18 months

Hudson is 18 months old today. The last few months he has really grown up. He has started talking more, communicating more, he's got more opinions, and he's also more fun for Roman to play with.

It's so fun to watch him walking around.

He loves to do everything Roman is doing.

He is a major climber. He will climb anything, literally, anything; chairs, stools, walkers, couches, tables, I've found him in the kitchen sink, on the toilet (luckily the seat is closed), strollers, if it's possible to be climbed he will at least try.

The last few days I've kept a notebook handy and have written down all the words Hudson can say. I have to admit I was actually a little surprised how many things he says now. And he even put two words together a few times.

Mama

Mahm (This is how he says Mom)

Daday (this is how he pronounces Daddy)

Bubs (Roman)

Up

Down

Drop

Chair

Kuh-key (Monkey)

Popca (popcorn)

Uh huh

Go

Buh (bye)

Hello

Eat

Cup

Play

Help

Baac (vacuum)

Ah Duh (all done)

Cold (But he never just says cold, he says cold cold cold cold cold cold cold)

Hot

Book

Yeah

Ball

Bapple (he says it bapple because Roman laughs at it every time)

Car

No

Pho (Phone)

Foot

Me

Mik (Milk)

Stuck

Jack (Jacket)

Shoe

Duck

Okay

Hat

Head

Bear

Cheese
This
That
Grape

He knows two animal sounds

Monkey (oo-oo-oo)

Duck (Quack Quack Quack)

Any other animal you ask him he will tell you it says Quack. Roman loves to ask him other animals then laugh that he said Quack so I think it's kind of encouraged him to keep doing that.

He does about 10 signs

Mommy

Daddy

Banana

Milk

Eat

More

All Done

Cracker

Please

Thank You

This morning I set up a little shoot this morning, then after I took the pictures I realized my editing software is on the computer that Spencer took down to the basement and it's not currently set up. So here are a few unedited, straight off my camera. It was so cute, Hudson said "Cheese" for the first time while we were taking pictures. He was really hamming it up.

Roman wanted to have his pictures taken too. Don't they look so sweet? Yeah, they are just looking at my iPod.

Roman swimming

Over the summer Roman took a few sessions of swimming lessons. He really loved it. He took a break to do tumbling, which he also loved, but when it was time to decide what to do for January he said he wanted to take swimming lessons again. He started back on January 5 and the first day I felt like Roman was so far behind the other 3 kids in his class. They have all been taking lessons continuously since last spring. He has been learning so fast though. He is now swimming on his own, today he floated on his back almost the distance of the length of the pool. I was so amazed and impressed by him. Especially considering that just 6 months ago he wouldn't even put his head under the water. Now look at this boy...he's SWIMMING!

(I hope this works...I just used it from facebook...if it doesn't will someone please comment, if anyone is still reading that is and let me know! Thanks!)

The many faces of Hudson

Hudson is always making faces...here are a few of our favorite.

the rest of November and December - Part 1

I knew that November was too easy. As soon as I got my new camera I became a little snap happy. I took over 700 pictures in the last 2 days of November and the month of December.

On November 30 we went to the Festival of Trees with Becky and her girls and my cousin Tiffany and her 2 youngest sons. Somehow I didn't get any pictures of Carter or Jacob, but here are the other 4 cute kids we had with us. Hudson was happy to chill in his stroller.

I especially love Gabby in this picture.

There were so many beautiful trees, wreaths, Christmas decor, statues, and gingerbread houses. And of course, the kids LOVED the Kids Korner where they could do crafts and things.

Here are a few of our favorite trees.

And Gingerbread houses.

There were so many cool houses, animals, a carousel horse, too many things to post about, but you could tell that they all had so much love put into making them.

Of course the kids favorite, as I mentioned before was the Kids Korner. Roman wanted to paint an ornament again.

As soon as Thanksgiving was over, Roman was ready for Christmas. He wanted me to take pictures of them with their "elf" hats on.

Every year we go to Park City because my parents have a time share condo there. We were only able to go one night this year, but the boys loved it (as always.) We always go down to the pool even though it's FREEZING outside.

Roman wanted to stay on the stairs where he could sit and play with his water gun.

Hudson on the other hand had fun splashing in the water with Daddy. Hudson didn't last long in the pool though, it was just too cold.

Hudson didn't mind sitting on the stairs with Roman as long as they were splashing.

This little computer has been such a hit with my boys. I have a picture of Roman a little older then Hudson is now laying on the couch playing with his computer.

Hudson wanted to do somersaults with Roman.

These boys are so cute spinning together.

I love walking into a room to find Roman laying on the floor (or couch, or chair) reading a book. He loves reading, and has gained enough confidence that he'll read by himself now. He still has trouble sounding some words out, but it doesn't stop him from trying.

November in a nutshell

November I was busy crafting away (I'll write a post just about all the craftiness), but we still made sure to do plenty of fun things.

Ever since the spring Roman has been asking when the leaves were going to fall off the trees so he could play in them, so he was thrilled when they started falling. It seems like our leaves just dump all at once. We have huge piles of leaves everywhere. Roman was so excited he was jumping in them and throwing them up in the air. Hudson was a little confused about what exactly Roman was doing, and just kind of sat back and watched him.

Both boys were interested in the leaf blower though. Roman especially liked to be blown away with it (while wearing a cape)

Every year we go up to Snowbird's Customer Appreciation days. They offer a free tram ride with a donation of one can per person to the Utah Food Bank. Some years there's sun, others there's snow, but we love going. This year, there was a blizzard! It was freezing cold and as soon as we got off the tram the boys wanted to go straight to the warming hut. With wind chill they said it was below 0 outside.

The boys were happy on the tram, they loved watching out the windows.

The view from the tram on the way up.

Mom, it's COLD!

This was the best picture we were able to get of the 4 of us this year. The boys were so cold they were crying. The wind was blowing snow in their faces, but it was memorable!

For the last few months Roman has been in a community ed tumbling class. He really liked it, he was running around, doing somersaults and crab walks, and being crazy for an hour a week.

November 18 was our 11th wedding anniversary, Spencer and I take turns planning our anniversaries. We haven't really been able to do anything the last 2 years (because of Hudson) so I wanted to do something fun this year. I found a deal online for the Solomon Center to do the iFly (indoor sky diving in a wind tunnel) flowrider (indoor surfing/body boarding) and the climbing wall. It was an excellent deal so I decided that's what we would do and planned around it. I picked Roman up from school and went straight to my parents and Marla watched the boys overnight for us. We did the iFly first, and I'll admit I was nervous, but it was so much fun! We finished up there and went down to the flowrider. We were there for an hour and we were so exhausted and hungry and it was starting to snow so we decided to skip the climbing wall and head straight to dinner.

I found a BBQ place that looked good near the bed and breakfast I had reservations for us at and it was so good. We found our way to the "Atomic Chalet" (Yes, that is really what the B&B was called) which was right on a lake, the snow was falling, we were sore from falling so much on the flowrider so we sat in front of the fire, sat in the hot tub, watched a movie, went to sleep early, it was such a nice, relaxing time. We woke up to a blanket of snow. It was beautiful. We sat in front of the fire, ate breakfast, looked at photography books (like National Geographic), then we decided to go drive around the lake and just look at all the snow. It was so beautiful. It was the perfect little anniversary get away.

Roman's first talk all my himself in Primary. I had him read it the morning before because I didn't know if we would be able to do it in Primary. He did so great. He practiced every day that week and was able to read it all by himself.

Here he is in primary, you can hear him, but can't really see him, because he was shorter then the podium.


One afternoon we were headed out to run some errands. I asked Roman to run up to his bedroom to grab his shoes really quick so we could go. 10 minutes later he still hadn't come back down so I decided I better go check on him. I found him, on his bedroom floor, fast asleep. To his credit, he did have his shoes out, he just didn't get any further then that.

This year we spent Thanksgiving with Spencer's mom and step-dad. It was just his mom, step-dad, brother, sister-in-law, his step-sister and her boyfriend. It was a nice quiet day. We stayed until we needed to get the boys home to bed. I even made Roman's Christmas hat while we were there. (I went a little overboard on the hats this year, these were their Thanksgiving Turkey hats.)

I have a lot more pictures for December then November, because Spencer surprised me with my birthday present a week early. He sent Roman upstairs (on November 29, about a week before my birthday) with my early birthday present...he gave me a Canon 18-55mm lens (I didn't have a DSLR camera) so I asked where the rest was. He said I could hav it on my birthday. Torture! So Roman and I searched the house and found my present...I was afraid I had been a horrible example teaching him to look for presents. Luckily he was still good about leaving presents alone.

This was one of the first pictures I took playing with my new camera.