Banana Mess!

This morning, I went back to my bedroom to strip the sheets from our bed (all of 2 minutes) and came back to the kitchen to find this...

He had climbed up into the chair and climbed on the table to reach the bananas that were in a bowl on the table. He had gotten all 4 bananas out, peeled them, smashed them, and eaten part of them, all while I was gone for a few minutes.

He just started saying "Baaaa-Naannaas!" over and over again. Hilarious.

This is a follow up to yesterday morning, when I left the kitchen again for a second (maybe this is a sign I need to not leave the kitchen while he's lingering in there!) and I came back in to find that he had climbed on the island, gotten a hold of a snack trap full of goldfish, and had eaten every last one of them. Like today, both of these events occurred right after he had eaten breakfast! Clearly, this is a growing boy! And, he sure does like to climb things! It's dangerous around here!

Big Machines Day

Saturday was Big Machines Day at the McWane Center so of course we had to go! It was every little boy's biggest dream come true all at one time! Ha! We got a hard hat on arrival (it was actually plastic, but cute!) and I didn't think Hudson would wear it, but he wouldn't take it off.

Here is Hudson hanging out in the fire truck! He was trying to figure out how all those buttons worked!

Driving the fire truck!

By the way, we had to see the fire truck about 50 times. We would go see another big machine and then would always have to go back to the fire truck. He's obsessed.

Here he is in the back seat of the fire truck. I love his big ole eyes looking in amazement at everything around him!

He got in the dump truck too, but immediately took off to the other side and Joel had to go rescue him. Therefore, this was the best picture we could get--from the outside looking in!

I have no idea what big machine this was, but it didn't have a wheel and Hudson wasn't as sure about what to do with it! He just sat there!

We went inside for a little bit and played. That place is a madhouse on Saturdays. Total chaos really. We hit each of the floors (quickly) before heading back outside to see more trucks and machines.

Legos are always a hit.

It was then back outside for another machine! Not sure what this one is either, but it had a wheel and was fun! It had lots of buttons too.

We had to wait in line at each machine so this was us killing some time playing peekaboo with the hard hat. He loved it!

Telling a 2 year old that you have to wait in line doesn't always go very well. He wanted to go straight to the front every time! Oh well.

This was a skidsteer or something like that. Is that what they're called? Joel should have written this post! This stuff is way more up his alley! Again, with no steering wheel, he didn't know what to do!

This last one was in the driver seat of the crane (I know what those are!). He loved this one.

Future crane driver here!

Let's just say that the morning at McWane was worth the trip!

We went home, took naps, and then headed to our church for a Sunday school social at the Lighhouse. Pizza and a gym for the kids to play was just about the best idea we've had yet! It was great watching them all play and we actually got to visit with everyone. Hudson loved the hula hoop (I tried to show him how to do it, but unfortunately, my hula hoop skills aren't up to par--wait, I don't think I could ever hula hoop!).

Is this one happy boy or what? I would thought he would have been exhausted by this point, but he was still going strong.

We had a great Saturday and a great day today as well! We skipped church and went for a walk in this awesome weather, played outside, got our taxes done (woo hoo!) and had a great family day! I'm not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow!

Valentine's

I don't have much to share tonight. We don't have much going on...just work, work, oh and MORE work. I would normally say that it's not like we can go outside or anything and there's nothing to do in the winter, but this weather that we've been having lately has been awesome and it makes it so hard to be stuck inside! Oh well, we did enjoy ourselves immensely at the park this weekend and have also enjoyed being outside until dinnertime last night and tonight. We even made a little trip to Brusters tonight after dinner to get ice cream! It was great!


Yesterday, Hudson had his first Valentine's party at school. I feel like the worst mom. I couldn't make it. I didn't think it would be that big of a deal, but his class has a blog and I was looking through pictures of the party today and I think I was the only mom not there. Dagger to the heart...on Valentine's Day! I will never miss another party. Had I felt like I could have left after the party and gone back to work, it would have been fine, but I knew that Hudson wouldn't let me get away with that. Next time, I'm just going to deal with it though and make up the work later. I know what is supposed to come first, and it sure isn't work! Anyway, we took dinosaur Valentine's with hershey kisses for his classmates, so at least he wasn't empty handed. He got LOTS of goodies so he's pretty happy. I'm so not a Valentine's person. I told Joel to please not get me anything, especially flowers. I am just not a flower person, especially on Valentine's. I never can keep flowers alive--I always forget to water them! However, if I had to get flowers, I would rather Joel give me flowers on a random day during the year rather than on Valentine's Day. It's just cheesy to me, but I know everyone is different. He did give Hudson his bath and put him to bed, so I would consider that a pretty good Valentine's Day gift!

I asked Hudson today who he played with at school, knowing that the answer would be his best buddy Caleb, which it was, but he also said that he played with Hadley. In mentioning Hadley's name, he said "Hadley, push her back." Well, Hadley is adorable, teeny tiny, and is about the roughest little girl you've ever seen! I have seen her push Hudson on several occasions, which he almost always gets upset about (he really needs to toughen up!), but apparently, he has learned something new at school! I can't wait to talk to his teachers tomorrow to see if he really pushed her back and find out where in the world he got that from! I promise I don't condone pushing anyone back, but I'm pretty curious to see if he stood up for himself and find out who taught him to say that!

That's about all I know. Time to fold clothes! I know, I live a very exciting life!

Locked Out

Well, this story about sums up my week. Geez! I got home with Hudson around 1:15 or so today and put him down for a nap. Our dogs, which have been getting out of our fence a lot lately, including a couple of days ago right when I was trying to get out the door to get to a new client on time (which I ended up being late...ugh!). I couldn't find them anywhere. I drove up and down the street, called Joel and cussed him out for making me late (ha!) and then when I got back to our driveway, lo and behold, there they were. Those little stinkers. So anyway, back to my story of today. I followed them outside to make sure they did their business and stayed in the fence. Only, when I turned to go back inside, the door was locked...keep in mind Hudson is in the house! Awesome. I knew he was asleep and I probably had a good 2.5 hours to figure this out, but there was this fear in me that this might be the one day that he decides to climb out of his crib or something and he had fallen and I wouldn't hear it or be able to do anything about it! I kept telling myself to remain calm while laughing at myself at the same time. I had no phone, no hidden key, and I had dropped Joel off at work because we had taken my car to the shop, so there was no way for him to get home to help. I went to the only neighbor that I knew had a chance of being home, and thank goodness she was there! She just laughed at me. I got Joel on the phone and he called his dad, who is the only other person that has a key to our house (I think it's funny that my instinct told me to call Joel first when I knew he could do nothing about it! I should have just called Charlie...oh well!). Thankfully, he was able to come over and let me in! Hudson was awake when we got inside, but it didn't seem like he had been screaming or crying at all, so that was good. Crisis averted. But, I hate those dogs--totally their fault! And yes, I'm looking to blame someone for my stupidity! It has been one thing after another this week so I shouldn't be surprised that I did this. I'm pretty happy it's the weekend!

I haven't taken many pictures lately, but these were all from last weekend. We went to a fun Super Bowl party last Sunday night, but of course I did not take my camera. It was fun seeing friends that we had not seen in a while!

These pictures were taken last weekend after church. Hudson loves his Dirt Devil! It was doing wonders on our deck and our back yard! Oh how we are longing for warm, sunny days. I'm OVER the cold and the snow and all these dreary days we've been having. I'm in such a better mood when the sun is out.

Joel is working on sanding down and re-doing a little table and chairs that were mine growing up. Our hope is to get it looking good and put it in the playroom so that Hudson can have a place to draw and color. Hudson was Joel's little helper last weekend! He is just so smart. He saw that Joel had something with a cord on it and went and found a jump rope (a makeshift sander with a cord!) and went to town on the chair just like Joel was doing! We were cracking up. He's going to be handy just like his daddy one day.

After he got done sanding, he put the cord in the back of the shop vac and turned it on and got to work. How he knows how to do all of that blows me away!

Whenever we have the vaccum cleaner out, he loves to stick his hand up to the hand held vac part and get stuck. He thinks it's just hilarious. So, he decided to stick his hand INSIDE the shop vac...

Boy, that was fun!

Happy weekend everyone!

23 Months

Well, we almost have a 2 year old, folks. Can you believe it??? Not me! We took some time out during last weekend's fabulous warm weather and went to the park. It was SO fun! I think Hudson did the slide about 5,000 times while we were there. He even went down the slide head first on his tummy! He's usually more on the cautious side--this was a very daring move!

He loves the see-saw. It is his absolute favorite thing at the park. He and another boy that was 17 months did the see-saw together. Not a whole lot of see-sawing going on as neither could touch the ground, but it was pretty darn cute! It's much more fun when Mommy and Daddy are on the other side though!

He also loves the bucket swing. He doesn't like the big boy swing yet and I'm ok with that! I feel like he's going to fall backwards on it. The bucket swing still works great!

Look Mom, no hands!

I am loving this age. He's just fun right now. He makes me laugh on a daily basis. Whether it's telling me to "get up" or saying "silly Hudson" or "excuse me" when he burps, "your welcome" after I say thank you, and "bless you Mommy" when I sneeze, it's just so sweet to hear actual WORDS come out of his mouth! If you are crying (or acting like you are crying in most cases with us--that's what we do to get a hug!), he will come say "aww Mommy, hug," and give you the sweetest hug. He wants to make sure that we are ok! I love seeing that side of him! He's not always rough and tough!

He knows his foods too. The other night when we were driving home from work/school, he said "eat ravioli" out of the blue. That's what he wanted for dinner! And yes, I fed it to him and he ate it up. Did you know it has veggies? Tonight, he was all about some "cass-role." He also likes to tell me he wants a hot dog for breakfast, and usually if it's not a hot dog, it's mac n cheese. Don't worry, he doesn't get that for breakfast! But, you can tell what's high on his food list. Luckily, I get a lot of requests for yogurt and cheese and fruit, so it balances out (a little bit!)! Ice cream is his all time favorite though. The silly switch in him flips to on at the mere mention of ice cream.

His class at school has a blog and they post pictures and videos on just about a daily basis to let the parents get a sneak peak as to what's going on. Hudson will tell us to "look at class" and that means that he wants us to put the computer on the blog and he tells us who everyone is. He loves it as much as we do and it's sort of a fun family activity that we all do together. Speaking of school, not only does he know all of the kids in his class, he knows who their parents are and whenever we pass one of them coming in or going out (without their child I might add), he will say "Hadley Daddy" or "Caleb Mommy." I'm pretty impressed that he knows that...maybe that's just me being a proud Mommy, but knowing the kids is one thing, but knowing the parents too and who their child is--that's incredible at not even 2 years old!

He's now letting the dogs in and out our back door. That's one of the perks at this age! Ha! We don't have to get up and do it anymore! He loves the dogs...really, he loves all dogs and talks about all the dogs we know by name on a daily basis. He even says night night to all of them at bedtime.
He loves watching sing along videos, Handy Manny, and Mickey Mouse. The DVD player is currently in our bedroom and he knows that's where the sing along videos are and he requests the "vid-yo" to be on the "T-B." I don't mind him watching a little bit of TV. He plays all day long at school and so if he needs to sit and watch a video for a few minutes, that's totally fine with me. And, it works great on my off days when I'm by myself with him and I need to get ready for the day. I don't have to worry about him getting into things he shouldn't!

He talks a lot about Auburn football. He knows the Auburn symbol and will point it out everywhere. He has to read an Auburn book every night. It's so funny because the Auburn books that we have are more for like 4-5 year olds, but he loves them! He is starting to love playing with balls and will say "throw it Mommy" and he'll peg it at you. He's doing ok with the catching part...he likes to throw way more than he likes to catch. I guess it's because most of the time he misses and gets knocked in the face or stomach with the ball! Oops!

This kid is so smart. You tell him something once and he remembers it. The other morning we were driving to school and we passed a garbage truck. He knows garbage trucks, but I explained to him that garbage trucks pick up our trash (not thinking he understood a word of it!). Well, this morning we passed a garbage truck and he said "garbage truck pick up trash." I couldn't believe he remembered that AND said all those words together!

Happy 23 months little guy! Can't believe that next month we'll be writing about your 2nd birthday party!