8 is Great!

STATS of happiness so far:

8 years

2,920 days

2 1/2 beautiful, amazing children

7 different cars owned

8 "homes" lived in

3 states lived in

2 countries lived in

4 continents visited

2 continents lived on

24 states visited together

1 meal eaten at Casa Bonita in Denver

2 nights spent in a hotel that was once a palace

1 GIGANTIC snowstorm, and tons of other small ones

582 sports related sprained ankles, jammed fingers and or toes (ok, maybe not quite)

Even more fun times watching said sports being played by Noah and his many teams

50+ times I have tried to beat Noah at Trivial Pursuit and failed

Multiple fantastic vacations spent with amazing friends

4 Thanksgiving dinners hosted/cooked at our little apartments

1,345,987 I Love Yous

1 Million hugs and Kisses

1 Trillion Bazillion to Pluto and back (Porter's favorite number) of amazing memories made and to come!

I love you Noah and am truly one of the luckiest girls alive! We have had such an incredible ride so far and I can't wait to see what our future holds!!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!! I LOVE YOU!!

The Big Presentation

At Porter's school they do different Units throughout the year and have a big project at the end of each one. They recently completed a unit on Celebrations, and were all to put together a big presentation on a holiday of their choice. The kids covered just about everything, Halloween, Easter, Day of the Dead (Mexican), Birthday, Christmas, Sacrifice Holiday (Turkish), Chinese New Year, and Porter chose Valentine's Day. They made posters describing the 7 different elements of Celebrations as it pertained to their holiday. They learned all about it and practiced a little speech and their public speaking skills. They practiced fielding questions about their holiday and then they were ready for action. On the big day all the parents and multiple other classes were invited to come to their "Celebration Gallery" and hear them present.

Porter's Poster

Extra knick-knacks that he brought to display. They were encouraged to bring special food and or decorations. They had their whole rec room set up with everyone's little stations. It was really cute and well done.

Porter did a Fantastic job! We were so proud of him!

He wasn't shy at all and jumped right in. He answered everyone's questions and honestly I think just loved all of the attention! He really worked the crowd. It was fun to watch him "being the expert".

If you'll notice he is also wearing his "handsome shirt", as he called it. They were supposed to dress in colors or outfits that went with their holiday, so this pink polo was perfect. He thought he looked SO good and professional for his presentation. It was hilarious!

Great job buddy! I'm sure this will just be the first of many great presentations you will give!

Icky Ice Cream Cone

In school recently Porter's class was working on the letter "I". For one of the activities they were to create an "icky ice cream cone". Porter of course loves anything to do with coloring, cutting, creating, etc. When he brought it home he was very excited to explain it to me. The first scoop's flavor is banana, strawberry and orange with "water flavor drops" on it. (because water makes ice cream kind of yucky) Second scoop is orange ice cream with pepperoni. Top scoop is my favorite. The kind that makes you wonder "where does he come up with this stuff?" The top scoop is Water flavored with HAIR! icky for sure! nicely done buddy. one of your best!

V-day 2011

So, I love Valentine's day. And yes, even though it is a highly commercialized holiday, etc etc. I love that there is a day set aside to shower the people you love with love and attention. I'm big on the "cards" part of it, and we make homemade cards for each other. We have a fun tradition in our family to have a Valentine's Day breakfast with pink heart shaped pancakes, and bacon etc. We also give the boys a little present and this year I also left a trail of Hershey Kisses for them to follow! It was a huge hit as usual with the littles! (However, this was the first year I had a school-aged child. Definitely had to get up much earlier than previous years to pull it off!) Definitely one of my favorite traditions!

Porter can barely stand the build-up

The bacon and pancake hearts-although I didn't put as much food coloring in this year so they aren't as pink as I was thinking. Next year we'll go for hot pink!

Porter especially loved getting all his cards this year. "Wow mom, I got THREE cards!" (one from Mommy,Daddy and Ronan). It was the first year he could start to read what they said on his own. He was very happy.

He was also thrilled to help Daddy read the one he made for him!

Did you know that Ronan L.O.V.E.S. pancakes?!

The present wasn't half bad either!

Yes, we really have matching shirts that he is such a good sport to wear every year! (I had them made just for fun when we were first married, and now it is a tradition.) I have the best husband ever!! Love you babe!

Seriously...How can you go wrong with a Valentine's Day that ends like this?

Gorgeous flowers and Macaroons (So YUMMY, and beautiful)! (although the lighter pink ones were actually Rose flavored, not strawberry as we were hoping; we'll stay clear of those in the future)

I love all of my Valentines!!

This one takes the cake!

Our last name is tricky. I'll give you that. Unless you are fluent in French, most people always require it to be repeated at least one time. Most of the time, especially over the phone we have resorted to spelling it out slowly. You would be surprised though, even spelling it out slowly how many times it gets entered incorrectly. Most of the time we get a good laugh, and it is just slightly off. We recently signed up for a new service in which Noah gave him his name, over the phone like usual and spelled it out very specifically. The person he was dealing with did speak English, so I don't know how much of an excuse the language barrier can be. In any case, what they have officially entered takes the cake. They have managed to royally change both his first name and last. This is what they put:

NOVA BANABIBU

Pretty awesome huh! We now have a great nickname to use. (And remember, this is even with him spelling it out for them.)

things to remember

This is just a quick post to write down some things that I've been meaning to for a long time. Both of my boys have come up with some great words that they think are correct. I just want to make sure we remember these for later. Porter has two classics. He hears us discuss both the Consulate and use the word Consular in daily conversation. Naturally it would be confusing, so since pretty early on in our stay here he uses the word "Consulurt" to describe where Daddy works. I haven't had the heart to tell him otherwise. I mean seriously, how can you not smile when your little boy says "are we going to the Consulurt?". Secondly for Porter has been an issue in the types of money we have used lately. Ever since we went to France a few months ago he apparently can not seem to get it straight in his head. The Turkish form of money is called Lira. When in France he heard us talking about using Euros. Thus the newly formed "Liro". He knows we use dollars in the USA, but as far as he is concerned...you can use "Liros" anywhere else in the world and be fine! Love it.

Now Ronan. He is a goof. He has not quite reached the phase of combing words, but just calls things differently than their actual name. Not sure why, but one day the closest thing he could come up with to remembering what Play-dough was called was "poody". And there you have it. It's been poody ever since. My favorite though, is his name for cream cheese. He LOVES bagels, and follows in his Mommas footsteps with the cream cheese love. He however, calls it "scream cheese". How can you go wrong with a bagel and scream cheese? It is so good it makes me want to scream with excitement!? It is true though, cream cheese makes EVERYTHING better. I think that might be one of my mottos for life.

Love these boys. Love these moments.

My multi-lingual Porter

At school Porter is having such a great experience and getting to learn so much about many different cultures. They have recently been learning all about Chinese New Year, including some cute songs and even some phrases in Mandarin. Yesterday while pushing him on the swing at the park we had a thoughtful conversation. After him repeating several of these Mandarin phrases to me, he said "Mom, did you know I speak such good Chinese? I also speak French!" (then proceeded to say a few things he knows in French) He was very proud of himself. He continued, "Oh ya, I also speak Spanish!"-(then he counted to ten). "So that means that I speak 4 languages Mom! Chinese, French, English and Spanish!" I laughed and told him that he indeed did speak SOME of four languages:) He thought for a few minutes and then said "Mom, I'm from America though right, so I speak American." I then responded, "yes you are American and you speak great English." Then Porter: "but mom, where was I BORN?" I responded, "Michigan." " Oh right", he said "I forgot...but wait, I don't speak Michigan Mom. Aren't I supposed to speak the language of where I'm born?" "Yes, buddy" I said, but "luckily for you...they speak English in Michigan:)" Porter then summed up the conversation with a big "oh phew!" So there you have it. Crisis averted. Porter now understands why we never taught him to speak "Michigan". I love that kid. What a cutie.