Porter Family Letter

Each month the Porter family sends out a letter made up of the individual families monthly activities. Since I am "in charge" of our blog, Matt is "in charge" of the family letter. I think he did a really good job capturing what we are all up to right now. Enjoy!

Keegan: Our baby boy surprises us each day with how much he is growing up. He had his third birthday last month and still talks about it today. He has become very interested in superheroes recently, so we had a Batman themed party for him. Jeanette used her Cricut to make some very impressive Batman and Joker banners and other decorations and Keegan got a fair amount of superhero toys. About every day he comes up with an idea for the theme of his next birthday, usually it is Spiderman. We put off trying to push the potty training thing until his third birthday for a few reasons, but since we started, he has only had 2-3 accidents. One of his favorite things is to do while we are out is to see the restrooms of every place we go. Though spending a lot of time in public restrooms is kind of gross, we are just glad that he is not afraid or reluctant to do his “business” away from home. We even had a plumber in the house the other week (for an unrelated incident, I promise) and Keegan was bragging about how his restroom exploits and accomplishments. Fortunately the plumber was also a father so he just smiled and congratulated Keegan.

Cadence: To quote one of the speakers in the Sunday session, Cadence is proving to be a “blessing” recently. She is doing her best to help her parents perfect their patience and charity. For the past while she has not been herself; she is generally fussy, refuses to eat anything, and likes to wake up screaming several times every night. We took her into the doctor a couple of times, but she could find nothing wrong with little Cady. Our best bet is that her molars and a few other teeth are coming in and she is just uncomfortable. On the up side, she gets more words everyday and is pretty funny to watch (when she is in a good mood). We decided that if she was an animal, Cady would definitely be a cat. She can show affection, she can talk, she can do funny dances or sing, but only IF she wants to and on her terms. She is the complete opposite of Keegan who will do anything for approval. She idolizes Keegan and will follow him around and try to mimic whatever he does. Our favorite thing recently is when she gives kisses. She makes a face that looks like she is trying to swallow her own nose and plants a big sloppy one right on the lips. Abby continues to be her favorite individual in the house. A lick from Abby never fails to bring a giggle or smile to Cady’s face.

Jeanette: Jeanette has been asked by her employer to cover for a coworker who is out on maternity leave for the next 3 months. She now works twice as much as she previously did and gets to actually go in to the office a few times per week. She comes home very tired, but she enjoys the time with other adults. Being primarily a stay-at-home/work-from-home mother, I am the closest thing she gets to adult interaction on a regular basis (and that is a stretch to say the least). In March, Jeanette took the two kids (on her own mind you) to see her grandmothers for a week in Minnesota. How she managed to wrangle out two kids through an airport on her own twice is beyond me. On top of that she is serving in the Young Women’s Presidency of our ward so she has those additional responsibilities too. I have my suspicions that I married Super-Girl’s mild mannered alter ego.

Matthew: I was lucky enough to be asked by my company to go back to China and Hong Kong to audit another one of our manufacturing plants there. This time I went to the city of Shenzhen which is right on the border of Hong Kong. It is a huge city compared to the last place I went (and about double the population of Denver), so it was a totally different experience. This time I vowed to be more adventurous and brave about what I ate. Many of the people I worked with took this as a challenge apparently. I ended up eating frog (just tasted like fatty chicken), cow stomach (really strange texture), large and small intestines from a sheep (not too bad if you could forget was flowing through them the previous day), and chicken feet (again, tasty, but our time on the farm in Loveland gave me the unfortunate knowledge of what those feet walked in). I just figured that if millions of Chinese people eat this stuff every day, why not at least try it? My trip went very well with the exception of a cab driver trying to rip me off in Shenzhen and getting my pocket picked in Hong Kong. I would love to work and live there someday (though Jeanette would take some serious convincing for that to happen).

Wishing the best to everyone.

Matthew, Jeanette, Keegan, and Cadence.