Happy Birthday Hudson! A Trip to Atlanta to Celebrate!

We have a SIX year old! How is that possible?!!? Wasn't he just born on that cold, snowy Sunday?!? It's so hard to believe!

 

Instead of having another big birthday party with too much time spent planning and gifts we don't need, we decided that a family trip was in order this year and Hudson was definitely on board since one of the stops was to LEGOLAND where he was going to get to pick out the big cargo train lego set that he's had his eyes on since the fall.

 

We let him play hooky from school on Friday and made it to Atlanta by lunchtime. We ate at the Varsity! His all time favorite food is a cheeseburger, so we thought we would start the weekend off right! He loved it! He kept calling it Johnny Vockets though because of the V! Too funny!

 

Then, it was off to the aquarium for the afternoon! We took Hudson one other time when he was 2 while we were in Atlanta for a wedding and of course he didn't remember it, so we wanted to go again. It was a big hit for both boys!

Their favorite thing was to watch the whale sharks.

 I liked the dolphin show!

 And the penguins were adorable!!!

After a few hours at the aquarium, we headed to our hotel in Buckhead. I had planned for dinner Saturday night, but thought we would just wing it Friday night, and that sort of turned out to be a bad plan. I forgot how crazy Atlanta was, and Buckhead is not just loaded with places for kids to dine! We ended up at The Cheesecake Factory which I was very unhappy about because when we travel, I don't like to eat at places we can eat at everyday...but, it worked out great, the kids loved it, and they even brought Hudson out a birthday treat!

Of course we had already promised Hudson a trip to Sprinkles next door to get a treat, so he got two!
Only on your birthday!

 This little guy was full of sugar too!

 The kids were ca-razy at the hotel...why do hotels do that to kids!?! I felt bad for anyone around us! With all the sugar, they were wired. We finally got them to sleep and we all slept until 9 am the next morning (that's 8 our time, but still pretty good!). We ate an awesome breakfast at the Flying Biscuit, and then headed to Duluth to the Southeastern Train Museum. It was only about a 20 minute drive and it was great! Both boys are obsessed with trains, so it was a big hit.

 We paid extra to ride the real train, and that was a big flop. The train went forward about 30 feet, went backwards 30 feet, and then back forwards. It was pretty funny though!

 They loved looking at all the old trains and most of them we could get in so that was fun too!

 Boys will be boys...gotta find the potty and think it's the funniest thing in the world! :)

 Harrison would have watched this electric train all day long...

 The boys conned their daddy into getting them treats from the little store that was there! I little toy train for Harrison and a big train book for Hudson!

 I think Joel had fun too!

 Just doing a little cooking on the train!

 After we finished at the train museum, we headed to the zoo. We had not originally planned to go, but it ended up being a beautiful day and we wanted to be outside in it! And our membership at the Birmingham Zoo got us in for half price in Atlanta, so it was pretty cheap!

You can barely see the lions at the top of the picture below...

 The best part about the Atlanta Zoo was the gorillas. They need to share one with the Birmingham zoo so our little gorilla won't look so lonely! They had a ton of them!

 They were so active too. Two big gorillas got into it and one started to beat his chest and make these crazy noises and the boys thought that was just the coolest thing in the world! There was a lot of chest beating the rest of the day!

 They had pandas too, which were fun to watch!

 Overall, the zoo was about on par with our zoo though. I wouldn't make a special trip to go there just for the zoo, but it was a fun addition to our trip!

 The boys were WORN out by this point, but we had dinner at Maggiano's after the zoo. Hudson said he wanted spaghetti for his birthday dinner, so we thought this would be fun and good for kids too.

 We had an awesome meal. It was delish and just what Hudson wanted. He ate an entire bowl of spaghetti...every last drop. I thought for sure he was going to get sick.

And then it was back to the hotel for more craziness.

Sunday morning was LEGOLAND day! He could not wait to go! We started with Dunkin Donuts and then headed to Phipps. It was a really fun morning!

 I just love this happy face!

 They had a spot where you could build your own race car and then race it against others. Hudson spent at least an hour working on his car. And his car was FAST too! He did great! Of course I expected nothing less...he's definitely got Joel's engineer brain and building things is what he does best!

 Joel built Harrison a car too. He had so much fun too!

We saw a 3D lego show and that was great too!

 And then it was on to the lego store! Hudson had been talking about the cargo train legos for months, however, they didn't have it! We were all so sad! So, I ordered it online from the store and we let Hudson pick out something smaller to take with him. We couldn't let him leave empty handed (and yes he has us completely wrapped around his fingers!). Hudson was so overwhelmed. Way too many options! He had a really hard time deciding. He finally made his choice...

 We got to the check out and he decided he didn't want those! So, he got the Ghostbusters car instead! And, he's already put it all together! It's for a TEN year old and he put it together in a few hours!

 

We had one more stop before we left Atlanta--Trader Joe's! My first trip! So fun...can't wait until we get ours in Birmingham later this year!

 

 We had such a great time in Atlanta and Hudson was completely spoiled out of his mind! Seriously, I can't remember a birthday like that ever! Ha! It was fun having some quality time with the 4 of us since Joel has been gone so much.

We headed back home in time for Hudson to go to baseball practice, a stop by from Big Mama and Big Daddy, and then it was dinner at Migi and Pops' house! Hudson requested cookie cake, so that's what I got!

LOVE this sweet boy with all my heart!

 And Migi and Pops made him an even happier boy with MORE LEGOS!

 Harrison had a pretty great weekend too. Here he is showing me his "Grandpa" pants! :)

 And Hudson wanted me to make sure we all knew what was on the back of his new shirt that Big Mama and Big Daddy gave him!

Happy Birthday sweet boy! We had so much fun celebrating with you this weekend and can't wait to see what SIX has in store for us!

Snow!

It's been a loooooong week. We had delayed starts Monday and Tuesday mornings, and then the entire city was literally shut down yesterday as we awaited a big snow storm. We literally waited ALL day for that darn snow to come and with each hour that passed, so did our hopes.  Less than an hour north of here got 8 inches of snow! It was really close to us! The kids were disappointed of course, but I was too! We had been hearing about it all week and everyone had taken the proper precautions and stayed home to avoid another disaster like last year, and we were all ready for a fun snow day! I even waited in line Tuesday night at Rocky Ridge Hardware to get one of the 300 sleds that they had special ordered and were set to arrive at 5:30 (they sold out before I made it to the front--clearly, it was not meant to be!). I mean, when they tell you that you are going to get 2-4 inches of snow, we wanted to have fun with it!

 

FINALLY around 8 we went outside and the white stuff was falling. I have never seen two more excited little boys. There was NO way they were going to bed! And why not, they had already called for another delay this morning so of course we were going to stay up late and play!

 

 We got all bundled up which takes forever and everyone is sweating before we even get outside, but thankfully, they didn't say they wanted to come in after 5 minutes this time so it was worth it! :)

 We had a big snowball fight! It was 2 against 1 (ME!) so I didn't have a chance. I ate lots of snow last night! Unfortunately, so did my camera!

 We had only been out a few minutes before the neighbor down the street yelled at us to come get their sled! The boys slid down our hill over and over and over again. I even did it too!

 As you can see, we didn't get more than a dusting, but it didn't matter!

 Have you seen a happier child?!?!

 We were out more than an hour playing in it and when I told the boys it was time to go in, they threw such a fit. It was almost 10 though so they needed to go to bed! Their poor hands were red as anything and we were all soaking wet! What a fun night it was. I hope it will be one of those nights that the boys remember forever because it was something extra they got to do...something about it coming after bed time made it all the more fun!

Here we were this morning waiting for Harrison's daycare to open. I had to drop Hudson off and Harrison's school didn't open for another 45 minutes so we had a lot of time to kill...and a lot of Frozen to listen to!

 The snow is gone today, thankfully, and Joel is back in town tonight, thankfully. And tomorrow starts the big birthday extravaganza weekend for this soon to be SIX year old on Sunday! Woo hoo!

Mercedes Kids Marathon

We are having yet another weather delay this morning, so why not catch up on the blog?!? Hudson did the Mercedes Kids Marathon last Saturday. He had been talking about it for months, because if your parents signed you up, you got a shoe on the wall with your name on it in the gym and to him, that was really important! They worked all fall to run their 25.2 miles in PE, with the final mile to be done last Saturday. He was so excited!

 

I was a little less than excited. It sounded like it would be mass chaos and I was a little afraid to let Hudson just go run by himself. I had this fear that we wouldn't find him after it was over, what if he gave up during the race, and all these things kept running through my mind. Kindergarten was supposed to run at 11:45 or something like that (without parents), and if you wanted to run with your kids, you could do it around noon with all the grades. I went dressed and ready to run because we just really didn't know what the deal would be and I wanted to be prepared to run with him if I had to.

 

We met up with buddies when we got down there and they quickly told us moms that they were NOT running with us! I guess that was too embarrassing! Ha! So, we had to buck up and let it go and just hope and pray they made it!

 

 So they took the kids off to go line up and it was a little scary letting them go. Once we saw Hudson though on the starting block, we had a little sigh of relief that he made it with the group! He's in the front row on the far right in the picture below. They let them go in waves so it wasn't complete chaos at the start...good idea!

 And they are off!

I figured we had around 10-15 minutes to get over to the finish line, which was just on the other side of Lynn Park.

 

Joel and I split up so he could get some pictures, and I headed to the finish line. I'm really glad I didn't dilly dally around because he made it just over 9 minutes! He was moving! He and Luke were still together and still smiling! They lost Emmett somewhere along the way though.

 

 I'm pretty happy I didn't have to run with him because I'm not so sure I could have done the mile in that time! Ha!

 Luke and Hudson with their medals!

 One happy boy!

While there were so many kids everywhere, this was SO organized. After the race, they took the kids and put them in pens based on their bib number. And, we had something we had to show to claim our child. So, it was safe too.

He cannot wait to do another race! He had that much fun! And I will admit, it was fun to watch. We were so proud of him! We will definitely be doing it again next year!

Life Lately

Well, it's been a few weeks. Clearly busy season at work has taken over, not to mention the news of being acquired by a national accounting firm--right in the middle of the busiest time of year, so that has caused a lot of distraction. And we're still rocking along with Joel in Houston every week. All of this leaves very little time for blogging right now! I had my first melt down two weeks ago today and thankfully Joel got the message and he took vacation last week. He was Mr. Mom for the week and it could not have come at a better time. Really, it might rank up there as being the best Valentine's gift ever. :) Can you tell my love language is acts of service?!?! We are just about to take him to the airport, so we are all a little sad right now!

We had a great play date at Treetop one Saturday morning with a couple of Hudson's old friends from preschool. We had never been to Treetop before, but it was a lot of fun!

 Hudson got the Good Character Award at school a couple of weeks ago! We are so proud of him! He got a blue ribbon, a certificate, and his favorite part, a gift certificate to Chick Fil A!

As I mentioned earlier, the week before last was particularly bad. Harrison was just a total terror that week, especially at bed time. Screamed for hours and would not go to bed. So, Hudson decided he would help out and sleep with him one night and they were just so sweet. You would never know from the picture below how bad of a week it was. I learned the next day why it was such a bad week for Harrison--he had strep! Poor thing!

Hudson had his last basketball game of the season a week ago. He scored TWO goals! We were so proud of him. He came so far this season and it was just fun to end on such a good note!

Baseball started the very next day. No rest for the weary! Two practices a week (including one at 4 pm on a Wednesday--just perfect for working parents in general, but when it's just me to handle it, it is even worse!). So far, Hudson is LOVING baseball though so it is all worth it! He looks so darn cute in his baseball outfit! 

Cuties before church one day!

Big Daddy gave the boys this basketball game for Christmas and Joel finally put it together last week. It has provided hours of entertainment for all of us! And for the record, no one has topped my score yet! Ha!

 Hudson had his Valentine's Party at school on Thursday. Joel went so I could work, but unfortunately didn't take any pictures. And then he was supposed to go to Harrison's party on Friday, but Hudson got some crazy virus Thursday night and Friday and so I took Harrison. He has such a sweet class!

 This is Harrison's little girlfriend, Hannah. She is literally half his size (most of the kids are in his class!), but Hannah is all we hear about! And Hannah's mom says all she hears about is Harrison! Young love! :)

 We had a very low key Valentine's Day yesterday. We just hung out all day and then cooked steaks last night at home. My perfect kind of day.

My sweet little firefighters! They are at such a great age right now. They play so well together...and fight too, but that's to be expected!

 So, the BEST news over the past couple of weeks is that Carrie is done with her treatments and had her brain scan and it was CLEAR! We are obviously thrilled with this news and ready for Carrie to move on! She still has to have her full body scan, but hopefully we'll get more good news with that! I just love this picture of her jumping for joy! It is definitely something to celebrate!

We are preparing for some winter weather this week and I'm really hoping we get something out of it! Hopefully it won't be another two weeks before I'm back!