Another weather filled day....

I tell you, I am so over the weather in spring here in Middle TN. It seems like we are having to hide out in our closet at least once a week. Today was one of those days. It started out with our st tornado warning around 5:45am this morning. Brad and I quickly got the boys out of there beds and headed to our "safe place". Luckly the storm passed very quickly and we didnt have any damage.
Soon after the storm we found out that not everyone in our town was so lucky. They have not confirmed if it was a tornado or straight line winds-but either way many people had damage after the storm.

The below photo was one I took from my bedroom window later this afternoon of some of the crazy looking clouds that passed over.

Austin was on safety patrol durring one of our closet adventures this afternoon. He had a big flash light in case the power went out and he had his bike helment on to protect his head. After he put the helment on he said "Mommy I safe now".

I am pretty sure that Austin is a trained storm spotter (you know like the ones they talk about on the news that sees the tornados or funnel clouds). Here he was looking out the window checking for storms. We have really been working on our potty training lately. He has been about 95% trained on number 1 but he wanted no part of going number 2 in the potty. Until this week and he has now gone 3 times in the potty and 0 in his pants. So what better time to go number 2 then the middle of a tornado warning when we are taking cover in the closet. I would so proud of him though for going like a big boy. After wards he decided he didnt want to put his jeans on.

After a fun filled day of hanging out in the closet off and on with 2 toddlers I decided on a quick and easy dinner (which also happens to be the boys favorite). We had a frozen pizza picnic in the playroom as a family. I snapped a few photos of our family dinner and this is the best one (yes, that is my wonderful hubby acting silly).

Hudson had his 1st real date...Play date that is

Hudson had his 1st play date today that was just for him. Normally he plays with a brother or sister of one of Austin's friends that come over for a play date. But not today these little guys came over just to play with Hudson. Twins-Madison and Michael who are less than a month younger than Hudson came over and we had a big time.
We broke out the kangaroo climber this weekend from the attic and the kids had a blast on it. The below photo is the only one I got of all kids that were here. The twins brought there big sister Riley who is 7 with them (school was out due to weather-but thats a whole other post).

Then Hudson decided to show off with a fireman hat. Look at Michael and Madison's face, looks like they are thinking "whats wrong with this guy-I think he might be crazy".

Now the twins are pretty sure that Hudson is one crazy boy!

And then Hudson thought it would be a good idea to walk around with the hat covering his eyes.

Over all I think he had fun at his first play date-he actually had to lay down right before his friends left. So I think he partied hard. Cant wait to have many more play date with these little guys and there mommy!

Easter Morning

On Easter morning we awoke to find that the Easter Bunny had left quite a mess around our house and yard. Below is a photo of our back yard. The bunny had eggs every where and had left foot prints through the house.

You can see below that the bunny took the eggs down from the tree and filled them with treats for the boys.

When Austin woke up on Easter morning he was greeted by a note from the Easter Bunny that insturcted him to follow his foot prints and trail of carrots and eggs he left behind to find his Easter gifts.

The bunny also left some items for Austin to put on...As seen below he had to wear the rabbit ears.

Austin was too funny about the mess the bunny left behind-he did not like the idea of a mess.

Below Hudson is hot on the trail that the bunny left behind.

Daddy is determined to find what that silly rabbit left for his boys.

Looks like Hudson did a good job following the tracks to his basket.

Austin did not know what to think about the bunny leaving his and Bo-Bo's easter baskets in his house outside.

Look at my happy boy!

Austin had a blast finding all the eggs that the Easter bunny had left hidden for him. He found them in all kinds of crazy places.

After the boys had there fun we headed inside for some yummy and "themed breakfast" that I had tried to make. I could not find the bottles that I needed to squert the pancake batter onto the pan to make them perfect so I had to come up with an alternitive. As you can see below they didnt turn out quite as cute as I hoped but they were still cute little bunnies.

I think over all the boys had a great Easter! Hopefully we will have many more to come and they will have great memories.

It was the night before Easter...

This year I decided I really wanted to try and start some holiday traditions that we can carry on throughout the years with the boys. Austin is getting a little older and getting into each of the holidays more than before. For Easter we did the Resurrection Eggs to help the boys learn the true meaning of the holiday. We also started some Easter Eve traditions. We had the boys take some carrots outside and leave them for the Easter Bunny. Santa gets cookies so its only fitting that the bunny gets carrots.

I gave Austin the carrots to carry outside and he decided he better taste them and make sure they were good enough for the Easter Bunny!
Austin made sure that the carrots were placed just right around the tree out front.

After the carrots were all out we hung some empty eggs in the tree in hopes that the bunny would take them down and fill them with fun & yummy treats.

Hudson had fun helping too!

Hudson made sure that all of our eggs were ready to go in the tree.

Here is Austin showing off all of his hard work.

The unthinkable happened....

My Friday morning started out much like every other morning this week. The boys woke me up bright and early and we headed to the playroom to play and watch some cartoons. We talked to Ma-ma-ma and Papa on the phone. Followed by Austin begging for ice cream with sprinkles for breakfast-once he realized that was not happening he moved on to wanting cheese puffs. After going back and forth with him about it, I decided to give in and let him have some cheese puffs. Who cares that its only 7:15am-whats it going to hurt? For those of you who have not been to our home we have a rather steep stair case of 15 steps all of which are wooden and we have hardwoods downstairs as well. We have what seems like 15 baby gates through our home. One of which blocks off the boys rooms and play room from the catwalk and stairs. Well, I headed down stairs to grab Austins cheese puffs (and thought the gate was closed and latched good). I got the bowl out and started to pour the cheese puffs into it when I heard it. Bump, bump, splat (or at least that's the way it keeps replaying in my mind). I knew what had happened. One of my babies fell down the stairs. I really thought it was Austin (thinking he had climbed over the baby gate). But no, when I came around the corner I saw my sweet baby Hudson laying face down on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. I can not explain the thoughts that were running through my head at that moment. It took a min. for him to start crying, I quickly made sure that he could move his neck and legs before I picked him up off the floor. At this point he was screaming ( and i really wanted to as well). I was trying to check all of his body (arms, legs, hands, feet) and make sure that he was able to move everything. Visibly he seemed to be OK. But I wanted to take no chances with my baby. I called my mother in law (as I was still trying not to panic- remember Brad is still out of town) and tried to tell her what had happened (Hudson was still screaming). I didn't know at that moment if I should take him to his Dr's office or to the ER. When I told her he fell down all of the stairs she quickly told me she would meet me at the ER. I hesitated a min. before I made the call to Brad to tell him what had happened. He was in another state so there was nothing he could do. I quickly grabbed the boys and we headed to the ER. We were still in our PJ's (looking back I should have got a picture of Austin in his bug PJ's with his cowboy boots holding his cup of milk and bag of cheese puffs). When we arrived at the ER Grandma was there waiting on us and we were quickly taken to the back.

Hudson was acting fine and seemed to be OK. He started getting some goose eggs that were popping up all over his little head so I opted to have a CT scan done of his head just to be sure that he really was OK. The Dr. came back and told us that there was no sign of anything serious, only some soft tissue swelling (the goose eggs). We were instructed to keep an eye on him and to check on him every 2 hours when he was sleeping. Debbie took Austin home with her and Hudson and I headed home from some little R&R and extra TLC.

Grandma and Austin baked some cookies and brought some by the house and Hudson loved them. They along with Grandpa came by later that night after a trip to ToysRus with a toy for Hudson.

Amazingly, Hudson doesn't have any bumps or bruises on his little body other than a few bruises and one goose egg left on his head. I can honestly say yesterday was the scariest day of my life so far. I truly do not understand how my sweet baby boy is OK. Other than the fact that some one had to be looking over him and protecting him as he fell down those stairs. I pray that I never have to experience anything like that again in my life. It really could have turned out so bad, he could have broken his neck or back or worse. But he is fine and back to climbing on everything he can. We all read about things like this happening to other people and think to our selves how could this person let this happen to there child. I can say now that it happened to us and that we had every safety measure in place to keep it from happening. The only thing I can figure is that for some reason the gate did not fully latch when I closed it-so Hudson was able to get it open. So please, take the time to check, check and double check things just to be 100% sure. Also, take the time to hug and let your little ones or other loved ones know how special they are and how much you care about them, because you never know when the unthinkable could happen to you.

Weekly happenings 4/10-4/16/11

We had a pretty busy and eventful week around our house this week. Last Sunday we did our normal errands for the week along with getting Brad ready to go out of town for a few days this week. Hudson was all smiles as usual this week. He is trying to get some new teeth so he has been a little clingy. We made a stop at Sam's Club and Austin found this super cute new play house. He loved playing in there. Brad and I actually had to take turns staying with him while he played while the other one of us did our shopping. I would love to have this for our little guys. Heck I think the dogs could even use it for a dog house.

After our Sam's trip Austin insited that we go to our Mexican restaurant for chips and cheese. We have also recently started letting him have sprite when we eat out. When the server came to take our order Austin quickly spoke up and ordered "coke (aka sprite) and ice cream".

We also let Hudson check out the crayons for the first time while we were there. He actually made contact with the paper for about 5 seconds before they ended up in his mouth.

Austin has been trying so hard to give up his naps! I would be OK with him not napping if he didn't really need the sleep-but he still does. If he goes without a nap he turns into a grump-o-sourous around 5:30 or 6pm. On Tue. afternoon he fell asleep on the sofa in the playroom with his hand in the popcorn bag.

Hudson has become quite the little daredevil recently. He climbs on everything and thinks he should stand up on it once he gets there.

Austin has started letting Hudson in his room to play some, he has even been letting him play with his beloved "trash trucks".

We finally had some trees planted in our back yard this weekend. Since Brad was out of town some this week for work- Austin was "man of the house" while daddy was gone. So he made sure to water the new trees really good for daddy. He also told me that he was going to "take me on a date some where far away".

Here is my crazy boy standing on something again that is not meant to be stood on.

With Easter coming next weekend we have been doing some fun Easter activities. (I am really wanting to start some family traditions that we can follow for years to come). Here we are starting our Resurrection Eggs-which will teach the boys the true meaning of Easter.

We will be doing the eggs like an Advent and opening one new egg each night for the 12 days leading up to Easter (along with the new egg we will be re-reading and opening the eggs from the nights before).

Here is Hudson wearing Austin's Easter basket on his head like a hat.

And here is Austin wearing the basket as a hat.

Wendnesday Nights with Grandpa

Grandpa Mark has a special tradition with Austin.... Since Austin was born he has made a point to come over at least one night a week for a visit. It has turned into a Wednesday night routine. He comes after work and picks Austin up and takes him to dinner at Newks (a local restaurant here) and then they go for ice cream, paint pottery, run around the mall or check out all the pets at Petco. Every now and then they will let me, Hudson and Brad tag along. This week Brad was out of town for work on Wednesday night so Hudson and I were able to go with them on there adventures. The boys and I met Grandpa at Newks for some dinner. Grandpa lets Austin use 2-3 straws in his drink as you can see in the photo below. He also lets Austin shoot his straw rappers at people or across the restaurant. After dinner we headed over to an ice cream place for Austin's favorite "ice cream with sprinkles "(when he says it, it sounds more like "ice cream with pickles"). Hudson loves the ice cream almost as much as his big brother.

I am so thankful that the boys especially Austin has such a special bond with there Grandpa and that they have there special times together.