Captain Tyler

Captain Tyler
Originally uploaded by The Hudsons

Tyler and Joe went to Camp Thunderbird this weekend with their Y-Guides group. They had a great time and did canoeing, arts and crafts, played games, had a hay-ride, did archery and shot b-b guns. They also played a bunch of other games and made a model rocket to shoot up. It worked twice but on the second try, it got stuck in a tree way up high.

Halloween Cuteness

Halloween Cuteness
Originally uploaded by The Hudsons

Here are my cuties all dressed up for Halloween! One of our best friends is a photographer and always does a charity even for Halloween to benefit Operation Smile and we get these adorable pictures out of the deal. For this reason I have great photos from every Halloween of my kids in their costumes!

Chic-fil-a superheroes

Tyler and Jonah dressed up like superheroes today to get a kid's meal at Chic-fil-a. They got to see the cow-man, a real police officer and sit in the back of the patrol car where "the bad guys go" as Jonah says and jump in the moon bounce. They also got glow necklaces and bracelets which they later busted and twirled glow-juice around the upstairs carpet. I guess the good news is that it is really only visible at night :)

I would include a picture but the ones I took with my phone didn't come out great. You can see them in our pictures page if you want...

We built a chair

Tyler wanted to make a chair out of our scrap wood so Tyler and I set out to do that and this is what they came up with. It's pretty stable and, as a parent, it is nice to be able to build something that your kid wants to build. Of course if he wanted to build anything other than a chair that would have been a problem... I got lucky!

The pool is open

Our neighborhood pool opened today and the kids really wanted to go swimming. Unfortunately, it wasn't the warmest of days as you can see by the fact that Tyler and Jonah are the only people in the pool. But, at least they got to go swimming and they were giving away free ice cream at the pool - maybe it should have been hot chocolate.

Tyler's graduation from preschool

We attended Tyler's graduation from preschool. He enjoyed it and after the service we got to have pizza and ice cream. The funniest part about this is that the kids had a practice session before the actual graduation pretty much like high school graduation.

Mutton Bustin' Tyler

Last weekend we attended a rodeo! It was wild! My brother used to ride bulls in rodeos (until he was expecting his first child and decided he better be a little more careful with himself since he had a little one to take care of). Well, now his son, who is 3 (but the same size as my 5 year old!) wanted to do "Mutton Busting" in the rodeo. That is where they put the kids on a sheep and see if they can hang on for 4 seconds! I promise it sounds crazier and more dangerous than it is - but I wouldn't have believed that until I actually saw it. Unfortunately, my nephew didn't make it out of the gate on his sheep, but we had fun anyways. Tyler and my nephew also participated in the 'Calf Herding' which was funny. It pretty much consisted of about 60 kids running around the arena chasing about 10 calves.

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Bowling Boy!

Bowling Boy!
Originally uploaded by The Hudsons.

Tyler loves bowling! He "learned" the game on the Nintendo Wii and continues to ask us to take him "real bowling". Since we haven't yet, he makes up his own versions of the game. I found him in the playroom today with this bowling alley set up. This is his most creative bowling set-up so far! Forgive the messy playroom - I'm getting ready for a yard sale and have rugs and such pulled out of the attic to prepare to sell :)

Appalachian Ski Mountain

Appalachian Ski Mountain
Originally uploaded by The Hudsons.

This weekend we left Jonah with Grandma and Granddaddy and took Tyler for his first ski trip. Joe and I haven't skiied since college, so we weren't sure what to expect of ourselves, but we all did really well. We did spend a lot of time on the bunny slope, but as soon as Tyler was ready, we hit the intermediate slopes. Joe and I took turns going down with Tyler so that we each got to down a little faster when we went by ourselves. Tyler enjoyed the ski lift and never fell getting on or off of it. We stayed with friends Wendy and Patrick overnight. All three of us were ready see Jonah, but aside from that, the weekend passed way too quickly.

Fall Holiday Fun

Corn Maze
Originally uploaded by The Hudsons.

We have been busy enjoying the fall and the festivities that go along with it. We spent an afternoon at a farm with a corn maze, have carved our pumpkin and have monkey costumes all ready for trick-or-treating. Tyler had his Halloween Parade at school (no pictures really turned out), which was interesting. Jonah brought his costume to it so he wouldn't feel left out and Tyler's teacher let Jonah join the parade. We also went to visit the "Pumpkin Wall" that was constructed in a neighborhood near uptown. I hear it looks great at night all lit up, but we visited during the day. Check out the new pictures we added. Happy Halloween!

Long Day at Carowinds

Long Day at Carowinds
Originally uploaded by The Hudsons.

Today we spent the day at Carowinds. It was fun because they have a lot of Halloween stuff going on there. The kids get to take home a pumpkin, visit with characters and trick-or-treat for candy. Tyler also did a kids karaoke up on stage and sang the alphabet song. He was such a ham! Check out the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqRJs0p1ImM. We added quite a few pictures from our day.

First Day of School

First Day of School
Originally uploaded by The Hudsons.

Tyler has actually been in school for a month now but I am just getting to adding new pictures. Not many, but there are a few. Things are going fine. Tyler has been sick a few days. I think he overdid it this weekend on a Father-Toddler camping trip. Our camera's battery died so we are waiting for pictures from someone else's camera but I'm told they have good ones, so I'll add them once I get them. Not much exciting to report....just getting busy with preschool activites (birthday parties start up again) and already trying to work out the holiday schedule. Hope everyone is doing well - love from all of us to you. Thanks for checking in! xox

My Little Chef

My Little Chef
Originally uploaded by The Hudsons.

With Tyler's newfound interest in cooking, we made mini-pizzas for lunch today. It is a little ironic that Tyler is interested in cooking while I have pretty much no interest at all! However, I'm trying my best not to hinder his kitchen exploration - someone has to cook around here!

Potato-Cracker-Cheese Pie

After helping me to bake some brownies and while I was peeling potatoes for dinner, Tyler made this "dessert"! If you, too, would like to try it here is the recipe: 1 small potato, a handful of Club crackers, a scoop of sugar, several slices of colby cheese and one egg. Mix all ingredients well, spoon into muffin pan, bake at 350 for 12 - 15 minutes. Allow to cool before serving. Tyler is very excited about his dessert and plans on eating it after dinner. I think the rest of us will have the brownies!

Tyler's First Camping Trip

Sarabeth and Tyler went hiking and camping this weekend with Granddaddy, Jeb and Helen. We hiked up Shortoff Mountain which is just a couple hours from us. Tyler did great going up and camping out, but was really tired and had a hard time coming back down the steep mountain. I added pictures from our adventure. Joe had to work, so he stayed home with Jonah and they had some great one on one time together.

Sick Boys

Not a lot has been going on around here. Joe and Jonah have been sick. Tyler has a little cold that we are trying to keep under control. As you can imagine, I've been taking care of everyone and keeping my fingers crossed that I don't get sick, too.

We are planning on running the neighborhood 5K race that I've run with Leslie the past couple of years. Last year, when Stan came with Leslie to run, was the first time I met Stan - and now, of course, they are married. This year, Joe will join us on the run! Since he's been sick he feels like he isn't ready for it, but I'm not letting him back out. Walk or run - we are going to finish it!

We are awaiting Helen's arrival (Jeb's fiance). She'll be here soon and will spend the summer here. Jeb will be graduating from Montreat next weekend. He's very excited that he completed college in 4 years. He's the first one of us to do that - it took me 4.5! I dared him to try to get a biology degree in 4 years :)

Big Steps For Our Little Ones

There is big news in the Hudson household! Tyler is finally wearing 'big boy underpants' all day. It has been a long process but we buckled down and have been successful. We are on day 4. Jonah is trying very hard to walk. Yesterday he took about 3 steps before deciding to crawl or grab something several times throughout the day. He also said his first word besides Mama, Daddy, uh oh, and what we think is Tyler. He said 'a-nana' (banana)! Tyler had a banana and Jonah apparently wanted one, too. When we didn't really react to his grunting and pointing he decided to use a different tactic and yelled, "A-NANA! A-NANA!"

Bye Bye, Mullet!

The Mullet
Originally uploaded by The Hudsons.

OK, OK!!! We finally did it, you will be happy to know - we got Jonah's hair cut! We went to the cute little place where they get to sit in a race car while they cut their hair, they took a picture and gave us a little card with a snip of his hair in it. Maybe now he won't be accused of being a girl as much any more!