July 2010 - Jan. 2011

Okay, pretty sad to see that I haven't updated the blog since last July. Lots of fun things with the boys since then. Grant started Kindergarten at the end of August. He goes to Kathy Caraway, a great little school in our neighborhood. Grant loves school and while he taught himself to read in 2009, Grant’s reading abilities have improved even more. He read the entire series of Magic Tree House books (he reads each one in an afternoon) and has moved on to the Hardy Boys series of books. It’s a little hard to keep his attention for the length of a Hardy Boys book, so he likes to skip to the end, so we are trying to find a new set of books that he might like. Any recommendations are welcome. He can ready just about anything. His kindergarten teacher told us at the first parent/teacher conference in October that, and I quote “Grant is like an old man trapped in a little boy’s body.” Then she and the teacher’s assistant both did a little impersonation of Grant that was quite cute. Grant has made several friends at school and really loves learning. He loves to go to school and to ride the bus home from school. Grant won a respect award in September or October, so that was nice to see that he can be respectful at school. Grant’s teacher has really allowed him to use his reading skills in class, so on occasion he gets to read to the class. I haven’t seen it, but here he does a nice job of showing the kids the pictures and reading to them. This is a great experience for Grant.

We have had several visits from relatives this year. Grandma Jan came to visit in October and helped Grant with his first bake sale at my office. He raised around $45 dollars and he sent a portion of it to the children in Haiti. Grandma Jan and Grant had a great time on the duck tour of Austin. Austin is just such a great city. We sure love it here. For Halloween, Grant was a ninja and Porter was Buzz Lightyear. Since Halloween was on a Sunday, we didn’t go trick-or-treating on that day, but Grant and I did go to two local fall festivals and went on a hay ride and he go candy there, and at our church trunk or treat. Porter went to the annual playgroup trick or treating at the assisted living center nearby. That is always nice event and Porter seemed to understand a little better about what he needed to do to get the candy – just flash his bright blue eyes and give a puppy dog look begging for candy. The words Trick or Treat would have worked too, but he was a little shy.

Aunt Melissa and Ava came to visit us in November and that was so nice to spend time with them. Grant loved seeing his cousin Ava. Porter enjoyed playing with Ava too. I think they had a good time, especially at the zoo and bowling. Kent’s sister Laura Jayne came to visit us over Thanksgiving and it was awesome to spend some time with her. We had a great Thanksgiving with our friends the Pages coming over and some other friends. It was a really nice time.

One of our favorite things in December are the fireworks at the Domain on Saturday nights. We enjoyed watching them twice this year. We had a really nice Christmas. All I really wanted was to have us all be healthy and I was so happy that we have all been really healthy, even with Grant starting kindergarten this year. We thought we would constantly be sick. Porter still gets sick going to nursery at church, so we have stopped sending him. Porter still throws up and goes through phases where he chokes on his food about 1x a week and throws up, but, knock on wood, he has had a good couple of weeks without getting choked and throwing up. It helps when he doesn’t have a cold. We are going to a pediatric ENT in a few weeks and we will see if there is any physical obstruction in his throat that is contributing to his choking.

Porter’s vocabulary has just exploded since November. December was a good month for Porter and that was really nice. Porter is starting to play with other kids when we go to a play place or park. Porter still continues to get into everything. Yes, he is two, but we never expected he could get into so much so quickly. You can’t even clean up one mess before he has another one going. Porter also has no fear and loves to run. Last fall Porter found a screw in our driveway and as I looked at him and noticed he was chewing something, I was immediately concerned. I saw the screw in his mouth and tried to get it out, and then it was gone. I looked all over the driveway for it, but no luck. This necessitated a visit to the ER (something like this always happens when Kent is not home). Kent met us a the ER. After a couple of x-rays, they didn’t find the screw, so that was good. We felt like it was a miracle and we were really blessed. We were also blessed that earlier in the year Porter was not hit by a car. Porter and Kent were crossing the street, when halfway through, Porter decided to bolt back and a car was coming. That seen continues to flash before my eyes, but Kent was able to grab him and the driver saw him and reacted quickly. Porter continues to scare me though when he takes off and just starts running away. I guess that is part of being 2 for him.

Porter still loves Thomas the Train. He is a little obsessed, okay, a lot obsessed. Porter is very cute as he loves to “sing” along to songs that he hears. We have used our iPhone to secretly film him and I will post the videos if I can figure out how to post a video. It is quite funny. If Porter knows we are listening, then he gets embarrassed, but it is just so cute. Porter has also learned that his parents are push-overs for snuggling. When we ask Porter if he is ready for bed at night, he will grab his new blankie that he thinks is a sheep and will ask us if we want to “smuggle.” We love to smuggle with him and he doesn’t mind watching football or other shows while he sits on our lap and smuggles. Porter loved Christmas. He was so cute opening his presents – saying “I lub Thomas” over and over again (as everything he got was Thomas, which was perfect). Funny how different your own kids can be. Porter loves to play with toys. Grant has never really been into toys much. Grant is our little bookworm.

Grant had a great Christmas too. It was really fun for him and we really enjoyed being a secret Santa to a family in need. Grant and I were able to sneak up to the door and put the presents on the door step, ring the doorbell and run. As we hid, we heard the kids shouting, “It’s presents!”. It was really nice to give.

Kent and I had a nice 14th anniversary in December. We are starting to feel old, but we enjoyed our anniversary going to Main Event, bowling, playing pool and shuffleboard and Kent did the rock climbing wall. It was so nice to have some time off from work in December and spend it with Kent.

2011 has started off really well, except for Grant’s cold. Grant turned 6 in January and had a great birthday party at Crenshaw’s athletic club, doing gymnastics. I took a cupcake decorating class in December and used some of those skills to make Grant 2 cakes – a rocket ship cake for his birthday and a Texas Longhorns cake for his Longhorns-themed birthday party. I have a whole new respect for people that decorate cakes. It can take sooooo long. I’ll try to post some pictures. The cakes turned out really cute. Grant also entered the science fair at school and he wanted to do the exploding soda experiment (Mentos in diet soda). We did the experiment and made a poster about it. Grant actually won the science fair for kindergarten (I think there were 2 winners, but still not sure how it all works).

The big news for January is that Kent got a new job, still within IBM, but something new. He is really excited about this opportunity. We feel really blessed and are so thankful for the blessings for our family in the last year. We have a great nanny, Danielle, that is like Porter and Grant’s second mom. I have a great job being a trademark attorney 3 days a week and a stay at home mom 4 days a week. Since September, I have been working a bit more, but am thankful to have the work. The greatest blessing is that we have enjoyed safety and pretty good health since my last blog post. We aren’t free of complete ailments and sicknesses, but nothing too serious or debilitating. Kent’s knee continues to give him problems and it’s probably time for another surgery, but who wants to go through that again? I can’t believe that Kent turns 39 this year and I turn 35 next month.

I hope to post more this year, but I think I say that every year, so no promises.