Andrew's Four Month Checkup

Andrew's Weight: 17lbs 11 oz. (81st percentile)

Porter Weighed @ 4 months: 16.25 lbs

Andrew's Length: 25.75 in. (69th percentile)

Head: 43 cm (57th percentile)

Day in the Life of Andrew:

Andrew usually gets to wake up with Mom and Porter snuggling him, singing to him, and playing with him. The other morning Porter and I each one of his arms and chanted "Go Andra! Go Andra! Holla, What, What! Go Andra!" and it cracked him up! It was so cute!

He likes to lay on the bathroom rug and hang out while we get ready for the day. He loves it down there, even more than a chair or swing.

He LOVES to have his fists in his mouth along with some kind of clothe. Blankies or burp rags are his fave. He also gnaws on his thumb.

He stands and holds his head very well, but he never has liked tummy time, so he doesn't get it very often. He is really strong though.

He laughs and talks and is ticklish when we change his diaper and when we change his clothes. He has the cutest laugh.

Porter loves to play with him and kiss him, and Andrew seems to enjoy it as well.

He makes this cute face when he is hanging out. His lips are tucked in his mouth.

(See Video for example)

He wakes up every three hours for feedings.

Sleeps in bed with mom and dad for the most part.

This is wearing us out, we keep trying different things, but so far this is the way that lets us all sleep the most. His stomach still is giving him trouble. We can't figure this kid out! :)

Porter's Four Year Checkup

Porter's Height: 40.5 in. (56th percentile)

Porter's Weight: 36.6 lbs (57th percentile)

Porter's BMI: 15.69 (51st percentile)

Porter Quotes:

"uh, yeah, sure."-if we ask him if he wants such and such for dinner or something.

"Oh, my Cow!"-he came up with this when we taught him not to say the Lord's name in vain.

"Dad, your face is too sharp"-when dad hasn't shaved in a couple of days and then tries to give kissies to P diddy.

"What the..."-he says this with Talmage.

"Mom, I'm gonna be a dad when I grow up, huh?" He talks a lot about his future--marrying a princess, delivering pizza, and becoming a dad.

"Mom, you look like a princess."-On Sundays when I'm in a dress.

"Come wipe me!"-Even if you're standing right next to him.

"Hey Ana"-another one of Porter's nick names for Andrew

A Day in the Life of Porter:

What a Good Big Brother! Every morning he comes in and we all end up snuggling for another hour. Porter sings Pat-a-cake to Andrew. Somehow Porter always gets Andrew to laugh hysterically.

Porter Stories:

On Dec. 9th Heidi and I took Chalyse out for din din at the Gateway. When Porter saw that I was leaving and taking Andrew, he was concerned that Andrew would be scared and lonely. He told me "make sure he doesn't get scared, mom." I assured him that I would take good care of him. He said he would miss us and still seemed reluctant that I was going out for the night.

Unfortunately the roles will eventually be reversed. :(

On Dec. 15th before Porter was rushing out the door for school. Andrew was "talking" on the floor next to him. Porter is throwing his coat and shoes on and saying "aww, Andra, you're gonna miss me while I'm a preschool? I'll miss you too, brotha!"

Happy 17th Bday Mer!

Dear Mer, I miss you lots and hope you had a GREAT birthday! I wish I could be there to ruin it for you. darn. Maybe next year! Hope you love being 17! :)

"Jingle Bells!"

Yesterday Porter hops up from playing and runs into the bathroom. In his rush, he peers out the door and says "Mom, when I say "Jingle Bells" that means "Come wipe me."

He pulled that on his dad again today. He must have found a system that he liked.

Porter's chit chat with Santa

First of all I would like to say, Andrew turned four months today, and it was the FIRST time he slept through the night. 11-7:30. He has been getting up EVERY three hours on the dot before last night. We have been working on a schedule since Mike has been on break and it has obviously worked in our favor. I hope tonight is just as great. Also another note. I guess he is not allergic to milk anymore, because at Thanksgiving, I decided to enjoy some dairy. He didn't react. So the next day I had more dairy, no reaction and so on and so on. So that was only 2 and a half months of no dairy. Not as bad as I thought.

On to Son 1.

Mike and I took P Diddy to see Santa today. We were prepping him while we were waiting in line "What will you ask Santa for?" "tell him you want world peace." "I want transformer spiderman........and bumblebee..........and transformers"

He told us "I wanna go by myself, you guys stay here, I'm going by myself." He held his hand up reassuring us...."don't worry, I got it guys." So we stood back and let him have his independence. He got up on Santa's lap and FROZE.

Santa: "What do you want for Christmas?"

Porter: "army guys."

S: "Is that all? do you want anything else."

P: (shook his head-no)

S: "Thanks for stopping by, have a Merry Christmas."

We asked, "why did you ask for army guys, he already brought you army guys?"

P: "Cause I want some."

When we got in the van, I asked if he got nervous or scared. Mike and I were grilling him. And he kept saying no. Then eventually he got mad, "NO! I wasn't nervous. I don't like to be afraid!"

I guess it was a touchy subject, but we feel really bad for making him feel stupid. I hope we haven't ruined his self esteem for life.

Anyway, then we took a trip to our favorite store...the D.I. (thrift store). We are always lookin' for a deal on something we need. We are gonna miss this place when we move. We always find funny treasures and there is always something for everyone. Kids and Adults. It's our form of entertainment. We did not purchase anything today, but we still had fun.

On the way home, Porter was so upset that we wouldn't get him a "lunchable" (his favorite treat). So he told us "I'm not playing with you two!" And argued the whole way home, where he fell asleep around 4:03pm. He then woke back up around 7 tonight.

Shortly after he woke up, Mikey came home. They decided to have a sleepover party in the sleeping bags and watch "Robots". Well, when Mike went to search for the sleeping bags, Porter turned around and smashed his lip on the corner of the door frame. He insisted on having a band aid on it, and that is what you see here. He was NOT happy that I was taking his picture during this traumatizing time.

I hope that I can remember these days, when we get to enjoy or little kids all the laughing and the yelling. :) It's so fun.

Christmas Program

Porter had his first Christmas Program last night it was the cutest thing! Porter gave me the ol' thumbs up and tried to give Mike a wink, which ended up being a couple of blinks.

He kept putting his arms around Logan and Talmage, which they didn't like, then Talmage tried to hold Porter's hand, which he didn't like. It was cute. I can't believe my son is in performing in Christmas programs already!

Sorry Chalyse, it's way past my bedtime, so I'm gonna skip editing you out of this one. Thanks for always being Andrew's buddy, even though you look like you hate him in this picture, I know it's not true. :)

this video has porter giving me the thumbs up, it's toward the end if you don't wanna watch the whole thing.

Welcome Home Tradition

Yesterday was a big day. We had preschool, then we got dinner ready for Heidi B.'s fam, and then there was Porter's Christmas Program. I went to the store in preparation for din din and when I came home, I noticed this ordinary looking laundry basket...

J:"Dad, where's Porter?"

M:"I don't know." (Pointing to the basket.)

J: "Babe, you never know where Porter is, I guess I'll just get this laundry done and then start looking for him."

J: "AH! I thought you were lost!"

Later I went downstairs and found a mostly eaten bag of chips, which explain the orange face and fingers.-dead giveaway.

Porter always hides from Mike when he's coming home. It's usually an easy one...the closet or behind the couch. This one was pretty creative.

Delivering Presents

Last night Mikey was working Papa's so Porter and I delivered little gifts to our friends. Andrew was asleep in the car seat. So Porter and I drove around the neighborhood, just the two of us (and sleeping Andrew). He sat up by me and ran so carefully up to the doors so he didn't slip and fall. It was so cute! I laughed out loud in the nice warm van. I am pretty sure Porter had a good time, cause he kept saying "I love you, mom!"

My little baby is now so big and old. It has gone so fast. He is at a fun age, he can do most everything by himself and we even have some pretty good convos. I can't believe he is gonna be 4!

Drum Roll Please.....

We have decided where we are going for MED SCHOOL! I typed in the name of the town into GOOGLE IMAGES and these are what I found. Can you guess???

I'll give you some hints, here were our options:

A. Des Moines, IA

B. Glendale, AZ

C. Kirksville, MO

D. Parker, CO

If you guessed C you were correct! I would NEVER have dreamed that I would end up in Missouri. We all called it MISERY when we were growing up in KC. And now, here we are. Even when applying, we SWORE up and down, AZ would be the place for us. Especially during the winter time. But, alas. That is not our plight.

It turned out to be the better school over all. There is a bonus! It is close to my family! I have lived in Utah for 9 years, it is about time I get on back to my "ruts". PLUS the boys might get a little accent! :) YAY...my two little hick boys...oh so cute!

I'm SOOOOOOO proud of you Mikey! You have worked so hard and I am proud to say after six years of undergrad, you've progressed to grad school! AHHH...what a relief. I don't have to dump you after all. :) JUST KIDDING! I LOVE YA BABE! Way to go!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Remember my sis, AMANDA?!? She is 15 TODAY! I MISS YA BABE

and Remember my friend, Heidi, who adopts? She just got sealed to her son, Lincoln, three months ago? She got another baby. Romnee Emma Bird was born this morning! YAY! I can't wait to meet the little cutie.

Chalyse's Birthday

For Chalyse's Birthday Mike Hall took her ice skating and shopping for some jeans. A dream come true. Heidi had planned on watching her kids for the night, but she got the call that she was having the baby that night, so we moved the party to our house. Mike set up the tent and we popped them some popcorn they watched Kung Foo Panda. They had lots of fun, but after Elle Bell went to bed, the boys were scared of the basement. So we moved them upstairs. We put a mattress on the floor in the kitchen and the boys fell asleep almost instantly. It was fun to have a "sleep over" that ended at 9:30pm.

Opened the Presents

Okay, Santa, I hope you're not mad, but we only made it TWO DAYS without opening what you brought us! :)

Two Sundays ago we woke up to Porter begging (again!) to open what Santa brought him. Mike said "okay" before I could even say "NO! WAIT!" Porter had the wrapping torn off! I said "WAIT FOR ME TO GET MY GLASSES ON!" and he politely did. :)

But that was so much fun, that we kept saying "one more," and all of a sudden all of them were opened! :) It was a great time, though! Lots of fun being the kid again.

Thanks for the gift cards, the scentsy stuff, the computer and army guys, the ball popper is sweet! It's a good thing Andrew can't play with it yet, cause there would be some fighting with Porter. :) And, we saved the Christmas Eve stuff, so we have SOME surprise! Thank you SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much! The gifts were JUST our style. Who would ever know exactly what we needed and wanted! hmmmmm...... THANK YOU!

I Love Ellen D.

Ask Mike and he'll tell you I have a heart of stone because I rarely cry. I have been quite emotional lately though. I have noticed so many sad things going on with SO many people. Health, Financial and Personal struggles have made me realized how blessed I am. NOT to mention the MANY kind things people do for our family DAILY, even though they have their own struggles to think about! I have wonderful friends and wonderful family!

Today I had lots of laundry to fold, so I watched clips of Ellen helping struggling people. It just made me cry for those people who have so much on their shoulders. My heart really went out to them.

It always makes me happy to watch Ellen, she can always make me laugh and she does so much good for others! I am not a freak about celebrities, but I think she deserves a shout out for bringing joy to so many people!

Besties

This is my BFF. We have known eachother since we turned 13. We are 4 days apart. Cascia and her family have influenced my life more than they even know. I will NEVER forget what they have done for me. Cascia, I love you sis! I am thinking of you guys tons and think the world of you! You are so kind, happy, funny, beautiful, smart, wonderful and much much more and I can't imagine what life would be like without you. You always bring a smile to my face! Thanks for being my personal angel on earth! I love you!

Dear Santa,

Have you ever wished that for ONE more day you could go back to when YOU were the kid again? No worries. No Responsibilities. You could enjoy a TRUE surprise and the feeling of excitement for Christmas day. The magical experience when Santa sneaks around your house leaving gifts JUST FOR YOU, without a trace.

It has happened for the Cranneys.

Last night we spur-of-the-moment got together with the Birds and Halls for a fun night of games. We put our kiddies to sleep and transported them to the Birds and we partied like we were single again. ("single" is the new lingo meaning "without children".) We enjoyed free Papa John's, courtesy of Mike Cranney's place of employment, we played games and then Rock Band. Which was so much fun. We chit chatted and laughed and were silly until 2 o'clock in the morning!!! It was so nice not to have to be like "kids, why are you fighting?" "who hit who?" "stop crying!" But, like all great things, the party has to end sometime, so, Mike and I head home, get back into parent mode "you get Porter, I'll get Andrew" we walk into the living room, turn around, do a triple take at our tree......"uh. what?!" it was a pretty jaw dropping moment. "PRESENTS?!?!" "What?!"

There was a card in the tree "please open now" it says.

"UHHH...YEAH!"

"Cranney Family-

Santa decided to bring your gifts early this year with a little extra cash to help buy the rest of your Christmas..(instructions)...love-Santa"

Jen-"How the heck"

Mike-"Call Heidi"

The gifts are gifts that only Heidi and Chalyse know about. I haven't talked to anyone else about what we're doing for Christmas, and those two are also the only ones that knew we were gone for the evening, except for Liz. So...we call Heidi

Jen-"how'd you do that?"

Heidi-"how'd I do what?"

Anyway, this convo went on for about half an hour, "santa's magical" I think is how Chalyse explained it. Either way, however this went down, WHOEVER DID IT, however they did it, we can't say enough how big of a help and weight off our shoulders this is. This was well planned out. Obviously time, money, thought and love was put into our family and I can't believe that we are the lucky recipients! Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

I have to add that it's a little creepy that folks were walking around our house while we were gone, but at least the living room was clean and all of our millions of dollars of electronics and other fancy things are still here, and then some :).

I was on such a high from this whole thing that I asked if Heidi and Chalyse wanted to go to Walmart with me to get the LAST spiderman transformer that they had. "hey, when will we get to do that again?" So...off we went. Did some Christmas shopping at 3am. Got home and crawled into bed at 4am and up at 9am. I didn't care. I am footloose and fancy free today.

Porter woke up and started organizing and counting the presents for each of us. (he's an organizin' foo, just like his mom) We all can't wait to open our presents and it really is being like a little kid again. We have to wait 33 more days to find out what Santa brought. How frustrating to be a kid! :) I love it, I won't EVER forget this feeling and can't wait until I get to play Mrs. Clause myself someday! Thanks for the great ideas!

Love,

The Cranneys

Halloween 10.31.09

This was our last Halloween in Syracuse! Awww....so sad to think about it, so we won't....let's think about all the fun we had. Mike had to work until 7. The boys and I went to Chalyse's for their ward's Trunk or Treat. I'll tell you what. That's a good way to clean up in a short amount of time! What have we been doing all of these years! :) Porter and Talmage were "autobots" from Transformers. That was a hit costume this year. Elle Bell was the CUTEST little tube of toothpaste! She is almost two and she hasn't said much up until recently and she has the CUTEST little voice and personality to go with it. She kept saying "cheese"! OH I could serve her for dinner!

Lincoln Bird is always darling! He is also ON THE GO and fast as lightning.

We usually meet up with the Bennett Clan on Halloween, take pictures and start our way through the ward, but this year we were so late at trunk or treat, we missed it. But Debbie and Karla didn't let us get out of being missed! They sure are great ladies! We DID get to meet up with the Carlson's this year! Which was fun! The last time I saw them on Halloween was when she was pregnant with Ana Jain, 2 years ago. She had Jain on Nov. 2nd and the day after Thanksgiving had her stroke. Jodi came home this summer and it has been so fun to see them all the time now. Their whole family is such a hoot! Aleq kept spelling EVERYTHING. Tommy was so slow, he said he had lost his speed somewhere. They are so funny!

The Halls, the Birds and the Cranneys carved pumpkins Monday. It was fun, we had pizza, caramel apples, pumpkin seeds, veggies. Who ever comments on veggies! blek! :) Just kidding Heidi, we hate them, but they are so good for us! All of the pumpkins were great, even Mike Bird's but this is Mike Cranney's. Darwin Theory Pumpkin. Cool, huh?

So we got home and I'm PLEASED AS PUNCH when Porter starts organizing his candy into piles!!! ahhh...finally something he really got from me!!! I remember doing this when I was little too. I organize everything! It's so FUN! Mike said he never did that when he was little. I am not surprised.

Porter began with four piles: "yucky", "mine", "dad's" and "mom's". Isn't he a sweet heart to share? Oh I love my boy!

FYI. This is the first year in my 26 years that I didn't get some kind of milk chocolaty treat on halloween. EXCEPT for MAYBE my first halloween when I was 6 months old. I can't even believe it really happened. what a rough life, huh?

Mike's FIRST ACCEPTANCE to Medical School! 10.30.09

YAY!!!! Midwestern University in Glendale, Arizona accepted Mike today! He called me around noon after looking it up online while at the school. A couple of hours later a woman calls asking for Mike. "He's not here, can I take a message?" "May I ask who I am talking to?" "This is his wife." "OH well, we just wanted to let him know that he's been accepted into our Medical Program!" AHHHHHH! It's real! It's not a dream, he is really really accepted and we really really are only 8.5 years away from a job! WOW! :)

We have a couple more interviews lined up. Kirksville, Mo. and Parker, Co. in about a week. As winter approaches, we get more and more excited about Arizona weather! AHHH.

Trish, KB and their one and a half girls 10.29.09

Trish (yeah, she's preggy and it's the cutest belly you've ever seen!), Caleb and Maggie came over to hang out tonight! They are so funny!

Porter Playing in the leaves 10.29.09

Today I had some errands to run. When I came home, I found my two big boys, Mike and P. Diddy playing in the leaves. I am so glad when Mike spends quality time with Porter. He's such a cool dad!

"Porter, show me your happy face!"

"Porter, show me your mad face!"

"now show me your sad face."-Wow, he's intimidating when he gets emotional.

Black Island Farms Field Trip 10.29.09

Our preschool went on a field trip to the biggest corn maze in Utah located RIGHT HERE in

Syracuse. This little trip was scheduled for Tuesday, but since Tuesday, October 27th was our first SNOW FALL, they cancelled it. So Thursday we went and it was FREEZING COLD! All the kids were crying by the end. I am sure it was at least 30 degrees outside. It was a nice crisp morning....

Here is Elle Bell looking like the little bundle of joy that she is.

Lincoln Bird. He and Elle ended up looking like Randy from a Christmas Story.

There were lots of things for the kids to do while we waited for the hay ride to begin.

Jumping around in the GIANT PUMPKIN. Kenedy and Porter.

There was a tiny slide. Corn Maze. Teeter Totters. A GIANT slide. Animals to see. A little three week old baby sheep.

Julia, Porter, Kenedy and Talmage on the hay ride, waiting for more passengers.

Porter's freshly picked carrot.

Chalyse, Talmage and Porter searching for the perfect pumpkin.

Porter and his perfect pumpkin.

We all learned a lot from the farm visit. This is the carrot, the pumpkin and the parsnip carrot that we got. Along with one of the pumpkins Porter and I had painted the day before. It's been a great fall. Cold, but fun. I am sad to see October end.....hello winter.

This is a video with on the whaling wagon!