Congratulations Graduate!

Our niece Angela had her 5th Grade Graduation this morning and she certainly looked grown up! She has had an amazing few years in elementary school, making mainly all A's and B's and always being her teacher's dream student! She graduated with a few awards and will be entering the Pre-IB program in Middle School, which is an accelerated college prep program. We are all so proud of her accomplishments and the young lady (or should I say, "tween", as all the preteens call themselves) she is becoming.

Congratulations Graduate!!

A Big Day for Madison

For the past 6 months, Madison has inquired about getting her ears pierced. We told her that when she felt like she was ready that we would take her to get it done. She quickly thought she was ready to go, until we let her watch it being done. Then she decided that she would wait until she was 10. As the months past, she decided she would do it when she was 6, then it was when she turned 5, and then she finally decided that she would be ready after her dance recital. So, we took her on Sunday. She told everyone that she was both excited and nervous...and so was I! Below are some pictures of the experience. As you can see, now she really looks grown up and beautiful!

Happy Memorial Day

A special thanks to family, friends, and those we don't even know who have served our country so that we can freely enjoy the life we live here in America.

Happy Memorial Day and God Bless!

Better Days for Hudson

This week was much better for Hudson now that he is feeling back to normal. He is getting so close to crawling. He rocks on all fours, pushes backwards and is lifting his hands...he just hasn't gotten the moving forward action yet. I know he'll be moving along soon enough! He also got to enjoy some time in the driver's seat with Daddy (while the car was parked) and seemed to enjoy it. There are some pictures below.

Madison's Dance Recital

This weekend was Madison's dance recital, and she did a fantastic job! This year she was able to do a ballet and a tap dance. I hoped to have put together a short movie with all the clips we recorded from the weekend, but we are having technical difficulties with our movie editing software. I know many of you are anxious to see her dances, so I thought I would just upload the clips for now. When I complete my actual movie, I will upload that as well. Enjoy watching our beautiful little dancer. We sure did!

Lemonade For Sale

Our neighborhood had a community garage sale this morning. Madison was so excited for an opportunity to make some money that she decided she wanted to have a lemonade stand. She also helped out by going through her toys and stuffed animals, and was willing to part with a bunch of things. She made about $5 to add to her piggy bank. All she wants to do now is go and spend it. So, we are working on the concept of saving. Here she is with some of her earnings.

Update

We went back to the doctor's office and Hudson seems to be responding well to the breathing treatments. The wheezing is gone and his oxygen levels were back up to 99%. We have to continue the breathing treatments throughout the weekend and then he should be back to normal next week.

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers!

Our Little Trooper

Well the sickness continues on for our little guy. After over three weeks of a yucky cough, Hudson began wheezing this weekend and running a low grade fever. Although we were just in the doctor's office a week and a half ago for pink eye, we decided to bring him back for another look. Good thing we did because he has a full blown ear infection in the left ear, with the right ear not far behind. Because of the wheezing, his oxygen level is a little low, so we had to bring home a nebulizer and give him breathing treatments (where we hold this mask over his face for about 6-10 minutes while he breathes the medicine) three times a day, along with an antibiotic. We will go back later in the week to check his progress. All this going on, and he has been remarkable. Not once did he let on that his ears were bothering him, and he even has been sleeping better....go figure! Despite all of this, he's still giving us smiles.

Say a prayer that our sweet boy gets better quickly.

Happy Mother's Day

My Mother's Day celebration started a few days ago at Madison's school. They had a Hawaiian Mother's Day Breakfast where we all dressed up in Hawaiian clothes, ate breakfast treats and received hand made gifts from our children. Although I almost didn't make it due to not reading the monthly bulletin yet, we made it in a hurry, and it was well worth it!! Madison made me a beautiful beaded necklace that she was so excited to give me. She did a great job!

On Mother's Day we hung out in our PJ's all morning while Hudson took an early nap. We did not make it to church since he has still been sick, but we did go out for a delicious brunch later in the morning. After we all rested, Madison and I got to enjoy a girl's shopping day while Brian stayed with Hudson. It was a lot of fun to spend some one on one time with her! Brian did the grocery shopping and the laundry so I didn't have to lift a hand all day...that was nice! Next weekend Brian is also taking me to dinner and a ballet to celebrate.

It was a wonderful Mother's Day and I'm so thankful to be a Mommy!

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers in our lives that we love and appreciate so much! Hope you all had a wonderful day!

Visiting Grandpa and Grandma

Last weekend we went down to visit Grandpa and Grandma in Orlando. Madison was excited to have a sleepover at their house and play with the dogs, Sparkey and Studley. We also got to go swimming a few times. Madison remembered how to swim with no problems and Hudson enjoyed his first real swim. As always, we all had a wonderful time and the kids enjoyed being spoiled by their Grandparents.
Below are pictures from our trip.

Hudson is 8 Months Old

Another fun month has passed by for our cutie! Not much has changed, he just becomes stronger and more efficient at what he has been doing. He is sitting up in his bath on his own and is a splashing machine. He went swimming for the first time and loved it....face under water and everything! He gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth. He can also spin himself around on his belly like a CD. His favorite thing to do is to stand up. He will hold onto anything and when you try to sit him down he stiffens his legs and cries if you pull him away before he was ready too sit on his own. With all this movement though, he wound up getting his first bruise on his forehead, but it cleared up quickly. Verbally he is making all sorts of new sounds and babbles. He unknowingly says, "uh-oh" from time to time. (Madison thinks this is funny!) His happiest times of the day are still when he awakens from his naps and when Madison comes home from school. They are becoming more physical when they play (wrestling, tickling, laughing, etc..), and Hudson actually bit her for the first time this week. I asked Madison what she was doing putting her fingers in his mouth and she said, "I didn't Mommy, he pulled my hand into his mouth and he bit my finger." I reassured her that he didn't mean to hurt her, and I don't think she'll let that happen again. At least not until he becomes stronger then her!

Below is a slide show of pictures I took of Hudson today. I decided to share them all so you could see a bit of his personality. Enjoy!

Happy 8 Month Birthday Hudson!!

Happy 1/2 Year Birthday Madison

Madison is half-way through her fourth year and it just blows my mind!! Over the past 6 months she has continued to grow into a spectacular little human being, constantly blowing our minds! Here is a list of highlights and accomplishments:

• Her new favorite thing do when friends or babies come over is to give away one of her toys as a gift to them. She gets such a joy out of doing this; it's truly an expression of how giving she is and how much she loves her friends.
• She still loves to be read to, but lately she enjoys writing just as much. She can sound out and write simple words and familiar names. She also enjoys stringing random letters together and asking someone to sound out what silly words she wrote.
• She can pump by herself on a swing.
• She hugged a dolphin for the first time.
• She can count to 50 by herself, and even to 100 with a little help.
• She learned to skip with both feet (she did a one-legged skip for a while).
• She finally pushed up to a bridge in gymnastics all by herself. (looks like a back-bend)
• She loves to sing and dance around the house. She pretends she is a rock star like Hannah Montana...although she's hardly ever seen her!! She's actually really good at improvising words to a song!
• Her favorite movie today is Enchanted, and she loves the song, "Big Girls Don't Cry" by Fergie!
• She's outgrowing her naps, so we now call it "rest time". She gets to look at books quietly in her bed. Sometimes she falls asleep, but most of the time she does not!
• Every night before she goes to bed Madison has the deepest thoughts and asks the most profound questions. Brian and I have called it "Deep Thoughts" by Madison. We really have to be on our toes and ready for some serious answers because we never know what she might ask!
• She has an incredible memory and ability to make correlations between people and life events. It's amazing to us!
• She's still the best big sister to Hudson, and he adores her!
• One funny thing she said this weekend: We were visiting my Dad and Denise this weekend and went swimming a few times. They have a large community pool along with a little "kiddy" pool. On the last day we were in the big pool and she said, "Can we go to "cat pool" now. Get it "Kitty" pool...."Cat" pool. We all cracked up!

It's been a great 6 months. We could not ask for more in our little girl. Happy 4 1/2 Year Birthday Madison!