Christmas Houses and Trains

Our family has two really fun family traditions that come from Jared and my childhood. The Hendrixs always made graham cracker houses (See previous post) and the Porters always made candy trains (I forgot my camera the night we did trains). Jared and I have enjoyed keeping these traditions alive with our on family. Here are the finished products.

Jared combined his to make the mountain in the Polar Express.

Janice

Jamie

Jill

Jake the "awesome"

Justin

Graham Cracker Houses 2012

As tradition goes we made our graham cracker houses again this year. The Corless family and the Simmons family joined us. It was a great time. There were tons of pictures since the kids hijacked my camera, however, I will spare you all the close-ups of the candy bowls. Here are a few shots of the process and then the final projects.

2012 Family Picture

Every Christmas I gather the family and tell them that I would like to take a picture for our Christmas cards. Every year this request is met with groans, rolling of eyes and mutters. (Honestly, you would think I was torturing them!)

 Anyway, this year wasn't any different. However, since I am the mom and I have final say, we took the pictures. I choose to do it after church so everyone will already look nice and not have to change or go fix hair. There is but one problem with this scenario and that is my family's inability to take a serious picture. I blame it on the Porter genes. Jared says it is from the Hendrix side...NOT....Anyway, my kids don't like to be too serious. For those of you out there who have taken pictures of my kids you know what I am talking about.

So after serious threats/ begging I asked for just one good picture.  Jared set up his tripod and set the timer on the camera.  The camera was set to take 3 pictures in a row.  As you can see all went well at first.

Then the kids suggested that we take a couple with us Jared and I kissing since after all that is what we are always doing.  "GROSS!"  (Direct quote here.)  This is where our little photo shoot started to go downhill.

I had to get us back on track for one final good picture.

Then we took individuals of the kiddos.

Few final pictures of the kids.

Then the kids say, "Hey, Mom and Dad, we will take some pictures of you guys."  I should have been more worried when they giggled and they promised to pose us in fun ways.

Well, I did get my ONE pretty good picture and we had some fun doing it, and now we don't have to go through it all again until Easter.  (I think I hear groaning and moaning already.)

Justin's 9th Birthday

I realize that Justin's birthday was several months ago, but I don't want to forget to post about his birthday. Justin had a good day. He wanted a rocket birthday cake which I thought turned out pretty good. Our extended family joined us in celebrating which is always nice. He was very spoiled. He really wanted a RC car which Jared was all too happy to get for him. He was so excited.

As you can see, he is a very happy boy.  He had to take his car out for a spin even though it was dark and cold that night.  A boy just loves his toys!

We love you, Justin!  Happy Belated Birthday!

Jake turns 11

Yep, Jake is 11!

 This is just a silly tradition I started a couple of years ago, I take the kids picture with their age written in frosting on their tongue.  ( I know it's weird, but the kids love it.)

We actually celebrated Jacob's birthday on the day after his birthday,  but since Aunt Nancy couldn't make it that night she brought his gifts early.  He loves zippered hoodies and socks.  So Aunt Nancy usually provides new ones for him this time every year. So here he is with his new socks and hoodie.

Here Jake is with his birthday Ding Dong for breakfast.(Just FYI this is a tradition started by Grandma J!)

 Jake was so excited about his birthday gift and couldn't wait to open it!

It's a new POGO STICK! 

Other fun presents... Jake was spoiled!

THE CAKE

A few days before his birthday, I asked Jake what kind of cake he wanted and he said a volcano cake since they were studying them in school.  Then he patted my shoulder and said that if I couldn't make it actually explode it would be "ok".  

Anyway, I figured out how to do it and even using a bit of dry ice we had smoke coming from the volcano.

A close up of the cake.