zoo pics and new additions

Ok we spent some time at the zoo yesterday. We had a great time. The weather was just perfect for us to be out and about.

We also this week added two new additions to our ever growing family. We now have two water turtles... Ming-Ming and Tuck. The kids have had a blast watching them over the last few days... But I think it bothered Alexa when we bought some gold fish to feed to them. Poor thing. She wants a fish a for pet, so we had to tell her we would keep her fish far away from the turtles. :)

Hope everyone has a good week... thanks for stopping by!

Pics

Ok not to much dialogue on this one just the pics. LOL. Some are from the park and the rest are Halloween. Hope you like them!

Erika is one!

Well we did not do a whole lot of Erika's birthday, but we had some fun none-the-less. I still cannot believe she is one. Time flies.

She is now walking a few steps at a time. The main reason for this is she tries to run so her body gets ahead of her feet and she tumbles forward. I am not looking forward to her walking, as she is a speedster at crawling, and I am afraid she is just going to take off at a run once she realizes she can.
She is also becoming quite picky about food. Most of it seems to end up on the floor, but she does seem to have a sweet tooth. (As evidenced by the birthday cake all over her.)

She is talking some. She loves our guinea pig and can be seen quite a bit "chatting" with him. She will then look at you and yell "Lenny!" It is really cute. Most everything is "dada". Although we have discovered variations to that, in that there are different tones for different things... she goes high pitched at the end of the word when "talking" to or about Alexa. Doggie and duckie are higher pitched in the middle and daddy is the excited "dadadadadada!" At least that is what it seems like so far... LOL. (Wow, you know I must be a mom of three, not to many others would be able to understand baby talk so well. LOL Maybe I should write a book.)
Anyway, we are getting ready for fall here. The weather has finally decided to cooperate and cool off... We are decorating pumpkins on Friday with our home-school group, and the kids will also be dressing up for Halloween. So I am sure there will be plenty of pics to follow. November is shaping up to be another busy month, with doctor appointments. play dates and Thanksgiving activities, and I would like to squeeze in a trip to the zoo sometime.
Thanks to everyone for the Birthday wishes for Erika...

Hope everyone has a blessed upcoming Reformation day, and is taking time to enjoy a wonderful fall so far.

Pumpkin patch

These are from our trip to the pumpkin patch with our Home-school group. We had a really great time and found some good pumpkins to decorate for the fall.

Updates

Anyway we have been out and about the last two weeks as the weather did actually cool down some. Here are some photos from our outings.

 These are from our outing to Fountain Hills. The kids had fun playing and watching the fountain. We even had a picnic. Erika is really trying to walk now and got in plenty of practice at the park that day with Daddy's help.

Ok these second set of pics is from our trip to the zoo.
The weather was finally nice enough last week that we managed to get out there. Of course this week are back in the 100's... go figure, but at least last week was very nice and we had a great time at the zoo. :)

Ok so I leave you with a blast from the past. A few old high school friends and I have been reminicing (on Facebook of course) and it has been a lot of fun. We have been digging up old photos from our high school days. Here is one of me and really good friend of mine. It was taken in 1993. Enjoy!

 

 

Thirty One Newsletter

Be the person you want to be! Here at Thirty-One we are all about Celebrating, Encouraging and Rewarding people. I invite you to browse through our exciting site to learn how YOU can create fun and fashion for yourself and your family. Also you will find out how you can earn FREE Thirty-One products and half price products, along with our great monthly specials.
Please let me know if you have any questions or would like more information any of our products.
Celebrate / Encourage / Reward

Shannon Porter
Phone: 623-451-2305
Email: Shann@DreamTheArt.com
Website: www.mythirtyone.com/ShannonPorter



Healthy Lunches are "In the Bag"

With the kids back to school, many Moms are finding themselves packing daily lunches again. Lunches from home can be healthier and less expensive than cafeteria food, and many kids prefer packing to save time at school. Third-grader Jacouri (son of a Thirty-One home office employee) states that while many of his friends buy their lunch, he likes packing because he doesn’t have to wait in line, and he doesn’t like the cafeteria food.
“My mom packs the stuff she knows I like,” Jacouri said. “I like my sandwiches grilled because it tastes so good.”
Choosing foods that kids will eat may require you to think “outside the paper lunch bag” for tasty alternatives to the standard peanut butter and jelly. This may mean including foods that need a little “TLC” in terms of temperature. Keeping cold foods cold and warm foods warm is one way to appeal to even the pickiest eater!
Many times kids resist certain items if they’re not kept at the appropriate temperature. And not only can a warm cheese stick or yogurt be unappetizing, certain foods can be unsafe if not kept cold. According to a USDA Article, harmful bacteria can multiply rapidly when cold foods are not kept cold. In fact, they recommend that food not be kept at room temperature for more than two hours. The best way to ensure safe temperatures is to pack foods in an insulated bag that includes an ice source such as a re-freezable gel pack or ice cubes sealed in a plastic bag.
Likewise, hot foods can be kept in an insulated bag to preserve their temperature. Soups and hot sandwiches can be kept warm for quite a while when packaged correctly.
With the selection of Thermal Totes available from Thirty-One, Jacouri and his mom are sure to find one that will be perfect for those grilled sandwiches! That’s good news for Jacouri – he can have his grilled sandwich along with the other stuff he likes, and his mom can rest assured that he’s eating a healthy sandwich!
As for Jacouri’s other request for lunches, we may not be able to help with those….
“I can be greedy,” he shared. “All I want is the sugary stuff!”

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New Job

Ok I know most of you probably already know about this... but I have signed on to become a Thirty One consultant. Thirty one is a company that sells purses, bags, home organizers and such. They have great products, that can be personalized. You can check out my web site by clicking here. With the upcoming holidays if anyone is interested in hosting a party or placing an order, let me know. I would love to help out.
Thanks so much!!

I will be posting the October and November specials her later today too, so make sure you check back soon!

Ramblings, Park days and Teddy Bears

Sorry for the delay in posting. Seems like time has gone by so fast this last month or so... You know I say that, but time seems to have sped up exponentially since we had kids. It's always fun to go back and look at the beginning of this blog. I still cannot believe we have had this thing for 4 years now. Alexa was the same age then that Erika is now. It still amazes me to look at the photos. I could swear those early pictures were Erika and vice versa... they look so much alike.
As I was looking through and reading some of our early posts, it occurred to me that we have posted a lot of the things that go on here in the Porter house, mostly good. There have been a few rare glimpses into the bad or crabby, as the case may be. :) It made me think about how things *really* are here in our house. Yes we have lots of good times, but there are hard times too. We have had our share of sadness, anger, frustration, loss and any other number of adjectives along those lines. We have experienced financial difficulty, lost jobs, broken bones and hospital stays.
Through it all there have been two things that have been constant through out. The first being God. We never could have made this far with out our faith in God. He has been gracious, and merciful all these years. Mike and I do realize that God has protected us even during our hard times.
The other consistent has been our family. We are EXTREMELY grateful to be so blessed with great parents. We both have heard stories of people that do not get along with one side or the other of their families. We do not have that problem. Both of our parents have gone out of their way to help us out when they could (and sometimes made things work even when all appeared lost). I just wanted to take this opportunity to say "THANK YOU!" We could not have gotten this far with out some help, you all mean the world to us!
Not sure where all this is coming from, I guess I have been thinking a lot, and just really wanted to get all my thoughts out.

Ok, sorry for the rambling beginning, now on to the good stuff... PICTURES!
We have has some fun days with our home-school group, but it was fun to watch the kids do PE. They have had to do push ups and run relays... it's pretty fun to watch.

I mentioned in the last post that Tim had some loose teeth. He finally lost one just this week. He was so excited that the tooth fairy came and left him a whole dollar under his pillow. :) He still has one more loose in the front, should be any day now for it to come out as well.

Erika is now officially 11 months old. I cannot believe that in one more month she will be a year old. It really does not seem like that much time has passed. She is still cruising the furniture, but loves to grab hands and walk all over the place. She finally has some top teeth in as well. She is now in the mimicking stage. She loves to watch her bother and sister and try to do the things they do. It cracks me up about the bear. every time I try and get a picture of her with the bear she would put her feet up (see what I mean about mimicking... LOL). She really is such a good baby though, for the most part she is pretty content and she is just generally a happy child. We are so blessed.

Anyway that is all for now. I will leave off with a fun pic of Lex hamming it up for the camera.

Thanks for reading, and take care!