Phinally Phillies!!!!!!

So if you missed it, the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are sooo excited here in our house tonight! It was a little bit sticky with the rain and all, but they did it, at home in PA!! So Noah has had a FANTASTIC year! It was just meant to be big I guess! He turned 30 this year, so a big year in general but ALL OF HIS TEAMS WON THIS YEAR!! It was amazing! 1. the redwings won (although this one I'm not as partial too-i prefer the avalanche:) 2. KANSAS won the NCAA finally!! 3. the Celtics won the NBA and now the Phillies! He is in Heaven! Congrats Phillies!

this last week...

So this week was full of fun for our little family. I just wanted to do a quick share. First off, Noah had his 30th Birthday!!! We had a great day, (I being lucky enough to get to do all of his birthday activities too:) and even though he has now turned twenty ten he is still as young and hot as ever! He got a Phillies hat for his birthday, which Ronan is particularly fond of!! He absolutely LOVES hats, but this one is his favorite!! If you say "come get the hat" Ronan will come crawling instantly from anywhere in the room! But when you show him two or three hats, he always picks this one. I guess another Phillies fan is born!! And then last but not least, my boys have FINALLY kind of started to learn to play nicely with each other. Most of the time it is Porter taking things from Ronan, repeated over and over. This day however, they sat and played together nicely for a good 20 minutes!! It was so cute I needed a picture for sure:)

Chocolate or Poop?

So this is my very first true "Chocolate or Poop?" experience as a mother, I have had some definite experiences with both, but was quite sure each time which one it was. The other day however I came upon this by complete surprise!! After thinking about it carefully I deduced that Porter had not had any experiences that day for sure where there had been poop on his hands ( nor has there really been for quite some time thankfully) but he had eaten an ice cream sandwich earlier in the day. Therefore I have decided that it was chocolate!! Thankfully!!! Just wanted to let you all share some of the excitement!

In the crazy stressful times that we live in, it is always nice to take some time away to think about the truly important things;) Hey, sometimes you just need a little break from reality! Thanks Kari!

I could survive for 38 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor

Created by Bunk Beds Pedia

Friends-this will be a long one, sorry!

I have a TON of AMAZING friends, and I just wanted to put a note out there about how grateful I am for all of them. It has been interesting to me to think about all my past experiences and realize how blessed I have been to have each one of them in my life. Whenever I have a bad day, or am having a rough go at life for a while, I can think about all the awesome memories I have with different people at different times, and see how truly blessed I am. One of our new favorite songs in this house talks about being "lucky to have been where I have been", and this is so true for me. Of course sometimes have been better than others, but we have to go through the down times to really appreciate those people and friends that we have that bless our lives. Growing up I was extremely blessed to have a great group of friends, who were all just great people. They never even tempted me to do anything I didn't want to do, and provided a great atmosphere. Then in college, I had some of the funnest times of my life with some of my very best friends in the entire world. I found my girl soulmates and will love you forever. ;) In Michigan we like to refer to our friends as "the dream team" or "the wonder years", because we just had so many awesome friends that we were so close to and really relied on each other. It was such a special experience for us to share important events and holidays with you guys, when our families were absent. It built us up, and truly made you all as close to us as our real family. And what can I say, I found more soulmates! And then back to recent history-through some really wonderful neighbors and serving in the Church I have gained lots of other amazing friends, who truly inspire me. I have been blessed with so many wonderful people in my life, and every one of you has been important in making me who I am, or better who I would like to become. So to those of you who are struggling with different things, be it physical or emotional, I want you to know that I love you and everything will work out. The doctors will do it right, the economy won't be bad forever, your neighbors just haven't discovered what a gem you are, you are so completely sweet and funny, and I love you to pieces!!!! Thank you for being my friends. Noah always tells me I have too many "best friends" but oh well, I can't help it! And just for fun a quick ode to some great memories: girls camp, shipp hall, midnight movies, scrapbooking, cleaning check pizzas, double tvs-dr. mario, roadtrips, in-n-out, jelly bellys, oceanside, double Thanksgivings, letting you cut my hair, Colorado every weekend, Blue Rodeo, missionaries-uuuggh I'm glad that's over, sleeping in the living room, Princess, first kisses, "wake up, we're in love and we're engaged!", Mormon strip poker-don't ask, ice cream, ice cream, ice cream, toilet hair washing, Lake Michigan, Tasty Twist, Halloween parties, Famous Dave's, stampin up nights, nerts, "would you wear a clown costume?" Toronto and Tim Hortons, did I mention Tasty Twist!! we're like Tom and Cruise, and two of a pea!Dr. Pepper, Statten Island and baby ice cream cartons, book club, France, petonque-we need to play again, airplane rides with 22 month olds, castles and kebabs, kebabs, kebabs! girls camp again, sit and chat, fondue, soccer games, our husband's are the same!!, and way too many more silly times to count-thanks for the rant if you made it all the way through! And I'm just too pooped right now to post some pictures, those will come later, sorry!

The BELT!

So let me first say very strongly-that we NEVER say this to Porter or Ronan for that matter, this is the only time we've ever said it period and we were completely joking when we did- but it all ended up so funny that we had to put this story down for the books! So it just happened that at exactly the same time one night last week that Noah was taking off his belt to get more comfortable while I was trying to get Porter to eat his dinner! So just jokingly said "porter, if you don't eat your dinner right now you will get the belt!!" So Porter hops up and starts to eat ravenously-go figure! As soon as he stuffs the last of it in his mouth and swallows he says " ok mommy, I ate my dinner... now can daddy help give me the belt?" He hopped down and ran over to Noah-he was so excited, he had apparently taken it to mean that he was going to get to wear daddy's belt, and that it was a very exciting privilege! He showed daddy how he wanted to wear it, and helped him situate it just so around his tummy! He was so proud:) We just couldn't help ourselves from laughing, and we had to get some pictures!

Ronan is ONE!!!! Silly Monkey Style-

The Birthday Cake!!



just blew out my first candle! (kind of)



yummy cake!! just getting started- then mommy's camera died :(




I want my presents! looks like some good stuff

Lucky 7 Tag

I got tagged by Steph so here goes:)

7 things I can do:
1. sew cute things
2. play with my babies all day long and never get sick of it! (most of the time:)
3. do other people's hair in really tight french braids
4. go a whole week without eating a single vegetable! (not really a good thing, but it can be done:)
5. make really yummy homemade oreos
6. spoil my boys-also not always a good thing!
7. talk to my girlfriends and sisters for hours and hours on end!

7 things I can't do
1. give birth with no pain medication-not EVER going to happen in my case!
2. speak French, but hopefully this will change
3. make my bed consistently for a month straight, I've come close but always seemed to miss at least one day-maybe by the end of my life I can accomplish this simple goal!
4. function at all when I have a really bad migraine headache-I completely loose it!
5. roll my tongue-it's genetic and Karin and I are the only ones in the family who can't
6. sing, I like to but it does not sound very pretty
7. pilot an aircraft

7 things that attracted me to Noah
1. his little glasses, I LOVED guys with cute glasses
2. I really liked his hair style
3. He wanted to be with me as much as I wanted to be with him
4. His kisses
5. His cute little love notes:) He wrote some good ones
6. the way he would sing to me in the car and wink at me
7. he's silly and goofy

7 things I say most often
1. you're so silly!
2. Porter close your eyes right now or we're making you fall asleep in your own bed! (he's been a little spoiled as of late, we let him fall asleep on the couch with us)
3. don't take that from your brother!!
4. go back to sleep, it is still sleepy time!
5. can you help me clean up your toys?
6. how's it goin?
7. do you need to go Poop in the Potty?

7 Celebrity admirations
1. Tim Mcgraw and Faith Hill, I think they are a sweet couple who really take the time and effort to be a real family with their girls.
2. Kirk Cameron-he's Christian and really proud of it
3. Reese Witherspoon, she seems like a really good mom to me
4. Ashley Judd-has done some really good work with Aids in Africa (Madagascar:)
5. Brad Paisley and Kimberly Williams Paisley, they seem like a really pulled together couple and they love their little boy. Also I like that she is traditional by taking on his last name.
6. Lance Armstrong-his cancer work and awareness has been phenomenal-plus I just like him:)
7. Zenedine Zidane -got kicked out of the world cup for head butting a guy, but he was defending his mamma! what a guy:)

7 favorite foods
1. ice cream anything
2. manacotti
3. taco maker bean burritos
4. cream cheese on,in, or with anything
5. Pizza hut cheese pizza
6. grandma's homemade caramels
7. homemade cheesy potato soup

7 people I tage
1. Karin C. (maybe one day you will do another post:)
2. Tori S.
3. Kayla W.
4. Sierra H.
5. Shelly B.
6. Chels P.
7. Ashley R.

Tennis time

So as you may or may not know-Noah was a pretty good tennis player in high school:) He has not really played a lot in the last few years for lots of various reasons but recently we've been trying to get new things for Porter to do so that he can get all of his energy out! We play lots of different things outside, but we thought it would be fun to teach him tennis, and daddy wants to get back into it a little so it will be fun for them to do together! It has been really nice lately and perfect temperature to play! They were so cute going to play tennis I had to get some pictures!