I present, the deck.

Husband/Dad writing this time. Sorry ladies, pics of Porter will have to come later. For now we focus on man things, such as decks and the stain that is applied to them. I spent the better part of 5 hours staining the deck yesterday afternoon and the whole block still smells of stain and i think i am still a tad dizzy. I completed the task though and think it turned out ok. It is a tad more red than we(Carrie) wanted but hey, better than run down gray. I want to send a special thank you out to Jim who without his forcing me to stain his 2,000 sq ft of deck this summer, I would not have been able complete this. Thanks for the training Jim! Anyway, more pictures of Porter to come next time.

Before Photos




Amazing After shots of perhaps the best deck in the 78723 zip code:

half a year

i can't believe he is 6 months old today.

new life

i love my new life as a mom.

i have been thinking about how anxious i was that somehow i would lose a part of myself in this dreadful momland where everyone wears high waisted jeans and wants to homeschool their kids and sanitize everything and suddenly boogers and poop aren't gross and your hair is always in a ponytail and your mascara is somewhere deep inside the bottom of a giant diaper bag and you sometimes forget to put it on and you are so tired at the end of each night that you hardly make it to 10pm before you fall alseep on the couch watching a show and you wake up before the sun to start it all again.

well, all of those things... minus the part about high waisted jeans and homeschooling my kids... have happened. and i love it.

i feel more fulfilled helping this little man to grow than i ever have felt doing anything else. i still am who i was created to be and now i am just all those things i was working towards AND a mom.

its perfect.

living so thankful today...

hangin out.

someone stole my baby

and replaced him with a giant kid who eats solid food, tries to sit up... and CRAWLS.

yep, this guy was scooting all over the floor this weekend. he doesn't fully pull his knees under for a real crawl, but he has mastered the army crawl. there is nothing he can not get a this point. 6 months on thursday and already fully mobile.

we don't know what to do.

ralphie

aunt meg has been saying that porter looks like someone and she couldn't put her finger on it...

and she finally had a revelation.

ralphie from a christmas story.





just give him a couple years and some glasses.

isn't this just a family of famous faces. molly ringwald, the greatest american hero and ralphie. what a motley crew.

greatest american hero

the owner of porter's school had the chance to meet z for the first time a while back when he and bebe picked p up from school a little early to play. ever since that day she has been telling me that she thought zach looked just like the greatest american hero. i had no idea what she was talking about until this morning when she sent me an email with his picture.

i haven't stopped laughing all day.

zach. he is MY greatest american hero.

learning to read

jumparoo!

we visited jen and russell this weekend in waco and they passed an amazing jumparoo along to us... and p is LOVING it. thanks, harwells! we had so much fun letting the boys drool on eachother and practice being best friends. can't wait for our next visit.





these are from this morning. he is so sweet in the morning... cute and ready to cuddle. full of smiles. this morning his little arm was dangling.



i got caught...



happy to see me.

mmm, rice cereal

video to come...