Daily Giggle

Hudson now throws his head back, like I do, when he laughs. I tried to capture it but like kids tend to do when a camera appears, he quit. Oh well. Still a super cute laugh.

Kiss The Cook

Audrey inherited her Daddy's love of cooking. She's forever asking to help me in the kitchen and follows her Daddy in there every chance she gets. 

Today as I was updating the blog I looked over from the desk to find her at the stove, stirring away. I jumped up cause at first I didn't see her Daddy was with in feet of her. Heart stopped. But then I grabbed the camera as she looked over her shoulder and asked "Want a taste?" 

(Please forgive her messy appearance. This was after several hours on a play ground at her Daddy's soccer game.)

 

Audrey carefully stirring some home made pesto

Her favorite Disney princess is Tiana from The Princess and The Frog and I can't help but wonder if it's partially due to the fact that Tiana loves to cook, especially gumbo, with her Daddy.

 It's a movie full of life's little truths like "If you work real hard each and every day, good things are sure to come your way." And......

Game On

Barker plays soccer a couple times a week, both indoor and outdoor. But it's already so hot here that we probably won't be able to make many of his outdoor games. No need to give Hudson a heat stroke. So since it was a 3 o'clock game and only in the 80's or so we packed up half of what we own after church and headed to watch daddy play some footie. 

Last time I attempted this it was total anarchy and I ended up packing it in only 15 minutes into the game and heading for the safety of Target. Hudson had blown out a diaper and clothes so badly that it took all of my wipes. Then Audrey had to pee and there were of course, no restrooms. Then she wanted a snack but only after she had eaten all of the snacks I brought. So you can see why I was reluctant to take them again this week. 

But much to my surprise they were both angels. Audrey let me slather her down with sunscreen so she could play out from under our tent. I use all natural sunscreen and it doesn't rub in and disappear into your skin. So she looked like she rolled around in diaper cream. She didn't seem to mind and spent two hours on the playground with some of the other players kids.

And Hudson ate, of course, cause that's what Hudson does. And then he spent two hours playing on his mat. Audrey loved this mat and he's quite the fan, too. Oh, and his new favorite past time is sticking his tongue out at me. Nice.

Worst Mother Ever

OK, so this new kid in my house is trying to make me look like the worst mother ever. First, he wants to eat before 6 months. Then, being 4 months, he's done being swaddled and has decided he wants to be a tummy sleeper! Please don't call CPS on me. He has been busting out of swaddles for a while now, and yes, we use the straight jacket Miracle Blankets. And he's also been rolling over for a while. But now he's decided to combine them. Heaven help me. I'm so scared he's going to suffocate but no matter how many times I put him on his back he rolls over on his belly. But I can't blame him. Barker and I both sleep on our tummies. Well, I take that back. I sleep on my tummy. Barker sleeps on his wash board abs. Ugh. He always gets smaller when I get pregnant. Wanker.
Anyroad- So now I'm worried that when I take him to his 6 month appointment and they ask if he sleeps in his own bed and on his back I'll have to lie or be handcuffed and shamed.

Hudson turning tummy time into nap time

Do you have any idea how hard it is to do anything around the house when he falls asleep like this and I have to just stare at him to monitor his breathing? He doesn't care. He did this to me twice on Saturday. Stress! It doesn't matter if boys are asleep or on the move, they will find a way to raise their mother's blood pressure.

Fashionista

Audrey's sense of style hasn't exactly been perfected just yet. I've been really sick and by Friday I didn't even have it in me to dress poor Audrey. So this is what she came up with....

Her Minnie Mouse pajamas, Wellies, a dress up cowboy hat with a tiara, and her lasso. (She said she had to lasso the moon and pull it down and that her Daddy taught her how.)

She was wearing a tutu over all of this madness but I had her take it off because she reminded me of Ace Ventura in a tutu and Wellies.

 But once the Wellies were off the tutu was back on. So chic.

A No Go

At Hudson's four month doctor appointment the pediatrician noticed him eye balling and attempting to swat at Audrey's granola bar. She asked if I was giving him food yet. No! I exclaimed. I don't feed my kids food until 6 months. Their inherited air born allergies are bad enough with out adding food allergies to the mix for feeding them anything other than breast milk or formula before four months. But his pediatrician said he seems to be ready to eat and the AAP or whatever it's called has decided four months is the earliest it's safe to start. (Not that I trust everything they say) But I do trust my pedi and Hudson seems to want to eat. He does not like sitting with us at the table and not being able to partake. So at four months and one week I went against my better judgement and give a tiny bit of cereal a try. Barker wasn't here to witness the torture I was inflicting upon our child because he was at our Arlington house, as always, painting. So I had to go it alone. The first time we tried to give Audrey cereal she was less than thrilled. Really, she cried and passed out. And true to form, Hudson was no different.

 Hudson crying after I attempted just one bite

Hudson passed out

Audrey's first attempt at cereal

Audrey passed out after her second attempt

I emailed Barker some pics before I put our beloved monster to bed. Audrey and I spent the rest of our Friday night dressing up as ballerinas, dancing to Les Mis and Abba, and watching BBC. It was a good night. Then we went to bed and Hudson decided to get up like 6 times for some reason. Awesome. That will teach me to make my little man angry.

On Saturday night we were busy from sun up to sun down and the kids both had to go to bed two hours past bedtime so we didn't attempt cereal again. Ugh. I was dreading what that late bed time would do to their sleeping. And our good sleeping baby of course woke up a few times but luckily for us he'd pass back out with out much effort on our parts. I didn't even have to nurse him until he got up for the day at 6:30. Yes, that's still earlier than he usually wakes up but when you throw off a baby's sleep schedule by that much you can usually expect even worse results. 

Sunday Barker gave cereal a try with no better results. Hope our good sleeper doesn't revolt against us again tonight. I was really sick last week and missed the last two days of boot camp but Monday morning at 4:20 it's back to work. Sleep baby sleep!

Batter Up!

It's already pretty warm here in Texas so I figured I'd better get the kids out to enjoy the decent weather while I can, allergies and all. Soon it will be too hot for Huddie. So Jo arranged a toddler t ball play date. The girls wore their Rangers gear, hit some grounders and rounded some bases. Pretty cute. Pretty short lived. Oh well. 

Oh yeah, she brought her princess bat. She may be playing in the dirt here, but she's still a girly girl at heart : )

4 Months Old

Hudson is already 4 months old! Whoa! 

At his 4 month appointment he weighed in at 14 pounds 13 ounces. He may look huge compared to most of my friends that have much smaller babies just a week or two behind him but he's actually just in the 46th percentile for weight. He's almost 26 inches tall with puts him in the 68th percentile. So fairly tall and slim. No surprise there.

He does all the typical 4 month old things... plays with toys, laughs, smiles, stands when holding your hands, rolls over, etc. So basically, he's a dream. I even put him in the church nursery for the first time this week (we usually send Audrey to her class but keep Hudson, however I was alone this week so I sent them both to class and enjoyed the service all by myself!) and got no complaints when I picked him up. He's an easy baby except that he's had a little cough lately that wakes him up at night. Not so fun for me when he wakes up at 4 and I have to get up at 4:20. So glad I have a husband that will get up with him on nights that I'm only going to get 5 or 6 hours of rest.

Cefalu's Annual Crawfish Boil

The Cefalu's have started hosting a crawfish boil every year, just another reason we're glad they moved to Texas. I'm getting pretty bad about dragging my camera around now that I have two kids and all their junk to carry, but here are a few pics I took that day.

 Hudson napped when he wasn't eating.

 And we got to meet sweet Sloane. 

She's just 3 weeks younger than Hudson and the daughter of our friends John and Tiffany Bolton.

 Driscoll was in town before his extended trip to France. 

He was sure to get some time in with the kids.

 Hudson is a Driscoll fan cause he'll like anyone willing to feed him. Audrey liked him because he took her across the street to a bounce house at another crawfish boil. She had a blast.

 She also got to enjoy some time with Jonathan and Jamie's daughter, Kinsey.

And she played with whatever she happened to find.

 

That included some kitchen utensils Audrey Cefalu's nephew had on his blanket.

 Oh yeah, and then the most embarrassing part of the event was when we passed Hudson off to Tiffany's mom so Barker and I could eat....and he took that opportunity to pee on her. Ugh!

And Out of the Ashes.....

    Last weekend I took the kids to my bestie Jo's restaurant for Cam Cam and Grayden's 4th birthday fiesta. And what a fiesta it was! Anyone that knows Jo knows she throws THE BEST PARTIES. Sometimes we have to miss them because it tends to fall on the same weekend we go to Shreveport for Barker's alumni golf tourney. This year there wasn't a tourney due to an investigation of his fraternity. Boooooo. But hey, at least we got to hit up the party. And I'm so glad we did because that night their beloved Lazy Bones burned down. We were all so very sad, but no one more than Johanna and Adam. That place is their baby. We've shared so many happy memories there with Jo and Adam over the past 4 years. But now we have many more to look forward to at a new and improved Lazy Bones. We're so glad no one was hurt and we hope this tragedy seems like a distant memory for our dear friends very soon.

http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Fire-destroys-Grapevine-restaurant-147488735.html

Stop and Smell the Roses

My dad bought me a bunch of climbing roses last year and Barker planted them around the outdoor kitchen.

 He also planted some in the two flower beds in front of the house. They've really shot up thanks to all this rain! However the storms tend to bend them every which way.

3 weeks of Easter

We've been so busy lately, I don't even know where to begin. 

Our Arlington rental property has been very time consuming. Ugh. It's too annoying to even blog about. The only plus is that we've been able to spend lots of time with our besties that live just around the corner, and take TONS of clothes and toys to a woman in my mom's group that lost her home and all of her belongings in last week's tornadoes. My other two moms groups pitched in everything from clothes to a high chair, so much so that the family in need couldn't use it all and passed it along to Mission Arlington to disperse among other families in need. My 3 moms groups really stepped up to take care of this family. I have great friends and I'm convinced Jo can organize anything!

And over the past 3 weeks we've been to countless Easter egg hunts and parties at church, school, etc. I don't like for Audrey to eat much candy or sugar so I sent all of it to work with Barker. We're talking at least 4 pounds. She still has some Hershey's Kisses left from Valentine's Day, plus she had juice AND mini popsicles at Olivia's Saturday (two things so sugary I never buy them, making them quite the treat) so don't feel too bad for her.

I didn't care to bother with my camera so here are a few pics Jo took of H and A this weekend.

 Gray and Hudson, looking like siblings. 

It still cracks me up that Hudson got my biological dad's genes, with his light hair, skin and eyes. Not cause that's so unheard of, but because Audrey looks so much like me at 3 but with Barker's eyes and some curl to her hair. So we just kinda figured Hudson would look like her or maybe have darker hair. Arriving blonde was not something we had anticipated. Still waiting for it to fall out and grow back dark.

 

Audrey with the Easter bunny in Pantego. 

I've never had her sit with an Easter bunny before and she wasn't real keen on him, but she sucked it up long enough for Jo to snap a pic.

 

Not sure what this is about. She's pulling some funny face that makes her look like a totally different and apparently cross eyed kid, but it'll have to do. 

Today she and Barker are paying dearly for being outside so much lately. 

Allergy season has arrived.

Oh, and another way Barker will be paying for this weekend...he owes his daughter a pair of shoes. Even though she hunted eggs a thousand times over the past few weeks he took her out Sunday...IN THE MUD... and trashed her new shoes. She's worn them maybe twice. When he told me he was taking her outside I said 'Seriously? In the mud? In her new shoes? Not in the garage or on the porch?' I thought he would let her barefoot it or piggy back her. But no. She came back in two minutes later with her new shoes trashed. I tried 3 different methods of cleaning to try to salvage them but this is as good as it gets...

Yeah. I am not happy. Audrey loves shoes so she's less than thrilled as well. If he's going to trash her shoes I wish he'd have done a cheap pair like her flip flops. But not her new keds that she can wear with anything. (We had been at church so she had these on with her dress.) Ugh! Boys. They just don't understand the concept of taking care of things. So Audrey and I are going to Willow Bend tomorrow so his debit card can make it up to her.

But on the bright side, he did attempt to teach Audrey to play checkers. Hudson was taking forever to eat so by the time he got close to finished I got up to make a plate and there wasn't anything left but some cold baked beans and ham. Sigh. My slow eating child. So I was starving. The two bites of beans didn't hold me over. But Barker was nice enough to stop at Cracker Barrel on the way home (even though he hates that place) cause it was one of the few places that were open on Easter. While there he and Hudson tried to teach Audrey to play. 

Sorry they're so small but they were taken with my iPhone.

Easily Amused

 

In this house we're pretty big fans of Hudson's giggle. 

He does it a lot. 

Especially for his sissy. 

I placed him in his crib so I could put a couple of his books back on his shelf and Audrey decided to swat his mobile. He thought this was hysterical! So I filmed them laughing like this for over a minute to email to their Daddy at work. 

Sorry about the quality. I just recorded this on my phone instead of running downstairs for the camcorder.