10 Year Reunion

Joel and I attended my 10 year high school reunion last night at Workplay. A group of us met up beforehand at the Wine Loft to have a few drinks before we went...you know, a little courage juice! I was not looking forward to going at all, but I decided several months ago that I would probably regret it if I didn't go. I was SO nervous about it (I know, I'm weird, but I had not seen a lot of those people in so long!). Anyway, it was FUN!!! I'm so glad that I went and it was great to see everyone and find out what they were all up to. My mom told me that all the girls would look the same, but all the guys would look so much older and she was so right! Everyone was so nice though and it truly was fun to see how everyone was doing. We stayed out way later than I thought we would, but the good news is that Hudson spent the night with Joel's parents last night so we were able to sleep in this morning. It was awesome!!! Thank you to Migi and Pops for allowing Joel and I to have a night out and a good chance to catch up on some much needed sleep!

I only took one picture last night. I had good intentions of taking more, but this was it!

To everyone in the MBHS class of 1999, it was great seeing you all and we'll catch up again in 10 years!

Turkey Day!

Joel and I have so much to be thankful for this year.

Our family of two turned into a family of three and we are the most thankful for our precious Hudson this year! He is truly a blessing in our lives and we couldn't imagine life without him.

We are also thankful for our sweet families...43 members of Joel's family were present at lunch yesterday...truly amazing!

And to my family, Joel and I missed being with you all this year, but we know that you all had so much fun visiting and eating some yummy food at Mom's house!

Beware, this post is loaded with pictures. I just couldn't decide which ones to weed out so I am posting them all. After all, it was Hudson's very first Thanksgiving! We have to document that!

We ventured up to Weiss Lake Wednesday afternoon to spend Thanksgiving with Joel's family. Hudson was all smiles!

Here is Hudson with Papa John. It took some warming up on Hudson's part to get ok with Papa John, but he eventually got over it!

Hudson got to meet his second cousins Graham (pictured below) and Fletcher, which are the sons of Joel's cousin Joanna, who is also pictured below with Joel's mom and me. Graham is exactly two months older than Hudson and man, he is ALL over the place. I thought Hudson was a handful. I can't imagine what life is going to be like in two months. Joel and I realized this weekend how unprepared we are for Hudson to be truly "on the move." This army crawling thing is nothing. It was great to visit with Joanna and Zack, and Joel's other cousin Jonathan and his wife April, who happily announced that they are expecting a baby in June 2010! So exciting!!! I just wish they all lived closer so we could see them more often. Hudson and Graham are going to have so much fun together in a few years!

Thanksgiving morning started out with a good ole bath in the sink! Haha, we thought this was so funny. We stayed in Papa John's guest house and there wasn't a tub, so we just put Hudson in the sink. He LOVED it!!! Needless to say, we were all soaked after this bath.

After he got all squeaky clean, we watched some of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which is one of the traditions in my family. I have to watch the parade each year, although it is usually accompanied by some of the best monkey bread and hot tea in the world...Mom said she saved me some this year. I can't wait for Hudson to get all excited about the big balloons in the parade like I used to, but my absolute favorite is seeing the Rockettes every year.

Since we were on the family farm, the tractor outfit just fit right in!

Oh and we had to get a picture on the actual tractor. I'm sick that this turned out blurry because it is such a good picture! Joel wanted to get a picture with him on the big tractor, but we didn't have a chance. I'm sure we'll have many other opportunities to do that!

We went to a nearby hunting lodge and had a GREAT meal with GREAT family! Like I said above, there were 43 people there...including 4 generations.

We tried to get a picture of Hudson and Graham. This was the best we could do. Graham is such a cutie...oh and he has the BEST hair. He is going to be a heartbreaker some day for sure!

Hudson is such a flirt. He loved showing off to anyone who would look at him.

After lunch, we all headed back to the house and Hudson took a 2 and a half hour nap while Joel and I watched Home Alone. What a wonderful Thanksgiving afternoon!

We then ate again Thanksgiving night! I don't know how we were all hungry, but we were. Hudson was still having a blast! He loves getting on Daddy's shoulders.

I forgot to mention that with all the people and babies, we had 6 dogs! Here is our attempt to get all the dogs in one picture. You can see who rules the roost...Shug is the one in the middle and all the other dogs are terrified of him. I'm pretty sure he could eat all of them in one sitting! They have a right to be scared! We are missing one dog in the picture...she's not allowed in the house!

Joel, Hudson and I made it back to Birmingham today just in time to see the Iron Bowl. Hudson was excited about his very first Iron Bowl!

It didn't turn out the way we wanted it to, but our team gave it a valient effort and it was a great game. We don't have much to complain about!

Hudson told me he still loves Auburn anyway...

Actually, he has been calling me "MAMA" for the past 2 days!!! How about another something to be thankful for?!?!?! Greatest sound in the world by far.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I'm sad that it is over because it really is one of my favorite holidays! I just love being with family, eating good food, and watching some good ole football! Nothing better!

Army Crawl!!!

Check out our little buddy doing the army crawl! This was on Tuesday. He is much faster today than he was on Tuesday, but I was pretty impressed with him going so fast, especially on the hardwoods! Again, we sound like idiots on the video, so hopefully you can look past that!

He is in only a diaper because I attempted to give him some "real" food that night after I had fed him his puree food. Not a good idea. He gagged and gagged until he threw up everything he had eaten. It was a real fun mess. The gagging really scares me though. He does it every time I give him anything other than baby food...I'm really trying to start him to get used to other stuff, but he wants nothing of it. I know he is just doing it because he doesn't like the texture, but it really does sound like he is choking. I don't know how I'm ever going to feel comfortable giving him anything other than soft foods with no texture!

On another note, I'm feeling quite left out these days. Hudson is all about Daddy and it is starting to hurt my feelings. Every time Joel comes nearby, he reaches out for him to go to him. When Joel is holding him and I try to get him to come to me, he grabs onto Joel tightly and turns his head the other way. What ever happened to "boys always love their mommy's" that everyone told me before I had him?!?! The kicker happened when I picked him up from daycare today. He absolutely screamed when I picked him up. It was embarassing...his teacher kept telling him that it was ok to go with mommy. Great...just great. To help resolve this problem, Hudson and I are heading to Mentone tomorrow and getting away from Daddy so we can have some bonding time! Haha, not really, but we are going up to Mentone for the weekend and Joel is going to stay and work on the house and maybe make some progress on our downstairs project. I make him feel guilty about working on it during the weekends because I want him spending time with us...but, the project is never going to get done at this rate so we are giving him some quality time to work on it without us! Hudson and I will be spending this weekend with my parents and then are heading to the lake for Thanksgiving to spend it with Joel's family. It's going to be a fun weekend/week!

Great Weather Weekend!

The weather this weekend has been fabulous! We have spent a lot of the weekend outdoors and today should be no exception. Hudson has been in a great mood all weekend so that has made it all the better!

Thursday night, I was one of the lucky ones that was responsible for throwing a client open house at work. There were 1,300 invitations sent out, and they didn't do RSVP's, so we really had absolutely no idea how many to plan for. Anyway, it went great, but I was exhausted by the time it was over. Nothing like a full day of running around and then 3 hours of having awkward conversations with clients! My feet hurt like the dickens! Friday was spent recouping from that. Hudson is always exhausted from daycare on Fridays so we spent a good portion of the day napping. It was great! We did run out to see Mama Jean's new place at Somerby on 119. She moved to be closer to us and have more space, and it was brand new. It was great to see her so happy in her new place--I can only hope I have a place that nice when I'm her age! We then went to dinner at the Bluff Park Diner. It used to be Bert's on the Bluff and when Joel lived up in Bluff Park when we were dating, we seriously ate there 2-3 times a week. We haven't been back since, and were craving some good veggies, so we thought it would be a good night to make the trek out there (it's a bit far from where we live now!). It was delicious!

Saturday morning Hudson and I went out to the park for a little play time. He had a lot of fun on the swing, and even went down the slide a few times. I think he liked it! Who knows--he was pretty subdued while we were there. I think he was just trying to take it all in! I had fun though and it was great to be outside enjoying the beautiful weather! We all ventured out to Toys R Us yesterday afternoon to get a couple of Hudson's Christmas gifts. I think that will be the last time we go to Toys R Us on a Saturday when they are having a sale! It was insane, but we did get what we wanted and got good deals on everything so hopefully we won't need to go back this year. It made me so excited about Christmas though! I know Hudson won't know what is going on, but I just can't wait for him to wake up on Christmas morning and see what Santa left for him! I think he's really going to like it!

We wrapped up Saturday by going over to the Reed's house to eat a yummy dinner and watch the first half of the Auburn game. Hudson destroyed a magazine during the game, but was so entertained that we just couldn't stop him! Too bad Auburn couldn't pull that one out. It was a good game, nonetheless. Joel and I have decided to sell our Auburn/Alabama tickets this year and get some extra Christmas money. I do feel like we will give Alabama a run for their money, but it could very easily turn out to be a blowout as well. We are putting them up on Ebay to sell so hopefully we will make some money! I'm looking forward to seeing our team next year. I think we will be really good and Joel has already said that we have gotten some really great recruits so it is exciting! This year has been better than expected, but has still been frustrating at times, especially when Chris Todd was out to lunch for three games!

Hudson did a lot of standing this weekend. This is his favorite thing to do! He loves to stand up and hold on to the ottoman and beat on it. He could do it for hours. He can almost pull up on it by himself. Look at our big boy and his baby Merrills. So cute!

Here are a couple of pictures from the park. He's about to go down the slide in this one. There were a lot of other people at the park and he wanted to look at everything!

He loved this little thing. He kept trying to pull up to stand and play with it, so I helped him out a little bit and he loved it! He looks like such a big boy!

NEWSFLASH!!! We have an army crawler!!! Hudson has learned how to go forward now on his stomach. It is so cute. He is just about to do it on all fours, but he has the army crawl down pat. He goes all over the place. This was one of the first places I found him...

We are in trouble!!! He was so proud of himself. We knew the electronics area was going to be an issue, but did he have to find it this fast??? This morning, he made a beeline directly to it from all the way across the room. And, he loves one of the outlets in our den too. I will be buying some outlet covers this afternoon! Why doesn't he crawl to get his toys??? Anyway, we are really going to have to watch this guy. He is so curious about everything!

We also had to lower his crib this morning too. He was starting to climb. It makes me so sad that he is growing up so fast!

Hope everyone else had as great of a weekend as we did!

Goodbye Jeep, Hello Auburn, Happy Birthday Hunt and Cooper!

The title of this post pretty much sums up our weekend. We are exhausted to say the least!

Friday afternoon, Joel and I decided to go "look" at a car. We have been having serious discussions about getting a new car because Joel's Jeep is 11 years old and has almost 200,000 miles on it. My car is getting up there in the miles too, so in order to avoid having 2 car payments in the near future, we felt like we needed to make a move soon. We were just in the beginning stages of starting to look. We couldn't decide if we wanted another SUV, or if we wanted to get something smaller with better gas mileage and then get a big SUV in a few years when my car is on its last leg and we have kid #2. I was talking to my friend Kristen at work last Thursday about what we were thinking about and was asking her if the new Maximas were good because her Dad works at the Nissan dealership. She called her Dad to ask his opinion and apparently they had gotten in a top of the line Altima the day before and he told Kristen that he would sell it to us for a GREAT price if we came in to look at it on Friday. Well, we were definitely open to a good deal, although I had my doubts about an Altima because I figured it would be too small and was worried about getting the carseat in and out. I was so wrong! We loved the car and bought it on the spot. Never did I ever think that is what we would get, but it is awesome and we are so happy with it. Joel was emotional about letting go of his Jeep, but it has been a long time coming. I'm sure that our neighbors are happy it is gone too! I could hear it coming from all the way down the street! Ha! Anyway, we were supposed to go to Hunt Kincaid's first birthday party on Friday night and we got tied up at the dealership trying to get everything worked out and we missed the party. We were thinking about him though and hoping he was doing a number on his smash cake! Happy Birthday Hunt!

Saturday, Hudson made his appearance at his first Auburn game vs. Furman. The weather was gorgeous! We couldn't have picked a better Saturday to go down to a game. Hudson LOVED it! As soon as we got to our seats, he started being a little show off! He had the attention of everyone around us! He would look at people, then smile and squeal, then start jumping up and down. It was so funny!

Here is a picture from our seats. We took my parents tickets for this game...don't know why, but they obviously have better seats than we do!

This was Hudson at the beginning of the game. I was trying to keep him from getting sunburned and I just grabbed the little sunhat from this summer thinking it would fit fine because it was so big during the summer, but it was way too small! He has the biggest head! It looked really silly. I kept taking it off of him wherever we went and Joel would get so mad at me, but I was worried I would run into someone I knew and they would think he looked stupid. I know, I know, I'm the stupid one! He didn't get sunburned though!

It was quite bright where we were! We were not dressed right at all. We burned up!

Hudson took a nap right after the game started. I don't know how he slept through all those touchdowns! It was loud! Joel and I had to take turns holding him because he was a load. We were sweating so bad holding him!

He woke up in the second quarter and went straight back to having fun! I think he was after Daddy's hat in this picture. Although, he loved the foam finger that the man next to us had. I guess I now see why so many parents have to buy the foam fingers...kids love them! He also loved the lady's hair in front of us. Whenever we weren't paying attention, Hudson was going for a hand full of hair. Oops.

Looking cute in Daddy's hat! He finally got it. It looks a little better than the silly sunhat!

Around halftime we went and found Ashley and Blaine. They were sitting in our section a few rows down. Blaine was having a blast and couldn't wait to go roll Toomer's! I wish we could have stayed to watch that. Joel and I decided to leave shortly after halftime, but only because we were so thirsty and we didn't have any cash on hand to get a drink (oh and maybe because the score was 42-3 already!). It wasn't because of Hudson! He would have made it the rest of the game I'm sure. He just loves to be outside!

Today we went to Cooper's first birthday party. Cooper is the daughter of one of the girls that I work with, Jennifer. I'm pretty sure there are tons of pictures of her on the blog already. She got a ton of great stuff, and Jennifer made her the cutest ladybug smash cake! I wish I had taken a picture of it. I'm definitely not that creative! Anyway, Cooper is so dainty and girly that she did not want to have anything to do with getting icing all over her fingers. Jennifer tried pushing her hand into the cake and she screamed! Oh well. She was still cute. I just think she didn't want to ruin her momma's good work!

I'm sad that it is already time to go back to work tomorrow. I feel like we have been so busy recently that we haven't been able to really enjoy our weekends. I'm ready for some downtime! I don't think we have much planned for the upcoming weekend, so I'm really looking forward to it. Hope everyone has a great week!

8 Months Old

I'm a day late in getting this post up. We had a ridiculously busy day yesterday and I just didn't have a chance to get it done! My office moved up to the Summit a couple of weeks ago and I, along with a few others, were in charge of putting together a family open house yesterday for over 250 people! Then, after the open house, we went to a surprise 50th birthday party for Joel's aunt. Needless to say, we were exhausted last night and definitely not ready to go back to work today!

I will pass on saying that I can't believe my child is eight months old. I know it gets old hearing me say that every month and I'm sure I'm the only one in shock over here about it so I will just leave that to myself this month! It might be back next month because nine months just scares me to death! He will have been here for as long as we knew he was in my tummy! Anyway, back to the task at hand.

Here is Hudson's eight month picture on the chair. I have pretty much given up on having the stuffed animal next to him. It just doesn't stay there anymore. I think you can still get the point though--he is getting so big!

Here is Hudson's silly face that we get all the time. I just love it!

So here is what's going on this month with my little man:

• He is 21 pounds, 1 ounce as of last Monday at the doctor. I don't know where that stands, but it's huge to me!
• He is still not crawling and he still does not have any teeth! Maybe if I don't mention much about this, we will have some luck in both departments next month!
• He loves to walk around with us holding his arms. He is getting really fast and definitely knows what to do! He even tries to make us let go of his hands...he doesn't realize that he's not quite ready for that yet! His favorite thing to do is to stand up and hold onto the ottoman and beat on it. Most of the time a dog is up there as well and he just loves that. He will just squeal as loud as he can. He tries to pull up on anything and everything. We keep trying to tell him that he needs to crawl first, but he doesn't listen.
• He loves playing patty cake! It makes him smile every time!
• He still especially loves his daddy. He isn't saying mama or dada yet, but he definitely knows who we are, especially dada! He has to know where he is at all times!
• He is eating like a champ! We have bumped him up to three solid meals a day and either 3 or 4 bottles a day depending on his schedule. He loves any kind of baby food. I did try to give him half a cheerio once and he gagged it all the way down. It scared me to death. I thought he was choking, but I really think he just wasn't used to that texture going down. Anyway, we're going to stick to baby food for a while! He has figured out how to put puffs in his mouth so that has been great! I still think more hit the floor than go into his mouth, but somehow I never see them on the floor...hmmm...I think the dogs are getting a little extra treat!
• Nap time is still hit or miss, which is fine with us because he sleeps pretty well at night (except for the talking in his sleep!) and we never have any problems putting him down (he still just smiles at us when we lay him in his crib--he is like, "thank you for putting me to bed!"). When I am home with him, he will take 2 hour naps, but he never does that at daycare. He's afraid he is going to miss out on something! I guess I am pretty boring at home.
• He loves his bath! We start with him in the sitting up position, but it never fails that he wants to lean all the way back and kick and splash. He has swallowed so much water that it is not even funny! He even rolls over in the tub. It scared me at first, but he knows to keep his head out of the water and he loves kicking and trying to swim (and I will mention that I am always right there!). I think we are going to have a little fish at the pool next summer! I am usually soaked by the end of it all, but he just loves it. Bath time is usually not at a good part of the day for Hudson, so I let him play as long as he wants to in the bath because it makes him so happy. He did have one little accident in the tub where he got a little crazy and I wasn't able to catch him before he did a face plant, but he was just fine! I'm sure it will be the first of many.
• We're still working on the sippy cup. He knows how to put it in his mouth now. He has a hard time holding it up high enough so that he can drink some juice, but I'm sure that will come later.
• He is still wearing 9 month clothes, but I put him in 12 month too.
• We moved up to size 4 diapers.

I can't think of anything else right now. He is just growing up right before our very eyes. Parenthood is the absolute best thing in the world. We are so thankful every day that we have this little man in our lives. Happy 8 months to my buddy!

* New post below!

Happy Halloween!

Here's a picture of my happy little lion on his very first Halloween!

That was about the only smile we got out of him all day, but it sure was cute!

He started out the day as a pumpkin.

These pictures are really out of order, but we first went to visit Migi and Pops (Joel's parents). After a short visit there, we headed over to my friend Megan's house for a hay ride and drinks. None of the babies were old enough to actually go trick or treating, but it was still a lot of fun! The hay ride was chilly, but it was exciting going around the neighborhood and checking out all the people and houses decorated up for Halloween. Thanks to Megan for having us over!

Here is a picture of Hudson and his two buddies! Ben, the giraffe, is just a couple of weeks older than Hudson and Hunt, the monkey, is about four months older than Hudson. I just love all of these costumes! They were so funny how they were just checking each other out.

Here is Hudson and Hunt. Hudson had this blank look pretty much all night long. I think he was thoroughly confused! Hunt was loving Hudson's head gear! It was so funny! Don't you just love little Hunt's ears?!?!?

Here is a picture of my little pumpkin earlier in the day.

He loved the pumpkins at Migi and Pops' house!

Friday night we dressed Hudson up in his costume and went to visit my grandparents at Brookdale. Mama Jean couldn't get enough of this little guy! Mama Jean made us go around to all her friends in assisted living to show him off. It was too cute! Then, we went to see Grandmother and Granddaddy in independent living and we got to them right at dinnertime so Hudson was the star of the show again! He did great! I was a little worried about all the old folks getting up in his face because he used to have a fear of gray headed people, but he was awesome! I don't think he knew what to think...and he couldn't move all that much in the costume! Poor thing--when we took his hat off he was sweating up a storm! It was a small price to pay though! I know the grandparents loved showing him off (and I didn't mind either!).

It was a great first Halloween at the Reed household! We can't wait to have many more! I'm already thinking about what he can be next year!