Traditions

Every year the Benton family goes to "Scrooge a Christmas Carol" at the Terrace Plaza Playhouse in Washington Terrace and we LOVE it. We have seen it so many times that we have trouble not singing along and repeating the lines with the actor's and actresses but it NEVER grows old. We anticipate for weeks whether or not this years Bob Cratchet will be up to par, and we start talking about which song is who's favorite. The Benton boys are not big on musicals but love this one. Our family has many Christmas traditions but this is definitely one of my favorites and this year was no exception. Burk and I were a little worried when we saw this years Tommy Jones he was a little skinny, but he pulled it off. Anyway, if your family is lacking some "culture" this is a must for 2010. The Benton's will be there front and center the Monday before Christmas. But be warned this will leave you singing Thank you very very very much the whole year through.

P.S. Thanks Papa Joe, we loved it again!!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree...........

How lovely are your clumps of decor. :) We have three trees. One in the front room, this one in our family room, and a small one in Porter's room. All decorated by Porter all by himself. They are so funny. Each one has all the ornaments at the bottom. I thought for a second I may "rearrange" the stuff when he went to bed but I decided that Christmas is about kids and in twenty years I will be dying to have my kids come home and make funny trees. So they remain beautiful an clumped.

FOOOOORRRREEVVVER!

Last night Porter said "Mommy families can be together forever because I am never ever moving out of your house, I am going to always live where you live. It was cute, I have a small feeling when he is around 17 he will be singing a different tune.

oh that?!

For like a week Porter has been talking about the "castle of stoves". We have had no idea what in the world he has been talking about. Yesterday he showed us..... on top of the mountain the microwave towers. I am wondering if this confusion has any reference to my awesome cooking skills? Who Knows.

H1N1 vaccine and then some..............................

We finally had our chance to brave the masses and get vaccinated. If you have not had it yet and are eligible you should go. Its really easy and fast with their new system. Thursday I went to the Bountiful Regional Center and got our tickets and then Saturday we went to the Davis Conference center for the big "stick". From this picture it looks pretty crazy but the wait was not too long. There were children freaking out and screaming their heads off so I was not sure how Porter would do. Here he is though in the chair smiling. The lady asked him if he needed to sit in my lap to not be scared. He replied that he didn't need me and he was gonna be the bravest boy she had shot all day. They asked him if he wanted a sucker while he waited because dad went first. But he told them "no he had not had breakfast yet".

The lady had him look away so he would not see the HUGE needle. Luckily he had his good friend Mona. He did great and did not cry until he was finished. I think when he cried it was because of all the pent up anxiety about getting the shot to begin with.

Unfortunately though the shot does not cover strep throat which is what we have at our house now. Luckily the babies haven't gotten it. It came to me and has stayed with me. Unfortunately for Burk that has meant that he has been a single parent since Saturday night. Dealing with all kinds of things that try our patients. Getting up in the night to feed Rebb, to help Porter after a nightmare, dropping kids off at school, picking them up, making them dinner, baths and stories before bed time, fits and tantrums, and funny enough this...................................................................

Yes it is what you think Super Stinky POO! This blow out topped them all. It was awesome. Burk started screaming oooogggghhh HELP, I rushed out of my room to find Porter gagging and Burk in mass hysteria. All I could do was laugh. Rebb was looking all around smiling and feeling very proud of himself. It was as if he were saying "see mama, what I did".
I grabbed the nearest camera which was my phone so this is kind of a crappy photo and it really does not capture the enormity of the "situation".

All in all Burk did a very good job of being a single parent and I appreciate him immensely. Not only did he take care of the boys but of me too. Running downstairs to get me drinks of water, and ibuprofen several times a night, going to the store before work to buy me some throat spray and other random acts of kindness. Rarely do I get sick, (I don't have time for sickness :) ) and even rarer are the times in my life when I have been THIS sick. It is nice to know I can depend on him when I am. Thanks again, love ya babe.

All out of Order

I have about a billion posts that I want to go back and post but I thought it was important to do this one today. So my stuff will be all out of order but oh well.

To all the soldiers who have lost their lives, to all the injured men and women, to all the POW's, to all the mothers who have laid in bed all night and worried about their babies who were away from home fighting for our freedom, to all the wives who have cried themselves to sleep, to all the children praying each night that mommy or daddy will return home safely, to all the sisters that have missed Christmas with a sibling, to every friend who has lost a friend, to every grandchild who never actually met their grandparent, to any of our service men and women who have missed the birth of a child, a first word or step, to every member of our military living or not, that I may or my not know, a sincere THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart. Have a great Veterans Day!!!!! You deserve it.

That's just how we roll

Hillface must really be part of our family because we met her for her birthday lunch on Saturday. Her birthday was in August. Boggy, Tata, Porter, Rebb and I met Hillface and her friend Alli at Cheesecake Factory, Saturday for a very belated birthday lunch. It was so fun to see her and lunch was yuummmy! These pics are from my phone so they are kind of bad but Porter doesn't care. As long as we take pics of him and his woman. We all ate until we couldn't move and then most everyone ordered cheesecake to go. Porter didn't want cheese cake but our waiter hooked him up with some whip cream. It had a cherry on top and was sprinkled with chocolate chips. He thought he was in heaven.

It was a fun day.

Happy Birthday Hillface, we love you.

Cutest Shrek!!!

I love this pick of RebbRebb. It is kind of crappy quality cuz it came from my phone but still cute.

Blog Slacker!!!

There has been about a billion things I have wanted to blog about these last couple of months that I have not gotten to. We have been so busy. But I wanted to just throw a few of them up. So here goes.




Frightmares
So fun!! I love the way everything is all decorated and the little spookaboo house for the little kids. We went on a Friday and it was the best night. All of the people were in lines for the haunted houses, so there were no lines for rides. It was such a blast. We met Joerob and Jennie there and Porter and Aleksa had so much fun.

Don't worry!!! That's not really me. I know this is exactly how I look naked but that is actually just a fake guy. :)

OCTOBER!!! YEAH!

We are so happy October is here. We love October. We love the leaves turning colors, the football games, sweatshirts and hoodies, fleece blankets and the fireplace, but mostly HALLOWEEN. These pictures were October first. I love to dress my kids in Halloween attire. You will most likely see them in clothes like this for the duration of the month.

Soccer

This picture was taken directly after Porter scored his first goal. As you can see from Boggy's hand we all jumped up and cheered. We have loved his soccer games. He loves it too. it has been worth every penny it cost to sign him up.

PARK CITY
Most of you probably know about Porter's incident on the Alpine slide. This picture does not even come close to doing it justice. Luckily he is a tuff boy and has young skin so I don't think he will scar to bad. Everywhere we went for a week people we don't even know would ask what the heck happened to his face. He started telling people "you should see the other guy".

Here is my little Rebb man chillin in Bumbo. You can't see in this picture but his shirt says mommy's little rebel. Perfect for our "Rebb"el since that's where the nickname came from.

I love these three men!!

Here are the big boys on the coaster. We love the coaster. It is such a blast. Porter loves that you are strapped to the track and can't fly off and go down on your face with you dad on top of you.

This is Porter jumping on the trick trampoline at the mountain resort. He loved it.

Porter loves this really dumb minigolf course at the condo. We try and try to talk him out of it every year but he wants to do it multiple times. He can usually sucker his dad into it a time or two. What a good daddy.

We went to the Park Silly Market on Sunday. It is at the bottom of Main street on Sunday's and we love it. It is like a street festival. They have food and face painting and all kinds of booths with stuff for sell. There are all kinds of vegetables, and things made by the hippies "all natural" We love the live music and the atmosphere. Burk even bought a new wedding ring this year. It is pretty. It is Tungsten Silver. He hasn't had a ring that fits for years. :)

Porter and Daxton played hard each day. They wore each other out, and needed a rest. Here they are watching a movie. They laughed a ton and made lots of noise. I am sure the people below us were annoyed as crap.

Here are Gigi and Diddy in the pool. As always Porter wanted to spend hours in the pool and wouldn't let any of us out until we had prune fingers.

We were so very excited that Baga Bwena and Booge's family could come up and stay with us. We made some super good memories. In spite of Porter's face this was one of my very favorite years in PC. We didn't know it at the time but it ends up we sold our timeshare about two weeks after we got home. It was definitely a good year to go out on.

State Fair

As far as Porter is concerned the only reason to go to the fair is the big yellow slide. And he loves it so much we could go broke. This year he and Burk went three times before I cut them off.

Burk likes the slide too but he and I really like the people watching.

We didn't have any crazy fried food this year. Burk and I just ate Philly cheese steaks with NO CHEESE WHIZ which made Burk mean. :) And Porter had a hot dog that I literally went across the park to buy for a buck. It took me like an hour but Burk and Porter made friends with two different families who came to our table, ate, and left in the time I was gone. RebbRebb smiled and put on a show for both groups.

My favorite thing at the fair is always the photography. They have some awesome stuff. Plus it is inside in the air conditioning. Mostly I like to listen to Porter whine "lets go to the slide, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy can we go to the slide now."

No, Truthfully though I love the fair and any chance to spend a nice day with my cute family. Who would have ever thought 3 smelly boys could be so much fun but they are my world.

oh no!!!! He's his father

The other night we were going to get Porter's Halloween Costume (which by the way I didn't want to do yet because I am afraid of 45 mind changes before the 31st) and Porter thought we were going to the Halloween store at the mall. But we were going to Halloween USA near our house. So when I started driving he said you didn't turn and got all freaked out. I told him we were going to the Halloween store by our house which I thought was called Halloween Boutique. And from the back seat I hear "Oh man, Boutique equals BOOOORRRRIING!!"
Ironically I think the store in the mall is called Halloween Boutique.

You Fly Like a Girl

This morning on the way to school Porter asked me how many super heroes there are. I told him I wasn't sure and he wanted to have me help him name them and count them on his fingers. (he is really into counting and adding things up right now, but that's another story) So he starts naming Batman, Superman, Spiderman ect. and then tells me there are 6 superheroes. he named the ones he had thought of and I asked what about Wonder Woman? He quickly replied that "she just helps them, she is not a superhero, more like an assistant". Not only did I find it funny that he thinks girls can't be superheroes, but I had to wonder when my four year old started using the word assistant.

JFK=Joerob

While we were at the ball park in Park City Porter found a fifty cent piece that probably used to be someones good luck charm. It must not have brought them much luck, since they lost it but anyway. I was talking to Porter about it later and showed him that it said 1979 on it, the year Burk And I were born and he said "yeah, and it has a picture if Joerob on it." (Joerob is Burk's cousin) Good news for Joerob, I believe JFK is thought of as a fairly handsome guy.

Soccer

Soccer started for Porter last Saturday. It is his first "organized " sport and I don't think he knew what to expect. He was very excited though to be number three. The very same number as one of his Layton Lancer Baseball Heros, Brock Maestas. I never in a million years dreamed that we would have some work to do with him to make him more aggressive. It made me a little sad that he hung back a bit and seemed intimidated. More than anything, I want him to to be sure of himself in everything he does in life. I am determined to make him believe he can be and do anything he wants if he puts his mind to it.
Here he is with his game face on. Although we call it soccer, at this age it is really more like bumble ball. It is three on three and there are no positions and no goaly. They all just run around in a little huddle and trip on each other. It is hilarious. They don't keep score and none of the kids can really dribble, they have to stop in front of the ball and get positioned just right to be able to kick it. So it is kind of a miracle the ball goes up and down the field at all. The three things they are supposed to learn and work on this year are dribbling, passing and throw ins. At half time the coach asked the kids if they had any questions and porter said "yeah, why can't we use our hands?". Burk said he has been asking that question for thirty years. There was one point in the game though where Porter broke away with the ball. We were so proud. Luckily Burk got it on video.
Enjoy!!

Preschool

Preschool started Friday and Porter was very excited to have a new Transformer Book Bag. He goes to preschool a couple hours a week at the same place where he and Rebb go for daycare. Since Friday was the first day Mrs. Tonja thought it might be easier to not have Rebb that day. I was worried that if Porter figured out that Rebb was going to Boggy's for the day he would want to do that instead, so Thursday night I told Porter that Rebb didn't get to go to preschool tomorrow and he said "that's o.k. because he is boring". I just looked at him and he said "well only a tiny bit boring". It was kind of funny. The truth is Porter loves Rebb a ton and is great at helping me with him. But he probably will enjoy him more when Rebb is big enough to play ball. After all a person who can't play ball is such a waste of space. :)

Rebb and Bumbo Friends forever!!

We just bought Rebb a bumbo chair. I pretty much think its the best invention ever. Rebb loves it. He thinks he is so big. He loves to be sitting up where he can see us and get in on the action. As you can see here he does lots of smiling and cooing when we put him in it. I got this little beauty for $35.oo at wal-mart and think it is worth every penny. Apparently though there has been some bad publicity about them because parents were not aware that you shouldn't put your child in this and leave them on an elevated surface, or unattended. DUH!! So if you take our recommendation please be sure to read the warnings. I also hear that when they get bigger they can't get out of these. WOO HOO!
All I know is that if I continue to get smiles like this out of Rebb I will use this chair for a while. Also if you know our family at all, you have probably already realized that we have all been calling each other bumbo since we bought it.

Bob and Wendy

We got to see Hillface on Sunday. She and Porter played a little Bob the builder. He made her be "Wendy" and wouldn't let her take off her hard hat almost the whole time she was there. I printed this picture to send to Sammy Sosa but Porter loves it so much he made me print another so he could keep one in his room.

Rebb's Blessing

Bless•ing

–noun
1.the act or words of a person who blesses.
2.a special favor, mercy, or benefit: the blessings of liberty.
3.a favor or gift bestowed by God, thereby bringing happiness.
4.the invoking of God's favor upon a person

5.praise; devotion; worship, esp. grace said before a meal: The children took turns reciting the blessing.
6.approval or good wishes

Rebb's blessing went great. We had a separate blessing at the church, but in the evening rather than in Sacrament meeting. We were very thankful to have many loved ones there to celebrate this beautiful baby with us. We feel so BLESSED to have this sweet spirit in our home, and family. I am so grateful to our Heavenly Father for entrusting me with two of his most precious spirits. Everyday I strive to do my best to make sure that they are returned to him, but sometimes I forget or get a little off the path and am very happy to have these two sweet faces to remind me why I am here.

Such a good brother!!!

Lagoon

We decided to get Lagoon season passes this year. We loved it so much. We decided that Monday night was lagoon night so we went every week mixed with a few weekends while the kids were visiting from PA. Porter was fearless and rode everything he was tall enough for, and he really wanted to ride the things he wasn't quite tall enough for.

He always wants to be higher and faster.

Of course he loves any ride where he can shoot things.

We even found Burk's favorite ride. It is called the lady bug bop and is located in kid land. We had a ton of fun this summer and I am so glad we got passes and made lots of fun family memories.

Purse Frenzy

Join us at my Designer Inspired Purse party!!!!!

See styles of Gucci, Prada, Marc Jacobs, Tommy, Dior, Dooney & Bourke, and Louis Vitton.
Rember they accept check or cash only. There is no credit card machine. It is open house style so you can come and go as it works best for you. There is no silly presentation, you just see if there is anything you cant live without, buy it and go. I really love that you can take what you want home that night.
Tuesday September 1, 2009. 7:00 p.m.
Call me if you dont have my address.

I am soooo excited about this. I love purses!!!!!!
Bring your mothers, sisters and friends.

BE THERE OR BE SQUARE. :) (you know, an L7 weenie)

Tired of it

This is not funny!!!!! It is so true to my life I could cry.

Not to say that morning is my favorite, or that I don't enjoy sleeping in as much as the next guy but I have never been a person who gets the morning uglies. I wake up fairly pleasent and ready to start the day. My boys however need lots of sleep. Burk (not being able to have another a.m. argument) recently gave Porter an 8 o'clock bedtime lecture. Apparently it stuck!! Friday night we went to get ice cream and when we got home Porter stomped up the stairs crying "now I will be ornery tomorrow because you made me stay up past 8 and eat ice cream. Sadly I will admit that we have to sometimes lie to him about the time when he gets out of the bath and into bed.

There is just not enough time after work and daycare to squeeze in dinner, family time, baths ect.

Mostly after 10 years of waking up with Burk and four with Porter, I pray that Rebb will be a morning man. I have earned at least one.

Park City

A few weeks back Porter, Rebb and I got to go to Park City and stay in the condo with Boggy, Papa Joe and Tata. Burk could not get off work so he and Cody came up Saturday and went home Sunday night. It was such a great couple of days. Tata or Boggy would come in and get Rebb in the mornings and I would sleep in. It was the best three nights of sleep I have had in 8 weeks. We stayed up late talking and played games. I got to hear lots of stories about when Joe and Sheryl were first married and what life was like when Burk was a boy. I loved it, I just kept asking more and more questions until we were all exhausted. Porter loved the pool. He wouldn't let Burk and Cody get out until they were all way past prunny.

Even a course this sucky couldn't deter Porter. He was obsessed with mini golf from the second we got there he begged and begged to go, Burk finally took him.

Rebb mostly hung out and tried to eat his friends "the bees". He was so fun though while we were there he really started smiling and cooing a lot. Mostly at papa Joe.

Porter and Papa went on the coaster. Porter loved it.

He was a little bummed though because they got stuck behind a "scared old bag" that went a little slow.

And they did the Alpine slide. Porter loves it as well.

It was such a great weekend. We loved it so much and were thankful to have gotten to go.