{16 months}

I just realized that I missed the past 3 months of Hudson updates…where did the time go?

Sweet boy…you are 16 months old today!

You are SO fun. You are all big boy these days. You run everywhere & talk constantly these days. Your vocabulary is exploding and you are getting more & more understandable. A lot of your words sound very much alike, but for the most part Daddy & I can always understand you – even if no one else can! You imitate just about everything that we say & do.

You love to make us laugh & do so often with your funny antics. You also love to show off for other people, especially when they come over to our house. You are a total ham.

You LOVE vehicles right now…especially trucks. ESPECIALLY the trash truck!! This fascination started a couple months ago. We anticipate Mondays (trash days) all week!! You also love tools, the garage, & the lawn equipment. You’ve recently been helping Daddy rake leaves in the yard. Oh – and brooms! You still love cleaning – vacuums, the swiffer, brooms, dusting, etc. I *really* hope that you keep this love 😉

You recently learned how to push yourself on your riding toys with your feet (this is also a marker of how much taller you’ve grown recently!), you are working on learning to use a fork & spoon while eating (we started this around 13 months I think),  you love to throw balls & just recently have started kicking them as well – Daddy is teaching you to dribble a soccer ball.

You have officially dropped your morning nap. That happened within the last 2 weeks. As a result you now go to bed a little earlier at night, this is pretty normal & healthy as you are sleeping less during the day. So now you wake up between 7:30 and 8 most days and go to bed at 6:30. You go down for a nap right after lunch and sleep from 1-3.

Your life changed radically this week as we welcomed your brother Owen into the world. You love him already. You give him the sweetest hugs & kisses and bring him his blanket. When he cries you run to check on him. You are Mama’s big helper & throw his diapers in the trash for me. We pray that your love for one another abounds.

Hudson Mark – you are such a blessing! You bring so much joy & laughter to our home! We LOVE you and are so stinkin’ thankful to be your parents!

Happy Halloween!!

Farm Month

“Farm” was our kick-off tot school theme for the month of September. It was a great one for us to start with! It was great because (1) Hudson loves animals (2) we already have quite a few farm related toys/books (3) the surrounding activities were very easy to plan.

These were a few of our favorite books. We own a couple of them and found the rest at the library.

The Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown

The illustrations are beautiful and I love the cadence & rhyme of Brown’s stories. I’ll definitely be buying this one.

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DwellStudio Touch and Feel Farm

This was a shower gift we received before Hudson was born and I have to say, it has been his most favorite book EVER! He will sit and look at the pictures and feel the pages for a LONG long time. The different textures are really great: there is a soft sheep on the cover, the first page has a barn made with corrugated cardboard, then a suede pig, then a tractor with a bumpy plastic wheel, then a page with chickens who “run around” on the rough emery board/sandpaper ground, then lastly a cow – who is similar to the pig, but more velvety. 

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Barnyard Dance by Sandra Boynton

Love this little book with its funny illustrations and do-si-do rhythm. 

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The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle

This is beautiful as are all of Eric Carle’s books. It is about a spider who lands on a fence post near a farm and begins spinning her web. All the different animals come by and invite her to go and do something with them but she continues her web. It is great animal sound practice. The repetitive nature of the text would be great for older pre-readers to anticipate what is coming next.

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Farmyard Beat by Lindsey Craig

Super catchy & fun about a farm full of animals – starting with the chicks – who can’t sleep because they’ve “got the beat.”

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Our big “adventures” were going to a local farm with a great petting zoo and going to the Ft. Worth zoo which also has a fun petting zoo area (plus all the other zoo animals!)

Here are a few pics from our trip to the petting zoo…Jayme & Saber and Liz & Willa came too! So fun!

Hud loved getting to touch the different animals.

This horse loved Liz & Willa

The boys really liked this goat

The big piggie

More goats.

There were also some cute sheep and a very mean donkey!

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Daddy adjusted his schedule a little so that he could come to the Ft. Worth zoo with us, having him along makes everything even more fun! We went on a Wednesday morning because Wednesdays = 1/2 price admission ($6/adult, children under 2 are free always, I don’t know about prices for kiddos over two…I didn’t pay attention since I don’t have any!).

It was definitely worth $12…but I don’t think it would have been worth regular price admission…but I am frugal & that is just my opinion! So you can take it or leave it 🙂

The zoo was really pretty and all the exhibits seemed really well maintained. The only bummer was that the lions weren’t out for some reason…but we got to see pretty much everything else.

There is are lots of trees in the zoo which keeps things nice and shady and cool which is nice.

We walked the whole zoo in about an 1.5 hours which was perfect with Hudson. He was really engaged and liked looking at all the animals but I don’t think he would have lasted much longer than that. The petting zoo area was ok…the baby calf was really sweet…all the others were sleepy so they didn’t really want to come close enough for Hud to pet.

Our runner

He was smiling at the bear

Who I guess was shedding, because his coat was all weird

Cute little baby calf

Gorgeous white tiger who we got to see up real close

I love these guys!

Yay for family day at the zoo!!

🙂

That is life.

I woke up this morning to a big old honkin’ list of things to get done.

I also woke up to life with a one year old whose version of helping with chores = making three messes to every one that momma gets cleaned up.

So…on days like today…a day filled with the reality of life with small children & my own propensity to be impatient…

I am thankful for the sweet conviction of the Holy Spirit who causes me to repent of my frustration…reminds me how blessed I am to have a healthy, beautiful son who I get to stay home with…and I sit on the floor to play trucks.

My house is still a mess, but it will get cleaned later.

This is life in the little years…and I don’t want to miss it.

Happy Birthday Hudson!

Yesterday, August 19, was actually Hud’s birthday, but I didn’t get this posted…

Sweet Hudson.

Daddy & I cannot believe how quickly the last year has gone by! Yet at the same time, we have only the fuzziest memories of life before you were in it.

The last year with you has been such a joy.

You are indeed the sweetest little boy we know.

You are always on the move. Walking. Running. Climbing. “Jumping” (i.e. you move your feet back and forth really quickly)

When we turn on music, you dance.

You can now not only climb onto the furniture, but get off carefully (you turn onto your belly and slide off feet first instead of just diving off head first. Momma is very thankful for this development!)

You love airplanes, balls, trucks, blocks, daddy’s guitar, the piano, being outside, animals of all kinds, your blue blankies.

You are almost always carrying something around the house (just like Daddy when he was little). Preferably something in both hands.

You are so smart and you love to figure out how things work.

You surprised Momma the other day with you ability to put several the plastic shapes into the correct places in your shape sorter all by yourself.

You love to sit on our laps while we play.

Being tossed up & down in the air by Daddy & wrestling with Daddy are two of your most favorite things. Daddy is your biggest hero. When he comes home from work and Momma says, “Daddy is home!” you go to the garage door and look out the little window (clear pet door from the previous owners’ cat) and wait for him to come inside.

You give Momma the sweetest kisses & cuddles. When I am working in the kitchen you come and hug my leg & bring me one of your toys. When I get ready in the morning you go into my closet and hug my clothes 🙂 I guess maybe because they smell like me.

You really like to take showers with one of us. Probably even more than you like to take baths.

We are working on transitioning from formula to organic whole milk & so far it is going pretty smoothly, for which I am thankful. Next we’ll work on moving from the bottle to a sippy cup all the time.

You eat like a champ. Sometimes I think you eat as much as I do!

You take 2 naps a day. I think we could probably drop your morning nap sometime in the next month or so, but I’m afraid you’ll just want it back when Owen is born, so I am going to try to wait until after he is born. One big change at a time!

You are developing more of a love for books. You will sit in my lap and read and we can actually get all the way through a book before you get up to find another one or a toy.

You, our son, are the most precious blessing from the Lord. We are so thankful for your life. We love watching you grow. We beg Him daily for your salvation.

We love you Hudson Mark Stone! With all our heart.

this was the morning of your birthday. i am greeted by this sweet expression every morning. oh what joy!

A year ago today…

One year ago today…almost to the hour…Jordan came home and I said,

“Hey, guess what! I think I’m having real contractions!”

Twelve hours later, at 5:27am on August 19, 2010 our sweet Hudson was born.

I can hardly believe it has been a year!

I’ll do a real birthday post tomorrow.

I am also going to write out Hudson’s birth story…because I never did it…and I probably should. So maybe I’ll post that at some point too…

Monday Monkey

Hope you all had a good Monday!

Have I mentioned my son is a little crazy? One of his favorite things to do is jump off the couch onto pillows. I posted a video of it a while back. Lately he has also been climbing up onto our ottomans in front of the couch…the other day I walked in the room to find him standing on top of them.

I pray often, “Lord please protect this child from serious head trauma”.

🙂

He was at it again today…here are some pics of the fun. I couldn’t get one of him standing…he would jump off or sit back down right as I was about to take the picture

Kiddo loves to carry things around…the bigger and heavier the better…he has little baby muscles {grin} Tonight it was our couch pillows, which are like twice his size.

Pillows are so fun.

I am so thankful for this baby boy.

What happens when…

What do you get when you cross a bottle of nail polish similar to this…

With a toilet whose seat Momma forgot to close when she peed for the 9 billionth time today…

With a blue eyed baby who runs everywhere at 11 months?

Ha. Oh yes he did drop it in the potty.

Not THAT particular bottle of nail polish he is holding in the picture mind you! Ew. The potty bottle went straight into the trash.

Today I am thankful that I had just cleaned my potties & that I didn’t have to call the plumber to retrieve said nail polish.

Motherhood.

You never know what will happen next.

*Note:: this is a picture of my bathroom in real life. We are out of toilet paper in there and everything. Don’t judge me.

{Wordless Wednesday}

Still no camera cable. That little guy is really hiding! So instead…you get a video…yeah, I thought you’d be happy 🙂

I am the momma of an almost-toddler folks. He does still crawl…but less & less every day.

I mean really…who does he think he is!? 10 months old and walking for reals. Ca-RAY-zy.

He is in constant motion. Or asleep. There is no in between with the boy.

Not going to lie…sometimes he wears me out but this stage is SO MUCH FUN. I love love love my baby boy.

P.S. Sorry you have to turn your head sideways to watch this. I can’t figure out how to rotate it…

(Not Quite) Wordless Wednesday

This Wednesday is not quiet wordless because it needs a little explaining. You may not know, but our house is about a mile from a small airport in McKinney.

Its all small private planes that fly in & out, so it isn’t crazy loud or annoying, we can hear & see them from our backyard. Hudson has really been interested in the planes lately.

We were playing in the backyard this morning – gotta get outside early, before it is hot as blazes! – well it must be a good day to fly because we saw a bunch of planes! Hud love love loved it.

Every time he heard one take off he would look & jabber & point up at the sky until he could see it over the trees. Then we would watch it and wave bye-bye when it went out of sight.