Monday, December 7, 2015

Thanksgiving

We are already well into Christmas activities, but I need to recap Thanksgiving first! We had a great Thanksgiving this year with Joel's family at the lake!

First, a quick funny. All of the kids in Harrison's class put what they were thankful for on this little placemat and they were displayed in the hall at school. Most of them were filled with Mommy, Daddy, brother, sister, pets, etc. Not Harrison though! Harrison said he was thankful for hamburgers! Glad he has his priorities in order! Ha!

 We weren't traveling to the lake until Thursday morning this year, so I was off with the boys on Wednesday. They requested to go to Pump It Up that morning, so we spent a good 2 hours there! They love that place and it was not crowded, so it was great!


 We arrived at the lake about noon on Thanksgiving, just in time for the big feast! There were almost 50 family members/close friends at Thanksgiving this year...a far cry from the Whitt Thanksgiving that consisted of just Mom and Dad and Grandmother this year! Yikes! We had a ton of food and good fun, and absolutely beautiful scenery! Since there are so many people, they have it at a hunting lodge nearby.
 This sweet boy just loves the camera!



 He is growing up SO fast.
 The day was beautiful, but it was really windy, so we pretty much failed at family pictures. Oh well! Picture overload coming anyway...





 Harrison just LOVED baby Cooper!
 Sunset at the lake that night...so pretty!
 Harrison and Nolen had so much fun together. Nolen just grabbed Hudson's hand and took him everywhere! It was so cute!

The turkey came out again at dinner and we had another big meal! We seriously ate way too much that day, but it was sooo good! And we got to spend a lot of time with family and that was great too!



The boys were up bright and early the next morning (like 6 am!). It was another beautiful day thankfully!
 We were literally outside the whole day. You can't beat that.
 Hudson played a little tennis with cousin Mark! Or should I say "attempted."
 And we did a LOT of gator riding all over the farm.
 And tractor riding too...but apparently I didn't get a picture of that.
 Late that afternoon, my little fam packed up and headed up to the cabin for the rest of the weekend. My parents were there so it was nice and relaxing! We went to the Wildflower Friday night, which was amazing as always, and then I don't think we left the cabin the rest of the weekend!


We sported our orange and blue on Saturday and watched a good Iron Bowl even though Auburn lost!

 More gator riding at the cabin. This time we drove up to a park nearby and let the boys play for a bit!



It was a great Thanksgiving Day and weekend. We couldn't have asked for better weather. Now, it's time for Christmas! We just LOVE this time of year!


Sunday, November 22, 2015

California Trip!

Hudson and I took a quick little trip across the country last weekend to see Carrie and Andres and celebrate baby Rooney turning 1! We had a super early flight out on Friday morning...we had to be up by 4 and out the door by 4:45. Well Mr. Hudson was just so excited that he was up at 3 am and ready to go! Whew! It was going to be a long day. Who else looks this good at 5 am?!?!?
 
 The great thing about having such an early flight is that we got to California by 10, so we had basically the whole day. We might have been a bit groggy, but we powered through it! I was very proud of my big boy. He is just such a rock star and is so go with the flow. I was SO glad he accompanied me on this trip!

We visited for a little while and then since we were 2 blocks from the beach, we decided to head down an "look" at it!
 "Looking" turned into getting our feet wet (it was FREEZING by the way)...

 Then the pants just had to come off so he could go in further...

 And then that turned into swimming in his undies! I was clearly not prepared for beach time in November, but that didn't matter one bit!

 We had so much fun with Rooney. She loved the beach too!

 My favorite picture!

 Hudson literally fell asleep at dinner that night. Thankfully we had decided to just stay in because we knew the crash was going to come at some point, and it came at about 6:30. I thought that was pretty good for a boy who had been up since 3 am (that's 1 am California time!).

The next day was Rooney's party day! When we woke up, we had to hit up Sidecar Donuts. If you are near Newport Beach, you HAVE to go to Sidecar. I literally drool just thinking about those donuts. The one to get is the butter and salt donut. It is SOOOO good! Then it was football watching and party prepping the rest of the day. Oh and Hudson and I snuck in another trip to the beach...this time to where the surfers were! We had fun watching the surfers and once again, Hudson took a dip in the ice cold water. He is ca-razy!

 Then it was time to celebrate this princess! They had a Mexican party theme and Carrie went all out. It was so cute! They don't have too many friends with kids, so it was mainly adults, so they had a taco man come and make tacos and a salsa bar, and of course had a margarita bar! So fun! Hudson made friends with a little 5 year old that was there and they just played their little hearts out! Carrie had set out a stomp rocket, a ball pit, a tee ball set, and of course bocce ball and cornhole! There was definitely something for everyone!

 I was loving the party lights they set up...

 Finally it was time for the princess to have her cake!




 I don't think there was ever any doubt that she would tear into the cake! She LOVED it.

 Sunday morning, we decided to go to Disneyland! Poor Rooney and Andres stayed home, so just Carrie, Hudson and I went. We were sad to say goodbye to her for the day, but it was going to be a fun day!

 It was a beautiful day! This was on the main street. I have to say that the castle is not nearly as impressive as Disney World...actually, it was a little dinky.

 Hudson really had no interest in the characters. I was so sad...but also very thankful that we went to Disney World when he was 5 and was all about the characters then. I made him take a picture with Goofy!
 Hudson had us wrapped around his little fingers. I absolutely hate Splash Mountain...like my hands start sweating just thinking about it. I just do not like that drop at the end! However, Hudson is such a daredevil and he was not going to let us off the hook. It was pretty chilly at this point in the day too, so you can imagine how we felt after we got soaking wet too. :) All for our little buddy...

 He loves his Aunt Carrie!
 We literally rode almost every ride in that park! It's smaller than Disney World, and it was not that crowded, so we never waited for too long.

 The Matterhorn was Hudson's favorite ride all day. We started with it, and ended with it! And we did Thunder Mountain twice too! Space Mountain was unfortunately closed...bummer!

 This was the little castle up close!

 The one ride we waited on for longer than 30 minutes was Indiana Jones. We got all the way to the front and the ride had to shut down. We were not leaving though! Thankfully, they got it back up and running in about 15 minutes. It was definitely one of our favorites and was worth the wait!

 The teacups is another one that Carrie and I could have done without...

 Disneyland was all decorated for Christmas and was so beautiful! We even caught the Christmas parade on the way out and it got us in the Christmas spirit for sure!

We had such a fun day and a great end to our trip! I'm so glad we had the opportunity to go for the day! I love all things Disney. We were sad that Harrison wasn't with us, and it is definitely top secret that we went. He has NO idea and hopefully it will stay that way! He was just not old enough to make that kind of trip. Hudson brought him home a Darth Vader light saber though and he thinks it's the greatest thing ever.
 
Carrie showed Hudson how to use a selfie stick!
 
 Hudson was sacked out on both flights on the way home. This boy was exhausted! Heck, I was right there with him! We got home really late Monday night and then it was back to school and work early Tuesday morning. We have spent the weekend trying to catch up on our sleep!

It was such a wonderful, quick trip! We miss them so much already!

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Veteran's Day

We had a great Veteran's Day last week! Since I've been traveling so much, it was nice to have a day off in the middle of the week with the kids.
 
First, we had Hudson's Veteran's Day program the day before. They sang about 10 patriotic songs and even played some instruments. It was really cute. The best part was hearing them sing while all the pictures of their family members who have served in the military played on a slide show in the background. We are thankful for Big Daddy and Daddy Bill for their service!
 
 I have been thinking about attending the Veteran's Day parade in Birmingham with the boys for several years now and finally this year we made it happen! It's apparently one of the largest Veteran's Day parades in the country. I have memories of my mom taking us as kids and I wanted the boys to experience it too. I am so glad we went. My mom even decided to join us! Love this picture of Mom and the boys!

 It was such a beautiful day in Birmingham so we were happy to be out in it!

 The boys knew a little bit about why we celebrate Veteran's Day before the parade, but after 3 hours of parade watching and asking eight million questions, I think they are now experts! Ha!

 They will tell you that their favorite parts were the marching bands, the army trucks, and the military men that were holding their guns. Hudson has been marching and holding his "gun" like they do all week since! Harrison loved the horses and the fire trucks too! It was all really good and entertaining. So good that we had to pry the boys away after 3 hours...the parade was still going on!




Such a fun day celebrating our freedom!