Play ball!!

Yesterday was the opening game of baseball season. Mike was really excited, no actually, giddy! He reminds me of a little boy at Christmas time when the Braves are playing! That was the great thing about yesterday was that the Braves were playing. The good part for me was that my man, Hudson, was pitching. Gotta love a man in uniform! Even though they lost to the Nationals 3-2, it is always a great game when he is in it!

Bum Covers

I finished my first diaper the other day. I realize it took me a bit longer than expected but we were out of town and it is really hard to come up with a pattern and figure out how to sew it with basically no knowledge of how to do this! I called my mom a dozen times and got a bunch of advice on how to do different parts of it. I was really excited with the finished project...A, because it actually did fit and B, because it doesn't leak! My last ones didn't either but I just wondered if I would make my own and they would suck!! There are a few minor changes I am going to make on the next one and then after that hopefully I will have my protocol diaper down and will be able to bust out some more rather quickly! I just had to share my chunky leg man sporting his diaper!

Yay!!

Just so that any of you with those Fridge Phonics things know, you can buy new letters for a $1. Thanks to my mom for coming up with that idea! We figured I couldn't be the only person who has lost a letter and wanted it replaced! They ship them out to you in about 1 1/2 weeks. I figure it is worth 1 buck to not have to search frantically through my house again and if our H does show up...now we will just have 2 of them!

What the H?

Sad to say that we are missing an H. I was devastated and turned the house upside down looking for it. But to no avail, it is still missing. I must give a public shout out to Mike's devotion. He actually went in the dumpster and got out the trash bag we took out last night. And yes folks, he proceeded to open it and search through every last thing in it looking for that blasted H. What is this H you may ask?? It is from our Leap Frog Fridge Phonics. I am obsessed with trying to find the H because I want Hudson to be able to practice with it for his name, plus I liked being able to spell out his first and middle name with them because there are no duplicate letters in those names. I am sad we still haven't found it but I will keep looking!!

Sink Reflections

Even though I am an enthusiast when it comes to lists and being organized, I still enjoyed this book. I like the ideas she has about zone cleaning and keeping your sink shiny. You would not believe how much pride you feel in that shiny sink. It sparkles and catches my eye every time I go into the kitchen. I even have Mike trained to wipe it down too! (Thanks Mike for supporting me in this new obsession!!) She has some great ideas as far as what she calls a "Control Journal." I think I may just have to implement some of her ideas into my already embarrassingly dorky organization style!!

Rumors

Rumors of War was a little hard for me to get into. Hence the reason the picture has been sitting on my blog for a few weeks. It was taunting me. I almost gave up on it completely but I decided to try and read a little bit further into it. I am glad I did. I really did like this book and look forward to reading the next book in the Children of the Promise Series. It revolves around an LDS family during WWII. It was kind of crazy to read from their perspective of how things were happening. I think this would have been a scary time. I have always been interested in this time period and the different perspectives that people around the world had about what was going on.

Flybaby!!

I am a Flybaby! I actually am one of these at heart, as dorky as I feel admitting that! I had already committed to Mike to do the 1st 4 commandments of Fly-ness before I ever even knew the book existed. I think I am just a nerd at heart but being organized just makes me feel better. So what can I say?? I am off to finish shining my sink!

Happy Easter!

Hudson had a blast this morning checking out all of his Easter goodies.

Then he practiced smooshing an egg in half inside of his mouth, which I thought was courtesy of his dad, but apparently he picked up that little trick on his own! I wonder what else he will figure out how to destroy!

We also dyed some Easter eggs today, not so much as with Hudson as just around him. We ended up going with blue and orange eggs. This wasn't planned but I guess it goes to show that the blue turf really does run through our veins. We are blue and orange through and through!! Hudson also got a kick out of testing these eggs when we were done coloring them. Apparently he thought it would be fun if he banged them together.

Poor Mike was running up our stairs and lost his footing. He bashed his knee into the wood stairs in the basement. He could barely get up the stairs and I couldn't stop laughing so I couldn't help him up! I don't know what it is about me when someone hurts themselves like that. It's like if I know it isn't traumatic but it hurt really bad, I laugh! But at least I was able to hide it from him since he was bent over in pain. Way to take one for the team!!

Obscene!

Hudson got an obscene amount of Easter fun from all of his grandparents! He got tons of fun stuff to play with, books to read and new clothes! And of course, we got spoiled too. It is always nice to get fun packages from home when you have to be away for the holidays! We can never have too much candy. Thanks again to everyone for all of the fun Easter stuff!
Hudson was very intrigued by the plastic Easter eggs. It was funny to watch him figure out how to open them up. He likes to shake them all around and listen to them make noise. Then he pops them open. He tried eating the tootsie rolls that were inside of them, wrapper and all. Good thing I caught onto that one really quick!

Easter Fun

We went to an Easter get together today with some friends from the JRC. It was a lot of fun! We had a yummy potluck dinner. The kids could barely contain themselves long enough to eat! They wanted to get onto the good stuff! They had an egg hunt and a bunch of games for the kids. Hudson didn't really get into any of that action but he did have a good time watching all of the kids. We brought him his own eggs too so he would have some to hold onto and play with.

I was in charge of the egg nose rolling game. It was so cute to watch all the kids try and roll the eggs with only their noses. Then they would pick them up and move them closer to the finish line and start moving them again with their noses...little cheaters!! hehe

They also had some games for the adults too. Mike got in on the egg eating contest with a little prodding from me, which I am sure he later regretted. People should probably shy away from shoving eggs into your face as fast as you can! Here are some pictures of them prepping, ripping the shells off and stuffing their faces!! And of course, I had to get one of the evidence of Mike finishing! It looked like it was neck and neck for awhile between him and Blake but in the end, Brian pulled it off!

Then we went outside and watched the egg toss and egg relay games. It was hilarious to watch everyone tossing raw eggs back and forth. The whole night was a lot of fun! Thanks again to Bre and Sally for planning it!

Magic Eraser

A friend gave me one of these to try out. Can I say how much I love them? I am sold!! They are so nice to use. I have had the hardest time getting these scuff marks off of our kitchen floor and a quick rub with one of these and poof! The scuffs were gone!! There must be some sort of magical power to them because nothing else was getting those scuff marks off my floor! I usually don't try things out like this but I am really glad I did! I feel like I am doing an infomercial for them or something but I really did love them and recommend 'em!

BBQ

We had some friends over and used our BBQ for the first time this year. I know some people use theirs all year long but we usually are too chicken in the cold to use ours. But it was fun to be able to start using it again. There is nothing quite like food cooked on the BBQ! Plus it means that the warm weather is coming, something that definitely puts a big fat smile on my face!!

First Day of Spring

Pulled out the capris and flip flops today. It was a beautiful sunny day (guess it should be if it is the first day of spring!). I thought it would be fun to go to the park for a quick picnic. Mike put in half a day of studying and we picked up some grub at Jason's Deli. We went to the park because there is nothing quite like sitting on concrete tables. Actually I have never seen concrete tables at a park before but we have 'em here. Just throw on a blanket and it is not too bad. The food was great, first time we had ever tried that place, and even though it was a little windy outside it was still a good time for a picnic! Hudson liked the slides and the other toys there. He had a blast watching the other kids play too. Then he went into tired mode so we called it a day!

Could have been...

We had an awesome time in Branson and were so glad we went there but we decided to come home a day earlier than planned. Mainly just because we wanted one full day of vegging!! We figured since we got in all of the playing we wanted that we might as well come back and relax at home! There is nothing like sleeping in your own bed!

We took a round about way to come home. I have a goal in life to go to all 50 states and I wanted to add two more to the list.

This route was a bit longer but it was worth it! Arkansas was pretty but it was raining like crazy and I really just wanted to be on an Interstate and not a 2 lane highway! Then we headed to Tulsa. We almost went there for law school so we really wanted to see what could have been! We loved the campus and the town.

The Greats...

We had a fun time going to 2 shows yesterday. We hit up Tony Roi, the famous Elvis Impersonator: We also went to Hamner Barber, a double show with a magician and a ventriloquist. You can check out some you-tube videos of them here. The vertigo illusion is absolutely insane!! Both shows were amazing but I must say that Hamner Barber is by far my favorite show. I love the whole illusion/magic stuff and they were GREAT!! We were sitting on the front row and it was so great to watch them so close! (Sorry I wasn't allowed to take any pictures at this show so no magical secrets will be revealed!!) They incorporated stuff from the crowd and talked to us a few times about Hudson, which was kind of cool. Hudson actually loved the show too and was content to just sit and watch most of it! Too bad it had been POURING rain all day long! We were glad we had shows to go to and were able to stay out of the rain for most of the day and night!

We also got in a bit more shopping at the outlets. They have three different outlet malls here so there was some serious shopping that could have gone down! I was restraining myself from going crazy!!

We also went to two of the local hangouts for food. We had to go back to Danna's after dinner the night before was so good and then we went to Billy Bob's for a burger. They were both awesome but Danna's is just fantastic! We drove around town and took a few more pictures of things there that I missed the day before. This being one of them:

Branson has so much stuff to do, we did a lot of stuff but definitely not even close to what they have to offer!

March Madness

Mike and I are really excited for all of the basketball games. Every year we both fill out brackets and every year I have beaten Mike! I don't feel as confident about my brackets this year as I have in the past but hopefully I will still do alright! Here is to many wonderful basketball games this month!! Have you filled out your brackets yet??

Splish Splash

We took Hudson to the pool today. He had a BLAST!! He absolutely loved it. He was trying to kick his legs all around to move him and just loved to be in the water. He was infatuated with all the kids in there too!! He couldn't stop watching them, I think he wanted to go play with them ! This is the cool fountain that they had in there by the pool! Pretty awesome!

Love the bare baby in swim trunks!! What a cutie!

His baby float was awesome!! He was spinning all around in it and it allowed him to be in there without us having to hold him. I think we all liked that!! We are definitely going to have to get back to the pool if we have time!

Round Here

Here are some pictures from around Branson. I am digging Marilyn Monroe's face etched in the one below. Most of you probably don't know how much I love Marilyn. So I was excited to see this here!The next two are of the Titanic museum. It is so cool looking. We might go there tomorrow, but we may run out of time. They have some amazing things there from what we have heard. Pretty cool looking!
This is just a random water thing that said Branson on it so I figured I had to take a picture of it!!
We ate at a local place for dinner tonight....called Danna's BBQ. It was SUPER good. I would recommend it to anyone who heads this way!