10 Months

I know, it's kind of blurry, but I just love that sweet face!

Same ornery grin as his daddy.

Can't you tell he was just miserable while he was away from us???

Kissing his Nan

Hudson celebrated his 10 month birthday on Saturday with Papa and Nana while Chris and I were in Dallas. We had a great time! I slept in while Chris enjoyed the best and most expensive breakfast he's ever eaten via room service. The Gaylord is nice but they get you comin' and goin'. After I was up and around we went and saw the movie Taken with Liam Neeson. It was great. Then we did some shopping at Grapevine Mills. They had a ton of great stores, but of course we ended up in the baby shops and bought Hudson some adorable clothes at Carter's and the mostest cutest outfit for Easter at The Children's Place. I mean this little guy is going to be dressed to the nines! I can't wait.

After shopping 'til we dropped we went back to the Texan and met some co-workers for a bit. The Red Hat Society happened to be having its international convention at the Texan while we were there, and we ended up being seated by a table of whiskey drinking, tattoo wearing Red Hat grannies. Two of them showed us their Red Hat Lady tattoos (on their calves). They boasted they had others that they could not and would not show us. We were terribly disappointed.

Surprisingly we still had appetite enough to enjoy dinner at Ama Lur in the hotel. Then we went back to our room and watched a few hours of TV before falling asleep before 10 p.m. No laundry. No dishes. No yard work. It was a very nice break (THANKS AGAIN Papa and Nana).

However, after 7 years of marriage without baby and 1o months of marriage with him, we still missed Hudson and were very happy to have him back in our arms again. He is getting so big! He cut both of his top front teeth and now has five teeth total. He says ball, truck, good, go, mama, dada, and attempts to say many other words though of course he doesn't quite get them out. He's pointing and playing peek-a-boo and has a renewed interest in many of his toys that he got for Christmas that he now has learned to operate on his own.

He pulls up on everything and is slowly starting to take a step or two while hanging onto the furniture. I imagine he'll be cruising all over the place in a week or two. I think I say this on every post about Hudson, but he keeps getting more and more fun. He's very busy and expressive, but also very sweet and easy going. Enjoy the pics.

Update

I've been a lazy blogger. I just haven't felt like writing lately, so I haven't. And I won't be posting any pics in this blog because I can't find my SD card with all my latest and greatest Hudson pics and video! I'm so bummed. I printed up some pics for Hudson's photo book and I haven't seen the darn thing since, and I have no idea what I did with it! Either a) I had it in my hand and had to do something for Hudson and laid it down or b) I put it in some really smart place that I knew I wouldn't forget or c) I hid it from Chris so it wouldn't end up in his game camera. Regardless of the option, I'm afraid it may be sometime before I see that little disk again, and it's going to drive me nuts until I find it. When I do I'm going to get an external hard drive to drop all my pics on. Those things are a little too large to easily lose.

We have been busy with life stuff...Nothing too major. Just the sort of stuff that has you looking forward to when the stuff is over, and then you realize that's life and you don't want to keep wishing for tomorrow or next week or two weeks from now because running like mad from point a to point b and back again is just part of it.

There's a lady at work I run into from time to time in the bathroom or in the kitchen. Everytime I see her we make small talk, and 90% of the time it goes the same way. I ask her how she's doing. If its a Monday, she says, Well, I'm really looking forward to Friday. If it's the middle of the week, she says only two more days to go until Friday. If it's Friday she finally says she's doing great because its Friday. Sometimes she says, "Only three more hours to go..." What a terrible way to spend the week! Weekends are great, but they don't even make up a 1/3 of life, so it's kinda sad to spend 2/3 of one's life wishing for the other 1/3, and when that 1/3 finally arrives, being happy for about 24 hours until you begin dreading the other 2/3 again.

That being said, I'm really looking forward to this weekend. Pending that everyone in my family stays well (and that has been a big if lately), my parents are coming up on Friday to spend the weekend with Hudson while Chris and I go to Dallas for the weekend! We're very excited. We had planned on taking Hudson with us (and we still will if we need to), but my parents offered to stay with him while we go and we snapped up that offer. Chris and I were bad enough about doing fun things together pre-Hudson, as Chris only slows down to sleep, and though I'm not that bad, I can easily keep myself occupied with projects and house cleaning. However, post-Hudson we have been terrible about spending adult time together. We don't mind carting Hudson where we go, and he's an easy baby so we just haul him everywhere. However, I think the weekend will be good for us. At the top of my list will be 1) reading (I haven't read anything in ages) 2) sleeping in (just a little; I don't like to sleep too late) and 3) having a few quiet meals. We'll be at the Gaylord Texan too, which is a the hotel we had our conference at last month in Grapevine. It should be fun!

The Power of the To Do List

I've always procrastinated when it comes to getting all the annoying "stuff" done in life. You know, that kind of stuff that needs to get done, but my world won't fall apart if it doesn't, so it really doesn't have to be done. Not right now, anyway.

Well, since Hudson came along I've taken procrastination to a whole different level. What better excuse is there to put off getting life insurance or updating the church nursery schedule than the fact that I'm taking care of a baby all day?

Finally, something had to be done (or get done) so I created a to do list, which I usually only resort to in desperate situations such as when I'm about to leave town for a week or have 100 things left to do at work before the annual conference (and now only half the time to do them in). I created the list on Monday, and so far I've made progress on every single item!

- I've applied for life insurance for both Chris and me (We haven't had it since I returned to work part time, and every single day Chris does something that reminds me that he really needs life insurance...For a guy who earned his bachelor's in Industrial Safety he's about the most un-safe guy I've ever met. Did I mention the last time we rented a backhoe he managed to break it in about 30 minutes?)

- I'm already working on the April - June church nursery schedule. This one's a biggie because if I procrastinate, guess who gets to work nursery in all the open shifts??? Been there done that.

- I've called the new members at church to welcome them and see if they have any questions. (I'm part of the "new membership team" but have - I'm embarrassed to say - called people nearly two months or more after they've joined.)

- I've worked on a plan to solicit sponsors for upcoming PRSA-OKC (Public Relations Society of America) meetings. This is one of those projects where I ask myself why, oh why do I volunteer to do stuff? I'm helping out on the sponsorship committee. I hate, hate, hate asking people or organizations for money. Especially in this economy! This is why I don't think I can ever work for a non-profit that has to raise funds to operate. But, I did tell the president I would be happy to help out where I'm needed except for planning the annual awards banquet. I forgot to say except for sponsorships too. Oh well.

- After six months of not having but paying for CallNotes (which quit working why?), I e-mailed ATT to get the temporary password to set up the voicemail box. Funny thing is you can still leave a voicemail even though I cannot access them. So if I haven't returned your call...

It feels so good to check things off my list! I guess putting it in writing makes me more accountable to the fact that it gets done.

In other unrelated but very notable news...

Hudson had his 9 month check up today. No shots. Yay! He's in the 89% percentile in height. Double yay! His ear infection has finally cleared up. Yee haw! But the little stinker is not drinking like he should! He stays hydrated, but he's supposed to have about 36 ozs. of fluids per day, and I'll be he drinks about 24 or so. I guess I'll stop complaining that he's waking up again in the middle of the night. At least he does drink 5 - 6 ozs., and at this rate, I'll take whatever I can get.

Author's Note: I realize there is no spacing between paragraphs in this post. I don't know what's going on, but Blogger is seriously going wonky with my formatting. I'm not sure what to do, but it's driving me crazy! Sorry about the annoying layout.