Friday, December 27, 2013

Hudsons birthday and about a month of other stuff

I think my new years resolution will be to post to this blog more often. I am reminded of the joke about programmers confusing Halloween with Christmas (31Oct = 25Dec), but I wont say more about that since the joke is not really all that funny. When I don't post, all the pictures get back logged. And then, when I finally get them posted, I don't remember all the details and backstory behind the pictures. Anyways, prepare for a boat load of pictures:

Hudson had his birthday at the end of LAST month. He is getting more independent and capable, and was able to open a lot of presents all by himself, though his sister was nearby eager to lend a helping hand.
Heather and Sara Beth made a "rainbow cake" as the birthday cake. Make a white cake and separate the batter into six bowels. Add different food coloring to each, resulting in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple batters and add them one at a time into the final baking pan. Sara Beth did all the mixing for us.
The birthday boy's requested meal was "tacos". Cheese, homemade rice and homemade refried beans have always been some of his favorite foods, and tacos are a combination of all of those.
He has a fascination with candles. He will go around the house pointing out the candles (calling them hot) and then will ask to have all of them them lit. Heather has had to buy more candles as we are going though them much more quickly now. Now that we have shown him how to blow out the birthday candles, Hudson will wander around the house asking to have any unlit candles lit, and asking to blow out any candles that have been previously lit.
He liked eating the cake too.
Sara Beth, inspired by her baking with Heather, had decided she is going to come up with her own recipes. Some, like the "cake" made with mostly baking powder, didn't turn out too well, but some others have been edible. With each new iteration, the results get better.
Hudson, after seeing us clean up the dishes after each meal, has decided he wants to get in on the action. He will push a chair up to the sink and then start to wash whatever is in there. His loves using the scrubbing brush and will ask for it by name if he cannot reach it.
The kitchen sink is deep, so if he ever drops the brush to the bottom of the sink, he cannot reach it without taking his feet off the chair.
Sara Beth asked me to play Barbie with her. She came up with the game where all her dolls were tied up and in jail. I was the Ken doll in the car who was the jailer. Every time one of the dolls escaped, she got Lilly Belle to come and attack the offending doll. Sara Beth declared that the doll was no "meat-alized" as a warning to the remaining prisoners.
Hudson has started wanting to make pictures with crayons. I will sit down with two blank sheets of paper, one for him and one for me. He scribbles on his while I try to make something artsy looking on mine. Five minutes later, he wants to switch papers.
I checked out Wall-E from the library to watch as a family one Sunday. Hudson and Sara Beth loved it. Hudson declared the robot to be a "tractor" and his cockroach companion as a "bee" and pointed both of them out whenever they came on the screen. For about a week after the movie, Sara Beth wanted to act scenes with me playing the part of Wall-E and her as EVE.
No clue what this picture was about. I thing he wanted to show off his new hat.
I tried taking pictures with Hudson at Thanksgiving at my parents house. He was not as interested in smiling for the camera.
On the other hand, Hudson loves using a small shovel that is over at my parent's house. That same day, he asked to go outside, then he requested the shovel, and then he was all smiles as he went around trying to dig holes all over the yard.
We cracked out the Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving. Sara Beth is learning how to tie bows and she was really proud about fixing the bow on the top of the white Christmas tree statue.
Sara Beth decided that she could make her own peanut button and jelly sandwich for lunch one day. We were more than happy to oblige. We might even let her make her own school lunches.
When I went to the grocery store, I found some cup cakes that were on the super sale rack of the bakery. I brought them home and gave one to Sara Beth and one to Hudson. I didn't realize how much blue food coloring was in the frosting until Hudson smeared it all over everything. He had a grand old time with the sugary finger paint.
Hudson still sleeps in his crib most nights, but every now an then, he will ask to sleep in his "big boy" bed.
In case I haven't mentioned it enough, Hudson loves tractors. My dad had a magazine full ads of tractors for sale. Hudson carefully perused the ads and pointed out each and every tractor that was in them.
There was an ice storm that blew into the Dallas area which closed the schools and my job, so we all got to go out and play in the slippery cold stuff. Sara Beth pretended to be one of Santa's elves, harvesting icicles to make some sort of elf juice once she came back inside.
Hudson loved going out in the cold too. Once we bundled him up, he went out into the yard and pushed his toy dump truck across the frozen ground. When ever he came across a large chunk of ice, he would pick it up and throw it back on the ground to smash it into smaller pieces.