Porter Post

Jayce getting some morning snuggles after a night shift. Really, they love it when Daddy comes home. I have to say, I'm proud of what these boys have learned to do this year and how they contribute to the housework. It's still "help" in a lot of ways, but I had a moment where I kind of stepped outside of myself and just observed this moment of routine with Ben putting the finishing touches on this load of laundry and had to take a picture. They can sort the clothes and get a load in all by themselves. Bravo Porter boys. He was caught sneaking Cameron's gingerbread house goodies, luckily Cameron didn't seem to mind. And that's us. :-) I do what I can to make it through grocery shopping these days! Churros at Costco, donuts at Walmart. I thought the label on these read "bushels of organic broccoli," but I must have misread.  We had some friends over to decorate gingerbread houses. It's tradition! Joy ...

A quick glimpse of life in the last couple of months: Jayce's cousin, Melissa, recognized my dad at a BYU business college alumni event and made a b-line for him. Loved getting this picture, she's a gem. Jayce came to YW's to teach the girls some basic First Aid. I just really like him. I came across this on Instagram a while back and got a good laugh out of them! Mmmm...sleeping babies. Ben was trying to hold Spencer still for me so that I could get a picture I needed for a project I was working on. He was all over the task at hand. If you're ever wondering about trying fake snow one year (the powder stuff you just add water to) I give it my stamp of approval. It has become a tradition that Jayce brings home donuts at some point when he's on night shifts and these boys make no complaints. Ben's new take on the Christmas story... Jayce was just coming off of a night shift and in the chaos of the morning too...

Me: "Remember guys, how many things can I do at once?" Cameron: "Just one...but if you were General Grievous you could do FOUR!" **************** Me noticing a pair of shorts on the hallway floor that looks suspiciously like it has pee all over it. "Hey boys, whose shorts are those?" Ben: "Those are Jackson's and there's pee all over them!" Jack: Quick to defend himself. "Yeah Mom, but it's not my pee! Ben peed all over them!" ?? Ben: "Yeah, but only because Jack peed on me first!" ?!?! Me: "Wait. So, Jackson, you peed on Benson and then Benson, you peed on Jackson?" Looking around for a crime scene and noticing the bathroom floor rug has a wiz line on it. Whew. At least it was in the bathroom. Needless to say, those two no longer use the bathroom at the same time. ***************** Sitting with the boys in the pew at church I over hear Ben in a loud whisper: ...

Bedtime. Mom's have a lot of feels about "bedtime." Lately bedtime has been oh, so sweet in the Porter house. I love it, even though it's not perfect. After everyone does their nightly jobs and routines we re-group to read the scriptures. We're currently working through the Book of Mormon, which was Cameron's request after receiving his own copy for his birthday in May. There's something about sitting to read the scriptures that screams, "MOVE AROUND LIKE YOU HAVE ANTS IN YOUR PANTS, ELBOW YOUR BROTHER IN THE RIBS HARD, FALL OFF THE COUCH AND HIT YOUR HEAD (YOU NEED ANOTHER GOOSE EGG), AND TRIP SPENCER AS HE AIMLESSLY WANDERS BY JUST FOR GOOD MEASURE." It's a mystery, but we'll work with it. Now whoever can sit on their bums and listen during scripture time can stay after prayer to read a few more books before bed. This has been working well, especially now that we've gotten our Halloween books out. Tonight, after we read books Ja...

Beauty in our remembrance of Mom: It took losing Mom for me to realize what it meant just to have her, just to have a mom . Take note everyone, that's a hard lesson to learn. The beauty lies in that I love her harder and deeper. We are going to have a happy and tender reunion. Death, for me, seems less scary knowing that Mom will be there waiting for me. Mom will be memorialized for the grandkids in a different way now. Of course we wish they could grow up with her in person, but the way we talk about her and the stories we tell will paint a vivid and even angelic picture of her in their minds. We won't pretend that she was flawless, because nobody is, but their vision of her will be softer and brighter around the edges because of the extra dose of love that has grown out of our deepened appreciation for her. I think she would call that beauty for ashes too. Watching each of my siblings get up before me to speak at Mom's funeral and seeing the dimples that she passed ...

A thought that kept coming to my mind in the ensuing days of my mom's death was, "beauty for ashes." It turns out it comes from Isaiah 61:3 , "To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." Those words, that reminder that the Lord will trade beauty for ashes, were my eye in the storm. I noticed so many ashes around me at first, but I also quickly started taking note of the beauty. Don't get me wrong, at the end of the day I would rather bag up all of the beautiful things I've seen in the last three weeks and send them back to their source if it meant that Mom was gearing up for her next trip down to my house and that I was caught up in planning our annual Harry Potter birthday party without another care in the world. But what I will isn't what matters and so I'm embracing the beauty in His will. I listened to a talk from Evan A. Schm...

My Mom died in the early hours of June 29 of complications from pneumonia. She was one month shy of her 67 th birthday. I’ll be processing everything from the morning of her death to the day she was buried for a long time. I’m so grateful that I was able to talk to my mom just two days before she passed. I had sat down at my computer after rocking Spencer to sleep and it was quiet time in the Porter house. My mind went blank as soon as I sat down and I relaxed, which is abnormal because I usually feel torn between doing ten things at once when I sit down to “get stuff done” during quiet time. So I thought, “Well, what should I do? It’s been a while since I talked to Mom...” When I asked her how she was she answered, “Well, actually not so good,” and she explained that she had just come home from the doctor’s office where she found out that she had pneumonia.   She filled me in on some details from her appointment and how she had been feeling recently. My mom has had and ...