details of getting Porter taken care of and the routine taken care of and also because I am going to be working in an area that I haven't really worked in before. I am going to be working in Mother Baby, dealing with the mother's who have just given birth and the newborns. I am excited for that!

Highlights from our Idaho trip

Our trip to Idaho was a wonderful break that we enjoyed with everyone. Our original intention to go to the Rexburg temple dedication was postponed due to President Hinckley's funeral. We will just have to go to the Rexburg temple on our next visit. We had fun everyday spending time with family and friends.Of course many of our days were filled with playing games. There was no school for a full week, so we had lots of time to fill.

One of the major highlights was to be able to see Marianna play in her basketball district tournament. She played so good and we all cheered really loud. She had quite the fan club as you can see. It was Mary's idea to get the cousins to wear Marianna's nickname Merna across their shirts as they cheared at the game. It was a rare occasion to see it spelled correctly though. Most of the time it was ANREM, NAMER or RENAM. Anyway it was the thought that counted and Marianna loved it!!

The cousins had fun playing together. Even though Porter is the smallest he did pretty good holding his own. He got his pacifier stolen countless times. It didn't bother him though he would just crawl around on Grandma's floor and find something to put in his mouth instead.

We even got a wrestling match in. It was fun to watch Sam be the coach. I mainly went to see a few other people from Ashton that I wanted to say Hello to.

Marianna was fun to talk to and tease. She is so wonderful. We talked about college and boys, the play and upcoming Junior Miss. She is doing great and she loves being a senior. I told her that I was jealous of her high school fun. It just reminds me of that fun time in life of high school and college. I also told her that I was amazed at what a good babysitter she is. She just takes care of all the neices and nephews with ease. I think that is so neat.

We had a girls night out and went to a movie. We had so much fun together. My mom and Marianna came too. We took and afternoon and made a little cousin craft where we decorated a clothespin and made a scrapbook page and clipped it in it. It makes for a cute little photo stand.

One of the big highlights was to have Monica come. We can't believe she made it and she almost didn't. She drove from Salt Lake to Ashton in the storm of the century. She had practically made it there, but 100 yards from our house she ran off the road. Luckily she was close enough she could walk to our house and then Sam came and got her out. She is so fun to talk with. Especially when we get to listen to her boy drama.

We were sad to come home, but know that we will be back soon for Marianna's graduation!!

Happy Birthday to Me!!

My birthday was on Wednesday and it was wonderful. You know you are loved when you get 20+ cards/phonecalls/emails/happy birthday songs sung to you in one day. It really was a great day. I went out to lunch to Casa Brava a mexican restaurant with all of Terry's sisters and sister-in-law. It was so much fun. Donna watched the kids while we went. Then Terry took me out to this really nice Italian restaurant in Bloomington. We dressed up a little and really felt like we were living the high class life. It was fun to be there just the two of us. Terry was so cute. He wanted to surprise me and had done some looking around and talking to everyone to pick just the right place. He did good and I almost think it is my new favorite restaurant. Needlesstosay we won't be going there very often due to the price, but it was fun to do for this special occasion. One of my other favorite things was a little scrapbook card/album from Tania with a few pictures of me and Miller and Dallin. It is soooooo cute! As I remember back I can't believe that I was there when both of them were newly born. I'm glad that we have had other special times too throughout their growing up years. It is really a treasure. Anyway, I mainly wanted to write about my birthday to thank everyone for their friendship and love. Thanks for remembering me!!

Picture time

Just wanted to share Porter's 8 month old pictures with everyone! He is so handsome!

Just an update!

I have applied for a few jobs and had an interview. My interview was to possibly work in the OB unit of the local hospital on the Mother/Baby side. We'll see what happens. I have mixed emotions about starting working. I've put it off for quite sometime and now think that it would be good for me to work just a couple days a week, just part-time. I have loved being home with Porter everyday. I am also grateful that if I do work there are so many willing to help out and babysit Porter. Mainly Terry's mom, Donna, she is retired and has helped out so much with babysitting Porter already.

Terry is loving swimming, but is now counting down the weeks of when it will be over and he will be able to spend more time with us. He is also starting to apply for jobs for the next school year. Hopefully he will get a teaching job.

I am most excited about the upcoming week when I will be going to Idaho to enjoy some much needed family time that I didn't get over the holidays. I am going to go to the Rexburg temple dedication and attend a session there to before I come home. I hope I can see Marianna play some ball at her district basketball and have a wonderful time with the anticipated cousin craft with all the girls.

All Boy

Porter loves dogs! I can't believe how much he enjoys them. Most kids I think would be scared of them, but he just wants to grab them and let them lick him and everything. On Sunday Alida's fiance Aaron brought his dog to stay the weekend, when we went over there Porter was in heaven with his dog Mali. We were in the other room when we hear a loud giggle from Porter. Katelynn and Sam were playing fetch with the dog and it just made Porter laugh. Every time the dog would jump up in the air Porter would let out these big belly laughs. It entertained all of us for quite a few minutes.

Could Beethoven be in our midst??

Porter has now began to officially coordinate arm and leg movements for me to say with proudness that he is crawling!! I say that with mixed emotions because it is so fun to see them grow and develope, but at the same time it is sad to see my stuff broken, eaten and destroyed within seconds of him being out of my sight. He is also pulling himself up on everything. I can't believe that he can do it. I didn't think that he was strong enough to. It just started a week ago and now he thinks he can pull himself up on everything. Last night as we were watching TV we looked over to see Porter pull up on the piano bench. It didn't stop there though. He reached his little hand up higher, I am sure to grab on, but to his amazement music was heard. We couldn't keep him away from the piano for the rest of the night.

Happy New Year!

It is so good to be back to what sometimes gets to be feeling like the grind. My house is clean. Porter can take a regular nap. Exercising is back and of course nutritious food is being cooked. I do miss spending time with Terry, but getting things done feels great too! I have a lot of goals for myself for this next year many of which I know will make life much easier.
1- I am going to read my scriptures in spanish everyday. YEAH!! I got them out, wiped the dust off of them and got my colored pencils ready. It has been fun so far! The memories of the spiritual experiences of my mission come flooding back to me.
2- Become an ace at the organ. Actually I only wish to be able to play the hymns during sacrament meeting without making a million mistakes :)!
3- Get out of debt! Could it be possible!
4- Keep up on my blog and scrapbooking! I would say write in my journal more often, but I have decided that they are a wonderful substitute.
5- Attend the temple every month (with or without Terry). I know it sounds bad, but I don't mean it to. I want to go with him everytime, but it has become our excuse that we are to busy and it is hard to leave Porter for that long, so I have no excuses now. I hope we can go together often, but if not I am going alone!

Thanks to everyone for your comments. I love that you care about me and my family so much. I really enjoy reading about you all too!

Christmas Day

The fun started on Christmas eve whene we went to the Bailey's home for dinner and to see Santa. Thanks to Meemo and Grandpa Kern they have a wonderful tradition that includes Santa coming and being able to sit on his lap. Santa knows the children by name because he comes every year. There is a lot of chaos as the children each get a present from him. We went home and opened our own pajama presents before getting to bed. We got up early on Christmas morning to open presents and head to Grandma and Grandpa Tlusteks to open presents there and have breakfast together. Porter enjoyed eating the wrapping paper and pulling of the bows. He would have loved to have a big bag of bows to eat and play with. He liked the new toys we got him and a few new types of food to enjoy. He has a new tooth so we got him a toothbrush and toothpaste. Terry's two favorite gifts were the 7-in-1 grill/smoker and the Harry Potter jelly beans I got him. He loves it and tells everyone in detail all about it. His other favorite Bertie Bott's every flavor beans were a highlight for everyone. There were many dares given and dollars recieved to eat the worst of the beans vomit and rotten egg. I am proud to say that I tried every flavor!! The flavors were soap, pickle, sausage, booger, earwax, dirt, earthworm, vomit, rotten egg, and black pepper. We both finished reading the Harry Potter series at the end of this year and thoroughly enjoyed them. Terry gave me a beautiful diamond necklace and some clothes. I was surprised that he picked so well. This holiday season was a lot of fun. Terry's whole family was there. Another big news item was to hear that not only is Alida getting married, but she is going to stay around here in Bedford. I am so happy for them and am happy she will still be around to enjoy spending time with. I got so many Christmas Cards this year and I loved hearing about everyone's successes this past year. Thank you to everyone!

Stockings and Snow

Not only was I excited to get a package in the mail, but I got to open it before Christmas. And the best part of all was that the package contained these fun stockings from my mom. She made them. I was so excited to get them and consider them one of my prized possessions. I have been waiting all year for them, because we picked the fabric out together last year during black Friday at JO Ann's Fabric. They turned out wonderful! Thanks again Mom!!
It snowed!!! YEAH!!! I was worried t wasn't going to snow before Christmas, but it did. We got up early to go take some pictures and play in it for a while because I knew that it wasn't going to last very long. Porter didn't know what to think. He just touched it gently then licked his fingers.

I saw Mommy kissing Santa Clause

We went to our ward Christmas party. We had a special visitor come and guess who it was Santa!! If Porter could talk he would have told you that he saw mommy kissing Santa Clause, because it was Terry that dressed up. He was so excited to be Santa. Especially with Porter. It was the first time Porter saw Santa. He loved it!! He wanted to grab that white beard and pull.
We have been trying to be on the ball and send out our Christmas cards with pictures in them. Every attempt has failed. I just haven't been happy with the pictures that we have taken. This was one of them and as you can see Porter's face is blurry. Hopefully we'll get a good picture sent out before Christmas!
We had to take a picture together with Santa. Don't worry Porter's not mad because he's sitting by Santa. He's mad because I won't hold him right next to him and let him play with his beard and fur coat.

Candy Shop

Anita Horn and Diana Megnin from the ward invited me over to have a candy making day with them. We made a whole day of it and made all different kinds of candy. We dipped turtles and peanut butter balls, baked sugar cookes and bar cookies. We made about 10 different types of things. I was so grateful that they included me in the fun. What a way to get into the Christmas spirit both by being included and by making the Christmas candy favorites!
They sent me home with a whole bunch of it. What a treat, now my treat plates are done and I look like such a homemaker.

Porter loved it too!! His favorite as you can see from the picture were the 3 dogs that they have. Porter LOVES dogs. They will keep him ocuppied for hours. He pets them and talks and laughs at them. These little dogs loved him too, they wouldn't leave him alone. They kept licking him and pushing him in his walker. It was so funny to see.
We listened to Josh Groban's new Christmas CD and talked and laughed all day long.
There were a few recipes that I already knew, but some were new to me and will become a family favorite!!

The Fun Begins

In all my excitement to spend hours surfing the net, I have neglected Porter a little bit. The other day he was just playing away in his new walker one minute and then the next thing I knew it was dead silent. The cute little guy had fallen asleep mid play.
Caught red handed. I didn't think that I was going to have trouble with him this Christmas. I didn't think he was good enough at his army crawl to get to the presents. I was wrong and we have practically the whole month left to keep him from eating them or ripping them open!
I scooted him back and he got right back to them!
As you can see from the video he is unstoppable now. The moving has started!

Merry Christmas!!

This is our family photo in front of our Christmas tree! You can even see our piano in the background. It looks from the picture like we are finished unpacking. Looks can be deceiving!! I don't have anything up on the walls yet and am looking forward to doing that. Terry couldn't believe me when all I could think about was getting the christmas tree up amidst our chaos of moving. It was the first thing I wanted to do. He is happy now though. He has to admit it looks really good and is getting us more excited for the holiday season.



Porter is 7 months old today!! Yeah! His next step is crawling. It's amazing to see how they go through the process of learning how to do it. He has got the army crawl/scoot down. He can get his knees up into position, but he just sits there in the crawling position. You can almost see him thinking "now that I'm up how do I get to that paper I want so bad!" They learn fast though. He also is just a talker. During Relief Society yesterday someone was holding him and he was just playing with some toys and talking away. If it were me I would have put his pacifier in his mouth so that he wouldn't disturb anything, but all the sisters loved it. They were just smiling at him like crazy. It is fun to hear him wake up in the morning and just be cooing away in his crib.

Highlights of Moving In!!

1. Visiting teachers and sisters of the church in general are awesome!! It was only them and us that showed up to help us move on Tuesday. They were such troopers. They helped us move all the stuff acrossed the street to our new duplex and even started to help get stuff organized. I am so grateful for that.

2. I love new things. We have been putting Porter on the ground with no fears. If he falls over he won't crack his head open, nor will he get as dirty.

3. I can't live without the internet. We just got it installed today and it is so fast. It takes like one second to go to the next page. I haven't had internet like that ever in my home. I know that I am going to get a lot more done now.

4. I love visitors. I don't know what it is about a new home. It might be because it is so much more homey and inviting, but we have a lot more visitors now. I am so grateful for that.

5. I love to play the piano. A cousin of Terry's gave us their old piano. YEAH!! It is like an early Christmas present. It is really old and worn, but it is a treasure to me. It reminds me of that poem about the touch of the Master's hand. I've cleaned it up a little and sounds so sweet when you play Christmas music on it.

6. Terry's favorite is Space. We have so much more room than before. It is small compared to our giant dream home, but for now we are living in the lap of luxury.

He's sitting up!!

This past weekend Porter has been perfecting the art of sitting up. He can do it for a long stretch of time, but eventually gets off balance and falls. It's quite an accomplishment.

Porter's other great accomplishment is falling asleep on his own. YEAH!!! I just lay him in his crib and he puts himself to sleep. What a blessing it is and I don't even know how he started doing it. I have decided that I can't complain about him not sleeping the whole night. This makes up for it. I don't have to sit there forever trying to help him fall asleep because he does it on his own now. He ends up in crazy positions like this sometimes though.
Porter loves his pacifier. It has become his favorite toy. He is always trying to succeed in stuffing the whole thing in his mouth. I don't think it will fit, but he gets most of it in by putting it in sideways like you can see in the picture. It is so funny.

Our Family Photo

This is a little late. We took it in July, but thought it would be fun to have on our blog.

California

Well this last weekend I fullfilled a long time dream of going to California. I left home Thursday the 8th and returned on the 11th. Some old roomates and myself got together and kind of had a last hooray because the last of us is getting married in January. We picked this time to do it, because everyone's schedules fit perfect. Thursday I flew into L.A. and met up with my friend Jared who had flown in from Colorado. Our other friend Keldon who lives in L.A. picked us up and took us to his place for the night. That night the three of us sat up until about two o'clock in the morning talking about anything we could think of. Friday morning the groom to be, Ryan came and picked Jared and I up and brought his fiance Larissa. It was awsome to meet Larissa, she is a great person and ryan and her fit very well together. Keldon had class that day and so he was unable to hang out.
Ryan's parents and brother Stuart and his family were all in town also and because Stuart is in the Air Force he was able to purchase really cheap tickets and we all went to Knotts Berry Farms Theme Park in Orange County. It was alot of fun riding the rides and just being able to hang out. It was during this time that both Jared and I wished we had had our wives and kids with us. We talked all day about how our wives would have loved this or that, or would have loved to ride a certain ride. That night Jared and I stayed with Ryan at his house. Ryan lives with seven other guys and the place was a total bachelor pad complete with aluminum foil on the attenas and stains in abundance on the carpets, it also had a very "guy" smell to it (if you know what I mean). It was at this point again that Jared and I both were greatful we were not still single and had wonderful wives that liked to make our homes very crafty and homey and smelling good.
On Saturday morning Larissa invited us to go surfing with her sister Pam and brother-in-law Mike. Surfing is something I have wanted to try since I was a kid and we all jumped at the chance to go. Keldon drove down to Seal Beach where we were and joined us for the day. We had a blast. I have been told time and time again that surfing is not easy and guess what? It wasn't easy. It was, however, very fun. I got all the way up on the board three times, rode in on numerous waves and tumbled in the surf for the rest of the time. It was tough, but was alot of fun. We surfed for about three hours then cleaned up and went to eat with Ryans family. We were beat to death. After we ate Jared and I rode back to L.A. with Keldon.
That night Keldon took us to Santa Monica and showed us "The Promanade on 3rd." 3rd street in down town Santa Monica is shut off from traffic and is a big strip mall. they had all sorts of cool stores. We got to the end of the strip and went to poke around in the Barnes & Noble there. I was standing there with both Jared and Keldon and Jared pointed out a man that was looking at some books and said, "hey isn't that guy famous?" I looked and there was the actor Donald Sutherland. Jared kept trying to get me to go say hi to him and after some convincing I went and stood next to him and quietly asked him if he was who I thought he was. He informed me that he was, I introuduced myself (as if he really cared); shook his hand and asked if I could get a picture with him. He said "no" but was very polite however. The next morning we got up, had some breakfast and flew home. I had alot of fun in California, but I missed Bethany and Porter and knew it was time for me to get home. Let me tell you, any ideas that I ever had about wanting to live in a big city like that were gone. I like my small towns and lots of space.

Here we are, this is one of many cool little videos I have.

Here are various pictures of surfing and the steam train at Knotts Berry Farms