February Fun

Here's a post of a lot of random little things we've been up to lately:

Here is a picture Ben snapped of Chase fake-sleeping. Notice the "road" he made of books on his floor. Chase knows after we put him to bed he's allowed to sit in his bed and read books, but he's not supposed to get out of bed and play (which results in him playing in his room for over an hour before he falls asleep). So he's trying to fake Ben out that he's really been sleeping. 

 Also, every night when we go check on the little guy before we go to bed he's perfectly tucked in his bed just the way we originally left him. We know he gets out of bed, comes downstairs, gets water, plays with toys, after we tuck him in. We have to put him back to bed several times every night. At some point when he decides he's tired enough he just puts himself to back to bed.

Hudson is officially in the pots and pans stage. Chase likes to join in the fun every now and then, and/or scold Hudson for making a "mess" with them. What are big brothers for!

 We've been to the "kid's museum"-as Chase calls it- a few times this month! We went once with my mom and once on our own. Since my mom has come quite a few times with us, Chase always asks for Nana to come with us! I really love this place- so many fun things for my kids to play with. We are loving our annual pass!

 We took a detour one morning while doing errands and ended up at Krispie Kreme. My boys have a pretty intense love for donuts. Chase was ecstatic watching them make them and kept exclaiming "Donuts! They're making donuts!"

 Heidi brought my kids some cute little Valentines, which they thoroughly enjoyed! Chase was super excited to find his little box full of chocolate. Both boys have now enjoyed several pieces of candy! We washed it down with green smoothies- so I think we've got our nutritional bases covered.

A Little Love

A few days ago I was trying to think of what fun activity we could do for Ben's day off. We really try to always fit in something fun with the kids and take full advantage of a whole day with Ben. We decided to jump start some Valentine's Day love. In the morning we made heart-shaped sugar cookies and Chase made Valentines for his grandparents and great-grandparents. He was super proud of them!

Then after naps we frosted the sugar cookies. Chase was on sprinkles duty, which he took very seriously. A little too seriously. Some of those cookies had layers of sprinkles on them! (photo cred to Carly Thornock- she came to take some lifestyle shots of us, which I'm super excited to see and post later!)

Of course Chase's favorite part of cookie making is the taste testing.

He also loved to "make Hudson happy" by giving him cookies.

I think he ate 4 before I insisted he stop giving the baby cookies!

And Valentine's Day wouldn't be complete without a little cherub right?

(Either that or he had a little rash I was trying to give a rest!)

Superbowl

The Superbowl is a pretty big deal in the Smith household. We really look forward to it. Every year we have the same food, the Franks family joins us and everyone has a wonderful time! This year was no exception. I had such a good time hanging out with everyone and eating that I hardly pulled out my camera- so I only captured a small percentage of the people/action that went on. I had to snap a picture with Chase's first crush- Miss Jenna Franks. Needless to say- I hardly saw Chase all night. He stayed right by her side most of the time and she assured me that she loved it as well!

 Tony and Tearsa who are new to our ward came this year as well. They brought their darling baby boy Terrin- who is just a few months younger than Hudson. Chase LOVED Terrin and was very concerned with making sure he had toys and was happy- much more concerned than he ever is about his own baby brother...

 Due to teething Hudson wasn't in the best mood. Unky Will tried his hardest to keep him happy and entertained.

 I put the boys in their cute football shirts my mom bought them last fall. This was seriously the best picture I got of the two of them. Chase is hastily shoveling a brownie in his mouth. He closely monitored those brownies all night and both boys successfully begged way too many out of anyone nearby.

 Both boys loved spending time with Papa at the game. My favorite moment was probably Chase copying whatever my dad yelled at the TV. Picture this tiny boy throwing his arms up in the air and yelling "Are you KIDDING ME!" at the TV- it was priceless!

January is OVER!

I started January with a long list of resolutions and I've been working hard at them! Some of them have proven easier than others. One goal I had was to cut down Chase's TV time. This kid loves watching shows, but he also has tons of energy and imagination and loves playing too. So I decided to put more effort into keeping the TV off and surprisingly (to me) Chase has done GREAT with it! For the most part he's still pretty happy and we've been able to come up with lots of good activities to fill our time. He still gets to watch a little bit when I need a serious break!

 Hudson learned this new trick- crawling around the house with a sippy cup stuck firmly in his little mouth. He's now completely done nursing and is seriously ecstatic about drinking cows milk from a sippy cup!

 This trick is less endearing, and much more destructive. Hudson can open our fridge. And he tries to get into it at least 20 times a day. When I stop him he throws his head back and cries really hard and makes me feel like the meanest mom in the world. Hudson has always been very passionate about food. I think he feels like he's finally found the gold mine of where we keep the food and mean mom just won't let him at it!

Tuesday night as Ben was tucking Chase into bed they had their normal conversation:

Ben: How was your day today Chase?

Chase: doog (how he says GOOD)

Ben: What did you do today?

Chase: Daddy! I didn't get to GO ANYWHERE today!

(Lest you feel bad for him, we did actually go on a walk that morning, and then later that afternoon his little friends came to play, finishing off the evening with Papa coming to visit, so we actually had a lot of excitement that day!)

So the next morning we quickly remedied that! The last Wednesday of the month the zoo has a free day, so my friend Marissa and I packed up our kids early that morning to get there just after they opened. It was awesome! (and a little cold) We saw some awesome animals (especially that polar bear who was doing tricks like crazy for us!) and Chase and Corbin literally ran as fast as their little legs could go all over the zoo, all the while Hudson napped in his stroller.

 Chase kept asking to see zebras and a crocodile. I'm not sure the Hogle Zoo has either. And we purposefully did not take him to the reptile house because snakes freak me out (and he didn't ask to see them either). As soon as we got home and Ben asked him how it was, Chase quickly replied with:

We didn't see a crocodile! Or a zebra!

Papa got the exact same response when he asked him how the zoo was! Chase actually had a great time and really loved all the cool animals we DID see that day. Then my dad asked if I took him to see the snakes. Before I could even answer, Chase pipes right up to say:

No, I have to go with my daddy if I want to see the snakes.

I go with daddy and we see snakes, crocodiles and zebras!

Later that night when Nana was talking to him on the phone he told her the same story:

We didn't see snakes, zebras or crocodiles! I have to go with my

daddy to see snakes, zebras and crocodiles. I have to go with my daddy and NOT HUDSON!

So apparently Chase has some intense feelings about how the next zoo visit will go down. This kid can be hard to please sometimes!

We had a few fun visits from Papa this week! Most of them went down like this:

We love Papa's visits!

And that's how we made it through January!

My One Year Old

One year ago today, during an ice storm, my sweet, darling Hudson came into the world. I was full of so much apprehension before he was born, so worried I wouldn't love him- or even like him- as much as I love Chase. I was so worried about how I'd handle two kids. I had no idea what a sweet, amazing little boy I was about to meet. Hudson stole my heart from the minute he was born and my love for him literally grows every single day. From his beautiful, clear blue eyes, his darling dimples, his wide mouthed smile and cute little toes- I love every inch of this little miracle.

At one year old Hudson

•  Generally sleeps 12 hours every night- unless he's teething and takes a short (30 min) morning nap and a longer (2-3 hour) afternoon nap
• Initiates peek-a-boo on his own and laughs at himself
• Laughs whenever people around him are laughing
• Is 22 lbs 1 oz (62nd percentile) and 30.5 inches (75th percentile)

• Says Hi! with a big smile
• Pulls himself up on everything and crawls everywhere- and has no intention of walking
• Gives cute hugs and "loves" (ie- biting my nose)

• Loves to play with Chase
• Signs More and All Done, and touchdown
• Eyes light up when he sees Mom
• loves to eat more than any baby I've ever seen- and eats just about everything we put in front of him

Oh sweet Hudson James- words can't even express our love for you! You have brought the sweetest little presence into our family and we are thankful every day that you are here! 

Hudson's Birthday Party

Although Hudson is not technically ONE YEAR OLD until tomorrow, we had his birthday party tonight. Even though a one year old has no clue what is going on, we just couldn't let this special day pass without celebrating our sweet one year old! One whole year baby!

I made this banner with some of my favorite pictures of him, one from every month. I've actually kept it up all week and I love looking at all the sweet pictures of my baby, remembering each precious stage of his beautiful little life!

 We kept the party pretty simple. It was just our little family, my parents and Will and Kate. We watched "the Hudson movie" as Chase calls it- a movie I made of his first year. And then we opened presents. Unlike Chase at his first birthday, Hudson had really no interest in unwrapping the presents, but seemed pretty interested in the toys once they were unwrapped. So Chase did all the honors of unwrapping, he was thrilled to help. Huds was most intrigued by this little bag-

 ...and then it was this little post-it note. 

 But thanks to everyone for the sweet gifts!

He is one loved little boy!

And then we had cupcakes!

Hudson was so delighted when everyone sang to him, 

he started singing along in his own little way!

Chase blew out his candle for him.

 And then he went to town on his little cupcake!

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves-

he sure loved it!

Oh we all love this sweet boy!

Happy Birthday Hudson James!

What we've been up to...

Man January is a looooong month.

Back when Ben and I were first married I told him that I wanted to have a baby in January,

because it is the longest, most boring month of the year. 

We should definitely have some birthday parties in there to make things exciting.

So we did. Twice.

And I'm glad we've got little birthdays to celebrate.

But still, it's a long month.

So here is a little of what we've been up to:

Playing in the snow-

Santa brought Chase snow pants and boots

and he loves the snow.

As pictured here- him pelting his dad with a snowball.

 Chase is also a big fan of snow angels.

Last week it snowed and snowed. One night I put Hudson down to

bed and Chase and I went out to shovel the driveway before Ben got home.

It is such a sweet little memory in my head now. I shoveled away in the quiet dark and Chase ran around our driveway like a little maniac

and had a blast. And then we made like 8 snow angels in the dark and went inside.

 Lots of naps-

since the day we brought Hudson home from the hospital I have always

tried to put both boys down for their naps at the same time.

It works like 95% of the time and it's heavenly.

So naps aren't really a January thing, but I had this cute picture of Hudson

so I thought I'd include it here.
Also, they are more important to me these days because my kids haven't been the best sleepers lately- they are taking turns having rough nights and I'm tired!

Lots of smiling-

smiling's his favorite!

And lots of trips to the Discovery Gateway!

We've been 4 times this month already!

We went last Thursday with Ben and he loved seeing the boys enjoy it.

And then we went with my mom on Saturday-

which was also a blast.

(Complete with a little shopping and lunch- both compliments of my mom-

so it was fun and exciting for me as well!)