halloween 2013

fall is amazing in washington. i absolutely love watching the leaves change color and getting into the harvest spirit. fall in so cal, for me growing up, involved more of our everyday sunny weather and picking out a pumpkin from the grocery store or a corner lot that popped up for one month each year with hay bales scattered around to give it an "autumn" feel. definitely nothing as authentic as this.

we've made it a family tradition every year we've lived in washington to go to jubilee farm to pick out our pumpkins, and we were all looking forward to doing it again this year. especially now that jack sort of gets the whole holiday thing. ;) we rode the hay wagon out to the patch, got our pumpkins, rinsed them off at the farm and watched the festivities. on the way home, b took us all to get hot chocolate and then we watched football all afternoon. it was the perfect fall day.

huddy was a total champ and didn't make a peep, just hung out in his baby bjorn and licked his sweatshirt the whole time. haha. 

pumpkin CARVING, on the other hand, was not so much of a win. jack was grossed out by the pumpkin guts and preferred to watch b carve instead. i put this collage on instagram and it still cracks me up every time i see it. haha. 

jack declared months ago that he wanted to be a pirate for halloween, which was fine by me since that's what he was last year and i already had the costume. ;) i wanted hudson to be a little parrot to go along with captain jack, so i whipped up his semi-homemade costume the day of our first party with a bunch of felt and a red onesie.

by the time the actual halloween rolled around, we were exhausted. there are so many holiday activities once you have kids! there was a ward party the night before halloween, a preschool party the morning of, trick-or-treating at microsoft and then the ACTUAL trick-or-treating that night after dinner.

the preschool party:

this one cracks me up. argh!:

visiting dad at work (please note the giant xbox one countdown in the back -- that launch has consumed b's every waking hour for MONTHS now):

i made a cute little halloween dinner (thanks pinterest!) and while we were eating, jack announced he was done being a pirate and wanted to be a dinosaur instead. so, we pulled the dinosaur cape out of our dress-up box and he was a dinosaur for the last round of trick-or-treating. gotta roll with the punches when you have a three-year-old.

we live on a somewhat isolated cul-de-sac with very few kids, so we knocked on the doors of about four nearby houses and then went home. i think it was the perfect speed for jack since he was tuckered out by that time anyway. then we put the boys to bed, ate some of jack's hard-earned candy and watched hocus pocus. ;) such a fun halloween!

SEVEN

october 20 was our 7th wedding anniversary! so proud that we made it past the seven year itch. ;) we've been talking about weddings a lot lately in this neighborhood and i have to say that i think marriage just gets better and better with time. seven years feels like such a good spot for us -- marriage is comfortable and fun and happy and cooperative and we've worked out a lot of kinks over the years. i'm so lucky to be married to b.

anyway, we kept things pretty low-key this year. i always like to go out and DO things instead of buy things for anniversaries or birthdays, and we threw around a lot of activity ideas, but since hudson was going to be our +1 it kind of limited our choices and when it came down to it i just wanted to keep things simple. we went out to dinner at cuoco (one of the famed tom douglas restaurants in town) and it was delicious and relaxing. that coconut cream pie everyone talks about is legit, people.

our actual anniversary was on a sunday, so it was even more laid back. we just went to church and had dinner with some friends, then came home and popped in our wedding DVD that we hadn't watched in years. it was so fun to look back at ourselves and our families from seven years ago and see what has changed...and also what marriages we have already outlasted. ha.

seven years! here's my traditional look down memory lane. four states, two kids, lots of jobs and LOTS of hair colors/styles later. ;)

[salt lake city UT]

[los angeles CA]

[beverly hills CA]

[provo UT]

[provo UT]

[vancouver canada]

[seattle WA]

jack's first day of school 2013

last month jack started preschool! i was a little nostalgic the night before, but the first day went great. b stayed home from work in the morning and we made a big family breakfast -- homemade pancakes and bacon -- and jack got to wear the cute airplane shirt he picked out at target. we packed up his lightning mcqueen backpack and took some pictures and it was still too early to leave for school, but jack was literally bouncing around with excitement so we had to take a little tv break to kill some time. then we loaded up the car and headed to his new school! he marched right in without looking back and has loved preschool ever since. i cried a little on the way home. ;)

at his classroom:

so proud of our big boy.

still alive

we're still here! i've got a few posts rolling around in my head and i hope to get to them soon. hudson's crib is in our office currently, where it will stay until he's capable of sleeping through the night (judging by his present sleep habits, that will not happen until he's 5) so i can't ever get on the computer after 7 pm and it sucks. my blogging is on the backburner BUT i've got some pictures of him that are so freaking cute that it feels like a crime to keep them from the world any longer, so here you go. enjoy these until i can post something more substantial.

loving licking his baby bjorn at the pumpkin patch last week:

he clocked in at 100th percentile for head size at his 4 month appointment. how is that even possible?

swimming in california last month:

sure love this little monkey.

pre-school eve

tomorrow jack starts pre-school! well, sort of -- we have a family meet-and-greet type thing for an hour, then he officially starts next tuesday. i am SO excited for him -- i think he will really love going to school, meeting new friends, learning from his teacher, having an activity that is all his own. plus the 2 1/2 hours i will get to fly solo with just hudson at home sound pretty dang dreamy to me too. ;) but in all seriousness -- i feel a tiny bit sad too. my boy is growing up!

i sure love this kid. we've both had kind of a rough summer trying to figure out a new normal now that jack isn't the center of my attention at all times anymore, but i think we're starting to get it. and despite all the tantrums and irrational crazyness coming from him, jack is still the sweetest cutest boy. i'm floored daily by the cute things he comes up with and by seeing how his little mind works. (also in observing how good of a mimic he is becoming -- just this week i've heard him say "green light, idiot" and "freaking obama" to his toys...i'll let you guess where he's learned those. guess mama needs to watch her language. :)

and now, after three years of being right by his side almost every second of every day, he is going off to the real world. granted he IS only three years old and it will only be for 2 1/2 hours, two days a week, but this is the beginning of the end. i won't be there to watch and guide him as i've done so far in his little life, and it makes me sad to think of that cute little guy learning and growing and doing things without me there to cheer or help. this is one tiny baby step into the real world -- the first step in him learning to be an independent, think-for-himself human. i guess that's what parenthood is all about....but it sucks. my type-A self does NOT want to give up control of my kids, especially to let them be corrupted by the big bad world. ha, yes, the big bad world of pre-school...i realize i sound like a crazy person, but this is the first step. heaven help me the day he leaves for college or his mission. :)

hudson's blessing day

my parents stopped in seattle for a weekend on their way to an alaskan cruise, so we decided to bless hudson while they were here. (jack's blessing day here, my boys are practically identical babies.) this was only my dad's second time coming to visit us in washington so we were so excited and wanted to show them a good time.

on saturday, we had brunch here and then headed out to ride the ducks! i LOVE that tour and could go ten more times without getting bored. such a fun way to see seattle.

the sleepless in seattle houseboat of COURSE!:

then on sunday we went to church and b gave hudson a name and a blessing in front of our whole ward. hudson had the cutest little outfit (a bow tie made by b's super talented cousin plus suspenders!) and was wrapped up in a crocheted blanket my 90-year-old grandma had made for jack. our seattle-family friends the davises came to join us and it was such a nice day.

after church we went for a walk and took a few family pictures in our front yard. jack's face in the second pic is seriously priceless.

the next day my parents left for alaska and b went back to work for the first time post-paternity leave. i was a little bit of a wreck. luckily everything went fine. and THEN, as luck would have it, 10 days later my parents had a layover in seattle on their way home from alaska but when they landed they found out their next flight had been cancelled. they had to stay overnight in seattle to wait for the next flight so the boys and i went down to hang with them for a few hours. what are the odds?!? it was the best surprise ever. 

just some cute boys

i've had intentional parenting on the brain a lot lately as i've been trying to adjust to life with two kiddos. loved this huffington post article about taking time to enjoy the simple joys of everyday life and i'm loving getting a little more one-on-one time with each boy as hudson's sleep schedule has ironed itself out. i'm really trying to enjoy each moment of this crazy stage of life even though it's so exhausting and hard sometimes. of course i'm definitely not perfect and i still find myself with short fuses and nonexistent patience, but hey, sleep deprivation and traveling husbands and sassy almost-preschoolers will do that to you i guess.

i just started a gig writing for another blog and posted today about my adjustment to the two-kid-life but there's so much more i could say on the subject. in the meantime, i've noticed my cell phone filling up with the sweetest pictures of my two boys and every time i flip through them i feel like the luckiest girl on the planet. i just keep thinking back to college before i met b when i had so many questions about how my life would end up and what paths i would take...if there was any way i could have looked ahead and seen myself as a mama to these two sweet little boys and a wife to my very best friend, my mind would have been blown. how did i get so lucky?!