It's a Girl! (And it's NOT mine!)

We learned last weekend that it IS possible that a Reed boy can produce a girl! Ha! After 3 Reed boys and then our 2 boys, none of us really thought it could happen! We headed over to the Reed's last Saturday afternoon to find out the news. As you can see, our boys wore blue...however I wore my lucky pink shirt that I wore at Carrie's reveal! Joel wore blue of course too!

 

 We took shots of the family members who thought it was a boy and who thought it was a girl, and the boy group was definitely the winner by a landslide!

 IT'S A GIRL!!!!!

 Anna was thrilled, Jordan was scared to death, and Joel's parents were squealing as loud as can be! Finally some pink in this all blue family!

 We are so excited for them and cannot wait to meet this sweet baby girl in February!

 Hudson has told everyone he knows that he has another cousin on the way. He cannot wait to hold her!

Congrats to Jordan and Anna!

Back to School!

Well the kids are back in school and life is getting back to normal for us! We had a great summer and are excited for a new school year. Last Wednesday, Hudson had "meet the teacher day" at his school. He has Mrs. Dennis for first grade. He was so excited to meet her and walked right up to her, gave her a hug, and said, "I'm just so excited to be here!" And then picked a seat closest to the teacher's desk. Teacher's pet anyone?!?! Ha! He cracked us up, but hey, we are all about first impressions in this family and I would say that was a good one!

 

.

 

Then Thursday was the first day! We decided to have some first day fun and meet at the Kincaid's house where the boys could walk to school on the first day. He was so excited to do that! And I was so excited to not have to sit in the carpool line! :)

 

Hudson was SO mad at the outfit I made him wear on the first day. He is in full on Under Armour mode and looking cute just wasn't "cool." Oh well...we had to look cute the first day! You better believe that Friday he was in Under Armour head to toe!

They were so ready to go! They didn't even look back and hardly said a goodbye. I was planning to walk Hudson to the door, but he told me I didn't need come close to the school. Well, ok then! Glad he is so independent! He had a great first day. Loved every second, and met new friends. His school has 11 first grade classes and while we feel like we know a ton of people in his school, there was only 3 girls and 1 boy that he knew in his class, and no one from his kindergarten class. He's adapted well though and already has a sweet buddy that actually lives in our neighborhood, which is awesome!

 

 Harrison had meet the teacher day on Wednesday as well at his new school, our church. We moved him over there this year which is allowing me to get about an hour back in my day in drive time! It is amazing so far! We were nervous though. We loved his old school. They were great and loved our sweet boys, so it was definitely bittersweet to leave. However, being at the church will allow him to be with kids that will be going to kindergarten with him and that is huge. And it's our church...and the main thing is that is where Hudson goes to after care and I will pick up in one place! Woo hoo!

Here he is on his first day of school, which was Monday! He was so cute.

 He is our shy one, although a lot of people may not know that! He is a lot more clingy and nervous than Hudson. He had a little bit of a hard time letting me go on Monday, but he was a big boy and didn't cry. When I picked him up, he was so happy and said he loved it. I asked him who he sat next to at lunch and he said, "All my girlfriends of course!" I think he's going to be just fine! We are 3 days in now and he's still a little unsure in the mornings, but he's definitely not upset. We love his teachers, Mrs. Nancy and Mrs. Beebe, so I think he's going to have a great year!

Hudson came home with his first homework project and we worked on it this weekend. An "All About Me" poster. He went through our pictures and decided which ones to put on there and then placed him and wrote what they all were. Obviously I helped a bit, but this was his thing! He had so much fun doing it and I was proud of him.

 Backwords letters and all...(obviously we needed to do a little practicing this summer!)

 The scene from my first day driving carpool! Crazy boys! As a side note, this was when we were just about at the school and I let them go ahead and take their seatbelts off so they would be ready!

 Back to school bash on Friday night!

 

So far, so good! Everyone is happy and that's all we can ask for! Happy new school year!

 

One Last Weekend Hurrah!

We decided to do one more weekend getaway on our last weekend before school starts back up. We headed up to the cabin last Thursday afternoon. My parents left me a cookie cake up there so we celebrated my birthday again!

 

 It was actually cool up there Thursday night so we had a fire! It was SO nice!!! We can't wait for fall!

 On Friday, we drove to the middle of nowhere Tennessee and went to Cumberland Caverns. Joel remembered a cave there from his boy scout days and thought the boys might like to see that. It was a bit farther away from the cabin than we had anticipated, but we had a great day!

 Here we are about to go in the cave!

 The tour of the cave was almost 2 hours long. We got there at 1, so Harrison was already starting to fade when we arrived...so imagine 2 hours of walking and listening to our guide talk and it got a little dicey at the end, but we made it! Harrison was totally starting to lose it and had hit crazy, destructive kid mode, so we were pretty glad to get out of there! Ha!

 It was a really neat experience though and something completely different to do. Hudson loved it and asked literally 18 million questions. Our poor guide. :)

 At one point they turned off all the lights inside the cave and you literally could not see your hand in front of your face. It was terrifying and spectacular all at once.

We made it back to the cabin late afternoon and played outside until dark. What a fun, fun day!

 Saturday, we drove the 30 minutes down to the lake to spend the day there. Harrison finally decided that he wanted to ride on the hot dog and he loved it!

 Harrison really wanted to fish, so we found the cane poles and Pops went and got some bait, and we headed out to fish. We all had placed bets as to how long it was going to last. No one with the last name Reed has any patience whatsoever. They sure did look cute!

 Well wouldn't you know it, they both caught fish within 5 minutes of being out there. Hudson caught a huge catfish and Harrison caught a little brim...it happened at the same time and that just made their day!

 Little did we know, we would catch 10 more fish in the span of an hour! It was a good fishing day!

 This might be my favorite picture of the weekend below. You can just see the excitement in Hudson's face! Both boys just LOVED fishing. We will definitely do it again...and hope and pray the fish are biting like they were Saturday!

 And of course my child that isn't afraid of anything loved the worms! Gross!

 Hudson convinced Migi to ride the hot dog with him, which provided some hilarious entertainment. We could have made some money from America's Funniest Home Videos had we videoed her trying to get on the hot dog the first time around. Let's just say it wasn't pretty and she did not make it! Ha! Thankfully she tried again and was good to go! Hudson could not stop laughing the whole ride because he said Migi was screaming the whole time! So funny!

 Hudson also tried to knee board this trip and on his third try he was going pretty good! He lost his balance though and the board hit him in the face and that was the end of that! We were proud of him though!

We headed back up to the cabin that night, and then spent all Sunday morning playing outside. It was a beautiful day. None of us wanted to pack our things up...we just wanted summer to just keep going on!

What a great last weekend of summer we had!

Meet the teacher day is TOMORROW for both boys, and then 1st grade starts on Thursday for Hudson. Harrison will start 3K on Monday. Both boys are super excited to get back to school! And I'm so happy that I don't have a kindergartener this year and have to go through those emotions again! That was hard! This year is good!

* new post below

Splash Adventure

We have really soaked up these last few days of summer. Last Wednesday (my birthday!), we met the Farrar's at Splash Adventure. It was the first time we had been all summer, and I can promise you that we won't wait all summer to go next year! It was a blast! We might even buy a season pass next year--that's how much fun we had.

 

We started with the dry rides, however, it was really, really scorching hot, so we didn't last long. There weren't many rides anyway. The kids rode this roller coaster about 10 times. Since it was so hot and everyone was at the water park, the ride attendant just let them stay on and keep going.

 

 Hudson wanted to do the big roller coaster, but I talked him out of it. He is not scared of anything! These little bumper boats were a hit with Harrison!

 We hit the wipeout obstacle course first. Harrison and Wynn were too little to do this (this did not go over well with Harrison--he wants to do everything the big boys do!), but Hudson and Caleb loved it and went around several times.

We finally made it to the water park side and Harrison was in heaven with these little slides! They have a portion that is just for the smaller kids, so we started there first and actually Hudson and Caleb had fun here too!

 I didn't get a good picture of the area for the older kids that had a little bit bigger slides and things to climb on, but we spent most of our time there. We also did the wave pool and the lazy river. We might have lost Hudson and Caleb for a time at the lazy river...yikes. That was a bit scary, but we found them and they got a good ole talking to!

Hudson and Caleb spent a long time doing the tube slides too! They carried the tube up all by themselves and were so proud! They thought they were big kids! They rode it over and over and over again! Again, Harrison had a hard time not being able to do it, but he should be tall enough next summer to ride with me!

 We literally spent ALL day there. I think we got home a little after 5. My birthday dinner plans were shot as we had some majorly sleepy boys, but it didn't matter! We all had a great day!

Mary Poppins, a 6 Year Checkup, and a 10 Year Anny

Joel's mom took Hudson and I to Mary Poppins last week and we had the best time! Hudson felt so special to be out REALLY late with us on a week night!

We got there a little early and had some fun with the props!

 He LOVED the show! We all did. It really was great and I'm so glad we got to go! Who says you have to have a little girl to do these things with?!?!

 Hudson cracked us up all night long. I don't know where this kid gets his personality from, but he just keeps everyone around him laughing. There were 3 older ladies sitting in front of us and right after the show started, they all 3 stood up to let someone through and Hudson yelled, "Uh oh! The 3 grandmothers are standing up!" I guess you had to be there, but everyone around us started dying laughing and I of course wanted to crawl under the chair.

 

I finally took Hudson for his 6 year checkup a few weeks ago. I forgot to mention it on here. Of course he turned 6 in MARCH and I was just now getting around to it. The main reason we went was because Hudson had been complaining that he couldn't hear things, and I had been noticing a bit more "not listening" than normal out of him although I still thought it was selective hearing. However, since he mentioned it AND we were due for a check up anyway, AND we have major ear problems anyway, we went on in. Of course he passed the hearing test with flying colors and the nurse giggled and told me that in fact it was selective hearing! :) Anyway, the check up went great. He was 50 pounds and 48 inches tall, 50-75th percentile in weight and 75-90th percentile in height. He is projected to be around 6 feet still, so that is great!

 

We also went in for both kids dentist appointments. Fun day, huh! Actually, the kids LOVE the dentist! Hudson got a mustache as his prize from the dentist. He said he needed to water it so it will grow! Ha!

 

 

 I guess this post is turning into being all about Hudson, but he did an Arts and Music camp at church last week and on Friday they had a program. Hudson had a special part in the program where he was up on stage with just a couple others and he did great! The program was wonderful, as they always are! Love hearing those kids sing! Here he is posing in front of his artwork from the week.

 We went out for ice cream afterwards. Harrison finally made a picture--yay!

Joel and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary at Gianmarco's on Friday night. The kids stayed with grandparents and so we had a kid free night for the first time in a long time! While it wasn't relaxing somewhere tropical for a few days like we had hoped it would be, it was still a good night celebrating #10! Maybe #11 will bring something tropical??? Hint, hint!

We took a trip to the zoo this weekend too. The weather was amazing for late July! It was a tad hot, but the humidity was gone so it felt sooo much better! We love our zoo!

This week, we are trying to soak up our last few days before school starts back next Thursday. And I turn 34 tomorrow---eeek!

We've had such a fun summer. I am so sad to see it go!