Happy Birthday Cooper!

On Monday, Cooper turns 3. We had his party today and it was a blast! I chose a carnival/circus theme and I had a lot of fun planning the details of the party. I had it at a really cool place.....a place that had so many neat things inside that I didn't really have to do a ton.

Fresh popcorn!

A photo op......I have a ton of good pics of our guests but I don't have time to post them all.Free tattoos for everyone!

I was so excited that my college friends could all come! It's pretty rare that we all 4 make it to a birthday party at the same time since we are a bit spread out and there are now 9 kids between us.

Riding the roller coaster..............and playing games in the arcade.

Hudson and ColtonCooper with mommy and daddy

With Aunt Pearl. She did such a good job working the popcorn machine!

I could NOT have done it without these two....or any of my family for that matter. Everyone helped with cooking, taking pictures, applying tattoos, and anything else that needed to be done. Thanks so much!

If you live in the metroplex and ever need a cake lady, let me know. She lives in central Arlington and she is amazing!! She's been making cakes for us for a long time. In fact, she made our wedding cakes and we've used her for pretty much every shower I've hosted and every party I've had. Her cakes are delicious and are truly pieces of art!Brothers!

He was so giddy when everyone was singing Happy Birthday to him!Make a wish!

He got lots of fun toys.

Thank you friends for coming to our party!

Potty Training

Potty training is probably one of my least favorite duties as a mom. I had such a hard time with Hudson. Granted, I was miserably pregnant with Cooper and didn't feel like messing with it...but it still proved to be a daunting task for me. I really have not been in a hurry to potty train Cooper. I knew for sure I'd wait until his 3rd birthday and possibly even this summer to start. Like my pediatrician once told me, "they are all trained before they start kindergarten so who cares anyways?" So, so true! The last few days, monkey has been showing some signs on his own that he's ready. The other day, the boys were in the bathroom and Cooper kept saying "me go potty" so I put him on and guess what? He went. Before this, he had only gone one time and I think it was a fluke. I put him on right before bath and he went but after that he showed no signs of being interested. Yesterday, he went 4-5 times. He woke up dry today and when I took him, he went. So, looks like we are starting the official potty training phase. His first time in pull-ups.

He was pumped about the Lightning McQueen pull-ups. This morning after he went potty, he asked for "cars." What a big boy!!

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One huge advantage of having boys born in the same season is that you get to hand down clothes. Don't feel bad for monkey, he gets his fair share of new things but it's also so nice to open a big bucket and find loads of pajamas and basics like khaki shorts. This orange shirt brought back some memories for me. Hudson wore this shirt not long after Cooper was born. I took some pics of them together and wanted to take some of C to compare at this age and see if they looked similar. He wouldn't cooperate with me yesterday - guess a photo session wasn't on his agenda before school. Oh well, another time maybe.

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Today, Hudson is under the weather. It actually started yesterday. I could tell that he wasn't feeling great but he went on to school and Mad Science but by late in the afternoon he was really dragging. He kept complaining that his leg hurt and he just wanted to lay around. By evening, he had 101 fever and this morning it was 99. I decided to keep him home - there goes the perfect attendance award (just kidding!)- so I'm hoping he gets better soon. It's such a rare thing for Hudson to be sick. He's always such a healthy guy!

Daylight Savings and other Monkey Business

I'm probably the only person on the planet that loves Daylight Savings! (and based on all the Facebook status updates I'm seeing I do believe this is the case!) I've said it before, but spring is by far my FAVORITE season!! I love this time of year.

1. I love that it stays light longer and we have more time outside. It does make it more of a challenge to steer the boys inside (because even though it's still light outside we do need to stick with our schedule of baths and bedtime) but it's so worth it!

2. I love all the pretty flowers that start to bloom. I especially love the Bradford Pears in my front yard right now.

3. I love spring clothes......it's so much easier and faster to get the boys dressed. No coats and layers!! I'm a huge fan of capris and sandals! (for me, not them)

4. For the past few weeks, Monkey has been waking up at 6am. That's right people, 6 o-clock in the monin'......even on weekends. So, this lovely change in time has caused monkey boy to sleep in. In fact today I had to wake him up so that we could take Hudson to school.

(he is so tired that he didn't even wake up when I walked into the room. He's usually a very light sleeper and I can rarely walk in without him hearing me)

Hello Spring!

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2 Silly Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.......

Lately, I've become a pretty big fan of Craigslist. I've sold a TON of stuff on it lately and a few weeks ago we bought Cooper a brand new mattress for $50 on it. This lady was selling because her daughter had outgrown her bunk bed and wanted a full bed and this mattress was on the top bunk and was not used. Pretty sweet! So, it's currently being stored in our house for a few more days until the new furniture arrives and we can begin using it. In the meantime, I'm all about pulling it out when my kids get stir crazy. They jump and have a grand ole time.

I'm sure the boys will hate me one day for posting pics like this. We'll just consider it payback for the time I took Hudson to his 3 year wellness checkup where he totally embarrassed me to death. We were in one of the rooms waiting for the doctor and a very large nurse walked in to get some basic info from me. In the loudest voice he could muster, he looked at me and said, "mom, does she have a big body?" You can not even imagine how thick the air was in that room. Oh, good times!

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Hudson is the Star of the Week in his class and he was pretty excited to take his poster to school and share it with his friends.

On Friday, Cooper and I took cookies to Hudson's class to celebrate his birthday. Here is the class singing to Hudson and look at monkey right there......wanting to do just what brother does!

(by the way, I don't encourage the full button-up situation that Hudson is sporting. I try to tell him that it's cool to leave the top button undone but he won't. So, just in case you are wondering...it's ALL HIM!!) He's pretty adamant about it. Maybe he knows something I don't.

Happy Birthday Woggy!

For those of you that don't know, Cooper calls his brother Woggy. We are not real sure how that even started (although you know he has some speech issues so it could be as simple as that!) but even now, we often refer to him as Woggy.

Today Hudson turns 6 years old. He's growing into such a handsome boy! We love you buddy!

Yesterday, we had his party at the Lego Center in Southlake. Hudson is a huge fan of Legos so we knew that this would be a hit for him.

Before the party. Do they look excited or what?

Cooper with the Lego Man. There were so many neat Lego creations all around the center.

Waiting for our guests to arrive.

Cooper with Mimi and Grammy.

Once all of our friends arrived, the kids were all sworn in as knights and we were taken to a room where the kids started to build lego swords. The swords were made and then they slayed the dragons.

Then the kids built a big lego wall around the mama dragon.

Lots of teamwork!

Next we went to the party room.

Can you tell there is a little boy that is really excited about cake? He's been asking for cake all week.

We love you Hudson!

They even had his name spelled out in Legos.

So excited about his gifts.Before the kids left, they each got to pick 25 Legos from this wall as their goody bags. It was great!

I will say that this was probably the easiest/less stress party we've had. They were super organized and the party just flowed perfectly.

Thank you to all our sweet friends that came to celebrate with Hudson (and we missed those of you that couldn't make it!) We had a blast!!

Friday's Favorites

I haven't done a FF in a while so I figured I'd think of some things to list here.

1. The website Relish! - For some time now, I've really been trying to plan a weekly dinner menu and purchase everything needed each week. I know some of you are great shoppers and can shop every 2 weeks but I just can't seem to get that to work. I buy too much produce and there is no way to get that to last two weeks. I'm okay though with my weekly shopping trip. I make a list and purchase only the things on that list. I think as long as you don't impulse buy then you are okay. Anyway, I found that I was spending a ton of time looking for recipes and trying to figure out what we would eat each week. The website has made my life SOOO much easier. For just $7 a month, you can choose weekly meals that come with the recipe and the full grocery list. It's the best! Give it a try. I think you will find that it saves you a ton of time and money in the end.

2. Oriental Trading- Not only have I used OT for Hudson's school parties, I have also used them for our birthday parties as well. They have party packages with paper goods and lots of little trinkets that work well for goodie bags.

3. I LUVS me a good deal. Around Christmas time, I was looking at this Drill & Design activity toy but I really didn't want to spend $40 on it.....plus it required batteries which was going to break my "battery free" Christmas goal. This week, while shopping at the local JBF Sale I came across a gently used one for only $9. It has all the pieces and looks barely played with. The boys are really enjoying it!

4. 100 % Pure Fruit Pigmented Mascara- This mascara is made with lots of safe ingredients, including berries, which makes this mascara smell yummy! Everything I've used so far from 100% Pure is awesome! You can get some of it at Ulta too.

Happy Friday!!

The Chair

Let me start off by saying.......the thought of having another child right now sends me over the edge. I can't imagine bringing another baby into our lives at this point (although I've always wanted and dreamed of having several kids. That's another post) I know and understand that my plate is full and I'm really okay with where we are at as a family. (however, thoughts about later down the road and wondering if I should have had another child do enter my mind. Again, another post for another time) So, that leaves me to the point of the chair. In a couple of weeks, Cooper will have brand spankin' new furniture and will no longer be bound by the bars of his crib. With that said, we are selling our crib furniture. I really don't have strong emotional ties to that furniture. My sister gave it to me when her kids had outgrown it. I didn't pick it out. I didn't drool over it in the store window and have dreams about it before we purchased it. We were lucky to be given free nursery furniture and we gladly accepted it. My boys have both used it well. Although selling the furniture is a huge step in defining our family (and the fact that we no longer have babies here) it really won't be hard for me to part with it. However, I did not realize how hard it would be for me to sell my chair. This chair isn't fancy. It didn't cost a ton of money or come from a high end store. I don't necessarily care about the chair as much as I do the memories it holds for me. I think about all the books that were read, the songs that were sung, and the prayers that were prayed in that chair. It seems like just yesterday that we brought Hudson home and I sat in the chair the first night, scared to death. I remember looking at him and feeling so nervous about my responsibilities as a new mom. Every single day and night for the past 6 years (with the exception of some nights that they stayed with grandparents) I've rocked someone in that chair. I recall when Hudson was a few months old- he was hardly sleeping through the night. I was so tired and up with him a lot and I felt like I practically lived in that chair. I remember thinking "one day...... this will pass and I won't be so tired and I won't need to rock in this chair." So here we are 6 years later and time has flown by. This chair holds countless memories for me and today I realized just how hard it will be for me to let it go.

With Hudson, just a few months old.

Cooper in the chair- almost a year old.Some not so good moments too!
Hanging with daddy.......while Cooper throws a fit.

Bonding as brothers.

Deep down I know it's not really the chair that I'll miss. It's just the realization that we are entering a different stage in our lives. And if you know me.......then you know that change is hard for me to swallow.

Excuses Excuses!

I've got about a hundred excuses for why I haven't updated my blog. None of them are really good excuses.......sure wish I could say that I've been vacationing on a remote island somewhere but unfortunately that isn't true. I have been busy with two local consignment sales. Prepping clothes and toys for these sales is pretty time consuming but it's really worth it. Not only does it put a little extra $ in the wallet, but it helps clear out our closets and make room for the new. This time of year (transitioning seasons) is so fun for me! I love to pull out buckets of clothes for the boys and organize them in their closets. I tend to buy a large amount of clothes, on sale, for the following year so it's like Christmas around here when I pull it out and see what we have waiting for us. I know that my time is limited on buying "cute" clothes for my kids, especially since they are boys. So, I'm soaking up the fun while I can. I was downright giddy when I rediscovered some good deals I found last year......$30 sandals for Hudson for $5.99

A pair of shorts for Cooper.....for $1.99. I still smile at this one!! Of course, it's a rare find to pay $1.99 for anything at Gymboree and most of my deals were not quite this good but I still managed to save huge bucks! I'm looking forward to Spring now. (unfortunately, I'm not quite as giddy about the clothes in my closet!)

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It's hard to imagine that this little guy will be turning 3 in two weeks. We will soon be redoing his room and transitioning him into a big boy bed so hopefully that will go smoothly. We found out last week that Cooper qualified for the speech program through our school district and we are so happy! He will start after Spring Break (will be out for the summer and follow the same school calendar as H) and will go twice a week. We feel so confident that by kindergarten he will not need these services anymore. He's already come SOOO far!!

Hudson is enjoying school and recently started going to a Mad Science class once a week up at his school. He likes the experiments and hand-on approach to the class. He is getting so tall and he looks more and more like a big kid to me. A permanent front tooth is starting to come in so the awkward stage isn't far away. This young man will turn 6 in less than a week and he's looking forward to his Lego party on Saturday. He's really into Scooby-Doo these days. A quick story about him: we were casually playing one night and I can't remember what we were talking about but all of a sudden, Hudson took a big gulp (like a nervous gulp) and said that what we were talking about made him nervous. Then he said, "I think I need a ham sandwich to calm my nerves!".....it was the funniest thing! He sounded just like Shaggy! You'd have to hear it from him to really get the humor but I wanted to make note of it so that I didn't forget it. Hudson's little version of Wall-E from his blocks. He still continues to create some pretty neat things- most of which I don't take pictures of. I really do need to get better about that!

On Sunday, our lesson at church was about Time and how we spend our time. It really got me thinking about how I spend my time and my downfall is definitely the computer. I'd be embarrassed if I added up all the time I spent looking on the internet, reading blogs, or logging in to Facebook. I'm really thinking about giving all that up for a while and just updating my blog when I can (without spending time reading others) so that I still document our days but that way I can spend more time with my family. I'm striving for balance in all of these areas. We'll see how it turns out.