Tuesday, April 17, 2012

December 2011

At 5 months Porter was sitting up on his own. It's crazy how big of a difference this one little skill can make. Bye, bye bouncy chair...




We had a lot of Christmas outfits for Porter...so naturally we had to dress him in all of them. This one's a keeper.



This is the picture we used for our Christmas card. Thanks Holley for being such a great photographer!


Holley took this one too...I just love the tree lights behind him.


Scott and I hosted Christmas this year at our house. My entire family came over on Christmas Eve. We ate tons of food, played Christmas games, and of course opened presents. (I really need to do a better job at taking pictures of this stuff)
On Christmas morning we recorded Porter opening his gifts from Santa. He got a few movies and books, but his favorite part was the wrapping paper. After gifts, we ate a big breakfast and went to church to celebrate the birth of our Savior.

November 2011



Porter is 4 months and becoming a big boy fast. This month we introduced him to rice cereal. It didn't take him long to get use to it, and soon enough he was eating it 3 times a day.
Porter also learned how to roll over. By the end of the month he would use his rolling skills as transportation. I would put him on a blanket and he would roll and roll until he reached the bookcase. What a clever little guy!




We spent Thanksgiving this year at Autumn and Charlie's. Autumn gave birth to Gavin days before the family arrived. Isn't she amazing?! Gavin is such a sweet baby, it'll be fun to see him and Porter play together when they're older.


Check out my "mom shoulders", fancy with Porter's slobber.


Porter got lots of attention from his cousins, and he wore a special outfit for our Thanksgiving meal.





Halloween 2011



It's Porter's first Halloween!
I was so excited to dress him up, it was hard to choose what to put him in. I was with my mom and sister as we were shopping for his costume and after a quick vote, this is the costume that won!



Porter was 3 months when I went to get these pictures taken. It was so easy to get him to smile...his cousin Kylie...not so much.



We took him to the Pumpkin Patch, so he could see the animals and get a pumpkin. It was cold, so we didn't stay long, but he seemed amused looking around at all the people and rides.





The Saturday before Halloween we went to our ward's "Trunk or Treat". It was fun seeing all of the family, and walking around to see everyone's decorated cars.

On Halloween night we went "trick or Treating" with a few families in the ward. We didn't take Porter up to any doors, but it was nice to walk around and talk with friends. Plus, it gave me another excuse to put him in his adorable costume.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Grand Canyon

In October of 2011 we made a purchase that Scott has been working to get for a long time...a trailer!


The week we bought it we put it to use. We spent 11 days going to Arizona and our final destination was The Grand Canyon. I'll start from the beginning of our trip.
This was a spontaneous trip so we didn't have much time to prepare. Scott mapped out the spots he wanted to see and we hit the road. Our first stop...Joshua Tree. It took us a few hours to get there and once we arrived we were welcomed with a sign that said the camp grounds were all closed due to flooding. I honestly wasn't too disappointed because we've camped in Joshua Tree many times before, and my 3 month old was sleeping soundly, so we decided to drive all the way to Arizona while we had the chance. We arrived at a lovely campsite near Phoenix called Lake Pleasant.

There wasn't much site seeing but we did enjoy playing games and taking advantage of the full hook ups. It was on a very pretty lake that would have been fun to use if the weather was a bit warmer.


After a day of re- cooping we were on the road again heading for Sedona. On the way there we stopped at Montezuma's Castle. It is a very preserved Indian cliff dwelling. This stop made us anxious to see more ruins throughout the trip.


Sedona was our biggest surprise for the trip. I had no idea it was that beautiful! We drove in to town and saw Red Rock everywhere. Autumn's family met us there and we got to spend a few days hiking, going into town, and the boys even rented Jeeps to go off roading.







We said our farewells to the Ethington's and headed for our next stop, Flagstaff.
Before me made it to our destination, we stopped to see more ruins. These were some amazing cliff dwellings, and they were everywhere. I'm not sure if you can spot them behind Scott, but in person we could see them throughout this canyon.

This is a closer look of the insides.


Flagstaff was a surprise to us too. I didn't expect to see forest in Arizona, and we were surrounded by it. We did a lot in the few days we stayed here. My favorite part was getting hook ups again :)

We did a lot in Flagstaff, one of our biggest stops was seeing the Meteor Crater. Apparently it's the most preserved and well known crater on Earth.




There was a down town area where we looked at some shops and we toured a famous Mansion owned by the Riordans. We learned that they're a well known family in Arizona that gained their wealth from cattle.



We also saw a lot more Indian Ruins...this park was full of them!






What's a road trip without eating at a local diner?


Our trip had one more stop, and it was the high light of our vacation. The Grand Canyon!



Lucky us, we got to spend that portion of our trip with Carla and her cute boys!




Scott and I were amazed at the beauty of this place. The second we drove in and saw it we had to stop in amazement. It's weird because you hear about this place often, but I'm so glad we were able to experience seeing it. And see we did...we saw it from just about every angle we could. We hiked into it, we went to every near view point, and we learned as much about it as we could.

This was a look out spot designed by a famous, female, architect.


I'm very big on reading about everything that we see. I want to learn the history behind it and truly know about what I'm looking at. I was looking desperately for the pamphlet I got about the lookout. After a few minutes of forcing Scott to stop and help me look, we opened the cover to the car seat to find our little thief who was holding onto to it tightly.




These pictures just speak for themselves.







We didn't make it to the very bottom, but it was neat to look up after hiking down a couple of miles to see the view from a different angle.


We rode the bus everywhere throughout the park.



Scott loved going on bike rides with his nephews.



Our campground was beautiful too. These visitors came often...this was right outside of our trailer.

It was sad to see our Arizona trip come to an end. We had such a nice family trip, we saw a natural wonder, and broke in our new trailer.

I left for this trip with my handsome, clean cut husband...and came back with this good looking mountain man!



Time to plan the next family outing :)