Dear Santa,

Just a little Christmas Eve highlight for Porter's grandparents who couldn't be with us this holiday. Merry Christmas! We love you and can't wait to see all four of you soon.

Last night, I told Porter we needed to leave a note for Santa. This is what came of it...I merely played scribe. (The video should begin, "Dear Santa," but I think Porter started "reading" before the camcorder started recording. Also, you'll have to strain your ears to hear over the paper punching that is Porter's own dramatic emphasis.)

In its entirety, the letter he actually "wrote" read,

Dear Santa,

Welcome to your Christmas Eve.

I have been a beary good boy.

I want a present with cars and trucks.

I love Christmas.

I want some more presents after Christmas Eve.

Have a Merry Christmas.

Love,

Porter

This all came straight from Porter's mouth. We got a kick out of it. Hope you do too.

Merry Christmas!

(Yes, I am just waiting for my two sleepy-headed boys to wake up so we can get this show on the road.)

Let it Snow

It finally snowed this weekend. Bring on Christmas.

I know, I know, I'll be sick of the cold and ice soon enough, but for now, I say let it snow. Why? Watch and see (sorry my voice comes through much louder than Porter's).

At seven months, Porter's first winter was fairly anti-climactic, and at 1-1/2, last year saw a few fun moments, but overall, the cold still won out over snow-play in young Porter's mind. This year though, all bets are off, and we spent a large majority of yesterday afternoon out in the yard making snow angels and scooping the snow back onto Andy's neatly shoveled driveway.

The cute dino hat (which elicits giggly-growls every time Porter dons the green spikes) is courtesy of our pals Jaime & Jared...thanks, three years later. This definitely beats the lobster bath towel we gave you guys. Though this photo does mark its winter debut, many an afternoon has been whiled away in the great indoors playing monsters or dinosaurs.

Can You Stockpile Sleep?

I just read an interesting (and disheartening) fact that seemed appropriate to share as we're now under a month away from baby making four in the Burt home:

A parent loses 450-700 hours of sleep in the first year of their child's life. Eeek!

Playing with the Big Kids

We babysat for some friends tonight, which opened Porter's world to six and eight year-old play. What started out as an innocent game of cars, turned into bionical robots destroying the city and all the race cars and gas stations in the world. This story line - far from the "I'll race you up that big mountain" plot we usually play with Porter, brought up a  whole slew of new vocabulary words which resulted in these Porter greats:

While throwing a slinky at one of the boys robots: "I slinked you bad bot!"

After the bionicals destroyed the "entire city," Porter grabbed his dump truck and said: "We have instruction trucks to fix the gas station."

We Love our Small Town

I'll start by saying this post has no scrapbookable photos. Sorry. I just thought I needed to post something considering I haven't posted a picture since October. So here's a recap of the last two months of Burt...

Halloween: Porter was a very polite ghost who refused to take a second candy when kind neighbors told him to take more than one. (He also apparently loves suckers, and chose Dum-Dums over chocolate at every door. This did not make for very fun parental candy raiding after the festivities had ended.) No pictures because my camera battery died.

Early November: Baby prep, furniture painting (good husband) and some last-minute trips to Salt Lake and St. George for things you can't buy at Wal-Mart (aside from three grocery stores, that's all Cedar has to offer).

Thanksgiving: My folks and my sister, Mandy, visited. Busy playing hostess and forgot to pull out the camera - though I've been promised copies of the pics my mom and Mandy snapped. (Ladies?) Good visit, a few killer Black Friday steals, and we got the Christmas tree and lights up to boot.

In between all of that, we've been trying to squeeze in some extra fun for Porter before the baby gets here (I hear newborns and the flu season do not make for a lot of public outings). Soon, we will no longer be a family of three.

Last Weekend (and the reason for the "We Love our Small Town" title of this post):

Cedar City's Christmas Children's Festival.

Fireworks on Friday night (from the car, overlooking the valley...Andy and Porter both had the flu).

Breakfast with Santa on Saturday morning (Unfortunately, we missed this one thanks to a lingering fever for Porter that caused maternal instincts to win out over festivities and photo opps)

And the Christmas Parade Saturday afternoon. We did hit this one (just Porter and I - Andy had homework), and though this picture may not look it, as Porter was a bit tired and run down (don't worry: the fever had disappeared by the afternoon and Porter was asking about the parade all morning long), the parade was a lot of fun.

All the floats in the parade are themed after popular fairy tales and Disney movies, and many of the most popular characters walked alongside the road, giving the kids high fives and hugs (though none stayed long enough for any respectable photos). Porter was very excited when Bert, of Bert and Ernie, gave him a high five. He was also over the moon when he saw "the pirates" who were actually members of a bagpipe band (not sure why he thinks pirates wear plaid skirts), and loved the Three Little Pigs (he and Andy play "big bad wolf" on a daily basis) and the Where the Wild Things Are floats (so much, in fact, that he asked me to take a picture of the WTWTA monsters...after the float had passed).

But the highlight of the day (besides the high school bands who played Christmas medlies and the herd of mini horses dressed as reindeer) was most definitely the big balloons reminiscent of a much more popular parade on Thanksgiving day in New York. Though the balloons spent a large portion of the parade pulled close to the ground (Cedar City strings lights back and forth across Main Street), the balloons were a huge success in Porter's book (and the reason you can only see the back of his head in this picture. He kept saying "No, Mommy, I'm busy," when I asked him to turn around for a picture).

All in all, a lot of fun. And cause for a long nap afterwards. Hope the Christmas bug (but not the flu bug) has begun to take root in your homes as well.

Spoiled?

Me: Porter, it's naptime now, but when you wake up, we're going to go to SUU for the basketball game.

Porter: No.

Me: If you're a big boy and stay in you're bed and take a really good nap, maybe we can even get a treat at the basketball game. (Porter loves the penny candy bins in SUU's convenience store.)

Porter (eyes gleaming): Is my surprise a car, a toy or candy?

Looks like we toss the ol' surprise-bribe around a bit too liberally in the Burt home. The good news: it worked, leaving naptime open for Andy to finish up some more finals homework. School ends next week. Hooray!