Merry Christmas

We packed EVERYTHING up and headed to Baton Rouge the Friday before Christmas. I LOVE going home for the holidays but was sad this year because only ONE of my THREE sisters was coming home. I had bribed and pulled every trick out of the book to try to get the others to come but NOPE, nothing could convince them to come. Oh well. We would have to do our best to make it a great Christmas without them, sadly.

 

Christmas Eve we had the kids open their ONE present (which is always Christmas jammies) that evening.

Hudson didn't seem to mind one bit.

Boston on the other hand was extremely disappointed that it was JUST jammies and NOT a cool new toy.

Thankfully, he quickly got over it.

We then headed over to Kent's mom's house to spend Christmas Eve with his family. All but one of Kent's siblings live in Louisiana so having 5 out of 6 kids makes for a packed Christmas every year. Kent talked about the meaning of Christmas to all the kids.

Then Grandma had a cute little craft for all the grand kids to make.

It was baby Jesus in the manger. They were adorable.

Then after reading the story of Christmas, we opened our gifts to each other.

Boston scored with a new leapster game.

We all went in for Carol's gift this year and got her a GPS, duvet, shams, and down comforter for her bed.

Hillary was very practically and asked for a new toaster oven, so we granted her wish.

After a late evening, we headed back to my parents house. When we walked in, the BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT EVER had COMPLETELY surprised me! KRISTIN AND HER WHOLE FAMILY CAME FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!!! They decided last minute Thursday night that they would come and it COMPLETELY made my Christmas! It would have been even GRANDER had Kari shown up too but she didn't.....no worries, Kari, I understand you don't love us as much.

The next morning was Christmas day and we woke up super early (set alarms and all) to wake up to see what Santa had brought before we had to hurry off to church. Boston DEFINITELY scored this Christmas and let EVERYONE know how excited he was. The video is priceless. He is COMPLETELY obsessed with Bowser from Mario Kart and let me tell you, this sucker was NOT easy to find. But Santa is amazing and made a little boy's dream come true!

Hudson was pretty zoned all morning and just sort of banged around his new toys.

Charlie loves anything and everything Cars so he was in heaven with his new Cars toys.

Boston also got a new ORANGE BIKE from Santa.

You always gotta take a break from looking at all your new stuff to pick your nose!

Dad surprised (kinda) mom and had their old bikes from YEARS ago and had someone fix and clean them up so they could go riding together again.

All the kids in their jammies. I love that Kristin and I matched our kids even though we didn't know we were going to be together for Christmas. Guess we must be sisters with the same taste!

Then we took a break from gifts and got ourselves fixed up to go to church. Did you know Christmas has fallen on a Sunday THREE times in the last 7 years since we've been married??? I swear I remember it only happening maybe twice in my life before that!

My sweet boys in their Christmas outfits. Yes, I am one of "those" mom's who LOVES to match her boys. It is seriously addicting.

Withers Family

Bluth family MINUS Kari

Then after church we headed back to open all the presents under the tree. Kent's favorite gift was the radar detector I gave him....I dunno if this is going to be a good or bad thing.

I've been waiting for us to unveil this gift for MONTHS. The BIG gift my parents gave the grand kids this Christmas is a trip to DISNEY WORLD in February!

We are SO excited about this and I want the next two months to FLY by so we can all by together again in Florida at Disney!!! Pretty sure I'm more excited than the kids!

 

Like I said, Boston gave the BEST reactions this year to Christmas and all his gifts. He was waiting and WAITING and HOPING to find this last present under the tree....wait for it.....

This kid jumped for joy and screamed when he unwrapped his "Bowser crushing guys" addition to his mario race tracks!

Kari and I gave my dad and oil-less, infrared turkey fryer he wanted for Christmas. It actually makes a killer turkey and you don't have to buy ANY oil! By the way, can you tell he's a big Romney supporter??

I FINALLY pulled it together after trying for the last THREE years to put together a calender for my mom of all the grand kids. It was my most favorite gift to give this year!!! I get SO excited when I give someone the perfect gift!!

As SOON as presents were done we headed to Kent's mom's house for a bit only to hurry back to my parents for Christmas dinner (no rest for the weary). It was a GREAT Christmas this year and I'm pretty sure I'll remember it forever!!! I'm SO thankful for all our family and LOVE spending this special time of year with them.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

By the way, next year my goal is to get stuff done EARLY so every thing isn't so rushed and go, go, GO during the holidays. I just want to sit back, relax and truly enjoy this time of year more! This year was WAY too busy for me!

Christmas Begins

Once we got home from Louisiana I feel like our life just got thrown into fast mode. We've had things going on it seems like every night & day. I was determined to get our tree up one night because if we didn't do it then, it would have had to wait another week! I had in my mind a nice, quiet evening, listening to Christmas music, decorating the tree as a family...totally picturesque. Did it happen? Nope. It was a RUSHED evening. We got home late, rushed to put it up, Boston was past his bed time& Kent had basketball to get to. So although maybe the pictures look one way, we only had about 20 minutes doing it as a family and then Kent left, I put Boston to bed and did it all by myself. I was a little sad about it quite frankly. Hopefully this doesn't happen again next year.

Boston was REALLY into putting the ornaments on the tree this year. I felt bad sending him to bed. And yes, I realize his pj's are on backwards but we didn't have much time to fix them if we wanted to get the tree decorated. I also must admit that maybe it was a good thing Kent and Boston didn't help finish because when they were gone I took ALL the ornaments off and redid it myself. Every ornament has to be in the right spot and it was looking all wrong.

The next morning we started a new tradition. I wrapped all our Christmas books and put them under the tree. The plan is to have a new book to open all the way until Christmas but I'm a few books shy so maybe next year. After a few weeks of doing this I think Boston started to get annoyed that they were ALL books. He'll be very anxious to open something besides BOOKS on Christmas.

We also pulled out our little elf, Piccalo. Instead of wrapping him up, this year he brought us breakfast from the North Pole (thanks to Ashley/pinterest for the idea). Boston was seriously in awe of him this year. It was pretty adorable.

He wrote a little personal note to Boston and brought snow covered doughnuts and hot chocolate with giant glaciers.

He also brought the boys little socks from the North Pole to keep their feet warm.

The breakfast was a hit and I even caught Boston sitting downstairs at the table later just sitting STARING at him.

We also got our lights hung a few days after that. We didn't put as many out this year as we usually do but that's because I convinced Kent that the way he had done it in the past was tacky. Poor guy just wanted his flaming tree but I'm pretty sure he's okay with not having to put forth the extra work.

I have SO much more to do before Christmas comes in almost a WEEK! I've decided next year not to wait until the last minute to shop!

Oh, more Louisiana

Saturday after Thanksgiving, we went downtown to the science center. It wasn't anything amazing but it wasn't crowded and there was plenty to keep the kids entertained.

Boston and Mimi tried out the pulley system....

Mimi pulled extra hard trying to help out Boston and ended up on her rear. Gotta love her.

Krew enjoyed watching the marbles go round and round, over and over!

And this is what Kent did most of the time. He was determined to figure these things out. Not sure if he ever did.

We then got to spend time in the arts and crafts area. Boston's imagination just flows these days so it was fun to see what things he put together to make "Bowser's trap" (b/c what else would he want to make these days).

The boys wanted to explore the mighty Mississippi right behind the science center once we were done.

Later that day, we headed over to Kent's mom's house. She was sweet and took the kids who wanted to go see Arthur Christmas. In the meantime, the adults kicked it at the house, watched football and laughed at each other.

Since we all live so far apart and never get to celebrate birthdays together, Sunday we had a mini celebration for Kari. She hit the big 3-0 on December 2nd!

Then my parents weaseled us into putting up their Christmas tree. Since daddy nearly kills himself every year putting it up and puts my mom into cardiac arrest while doing so, we took matters into our own hands while they coached from the sidelines.

It was actually very enjoyable putting the tree up. I haven't done it since high school...TEN YEARS AGO! I loved seeing all our old ornaments and still got excited to find my favorites from years past.

Another successful visit to Louisiana came to an end. Sadly we won't see Kari & Brandon for awhile but everyone else, we'll be back soon!!

My Bubba

Since Hudson gets an update every month I feel like I miss out on writing enough about Boston! Boy, do I love this kid! He's my little pal. In the last year, he's grown SO much in so many different ways. First and foremost he really is the GREATEST big brother. Kent and I often tell each other that he was MEANT to be the oldest. Its the sweetest thing to see their dynamic, I don't know if I'll ever get over it. Boston LOVES to run and be active and to just be doing ANYTHING! Every day he constantly asks, "Mom, what are we going to do fun today?!?" Well, we was completely surprised and thrilled when I copied my sister and took him outside to jump in the puddles!

That smile never left his face!

Boston likes to do whatever Kent is doing. He's his shadow. Kent went out to wash the car a while back and guess who I found soaking wet when I walked out??

He's my builder boy who can build anything with his imagination. His creative mind has SOARED lately. He is constantly building "bad guys" (he prefers them over the GOOD guys apparently even though we remind him constantly the bad guys never win). The latest craze is BOWSER (aka the bad guy from Mario Bros.). So he's constantly building up Bowser's family, Bowser's castle, etc. He knows EXACTLY what he wants them to look like and gets frustrated when I help and don't do it just so.

He can get pretty silly. Sometimes he can get VERY silly and go overboard. During Halloween, he thought it was HILARIOUS when he tried on his old bat costume from when he was two.

Boston used to HATE to color, paint, etc. Like I said, his creative juices have just recently started to flow and I'm glad they've finally arrived. Now he can sit down and do these things for quite some time. Between his writings, drawings, and paintings, we go through ALOT of paper in our house.

We love this boy. He's only 4 but I just have a hard time believing he's going to continue to get bigger. I wish I could just freeze time and keep him 4 FOREVER! His response to that, "But mom, I have to get bigger. I have to get bigger like daddy and be a grown up!" Almost every day he says to me, "Look at me mom, look at my legs. When I woke up, I got bigger today huh?" What is this obsession with getting bigger??? Please Bubba, just SLOW DOWN!

I am thankful for....

This year we headed back to Baton Rouge to spend Thanksgiving with ours families. Kari and her family flew in from Utah to be there too which we were VERY excited about since we don't see them too often! Thanksgiving day started out with picking oranges from Papa's little orange tree. The boys were excited about that. Boston just wanted to pick it, not eat it but Krew DOWNED his orange in minutes.

I found a fun craft off pinterest for the boys to keep them busy while we were waiting for dinner to be ready. We made these little teepees from waffle cones. I think Krew enjoyed eating it more then making it.

The finished product. Notice the chocolate faces even BEFORE they got to scarf them down.

In the meantime, dinner was being prepared. This year we had THREE, yes THREE turkeys! My dad got a green egg this year and wanted to smoke a turkey.

Then of course you HAVE to have a fried turkey.

Then my mom baked a regular turkey. The smoked turkey was the WINNER!!! We ate a delicious dinner with my Uncle Mike & Aunt Jill+family who came over from Houston. Oh how I love me some turkey dinner. Turkey, potatoes, gravy, shoe peg corn casserole, rolls, sweet potatoes LOADED with doubled sugar toppings, stuffing...there really is no better meal (but maybe I'd feel differently if we didn't just eat this once a year).

And afterwards, apparently the boys were exhausted from all their hard work making AND eating the turkeys. The women were cleaning and prepping pies in the meantime. Is something wrong with that??? I think so...

My cousin Madison and her cousin Garrett passed out too!

The boys magically woke up just in time to divulge into some pies. We had many pie options and since the ONLY pie I'll eat is a chocolate pie (only on oreo crust because I'm not a fan of pie crust) I was a little paranoid and protective of the amount of chocolate pie people took. I allowed ONE SMALL piece per person. Common, if THEY have 5 other pies to choose from they have other options. I only have ONE people.

This is my dad's brother's family (and their nephew Garrett who tagged along too). They live in Houston about 25 minutes from us but we don't get to see them too often so it was nice to visit for a bit.

My beautiful sister Kari, Brandon and little baby Krew boy!

My sweet boys.

After Thanksgiving was done and over with at my parents house, we headed over to my sister-in-law's, Kelly, to visit with Kent's family for a few hours before the day was done. Boston loves to go play with all his cousins and was worn out by the time we left!

This year I am especially grateful for family. My little family and our extended family. I'm so glad we got to spend this Thanksgiving with most of them!!

11 Months

We love, love, LOVE this sweet boy. He brings us SO much happiness and smiles. We are less then 30 days away from celebrating his FIRST birthday (add stress #572 to my list this month--planning his first birthday RIGHT after Christmas).

He is slowly getting more comfortable with taking a few more steps but hasn't committed to walking 100%. He RUNS behind his walking toys now and its pretty hilarious! He still goes for anything and everything in sight and I must keep ALL eyes on him when we are in public and at home. Boston helps me out from time to time....

Generally this is what my house looks like when Hudson is awake (TOTALLY different from Boston maybe playing with a toy at a time). This is while Hudson was in the middle of destroying Boston's room.

We have now given Hudson a new nickname: The Huddy Badger (you'll get this if you follow LSU football). A few things to remember this month about him:

*He surprisingly enjoys feeding himself peas & carrots but hasn't taken a liking to squash or zucchini.

*He said "bubba" for the first time which made Boston OVER JOYED for over an hour.

*Hudson can throw the biggest tantrum if you take stuff away that he shouldn't have. Those screams can KILL your ears.

*The word "no" is completely understood but he thinks its a funny game instead of wanting to listen.

*He has out grown his 6-12 month clothes & is in 12-18 month

*Boston has taught him to give him five. I don't know if he really knows what he's doing but he'll usually do it for Boston every time he holds his hand out and asks him give him five!

*He has graduated to his big boy carseat because he's now too big for his infant one.

*He can NOT sit still for ANYTHING this INCLUDES eating his bottle. It is a battle to get him to sit still to eat. He's much rather perfer to STAND by the couch, hold a toy in hand and chug away! This drives me CRAZY!