Porter

Olivia

Logan

A visit from some friends and Christmas!

 We had a visit from our friends the Yorgasons.  We were so glad that they came to see us.  I was so sad when they left and realized I only took these 2 pictures.  Olivia was in love with baby Mia.  It was fun to see her interact with her.

 Mia is such a happy, fun baby.  She sat there and tried to squeeze the diet coke can over and over again.  It was hilarious to see.

 We have family coming into town for Logan's baptism next week and we're going out of town this week so we set up Christmas for FHE.  The kids favorite part was putting ornaments on the tree.  It's fun to see them put up their ornaments from previous years. 

Olivia got an Aurora ornament which she is fiercely protective of.

 I had a really hard time finding something for each of the boys.  I wanted to get an Ohio ornament but all I could find is Ohio State and we're not going to have any of that in our house, (according to Brandon.)  So I found these little mushrooms that looked like they came from Mario Brothers World and since our family beat that game this year.  That's what they got, both of them.

Then Porter got upset and decided he didn't want to be in a picture at all.

 Olivia loves the tree so much she and all her gal pals decided to read underneath it tonight.  Can I just say I love my daughter and her imagination.

8 is GREAT!!!

It's happened again.  I blink and my kids have another birthday. 

 We had a birthday party for Logan at the Chaos Room.  It's a place where you can play video games on movie screens, we played arcades and had pizza.  Logan loved it!

 Logan was able to spin a wheel and get a prize he spun and got 2500 tickets, plus he had an additional 500 from being the birthday boy.  So instead of spending it all on one big prize, he wanted to divide it up and buy a bunch of little dinkie ones.  After spending forever at the ticket counter he spent them all.

He recieved some money from his birthday as well and really wanted to buy a DS game.  After thinking about it long and hard, (literally) he asked me, "Mom what will happen if I don't have enough money for college?"  That's my boy, the worrier! :) I reassured him that he would be okay and that he could spend some of his birthday money:)

We love this boy so much and are so proud of him.



Church is Hard!

Really I could just stick with the title and say enough said.  But lately church has become a total nightmare!  Without fail Olivia will throw a fit during the sacrment because she wants something she can't have.  Porter will try to go out to the bathroom because he "has to go so bad!" even though he went 10 minutes before. And then start poking everyone around him. Logan is finally at that stage that for the most part he sits and he's quiet.  Whether he's getting anything or not out of sacrament is another topic.  I just feel very frustrated.  Today Olivia and Porter got into a shoving match and she started screaming and had to be taken out.  I then got after Porter and he was mad a sulky.  The testimonies started and things calmed down for a moment.  A young woman in the ward got up and stared talking about following her parents advice even though she didn't want to she knew it was the right thing to do.  She bore a beautiful testimony and Porter looked up at me with tears in his eyes and said, "mom I'm feeling the spirit so strong!"  Tears welled in my eyes as I held this sweet boy.  Yes church is frustrating with little kids! Yes it's a battle to get there on time and to sit still for the sacrament! But it is so worth it.  While most of the time I feel like nobody in my family is getting anything out of this and why do I do this to myself by going back each week.  I get to have these little moments with my kids, where the spirit will touch them and they can recognize it and they share it with me.  I don't know if I'll really miss this stage of life of taking little kids to church, but I'm grateful for the opportunity to see my childrens testimony seeds start to grow.