Christmas 2011

We had a wonderful Christmas this year! It was busy as usual and we were all exhausted by last night, but I love all the family time we get.

We started out with lunch at the BCC on Christmas Eve. Hudson was just a little bit excited about the Christmas festivities!

About 5 minutes after the above picture was taken, Hudson fell out of the chair and busted his chin and bit something in his mouth. He was fine--just a little blood and some tears, but luckily it didn't last too long.

Harrison was loving all the attention he was getting!

This was the only family picture we took all weekend and it's not very good. Hudson was ready for a nap.

We made it home in time for Hudson to take a quick nap before heading to the Christmas Eve service at church. We let Hudson sit with us in "big church" and he did great! He was so proud of himself for being at big church and was very well behaved and quiet the entire time! Joel's parents and brother met us there. The only time he really talked out loud was in the middle of the service, he said, "This music is goooodd!" It was so funny. He even went to the front of the church for children's time! I was so proud of him!

After church, we headed to my parent's house for dinner and opening of presents.

My best gift from 2011!!!

Hudson loved opening presents--no surprise there!

Andres did good!


Like we do every year, we try to go slow so everyone can see what everyone is getting, but then it just turns into chaos and it looked like a tornado had gone through the room! It was a lot of fun though and we were very blessed! We definitely did not deserve all that we got!

We tried to start dinner/presents early so that those with kids could get home early, but of course we didn't get home until close to 10 and we had a lot to do! I loved every second of it though and the 6 hours of sleep that we got was worth it! :)

This was the first year that we didn't have to go get Hudson out of his crib and bring him downstairs to see what Santa brought, so I was a little unsure of how the morning would go down. Hudson ended up coming downstairs at 7:30 and Joel and I didn't even hear him. We usually hear him coming down the stairs. I finally heard him in the den and I went out there and he said he wanted to get the race cars out of the car from the night before. He totally had bypassed all the presents Santa had brought (or maybe he didn't care about them!).

I think once he realized it was for him, he got excited. He loves his new jeep!

Of course it had to be raining and we couldn't go outside to really ride it. He had a hard time with that! We let him ride it for a second in the house, but he almost took a wall down! No worries though, he's gotten a lot of riding time in today!

He's checking out the half eaten cookies and Santa even wrote him a note! I really don't know how much of this he really understood. I think at times he was a little overwhelmed! I'm sure that next year he will be really into it.

He cooked us some hamburgers on his new grill!
Sadly, I think his favorite thing was the dollar candy that was in the stocking!

He was scaring everyone with his new dinosaurs.

Harrison finally joined us around 8:30. Hudson had already destroyed his stack of things and had played with everything before Harrison even got up. The Reed's came over and had breakfast and visited for a bit as well!

After we played with our things from Santa for a while and opened our presents to each other, we headed to Joel's aunt's house for brunch.

Hudson helped Papa John open his gifts.

We had a good time at brunch hanging out with Joel's family. This was our second meal of the day. Once we finished there, we then had to go to my parent's house for lunch with my grandparents on my mom's side. We had eaten 3 times by 1 pm that day! It was all SO good!


We got home around 2 and took naps and then headed to the Reed's that night to do Christmas with them. I left my camera in the car unfortunately so I have no pictures from their house. I hate that! We got some really great things though and had a wonderful time! Once again, we got way more than we deserved this year! It was just fun to be with family though. Harrison slept through most of Christmas at the Reed's (he was one tired little baby), but he finally joined us at the end and played with some of his new things as well! He's really starting to reach out and touch things and be interested in toys. It's so fun!

It was such a fun and crazy two days. We all got to sleep in this morning so we're feeling pretty good! And believe it or not, we already have most of our Christmas decorations down. Once Christmas is over, it's over, and I want my house back! Ha! Hope everyone else had a very Merry Christmas. We are thankful for so much this year!

Christmas Activities

We have had a fun filled week of activities as we await Christmas.

We took a trip to Zoolight Safari at the zoo. Hudson had so much fun and threw the biggest fit when we told him it was time to go.

It was cold. We had Harrison so bundled up that he was sweating though!

We went to a Happy Birthday Jesus party at Hudson's school. They read the Christmas Story and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus.

This is Hudson's new pose--you'll see it several times in these pictures.

We even got out the paint at home. I made the mistake of leaving the paint on the table (which had never been opened before--wrappers still on the top) AND Hudson in his nice smocked t-shirt (which I was about to change him out of) and came back to paint all over the table and all over him. I swear he can get into everything on no time flat! Hence, the all black outfit below from Hudson's Christmas program...he could splatter paint everywhere on that and you'll never know!

I believe I can be crafty when I have the time to be! :) Hudson REALLY wanted Harrison to participate and I even tried to get Harrison's hand prints on it, but he would absolutely not let me unclutch his little fists that he's in all the time! Oh well. Hudson actually did really well with the paint on his hands. I was worried since he wouldn't do it a few weeks ago.

We went to the library to see Fancy Nancy. Well, we didn't actually go to see Fancy Nancy--I've heard she's all the rage with the girls, but the library was doing a fundraiser and they had donuts to eat, the kids made an ornament, Santa was there (we had to avoid him!), a mariachi band playing Christmas music which was Hudson's favorite thing, and Fancy Nancy read them a story. It was really cute, but I'm pretty sure the volunteers at the library were not expecting the crowd and it was very overwhelming (and I might have been a teensy weensy bit stressed out trying to wrangle my two year old who wanted to run wild while maneuvering our gigantic stroller through 200 kids). Let's just say I took a big deep breath when we were finally back in the car...I survived.

The "pose" again...

We met Lindsay and Caroline there and they loved painting their ornaments!

We played outside a good bit this week since it has been close to 70 all week! Crazy weather. I'm glad it's finally getting cold so maybe it will actually feel like Christmas!

We went to see Santa at the mall! I told Hudson that we were just taking Harrison and that he did not have to get near him, but Santa was very enticing and getting there at 9 am really is awesome because there was no one in line and Santa got to spend a lot of time talking to Hudson and getting him comfortable. Not comfortable enough to sit on his lap, but at least he's next to him. He would not sit on the sofa next to him, but was willing to sit in my lap. You can see my jeans in the picture, but I was trying my hardest to be out of it! What is up with the purple couch at the mall?!?! It was a little strange. Santa was fabulous though!

Unfortunately, we also had a trip to the doctor and learned that Hudson has his second ear infection in 3 weeks. We are headed to the ENT for another round of tubes and his adenoids out after the first of the year. Also, Dr. C. looked at Harrison's flat spot and it's not getting any better so it looks like we'll be dealing with that in January as well. Until then, we're working on not laying down during the day except for naps, so we're doing a lot of bumbo time!

Joel and I even got a night out without kids to go celebrate his friend Hunter's birthday at La Paz. It was a lot of fun!

Lastly, we made cookies for Santa!

It's been a fun week and we are ready to celebrate this weekend!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas cards are one of my favorite things about the holiday season. I just love going to the mailbox every day and seeing all the cute cards. It makes me so happy! Of course, anything is better than seeing a bill in your mailbox! Ha! I wish we could have sent a Christmas card to everyone we know, but since we can't, below is what we sent out. Merry Christmas to you all (even if you didn't get a card from us!).

This is the front...

This was on the back...

I was SO pleased with how they turned out! The only thing is that the square card presents a stamp issue at the post office. Unfortunately, the post office doesn't make 65 cent Christmas stamps, so everyone got a lovely 65 cent dolphin stamp from me! :) Did anyone even notice??? I'm thinking not.

Merry Christmas!!!

Birthday Celebrations and a Tacky Party

Friday night, we headed to Leonardo's for dinner with the Reed's. It was Joel's Dad's birthday. I was a little nervous about heading to such a nice place with our little stinkers, but it actually was a great place to take Hudson because they had an pianist and an accordian player. He was in heaven! And of course Harrison always just goes with the flow, never fusses a bit!

They don't love Harrison at all...Ha!

Happy Birthday Pops! We had a great time celebrating with you.

Saturday, Joel headed out early to shop for me and then we met my friend Cameron for lunch to celebrate her birthday in a few days. We had a great time at the new taco bar in Crestline and Cameron even gave Hudson and Harrison a gift for Christmas. Thank you so much Cams! It was so much fun! After lunch, I got a couple of hours to myself to finish Christmas shopping. It was glorious not having to tote around that heavy carseat for a change! You all with babies know what I'm talking about...that thing is ridiculous. I got so much done in such a short period of time and even bought myself a few things! :) But, I was glad to not be out in the madness for long. It was crazy out there.

Saturday night, Joel and I went to our Sunday School Christmas party. It's our second annual "Tacky" party and it was so much fun! Joel and I totally lost track of time and made it home a little later than we thought we would be. Sorry Migi and Pops--I'm pretty sure we have used up our babysitters for a while now--ha!! We appreciated the night out though. Here we are in our tacky outfits. Joel is a bit more tacky than I am this year--well, I should say a bit more "redneck." It sort of snuck up on me and I didn't have anything to wear with my Mrs. Claus wig which was oh so ugly and itchy. I apologize to my mother for wearing her gold tunic to a tacky party. I promise it's not tacky at all! :)

Here is a picture of all the girls. We did not see our husbands the entire night. They were outside by the heater the whole time and all the girls were inside. I think they had fun, but we definitely did! We were even contemplating going to a BAR at the end of the night--but, then I remembered I have an 11 week old and staying out later than we did was probably not a good idea! Ha! I'm laughing at writing this because we were home by 10:30...that is hardly "late" to most people's standards!

We even had an awards ceremony. Here is the winner of the "best accesorized" girl...

Joel won Most Creative! It was creative, alright! Yikes! Check out his tattooed arm...

I think this one was "Sexiest Male"...WOW.

I think this one was Most Gaudy...

And the Most Tackiest Couple went to the hosts of the party. They also won last year and have set the bar really high!

She even had an outfit change...

It was such a fun night and I can't wait to hang out with everyone again soon!

I'll end this post with one smiley little boy...

who is FINALLY sleeping through the night! Woo hoo!!!