Garret’s birthday present

 

Today is Garret’s 4th birthday.  I was at Hobby Lobby shopping this morning – trying to come up with something I could buy him that he would enjoy when he happened to call me.  I asked him what he wanted for his birthday and he said “firetrucks, of course”.  What else is there, right?  I asked “are you sure?” and he informed me that since he was having his birthday party at the fire station I couldn’t not get him a firetruck. 

So, Hudson was asleep curled up in one of the small shopping carts they have at Hobby Lobby – a rare occurrence!- so I took my time going up and down every aisle till I finally came upon this firetruck – on the clearance rack, no less!  I figured Garret would enjoy painting it himself so I decided to go for it, even though it said “ages 8+” on the box.

 

Well, let me tell you there is NO way an 8 year old could have put that thing together!  (I decided to take it on myself rather than making Garret’s mom do it- to be nice. So I spent all of Hudson’s naptime today trying to get this built in time for the party.) First of all I am pretty sure several pieces were missing and I’m 99% sure I put the doors on backwards or inside out or something, but that was the only way I could get them on.  Hopefully Garret won’t notice but knowing him he probably will!  

I also found these cute little fire chief thank you cards on the clearance rack at Hobby Lobby.  They were shaped like a fireman’s helmet and had spaces for him to fill in the person’s name, the gift they bought and for him to sign his name.  Garret informed me that he would not be using them because the helmets were orange and real chief helmets are red!  That must  be why they were on clearance! :)  No real fireman would buy them!

Hear that?

That’s what I hear at least 20 times a day.  Every little noise Hudson stops and says “Mommy, hear that?” 

It could be an airplane flying over, bird chirping, car honking, water running, toilet flushing, heater kicking on, dog barking, ice dropping in the ice maker, or – my favorite – Hudson tooting!  Which he usually follows up with “toot toot!”

hot chocolate

Nothing like a mug of hot chocolate after an afternoon of playing in the snow!

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Frosty!

Can’t let a good snow melt away without building a snowman- another first for Hudson.  He was SO excited yesterday about building his snowman that I could hardly get him down for a nap (not that that’s so unusual though!).  But he finally fell asleep and the first thing he said when he woke up was “Build snowman?”  So we bundled up and went out.  It was a beautiful day for playing in the snow and the snow was almost perfect for making a snowman.

 

Every time he fell down he couldn’t get back up without help.

We were only going to build one snowman but since it was so nice outside….

We decided to build a whole family! 

Hudson, Daddy and Mommy

Let it snow!

Last Friday we got about 5 inches of snow at our house.  I was excited because Hudson had yet to get to play in the snow so Saturday afternoon we bundled up and went out to try Hudson’s new sled and snow shovel.  He loves the snow!

I thought he was just too cute in his bibs and boots!

He loves sledding!

and snowball fights too!

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Now I (almost) know my ABC’s…

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Hudson’s new potty chair

For several weeks now Hudson has been talking a lot about going potty and telling us when he’s poopy, so I decided we would start working on some early potty training.  So I would occasionally put him up on the toilet and tell him to go potty.  Only thing was he is scared to sit on the toilet and prefers to stand on the seat instead.  So I decided it was time to get him his own potty before we made too much of a habit of that! 

I did some online shopping and found him the perfect potty chair as you’ll see in the video.  He loves it.  As soon as I took it out of the box he knew exactly what it was and how to use it (well, to a certain degree anyways!)

From the beginning he seemed to kind of understand the concept that something is supposed to go into the potty, he just didn’t understand where it comes from or what it is.  When we would stand him up on the toilet seat he would lean over, spit and then say “need to flush.”  As you’ll see a little bit of in the video. (Please note the potty chair has never been used in this video – hence my allowing him to stick his hands and face inside the potty!)

Last week I think he made a breakthrough as to the whole concept of going potty.  I have been taking him in to use his potty chair occasionally when we change his diaper so he gets the feel for doing so without his diaper on and we were in there for awhile.  He likes to use the big potty and the little potty – mostly because his favorite part is flushing.  So we went back and forth a few times then I went to throw his wet diaper in the trash and he took off running into the living room.  When I came back in I heard him from the dining room saying “Mommy, what happened?”  I knew, even before I saw him, what had happened.  Sure enough, I go in and he’s standing in a puddle, pointing down at the floor saying “What happened?”  !!!!!  So I made a big deal about him going potty and next time we will do that in the potty chair and I think something might have clicked for him when he actually saw himself potty on the floor! 

One other cute thing to note is his “sigh” of relief as he sits down on the potty. 

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