Out of the Mouth of Chase Part VIII- Chase's thoughts on Hudson

Ben was running upstairs to grab something really quick-
Chase: I go with you daddy!
Ben: No, I'll be right back. You stay here and play with Hudson.
Chase: But it's NOT EASY to play with Hudson!

While playing at the park Chase was riding down the slide with Hudson in his lap. Both boys were thrilled. When I complimented Chase on being such a good big brother he said:
My baby brudder's so brave!
and then after Hudson took a pretty good bump to the head and cried, Chase kissed him, "sucked the pain out" (a thing we do when Chase get's hurt) and then got right in his little tear stained face and said:
Hudson! You are okay! Stop WHINING! Stop WHINING!

As I put Hudson in the tub with Chase the other night:
There's the rubber ducky!
and then as I pulled Huds out and wrapped him in a towel
Oh what a cute little rubber ducky! I love my rubber ducky!
(I was singing the Rubber Ducky song a few weeks ago while bathing Hudson and Chase deduced that it must be talking about Hudson. So now Hudson is a rubber ducky- only while in the tub- and I think it's cute and funny and haven't corrected him.)

Nana: There's my little monster! (Referring to Hudson in his Halloween outfit with a monster on it)
Chase: No, that's Hudson baby. He's not a little monster. He's Hudson baby. And I'm a big boy.

Clearly Chase has this baby brother all figured out.

Friday Nights

Since my sweet husband works late every Friday night, 

I've found a replacement for date night :)

Chase and I started a little tradition of Friday Pizza and Movie nights-

we both love it! 

We make pizza together, Chase loves the process- 

kneading the dough (he calls it squishies)

spreading sauce and toppings-

and mostly eating it.

We let Hudson join us for dinner...

 And then we put Hudson to bed and snuggle on the couch with a movie.

Technically Chase gets to choose the movie every week,

except for the fact that I've now seen Cars 5,000 times,

so sometimes I insist on anything but his beloved Lightning McQueen.

Last Friday was one of those nights,

so he chose Peter Pan.

And except for the fact that he was expecting Jake to show up any minute

(from Jake and the Neverland Pirates)

Chase absolutely loved it!

I love my date nights with this little guy.

I know at some point he won't think staying home on Friday nights

to make pizza and watch a movie with mom is super fun,

so I'm soaking it in while it lasts.

I really love Chase's enthusiasm for life-

the simplest things bring him so much happiness.

His enthusiasm and happy demeanor are contagious!

Wrapping Up September

September went by entirely too fast! Our life is pretty simple these days

and I feel so lucky that I get to stay at home with these babes,

and I really can't believe sometimes how fast the time goes! 

My boys are growing up so fast- which is bittersweet. 

I mean, look at Chase- doesn't he look so big?!

 And believe me, if you didn't think he looked big he would kindly remind you.

I get told at least 4 times every single day that he is a "BIG BOY!"

Chase has now decided that Hudson is big enough to wrestle with.

Mom, however, squelches that fun pretty fast. 

I think we'll give Hudson a few more months before we really let Chase go for it :)

Sometimes we let him play with him while we practice being "really soft" 

and not lying directly on top of the baby.

 Saturday we went up to Huntsville to see my amazing sister-in-law Kate

run the Hunstville half marathon.

Kate's awesome- she has rheumatoid arthritis and is constantly working to manage

her disease, but she doesn't let that slow her down! If you didn't know her well

you wouldn't even know she had it, she doesn't complain!

She set a goal to run a half marathon and we were so excited to watch her accomplish it!

Here we are cheering her on at the 9 mile mark-

Hudson is so obviously excited to be there...

 ...Chase preferred to play with rocks and to try to escape to a nearby "puddle" (read: canal).

I think we tore him away from the rocks for a good 15 seconds to clap for Kate though.

 And here is Kate finishing the race with a smile on her face!

She did amazing! We were all so proud.

 The whole gang-

Me and the boys, my parents, Kate's parents and Kate and Will

Saturday also meant Chase's weekly tradition of going to "play" with Papa. This means doing all of Papa's Saturday projects and errands with him. 

As I was getting ready that morning I overheard Chase telling Hudson, 

"I'm going to play with Papa. You don't come Hudson. You have to stay with mommy.

Only me and Papa go in the big red truck."

Yeah- we are working on it. Chase is majorly protective of his time with Papa.

Hudson came with me and my mom on our trip to Sams Club. 

I'm pretty sure it's a rule that my mom can't go shopping and NOT come home with something for the boys.

So Hudson got this cute Halloween outfit.

(Chase, who isn't impressed by clothes got a Halloween book-

both boys were very happy)

And seeing him in this little outfit made me so excited for Halloween!

Even though beautiful September is over, we are so excited for the days to come!

Out of the Mouth of Chase Part VII

While I was rubbing him down with lotion:
I have a cute tummy!
And then a few days later while I was changing Hudson:
Hudson has a cute tummy too!

In January I'll be 3 just like Papa!

Over the last several days when he has woken up from his nap, he's called me to come get him with either:
Mommy! I taked a good nap!
or
Mommy! I'm ready to go do more fun things!

After telling him that the treats we were making were for his friend Karter, who had fallen and broken his nose- an hour later he randomly told me:
Karter got an owie. He fell off a chair. He didn't listen to his daddy.
(All owies are obviously a result of disobeying)

I have blue eyes. Daddy has blue eyes. Hudson has blue eyes. Mommy is a girl, she doesn't have blue eyes. (All of the above are true, but I love his reasoning getting there!)

Heidi: Chase, who is your favorite aunt?
Chase: I know...
Heidi: Is it Heidi?
Chase: No.
Heidi: Who is it?
Chase: Someone else.
Heidi: Chase, who brings you presents?
Chase: Santa!

While driving in the car and Hudson was crying:
Hudson! No tears! No tears Hudson! Be happy!

While looking at a picture of the Salt Lake Temple (which Chase is fascinated with- the kid gets excited every time we see a temple):
Chase: Oh it's the temple!
Me: Do you know which one it is?
Chase: Yes. House of God Temple.
(I'm fairly certain this comes from the line in the song, "A temple is a house of God")

My favorite moment of the day on Saturday was when I was sitting on the couch by him watching Mickey Mouse and he suddenly turned to me and said:
I wuv my mommy! I wuv you mommy!

We love Fall

I'm so happy it's finally Autumn!

We haven't had a real fall season since we've been living in the tropics the last few years,

and I'm so happy to be in beautiful Utah this year!

I love making soup, the crisp air, seeing the leaves turn, 

scouting out Halloween costumes for the boys, and making pumpkin cookies.

Ben's favorite part is probably football season-

so just because they are cute, here are some recent pics of my boys in their football shirts,

compliments of their Nana. 

*Nana does buy the boys a huge portion of their books, clothes, shoes and toys and Chase remembers every single thing that came from her. And sometimes things I actually buy for him he still attributes to Nana. I would feel a little miffed of the credit I'm not getting, except we are just so thankful for Nana and all she does!

Girls Weekend in Nampa

About a week ago, Heidi randomly asked me if I'd be up for a roadtrip to Nampa, ID to visit our awesome BFSC Jana. One of the beauties of being a stay-at-mom home to two babies is that we never have anything on the calendar! So of course I was free and psyched to join her! We left Kaysville at 10 am on Friday morning, expecting to be in Nampa around 2-3 pm. A series of obnoxious delays made it closer to 6 pm before we actually pulled in- but luckily the boys did really really well, all things considered. There may have been a time when Hudson was crying, and Chase, not to be outdone, just yelled super loud with a totally bored look on his face- you know, just to make more noise than Hudson :) And there was a point where we were completely stopped in traffic for a solid hour in the ugliest scenery known to man with two flies buzzing around inside our car ("This is literally the worst thing ever" -Heidi) and then once we passed the accident that caused said traffic and realized it was a fairly simple little fender bender ("Well now that I know no one was seriously hurt I'm super mad about that" -also Heidi) we eventually made it to Casa Izatt and settled right in. 

Heidi got to bond with Hudson a little more, who has been a little hesitant lately to bond with anyone but mama:) And there is no way I can do the hilarity of this group justice, but if you know them, between Heidi and Jana we literally laughed all weekend long!

This was a rare moment when the little guys weren't running around, jumping off couches, tackling each other, and smiling the whole time! At one point Heidi said, "There are literally no less than 1,000 little boys running around this house!" It kind of felt like it, but believe me- there were only 5. Chase loved playing with these boys so much!

It was kind of wonderful to put the boys to bed and have some hilarious girl time! I was weak sauce and turned in before midnight and Heidi and Jana's fabulous adventure to Winco to obtain the special Nacho Cheese Jana's husband needed to bring to work in the morning. Because I know you are all worried if the appropriate cheese was found- they took a picture to document their success.

 Of course after a late night Friday night the little boys were all up way before the sun on Saturday morning. We spent a lovely day just chilling around the house. Chase enjoyed each and every one of their 1,000 toys. At one point Chase disappeared and we found him in the backyard mowing the lawn.

 He diligently mowed the Izatt's whole yard before switching over to their tricycle- another new discovery for Chase. (I'm wondering if we should get on the ball and buy him a few more toys?) I loved having such awesome built in entertainment for him!

 After a delightful trip to Target sans kids (thanks to Jana's wonderful mom Pam) we had a quick dinner and then Heidi and I took the little ones to visit our cousins that live nearby. I was so glad we got to see them, but I unfortunately forgot my camera. We had a blast catching up with Rich and Heather, who we haven't seen forever, and their sweet Ruby (11) and John (7) played with the boys. Ruby had Hudson belly-laughing and John was so sweet to play with Chase. It was good because after leaving Izatts, which Chase was not pleased about (he informed Heidi he wanted to bring Clyde, Will and Jack with us and leave Hudson who "wanted to nap") the first thing Chase said to Heather was "where are your toys?" Luckily Heather found some toys for Chase and we all had a wonderful visit!

When we got back to Jana's and put the boys to bed we had another fun and hilarious girls night. The highlight of which was when Heidi and I were able to convince Jana to make brownies by saying nothing more than "So..." and then bursting into laughter. We are all psychically linked I think.

 And then beautiful moments like this happen and are [luckily] captured on film.

We had such a great time, even though our trip was a little too short. Sunday morning, super early, we packed up and headed out. Chase didn't want to leave "the kids" and was only okay once I told him we were going to see daddy. He turned to his little friends and said, "Okay, I go see my daddy and then I'll come right back!"

We had high hopes that our trip home would go smoother than the trip up there, but that didn't exactly work out either. A few wrong turns, a puking kid and one speeding ticket later we safely arrived in Kaysville. I was physically exhausted, but emotionally recharged! It was an awesome weekend- thanks so much to our gracious hostess and favorite BFSC ever.

Hudson at 8 months

Oh man, eight months with this little angel in our home- it's been a dream! It's amazing how much one little guy can just melt my heart. This one has won me over!

We used to call Hudson our little chunker, but ever since he started crawling he's seriously thinned out. I had been a little concerned about it and decided to just stop in the pediatrician's office to weigh him. Once the nurse weighed him we determined that he had gained a whopping 1 ounce in the last two months! So after a quick chat with our great pediatrician we came up with a plan to get Hudson more calories- which is basically to feed him whatever we are eating. This is basically what Hudson's been telling me he wants anyway :) I came home from the appointment and pureed up our chicken pot pie leftovers and Hudson loved it. The kid has a great appetite and loves to eat, but I guess his pureed fruits and vegetables just weren't cutting it. (And yes, I feel horrible that he didn't gain any weight and that I didn't start doing this earlier, but he is a happy, healthy baby!)

He's still definitely a mama's boy- which I love, but this new eating plan has got him loving anyone who will sit him on their lap and give him bites of what they are eating. He had his first bites of cake tonight at Will's birthday celebration and he is obviously a fan.

Hudson's moving all over the place these days. He has the cutest little army crawl/scoot and he tries to keep up with Chase. Changing him has turned into a wrestling match. He's a determined kid!