My TWO year old!

Happy Birthday to my sweet Hudson! I can't believe he is two. Seriously, can't believe it. Where have these past two years gone? They sure do go by fast.

We started out the birthday week (and I do mean WEEK!) by making cupcakes on Monday night for Hudson to take to school on Tuesday. I had a really good helper! He was all about making some cupcakes. Somehow, the most important thing to him was the sprinkles! Too bad he had to wait a while for those!

No, Hudson, don't pour the sprinkles in the batter!

Helping me stir...

There were a lot of "Hudson do its" going on. He is definitely Mr. Independent right now. It has gone from "Mommy do it" to "Hudson do it" and it makes me sort of sad!

Finally, the sprinkles! If you look closely, you will see the sprinkles are face down in the cupcakes! He was very serious about it though!

The finished product! That's pretty good for a two year old, right?!?! I guess he might have had a little help. :) It was fun baking with my little guy! I couldn't believe how interested he was in doing this, but I guess when it involves food, especially sweets, he wants to see it through until the end!

Today is his actual birthday. I think by the end of today he knows that it's his birthday! I went into his room this morning singing Happy Birthday. He's been saying "Happy Day Hudson" all day! I love it. He will also tell you he's two if you ask him how old he is.

This is a random picture below and I know he's cut off, but he was making this face the whole car ride this morning and it just made me laugh so hard! I'm trying to take the picture while driving...don't recommend doing that!

Since poor Hudson has an accountant for a mother and his poor birthday is right in the middle of busy season, I had to go to work today. But, not before we had a Mother/Son breakfast date at Krispy Kreme! Nothing like a chocolate (chocwate) donut with sprinkles AND chocwate milk! Heaven! And by the way, he picked this for breakfast! Again, sprinkles does it every time (well, and maybe chocolate!)!

He threw a little fit when I wouldn't let him drink his milk out of the container with a straw, but hey, priorities here--we had to keep the shirt clean! Ha!

He devoured his donut. He had never had one, but boy did he like it! He also loved to watch them make all the donuts! It was a fun little morning date. I got a little teary when I told him it was time to go to school and he said, "No, stay with Mommy." If he only knew how bad I wished the same thing! Of course, a few minutes later he was talking about going to see Caleb and Miss Alison and Miss Taylor, so I knew we were going to be ok!

I did apologize to his teachers when we got there for all the sugar consumption that he had already had that morning! It was only going to get worse with the cupcakes that we took for lunchtime! Oh well, you only have a birthday once a year!

I stole the picture below from his class blog. The shirt didn't make it past the blue cupcake. Ha! They also put a video on the blog of them singing Happy Birthday to him and he was just SO happy! It makes me smile every time. Hudson made me replay it about 20 times this afternoon when we got home! He would cheer and clap at the end of the song every time!

Tonight, Migi and Pops came over to see Hudson on his birthday and brought him the cutest book so he would have a present on his actual birthday. We held out all the other presents for his party on Saturday! Migi brought cupcakes and so they ate dinner with us and then we sang to Hudson one more time and he blew out his candles. I didn't even know he knew how to blow out candles, but he sure did!

I'm happy to report that Hudson drew the line with these cupcakes and refused to eat any. I, on the other hand, gladly ate them! They were good! I think Hudson was on sugar overload for the day.

Like I said before, this is Hudson's birthday WEEK! Tomorrow night, we are headed to my parent's house to eat dinner and celebrate, AND see my sister and soon to be brother in law, who have just moved back tonight from Los Angeles! Woo hoo! I couldn't be happier. And then, Saturday, is the big train party with both of our families. Should be a fun rest of the week.

It wouldn't be a yearly post without mentioning what Hudson is up to at TWO:

• He is definitely two. The lay on the ground, kicking and screaming fits are back with a vengeance! It just seems like every time he doesn't get what he wants, this is what happens. There is no reasoning with him. You basically have to just ignore him, which is so hard. Oh and the choosing to not mind--this one's going to do me in I think. He minds about as well as our dogs, and that's not saying much.
• On the flip side to the above, he can turn the switch real quick and give you a hug and tell you that he "wuvs you" and that just gets me every time. Those are probably the sweetest words I've ever heard in my life and makes this motherhood thing SO worth it!
• He is definitely all boy! He loves to climb anything, play outside in the dirt, and loves to build blocks and subsequently knock them down by hitting them across the room. This can be very frustrating when you've built a very neat and tall tower and Hudson just demolishes it. I try to remind myself that he's two. :)
• He loves trucks, trains, cars, buses, planes, motorcycles, and everything that moves! It is really fun riding in the car with him. We find every single truck, bus, garbage truck, etc. that we see, and he lets out this high pitch "buuuusss" or "truuuuuuuck" every time! He just gets so excited!
• He knows his colors really well! He can point out yellow, red, blue, green, purple, and white. He loves for you to ask him what color something is.
• His new sayings are "Look at that!" in a high pitched squeal, "Oh shoot," (yep, he says it--could be worse), "I don't know," and "Who's that?" for just about anything and everything. I've tried to teach him the difference between "who's that" and "what's that," but it's "who's that" for everything. He said it the other day to some old lady in the grocery store--I'm like, I don't know who that is! Sure does get the conversation going! But, today, he said "who's that" to a fire hydrant. He just wants to know what everything is! Oh and he told me the other night while eating dinner that it really was not that bad. Thanks, dude. We were laughing so hard because it's no secret that I'm a pretty terrible cook.
• He likes to "tee-tee on the potty" before bath time every night. Still no action there--he's really more all about the toilet paper (which we finally had to remove!). He does know what to do with it though! :) He is still telling us when he has pooped, but we're still no where near ready for all this.
• He's been getting up at the crack of dawn! I'm ok with it during the week, but up at 6 or earlier on Saturdays and Sundays is really not cool! We've tried keeping him up later at night thinking that maybe he just didn't need as much sleep, but that seems to have the opposite effect on Hudson. He will just wake up earlier, so I know he needs to be in bed by 7:30 at the latest. He's just been very cranky getting up so early! I hope it is just a phase. He is getting his pointy teeth (two down, two to go) so maybe that is causing all of this.
• Knock on wood, but Hudson hasn't been sick in 6 months (other than one cold which did not require a doctor visit or missed school)! We have not been to the doctor since his 18 month checkup. That is incredible seeing as though this time last year, I thought I was going to be fired with all the work I was having to miss with him being sick--poor thing just couldn't catch a break!
• He loves playing with our next door neighbor, Tony. He's 7 and is SO nice and patient with Hudson. Hudson want's to do everything Tony does! It's so cute. And, we are loving this warm weather we've had lately. We've had so much fun being outside, whether it's going to the park or just playing in our yard, it is so much better than being cooped up inside all day!

Hudson, Happy Birthday to you. We are so lucky to have you and we can't wait to see what TWO has in store for us! Should be interesting!

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!