Getting Ready

Caleb secretly wishes he was a girl some days. One of Caleb's favorite things to do after a bath is to blow dry his hair. Which by the way takes all of about 20 seconds. But, after several minutes if you ask him if his hair is dry yet, he will always say (with a wrinkled up nose), "No, it's still a little wet." This response gets him "the we're turning it off in one minute warning" and a an extra minute under the dryer.

Aging Beautifully

So, it's true....time does fly as you get older. Sometimes, I wish I had a magic "something" to make it stand still a little longer. Ever since Damon and I decided that we were stopping at two- everything Porter does is a last important milestone. He'll be 6 months on the 21st. I'm not sure where the time has gone. This has been a week of first's for Porter. He's no longer content to just be on the floor.... so we brought the old saucer down from the garage and cleaned it up to give him a little variety in his little tiny life. :)



We also started the rice cereal thing. I had forgotten how messy that stuff was.... I need a little more practice in the timing and percision department. He actually loved it...and that's what's important!

BEFORE



DURING



AFTER

Well.... I got too caught up in cleaning up the mess that I forgot to take the "After" picture. We headed straight for the bath!

Super Saturday

I came home from our ward's Super Saturday and found Dad wiped out. Everyone had crashed, but I found this to be a particular sweet image and couldn't resist taking a picture. Porter had fallen asleep in Dad's legs while Dad was sleeping.

Trick or Treat

I asked Caleb what he wanted to be for Halloween near the begninning of September. His response with his voice several octoves lower then normal was, "Spiderman!" We purchased this costume at the beginning of October and he was allowed to wear it just a few times around the house before the 31st. There's something magical about putting on fabric with pretend muscles and all of a sudden...walla your invisible and so strong! While getting ready to go trick or treating, we were surprised to hear Caleb tell us that he didn't want to wear the accompanying mask. I asked him why. He said, "Mom, I want to be a nice Spiderman." That's my sweet Caleb.

Kristin, Anders, Kiley, and Maddie came over around 6:45pm and off we went. The kids lasted for about 2 hours before complaining of being cold and tired. We had a great Halloween!

Pumpkin Carving & Traditions

Every year we go to Spooner Farms, our local pumpkin patch. But. this isn't just any ordinary pumpkin patch, they have a HUGE corn maze, animals, and a pumpkin launching contest. Damon loves the pumpkin launching contest and Caleb was big enough this year to help dad. You purchase small round pumpkins (3 for a $1) and take them to a launching station decked out with bayles of hay and supersized surgical tubing. And "way out yonder" there are bullseyes. If you hit a bulleye, you get to pick out a free pumpkin from their "large collection". For the 1st time in five years, Damon (with the help of Caleb) hit the target! Both boys were really excited to take the pumpkin home to carve it. However, as Caleb started to get his elbows knee deep in pumpkin goo, his excitement turned to disguist. Here are a few snapshots from this funny event. We hope you had a Happy Halloween!















After he got cleaned up, he said, "Mom, that's better!"

EBAY LISTINGS

Okay, so I'm a little burnt out from scrapbooking. Here are the last two layouts I sold on EBAY at the beginning of October.

Home Is Where You Hang Your Broom Layout







Here's my Pumpkin Hall of Fame Layout





After finishing these two layouts, I've decided that I need to take a little break from EBAY to get my creative juices flowing again. I'll start back up after the holidays. :)

Hallelujah!

So, everytime I try to take some pictures of Porter they come out horrible. I get the camera ready, I say my, "Getcha, Getcha Goo, or my "Peek-A-Boo" phrases to get Porter to smile. He smiles. I push the button on the camera and WALLALA...miss the smile and get the deer caught in athe head light stare instead...everytime. Last night, I found Damon playing with Porter on the couch so I grabbed the camera and started snapping away and this is what I got! A couple GREAT shots, Hallelujah!!

Our Favorite Fair Moments

It's that time again!! One of our favorite things to do in the fall is attend the Puyallup Fair. We had such a blast! Besides the normal fair animals, rides, and yummy food, there's also side acts that wander around the fair.

This year we saw a group of fantastic drummers from California. They used only pots and pans, empty culligan water containers, and bar stools in their act..but boy could they pump out a show. Caleb moved his hips to the beat while plugging his ears...appearantly it was loud enough that he could still feel the rhythm with his fingers in his ears.



Then we came acrossed one of my all time favorites! Riding around in the children's smallville area was an anomated, moving monkey on a tricycle. She was adorable... complete with a dress, shoes, and a flowered hat. She spoke to the children as she rode her bike.



Caleb was startled at first,, and then became enamored with her, staring, smiling, and laughing for a good 10 minutes of entertainment. The funniest part of the show was the lady behind the monkey's voice.



I told Damon, "We have to get a picture of her!" She talked into this big straw water bottle (which was actually the microphone) and operated the tricycle with a remote disguised in a handbag. She was so careful as to not let the kids see her. What an act! Her voice was perfect for the job!



Here are a few more highlights from our wonderful time at the fair...

Caleb Starts Preschool

We have been talking about preschool all summer long! I can't believe it's finally here. We found an amazing teacher, she will really be perfect for Caleb's personality. I have been wondering how his emotions would be as I dropped him off on the first day. Is he going to cry? Will he be happy? Our first day of school went something like this. We woke up and talked about school. We ate breakfast and watch a few cartoons and talked about school. Caleb got into the bathtub and needed his "doggles" then after he dried off and got dressed, we talked about school some more.



We put on our shoes did the happy-we-get-to-go-to-school-dance, grabbed our 8 count coloring crayon set (our first school supply purchase) and got into the car.



When we arrived, I wanted some 1st day of preschool pictures and this is what I got.... A smile!

Welcome Porter McKay Holmes!

So, I realize that I started this blog after Porter was born, so I thought I would back track a little and post some pictures of this exciting time in our lives! Porter was born on May 21, 2007 at 8:05am. My water broke the night before (totally unexpected as I did not have this same experience with Caleb. When your water breaks theirs some good news- they can't send you home from the hospital. The bad news- after my water broke, my contractions didn't follow so I got a little pitocin to help things move along. My epideral was administered while I was a 10 and ready to push (only the nurses didn't know I was at a 10), so I got to feel all the pain and wonderment of child birth for Porter! It was well worth it. He is such a good baby!

Here dad is helping to give Porter his first bath.



Here are a few cute pictures of Caleb and Porter's first introduction! Caleb loves being a big brother.







And one of Caleb being a cheese ball pretending to be asleep just like Porter.

Our Summer

Okay, so here in the NW, we didn't have a super great summer...but we did have a week or two of nice weather. We didn't do much traveling. Having Porter at the end of May and adjusting to two children was our "summer vacation". We did get to go to Utah to celebrate my grandfather's 100th birthday. This was Caleb's 1st time riding in an airplane. There were two BIG highlights for Caleb on this trip..they both had to do with the ariport. Highlight Number 1: Listening to the "walkie talkie's" (otherwise known as the airport's pre-recorded message which blairs over the outside intercom system ("No parking is aloud in the waiting zone. Please remove your car or you will be ticketed and toed.") For some reason he thinks this is hilarious and cracks up everytime he repeats it...yes he has this memorized. Everybody would just look at him and I know that they were thinking... whats wrong with your child? Highlight Number 2: Riding the escavator (no I didn't spell that wrong, that's how he pronounces it). We got lucky enough to be in a terminal where it had 3 sets of these to ride up and down. This came in handy since we had a 30 minute delay on our departing flight. Aunt Leslie was relieved...she wanted to get in as many episodes of "The Office" as possible without any interuptions.



Up, down, up again.. it's the little things in life that make us happy!




Over Labor Day weekend we went camping at Lake Cushman and had a wonderful time. Nobody caught any fish, but we did find a great swimming hole!



Here's mom and day hard at work...okay really it was dad that was hard at work making our yummy favorite camping dinner.. It was delicious!!



Porter was a trooper!! He was such a great camping baby. Me on the other hand..I was ready to go home a day early and take a shower!! We all decided that staying for 3 nights was 1 night too many.

My New Blog!

So Caleb's new preschool teacher, Mrs. Spencer has a blog for her preschool and I thought hey, what a great concept! It will be so fun to see the incognito pictures that she will take of Caleb and the other kiddies and to read about their news throuthout the week. I'm so technology challenged...I'm sure blogs have been around for years? It's amazing what computers have brought about in the face of communication. I think this is so terrific...I mean like do I even need to send out Christmas cards anymore?- Okay, so probably so. I just hope that this blog will help me to take more pictures more often and help me keep up with my journaling. And I hope that I don't sound like a dork doing it. :)