Christian's Blessing

Christian was blessed on Easter. It was a special event. My dad, Steve's dad and Steve all stood in the circle. The greatest part was that we took up an entire pew. We are so happy that my family was able to take part in the blessing.

Our family

Dads and Christian

Moms and Christian

Porter Fam

Nothing is Child Proof

We have been to the hospital quite a few times in recent months. Chase had a seizure about a week before his second birthday and went to the hospital via ambulance. They said he had pneumonia and the seizure was caused a high fever. I had just taken him to the hospital that very day and started him on the antibiotics. He actually came down with pneumonia a couple of months later and had another seizure. This is Chase with the nebulizer breathing treatment--he wasn't a fan of that. We wrapped Chase's head with this huge ace bandage after he fell off our bed and cut his head open on the heating vent. He looks like a war victim!

Christian also went to the emergency room and was hospitalized for a night. He had bronchiolitis, which means that small air passages in the lungs are surrounded by mucus. We are healthy now and hope to remain that way for awhile.

St. Patrick's Day

Here we are eating green milk, green eggs, and green pancakes. We also tried Irish Soda bread for the first time. This is one of the moms in our Mommy and Me book club dressed up as the leprechaun. We had so much fun with our St. Patrick's Day party. I should have taken more pictures.

Our Family

Christian is 3 months old

Those are the most pinchable cheeks around.
Christian weighs a little over 12 pounds.

Time Management for Mothers

I had been thinking a lot about how we manage the many responsibilities we have as mothers such as teaching the Gospel, diapering, nurturing, and still find time to do the other things that are required of us. Then someone asked the same question in church. I think this is something most mothers spend a great deal of time thinking about.

One person said that we put our children and those things with eternal rewards first, and all other things fall into place or drop out of our lives. We can fill our thoughts with Heavenly things while doing the dishes and while performing other household tasks.

Another person talked about how important it is that we take the necessary time to spiritually nurture our own souls or we can't be the mothers that we need to be. We always need to read our scriptures, pray and attend the temple. There aren't times or periods of our lives where we are excused from doing these things.

Another answer was that we live in a world where everything seems urgent. We are juggling so many balls. We ask ourselves which one we can drop, and then we decide that we can't drop any of them because they are all important. However, when we stop and think about those things that seemed urgent at the time we can't remember many of them. We can remember spiritual impressions that had an impact on our lives and transformed our character. That is where we need to spend our time. (I could not have said that better myself!)

Chase went to Harvard for a developmental study. They introduced him to different toys and then the experimenter told him she had some work to do. She went to a table in the back of the room to sort papers. While sorting papers she would knock a can to the ground and say "I don't need that." They were monitoring Chase's response to the cans dropping. Chase would stop and look at times and at other times was riveted to the toy that he was playing with. I really think that sometimes children don't hear what we say when they are playing! It was an interesting study and Chase received an elephant. Christian had his 2-month-old checkup last week. He was 22 3/4 in length, and 11.2 pounds. He is in the 50th percentile for height and 38th for weight. I love this age. He is cooing and happy most of the time. He is sleeping through the night and awake during the day. I'm still his favorite person on the planet, which I'm not sure my two-year-old would say. He is such a joy! I would love for him to stay two months old for another couple of months.