Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great holiday weekend spent with both our families. We were all sick at one point or another over the weekend (and pretty much passed it on to everyone else we were around too--sorry folks!), but we toughed it out and I'm thankful that our families were ok with us being a little sick around them! Well, they probably weren't ok with it, but at least they didn't kick us out! :)

Wednesday night, Joel, Hudson, Harrison and I all headed up to Mentone to spend the night at the cabin before driving the 30 minutes down to Weiss Lake on Thursday morning to spend Thanksgiving with Joel's family. Of course, we had a horrible night Wednesday night, which included Hudson sticking his fingers down his throat at midnight and throwing up all over everything, including the dog! So, after we got all that cleaned up and everyone showered, Hudson tossed and turned the rest of the night and didn't sleep much at all. Joel was a little under the weather all last week, but seemed to be fine Wednesday until that night and he coughed all night Wednesday night and woke up feeling awful on Thursday. He spent most of his time at the lake in the bed. So, it was not a good start to Thanksgiving!

We had Thanksgiving with Joel's family and there were 52 people there! They have such a big family and it was crazy. The day even included an awards ceremony which was hilarious. Surprisingly, Harrison slept through most of the chaos!

You can tell that Hudson was not feeling the best, but he did ok and loved running around with all the kids that were there.

Family picture with the Reed's...

This picture below makes me laugh because this is pretty much what life feels like right now! Hudson refusing to take a picture (or refusing to behave, period!), the baby crying, and Joel and I just trying to manage!

We are thankful for our new bundle this year!

My two turkeys...(not cooperating of course!)

They are OVER it!

We spent the afternoon visiting with Papa John and the family before heading back to Mentone. My parents had Thanksgiving at their house in Birmingham that day and then headed up to meet us in Mentone, along with the newlyweds, Carrie and Andres! What a treat it was for them to come up too seeing as though they had just gotten back from Italy at 11 pm the night before!

Friday morning, my mom cooked monkey bread, which is a Thanksgiving Day breakfast tradition (just the day after this year!). For as long as I can remember, we woke up to monkey bread and hot tea and watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Joel doesn't understand my obsession for the parade, but I just love it! I think he now understands my obsession with monkey bread though...and the 4 sticks of butter it takes to make it! :)

Joel had heard about this old historic covered bridge in Mentone and we went and saw it Friday morning. It really wasn't all that great, but it was a beautiful day and we enjoyed getting out in it!

We watched a lot of football on Friday and had a great time hanging out with the family!

Harrison even gave us some smiles!

Friday night, we headed to the McKewen's house, which is a couple of houses down from my parent's house, to have a cookout. It was a lot of fun and Hudson had a blast playing with all their kids and all their toys!

I was so thankful for all the help this weekend! It was nice getting a little break.

We were supposed to head back Saturday morning because we were invited to an Iron Bowl party, but since everyone was still sick and I woke up with a sore throat too, we decided we didn't need to spread it any further. We ended up just staying in Mentone until after the game and then headed home after that because I had to teach Sunday School the next morning at church. Since we decided to stay, Dad had heard of this place in Rainsville where you could feed the reindeer. He wanted to take Hudson to do that so some of us tagged along. Boy, was it a sight!

The "reindeer" are below!

Santa's Country "Reindeer" ended up being goats. Poor Hudson kept asking (even for hours afterwards) where the reindeer were. I think he's content now with knowing they are still at the North Pole! :) We cracked up so hard at the goats, and were making jokes about the fact that Santa was probably going to be in overalls, until we actually SAW Santa...

And he WAS in overalls! And, sitting in a recliner. Ha! And, this is what Hudson thought of the "country" Santa...

Yes, buddy, I thought the same thing too! And, he turned out to really be a creepy old man so we got out of there fast. He even got out of his recliner and chased us down in a golf cart to give us a peppermint. That didn't help things. Oh how we were laughing at Dad for bringing us to this place. What an experience it was!

On the way home, we started smelling something stinky and my Mom determined that she had stepped in manure. So, that was a fun (and smelly!) ride home! We definitely made some memories with this place!

After lunch at the Lookout (Shondra and Morgan joined us too as they came up to Mentone for Saturday night), we headed back to the cabin to watch the Iron Bowl. Poor Auburn...we expected it though so it really wasn't too awful to have to watch! After the game, we loaded up and headed back to Birmingham. I was so sad to leave. We had such a good time with our families this weekend.

Now, here it is Monday and I took Hudson to the doctor this morning because he just isn't getting any better, and he has a double ear infection. I think he's probably had it for about a month now...yep, I'm an awesome mom! He never once had a fever though and really didn't act like he felt that bad other than having a cough and a runny nose. Although, he's had his fingers in his mouth for a while now and hasn't been sleeping great, so I should have known better. Hopefully, we will now all be on the mend though just in time for Christmas!

Christmas Card Preview

Instead of doing a birth announcement and then sending out a separate Christmas card this year, I'm doing just a holiday birth announcement. I had Kristin Mathis at www.funkyjunkphotography.com do our pictures this year and I highly recommend her! She was SO good with Hudson and he did everything she told him to do. In fact, I've never seen him listen so well! Ha! He was so sad to see her drive off that day. I knew the pictures would be good, but didn't know they would be THIS good!

Here is a preview, not including the ones I picked for the card. Most of these are of Hudson as Harrison was only cooperative in short spurts that day, but I just love every single one of these. And the best part about using Kristin is that you get the whole CD!

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm so glad the holidays are here!!! I'm sure am thankful for these two cute little fellas this year!

6-8 Week Checkup

We had Harrison's 6-8 week checkup on Thursday. He's 7 weeks today--can't believe that!!! He weighed 11 pounds, 6 ounces (75th percentile) and was 22.5 inches long (50th percentile). At Hudson's 6-8 week checkup, he weighed more and was longer, but we're still on track to have another chunky boy. I love it!

Dr. C. said we need to do more tummy time with Harrison as he's getting a flat head. We definitely don't want him having to wear a helmet to round it back out. He doesn't love tummy time, but we've spent the weekend doing it a lot! He's also still really cross-eyed, so he told us to give it a month and if it still isn't better, we need to go see a pediatric opthamologist. Joel thinks Dr. C. told us both those things at Hudson's 6-8 week checkup, but I must have blocked that out of my mind. AND, since his baby acne still has not cleared up and he has such dry skin already, he thought that it may be related to my milk so he has us trying soy formula for a while (in addition to breastmilk) to see if that will clear it up. Hopefully, it is not a milk allergy or excema related, but we'll see. Hudson did have bad excema as a baby so I won't be surprised if that isn't part of it. It does look better than it did a few weeks ago, so I'm just hoping it is still just related to the hormones and is just taking a while to go away. We're trying the soy formula though and also putting hydrocortisone cream on it, so surely one of the two of those will help! Harrison had to get a bunch of shots too, which was awful! I got really upset after the appointment. You want to hear that everything with your baby is just perfect and I felt like all those things I said above were all my fault (like how I made him cross-eyed--ha!--it was just a bad morning overall and that appointment just sent me over the edge!). These are all minor things though and I'm counting my blessings that he is perfectly healthy.

These boys just make me so happy! Hudson has been so sweet to Harrison and he always wants to pat his head or in the case of the pictures below, hold his hand. I promise these pictures are not staged at all! He talks to him a lot too, especially while we're riding in the car. Before Harrison's appointment, Hudson told him that he was going to have to get shots, and they were going to hurt, but only for a minute and that he could pick a sticker if he was good. He also tells him to dance in the car, and on several occasions, apparently, Harrison has danced for Hudson. Wish I could have seen that! :)

Harrison is still doing good in the sleep department at 7 weeks. He's getting up around 5 to eat and then going back down, so while we're not quite to the sleeping through the night stage like I thought we might be last weekend (he totally teased us with that!), I'm definitely ok with getting to sleep from 9:30 to 5! Now if Hudson will just sleep a little later than 6:15 (or 5:45 as it was on SATURDAY morning!), we'd be doing great. He's eating 4 ounces at each feeding, but we do give him more right before bedtime to fill that tummy!


We're looking forward to a fun week with both families for Thanksgiving! I can't believe it is already here!

Carrie's Wedding

I'll just let the pictures do most of the talking here.

Friday morning, we started out with the bridesmaids' brunch at Olexa's. YUM!

Then, Friday night, we rehearsed at St. Francis and then headed to the rehearsal dinner at Vulcan Park. Andres, whose family is from across the country, wanted to do a southern barbeque for the rehearsal dinner and so we had Dreamland. It was SO good and we had a blast toasting to Carrie and Andres.

Saturday morning, we all got our hair and makeup done at Richard Joseph in English Village. I thought Carrie's hair looked gorgeous!

Then, it was off to get dressed and get in the party bus for pictures!

Nothing about this wedding was traditional, which is what Carrie and Andres wanted. There were no pictures taken at the church at all. The party bus took us all over downtown Birmingham. All of the pictures are very urban, even some in front of grafiti. I think they are going to turn out really neat! She had a fabulous photographer who was so much fun.

After pictures, it was time to head back to the church to get the vail on and get ready to walk down the aisle! Carrie wasn't nervous the whole day until right before she walked down the aisle. I ran back in the bride's room right before I went down and the photographer was asking Carrie if she needed a trash can! :) She did great though! How beautiful is she?!?!

I love this picture! Oh and her flowers were AMAZING!

After the ceremony, we headed to Park Lane to have some fun at the reception!

First dance...

Dancing with Dad...

I couldn't get Hudson off the dance floor!

This is out of order, but our only family picture of the weekend. My headpiece thing had come untied...I wish I had fixed that before the picture was taken!

Thanks Cameron for coming!

Someone stole my camera...

Mom even danced with Andres' Dad! So funny!

I was too busy dancing myself to take a ton of pictures, so that's all. I did snap some of their goodbye. I was too scared to hold a sparkler, but they looked so neat!

On Sunday, they met their photographer early in the morning to do a "destroy the dress" shoot. How neat is this?!?! They said the water was a nice "warm" 10 degrees! Ha!

It was such a fun wedding. I hope they are having a blast in Italy! I'm only slightly jealous here!