The following is from an actual 1950s home economics textbook intended for high school girls, teaching them how to prepare for married life. ( my own comments have been added in color)

1. Have dinner ready: Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal on time. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospects of a good meal are part of the warm welcome needed. Meals at my house consist usually of what is the fastest and easiest to prepare... if the boys are really fussy then this is not prepared till AFTER Cory comes home so he can watch them while I cook.

2. Prepare yourself: Take 15 minutes to rest so you will be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people. Be a little gay and a little more interesting. His boring day may need a lift. A ribbon? are they serious?? And while i think the makeup idea is a good one, i rarely have the 15 minutes before he walks through that door to myself.

3. Clear away clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives, gathering up school books, toys, paper, etc. Then run a dust cloth over the tables. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. Ya right.. de clutter the house every day and have it look that way the moment Cory gets home... I would have to tie porter up to keep it that way. and dust? i don't know about all you but my house does not get a daily dusting.

4. Prepare the children. Take a few minutes to wash the children's hands and faces if they are small, comb their hair, and if necessary, change their clothes. They are little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part. well my little children while treasures are still little children, dirty faces and clothes and all.

5. Minimise the noise: At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of washer, dryer, or vacuum. Try to encourage the children to be quiet. Greet him with a warm smile and be glad to see him.
LOL this is the most impossible thing to ever accomplish! First off I am not allowed to have laundry going when he comes in? and as for quiet children, i think that is a myth or urban legand and they don't really exist anywhere.

6. Some DONT'S: Don't greet him with problems or complaints. Don't complain if he is late for dinner. Count this as minor compared with what he might have gone through that day. what about MY day? Its stressful too. And my day is usually so hectic he should just be happy there is dinner on the table and the kids and house are still intact.

7. Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or suggest he lay down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him. Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soft, soothing and pleasant voice. Allow him to relax and unwind. so in the 50's when did the women get to unwind and relax?

8. Listen to him: You may have a dozen things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first. why? are my things not as important to talk about?

9. Make the evening his: Never complain if he does not take you out to dinner or to other places of entertainment; instead try to understand his world of strain and pressure and his need to be home and relax. what about my needs to get out of this home and away from MY strain and pressure?

10. The Goal: try to make your home a place of peace and order where your husband can relax. there is nothing wrong with this goal per se... its just darn right impossible to achieve I think!

potty "learning"

we cant call it potty training because then porter gets all upset and confused that there is no real trains involved. We have been doing this learning for a year now and due to the moving and new baby its taken a while. Partly from his on and off interest in it and partly to my being too tired and busy to be consistent.

Anyways I think he has it down now.. he has gone through the night in underwear without wetting them and even been babysat and didn't have an accident. The final test.. he made it through church on sunday and told us everytime he had to go and actually held it until we got to the restroom. For those of you that have not dealt with this with your child yet it may seem silly that I am telling you all this. But trust me its a BIG deal to finally accomplish this task. No more wasted money on diapers, and one less child to change!

skills

Theo is growing and changing so quickly. He has known he has hands for a while now but just discovered that he can use them together to manipulate objects into his mouth. This is of course very exciting for him, and he concentrates for long periods of time trying to accomplish this task. If us adults were this determined and patient in our lives there is no telling how many great things we would have accomplished.

My chunkety 4 month old!

Today was Theodore's 4 month check up, which was cool because its April 2oth so he is exactly 4 months old. He is such a big boy! I make pure cream instead of milk i guess. He weighed in at 17 pounds and 13 oz! That is the 95th percentile. His height was 24 3/4 inches which is the 50th percentile. So he is just short and rolly polly! Here are some pictures taken today. Look at those squishy thighs!

busy busy

This week has been such an interesting and full one. On Monday there was the shooting that was so horrendous and crazy... I cant believe someone could do something like that. what is our world coming to?? I mean you cant feel safe anywhere anymore.. There was a shooting at the library and at the mall here in salt lake this year and then at the high schools and universities now... Its a scary world i am raising my boys in. I pray that we never have to first hand experience some of this random violence, but I am sure with such a large family its only a matter of time in this world.

Tuesday I taught a class about stillbirth at the University of Utah to the graduating class of midwives. My midwife is the head teacher up there. It went well and I was glad that I did it. I feel like talking about Taylor and my experience is really empowering to me. I like to think that maybe I can help other women have the best possible experience if they lose a baby. I was nervous but i think I did a good job, even though I was talking really fast I am sure. I tend to do that when I am nervous. I also like to share my shadow box and Taylor's pictures, its nice to talk about my little boy that couldn't stay. I still miss him and think about him from time to time. Mostly when I see my sister Halley since Daniel is the same age Taylor would be.

Tuesday afternoon I got a taste of what life is like with multiples. My neighbors (whom I didn't even know the names of.. never spent time with, etc.) Knocked on my door and asked if I could watch their kids while they looked for a house.. apparently they got kicked out of these apartments. Anyways I didn't know what to say! Of course I didn't want to but I cant seem to say no to people. So they bring up their 2 1/2 year old boy ( 2 months younger than Porter) and a baby boy born December 13th so the same age as Theo. It was 3:30 and they said they would be two hours. The older kids played pretty well together besides the normal fights over whose turn it was... but the babies were so hard! Theo likes to be held all the time. Well their little boy ( don't even know his name!) is handicapped and has zero head and neck muscle control. His eyes also wobble all around. And both of them decided they were hungry the same time. Let me just say I never want twins! It was really interesting to get them both fed. The evening went on, Cory was working late so it was just me. I expected the parents back around 5:30... they showed up at 8!!!!! 8:00 PM !? I seriously was so annoyed! I mean who drops their kids off at a strangers house and leaves them for almost 5 hours and just expects the person to be fine with it? They didn't even pay me or anything! It was a long night to say the least. I am glad they are moving because I would not be able to handle them just dropping their kids off randomly all the time.

Wednesday we went from 70 degree sunny weather to snow!! It was insane! I really am not a fan of this yo-yo weather. I spent the day helping my sister Thora in Provo. She is moving to England in 2 weeks.. her husband is going to Oxford for his grad school. So i helped her pack and clean and such. I wish I was moving to England, what an adventure!

So today is my self declared do nothing day.. well do nothing outside of the house day anyways. I always have to feed, cloth, bath, and change the kids diapers. I cant even remember what it was like to truly have a "free" day to do whatever I wanted. You know things like sleep in, read books, scrapbook, etc.

story time

Porter LOVES to read. He gets about 45-60 minutes a day of reading with Cory and I... Just recently he has started to "read" his books out loud to Theo. I think its adorable.. but I am not sure Theo finds it that entertaining. Here are a couple videos of story time. Its hard to catch the really good moments on camera since Porter doesn't like to perform when its on. but you can get the general idea.

Tacos

I am so glad that as Porter gets older he is trying out new foods... It makes my life so much easier since I dont have to make two meals. Cory and I both love tacos but I rarely would make them because I would have to make a second thing for porter to eat. Tacos are hard to master.. but porter finally can do it! Once in a while he forgets to hold it properly and the filling falls out and then he has a fit. I actually am surprised he does so well.. most of my taco ends up on the plate and I am an adult!

postings

Hey so today is Friday the 13Th. I don't believe in any superstitious things but i think its a cool day none the less.

I have a bunch of new videos and pictures I want to post and tell you about.. but I have not uploaded them yet. For anyone that doesn't know it takes allot of work and time to get them onto this blog! First I have to hook up my camera to the computer (make sure the batteries are charged so the camera will turn on) then upload all the pictures. My computer is going on 7 years old so it takes a little while for it to do this. After that I usually crop and check the lighting and colors on my photos i want to use. Then I spend WAY too long getting my videos uploaded onto the Internet, it takes sometimes 30 minutes for me to just get one 3 minute video on here. ( like I said my computer is ancient.. i think in computer years it would be 94) After all that I have to post the videos and photos over here and write up what I want to say...

So now you can all appreciate the time I put into this for your viewing pleasure! I will probably get more on here this weekend.. but tonight I have a date night (woo hoo!! no kiddos for a couple hours! Bliss!) And tomorrow is garage sale hoping followed by the gym and a shower and then heading off to Provo to Thora's party. Soooooo maybe sometime in between all that and wrangling the boys I will get some more pics on here!

and might I add how grateful I am for the spell check on this blog poster. Otherwise you would all think I am a complete idiot because i cant spell worth a darn! And i never would have figured out how to spell superstitious on my own either.. i tried to figure it out and came up with 3 different spellings none of which were correct. I wish I had inherited the spelling gene from my mom.

Porters made up song

Porter loves to make up songs and I finally cought one on video. He usually gets all shy when I turn the camera on. We were getting ready to leave and he started to sing to Theo. Its so dang cute! I am sure he will get a kick out of this when he is an adult looking back. In his rendition of twinkle little star at the end he is using what Cory calls his Rocker voice.

Easter Family Pictures

I tried to get some good family pictures of us on Easter... But was not succesful! Porter now does this fake cheesy smile. And Theo never even looks at the camera! Oh well.. I guess it really captures what they are really like.

Facial expresions

I remember way back when I went to Snow College in 1998 that I took a human Development class where we talked about how babies will imitate facial expressions. Above is him open mouthed copying cory.

If you stick out your tongue at Theo he will mirror you. Its so cute! This is a picture of him with his Tia Halley on Easter.

Usborne Books!

well I did it.. I joined one of those companies where you do home sells. I always said I never would, but I love books! I buy a ton of children's books. And I decided that getting a discount on them would be a good thing. So I signed up with Usborne. so if any of you want to buy any kid books you might as well get them from me since there are great deals, the books are fabulous, and I might as well make a little money off you instead of Barnes and noble!! So check out my website and buy books under the active E-show in my name. There are a lot of great sales right now like with the Spanish books being 50% off. I got some of them for porter and he loves them. The board books that have textures are great too. There are 1400 books so I am sure you can find something you like!! Great gifts, stock up on the cheap clearance books for future Christmas and birthdays...

http://www.ubah.com/N2452

Okay shameless plug for myself now over.. but hey its my blog so I can put this here if I wanna!!

Happy Easter!

Porter in his new sunday best on Easter day. His Grandma and Grandpa Stoutner got this outfit for him. Doesnt he look handsome? ( click on picture to zoom in) He was not too thrilled to wear the tie, and took in off as soon as we got home.

Today in nursery they gave him a bag of candy. There was some chocolate eggs and he put one in his mouth and then wanted to spit it out saying it was yucky! Which was okay with Cory and I who happily proceeded to eat the rest!

Football

It was a beautiful day today, high of 67. Cory came home early from work to play with Porter at the park. Porter was so excited when Cory came in early! Jumping up and down and just babbling away. Porter LOVES to play sports with his Papi. Theo and I sat on the side lines and took pictures and video.

Basketball

Video of Porter dribbling and making baskets.. this is a little older he was 23 months at the time. I had to video this becuase I knew that later no one would belive he was this good at this age. If you dont want to watch the whole thing make sure to cath the last 40 seconds...

Baseball

Here is a video of Porter hitting the ball. I have no idea how Cory tought him this, since he is only 2 1/2. But he is better than I am! I am seriously amazed at how quickly he has mastered the sports.


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