A Cabin of Love

About one week before Valentine's Day we went to Lake Arrowhead with Eag & Ian without........drum roll please......our kids! There was a ton of snow, so much that we couldn't even park in the driveway. Now this isn't just your ordinary log cabin in the woods. No no. She's like a 5 star hotel inside. BEAUTIFUL! And the best part was the big ol plasma TV and humongous comfy couch in the basement. The whole time we were in the cabin we were stuffing our faces with various junk foods and an assortment of sweets while we sat eyes glued to the big screen watching movies or bugging the hubby's while they played video games well into the night.

The view from one of the balconies. Nothing but pine trees and lots of snow.

On saturday we went snowboarding at Snow Valley. A special time for the Eag & I. While we were at Ricks college nine long years ago, pretty much all of our free time was spent at Grand Targhee snowboarding. Eag, Heidi and I all had season passes and went snowboarding about 5-6 days a week. Some of my BEST memories were made on that mountain. As a result, we all became very good at the sport, hiking the back country and charging homemade jumps with the boys. Now fast forward nine years, one kid, and fifty pounds. When we were packing our stuff to go on the trip the night before, I dug out my old snowboarding pants and couldn't pull them up past my knees! My thermals were cutting off the circulation in my calves. Awesome. Luckily Ian had some I borrowed. Yes I fit into mens pants now. Rad. I was a little nervous about breaking a hip having not been on a board in nearly five years. Much to my delight it all came back to me after the first run on the bunny slope. I had forgotten how much fun it is to speed down the slopes and ride the lifts with Eag. I love cruising down the mountain chatting and seeing Eag in the tuck position. It was seriously the best day ever! It felt a little weird being without the choob but it also felt awesome to be myself again. I realized that I am pretty fun. (and apparently conceited)

Here we are on the first run of the day

Somehow this is the ONLY picture of Dan & I on the slopes. Apparently we were having too much fun to stop for the camera.

The boys on a bench. According to Dan, "If you are a butterball, the worst part about snowboarding is strapping into your bindings because your gut gets in the way." Hence the bench.

Eag flapping her wings. She's pretty much the best skier I know.

Eag in the tuck position. Speedy.

This was supposed to be a great picture of Dan. As you can see, it turned out to be a great picture of some guy in a red vest. Let me explain: So, I had to leave my glasses in the car because when I wore them under my goggles I got all fogged up. As a result, the pictures I took suffered. Oops.

I managed to capture Dan and Ian and red vest mcgee in the same frame. Good Job.

Summary: We love cabins. We love food. We love snowboarding. We love Eag & Ian.

Two Skiis and a Snowboard

This is the only video we took all day. It's of Eag & I coming down the hill. Eag is on the left and I am on the right. Things start off well then some nerd decides to stop in the middle of the run so I have to go around him. Gotta love snow valley!

Still Dominating

I continued to dominate on the Buzz Lightyear ride this time at Disneyland. Even with a busy toddler on my lap grabbing my gun every few seconds I still managed to score 94,400 more points than Dan. Seriously I should be a sniper.

Please look at how well Luke waits in line for the rides. He finds a step, sits down, and folds his arms. If only he'd behave like that at church!

My heart explodes when I look at the above picture.

This photo proves that my genes are indeed passed on to this little boy. He LOVES ice cream and ALWAYS makes a mess while eating it....just like his mama.

Cousins at Kid City

Since it was POURING rain, we loaded up the kiddos and headed to the science center to play at Kid City. Here are the boys playing together.

What the face?

Luke & Wes fighting over the shopping cart.

Playing House

Making a phone call. He looks so grown up in this picture!

GG & Wesley

More fun with the phone

GG helping Lukey boy

Wesley making some important phone calls

Peek-a-Boo!

Jeremy & Baby Dallon hanging out

I Like to Borrow Babies....Not Birth Them

These pictures are mostly for Luke's Grandparents and everyone who asks me, "when are you going to have another baby?" If you are dying to see us with an infant, just look at these pictures. Dan and I have promised each other that if we ever do think about reproducing again, we will watch Luke's birth video and after spending a few hours curled up in the corner in fetal position, change our minds. For now we just like borrowing our angel nephew. He's the sweetest baby in the world.

A Visit from Shelly & Her Boys

Lukey loves his Pop Pop

GG & Pop Pop got Luke this Jack-in-the-box. He thought it was hilarious!

GG holding Baby Dallon

Luke LOVES his Auntie. He kept asking for her days after they left and I had to show him pictures of her on the computer like five times a day.

GG reading a bedtime story to her great grandboys

This is the face he makes now.

We love it when the Hiers come to see us. We wish they lived here.

The Bottle is Back

This is a picture of Luke on the wobbley bridge at the Wild. He finally gets the concept of jumping and we spend a good deal of time on this rickety thing while he practices his new found jumping skills. Okay, so if the title of this post doesn't make sense to you, scroll down a ways and read the post about anxiety. We totally thought that Luke was over the bottle. After the annoying-ness of trying to get enough calcium into a kid that isn't a big eater, I totally caved and gave it back to him. He still won't drink it, he just wants to "hold it" for security. It's kinda cute but mostly I get mad that I have to empty out his expensive formula ($30 a can) every few hours for fear that on the off chance he'll take a random sip of it when it's old. I've tried giving him an empty bottle, a bottle with water, and a bottle with juice. After the complete and total meltdowns, and him asking "mama...milk" seven thousand times I just fill her up with milk and hand it to him knowing perfectly well that I will be pouring that same milk, untouched, down the drain in an hour or so.

Seriously, it's totally embarassing when people ask you how old your kid is and you have to reply, "almost one and a half" when he's sporting his binky and holding his bottle in one hand and his blankie in the other. In public. On the playground. At the Wild Animal Park. Kill me now.

Oddly enough, it doesn't seem to hinder his playing capabilities. Seriously, what?

Happy Birthday Pah-Paw!

We took a Porter family trip to the zoo to celebrate my Dad's birthday. These trips generally consist of seeing a few animals, riding the escalators whenever possible, and eating large amounts of ice cream in addition to anything covered in nacho cheese and/or chili. Needless to say, the Porters know how to do the zoo.

This boy LOVES his pah-paw!

Luke helped Grandma put the MANY candles on pah-paw's cake.

He also helped blow the candles out. Several times. We had to keep re-lighting them because he liked to blow them out so much. Then he helped grandpa open his presents. And by help I mean, he opened all of them. Happy Birthday Pah-Paw!

A Big Heart Like My Dada's

Dan always says that the reason he has a big barrel chest is to hold his humongous heart. It looks like Choobie inherited it from his Dada. (The big heart, not the big chest) At the zoo he kept trying to feed this Orangutan his churro!

He also has an obsession for anything that resembles a little seat for him. He loves to sit on curbs, ledges, rocks, speed bumps, and those cement bumper things in the parking lots.

I Am Big Now

Along with doing EVERYTHING himself, he has now decided to claim the chair in the living room as his own personal throne. He does most things from the comfort of his chair like kicking back with his sippy and reading books.

From the minute he wakes up till he goes to bed at night, he can be found hanging out in his chair.

He also thinks the expression below is his best look. I'm not sure why. He comes up with weird stuff like this all on his own.

Post Sickness Anxiety

Even though Lukey Boy has been feeling better these days, he still refuses to let go of his beloved blankie (which he refers to as his 'naw-naw' pronounced gnaw gnaw) sippy cup, and binky when out in public. At first I thought it was no big deal for him to constantly carry these items around the house with him but now he won't let go of them! We have even let him take them in the tub with him because we are big old weak enablers. Luckily we have 2 naw-naw's so one can hang up to dry out while he sleeps with the other one. The only good thing to come out of this sick spree is that he REFUSES to drink a bottle anymore. He thinks it will make him barf. Kind of sad but also really AWESOME because now I don't have to wean him from his baw-baw. Apparently I just need to wean him from his blankie, binky, and sippy cup. Rad.

Please look at how this meerkat is totally copying my kid. Excuse me?