Christmas cheer on its way to Ukraine!

No wonder we are in the Christmas mood early this year . . . since the end of September we have been working on putting together Christmas surprises for Brandon.  Two packages are finally en route to the mission home in Ukraine.  As his current area is quite a few hours away from the mission home by train, he will receive the packages when the missionaries gather in Donetsk before Christmas. 

What was in the packages?  

• Food that he can't get in the Ukraine like chicken bullion cubes, cocoa powder, peanut butter, beef jerky, favorite candies like Reese's and Milky Way, hot cocoa and hot cider packets, seasoning mixes, and a dry mix I made which (when mixed with water) is similar to cream of chicken soup. 
• Clothing like new Christmas Eve pjs, more Pday long sleeve shirts, more thermals, new gloves, and warm wool socks.  Also hand and feet warmers!
  
• Christmas fun - Santa hats, stockings, holiday decorations for the apartment, and a special Christmas garland we made (more about this below).
• a C.S. Lewis quote book and a special Christmas book I made for him.
• CDs of church talks, Christmas music, and classical music.
• Lots and lots of love.

Our two special Christmas projects were the Christmas garland and Christmas book. This is how we did the garland.  I looked up how to spell Merry Christmas in Russian: 

C рождеством христовым.  

I printed out each letter on a page and mounted them on green or red paper.  Then we sent out an email to friends and family to see who was able to help us with the project.  We sent off a package to everyone who responded with one of the Russian letters.  We asked our helpers to take a picture of themselves holding the letter and then email the picture back to us.

Once we received the pictures, I printed them, matted them on colored paper, and then strung them together in order with ribbon. 

The Russian letters and the finished photos all laid out and ready to string into a garland.

 Below, the finished garland. It was pretty long!

 Close-ups of the photos.  Bailey and Aubrey drew Christmas artwork to separate the words in the phrase.

 

 

 

 

We hope his Christmas banner will remind him that many people at home love him and are thinking of him!  We really appreciate the help of all of those who were able to take take a picture for the garland.

Once the banner was done we loaded up a small box and sent off some of the goodies which I finished the last Christmas surprise, a printed Christmas book through a company called Picaboo.com.  I scanned in photos (or located the digital copies) from all of Brandon's Christmases.  Then I organized it into a "Christmas Through the Years" book, with a page or two for each Christmas.  I located as many of his letters to Santa as possible, and even found the letters that Santa (who has a great sense of humor) wrote back to him. Then I scanned in the letters and included them in the book.  The book printed really nicely. I'm hoping it will be a good keepsake for him. Now I need to order a copy for myself, because it was so fun for me to see photos of all of our Christmases in order! And it was really fun to see Brandon "grow" from a baby to a grown-up man.

If you are really bored and want to look at all of the Porter Christmases from the beginning of time, follow this link to the book.

The missionary pumpkin

A single pumpkin still sits on our front doorstep (even though we are almost fully Christmas decorated inside!)  There's a story about this pumpkin.

The night of Halloween someone (let's call them hooligans) stole the pumpkins from our front doorstep. They took the carved pumpkins, the little pumpkin Joseph painted, and even a really big pumpkin which wasn't carved yet.  The next morning we found only this pumpkin remaining.

It's our missionary pumpkin.  When we carved our pumpkins Joseph decided that we needed to make a pumpkin in honor of Brandon, who is a missionary. So, he drew this lovely representation of Elder Porter.  And, after everything else was stolen, only this little pumpkin remained.

We have had fun imagining what must have happened, using some scripture stories from the Book of Mormon as reference. Such as the story of Abinadi (Mosiah 13), where he tells the guards in King Noah's court to "touch me not" because he has not delivered his message.  And they couldn't touch him, even though they surely tried!

Or the story of Nephi building a boat with his brothers.  Laman and Lemuel murmured mightily about helping with the building and came forward to throw him into the "depths of the sea" (nice brothers). And then this . . . "as they came forth to lay their hands upon me I spake unto them, saying, 'In the name of the Almighty God, I command you that ye touch me not, for I am filled with the power of God, even unto the consuming of my flesh, and whoso shall lay his  hands up on me shall wither even as a dried reed; and he shall be as naught before the power of God, for God shall smite him.'"   And, after a rather "shocking" experience, Laman and Lemuel remarkably decided to be helpful.

So, this is what we imagine happened.  We think that our pumpkin thieves tried to take the missionary pumpkin and were shocked and knocked backward all the way across the front lawn.  So, they left the missionary pumpkin in place and ran off to wherever it is that hooligans run off to. (I do hope they didn't "wither even as a dried reed."  That would be a little harsh).

Apparently the protection afforded to missionaries serving the Lord also applies to their pumpkins back home.  So there, all you pumpkin thieves out there.

At last . . . . . . a real haircut

In our house, this is something to celebrate.  Joseph got a haircut. At a real haircutting place, not with me at home.  That doesn't sound like an accomplishment to you?  Well, then you haven't had a "sensory kid."

Joseph has significant hypersensitivity to tactile (touch) stimuli, so haircuts have always been super challenging for him. The feel of the buzzer on his head and neck is really, really difficult for him to handle. His older brother Brandon never liked haircuts (still doesn't), but Joseph's discomfort was off the charts. Not to mention that the feel of the stray hairs that fall out after the haircut onto his shirt or pillow REALLY drives him nuts. We learned to have him strip down to just underwear when I cut his hair, because even though the haircutting cape covered his clothes, he absolutely refused to wear anything again which had been worn during a haircut (even after it was washed), because he insisted "there's hair on it."  There probably were a few hairs remaining in the fabric, and most of us would attenuate to the stimuli and not be bothered, but to him each hair felt like a little knife in his skin.

The last time he had his hair cut by a professional was when he was about 2 years old.  It was a nightmare, and the haircutter made a bad situation worse. ("Why do you act like a baby? You are a big boy", she said to him, trying to shame him into sitting still.)  That was about the time that we were realizing that Joseph's reaction to sensory stimuli was interfering with his functioning, and so we began the ongoing process of improving his sensory integration.  While we worked on it and tried to figure things out, we decided that we would deal with haircuts at home.

We tried lots of ways to make the haircuts more bearable for him, but found little success. Threats, bribes, distraction, taking it fast, going really slow.  Basically the only thing that worked was to wait until he absolutely needed a haircut, and then hold him down while I buzzed his hair as short as possible (so the haircut would last as long as possible). It worked more or less - he had shortened  hair, but the goal has always been for him to tolerate tactile stimuli sufficiently to get a "normal" haircut.

Joseph has worked so hard in occupational therapy over the past five months. We have done many things to help desensitize his over-responsive nervous system, and we're seeing some great progress.  A few weeks ago he and I decided he was ready to try to get a haircut at a "real haircutting place," and so we did.

Joseph did absolutely fabulously great. He didn't love it (and had a cute pained look on his face through the haircut), but he tolerated it, and felt successful. He knew it was a big accomplishment, and I knew it, too. In fact, as I sat in the chair next to him while his hair was cut, I couldn't help but tear up. What kind of Mom cries when her six year old gets a real haircut?  This Mom does. It is a sign of progress.

I took photos with my ipod - not the best quality.

 All done and looking great! We celebrated with a treat from Target.  Way to go, Joseph!

11.11.11

 Well, we have partied it up to celebrate this momentous, historic day. The kids and I have had ourselves an "11/11/11 Party" with lots of friends, food, and fun.
Each kid invited over at least one friend, plus we are babysitting two little girls for a friend who had to fly to Utah. We had a big brunch at about 10:30 a.m., with muffins, smoothies, and sausages.  Then, at 11:11 we ran outside and all the kids made wishes.  Certainly their wishes will come true, since they were wished at 11:11 on 11/11/11.  I'm counting on my wish coming true!

 Making our wishes at 11:11!

Below, Bailey and Nina watched their phones to make sure that they were making their wish at EXACTLY 11:11.

And now it is 4:42 p.m., pitch dark outside (thanks to daylight savings time), and I am so exhausted. I'm hiding out in the den enjoying my hot cocoa moment, momentarily ignoring the fact that our home is overrun with children from age 2 to 14. The house is a wreck.  I have fed people and cleaned and fed some more and changed diapers and tried to keep the 2 year old from bugging the 6 year olds, the 6 year olds from bugging the 11 year olds, and everyone from bugging the 14 year olds (because 14 year olds are easily bugged). I really love having lots of kids around, and it has been a really great day. But now I am just holding on until Dan gets home and we leave on a date.  I don't even care where we go, but it must be somewhere where I am being served by others and there are no messes to clean up.

Happy 11/11/11!

Not-so-spooky Halloween

It was a perfect Halloween - festive and fun, with crisp fall-like weather.

I started the day at Joseph's school party - seriously, is there anything as fun as a 1st grade class party? The kids in elementary school weren't allowed to wear costumes, only orange and black. And it was a "harvest party," not a Halloween party. I signed up to help with the October scrapbook pages for the class, so I took lots and lots of pictures, including a few of my cute Joseph.

The day sped by, but somehow we fit in two piano lessons after school, a somewhat healthy dinner to prepare the trick-or-treaters, and then it was time to take on the neighborhood. As always the holiday is especially festive in our area,and we hand out at least 400 pieces of candy. Several families joined with us to walk the kids around the neighborhood, and Dan and the other men stayed back at the house to answer the door. Bailey is past our family's cut-off age for trick-or-treating, so she invited six friends over to the house for a party.

Aubrey's costume was her own special design: Katniss Everdeen from the book The Hunger Games.  If you know Aubrey, you know that she is the biggest Hunger Games fan out there.  I think she's read the series seven times now. So, she knew EXACTLY how she needed to dress to be just like Katniss. We bought her pants and jacket at Goodwill, and then we shredded and stained the pants to simulate surviving a fire.

She just absolutely had to have a replica Mockinjay pin to wear on her jacket, just like the pin Katniss wore in the Hunger Games. It turns out lots of other people wanted the same pin. So, because of the laws of supply and demand, we paid too much for a flimsy pin ordered over the internet.  Or, Aubrey paid, that is. And she says it was worth it.  These pictures show the costume she wore to school.

 

At school she wasn't able to bring her bow and arrow and couldn't add the fake blood which was essential to the costume (depicting Katniss' injuries during the games). She added that at night.

Aubrey with a Katniss-like expression and preparing to trick-or-treat with her friend Laura.

Joseph, on the other hand, wanted to be Captain America, so in September we bought a super awesome costume (complete with a shield that shoots disks). As we got closer to Halloween, however, Joseph couldn't find the body of the costume. We spent at least a week tearing apart the house looking for it. It is still a mystery - the costume never surfaced. So, he wore the Optimus Prime costume with the Captain America mask and shield.  He was mortified, but I assured him that no one over the age of 6 would notice.

He was not really happy to pose for pictures. He was much too excited to get out there and get some CANDY. In past years he has run out of energy long before the rest of the group, but this year he always pushing the group on with his anxious enthusiasm. 

We finished the night back at our house for some delicious hot cocoa. And then we had to get everybody to bed. I loved every minute of Halloween, except for the fact that the next day was a school day!

Porter's Disgusting Dinner Delight - 2011

The mood was set with spooky music, the lights were low and candles were burning.  Mysterious smells wafted from the kitchen. One by one each of the Porter children knocked on the door to the family room/kitchen. They were greeted by the hostess of the Disgusting Dinner Delight restaurant.

"What do you want?" she said.
"Um . . . . dinner."  And then they were led by the hostess to their seat at the Table of Doom, where they selected their meal from an array of enticing choices.  Goblin Droppings, Scab Picker, Zombie Intestines, Shivering Slimy Ghosts, Bloody Cat Hearts,  Decapitated Digits, Bat Saliva, Crunchy Cicadas, Leftover Toejam, Bat Saliva, Ghostly Spirits.  Yum.  How delicious.

Thanks to lots of hard work with food challenges and OT, Joseph was only a little nervous about choosing disgusting sounding foods without knowing what he would receive.  (In past years, this was really tough for him). And, he tried everything on his plate, including the finger!

 

The 2011 Disgusting Dinner Delight was a great success!

Making pumpkin faces

After our perfect pumpkins were selected early in October, they sat on our front porch for weeks. Joseph was anxious to carve the pumpkins from the very first day we brought them home, but I convinced him to wait until closer to Halloween. To take the sting out of the delay, I had him paint one of his pumpkins.

But, he still asked me every day if today we could finally break out the knives and carve. However, as we neared the end of October it became increasingly difficult to get everyone in the family home at the same time. Seriously, we couldn't find one night when everyone was available. Finally, we did our carving the night before Halloween. And even that wasn't perfect, because Bailey chose not to carve since she was doing some prepping for a big Geometry test taking place the next day.  Oh well.

First Joseph drew a picture of his carving plan.

 Then he helped Dad carve. Well, we forced him to help. It's ironic that he was the most excited 6-year-old in the universe to carve his pumpkin, but didn't actually want to touch the gooey stuff.

 And the finished products.

 Aubrey also wasn't a fan of scooping out the pumpkin innards.Good thing Dan is so, so patient!

 

I love the freckles on your pumpkin, Aub!