Happy Halloween!

Since Madison's birthday is on Monday, she decided that she wanted to have a Halloween Birthday Party this year. So Halloween morning we got dressed up and ready for the party. Fortunately we had the space and were able to have it at the house this year. Kids started arriving all dressed up and ready to celebrate Madison's birthday. We had a fun Halloween theme filled party. Kids decorated their own pumpkins, played games, ate spooky snacks, got a few tricks played on them, sang Happy Birthday and watched Madison open her presents. It was fun to see Madison enjoying being the center of attention and acting silly and embarrassed at times. All the kids seemed to have a great time...especially Madison! After her party she got to open gifts from the family. She was so grateful and overwhelmed by all the presents. She looked around and said, "Wow, it looks like Christmas in here!" And it truly did. Her friends and family were really generous, giving gifts that will keep her busy for many months to come! She was truly appreciative for the party, and she showed it. She gave us big hugs and said that it was the best party ever! Later when she saw me cleaning something up, she told me, "Stop Mommy, you've done enough today for me. I'll get it." What a sweet heart! She deserved everyone of those presents she got!!

After we rested and played for a while we recovered ourselves and got ready for the night. We went to a friend's house, The Montgomery's, this year for dinner and trick-or-treating. I could not believe that Madison wore her wig all night. She loved dressing up, as usual. Her favorite part was when someone didn't recognize her at first. It cracked her up! Hudson had a blast too! When he was being strolled around he just waved to everyone saying, "I am choo-choo" and blew his whistle just a like a train. It was too cute! It also didn't take him long to figure out the process either. He would run up the the door and yell, "Trick-Treat" and "Thank you", and then take off running back to his stroller for the next house. Finally he got a little delirious and started pushing his own stroller and making train noises and sound effects. They both had an extremely fun Halloween....and so did we!

Here is a slide show of the day and night.

Fall Parties, Pumpkin Patch, and Carving Pumpkins

It was a busy, yet fun week filled with lots of Fall fun! Earlier in the week we visited a new pumpkin patch this year. Since we waited until a few days before Halloween to actually go, it was slim picking for pumpkins. We still had a great time and managed to find one to take home. At the end of the week both Madison and Hudson had parties at their schools on the same day, at the same time. So we had to split up...Brian went with Hudson and I went with Madison. The each got to dress up and parade around their schools, followed with a fun party with lots of yummy treats and some activities. They had a great time...pictures below! Now we will stay in party mode as we prepare not only for Halloween, but also Madison's Halloween Birthday Party in the morning!

A Sad Day

Yesterday was a sad day for all of us as we said good-bye to our feline family member, Gabi. Gabi became my cat 15 years ago, but grew into our family pet over the years. He was always a wonderful cat, very loving and sweet, and extremely vocal....especially when someone was in the kitchen. We never had to worry about him biting or scratching anyone, even when the kids weren't always gentle with him. He was smart too! In his younger days I taught him how to sit and beg on command. Most people thought he was grumpy or mean because he looked like Oscar the Grouch, but he was exactly the opposite. As he started aging, he loved snuggling in laps and sleeping up at my head each night. We could tell this week that he was not doing well so we called our vet. The night before his final check up, we all took turns holding and petting him in our laps. He was not able to jump up on the bed anymore, so I picked him up and let him sleep up at my head one final night. Our vet, and friend, explained to us that it was just his time to move on and there was nothing we could do. So, Gabi lived a long, leisure life until his body just shut down this week. It's hard to imagine a better cat!

We will miss you Gabi!

After an emotional few days, Madison was already asking when we would be getting a new pet. We told her that we needed to take some time to get over Gabi and live without a pet for a while. She said, "Oh, ok. How long? Like 8 days?"

You've got to love the way kids think!

A Full Weekend

Friday afternoon was the Fall Festival at Madison's school. It was a fun event filled with face painting, bounce houses, carnival style games, prizes, food, and tons of candy!! Madison was not the only one who had a blast. Hudson enjoyed following Madison around and acting like one of the big kids! We even got to enjoy a nice chill in the air. It's really feeling like Fall now!

The next morning her school put on a Relay for Life 5k run and 1 mile Fun Run. We all went and participated. I ran the 5k, and the entire family ran in the fun run. Hudson rode most of the time, although he really wanted to run himself. Madison did great. We let her set the pace and we followed. She ran a little, walked a little, and finished the race!
It was fun to participate as a family!

This weekend also involved transitioning Hudson into his new bed. After about a month and a half long project with a friend, I completed his new toddler bed. Let me share a short story about this bed! When we found out we would be moving last month, we wanted to do something for the kids' rooms to make them seem new and special. We thought this would be a good time to make the change for Hudson into a big boy bed. He had developed a liking of pirates, so I thought we would get him a pirate bed set. After looking on-line at ideas, I came across a picture of a toddler pirate ship bed that I would have loved to have gotten him, had it not been $450 plus shipping. Although I had never built anything before, I didn't think it looked too difficult to put together, so I decided I was going to make this bed myself! I enlisted the advise and help from Mr. Morgan, the gentlemen from our church who helped Brian build our backyard swing set. He explained the basic frame of the bed was easy, the decorating would be the time consuming part, but if I was up for the challenge, he would be happy to help me with it. He agreed to cut the four pieces of the frame for me, along with a few other pieces, if I could handle the decorative elements. So after gathering materials, sanding wood, priming and painting a few times over the course of several weeks, we were finally ready to put it together. I explained to him that I truly wanted to do as much of the work as I could myself, so Thursday he guided me for 4 hours as I put this bed together. I used real tools, glue, a power drill, a little elbow grease and a lot of patience. It was a lot of fun to finally get this project complete and surprise Hudson with his new pirate themed room. He absolutely loved it. He kept saying, "Boat, please, boat, please, night-night!" The first day, I was worried that he would be trying to get in and out of it rather then sleeping, so I patted him to sleep for his nap. At bed time the first night, Brian and I just explained that once he climbed in bed for the night that he was not allowed out, and to our surprise that is all it took! All we have to do at nap or bedtime is ask him if he's ready to get in his boat. He says yes, climbs in and he goes to sleep. It's amazing!

I guess a captain stays with his ship!

Lily Update

This sweet little niece of ours is a trooper! She has endured intestinal surgery, feeding tubes, a respirator, a topical staff infection, and much more. Late last week, they removed all of her tubes and attempted to feed her. The attempts weren't too successful. She is still learning to swallow, and the doctors think they may have done too much too soon, so they will try again this week at a much slower pace. Hopefully things will go better this time! She looks great though. Its nice to see her eyes open in the picture above...looking right at her Daddy! Got to love the matching Ravens outfits!!
Thank you for all the continued prayers!

The Light Bulb Moment!

It's official...Madison is a reader!! In just a month and a half of Kindergarten she has gone from an emergent reader, reading simple phrases and easy reader books, to a full fledged reader, reading more fluently and reading books in their entirety. It has been amazing to see things "click" and to watch her develop a greater love of reading. You can see the pride and joy she feels now that she can read "real" books to us, rather then us reading to her. She told me the other day that instead of playing with her dolls in bed at night, now she is going to use her flashlight to read books to herself before she goes to bed. I can't argue with that!
She has a lot to be proud of, and so do we.
Way to go Madison!

The Little Artists

Below is a slide show of Madison and Hudson's recent art and school work. Madison loves to draw and has really been taking her time adding details to her drawings. She has also taken off with her reading and writing skills. She is already writing sentences on her own, using the letter sounds that she hears when sounding out words. It's so exciting to see her take off with these skills. I can't imagine where she will be by the end of kindergarten. Hudson has enjoyed bringing his art work home from preschool too. He tries to explain to us what is in each picture...most of the time he mentions "babies" and has chosen two favorite colors to use: blue and yellow. Enjoy the show! And if anyone wants to purchase one of these original masterpieces, let me know!!