Chicken Little

It’s pure coincidence that during the same week Hudson’s favorite book is Chicken Little – I decided to try and cook a chicken – a whole chicken.  Fortunately for Hudson I did this during his naptime so he didn’t have to see the poor chicken!  

I have cooked a chicken before once.  But it was years ago at a cooking class I took with some friends.  So I have never done it on my own but Dillons had whole chickens on sale this week for 69 cents a pound so I decided I had to give it a try!

So I started with this….

 

Removed it’s innards – whatever they are called.  (Insert gagging sounds here.)   UUUGGGHH! 

Rubbed some salt, olive oil and rosemary on it…

Popped it in the oven and a few hours later…

 

Now I had plans to make a side of mashed potatoes and cooked carrots for dinner tonight.  But after I got it in the oven Jamie informed me he had invited my family over for pizza.  So no go on that!  But my original intent when I bought it was to just use the meat for cooking casseroles, salads and such.  So after it cooled I deboned it and got as much meat out as I could….

And then packed it up and freezed it to use later.  It only took about 30-40 minutes all together – preparing and deboning, and I think I can use the meat for 5 meals (I tend to skimp on meat in the dishes I cook – we don’t really need as much meat as we think we do).  I paid $3.45 for a 5 pound chicken – that means it costs me 69 cents a meal for the meat!  Pretty good deal!

Now I have to go mop all the dog drool up off the kitchen floor!  Poor Zeus – he couldn’t stop the drool dripping off his jowls!  It was all over the kitchen floor!  They did get a few bites though! 

Bayley’s Birthday Party

 

Hudson was invited to another birthday party this weekend – his first party at a bouncing inflatable place.  He loved it.  As soon as we got there he saw this:

We could hardly keep him in the party room while Bayley opened presents and they ate cake!  All he wanted was to play with the dinosaur – “boom, boom, boom”. 

Speaking of cake – the cute princess cake my sister made for Bayley’s party:

Bayley loved it.

Hudson, however, did not love the dinosaur once we got out there.  I crawled in with him and he immediately started crying.

And we never went back to the dinosaur all night.  But he had plenty of fun on the other ones:

    

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Knock off wood

 

I have been wanting these shelves from Pottery Barn Baby for a looooong time.  But never could justify the $40-60 price tag! 

I’d been thinking I would try to make them myself but never had gotten around to trying.  Until I was inspired by Ana at Knock Off Wood.  She is amazing!   Tons of plans to build your own Pottery Barn furniture! 

So last week I went to Home Depot – all by myself – and purchased what I needed to build my shelves. And let me just add here that I had 2 different men try to “help” me since apparently women are not supposed to be in the lumber section of the store!  One even made me sketch out the plans for the shelf I was building because he was sure I was getting the wrong size wood!   Once I had sketched it out he admitted I had the right stuff! 

So here is the big reveal --- now I will admit Jamie actually made the shelves – cut the wood and nailed it together.  Although I was going to give it a shot, he was actually pretty proud of himself after completing them.  “The first thing he had ever built with his own hands” were his exact words.  But I did all the priming and painting and we got them hung up yesterday. Two in Hudson’s room and one in his play area downstairs.  Love them!  We put them up at Hudson’s level so he can pick out the books he wants to read.  He likes taking all the books out but isn’t so good about putting them back in yet!

  

Ordering these from Pottery Barn would have cost:  $130 plus shipping.  We made them for a grand total of…drum roll please….$25 – plus I have paint, glue, nails and some wood left over for my next project!  Which is going to be this.  Thanks Ana!

If I need some peace and quiet….

Evidently all I have to do is give him a marshmallow (Otherwise known as a “pinecone” in Hudson’s world. I have no idea where he came up with that.)!

 

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Talking…a timeline

A video montage of Hudson from 2 months through last night, learning to talk.   Had lots of fun going back through old videos to find these!!

 

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My favorite sentence from the conversation last night…. “nice shot, I slam dunked it” .  Slam dunk right into my fake plant anyways!

Exhaustion

The last week I have been exhausted by 6 pm and I think I have finally decided it has to be because Hudson is wearing me out with all his talking!  It’s constant these days - “Mommy, hear that?”  “Mommy, what’s that?” Mommy, sit here", “Mommy, where Daddy?” etc, etc.  He also tends to repeat every question I ask him, which then means I ask it again and we go back and forth till he gives me an answer or I tell him the answer, then he repeats that.  It’s exhausting!

I noticed this week that he has started using his pronouns – sometimes even correctly!  Things like “Hudson needs wash his hands”  (He wants to wash his hands 10 times a day so he can play in the water!) and “This is yours, this is mine”  (he likes to say that when we eat – pointing to our plates).  He also refers to himself sometimes as I and me and is figuring that out.  It’s crazy to watch him learn and change everyday!

If he’s not talking it’s only because he has food in his mouth.  Well, actually that doesn’t stop him either but he has been eating constantly the last week or so too.  Must be a growth spurt.   He asks for a snack all the time.  Even if we have just finished breakfast, 30 minutes later he’ll want a snack!

Bedtime continues to go well (knock on wood!!).  He still asks for ‘milk’ occasionally but doesn’t get upset when I tell him no.  And he lays right down and goes to sleep.  I cannot even describe to you how much more free time I have now.  Especially on the nights Jamie puts him down.  I can count on one hand the # of times I have not put him to bed for the last 21 months so it’s weird not having to do so every night anymore.  But, inevitably, bedtime is going great so naptimes are a mess again.  Just can’t have it all!    

too funny

A few of the Mathews (Celeste's brothers-in-law) boys waiting for their sister Lizzie's prom date...