Preston, Franklin, and Baby Nathaniel

2010-08-19T18:51:00.000-07:00

Contemplative Franklin

Preston in a nutshell

Baby looks good in a hat

Waiting for the schoolbus

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Twins

Stop hitting yourself!

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Baby is getting good at holding himself up

Love the facial expression- brownie points for anyone who can come up with a good caption.

First day of school

This one's for Aunt Sue, I just think it's a cute picture, dreaming of yummy fish or something.

Visit to Kentucky

2010-07-31T07:33:00.000-07:00

Franklin loved riding the horses

Preston, not so much

Mother-son bonding time

The Porter kids are all very sweet and helpful

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Devouring the swing

Drool machine

Riding a horse with mommy

Chubby monkey

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Feeding apples to the horses

collecting those apples

Cool gym-like place

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They had a eat-off-the-table activity, Preston was a little excited about the chocolate pudding

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Brothers

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Franklin loved petting the stingrays

Loves his brothers

Preston was a champion feeder of stingrays

Love those jellyfish

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One in each hand, notice Preston is missing a tooth

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This old chimpanzee loved Nathaniel- kissed him, gave him gifts, and doted on him. He wasn't interested in anyone else.

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Preston LOVES soccer

Franklin LOVES his brother

Short hair makes them look a lot more like each other

Baby is now 4 months old

Climbing up the walls

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Franklin sings a lullaby

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It's very quiet, so you might need to crank the volume.

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Playing in the worst flood in 100 years

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The boys had fun playing in the rainwater in our front walkway, our basement flooded pretty badly, but we are counting ourselves lucky.

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Brotherly love

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Mommy and baby in his homemade sling

Preston was aggressive at the eater egg hunt and got quite a haul

Preston's sign saying no one was allowed to go left. Including a caterpillar and Nemo, made with lego and bendaroos.

Preston's pirate ship, including good guys on the deck of the ship and bad guys on the attacking ship, complete with harpoon, altough some of the fine detail may be hard to see.

2010-03-15T07:24:00.000-07:00

2 months versus newborn- look how much his pacifier has shrunk.

Franklin LOVES holding his brother, Preston is pretty indifferent.

Whenever he does this he says "Awwwwwww."

2010-02-27T18:32:00.000-08:00

Franklin had a little bit too much fun with the chocolate pudding crêpes I made.

Mostly Nathaniel is still just tired

Sometimes he's fun, though

Any resemblance?

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I think this little one looks a lot like his oldest brother- From left: Nate, Prest, Nate, Prest

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Nathaniel has grown a lot during his two weeks in the hospital (UTI and possible meningitis)

Brothers are glad to have him back

Notice the double chin

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Holding hands

My boys

The baby crying

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Mutti wanted to know how loud the baby cries, so here you go.

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Trying, but not quite succeeding at sucking his thumb

The pacifier gives a bit of scale to how small this critter is

STRRRREEETCH!!!!

They had to use forcepts to get the guy out, leaving a pitiful bruise

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Our as of yet unnamed critter was born today, a lot earlier than expected, weighing in at 2.18 kg- 4lbs 13ounces

Sometime the process is boring

Sometimes difficult

But Mostly tiring

2009-12-19T09:31:00.000-08:00

These are Preston's renditions of (clockwise from the top) bacteria, viruses, and a white blood cell, which he made out of the blue the other day. The white blood cell of course proceeded to eat the others.

Franklin putting the alligator to bed

2009-11-22T12:48:00.000-08:00

Franklin singing a lullaby to his brother's alligator and tucking it in, at the end of the video he is saying "Night night!"

2009-11-15T16:32:00.000-08:00

This was Preston's big birthday present from his parents (along with a blaster bought with grandma money). He's having a blast so far- but Daddy spend some serious time putting it together (with Preston's help of course).

2009-11-08T15:51:00.000-08:00

Preston was originally going to be a policeman, but had too much fun beating up his dad in this costume and switched

Franklin's Eeyore costume lasted all of 10 seconds

We had a pretty cool ward party

But Franklin went costumeless

Franklin gets excited about elmo

2009-10-31T10:32:00.001-07:00

Puddle hopping

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Falling leaves

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Mommy and the boys had a blast playing with the leaves in our yard

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One days worth of Preston stories

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We've been to too many yard sales.
Preston saw a temporary jewelry stand at Costco, and decided he wanted to get something for his mom- he asked the price of a necklace, the lady said it was $100. Preston replied "I don't think we have that much money. Is $5 okay?"

Preston likes to ask us how to spell words so he can write them down. This morning he asked me "How do you spell 'transformers'? I want to learn." I started to tell him, but instead of a pen and paper, he started looking for a 't' on the computer keyboard. After some questioning, it came out that he knew I wasn't going to let him watch a transformers cartoon, but he figured if he managed to type it into the computer then the computer would show him a video. The "I want to learn" was his way of covering his tracks.

Preston was having a conversation with his mom about death, and mommy said "I want to live to see you have children of your own." His reply: "But I don't even lay eggs!"

Preston dancing to some oldies music

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I had a wonderful encounter with a grate on my bike- it ate my wheel, and I faceplanted.

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This is how Franklin eats everything- in one big bite

Mommy's return

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Franklin didn't recognize his mom at the airport

Preston did, though.

Fortunately Franklin warmed up pretty quick.

Preston grilling

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We bought some steak because it's the only meat that doesn't make Ya-ping nauseous, and Preston helped cook it. He did a good job, and watched over it the whole time.

Franklin's dance

2009-08-24T16:39:00.001-07:00

寄件者 Pete's visit

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The frog we saw

Trying to balance on the curb

Chillin'

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Pete and Preston Frog watching

Franklin ate an oreo and got a huge blob of white on his nose

Preston had fun with our new video camera while hiking

The boys are having a blast with Pete

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Franklin's expression while conducting the boys were priceless

This is the only way Preston can squirt a gun- if he aims it at himself

Some tomatoes from our garden

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Franklin had fun at the anniversary meeting other little babies

And not so little dogs

Fun at Oma and Opa's 50th anniversary

2009-08-09T10:34:00.000-07:00

One of Paul's friends was nice enough to set up a zipline. Preston LOVED it.

We had relay races

And went to a children's museum

And generally played around

2009-08-02T21:48:00.000-07:00

Franklin likes to stalk the deer that eat the apricots at our house.

This bar graph shows the relative speeds of the three cousins

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Grams and Preston with a wee bit of photoshop.

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My boys had fun running Sue's boys ragged.

Playing by a pond at a botanical garden.

Jesse contemplates the butterfly on his finger

2009-07-17T21:16:00.000-07:00

Grams snuggling with a tired Preston.

Franklin had fun playing with boys shoes in the water.

2009-07-13T19:47:00.000-07:00

Franklin loved the water gun, but could only pull the trigger if he pointed it at himself.

Preston's been having a blast with the boys.

2009-07-06T18:18:00.000-07:00

CinderFranklin

He took off his diaper, and hurriedly tried to replace it when I noticed

2009-06-14T09:18:00.000-07:00

Franklin watching a tennis match-

I just like this picture

Preston and mommy- mommy leaves for Taiwan on tuesday to get her health taken care of- we're not quite sure how long she'll be gone, I'm sure not ready to be a single dad.

Love the inquisitive facial expression

2009-06-12T19:02:00.000-07:00

This is Ya-ping's newest project, she made a covered sandbox for the kids

My Lovely son

He saw people spitting seeds, and tried to imitate them, spitting out large chunks of watermelon.

Notice the bite taken out of the rind- he would take whatever part of the watermelon he could get.

2009-05-23T20:33:00.000-07:00

We were at a yard sale. I told Preston "You can pick one sword," the Grandma in charge said "He can have all of them for $1.50... apologize to his mom for me."

Hide and seek

Sandals can be a little harder to deal with when oversized.

2009-05-23T20:19:00.000-07:00

Franklin got into a jar of peanut butter that was sitting on the table

His brother's response was "He tastes YUMMY!"

Franklin enjoys wii fit

Ya-ping read Preston ten books for storytime that day

Mammoth Cave

2009-04-23T19:07:00.000-07:00

We went on a little family trip to Mammoth cave, we took in some of the local wildlife

Got to cross a river on a ferry

And of course, got to see a really big cave...

...a really, really big cave.

2009-04-23T18:58:00.000-07:00

While at mammoth Franklin took off his socks and his mom put them on his hands. At which point Franklin used his sock hands to eat rocks. Randomness.

Poor little guy has bronchitis so he has to use this respirator to deliver meds to his lungs a few times a day. He's really good natured about it though.

We told him that the food was too hot, next thing we know, the he's wearing an oven mitt and going at it.

I photoshopped this picture from mutti's blog to hopefully give a better impression of what the real thing looks like.

Franklin's first steps

2009-04-12T20:17:00.000-07:00

Franklin's first steps, he could only do it when holding on to the blanket, because he felt he was braced against something. (FYI The audio in the background is Preston and a friend playing with daddy and baby T-rex's).

Ya-ping's new idol

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY
This is cute.

2009-04-12T20:11:00.000-07:00

Preston's best air guitar

Franklin LOVES peeps to the point where he was so overjoyed to be eating one he didn't know how to respond

Franklin's new haircut

This piece is called "Mommy as a pig" -the artist is currently blurring the lines to make the characters appear to be "running really fast"

Easter

2009-04-11T19:26:00.000-07:00

This Saturday we went to a botanical garden for their Easter party (my wonderful boss got us a family membership). They had face painting and balloon animals, and all sorts of fun stuff. The kids really had a blast.

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There was a musician who danced and sang with the kids, Preston got really into it

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Inspecting his eggs

This balloon flower didn't last long

Hypnotized by a water fountain

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Loves his rocking horse

Climbing expert

Loves brushing his teeth, washing his hands, and taking baths

Easter egg hunting

2009-03-07T16:54:00.000-08:00

Now that they're home safe, I can laugh about this picture

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Bathtime would have been even more fun if not for the bazillions of mosquitos

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寄件者 tophotoshop

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Taiwan has all sorts of kite flying opportunities

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From the recent Taiwan trip, they had beautiful spring, I had a record cold streak

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Hamming it up

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Franklin loved stringrays, and was absolutely fearless

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Sometimes riding on a blanket is more fun than all the Christmas toys put together

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Brotherly Love

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Aren't they cute? (Can you tell I'm a little lonely?)

2009-01-16T20:41:00.000-08:00

Took this just before my little family left me for 2 months :(

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Mmmm....bubbles...

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Love that rocking horse

2008-12-08T21:24:00.000-08:00

The boys had a great time at the zoo on Thanksgiving weekend. Surprisingly, no crowds and good weather.

Wide eyed wonder at a toy sword he normally doesn't get to play with (his brother says he will hurt himself)

2008-12-08T21:20:00.000-08:00

We watched a cougar eat a bone at the zoo...

and Franklin had to try it at home

Socks never stay on Franklin's feet for long...

He was so excited to see fish

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Preston set up his stuffed animals in front of their "TV," the little foam house we made together

Preston took this picture, not bad, eh?

Happy baby

Preston 4.0

2008-11-17T16:39:00.000-08:00

Preston trying out one of his gifts, he has the pirate voice down pat.

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The pirate died

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We had games ready, but everyone had too much fun on our swingset to play them

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Grrr!

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Mommy went baloon crazy for Preston's party

2008-11-01T06:55:00.000-07:00

Our street has a neighborhood Halloween party last week, Preston, sans costume, had a blast, and Ya-ping got to eat lots of food and chat. It was pretty neat, they even had neighborhood bands (of all ages) provide the music. Only in Nashville can you find 3 garage bands on one block.

2008-11-01T06:52:00.000-07:00

Franklin's new walker, we're impressed by it, it has adjustable wheel tension so it won't get away from him, he has fun

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Our little monkey

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Preston in his halloween costume

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Preston's baby dinosaur wrapped in his jacket to keep warm.

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::slurp::

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Franklin's response whenever he sees someone with a cup- he LOVES any liquid.