Hudson found this in the neighbor's yard the other day. Luckily Jamie was with him and not me cause I would have freaked out! Jamie said he said "look, a snake" and just leaned right over and picked it up. Jamie was worried till he realized it didn't have a head anymore! Then he just let him play with it.
Hudson had a great time at his birthday party. He doesn’t quite understand the fact that he isn’t going to have another one for another year. He keeps talking about “those people sang Happy Birthday to me” and asking when he can blow out his candles again.
Here’s some pics/video from the big day:
Unfortunately it was cold and rainy out on Saturday so only a few people braved it outside, so the house was packed!
Hudson loved the pinata. What he didn’t love was when his cousin Nate broke the pinata. He was pretty upset. I’m still not sure if it was the noise when he was hitting it or just the fact that his pinata was breaking, but he cried for a little bit. Till he realized he was missing out on all the goodies!
The awesome cake and cupcakes my sisters made for him. I had to light the candles 3 times because he kept blowing them out as soon as I lit them!
And my favorite gift – this painting that my sister Christin did for her art class. It’s already hanging on the wall in the room and will go perfect in his room when I redo it was a sports theme for his BIG boy room! She did an awesome job! Hudson likes it too, if you can’t tell by that grin!
Thanks to everyone who came and celebrated our little man with us. It was great to see everyone and Hudson got way too many toys to play with. he has a hard time choosing between, baseball, basketball and golf these days!
Here’s the recipe for the chicken salad I served at Hudson’s party the other night – for all those who asked..
from The Sisters Cafe – my favorite new food blog. Lots of yummy recipes here!
Chicken Poppy Seed Salad
Salad:
Spinach leaves
Romaine leaves
Grilled chicken, sliced (Best if marinated in Lemon Grilled Chicken Marinade*, but if you don't have time then grill with lots of lemon pepper seasoning)
Red onion, sliced thinly
Crispy bacon, crumbled
Shredded mozzarella cheese
Toasted almonds
*Lemon Grilled Chicken:
Juice of one lemon (~3 Tb lemon juice)
3 Tb oil
1 tsp minced garlic (~2 large cloves)
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp oregano
1 lb chicken breasts
Marinate the chicken overnight. For salad, dice the raw chicken and marinate it that way so there is more surface area to marinate. You can get away with marinating for a shorter amount of time this way. Grilling is best, but cooking in a skillet is great, too.
The best part... The Dressing**:
1 1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
2 tsp dry mustard
2/3 cup red wine vinegar
3 Tb Maui or Vidalia onion, chopped
2 cups canola oil
3 Tb poppy seeds
Mix the first 5 ingredients in a blender, then slowly add the oil, blending until thick. Stir in poppy seeds. Toss all ingredients together with generous amount of dressing before serving.
This makes A LOT of dressing so be careful and use sparingly. I probably only used 1/4 of this for the salad I served Saturday night. But I like to keep some in the fridge and just sprinkle on for a quick salad at lunch…
I CANNOT believe my baby is 2 years old! That is absolutely crazy. Despite the tornado that blew through town on Monday, Hudson had a great birthday. Pancakes with candles in them for breakfast, story time in the morning, playing with his cousins and Binga all afternoon and his favorite, macaroni and cheese, for dinner! He woke up Wednesday and asked me if he could blow out candles in his pancakes again!
His basketball birthday party is Saturday and he’s pretty excited about it. Most specifically that he gets to blow out candles again and the basketball pinata that we bought. It doesn’t dribble though – he quickly found that out! But he knows candy goes inside and he gets to hit it with a bat to make it come out so he’s excited.
We are sad to announce our baby birds did not survive the heat in our barbeque grill. They went to birdie heaven sometime Friday or Saturday. Services have already been held (i.e. – Jamie dumped them in the trash and we are hoping Hudson forgets about them!). So far so good but we haven’t been out back in a few days cause of all the rain. I am sure he will remember when he sees the grill next.
Saturday we took Hudson out to El Dorado lake and went fishing. We borrowed a row boat and fishing pole from my brother-in-law and spent a few hours out on the lake. It was beautiful out and Hudson had a wonderful time. He loved the “fishing”. He has wanted to go fishing every day since.
We threw a whole bunch of rocks in the boat before we left shore so Hudson could throw them in the water. That was the cause of our one and only injury of the day - the rock in the face that I took. Split my lip open and it bled for a little bit. Hudson has watched Jamie skipping rocks and now he is starting to throw them sideways instead of overhand. That time he let go of it way too late and it flew 3 feet and hit me in the face. I was rowing the boat at the time and didn’t even see it coming!
I still can’t believe that we took this pile of lumber and with our own hands (okay, mostly Jamie’s hands!) built a new bed! I am so excited to build more – I have a whole list of projects from Knock Off Wood.
Here’s a picture timeline of our progress. It took us about 2 weeks all together – including painting and finishing – to build it.
Hudson would cover his ears each time Jamie started the saw! 
This similar bed at Pottery Barn costs $2195.00!
We built our bed for about $150 of lumber and a $5 gallon of OOPS paint I lucked out on at Home Depot!
