Our Gift through the Blog

Here is our gift to you blog-readers... a video of the kids! Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

The Christmas Season

We went to get our tree the weekend after Thanksgiving- so excited to celebrate Christmas in our new home



Maddie loved matching Hudson. I wonder how that will last but I will take every opportunity I get to dress them alike!


In front of the decorated tree.

Baking Christmas Cut-Out Cookies with Grammy


2nd annual walk down the very decorated street in our town with our good friends




Family Pics that didn't end up on our Christmas card. Thanks Cody and Meesh for taking these!

Thanksgiving 2009

The kids with Nano and Papa

Hudson rolling the the truck with Papa

Hudson and Daddy patiently awaiting dinner

Aunt Meesch is always ready and available to color with her niece

Maddie helping make her dairy-free mashed potatoes... no butter, no cream.. I don't think she actually ate it but at least she was involved and thought she was eating what we ate.

"The Monkey" in the oven! Maddie saw the turkey cooking for the first time and called it a monkey! We jokingly called it that with her a number of times until I started worrying about what she would think when Nano started carving into it... and then since I have been calling Maddie "monkey" lately (because she acts like one) I began to feel that calling the turkey we were about to eat "monkey" was wrong on several levels. It made for a funny memory at least!

Since today is Christmas Eve, I thought I should finally do a little Thanksgiving post or else I will never get to it! Thank you to all the readers for checking this even though I haven't updated in a while. I am always amazed at the thoughtfulness and creativity of others on their blogs and started feeling that pressure that I need to become that way as well... hence no posting becuase well, being thoughtful and creative takes time and I never seemed to have more than 10 minute chunks of free time these past weeks. So, here we are again- no deep thoughts or revelations, but back to the purpose of why we started this blog... to share pictures with our family and friends and I will keep it at that for now :) Thanks for checking on us and reading through my unedited and hurried run-on sentences! We are thankful for you all!

Potty Time!

Maddie likes to do things in her own time and she finally decided to give the potty a try after months of talking about it and months of her refusing to sit on it. Here she is after the big moment (or "movement" haha). We are so proud of you Maddie!

Hudson 10 months

Well Hudson keeps on growing and changing each month. He surprised us all by finally getting on all fours last night! We are so proud of him because as you can see he has a lot of weight to push up :) We figured he would be crawling by Christmas but now we think we will shoot for him crawling by his 1st birthday. Can't believe how quickly this year has gone by!

Hudson 9 Months

This month's photos did not turn out too well in the blue chair because Hudson wanted to just slide (or dive) right off the chair! He weighs in at 25.2 lbs and is a big happy boy. He hasn't quite gotten to crawling yet but now slides around on his belly or rolls to get places. I am still enjoying not having to totally babyproof everything yet. He is a pro at saying DaDa and used to say it to both Ben and I but lately he has appropriately saying "Mama" to me. Well, it could be a coincidence but most of the time it seems to work out for the correct parent. I will go as far to say that I think he also uses "nigh-nigh" at bed time because he kind of whines that sound repetitively as he gets tired in the night. He also finally started sleeping through the night yay!

"Bell" and "Hook"

Our cute little "Tinkerbell"


Argh! What a pirate face!


Sooo cute to see her running down the sidewalk with her bucket.


A popular year for fairies! Maddie had a lot of twins running around!


Maddie wanted to smell each piece of candy. We unwrapped a lollipop for her (something she can eat within her food allergy restrictions) and she didn't even want to lick it! Instances like these make me thankful for her fear of new food because there was no battle at all over her not being able to eat the candy. She just wanted to smell it, count it, and feed it to Mommy and Daddy. Thanks Madelyn!

Tasha

We welcome our newest niece, Tasha Lee! Isn't she precious! She was born on Oct 30th in the Dominican Republic to Ben's sister, Jennie and her husband Miguel. We can't wait to meet you Tasha!

Pumpkin Carving

Love that Ben wore gloves for this!

Maddie enjoyed scooping out the seeds

She thought she was carving just like Daddy but she only had her plastic fork to work with

Finished product: the dog "Blue" from "Blue's Clues" and the paw print. Maddie loves Blue.. and Dora but Dora would have been more complex to carve


Taking pictures outside with the pumpkins... the kids no longer have pants on. In my defense, it was the end of the day, we live in CA and it was a warm night.


Ben makes a great Jack Sparrow! What a handsome pirate! Maddie kept chanting "Hook Hook Hook" after she got over her initial fear of Ben wearing the wig and growling "argh."


Look out for some more of the kids in their costumes... Maddie thinks she is going to be "Bell" (Tinkerbell) but wearing a pink fairy costume and Hudson will be a pirate (Maddie calls him Hook). Such fun dressing up!

Fall is Here!