PORTER FAMILY CHRISTMAS 2009

Happy Holidays to Everyone!

We started our holiday celebrations December 19 when Chels and Brian came home from Twin Falls. They were here for a couple of days so all day Saturday Chels and I (and Brian helped too) made jewelry as gifts for her friend, wrapped gifts and got ready for Gma Lowe's Christmas party Saturday night. We had a great time and it is so nice to have them home.

Saturday night the Christmas party was fun! Tonya had the best idea for all of us to print a wallet-size photo for each of our family members. Then at the party she had everyone fill out a card with interesting information about us. It was things that you don't normally think of such as accomplishments and interesting facts not anyone knows. Then we glued the photo to the card and played a game. It was a fun game as she read something about that person off the card and we had to guess who it was. Then after the game, she put all the cards in a photo album for grandma to take home.

Gavin lovin' on Aunt Chels

Branson had such a great time. He loves other little kids and Brenda's boy, Porter, and Joanna's cousin were there. They are both about 7 or 8 and Branson ran back and forth chasing them from room to room. It was so fun to watch him squeal and chase the boys.

We exchanged gifts with gma and had a soup pot luck. It was yummy and great to visit with family.

Then we came back to our house to do our gift exchange with our kids and take a family photo. The family photo was a challenge and we laughed until our stomachs hurt!

Then we opened gifts. Branson was so excited and didn't really understand most of what was going on, but he liked his presents once he had them open. Gavin just slept on Chelsie or Kandice's chest the entire night. He is such a snuggle bug. I love having little kids for Christmas again. I miss the "Santa" thing!

Branson in his teddy bear hat and gloves I made for him

Gavin in his panda bear hat and gloves I made for him

Then we all sat down to watch our traditional once-a-year viewing of Christmas Vacation. Glen and the kids and I have watched that movie every year for many years now. We still laugh at it as much as we did the first time we watched it We can recite it nearly word for word. Since Brit and Brian have joined the family, they have been subjected to our watching of this movie. They don't find it as funny as we do. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that both of their names start with a Br. We don't know, but I am sure that they think we are bizarre to find it so funny ... but Branson did curl up on my lap while we were watching it, and he laughed out loud at it! His name starts with a Br as well so maybe that's not it.

Christmas Eve is traditionally a party at Gpa and Gma Porter's house. We always have a yummy ham dinner and do lots of visiting and reminiscing. Glen loves to spend time with his family and always has some fun stories to tell about growing up in Franklin. Joanna made an awesome slide show of some photos of the entire family set to music and showed it to us this year. She is making a copy for everyone. It was AWESOME, and Glen was tearing up by the end of it. He is such a softy.

Gpa and Gma Porter

Christmas day was kind of a quiet day for us. Jade, Brit and kids were at her parents' house this year. Kandice and Josh were headed to SLC to see his family for Christmas and Brian and Chels were in Twin. Kandice and Josh came up for breakfast this morning though and Glen made them one of his specialty "Glen McMuffins" and cinnamon rolls. Some friends stopped by throughout the day and then Gloria came over later in the day and had ham dinner with us. We visited for a long while with her. It was nice to have a quiet afternoon and relax and visit. Then Jade came over in the evening and brought the movie "The Hangover." It is a naughty move, but HILARIOUS! Brit stayed down at her parents' house with the boys so Jade was home all alone too.

On Sunday, December 27, we all traveled down to Spanish Fork to have the Christmas party with my side of the fam. It was soooooo cold when we left. The thermometer in my car showed negative 4 degrees!

We had a great party with tons of yummy food and lots of laughs. I love getting together with my family! I miss my mom and sisters and brothers soooo much so it is good when we get to spend time with them!

All the grandkids (minus Callie & Sheadon)

Brothers & sisters (Amanda is holding flowers Lynn sent since he couldn't be here)


Sisters

We play the "dollar store" gift game each year. It can be quiet funny to see what you get. This year Josh was at the party. He hasn't been able to go for the past couple of years. Josh is a very talented singer/song writer and guitar player. This year my mom was able to talk him into playing a few songs for us ... we loved it! For the game, we asked Josh to play a song and if we could guess the next words of the song when he stopped singing and playing, we could get a gift from the "dollar store" pile. It was great fun, and Josh is sooooooo talented to be able to play all types of music from Prince to Elvis to sock-hop to Metallica. We had a great time!

Gma & Gavin

My niece got a bearded dragon for Christmas and so that creepy thing was making the rounds on everyone's shoulders, but not MINE!

Shelly lovin' the dragon!

We have three babies that were born in three months' time. We were all excited to get them together and see how they acted with each other. We were quiet surprised to see that Branson is the biggest of all three even though he is the middle of the three!

So sorry to see Christmas be over for this year. I love the holidays and the parties and seeing family. Now all I have to look forward to is my birthday in January and growing OLDER ...

Hope everyone had wonderful holidays and I am wishing all the best of times in the New Year!

SANTA AND SNOW

Friday was double discount day for Smith's employees and they had Santa in the store for the kids. Kandice and I met up with Jade and Brit and Glen there to let Branson and Gavin see Santa and get some Christmas shopping done. I think this picture of Branson pretty much explains it all. HE DID NOT LIKE SANTA! He was TERRIFIED. I have never seen him cry like that over a stranger before. After sitting on his lap, I took him over to the side where they had donuts and apple juice. He would take a bite of the donut and drink the juice, but the whole time he had his eyes on Santa making sure he was staying put. Gavin didn't seem to mind at all. He is such an adorable quiet little guy!

After shopping, we headed to Chili's for dinner. We had a great time and lots of laughs thanks to Branson. He made quite a mess. Jade and Brit paid $5 for a plate of mac & cheese off the children's menu, which Branson proceeded to throw onto the floor, along with the napkins he shredded into tiny pieces and any other food item we handed him. He is quite the character. I can't get enough of his sweet smile and how much he loves his grandma.

Saturday it was snowing when we woke up. I snowed, and snowed and snowed. I was watching the boys while Brit went to work and Branson and I watched it snow all day. He spent a good part of the day watching out his bedroom window at the snow falling. It was a great day to just stay inside and cuddle up with my two favorite boys.

Sunday morning Brit called and asked if I wanted to come and play in the snow with her and Branson. We had been waiting for a good day to get him out in the snow to play. He giggles when the snowflakes fall from the sky and land on his face, so we thought he would love to play in it as well. We thought wrong. She got him all bundled up in snow pants, boots, hat, mittens and coat. He couldn't move! He reminded me so much of the little boy in Christmas Story. If he fell down in the snow, that is where he stayed. He couldn't stand up. He would just grunt and groan and then start to scream for me or mom to pick him up! When I got there, she had started a snowman and Branson just reached his arms up and wanted me to hold him. I tried to show him how to make a snow angel and snowballs, but he just wanted to get in the car and go "bye." He thought he was being scammed after his mom got him all dressed up to go. Why weren't we going anywhere ...?

I spent the rest of the afternoon cuddled up on the couch with the remote and crocheting the last couple of Christmas gifts for the kids.

I am busy getting ready for Christmas and having all my kids, kids-in-law and grandkids here. Chels and Brian will be here Friday night so we can have our family Christmas! I can't wait to see them.

Happy Holidays to Everyone!

MAJOR CATCH UP!

Dear Blog: It's been a while since I've written anything!

My life seems to get busier and busier the older I get, or maybe that it's that I am getting slower and slower ... LOL!

We had a great Thanksgiving with Kandice and Josh, Jade and Brit, Branson and Gavin, Chelsie, Gloria and Alan and Judy. Brian stayed home in Twin as he had to work Friday. We missed him! We did our dinner on Wed night as Kandice, Chelsie and I were headed to Spanish Fork on Thursday to have Thanksgiving with my sisters and mom and their families. My sister had signed us up for a booth at a craft fair on Friday and Saturday and asked me to bring some of my jewelry down and share the booth with her. She was making huge magnet boards and my other sister was doing vinyl lettering on tile.

I have prepared for three months now for this show. I work so many hours that the only time I have available to do anything is after 8:00 at night. I was able to get 65 beaded watch bands done and around 25 necklaces with matching earrings and bracelets. I love doing beads and figured this was a fun way to make a little extra cash.

Dinner was good at my sister Aspen's and it was so great to see all of my family. We were missing both of my brothers though. Wish they could have been there!

The craft show was kind of disappointing. NO ONE was buying ANYTHING from any of the booths on Friday. I sold a few things but barely paid for gas for the drive on Friday. Saturday was much better and I actually made some pretty good money. It was a lot of fun to people watch and hang out and spend some GREAT time with my girls and my sisters and mom.

Friday night, my sisters and their families and me and my girls all went to see NEW MOON! It was such a GOOD movie! Chels hasn't ever read the books, so after seeing both movies, she has now decided to start reading the Twilight series. She is so busy with school and clinicals, but she managed to read Twilight in four days ... don't know how far she is into New Moon, but hope she doesn't neglect her studies to read about vampires.

Other than that, I have just been getting ready for Christmas and working. I get the chance to babysit my adorable little grandsons every once in a while. Branson is soooooo smart. He is growing up so fast and saying a few words and is very observant. He doesn't miss a thing. He loves gma and papa and giggles and squeals whenever we go over to visit them. Gavin is growing and very alert. I think I almost got a smile out of him yesterday. He is such a gooooood baby, which is good because Jade and Brit have their hands FULL with them being so close in age!

Right now it is 28 degrees outside and was 4 degrees when I got up this morning. I sure wish Ms. Roxy and Mr. Buddy were trained to use the toilet on mornings like this!

Wishing everyone HAPPY HOLIDAYS until we talk again!