Christmas Eve

This year we had our Christmas Eve celebration at my mom and dad's since Christin was still recovering from surgery. We usually always meet at the Sawhouse so that was a little different. I was so proud of myself because earlier that day I cleared the memory on both the digital camera and the video camera and charged the batteries on both so I could record every moment of Hudson's first Christmas. Then I stopped at Target on my way to Mom's and dropped the battery to my digital camera in the parking lot and didn't realize it at the time. So I get to my mom's and am unloading the car and realize I don't have it. I was SO upset - ruined my whole night. I was upset enough about it that my dear husband got in the car, drove to Target and found the battery in the parking lot. It hadn't been smashed and wasn't even wet. Put it back in the camera and it still worked. So the holidays weren't ruined!
Hudson was more interested in the bows and wrapping paper than the gifts themselves, but he enjoys opening presents! And he gots LOTS of them!

My cousin-in-law, Dad and brother-in-law playing the first annual rendition of Silent Night.

Guess the pajamas were really red cause the pics all turned out like this - but these are the new pj's my Gammy bought all of the girls.

Garret playing on the Firetruck scooter we got him. He loved it. He immediately jumped on and starting riding around the room giving everyone tickets. I guess he has police and firemen a little confused - but it was cute anyways! He uses his tough, gruff voice when he gives the tickets, which is really cute.

Matching rainjackets - they have a firetruck on the back...

4 Christmases down - one to go

So we got home last night from celebrating Christmas with Jamie's family over the weekend. Jeremy and Alisha and their kids came home with us and the plan was to leave this evening to go to Iowa to spend the rest of the week with his parents up there. However, I woke up at 2 am vomiting and Alisha was sick all night too. To go along with the colds that Jeremy, Bryce, Alisha and Hudson all have. Plus Jamie was just home for lunch and said his stomach was starting to bother him too. So we will not be leaving tonight and hopefully we're feeling up to going tomorrow. If all 4 adults are sick that might not happen though - we need at least 2 drivers!
Flu and cold season - what fun!!

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas Eve

cousins

Hudson finally got to meet his cousins from Florida last night. They are here for the holidays and stayed at our house last night and are spending most of the day with us today. Hudson has been enthralled just watching them play - definitely keeping him stimulated!

Kaedyn is going nuts because both Athena and Hudson are taking naps right now and she doesn't have anyone to play with. She wore Athena out playing fetch with her this morning, so she's hiding in my room and Hudson is down for a nap, but he's still crying after 1.5 hours. She keeps asking if he can get up to play...she finally just said "Hudson wants to get up to play but he can't cause he has to take his whole nap." I hope he takes a nap at some point so he'll be in a good mood for Christmas at my parent's house tonight!

Kaedyn playing banker in the playroom downstairs.

Mia and Kaedyn reading Hudson a book.

Bryce jumping on the bed - and almost on Hudson's head a few times!

sleep

Hudson seems to finally be figuring out going to bed - at nighttime anyway. He's been crying for about 30 minutes or so and then falling asleep. (Although I say that and he cried for an hour and a half tonight before he fell asleep.) Our newest problem is now he has started waking up around 4 am and won't go back to sleep even after I nurse him. He's never done that before - he always used to nurse and then go right back to sleep, but no more! We have tried just letting him lay in bed and cry and going in every 20-30 minutes and soothing him - neither has worked so far. So he cries till at least 6:00 am and then one of us will get up with him. Of course then he's ready for a nap by 8 am - but let's not talk about naps - he still doesn't understand what those are!

Maybe I should quit taking pictures of him while he is sleeping - probably waking him up!

But at least he wakes up happy!

Christin update

Christin did get to come home from the hospital on Saturday afternoon, but unfortunately she started vomiting and my parents ended up taking her back in Saturday night. Vomiting in itself is bad enough, but imagine trying to vomit with your mouth wired shut - yuck! I don't want to imagine it!

But the good news is they put her on some anti-nauseau meds and she started feeling much better by yesterday afternoon. She couldn't have anything but clear liquids until today and they took her off all pain killers except just ibuprofen (since that was probably what was making her sick - the pain pills combined with nothing to eat in 4 days) so that seems to have cleared up the nausea. She will hopefully get to come home this evening and will be on the road to recovery from here on out. Maybe she'll even have a Merry Christmas - only she can't have her favorite dish for dinner. I wonder what broccoli, cheese and rice casserole would taste like as a shake?!?!?! She might get desperate enough to find out!

The Big Reveal...

Here it is - the finished product - minus any furniture or decorations (except Christmas stuff) and cabinet doors. We haven't gotten that far yet...

Christin

My sister Christin had jaw surgery on Wednesday and she's having a tough time with the first few days of recovery thus far. Her mouth is wired shut so she has to eat liquids only through a syringe so she's not eating much. But the pain pills are making her sick since she isn't eating so it's a vicious cycle. Please keep her in your prayers. She is probably going to get to come home from the hospital today so hopefully that will help her feel better to be at home in her own bed.

Plus I can't go visit her at the hospital anymore - since I passed out in her room yesterday afternoon!! :) How embarassing! Trying to help her out and do things for her and then I didn't feel so good. I knew it was coming though so luckily I had sat down - so at least I didn't fall and hit my head and have to be admitted myself! I guess we could have shared a room then! :)
Jamie was there so he laid me on the bed and lifted my feet up above my head for a while, got me some orange juice and then I felt good enough to go home. What a mess! But in my defense, the room was really warm, I had a sweatshirt on, Christin was writhing in pain and it was almost 8:00 and I hadn't had dinner yet...

It's finally finished!

The basement is officially done! Carpet is in and they have cleaned up all their tools and left. Well, I take it back, my cousins are done with their part. We still have to install the cabinet doors but at least with carpet down it is now livable space we can use! YEAH!!

I haven't taken pictures with the carpet down yet so I'll do that here soon, but here's a sneak peek of one of my favorite parts of the entire basement:

Hudson's Playroom!

It's the space under the stairs. They made a small door and window and even put the light switch down on kid level. This space will get some major use in the future! Some of our friends were over 2 weeks ago and their little girl played in it for a while - and that was without carpet or toys, so I know it will be popular!

it finally came!

I am very excited to tell you I finally got the new cord for my camera so now I can share all my new pictures with you! Yeah!
I ordered the cord the first of December and got a confirmation email that it had shipped on 12/3. It said it would take 4-12 days for delivery and I thought that sounded like a long time but I was giving it till today and then I was going to call the company if I didn't get it. When I saw the package I realized why it took so long to get here.

The package even has a customs declaration sticker on the back - I doubt I would have got very far with my phone call either - they probably don't speak English! Guess I should pay more attention to what website I am ordering stuff from!

In case you can't read the return address - it's from:

Ding Dong Feng

19 Jing An Dong

Jie Chao Yang Qu

Beijing China.

Ding Dong - what were his parent's thinking?!?! :)

Such a big boy!

A few weeks ago I decided Hudson was sitting up well enough on his own that he could start riding in the shoppping cart at the grocery store. He LOVES it. He looks at everything as we shop and smiles at everyone. And now even more people stop me to talk to him - which he loves! He gets pretty excited about all the colors on the shelves and starts jabbering away.

We also have started putting him in a highchair when we go out to eat - which he also loves! The first time we did it he talked and jabbered so loud we were pretty embarassed. But he sat up and ate his dinner while we ate and played with anything we mistakenly set to close to him. He is quick! And he can reach a lot further across the table than I gave him credit for. A few days ago I was at the mall doing some Christmas shopping (finally!) and decided I would eat some chinese food for lunch at the food court. It wasn't Hudson's lunch time so I didn't get him a high chair. But I wanted to get him out of his stroller since he had been in it the whole time we were shopping, so I thought I would just hold him. BIG mistake. Although I had moved my plate so I thought it was out of reach, he still managed to grab it and knock the sauce container over. Luckily I had thought to grab a bunch of napkins. So I cleaned that up and by the end of lunch my plate was almost clear over at the other side of the table so he couldn't reach it. And I was eating lo mein, which has noodles, so that was messy. I kept dropping food on the table and he would grab it. Then I had to fight him to take it away before he got it in his mouth.

I've decided I will never try to go out to eat by myself again!

maybe a little progress...

So last night I put him down and a minute later he was quiet! But 5 minutes later he was crying. And he went on like that for 30 minutes or so . I think I fell asleep before he did! :) But he eventually fell asleep.

And he slept till 6:30 this morning but then didn't want to go back to sleep like yesterday. I probably should have left him to cry a little longer cause I think he would have fallen back asleep. He was about to fall asleep eating his breakfast so Jamie put him back down a little while ago. But he woke up 5 minutes later....so we're sitting here eating the breakfast pizza I made (It's kind of nice getting up so early and having breakfast with Jamie in the mornings!), watching the snow come down and listening to him cry!

fluke?!?!? or progress?!?!?!

Last night Hudson only cried for 20 minutes before he fell asleep! I was sure something was wrong with him so I snuck in to check on him. Literally snuck in - crawled on my hands and knees over to the crib and peeked up at him. He was sound asleep. But had kicked off all his blankets so I got him covered up again. So it was a good thing I checked on him because it has been COLD here the last few days.

Not only did he fall asleep quickly - he slept till 6:15 this morning. He wouldn't go back to sleep after he woke up and nursed so we had a pretty early morning, but I'll take getting up early over the crying for hours at night! We had breakfast with Jamie this morning, which doesn't happen very often so it was kind of nice. If only it wasn't so cold!!

They are just finishing up bath time so we'll see how it goes tonight!

ramblings about sleep, the basement and our life...

Hudson has been really struggling with sleep for the past month. A friend recommended the book "Healthy Sleep, Happy Child" so we read that and decided to try the "cry it out" method since our method obviously wasn't working. I think we may have finally made a breakthrough as the last 2 nights it has only taken him 2 hours to cry himself to sleep. Yes, that is a major accomplishment over the 4-6 hours he had been doing. We feel really bad letting him cry for that long but we don't know what else to do! We can rock him to sleep or stand over him in the crib and pat him and sing to him and he'll fall asleep, but the instant you lay him down or take a step away from the crib his eyes pop open, his legs start kicking and the crying starts.
So we have let him cry till 2 or 3 in the morning a few nights but the sad thing is we finally ended up going in and getting him because he wasn't going to sleep. One night I ended up holding him the rest of the night cause he was so worked up from crying for so long.
But the good news is the last 2 nights he has only cried for 2 hours - and we started turning music on in the living room so we can't hear him quite as well - so that helps. :)
But that's only the going to bed - naps or when he wakes up during the night, well, sometimes that's the whole thing over and over again...
We're worried he is making himself sick from getting so little sleep. So per the book's recommendations we only let him cry for the first nap of the day, then I hold him or lay down with him for the second nap so that we make sure he at least gets some sleep. But to me that is just confusing him more cause he wants to sleep like that all the time...But something has got to change cause this boy needs some sleep - so do his parents! He is getting about 8-9 hours of sleep at night and maybe 2 hours of napping a day - not anywhere close to the recommendations for a baby his age. And of course we are going to start traveling in a week and half for Christmas so any progress we have made by then will probably go right down the drain!

I am SO ready for the basement to be done. It has already been 2 weeks longer than they thought to get it finished and they still aren't done. They are getting close though. This time they really are - I keep saying that and then a week goes by and they still aren't done. But now they just have some touch up paint, clean up and carpet to lay. They think that will just take them one day and they'll be done tomorrow. I am anticipating that they might be done by Wednesday... :) The whole house is so dusty from all the sheetrock, mudding and stuff from downstairs - I need to do a really good deep cleaning once I know there won't be any more mess! Plus the noise from down there doesn't help with Hudson's napping.

And because of Hudson's crazy sleeping I have been sticking pretty close to home to try to keep him on a schedule. Which means I have not been out to do any Christmas shopping yet! I finally got online and started buying some presents a few days ago when I realized Christmas was only 2 weeks away and I hadn't bought a single gift!

And one more thing - No, I have not received my new cable cord for the camera so I still can't download any pictures. And despite not sleeping, Hudson is still doing all sorts of cute things I have been taking pictures of to share with you. So hopefully I get it sometime next week so I can post some new pics. He's not crawling yet but as soon as the house gets cleaned up and the new carpet is down we are going to start focusing on lots of tummy time. He hasn't had much lately cause I don't want him down on the dirty floors!

And now I hear Hudson crying - that was 20 minutes. The book says it can't count as a nap if it isn't longer than 30. So technically he hasn't had a nap yet today- but that's the second time he has at least tried!

All I want for Christmas...

I gave Hudson a toy catalog that came in the mail and told him to pick out what he wanted for Christmas...I think he is saying he wants one of everything!

All his mommy and daddy want for Christmas is for him to start sleeping better!!

friends

Two of my best friends have boys close to the same age as Hudson. One of them lives in Texas so we don't get to see each other very often but she was up for Thanksgiving so we were able to get the boys together. It was fun to see them interact. Reign is 3 months older than Hudson and Nathan is just 10 days older.

Hudson and Nathan

Reign was crawling everywhere and Nathan and Hudson would just watch him crawl around. Although Hudson does look like he's about to bite him in this picture. I think he was just getting hungry!

I think we'll have quite the basketball team when these boys get older!

basement update

It's getting SO close to being done. The ceiling and carpet are the 2 big things left - and there's probably a million little things to do still. But it is coming together and looks really good. Here's some more pictures. These are not the latest pics but since I still don't have my cord to hook the camera up, these will have to do for now. You can at least see some of the paint colors and shelving that we picked. (Hopefully my new camera cord will come in the mail soon cause it's really "cramping my style" not having it!)

The entertainment center. The tiling is done around the fireplace now too. One of Jamie's friends is building the shelving for us and Jamie is "helping." They have been working many late nights to get it done but it is turning out beautiful so it will be worth it.

Hudson and Jamie enjoying the counter on the new kitchen area. The walls are a light sage green color and the accent walls are a dark green, in case you can't tell in the pics.


The cabinets in the kitchen area. We'll put it a microwave and a small fridge too. Thanks to Aaron (my brother-in-law) for hooking us up with all the wood for the cabinets, doors and trim!

The shower in the bathroom. I think the toilet, vanity and lighting goes in tomorrow so this room will be finished!

The new laundry room. The tile floor is laid now so they just have trim to do then we can move the washer and dryer down. Hope they fit down the stairs! There is a tight turn at the bottom of the stairs so we had to be careful when picking out furniture to make sure it would fit down the stairs. We picked out a sectional but it won't be here till mid-January. I just hope it will fit!

basement update

Well it's not done yet, but they are getting close. Since I wasn't able to post pictures last week I am going to post these now - but it looks totally different from these already! They have the paint up and are hoping to finish the tile on the floors before they go home tonight (I'm ordering pizza and they are just going to keep working...) So I'll post some more updated ones later - going to keep you in suspense a little longer - but it all looks really good!

Back of the living room - the corner is where the mini kitchen area is.

The fireplace/entertainment center wall.

The new hallway. Bedroom is on the right and bathroom and laundry room on the left.



The closet in the bedroom.

Thanksgiving

So I never did find the cord to my camera so I finally went to Walgreens last night and downloaded the picutres off my camera to a CD so that I could post some to my blog. And I ordered a new cord and should have it by next week - yeah!
So we spent Thursday with my family at the Sawhouse (my grandma's - my brother gave it that name when they bought it 15 years ago because he got to go over and saw trees down- and the name just stuck). Had lots of fun there and Hudson got to meet his first kitty cat. Jamie didn't like it but Hudson did!
Then Friday we drove out to Burdett to spend the weekend with Jamie's family. Had a good time there although there were several that weren't feeling well. Hudson did really well on the trip (slept almost all the way there and all the way home!) and except for Saturday night when he didn't want to go to bed (He just wanted to stay up and play!), he did pretty well sleeping there.
Here are a few pics from our weekend:

Hudson and Gammy's kitty "Tito". He is a very mellow cat - he let Hudson pull and rub all over him and never woke up!

My sister Christin stuffing her face with broccoli, cheese and rice casserole - my mom's dish!

And a little more...

And just a little bit more... :)

Hudson riding the tractor at Uncle Alan's and Aunt Donna's

Riding in the car (Grandparents - I think I know what Hudson wants for Christmas!!)