the perfect fourth birthday...

balloons. presents. homemade birthday banners. family. streamers.

& your very own playmate to spend the whole day with...

mimi came for hudson's birthday & what a treat it was.  we all celebrated @ breakfast (presents & balloons!), & lunch (cake!), & played with all of his toys outside that afternoon, but in between he had the gift of having mimi all to himself all day.  they colored, drew pictures, played music, had tic tac toe tournaments (X vs O, M vs H, K vs C, & on & on...), & read books for hours.  it was a little guy's dream.

{if you're wondering how many more posts i'm going to devote to hudson's birthday, i agree - it's been alot!  ha!  but still haven't posted pics of his party, yet...  interestingly enough i've had quite a few lessons that have come in his birthday season, like the one from this post - that all kiddos REALLY want, & this above candy, stuff, presents, tv, whatever... is time.  time with those who love them.  this because the time IS the love.
& thanks for the lesson, mom :) }

rainboots

a few weeks ago, mimi was here.
& she bought hudson & i rainboots.

i've been ooogling rainboots for about a year now without purchase.  who says kids should be the only ones splashing in puddles?

hudson's are in the closet for christmas, but mimi said i could have mine NOW.


this is like a special treat because, as my sister & i like to loving remind my mom - she used to save pretty much everything purchased from september to december for christmas.  want some new socks?  sure!  we'll buy them & you can get them for christmas!  like that cute shirt @ the gap?  let's get it & you can unwrap it in 3 months @ christmas!
haha!!!
so in celebration of not having to wait on the boots, i wore them around the house WITH my capris.  i almost wore them to joann's (capris & all), but it's still a tidge hot here (roll of the eyes).


otherwise i totally would have.


as soon as it cools down into the frigid 80s, these are going to be my new bffs.


skinny jeans + rainboots & who cares what shirt!

back from the road

so i'm finally back home. i've been out of town for almost all of july & i really cannot believe the month is almost over. what your parents tell you is true - the older you get, the faster time seems to go by. weird isnt' it?



anyway, after sleeping for 12 hrs friday night (thanks to my sweet, sweet hubby), i decided to spend the rest of the weekend mostly resting. well, you know all the rest that you can possibly get with a 3 yr old & a baby :) basically, what i mean is i didn't really unpack or attack the laundry piles, so that's what i've been up to today. & yes, it took a grande, nonfat caramel macciato to make me feel up to the task (thanks again to said sweet hubby).



miss holland amelia (or holland-melias, as hudson calls her) has become fascinated with rolling over & over & then getting stuck which would be great if she didn't need to sleep. i had forgotten about the stage where they finally get the hang of rolling & then get stuck & not sleep. it's like she really wants to sleep, but her body is compelling her to roll over & over. kinda funny. kinda not.



mr hudson has become fascinated with seeing just how far he can creep over the line of disobeying with out getting a spanking. it's testing me. it's trying me. i may have no hair left. he's such a stinker & seems to have some kind of spanking quota which he must fill everyday. in between stinker-y activites he's just as punky as ever & that's why it's so darn hard to spank him!



besides all of that, it's peach season in the hill country & it just so happens we have THE BEST peach tree in kerrville. mom & i & hudson (& some neighbors!) picked & picked peaches last week & they're still dropping like crazy. & when i say hudson picked peaches, what i mean is that he got all the bad ones & threw them into the creek with such gusto that he ended up throwing himself into the creek & getting covered in mud. then we took a break to feed the fish & he fell in again (this time just wearing underwear due to the muddy clothes), which scared me to death & he found hilarious. that's when we just gave up & mimi jumped in so he could go for a swim.



and going back to the peaches, i'd like to say that we made peach preserves for all of the family (sort of in honor of memaw as she used to make them), but the reality was that mom did it while i wrangled children.



i did bring lots home, though & felt quite the old farm wife while boiling & slicing & getting them ready to freeze. i'm pretty sure "old farm wives" canned rather than freezing, but i didn't let that stop my domestic fantasy. also in the domestic fantasy list, i will be making lots of peach & blueberry cobblers with crumble toppings. i LOVE crumble toppings. Oh.SO.Good.

Holland & cousin Piper (1 month apart)


Attempt @ getting all 4 little cousins in a pic...



We took a quick trip to Boerne & ate @ The Bear Moon Bakery - mmmm! Please go there & please get their house-made Scottish Oat Bread.



Pretty, pretty flowers sweet hubby sent for our ninth (wow!) anniversary last week...



Mimi & Hudson @ Cracker Barrel (hudson's new fav bc he can order scrambled eggs!)


okay, back to laundry. here's to a happy rest of july.

misc.

okay well, mimi's driving me crazy again to post something new. i believe she wrote something to the effect of "i know my grandson does about 10 million cute things an hour & i want to see them" followed by a plethora of exclamation points (or "ex-lation points!" as their known around here - hudson is into punctuation these days).

the problem is that i just don't have much inspiration to write. or rather, i have about 10 posts already started in my head, but they haven't been developed. i believe the technical term is something about the baby taking all of your brain cells, but i'm not really sure...
and on that note, this was one of the things i thought to blog about this week - how i was writing in my journal about this pregnancy taking more out of me than i was expecting. the funny thing was that i realized i feel the same way about being a mom!! i don't think anyone can prepare you for the giving of yourself that goes into motherhood. of course, the flip side being that the darn little things always end up giving way more than they take, but you don't always remember that in the middle of the poopy diaper. i'm so very thankful to be a mom to hudson & now to this new little one & i'd never change it for the world, but it has been a most incredible challenge!
didn't some guy talk about loosing your life in order to find it?? :) (maybe mary taught him that one!)

okay, & i also wanted to post on how the other night clint & i were putting hudson to bed & he picked out this book called "My First Word Book" that can get rather lengthy as he often likes to talk about each item on the page. clint quickly said "oh, how about another one?", hoping to divert his opinions, but hudson quickly clutched the book to his chest and announced, "but First Words, i love it!!!". how could you argue with that?!

well, that's really all i can think of @ the moment & i've got to hop off of & go get things ready for small group. we're having crepe night, ala clint harp! YUM!

but i will leave you with a few pictures, because we all know mimi, that's what you're really here for :)





**these were taken with the new camera (except old, old - 1960s) clint got off of ebay. i'll have to tell/show you more when i find rest of them on the computer...

happy thursday to you.

mimi saves the day... i mean the week & first haircut

my mom was here this past week, & i cannot tell you what a blessing that was to us. as she drove home on friday, clint & i were talking about how she always seems to come right @ the perfect times. i wonder if you get some kind of radar when you become a grandparent that goes off when your grandson is about the drive your daughter to the funny farm. maybe it's evolution or something.

speaking of that rotten grandson, here he his getting is first haircut this afternoon. and by the way, i don't really think of hudson as rotten, i just think it's funny to say that. and besides, it's not his fault his sibling is sucking all his mama's energy, making discipline even harder. it could be considered his fault however that he doesn't seem to care much about being sent to timeout or even spankings for that matter, but i'll save all of that for another post :)

the beginning...

this was what we like to call a "three popsicle haircut". started with an orange, slurped down a blue, & finished up with a red before it was all said & done. what can i say? the little man knows how to work the system.
*btw, yes that's a moose tshirt clint is sporting.

"take a little off the back, would ya?"


"not too much off the top."




view from the back & on to the blue popsicle


i believe this is when hudson turned to me & said "i need anudda one!".


nearing the end...


and finished product - good job daddy!!