Porter 18 months

 

Porter has the greatest facial expressions.  Every once in a while I catch them on camera.

He walked around like this for a good 2 minutes before finally finishing it.  Such a goober.

Chillin’ with dad.

Porter was attempting to crawl up the stairs with a ball in his hands.  Sadly he slipped and hit his face on the stair.  Luckily he was on the first step and wasn’t seriously hurt but he did have a nice shiner for 2 weeks.

I felt like a horrible mother going out into public with him like that.  On the upside a lot of mothers would stop and comment and then share stories of their kids black eyes.

Sometimes having a big brother and sister can come in handy.

Like for playing “piggy back”!

Tutu & Papa Jack

 

We enjoyed a nice weekend with Tutu & Papa Jack!  They even made quite the drive just so we could eat Popeye’s Chicken!

And because Papa Jack is retired military, we were able to get onto the base which is just a mile behind our house.

It was really neat to get up close to some of these display planes.

Tanner is convinced he is going to be a pilot (at least for today).

We had been living here almost 5 months before we found out that the Hindenburg disaster happened here.  Pretty much in our back yard.

They have this little memorial on the site where it went down.

The large grey building in the back ground is where it was stored.

Fascinating and educational!  Thanks Tutu & Papa Jack!  We never would’ve seen it without you!

Fun Fair & Beach

 While I went to go help clean the church on Saturday morning, the kids and Paul headed to their school for their Fun Fair.  It was chaotic to say the least but the kids had fun and unfortunately came home with 2 goldfish.  So far (as of Tuesday morning) they are still alive but I predict they won't last long. 

 The kids really enjoyed getting their faces painted.  Tanner was super proud of that shark

 Later in the evening we headed out to find a park so the kids could burn off some energy.  Well, Paul's park ended up being a figment of his imagination (read here: a flop) so we parked and walked on the beach in Point Pleasant.

 The weather was amazing on Saturday!  I hope we continue to have more days like it!  I'm so over winter.

 There were even a few surfers out catching the waves.  I couldn't believe it.  I was freezing just standing there (it was a nice day, but windy).

New Jersey sunset

A nice view!  Even if there is snow on the ground.

Paul's new office

 9 months and 2 temporary offices later, Paul finally has a permanent office! 

I'm quite proud of Paul and what he's accomplished here so far.  He designed this office from the bottom up.  My favorite part is the bar seating in the back.

The cubicles.

The front area of the office

The display kitchen

The many cute faces of Porter

 His current favorite toy.  It used to be a storage box for Melissa and Doug blocks, but right now it's a storage box for Porter's hiney.

So thankful I get to be home with this goober.  He runs me ragged but I wouldn't change it for anything!

Philadelphia, PA

 We had a bunch of Hilton Honor's points we needed to use up so we headed to Philadelphia for the weekend to see what it had to offer.  We stayed at the new Home 2 Hilton which was really nice and right across the street from the Reading Market.  I wish I had taken a picture of that place, it was so neat!  And crowded.  But it had great food and the prices were not bad at all!  We spent a lot of time at the indoor pool at the hotel (of which I also forgot to take pictures).  We ventured out Saturday afternoon in the car.

 This is the the new Philadelphia temple in progress.  So neat to see it being built.  And only an hour from our house, it's not a bad drive.  Only a $5 toll too which if you compare it to getting to NYC temple, it's like $50 just in tolls.

 They had some interesting stuff to see around the city.

 Paul called this the artistic hippy sculpture.

 The Masonic Temple

 Benjamin Franklin statues were everywhere.

We even drove passed Betsy Ross' house.

We wanted to go tour the mint and see the liberty bell, but decided to do that either without kids or when it wasn't so dang cold.

New Years Eve

Can I just say I'm not a fan of New Years Eve?  My children have always been early risers regardless of what time they go to bed the night before.  And if I'm sleep deprived, I'm cranky.  And if I'm cranky and have to deal with cranky sleep deprived children who don't nap anymore, we're all miserable!  Therefore, I'm always in bed before midnight and fast asleep by the time midnight actually rolls around.

Anyway, one of our Christmas gifts was a Super Mario Bros puzzle that we put together as a family on New Years Eve.  Porter reached up onto the table and took our a corner, but it was fun doing it together as a family.