waving and blowing kisses

yowzah - so much to say and so little time. zach has been out of town for work and im doing the single mom thing - no idea how people do this for a lifetime. it makes me so thankful for the team we have created. on other news, i got a new camera for my birthday - totally intimidated by its awesomeness and can't bring myself to post pics yet. ha, soon. in the meantime here are a couple of cheesy videos from our morning commute while we were stopped at a stoplight.

rah rah rah your boat

porter has started bringing me books and i think he wants me to read them, but then i start reading and he walks away and gets another one. so... i thought this was more a game of just getting the book and bringing it to me. i had no idea he knew which book was which or that he even listened to a word i said while i was reading.

(here's where the 'my kid is a genius' bragging comes in...)

he walked over to his stack, picked up the book that has the song 'row row row your boat' in it... and started yelling 'rah rah rah rah rah rah'! i had never heard that syllable before... so i knew he knew what he was saying! it was the cutest thing - then he actually sat there and let me sing/read the whole thing to him and he sort of tried to sing along. so many 'rah rah rah's' and lots of clapping.

i decided to test it last night while zach and i were sitting in his room playing. porter was banging away at something and i said 'hey porter, go get the 'row row row your boat book and bring it to mama.' he dropped his toy, walked over to the stack of books, threw the top 2 books off... and grabbed the correct book! he held it over his head and walked over to me. we couldn't believe it! he was shouting 'rah rah rah' the whole time.

kids are amazing.

things he is saying right now:

mama
dada
all done - 'ahh da'
down - 'dow' (emphasis on the ow)
bottle - 'bah ble'
apple - 'aaah ple'
cracker - 'creker' (says it really fast)
yea - 'yah yah yah yah'
no - 'na na na na' shaking or turning his head the whole time
and i swear yesterday when i was putting on his shoe he said shoe - 'sue'!

and... he just learned to blow a kiss. it looks more like a slap to his own face with a smile afterward... but it still melts my heart :)

party!

Porter's Birthday Party was a blast! We all went out to the park and grilled hotdogs, drank root beer floats, ate cupcakes, and chased toddlers around and tried (unsuccessfully) to keep them from eating dirt. I couldn't have asked for better company to celebrate our baby's first year of life. We were so blessed by the friends and family that came out to root for our guy and thank God for his life. So thankful... I did hate that I didn't get pictures of everyone and never got any group pictures but I guess that's just how it is. Here are a few of what I got... If you came to the party and have more, please send them to me!
























and if you didn't notice... yes, porter got a super 'p' cape for his birthday... is there anything cuter?