January pic

Lots of basketball being played these days...mostly gotcha, or as the kids call it now....knockout. So much fun when neighbors come down to join the fun!

Hudson keep track of the teams baskets and seeing if it equals that points on the board. He is such a good sport about coming to the games when there are often times no other little brothers. He cheers for the girls, shoots baskets at each timeout, and is always happy to be there. He is loving basketball!

It's happened! These two decided to not sleep together anymore. This means Hadley gets the room to herself and Hudson is moving to his room. I will miss reading, praying, and laying down with them together (plus it makes my bedtime routine a little longer),.

Hadley had a slumber party with a friend and Hudson is starting to miss her being gone. We thought it would be fun to give him a special night and take him to a movie. He loved all the attention and getting to see a "boy movie." We this real life monster truck movie that Hadley definitely would not have liked!

I was able to go up to school for Mrs. Mercer's birthday celebration. She always has the kids sit in a circle around the birthday kid so it was cute to see her sit in the middle and have all the kids say what they liked about her. Hudson said, "I just love her and she is so nice. I really love her." He has had the best kindergarten year and I think its mostly due to her!

Dance preview day! We got to see all the competition dances perform and get ready for competition season. Hadley's dance is called Sugar and Spice and is SO cute! She got such a great front and center  spot and gets to do a front walkover in it. Lots of pressure but she is pretty excited!

Hudson basketball

Hudson's basketball team played with a new league this year and it was a great switch. This one was a little more competitive, organized, and fun. The games were on Friday nights which was awesome and the boys played so well together. Hudson had some good games where he scored a bunch of points but also had such a great attitude in all the games. He LOVED it! He would practice at home and has really started to enjoy sports more. Basketball definitely ranks up there at the top right now with Karate. It also helped that he had quite a fan club at most games with Mama and Papa coming to all of them, Ryans family, Erins family, and Lolly and Pops coming to watch as well. We are excited for another season!

My favorite Christmas presents I have ever received

I have been wanting this artist out of Spain to do some pastel portraits of our kids for quite some time now. However, after emailing back and forth with her I just decided it wasn't something I could justify spending the money on after all we had just spent to repaint so much of the downstairs. So it was a huge surprise when I opened my present on Christmas morning to see that Matt had purchased them for me. No, it wasn't the portraits because he wanted me to pick the exact picture I wanted. Instead, it was a card telling me they were paid for and I just needed to pick the pictures. So we spent the next day deciding on what age and picture we wanted and we emailed them over. It only took a few weeks to get them back and I cried this morning as I opened my email and saw these beautiful pastels of Hadley and Hudson at 4 years old.  I absolutely can hardly wait to see them in person! 

*** updated.... the portraits are in, I got them framed, and we picked them up and hung them today. I can't quit staring at them!

Poor Hudson

Hudson has always had lots of issues with his lymph node on the right side of his neck enlarging when he gets sick. Even the smallest cold will cause it to get larger. However, this particular time we had had no illnesses, no cold, no allergies, and no sore throat but his lymph node was getting bigger each day. I sent his pediatrician an email and he responded that it was not a problem and it was just the lymph node having trouble draining. A few days went on and we went from these pictures....

To these. I started to get more concerned when he was acting a little lethargic and his lymph node was extremely sore to the touch. I emailed his Dr. again and sent these pictures this time. He responded that he wanted to see him that day. So, again, no fever and no other symptoms. Yet, when they tested him for strep it came back positive. So strange. He has never had strep and neither have any of us. Thankfully, we got on some antibiotics and it started going down within a couple of days. I had never heard of a kid having strep with zero other symptoms...especially not even a sore throat!

Snow Day!

We've gotten lucky the last few years to at least get one good snow in the winter season. That's about perfect for me...I love to see the joy it brings the kids to play in the snow but I am fine to not have it stick around! I thought we still had snow gear from last year but I didn't realize how much the kids had grown and it ended up being to small for each of them. We made do with what we had and the kids had fun anyway. This was the first year we have had a trampoline in the snow. The kids had so much fun jumping in the snow, having a caged in snow ball fight, and pushing each over. I was a big baby and took the pictures from inside the house so this is the best I got! 

There wasn't really enough snow for sledding so they played outside on the trampoline until their noses and fingertips couldn't take it anymore. They came inside with their red noses wanting some hot chocolate. We made hot chocolate, sat at the counter, and talked about how fun that was. I love these times so much. When there is nothing open, nothing to do, and we can just hang out together and have sweet conversations. They fight a lot but its at times where they realize they have nothing else to do but play together that they seem to get along the best.