Mallory Age 4

Mallory Grace, my silly, beautiful, spunky, and dramatic little girl is now a big 4 year old. What to say about her...

Mallory is a girly-girl. She loves sparkly things, dresses, bows, painted nails, and make-up. All the things I ever dreamed of doing with my daughter one day. I am happy she enjoys it all and I am soaking it up because I am sure there will come a day where she does not.

She is a pretty good eater, not picky by any means but definitely still has likes and dislikes. She is a fruit and veggie lover. She loves tomatoes, avocados, strawberries, blueberries, carrots, celery and bananas. She is also a condiment girl. Ketchup and ranch dressing are the way to this girls heart. She still is not a big fan of meat or bread but she will eat it if requested to.

Mal is still a shorty but she hit a pretty good growth spurt in the fall so is mostly wearing 4ts. She can still wear some 3ts and can also wear 5ts and little girl 4s depending on the brand. She is currently 39" tall and weighs 37 lbs.

She is not the most coordinated little thing ever but she still enjoys dancing and did well playing soccer last fall. She is definitely going to be more of our dance, cheer, swim, gymnastics, singer, and performer child. :)

Mallory has an incredible imagination and she is always playing with and talking to her "friends". When we play with her or she plays with Mason she is always making up fun things to play and she loves when you play pretend with her. Birthday and Christmas buying for her is challenging because she doesn't really play with any specific thing. She goes through phases where she plays with her babies, her kitchen, and her dollhouse family but she mainly plays pretend these days!

She is not the best sleeper. When she is 100% healthy she will sleep all night but if she is stuffy, gassy, ill, or overtired she wakes up at least once a night. She also takes a while to fall asleep and has trouble napping unless she was up super early that morning.

MGB is equally a Daddy and Mommy's girl. She sure loves her Daddy and begs for him to come home to play with her but she also enjoys one on one attention from Mommy and likes to do girly things with me. She thrives off of both of our attention for sure.

She loves to learn, read, draw, color, play with play-doh, and build legos. She also loves to play games. We have several family games and she loves to play but also gets very frustrated if the game does not go her way.

Mal is completely potty trained and can usually dress and undress herself. She still has a little trouble with wiping after she goes potty because she has the "front-to-back" thing backwards. Haha! But she is fairly independent in getting herself ready if I ask her, although she prefers to stay in her nightgown as much as possible. Wonder who she gets that from!?

Since turning 4 Mallory has given us some new challenges to overcome. She has a highly sensitive personality and she has an extremely hard time expressing her emotions with words, instead choosing to cry, throw fits, hit or pinch, and yell. This phase is definitely giving the "up all night cry all day colicky baby" phase a run for its money. I spend a lot of time in prayer for my sweet girl and myself so that I may guide her and teach her how to better handle herself in situations where she does not get her way.

From the day she was born, Mallory completed our family in every way. She is a little sugar and a lot of spice and she has brought us so much joy in her 4 years of life. We are thankful that the Lord chose us to be her parents and to experience her spunk for life and loving spirit everyday is a blessing beyond our dreams. We can't wait to see what the future brings for our beautiful daughter!

Mason Age 4

I wanted to write about my babies now that we've celebrated another birthday.

Mason, gosh, where do I start? He still has a smile that is so contagious he can change my mood in a second. His personality keeps growing everyday and he loves to make people laugh. His favorite thing these days is talking about poop and toots. (Eye roll.) Drives me crazy but it all stems from his desire to make people laugh and being such a boy!

The boy can eat! Goodness some days I feel like he did nothing but eat. He's not a picky eater at all. He will eat pretty much anything you feed him. His only dislikes are tomatoes, avacados, and mushrooms. His favorites are apples, chocolate, rolls (or any bread) and meat. His most requested meal is blueberry waffles and sausage. He drinks mostly water with one or two glasses of milk or chocolate milk a day.

Monkey wears mostly size 5t or little boy 4. All of his 4t pants and shirts are getting too short. He is currently 42" tall and weighs about 40 lbs. He is a strong little guy with incredible coordination. Sports continue to come very naturally to him and he is pretty fearless when it comes to trying new sports.

Mason loves to tell his family he loves them throughout the day. I hear it from him at least once a day and it warms my Mommy heart.

He is a Daddy's boy all the way. He loves me but when Daddy's home it is all about him! He loves hunting with Daddy and watching Daddy play Boom Beach on his iPad. He loves to help D take out the trash or work on the house. Anytime Dusty is working, Mason runs to the playroom for his tools too. It is a pretty precious thing for me to watch.

Maser is obsessed with tractors, trucks, cars, trains or anything with wheels. Any indoor playtime during our week usually involves him making huge lines of vehicles. 

He wears a cap EVERYDAY. If we have a special occasion that I need him to dress up for then I can usually talk him into not for at least a couple of hours. But seriously, everyday!

He truly does love his sister but one of his favorite forms of entertainment everyday is pestering her. So their relationship is very love/fight right now. But when they play well together, he is the sweetest. He loves making her laugh and trying to conform to whatever crazy "game" her imagination has taken them into that day.

He is a great sleeper. The boy could nap an hour or two a day and still sleep 12 hours a night. He also falls asleep pretty easily away from home. My kind of kid! ;)

He has a fairly short attention span with learning or structured settings which is not always a bad thing but we are certainly trying to improve this before kindergarten.

He is finally fully potty trained! (Although he has terrible aim!) :0 But I am so pleased that he is now night trained and as long as I put him on the potty sometime before I go to bed, he can sleep through the night dry. Now to work on wiping his own hiney and buttoning his own pants. The things you don't think about when you "dream" of being a Mommy! :)

Mason's drive and determination at even this young of an age is impressive. I pray that he continues to grow with this character trait and that it takes him far in life.

Mason stole my heart the minute he took his first breath in this world and let out his strong fighting little cry. Every year with him has brought joy, new challenges, and lots of love. I can't believe my first born baby is a big 4 year old now. I treasure him and thank God for blessing our lives with such an amazing little boy!

Merry Christmas 2015

Christmas Day was another fun day for our family. We kicked off our celebration with Santa surprises on Christmas morning!

We took video of the morning but I did not take a single picture of us opening gifts. The kids were excited and then Mommy found a note from Santa up by our stockings. It told the kids that there was one last surprise for them in the backyard.

They were thrilled to find their new playset!

 

It was so cold and Mallory was still in her gown so she didn't stay out very long but they both love it! I wasn't expecting Mallorys reaction though. She was really excited but very confused as to where her old playhouse went and why in the world Santa would just take it! Haha. She definitely needs some extra time to process change!

We met my family again for a delicious Chrismtas lunch!

I so love these sweet peas!

Enjoying a walk in the beautiful weather!

After lunch we headed out to D's parents house for Christmas with his family!

We were not even down the street yet and Mason spotted the new playset out at G&Ps house! Haha. He has such good eyes. The kids loved playing outside and then we opened presents and had a wonderful meal together.

Silly kids!

It was a busy and blessed day making memories with the tweedle buggies and our families. We love Christmas, celebrating Jesus, and the traditions the holiday brings! Counting down to next year!

Christmas Eve

I've always loved Christmas Eve as much as I do Christmas Day. As kids we spent Christmas Eve at my Granny's house opening gifts from her, our extended family, and my parents. It was always so much fun! I love how that tradition has continued with my parents.

Maser, Poppy and Mal waiting for everyone to arrive!

My girl!

Big helpers!

Annual family picture before we get started! I sure do love these people!

Sweet boy tearing right in!

Presents from Aunt Karen!

Decorating cookies for "Ho Ho"!

Precious cousins!

Daddy reading The Night Before Christmas before bed!

I love having a day to just enjoy each other's company and have a little gift giving fun! Looking forward to next year already!

Holiday Giving

Last year Honey and I took the kids to central fire station the week of Christmas to drop off some goodies and do a tour. We decided to continue the tradition this year and Poppy, Mami, and Baby Hudson were able to join us!

This year they were having a big meeting so the Batallion Chief was able to show us the truck, the engine, and the ambulance.

It was a fun time and it's great to have the opportunity to thank our first responders for their hard work, especially those who work through the holidays away from their families. The Batallion Chief informed us all the goodies were gone before he finished our tour and never even made it to the kitchen! Glad to know they appreciate the small gesture and holiday cheer! ;)

Polar Express

We were so excited for the Polar Express this year. We got tickets early for the weekend before Christmas. D decided at the last minute that we should get a hotel for the night and just have a little getaway. When we got into town we checked into our hotel and were planning to just hang out for a little bit before it was time to get in our Pjs and head to the train station. The kids were overly excited and energetic about the evening and got a little rowdy. Unfortunately Mason took it to far and ended up knocking Mallory over into the dresser in the hotel room. She hit the back of her head on the round knob on the drawer and we knew by the sound when she hit, that it was not good. Sure enough she was bleeding and we immediately loaded up and headed to the nearest ER! (Thanks again Lace for the help guiding us where to go!) Besides illness related situations, this was our first trip to the emergency room and it was so stressful. She never lost consciousness and the bleeding didn't seem too bad, but I was still so anxious. And of course all this happened literally 45 minutes before we were supposed to be at the train

She was so scared and her head hurt pretty bad so it made me so sad. But the doctor quickly checked her out and said we would be fine to let it bleed for the evening and that skull lacerations are one of the easiest healing wounds on the body. They don't scar and close rather quickly. So we were in and out in time to grab some Tylenol from the pharmacy, run back and get in our jammies, and head to the Polar Express!

Ready to board!

Thankful for a good distraction!

 

Looking for the North Pole! (No, we didn't even clean her hair. That spot on her head was incredibly sensitive so we just let it be!)

Santa! 

After the train ride we grabbed dinner at Five Guys and went back to the hotel. We were all wiped out. It was a long and emotional day. I put Mal in the bath so we could wash her hair and I could treat her wound with neosporin.

It was still pretty yucky at that point but it definitely could have been worse!

All clean and snug in bed. Bless her heart!

The next day we ran to a couple of places and stopped at the science spectrum so the kids could play. But to be honest, we had some poor attitudes so we cut our trip short and headed home. That's life sometimes! We did our best to make memories and let the rest go!

Mals wound is about 90% healed as of today and I can wash and brush her hair without any complaints again. Hoping we don't ever have any incidents like that again! ;)