April Tidbits

We were very sad this month to say good-bye to our good friends, the Jensens. Corbin is between Chase and Hudson in ages, but both boys (Chase especially) loved playing with him! And Marissa and I have been walking together (pushing our strollers) since last fall and have totally loved it. We will miss them so much! Ever since they left Chase asks every single day if we can go see Corbin and prays for Corbin and Marissa every night! Hopefully Chase's prayers are working and they are settling in to their new home easily!

On April 1st we added a new member to our family- Ben bought me an iPhone! I know, I'm several years late to join this party, but loving it nonetheless. All the rest of these pictures are courtesy of the phone.

 Chase made this Easter craft during General Conference

 I realized that many of the pictures I take are in this same spot- apparently its our picture spot. I took this picture on a day that Chase was being particularly endearing and sweet and fun. 

Hudson had his 15 month well-baby check-up. Basically, he's perfect. He's now 25.7 pounds and 32 inches- right around the 80th percentile in both. He's got a molar coming in that hasn't broken through yet, but has compressed and popped some blood vessels- so there is a nice, swollen purple mass around the tooth! Our doctor was certain this was the cause of his crankiness lately. We also decided to start treating him for asthma. It runs in both our families and Hudson has never shown any extreme symptoms, but just sounds junky when he breathes (and has since he was just tiny) and takes forever to recover from a cold or anything like that. The only way to really diagnose it in a baby this young is to treat for asthma and see if they get better. After months of talking to our doctor about and waiting to see what he did we decided to try treatment after being reassured it was very low risk. After just 3 days of using his inhaler we can already see a big improvement in his breathing so we are grateful we did.

 We went to a fun little party celebrating new baby Tate's blessing! Andrea is Ben's cousin and we got close to her during the time we were all at BYU together. Andrea's whole family was out for the blessing and we enjoyed catching up with them! Since Ben has basically no family in Utah (besides Andrea) we loved having a chance to hang out with some of them for an afternoon! Andrea is the best little mom and Tate could not be any more adorable! Chase and Hudson were both (obviously) so excited about baby Tate. Chase talks about him all the time. I love that they couldn't even take their eyes off him long enough for the picture!

 Hudson loves hats. He doesn't keep them on, he just really enjoys putting them on and taking them off again.

One afternoon my dad borrowed a friend's tractor to do some yardwork for another ward member. Chase got to ride on the tractor with Papa, and then sit and watch the action as they moved dirt around. That's basically the most exciting thing you could ever do in Chase's mind.

We had a fun dinner with some of our friends from our newly-wed days in Provo! We loved having the Nittas and Bennetts over. Bennetts brought their brand new baby Drew and we all loved holding him! (Including Chase, who really loves babies! He held him so sweetly and immediately started singing "You are my sunshine" to him in the highest little voice!) I wish I got a picture of everyone, but this was the best we could do by this point in the night. We had such an amazing group of friends down in Provo, it is so fun to still be in touch and get together- it's almost like no time has passed, except that there are now hoards of tiny people running around.

Easter 2014

Easter is one of my favorite holidays and this year we had a beautiful one. I started a few weeks ago trying to prep Chase for Easter by doing a few simple Easter crafts. Then last Monday I did a family home evening lesson with him all about Easter and the resurrection. He acted like he got it during the lesson, but clearly most of it went over his head. It's hard to explain Easter to a little guy who has no concept of death anyway. (Comments from him during said lesson were: "Oh yeah, my daddy died last week. But then he comes home from work." and "Oh, and the Easter bunny can visit Jesus!") My mom gave him a cute little book about the story behind the Easter bunny- which we read about 10 times this last week. With all this, he was very excited for Easter Sunday- including being able to wear his Easter shirt and tie. 

Since we have early church and getting all 4 of us ready and there on time is always a little crazy, we told Chase that daddy had called the Easter bunny and arranged for him to visit while we were at church and his basket would we waiting for him when we got home. We stopped at my parents house before church to get a family picture. As is always the case with my little ones, after about 20 pictures these were the best we could do! I'm glad we got some, because for me this is what Easter is all about. Our Savior suffered, died and overcame all so that we could have real happiness and live with our families forever. I am so glad that we were able to spend the whole day with family!

 Church was wonderful. Beautiful music and talks on the Savior- and Hudson even lasted through about 20 minutes of sacrament meeting which is probably a new record for him. We had a double farewell/homecoming so our chapel and cultural hall were packed- which made the beautiful Easter hymns sound so powerful and incredible. Once we got home from church we let Chase go hunt down his Easter basket. He was pretty excited about it- mostly about the chocolate inside the eggs. Then he helped Hudson find his basket. After finding baskets and some lunch, we put the boys down for naps. All the excitement from the morning and church must have worn them out, because Chase took a record 3 hour nap! He always naps longer when he's cuddled up with his daddy! I had to wake up all 3 boys to go up to my parents house!

When we got to my parents house Chase was super excited to see that Nana had put together another Easter basket for him and his brother! New clothes for both boys, each one got an animal shaped ice pack for owies, and Chase got a Dusty(from planes) flashlight and Dusty book and Huds got a cute plush bowling set. Our boys were very, very spoiled! Then they got to go on their Easter egg hunt! Chase was thrilled about hunting eggs, and Hudson grasped the concept, but feels completely immobilized in grass. He can't walk or crawl. So I carried him from egg to egg and let him put them in his basket. 

 Then we headed inside for a beautiful meal. I don't know how my mom does it- every thing she makes is delicious and the table looked so beautiful and fancy (you know, until we rolled up Hudson's high chair and Chase spilled crumbs everywhere). My only contribution was in making dessert- a bunny cake. My mom always made these for us on Easter when I was little and we loved it, so I was excited to carry on the tradition with my little ones. After Chase saw it he told me a few different times, "Thanks for making my cake look like a bunny Mom!"

By the time we got home, Hudson (who wasn't feeling well) was ornery and tired and Chase was bouncing off the walls- full of chocolate and excitement! We finally got the kids in bed and Ben and I got to reflect on the holiday. It was perfect. Even the weather was perfect. We are so grateful for our Savior. All the bunnies and chocolate are fun of course, but mostly we feel so truly blessed to have the gospel in our lives and for our knowledge that He lives! 

Hugo Family Update

 I am loving Chase at this age! He is so fun and smart. He is reading really well and starting to show so much imagination in his play. The other day I found him balancing a ruler out the back of one of his little trucks, with the string from another toy attached- he made his own crane! He's always struggled with saying a 'c' at the first of a word- it comes out a t- so crane comes out train, which has caused some confusion when he's tried to explain what he wants leading to frustration from him. I worked with him for about 30 seconds on saying his 'c' correctly and now he tries it all the time when he's talking to me. "Mom, can I see the c-c-computer?" He is so motivated to learn and be big. His prayers lately crack me up too- it varies between a long list of extreme desires (like please bless that tomorrow we can go to the airport and go on an airplane...) to just talking about whatever happened to him that day (and then I went to Will and Matt's to play and we played trains....) and then as he asks for blessings for each member of our family he points to each one of us. He's also growing in his relationship with his baby brother which is heart-melting to watch!

  At 14 months Hudson is a delight and a challenge! I think he's frustrated that he can't communicate as well as he'd like and he's starting to have opinions of his own- combined with cutting another tooth this last month- has lead to a lot more whining and crying than normal. Hudson's biggest accomplishment this last month is that he's finally WALKING! He's been so stable on his feet the last few months while standing, but completely dug in his heels (figuratively and literally) whenever we tried to encourage him to walk. He's got it now! He's saying more words now- including "please" "Chase" "baby"- which are our favorites. He's also started being an eyebrow man- he gives the most serious crusties whenever we tell him NO. He's little eyebrows fall so low on his face and we laugh every time! In these pictures he's wearing a little outfit my mom made for my brother Nate when he was a baby, which was so sweet.

As for Ben and I, we are still just so enamored with our little boys! They are a dream come true. We lay in bed at night and talk about how cute and fun they are. Outside of being parents, we've had a few new things going on. This year we both got new church callings- Ben is now teaching the 15-16 year olds in Sunday School and I am now a Laurel advisor. Ben has been working on a big project in our backyard- putting the fence in (correctly) that blew down last winter. My dad has been helping him and Chase and Hudson watch from our window, totally fascinated by the process (there may have been a tractor involved...) Our other big accomplishment this year is that we've started watching Parks and Rec back in January and we are now caught up to the present season- and we've laughed really hard all the way through it. We are also working harder on getting out on dates (mostly thanks to my sweet parents and a few good friends for babysitting) and have really enjoyed going to the temple together, along with a few other fun nights out to dinner and movies. After all those years of being in school now we feel like a normal married couple!

Boise

With Heidi's imminent move to Boston, we decided that one more road trip to visit our sweet BFSC Jana in Boise! Our last trip went... well it went. (To review- the 5 hour car ride each way was made of up traffic jams, screaming children, one serious case of a vomiting boy and a speeding ticket) This one was a breeze! The actual driving and traveling part- amazing! The boys slept and then woke up and acted like little angel babies and entertained each other! Both directions the drive was so so smooth. The crazy part of this trip was nights- oh my sweet Hudson was a little less sweet when it came to sleeping. There was a little too much crying in the middle of the nights for my taste, but we made it through. And ultimately, we were very glad we went! We had such a blast hanging out with Jana and her darling family! Chase loved being there so much- he loves her boys and all their toys! 

 Part of our choosing this particular weekend was because it was Jana's baby shower! After 3 darling little boys Jana is having her first girl next month! Heidi and I got to attend her picture perfect tea party shower! I got to attend sans kiddos as I left my boys with my sweet cousin Heather- who acted like I was doing HER a favor by letting her babysit for 3 hours! Both boys loved the undivided time of her and her cute kids.

It was so fun to get away- to stay up late chatting with the girls, watching the cute boys play together and just enjoy the weekend! I loved getting 5 straight hours with Heidi on our drive each way, only occasionally interrupted by Chase asking "What you doing Heidi?" every time she put on the breaks or had to turn around. What can I say, at three years old he's already a back seat driver. 

He loves tiny chairs

Hudson gets so excited when he finds a tiny chair that is just his size. I've been trying to snap pictures of him when he finds one- including this Lightning McQueen chair at a friend's house, our little chair, this bouncy seat at the children's museum and then the tiny rocking chair in my parent's basement. He is especially happy if he's sitting in one of these chairs holding a cell phone or a book. And he just usually looks so proud of himself, which I love. 

Our Random March Pictures

I finally got the pictures off our little point and shoot that I carry around in my diaper bag all the time, just to catch the funny little moments with the boys when we are out and about. Here is a random sampling of some of the little things we've been up to.

We stopped at the mall a few weeks ago to get new shoes for the boys. They had been so good in the stroller and we had some time to kill so I let them stop and play on the little playground there. Chase was in heaven, he totally loved it. Hudson on the other hand just wanted to sit in my lap and drink his bottle. I love that their little personalities are so different! At the end Hudson finally got off my lap and had some fun for a few minutes before we had to go.

 I've found that the best time (read- least crowded) at the Children's museum is in the late afternoon, so I've started taking the boys after their naps. Afterwards we swing by Ben's work and have dinner with him there. Chase is always so cute and enthusiastic about seeing his dad, it really makes Ben's day. And then we get one more night a week that we can all have dinner together!

 The boys and I went to Ikea with my parents and Heidi last Saturday to look for stuff for her new apartment in Boston. Mostly we just wanted to get out of the house! Hudson of course, slept the whole way there, and just looks so angelic and perfect when he's sleeping.

 And then both boys were so sweet and delightful as we navigated the maze of Ikea. Chase had to try out all the chairs and Hudson was fairly happy riding on Papa's shoulders. Of course, we went looking for stuff for Heidi and came home with something for the boys- Nana and Papa bought a "wode" (a rug that looks like a road) for their basement for the boys to drive their cars on. Chase was so thrilled to help Papa carry it out.

 The other night when I was working on getting the boys down for the night they were being so funny and making me laugh. Chase was making his "sad face" that he's been doing lately. He can only make it for a minute and then he starts laughing at himself. And Hudson found this BYU hat and stuck it on backwards and he zoomed around on Lightning McQueen.