My Sunshines

You are my sunshine

My only sunshine

You make me happy

when skies are grey

You'll never know dear

how much I love you

So please don't take

my sunshine away.

100th Day

Today in Kindergarten we celebrated 100 days of school! It's a big deal! We work really hard to work up to this number and then we just celebrate until we can't celebrate anymore when we finally get there ;) Here are some of the things we have been up to today:

We weighed bags of 100 items to see which was heaviest (fruit loops, Popsicle sticks, pasta, and "warm fuzzies") and made number 100 glittery glasses.

We popped 100 bubble wrap bubbles and did 100 exercises.

We ate 100th day hash and read Mrs. Bindergarten Celebrates the 100th day of Kindergarten.

We even had a balloon release and ended the day with Mrs. Hatch's one and only magic trick (stolen from other teachers who deserve way more credit than I do). It was hilarious if I do say so myself. And no, I will not be going out of tour to show off the fancy 100 penny trick. You'll just have to come visit my classroom on the next 100th day of school! Ha!

Now this energetic teacher is tired and ready for a relaxing weekend with the family! And we are hoping to get out in this beautiful weather for a walk! Hope you have a blessed one!

First Birthday Party: Cake Smash

I was worried about H not wanting to eat cake due to his sore mouth, but it went way better than I thought.

He wasn't really thrilled with the idea of sitting in his highchair without food in front of him. 

He also wasn't so sure about the birthday song.

He was pretty non responsive to it like this the whole time.

He went really slow digging into his cake at the beginning as if he wasn't sure what he was getting.

Thanks to my sister for all the cool pictures! She was our party photographer!

 He finally dug in & ate a lot! And made a big mess too!

Thanks to Uncle Jon & Uncle Trent for helping him out! 

The aftermath-I'm sure he had his fill of cake. I think that face says, "I can't finish this thing!"

First Birthday Party: Guests

H has two best buddies that are close to his age:

 Julian

and Ayden! 

They had a great time playing!

H also had some of his other favorite friends there like this little guy, Derek. Hudson was just a bit jealous that I was holding another baby and tried to pull my hands away from Derek.

These are H's cousins & friends. He is so blessed to have each one of them in his life.

I don't have pictures of every guest that was there, but I am thankful for every single one who was able to make it. I'm thankful for friends like Steven & Katie who made a one day drive from Dallas just to be there and all the others who drove from near & far. Everyone that was there plays and important role in H's life and more than presents or anything else we are thankful for people who take the time to care. And for those who couldn't make it, but care so much too-we love y'all!

Like sweet Katie said-this is as much about us making it through our first year of parenthood as it is H turning one! And she's right-we wouldn't be here today without the family & friends who love us so much ;)

Thank you to all of our guests for coming to celebrate H's first birthday! You made his day so special!

First Birthday Party: Decorations & Food

Yesterday we celebrated H's first birthday with family & close friends. In order to break up an extremely long post I'm doing it in sections. This is the invite I made for the party.

I knew the colors & prints I wanted to use for the party so I made the invite and then planned decorations after the invite was ready. A huge thanks to my friend Tawney for having them printed & shipped to me! You can't see the pearl finish on them in the pictures, but they are way cuter in person!

I made a birthday sign & tissue paper flowers in matching colors.

These signs are so easy to make with scrapbook paper and ribbon.

I wanted a way to display his monthly moose pictures, but I didn't really have a wall to hang them on so I decided to stick with my circles and put it on a ribbon to hang it across the room.

Our favorite cake baker in Owasso made H this cake! I love the way it turned out!  I didn't get any, but there are leftovers so I plan to have some soon!

And isn't his tiny smash cake adorable?

I framed several pictures & placed them around the house of different times in H's first year. This one is from his 1st birthday shoot.

I wanted H to have a party hat to wear so I made this one with fabric that I had bought on clearance a long time ago and had laying around. I just added a few embellishments & it was super easy! My sister covered a few more and made yarn pom poms for the tops so that H's little friends could have their own hat too!

This was the cake & drink table. We had sweet tea, lemonade (not pictured), and ice water to drink. We had chocolate covered pretzels to go with our cake!

The food table which consisted of cheese & crackers, chips & salsa, chicken salad sandwiches, little smokies, spirals, fruit salsa & cinnamon chips, and marshmallow dip. I also had jars of animal crackers & goldfish for the little ones.

I made little labels for the food on the computer & put them on cute scrapbook paper.

Hs favorite decorations were the balloons! He tried to play with them all day!I know he doesn't care much about what his party was decorated like, but it was important to me and I wanted to show how much I cared about his birthday by making it look cute & fun!

Snow Day, Doctor's Visit, & Birthday Dinner

This momma is very thankful for a snow day! Hudson had a really rough birthday (and week) so I'm glad I can stay home and be with him. We went to his one year well baby and check up today and here are his measurements!

Weight: 20lbs. 11 1/4 oz. (19%)

Hieght: 30 in. (58%)

Head Circ.: 18 1/4 (83%)

He is kind of all over the charts, but you are growing and that's what is important!Everything else checked out well too, except for one little virus he has (explained below). I'm thankful for an overall healthy little guy even though he gets an occasional sickness.

I also wanted to share a few pictures from his birthday dinner:

Hudson woke up from his nap feeling terrible so he pretty much got held most of the night. He didn't want to do anything but be held and he especially didn't want to eat. Ryan and I made spaghetti & meatballs because it's one of Hudson's favorites and we had a lot of family over to celebrate. Needless to say, it was kind of a sad celebration since Hudson felt miserable.

He acted a little better near the end of the evening and even played on his own for about an hour. I hate that his first birthday wasn't as perfect for him as I had hoped it would be. We found out today that he has a yucky mouth virus and that's why he is acting so fussy. I knew his mouth was bothering him, but we really thought more teeth were coming. Thankfully we are taking care of it and he should feel better in time to party on Saturday!

12 months!!

Hudson William, you are ONE today!

(you've had a rough evening so we had to make adjustments to get a picture!)

Here is your life at 12 months old:

We have a doctor's appointment later this week, but I'm pretty sure you weigh about 22-23lbs.

I'm guessing your height is 30in or more.

You are still wearing mostly 6-12 month things, but are slowly transitioning into 12 month clothes.

You are almost in a size 4 shoe, but we don't put you in them very often.

You wear a size 3 diaper.

You are a great eater and are totally on table food. You hate to be fed with a spoon or fork and want to be an independent eater. We are glad that you like food so much so you get to try everything! Your favorite is bread! You are really not very picky and eat whatever we put in front of you.

You still take bottles at naptime and bedtime, but we are working on introducing milk. So far you are really unsure about the cold, white liquid in your sippy cup. You prefer water and occasionally like juice.

Your sleep habits are finally getting better! For the past two weeks you have been sleeping SO much better! The last few nights you have slept 8 straight hours or more! Mommy knows that this may not last forever, but she's thankful to have it when she can.

You have eight teeth and have had a low grade fever today that we think may be a result of teething. I hate that you don't feel well on your first birthday-thankfully it was only for the later part of the day. Poor guy :(

You are a talking machine-a lot of it is still babble though! Right now your spoken words are dada, mom or momma, hot, and no no. You are working on toes and dog too. You also have signs that you use-finished, more, hat, hi, bye and yes sir. My favorite thing that you say is hot-you say it when you're by the stove or the fireplace or mommy's straightner. You cracked me up the other night while we were eating out and you told all of the waiters that their plates were hot.

You are still crawling everywhere or you walk by holding onto to one thing and then grabbing another. You really don't like to push your toys around or hold walking our hands. You want to do it all on your own so you mostly just use furniture going from one to another when you walk to walk. You are still working on it and that's ok. You'll figure it out when you're ready.

You love to play patty cake and peek-a-boo and you love music! You stop when you hear music and you love your toys that make music the most-especially your piano.

You love to give us things and then take them back and do it over and over again! I'm sure there are lots of other things that you do too, but these are the most frequent and favorite ones!

You are a social bug and love to entertain. When we go anywhere you are always wanting to play with the other kids, even if you don't know them.

I cannot believe that it's been a whole year since you came into our world. You were the sweetest, most precious, blue eyed, brown headed baby I'd ever met and daddy and I loved you more than we knew we could. And that love has only grown. This has been the best year of our lives and we know that it will only get better! Daddy and I LOVE you Hudson and we think that you are the best thing that happened to us. We pray that God continues to guide us as we raise you and that you grow up to be the man He wants you to become!

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY HUDSON!

Here you are one year ago today! You've grown & changed so much!

Halfway to 50!

I'm just teasing! I love my awesome husband! We went with a great group of friends and family last night to Buffalo Wild Wings to celebrate Ryan's birthday!

We had a great time and I know he is thankful for each and every person that came! 

These are the loves of my life and it's both exciting and crazy to have their birthdays one day apart! 

Kyle took the baby challenge! Ha! Hudson is going through a little phase about other people holding him.

And this little guy thought that the birthday song was all for him! He loved every minute of it! He was cracking us up!

Happy Birthday sweetheart! Thanks for just being you! Hudson and I love you very much and pray for you everyday that we may be the family you need and want. Love you more than I can say! Sorry for your late blog post...two birthdays in two days is a lot to keep up with!

Birthday Hat

I hope that none of my blog followers have deserted me due to my lack of existence. We are preparing for several birthday celebrations over the next week-including two of the most important boys in my life. And they are both big years in the birthday world-25 and the big ONE! So I thought I'd share a sneak preview of something I've been working on...

The big celebration hat looks a little something like this! Unfortunately for Ryan he isn't getting a customized 25th birthday hat and I'm sure he'll thank me later ;)

I hope you are staying warm if you apart of the 71% of the US covered in snow!

Playing Ball

This is one of Hudson's favorite things to do right now. I wanted to post it so I remember the time frame of when he learned this. I'm sorry it's probably not so entertaining for my faithful followers ;)

Little Man

Isn't he handsome?

I found this suit at the JBF sale for less than $10 so I had to get it! It's just starting to fit him and I think he looks all grown up! He really isn't a baby anymore...only 16 days until the big ONE!

what a year!

In January we welcomed the arrival of Hudson and our lives were never the same.

In February we dedicated him to the Lord and learned all about those sleepless nights!

In March this mommy went back to work and learned about balancing work and a family! I don't know how Ryan did it with school, work and a family!

In April we continued to learn about our little boy.

In May we had lots of celebrations with college and high school graduations!

In June Ryan got a new job and we moved away from Stillwater.

In July we settled in and I continued the job search.

In August I found the perfect teaching job and went back to work, but missed Hudson tons! Seriously Lord why do you bless me so much?

(I took this picture so they would know what it's not allowed to look like...)

In September Hudson started crawling and we haven't been able to sit still since.

In October we learned of Hudson's heart murmur and were reminded of how precious life is (although it is nothing serious).

In November we made Hudson's first trip to Texas and got to meet sweet little Emily!

In December we celebrated Hudson's first Christmas and have been reminiscing about how big he is! Our baby boy is growing up!

2010, you have been full of memories, new beginnings, and joy. But you have had your hardships too. We welcomed you by awaiting the arrival of our sweet baby boy and we wave goodbye awaiting the sale of a house. What will 2011 bring? Here's to hoping that we are better people and strive to be more like Jesus than ever before. 2010 you will forever have a special place in our hearts. May be we give abundantly and may we love unconditionally. Happy New Year!