It Has Begun!

Today's the day! I officially started training for the SLC marathon today. How appropriate that it starts the first week of the new year. Can we say resolution or what?

It's not too late to join in! I would love it if others decided to do it too! There is also a half marathon and a 5k. You know you want to!

Pray for my bad knees!

Kids make Christmas Fun!

Here's the Christmas recap:

The Saturday before Christmas we have our huge (and I mean huge) Porter family Christmas party. Dale's Grandma Raeleen has over 30 grandchildren (not counting spouses) and over 50 great-grandchildren and we all cram together in Aunt Jill's family room and stuff our faces with delicious Mexican food. Then we have a short program and then we get to visit. I tried to take pictures of the event, but my camera has kicked the bucket (it's very tragic!)

Then on Christmas Eve, we had a Christmas party for just the Morris Family (Dale's brothers and sisters and their kids.) Face stuffing also occurred here too.

Every Christmas Eve right before we go to bed, the "Elves" ring our doorbell. The kids run to get it but when they open it, they are gone. In their place, are jammies made by the elves for each child. Thankfully, I remembered that my sis in law Jodi loaned me her old camera a while ago so I dug it out. So let us all rest easy, Christmas 2007 was documented after all.

Here are the kids with their new jammies. The elves have style don't they?
Awww, the elves thought of me too! Aren't they cute? I can't think of anything better than a damask pattern with pink skulls on it!
Santa came!!! Santa came!!!
Of course the big hit present was the car that my grandparents got. Ella ran straight for it.
Tabby got a big play make up kit. Loves it! She is always wanting to give me makeovers so if you come over and I answer the door with bright blue eyeshadow and purple blush, you will know why.
Some of you more conservative people may roll over and die when you see what Rex got. Oh, he loved it!
Yay for slippers!

Then it was off to my parents house for our traditional Christmas breakfast (more face stuffing.)

Magi makes this DELICIOUS pull-apart every year. The gooier the better.
Tabby wanted this Barbie dress for months and months. She jumped up and down when she opened it.
Whenever you asked Rex what he wanted for Christmas, every time he would say "a race car track." He played (and still does) with this for hours.
I have to say that this was the best Christmas ever! Instead of buying our kids a bunch of stuff just so they can have presents, we just focused on getting them a few things that were exactly what they wanted. They were way more grateful and they value the presents they did get a lot more. I thought they would fight over that car but they haven't. It truly is a Christmas miracle!

I'm just a tad behind. Here it is a day after Christmas and I'm posting stuff that happened 2 weeks ago. No biggie, I'll get there soon enough. Anyway, we didn't do any official Family Christmas Card Picture Taking this year but I did manage to get a few pics of the family when we were at my parent's house for dinner 2 Sundays ago.

It's impossible to get all of the kids to look at the camera at once and if you do happen to get one of them to look at the camera, they make a silly face. Lovely.
Here's me and my dreamboat.
I actually got a lot of good ones of Tabby. She will never hold still long enough for a picture but she manged to hold it together for quite a few shots.

I swear I did not tell her to pose like this. This is something she has adopted all on her own.
My poor little guy was in no mood for taking pictures but his mean mom made him do it anyway. He's definitely not smiling but he's cute none the less!
Are you still watching?
And last but not least, Ella loves to pose for pictures! She's our happy little girl!
She gives me this look all the time. I think it means "Are you kidding?"

Merry Christmas From Naughty and Nice

Here's a pic from 2005. This was when we just had Tabby and Pig. My how we've grown! Merry Christmas everyone! I hope your day tomorrow will be cheery and bright!

Think Happy Thoughts, Think Happy Thoughts!

Did you ever have one of those days? You know, like when your husband gets home you feel like snatching the keys, running out of the door, jumping in the car, peeling out of the driveway and going till the car is out of gas? Then you get out and run until you get to water, dive in and keep swimming until you get to a land far far away? Hopefully the land I reach would be the Virgin Islands.


Here's to hoping that today is better than yesterday!

Rex Rules!

Here is a sample of the awesome stuff that comes out of my son's mouth:

Sung to the tune of Avirl Lavigne's song Girlfriend

"Hey hey, you you, I don't want a walrus!"

We love you Bubba!

I dedicate this post to my good friend Wendy Fuller.
Happy birthday Wendy!!!
Hope you get a good nap today, you deserve it!

That's Fogtastic!

Okay, I apologize for the horribly cheesy title of this post. But when actual weather happens here, I really get excited. Nothing against the sunny days. I just enjoy a change-up every once in a while. It makes you start taking notice of things again. If you live in Queen Creek, you saw the awesome fog we had this morning. How often does that happen? Not very! Tabby has never seen fog before and of course she asked me what it was and how it occurs. My very scientific answer was the clouds get too heavy to be up in the sky so they hang out down here. Hmmm, all you meteorologists can call me on that. Like I really know what causes it. I just loved that something different happened today and it made my morning. Here is Tabby checking it out (yes I made my daughter stand out in the freezing cold so I could get a picture.)

Here is our street:

Here we go again...

Well I said I wasn't going to do another one for a long time but I decided to run another marathon. I wasn't suckered into it like the last one (I love you Karolee!) I decided to do this one all on my own accord! I'm gonna run the Salt Lake Marathon next April. I hope this race goes a bit smoother than the St. George (all you insiders know what happened, oh the TRAGEDY!) Anyway, if I can run a marathon, anyone can and I challenge anyone reading this post to do it too! The first week of January is when I start training so let me know and we will run together!

Dentist Diva

I just have to take a moment and brag about my daughter, Tabby. She is so fearless. I took her to the dentist (Dr. Goates who is Tresure's hubby) because she needed 2 fillings. Anyway, she was SO brave. She did have a bit of trouble with the shots in her gums (who wouldn't?) She had to have 3 and she took the first 2 pretty well but I had to bargain with her to let Dr. Goates give her the 3rd. Let's just say Brandon got his 3rd shot in and Tabby was the proud owner of a red balloon after that. The rest of the time she just hung out and let Brandon use the drill and everything. She thought "Mr. Thirsty" was hilarious. I don't know many 4 year olds who will lie in a dentist's chair and let all of that stuff be done to them. And she went skipping out of the office like nothing ever happened. Here are some pics of her during the appointment:
Just chillin in the chair making everyone laugh.

The protective eyewear was very stylish!

After we left, my mom asked us to go to lunch with her. She was out riding her horse at the time so we met her at the stables. Here we are taking my mom's horse for a spin.

When we got home, Tabby's face was still numb so I took these hilarious pictures of her trying to smile.

Naughty! NOT Nice!

Here is our beautiful little Ella Rose. You might say, "This is a cute picture, but what's that stuff all over her?" Oh, that's just black glitter that she found in my office and dumped all over her self, the floor, my books, and scrapbook paper. Ella is our youngest but don't underestimate her, she is by far the naughtiest baby we have had yet! Yes she is precious and darling but watch out cause she'll mess you up! I said to Dale the other day, I don't think I've ever seen Ella play with an actual toy. That's because she's too busy getting into everything, making messes, and launching plans of attack against her older brother and sister. They have learned to watch their step around her too! Remember at the end of The Incredibles where Jack Jack all of a sudden goes berserk? Well, that's not unlike our little baby girl. Don't get me wrong, I love my little sweetie and I wouldn't change her for anything. Well maybe I would change her desire to shred rolls of toilet paper into tiny bits and spread it all over the house.
We love you baby girl!

Christmastime is Here!

I am so excited for Christmastime to be here! I've almost got the inside and outside decorations all finished. The outside is giving me trouble though, I plug stuff in and it doesn't work!

I usually start decorating the day after Thanksgiving but I like to have my house clean first so I spent all day Friday cleaning and getting boxes out. By the time I finished cleaning, we had to go somewhere and I ran out of time to put up the decorations. When I finally found some time to put up the Christmas stuff two days later, my house was messy all over again (shocker, I know!) I decided not to fall victim to this vicious cycle and so I just decorated my house amid all the dirt and clutter.

I love Christmas villages from Dept. 56 and I have quite a few collectible houses that I have gotten over the years but I refuse to display them because my beautiful sweet children will shatter them into bits and pieces in about 3 minutes. So I only unpack a few and scatter them throughout unreachable places in my house.

The tree is the first thing I put up. I was a little worried about the condition of it because this summer a huge frog got trapped in our garage and thought my tree box would make a nice home. Dale had to wrestle it out of there and the box did not fare so well from the fight. But lo and behold all is well. Here it is all decorated:


But it's not finished yet:

Now we're good! Doesn't the lovely "holiday" baby gate just add to the Christmas ambiance?

Thanksgiving Day

Our Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. I ran the Turkey Trot in the morning. A big thanks to my hubby for keeping the kids entertained while I ran. Here they are after the race with Mr. Turkey Himself:

We had dinner at Dale's parents house where I ate all of the calories I had previously burned off plus more. It was great to be at my in-laws house because they left for their mission to Ecuador today so we really enjoyed the time we got to spend with them. All in all it was a beautiful day with the exception of the ASU game. Don't mention it to Dale, he is still in the grieving process.

The TROT is tomorrow!

The Turkey Trot is tomorrow! I love doing a race on Thanksgiving because now I can stuff my face and not feel bad about it! I wish I could "Beat the Turkey" but he is FAST! You have to run the race in 45 minutes to beat him! Maybe next year.... Se ya'll there!

Why can't I ever think of stuff like this?

Check out these adorable Christmas Dog Stockings my sis made! She's so creative it freaks me out.

She makes them custom according to your dog's name and personality. Here's her website if you want to see more: madebymagi.com

South Mountain

This morning, Wendy, Stacia and I all got up early to go run up South Mountain. The weather was perfect and we all had a great run. I love being able to get out and go do things like this! Thanks ladies for coming with me, and thanks for letting me pick up some groceries on the way home too!

I guess I'm it...

I got tagged by both Stacy and Stacia so I guess I'll just do one for the both of them. Or should I do one that's true and one that's completely false and you guys have to guess which one is true? I'll just do you a favor and tell the truth:

4 Places I've Worked:
Sunsplash Life Guard - it's not as glam as it sounds.
Fitness Works Front Desk - it stunk for a while but I got promoted to manager!
Admin Assistant to the CIO and CFO at a credit union - I had the most high maintenance boss ever!
My house raising my babies - it's very rewarding, I just wish it paid better.

4 Places I've Lived:
Provo, Utah
Mesa
New Zealand - okay only for 2 months but that should count, right?
Queen Creek

4 Favorite TV Shows:
So You Think You Can Dance - this is my ultimate favorite. It comes on every Summer. I miss it!
The Office - Which Bear is Best?
Ugly Betty
Project Runway - new season just started last night!

4 Movies I Want to See:
Love in the Time of Cholera - but I won't cause it's rated R
Enchanted
Into The Wild - but I won't cause it's rated R
August Rush

4 Favorite Foods:
Diet Mountain Dew. I'm currently trying to break my addiction to this. I think I might need to go to rehab for a detox.
Carrabba's - I forget the name of the pasta dish I like but I get it every time I go.
Butterfinger Big Crisp - Snickers used to be my fave candy bar but this one has knocked it out of the lead.
Taco Bell - good thing there isn't one anywhere near my house.

4 Weird Things About Me:
I hate cooking! I mean I loathe it! I will bake an occasional fun treat sometimes but that's it!!! Well, I do cook dinner and stuff. I won't let my kids starve or anything.
I'm terrified of the dark and I have a fear of things popping out of nowhere and scaring me. I will never ever go into a haunted house!
I can't unscramble words. My brain just doesn't work that way.
I love to have my hair played with. I even try to get my kids to do it.

4 Places I'd Rather Be:
Virgin Islands - It's been my dream to go there
Disneyland
On a date with my hubby
Shopping for clothes or things for my house

4 People I'm Tagging:
Wendy Fuller
Heidi Anderson
Becky Jones
Cresta Topol

Look at my teef!

Thanks Uncle James for the Billy Bob teeth!

I took this test, I don't know....

You Are An ENTP

The Visionary You are charming, outgoing, friendly. You make a good first impression. You possess good negotiating skills and can convince anyone of anything. Happy to be the center of attention, you love to tell stories and show off. You're very clever, but not disciplined enough to do well in structured environments. In love, you see everything as a grand adventure. You enjoy taking risks for love. And if things don't work out, you're usually not too much worse for the wear! You would make a great entrepreneur, marketing executive, or actor. At work, you need a lot of freedom to pursue your own path and vision. How you see yourself: Analytical, creative, and peaceful When other people don't get you, they see you as: Detached, wishy-washy, and superficial

What's Your Personality Type?

Out of the mouths of babes....

So we were at Wal-Mart tonight. Where else would we be? Okay well maybe Target. When I'm at Wal-Mart I basically have to go down every isle and look at everything, as I'm sure most everyone does. I was starting to tell Dale "I want to go check out those..." When Tabby interrupted me and said "Aw Mom, nobody cares!!!" And you know what? She's right. Nobody does care. My poor babies and husband get dragged thru entire stores all the time and I'm sure it's pure torture for them. Dale is so nice, he never says anything. Next time I'll remember to spare them and go with a friend instead!

Crazy Cute

Last week was Crazy Hair Day at Tabby's Preschool. She was so excited, she couldn't believe her mama was going to let her really wear her hair like this.


I don't know how she did it, but she managed to make herself look like she was a model in an editorial photo shoot. Especially the last one:

This makes me laugh!

People have been putting posts on their blogs lately about "simple pleasures." Well this simply pleases me! I have no idea who this guy is. The pic was sent to me in an email. It needs to be shared with the world because it will spread joy and happiness to all!