humongous spider

I walked into the office the other night and this spider scurried out from underneath some of my papers on the floor! Luckily I didn't scream cause Hudson was sleeping but I ran and got Jamie and made him find it before I would go back into the office (and Jamie doesn't like spiders just as much as me!). It was HUMONGOUS! The picture doesn't do it justice since it's dead and it's legs are all curled up. I couldn't believe how much noise it made scurrying across the papers on the floor -it was that big!

And of course I had several hours of clinic work to do so the whole time I sat at the computer I was sure I could feel spiders crawling up my legs!

Big Baby

Those are Hudson's newest words. Although he seems to have them confused. He says what sounds like "baby" when he means something is big. So it's a little confusing. I think he is actually saying "Big Big" but what you hear sounds like "baby". And he likes to "blubber" a bit as well!

The other day he started saying "Mimi" which is our name for his Great Grandma so I was excited about that one. Till I discovered he is actually saying "ME ME" which means give ME this or help ME or pay attention to ME ME ME. So it can get a little annoying! :)



My Montage 7/28/09

Playing Catch

He's trying hard to catch the ball but he just can't quite get it. And for some reason he can't do it standing up either! And of course, the tongue has to be out at all times to help him concentrate!

My Montage 7/28/09

Daddy's little helper

new bedtime routine

When Hudson started walking really well about 2 weeks ago I started noticing that ALL of his books kept getting pulled off the shelf in his room and put in a big pile by his crib every night. I wondered what him and Jamie were doing in there when they were getting ready for bed...One night I walked in and discovered exactly what was going on. And this is what he does EVERY night now - with EVERY book if we let it go on that long.


My Montage 7/24/09

playing

An afternoon at our house...lots of ball playing involved! We bought him a tball set and he does pretty good with it although the bat is a little heavy for him still but he's getting the hang of it. This afternoon he wanted to play the game where we throw the balls over the couch then I lift him up to look at them - so that's what he is trying to do in a few of these videos. Luckily he seems to have forgotten that game now! :) Enjoy!



My Montage 7/23/09

Ouch!

No sooner do I post about his first boo-boo and then he gets another one - worse this time. My poor baby!

This one was from falling on the driveway. That slope is hard to handle when you are just learning to walk! He was chasing after a ball and fell. Luckily he hit his knees and hands first so that took some of the brunt of the fall. But his head just kept going down! He didn't cry for long and didn't want to sit and put ice on it. He was right back out there playing more "ba-ball".

a few of his favorite things

My Montage 7/14/09



George the monkey - unfortunately poor George didn't hold up too long against Hudson's teeth.

Athena - I didn't realize till just the other day that he is yelling "Athena" when he yells like this. He loves to play ball with her. Athena doesn't enjoy it quite as much as he does though!

Airplanes - I was amazed when he picked the airplane up and started flying it and making airplane sounds. Where did he learn that?!? Same with cars. I guess it's a boy thing!

Basketball- or "ba-ball" as he calls it. Still a favorite.

fat lip

My poor baby boy fell down and bit his lip on Saturday. I am sure it is the first of many times! Luckily it hardly bled at all so he must not have bit through it. Of course, Jamie starts talking about him being disfigured if we don't get stitches - then makes me really worried!

wet n' wild

Friday's during June and July are Wet N' Wild days at the zoo. The fire department comes and sprays water on all the kids. It's quite a hit. The water makes a huge puddle but the kids just run and play. The water was cold and you get drenched when the hose hits you - especially the big one up top. I tried to just stay on the edges but I still got soaked! Hudson loved the water and kept begging someone to take him out but Garret was more interested in the fire truck. We did finally get him to get out and play in the water a little bit. He also informed us that he does not like animals, he only likes firetrucks when we tried to tear him away to go look at some of the exhibits. But his Aunt Sissa pulled a few strings and got him a "ride" on the fire truck, so he was pretty happy.

Garret and Aunt "Sissa". She's the one who coordinates this whole shebang! Lots of fun!




My Montage 7/18/09

projects

A few months ago I posted about all the projects I have been working on. Well, this one has been a never-ending (as I'm sure our friend, Jake, who built it all for us can attest to) one but I am getting SO close to being done so I thought I'd go ahead and share the results with you. Jake built all these cabinets (THANK YOU!) from a rough sketch I did of what I wanted and he did an amazing job. Jamie and I spent hours at night after Hudson was in bed painting all of this wood. And of course the wood just soaked up the first 2 coats so we had to put 3 or 4 coats on it all. We've been working on it for a long time! But I have so much storage now I don't even know what to store in all the space!
This is my new mudroom. When we finished the basement we moved our laundry room downstairs so this is the old laundry room. It's the entryway from the garage to the house and was a VERY tiny laundry room. So it works much better as a mud room - i.e. place to put down all your junk as you are walking into the house! I still have to paint the drawer fronts (not pictured here) and put pulls on them. I also haven't found the hooks I want for the right side. It's like a big locker and I want to hang hooks there to put bags and coats on and such. I am looking for hooks that hang from the ceiling - anyone seen those? The left middle part has a "smart station" which means an area where we can put all of our electronic devices to charge them up. It's really just a fancy name for power strip hidden behind a piece of wood but I love not having all those cords all over the kitchen anymore!

This is my new storage area in the laundry room. Like I said, I haven't even found enough stuff to store to use all my space yet!

And more storage! I like having the counter top for folding laundry and the top drawer has a fold out ironing board! Yes, still more painting to do here as well.

And this is my new craft/scrabooking area which I am MOST excited about. Now all my stuff will have a place instead of spread all over the office floor. And I can sit in a chair instead of on the floor to scrapbook! For my birthday I am getting some baskets and organizer things for this area. Once I get it all done I'll finally get back to my scrapbooking - and a few other projects!

This is a peg board that hangs above my scrapbook desk (Thanks Jeremy and Cecil for getting it put up!). I'm going to use it to organize more of my scrapbook supplies, wrapping paper and stuff like that. I'll post a picture once I get it done.

So we've been busy - and now that it's (almost) done I have a whole list of other projects to start on!

our world's turned upside down

He has figured it out. He can now walk all around the room, bend over and pick things up and stand back up when he falls over. He still holds his arms high up in front for balance but he is doing really good. This is what he likes to do before he stands back up. He thinks it's pretty cute and funny - which I have to agree, it is!

If you look closely (in the video) you can also see his bad farmer's tan. Poor kid!

My Montage 7/15/09

long trip home

Unfortunately our trip home was not as smooth as the trip up there. In his defense, he is teething and was overtired from not napping/sleeping well the last 2 days. But it was a loooooong ride. We didn't leave till 6:30 thinking he would fall asleep pretty shortly therafter since it was bedtime soon. WRONG! He stayed awake the whole way to KC! We stopped and filled up and since he was still wide awake I got him out of his seat and let him play for a little bit. He had a great time at the truck stop looking at all the big trucks. Then we put him back in his seat and got back on the road and not 5 minutes later the crying started. And lasted at least 45 minutes. I finally got him to sleep by sitting beside him watching a DVD and pointing out the pictures on the DVD. Problem was I kept falling asleep and waking up to find him still awake watching the video. So I'd try to watch a little more and I'd fall asleep again. Eventually he fell asleep - only to wake up again 20 minutes from our exit and cry the rest of the way! Thankfully he went right to bed when we got home and slept the rest of the night.

Whoa!

BIG TRUCK!

My Montage 7/14/09

little more fun at Papa and Binga's

Just a few more pics of our week at Papa and Binga's house. Hudson had a great time playing with all his cousins. He ran a fever on Saturday cause he's teething so he was grumpy some Saturday and Sunday but all in all it was a great week and we both had lots of fun.

Hudson's first time playing in the sandbox. And he never even tried to eat it! Although he did get a mouthful when he picked a bucket up and dumped it on his face!

Mia Sterling relaxing in the hammock. She's a little bookworm! I was the same way when I was her age. Actually, I guess I still am!

The boys.

Anna Rose. Her daddy helped her put her swimsuit on - it's supposed to cross in the back - but she didn't seem to mind.

Zeus and kids

Zeus used to be pretty uptight around little kids but I guess Hudson has already mellowed him out - A LOT! He never would have allowed this to happen before!

Big Boy Walking

walking

pooltime

Despite cloudy skys and a few raindrops we went to the pool this afternoon. The kids have been waiting all week to go and it hasn't been hot enough and it rained yesterday so today we braved the thunderclouds. The water wasn't actually that cold so it was pretty nice. The waterpark we went to had some slides for the big kids, a lazy river and a kid area. Hudson loved the lazy river - they had 2 person rafts and one side had a bottom in it so he sat in front and I rode behind him and we went round and round. I finally got him out cause his lips were turning blue! The kid part had lots of fountains and he loves playing in those.

"Where'd the water go?"

The water would shoot out of the holes and then stop for awhile and restart. This is one of his new things to do - his "where did it go" look.

My Montage 7/10/09

Incredible Pizza

Today we went to a new place in town that is right by Papa and Binga's house. It's like a Chuck E. Cheese for those of you who have had the pleasure of experiencing one of those. This one was really nice though. It had a kid area for the little ones to play in plus go karts, bumber cars, a carousel, all you can eat pizza buffet and, of course, arcade games. Hudson enjoyed the kid area but once I showed him the arcarde basketball game there was no turning back. We played it at least 10 times. He couldn't throw the ball far enough to get even close to the basket but he enjoyed holding the basketball while I shot them (and I even made a few!). It wore him out and he went to bed and soon as we got him and he's been asleep for 2 hours and counting! Can't beleive it. Maybe I should take him to the arcade every day!

Sorry my pics in the arcade area didn't come out real well since it was dark....

This was a fish game and he threw little balls into their mouths. He even made a few!