Baby Hudson!

Let me start by saying these pictures do not do him justice. He is a very cute baby with sweet chubby cheeks! More stats: 8'8", 20 inches long, born at 1:57 pm on Monday, March 31, 2008.

He's a cutie!

He's the first one to really look like a Sawyer!

Paula's big belly in the waiting room. She's hoping for any day now but I need some sleep first!

He's here and he's a cutie! It was a long weird day and I'll let Susan share the details but by 9:00 this morning we thought he'd be here within the hour and then for sure by noon and then definitely by 1:30 but he took his time! I'll give more details later but for now he's here, he's a big boy, and his name is Hudson.

The crack of dawn...

Hello and what could possibly have me posting at the crack of dawn (actually a little earlier)? You guessed it--I'm on my way to the hospital. Susan and Stephen are already there laboring away and I am so excited because this is the day Susan wanted to have her little guy and at this early hour, I can almost guarantee he will be here by midnight! Funny thing, I have a labor radar: Ed's alarm went off at 5:00am and that is usually my favorite time to roll over and take up the whole bed in beautiful sleep but today my eyes popped open and I just waited for the phone call which came just 15 minutes later. I hopped out of bed and my first question was, "which one is it??" Lucky Susan, her sweet baby will be here soon. I'm off to the hospital, more news as it comes!

Here we go again...

The bathroom before demolition.

Ed ripping out the sheetrock.
Demolition is always the fun part!
Oh, look what came out of the walls! Lovely cat-litter looking (and smelling!) 30-year old insulation.


Well, we are ripping out the bathroom one more time. When we first bought this house the bathroom was so gross that I couldn't even go in there (I was also seven weeks pregnant!). Besides the lovely harvest gold fixtures, the floor was so rotted that the toilet was sinking into the crawl space. We only had a few days to make it liveable so Ed ripped everything out including the sub-floor and then tiled the floors, painted the cabinets, replaced the tub and toilet and put it all back together asap so we would have at least one useable bathroom (the other was almost as bad to start with and only Ed was brave enough to use it). Since then, I have painted that bathroom three more times and we eventually added beadboard wainscotting but we never really liked it so we (and I mean mostly me) have finally decided to start all over so we (and I mean mostly Ed) are back at work. Because we aren't in the rush we were last time, we plan to do it right and then never do another bathroom project again!

Go Cougs

Ed is proud to be one of the many Americans causing a billion dollar economic loss by skipping out on work to watch March Madness. Not only do we all have to watch the game, we have to dress for it too.

Sad but true

My little tulip sprouts trying their hardest to be Spring!

This was just the beginning! Ava said at least snow is prettier than rain but I have never seen this at the end of March. Sure we have had random snowfall in March and even April but not lay down, stick to the ground, real snow.

Yesterday morning when the snow first started Jack took one look out the window and then one look at me and said, "Uh Oh!" He clearly knows exactly how I feel about snow in March!

Happy Easter!

More Easter Fun...

Easter dinner at Grandma's
The fantastic bunny cake that I have to make every year but only the kids eat!

We also squeezed in Ed's birthday with an ice cream cake.

Too busy with their baskets to look up for a picture!
This one is self-expanatory! (Hi Brooklyn)

The "babies" are growing up!
Easter egg hunt

Easter brunch with Grandma and Grandpa before church.

The Big 3-0

Ed wearing the lovely pink scarf Ava wrapped up and gave him for his birthday.

Happy birthday Ed!!

Just thinkin'

I said, "whatchya doing buddy?"

And he said, "thinkin'."

Workin' Weekend...

This was a working weekend with a wedding on Saturday. There were several mishaps during the day (for example, the bride put all of the reception flowers in the freezer instead of the fridge and they were completely dead (and frozen!) when I showed up) but that's part of the job and in the end it all turned really lovely and I was home and cleaned up well before midnight--which is unusual and fantastic!

Thanks Sarah!

Sarah made this sweet clip for Ava and she loves it! She has been dressed up for Tigger's birthday party all day.

One of those days...

Ava's room and this was after at least an hour of work!

The hallway, midway through the morning

The playroom (truthfully, it can look like this on a regular basis)
Jack's pile of clothes
Ava's room by naptime!

Yesterday was one of those days where the more I worked, the more work there was to do! Because of my need to always change and re-arrange, I had the bright idea to redo Ava's closet with an elaborate closet organizer and get rid of her dresser. To start, Home Depot was seriously guilty of false advertising with that stupid closet organizer that took hours to put together and still wasn't really what I wanted. That fun project took place late Sunday night. So I woke Monday morning to the most gigantic mess in Ava's room--every article of clothing she has worn since we brought her home from the hospital along with anything else I could store in her closet was on the floor of her room. I started in there but then the mess slowly spilled into the hallway and then down the hall to Jack's room and eventually landed in the playroom. Six hours later, I had completely reorganized the kids rooms, cleared the hallway, and began working in the playroom before I realized it was 2:00 and I hadn't showered or eaten! The good news is the rooms look great--I loved putting away their laundry in their clean closets last night and even Jack said "so clean!" when he saw his closets and drawers!

My Jack

I had a catering job this weekend and the kids were home while I was working. Late in the day I sat down on the couch and said, "I'm pooped." And Jack gave me a knowing and sympathetic look and patted my leg saying, "poop in your unners, Mama?" Ah, potty traning.

Notice anything new??

Look closely....Ava got her ears pierced! We took her out for the big day a couple days after her birthday and she was so brave! I, on the other hand, almost passed out when they shot the little gun--I can still hear the sound!
I took the girls for a treat after we went to the "Bee Movie". This was a long overdue birthday present for Kayte and it was Ava's first movie at a theater--big stuff!