Tuesday, October 21, 2014

The Guys



Every single day I think about blogging and documenting all of the amazing and hilarious things I get to do with my guys.
Things are really busy and crazy and I am super tired, but I am confidant that these are some of the best years of my life and I just don't want to forget them. I have so much fun being a Mom and I am so nervous that when they grow up and leave my little nest that they will be typical boys and have very little to do with me
I don't know how I ever lived without him!
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So I will start with my perfect, sweet amazing, happy adorable baby Fletch. Fletch! You are 5 months already! Whhhhhhhaaaaaaaatttttt????? You continue to be a TOTAL joy to be around. You are such a super duper happy boy. You smile all of the time, and when you are not smiling, you are calm and content. You let your brothers rough you up showing you all sorts of love and grace them with your dimpley smile. Hudson is particularly OBSESSED with you. He carries you around and if I am busy doing something while you are upset he is VERY quick to scold me. The other day in fact You were crying upstairs and I was downstairs finishing something that I needed to do. Hudson got out a bottle, put water in it , mixed formula up and tried to feed it to you as he figured you were hungry. He prays prayers of thanks for you everyday.
I
Baby Fletch LOVES his Dad

Future Mrs. and Mr. Heath (Lizzie Depew)
Adorable outfit from Auntie Leanne

 I owe you a huge thanks right now as just last week you decided to start sleeping through the night!!!!! It has been amazing. You love your night time ritual with Daddy. You have a certain green fuzzy blanket that you are obsessed with and Dad has the perfect touch to get you to sleep. We have to make sure you are on your belly as you are most definitely a belly sleeper(tisk tisk, I know)
Lately you are continuing to teeth. Your little teeth are so close to cutting, I just want them to come through so bad so you will get some relief.  I am not sure if this is a result of chewing on your fingers or not, but you have become a thumb sucker. Both me and your Dad both sucked our thumbs, so I am trying to break you of your adorable habit.

Nooooooo!!!! 
This past week I was in the line at Dollarama, and a lady turned around and said you looked like Pee Wee Herman. I am assuming it was in regards to your hair. After telling your Dad about that he convinced me it was time to cut your hair. You have rubbed off most of your hair so the only really long part is in the middle and it was definitely really long.
Lastly, I have to brag, you LOVE  your Mama. You light up when I am around and it is so so heartwarming. You smile at me all of the time and I am honestly just obsessed with your dimples and squishy chubb.  Sometimes I will be busy scurrying around and I will look at you and you are looking at me with a huge smile and I wonder to myself how long you have been smiling at me. You are just the best and I am so so so grateful for you Fletch! I love you!!!!

I always wanted a baby with dimples:)
Now on to sassy sir grumps a lot Cooper. Well terrible twos has been living in our home for the past couple months. My sweet perfect, kind Coopy has turned into the biggest Sass. He gives his big brother and his Mama quite the attitude. "You not listening to me Mom".Cooper instead of using his sweet timid little voice now yells and demands, non stop.It has been such a change. I am thankful for the time I have with my Coopy while Hudson goes to school. It has been fun getting to spend one on one time with him even if he is bossing me around and being grumpy with me most of the time! Cooper loves his toys, especially magnetix and small figurines. I love watching him use his imagination and play. Cooper has also started to enjoy coloring and drawing and painting. 99 percent of the time his body becomes part of the canvas.  Right now two random things that Coop is obsessed with are his rubber boots and gum(including disgusting chewed up gum)
The artist.

A face I see a lot of!
Stubborn 2 year old has to eat his "Donalds" the way he wants!
Cooper enjoys park visits, walks, and most of all playing with Hudson. When I asked Cooper who he wanted to invite to his upcoming birthday the only person he said was Hudson. If you ask Cooper who his best friend is, again, Hudson is the answer. I am so glad that my big boys have each other. One of my favorite sounds is when my guys are playing Skylanders in the playroom, and Hudson is patiently teaching Cooper how to play. Cooper's cackle echos through the house. It is truly the most beautiful music to my ears!
Another thing that Cooper and Hudson love is their nightly routine with Dad. Shane has been reading the scriptures with the boys, then he snuggles one boy first, then the other boy gets to say prayer first. Both have thrived off this part of their day, and each  is so so excited when it is their night to get snuggles first:)
Cooper has a special love for his Auntie Jodie and his cousins. He has been able to see them quite a bit, and just LOVES to be spoiled by all of their love and attention.

BFF'S Coopy and Cass!!

Now on to my super sneaky smart Hudster!
My sweet Hudson has ADHD. Recently he has started medication that has been an absolute blessing in all of our lives. Hudson's "listening medicine" has given him a teeny bit of reprieve from some of the difficult symptoms of this condition. We have been waiting for him to be in school to start medication, and honestly it has just been the best thing ever!!!!
Hudson is thriving with school. He loves school. He is excited to go to school each day and loves to show me his creations when he gets home. I love to hear all of his stories and get to know all of his cute little classmates.

Yellow Day and Crazy Hat/Hair day

Rainbow Huds!
Best Buds already!

Hudson's teacher is an angel. She is great with Hudson and each day when I pick Hudson up we review his day to see if he has had a "Shazam Day" or not. This method has been really effective for him. Hudson has already made a few buds in his class. David Siakuluk and Sarah Hinman are in our ward, so it is fun that he knew them already, but there are a few other friends that Hudson has met that he is so excited about! Antonio and Noah are a couple of boys who Hudson talks about a lot. I found it really hard at first to get into the routine of getting all of the boys ready and off to school on time, but now I am really liking it. I love our little schedule and I LOVE afternoon school. (I have no idea how we will get him to school on time next year!) Hudson also has home reading. It is fun spending that one on one time with my boy and watching him learn to read.
Now that Hudson is able to concentrate longer and he is learning so much at school he loves to sit at the table and draw and write letters ect. One day I was going through some of his notes I noticed one that said "Hudson loves Jorja". I could not believe my eyes. There is a cute girl named Georgia that is in one of the other kindergarden classes. She always comes and talks to us and Hudson has mentioned her a few times. I had noticed one day she said hi to "Hudsy" and Hudson started blushing, but didn't think much of it. Well, when I asked Hudson about his note he couldn't even speak. It was hilarious. He denied it and was so embarrassed. The next day Georgia said hi to Hudson and he hid his face. I asked him why he didn't say hello and he responded that he did not know. So funny. We are having lots of fun teasing our boy about his first crush.

Drawing Mickey Mouse:)


My boys play NON STOP with these! Best toy ever!

 We are trying to enjoy the last few beautiful days of fall with lots of Park visits. We are so loving the school park finally being built.
Just this past week our renters moved out of our condo so Shane and I are busy trying to figure out a few renovations so that hopefully we can sell it and prepare to move out of our duplex. I know it is time to move and I am really done with this place, but at the same time I feel a bit bratty being annoyed with still being here. I don't have to look far to see so many people who would love to live in my home. I do want to move very badly but at the same time, I am thankful for the blessing of being able to even own a home in our crazy market!
I am sooooo not looking forward to these renos. I just hope that we are able to get them all done with the least amount of stress possible.
Shane was recently released from his calling in Young Mens and is now the Gospel Doctrine teacher at church. Shane LOVED working with the youth and was quite sad to have a new post, but he is extremely knowledgeable and is a great teacher(especially since he is teaching the old testament) so the ward is lucky to have him. I am still teaching the 8 year old kids in Senior Primary and I love it.

One little activity that we participate in each fall is our church's annual food drive for the Edmonton Food Bank. This year we brought all of the boys out to hand out our flyers. Hudson was a major CHAMP. He was so excited to serve. He literally ran from house to house. It was amazing explaining to him why we were doing that and how it could help so many people who were in need. The day we went to pick up the food, we really did not expect very much food, but we were pleasantly surprised. Hudson even spotted food on doorsteps that we missed. He was just so eager to help and it was great having that experience with him. It is a tradition that I love and I sure hope we can do it for years to come!
 One other challenge Shane and I are participating in with My sister Jodie, Leanne and my Mom and Dad is trying to finish the Book of Mormon before Christmas. I have not read the Book of Mormon in a long time and have LOVED reading it again. It has already blessed my life in many ways. I know it is a true book, so every time I read it I just feel so thankful for it. I have not established a schedule and don't read every day, but I read when I can and when I make time and it has just been awesome. I am confidant that I am in the lead:)
This week is Cooper's birthday, so hopefully it will not be such a long time between posts:)


Thursday, September 18, 2014

Disneyland 2014

After Hudson's big first day, he was not able to go back to school, because we had a HUGE surprise for him!!!
Shane and I planned a trip to Disneyland:) In the nick of time we were able to get all of our documents and go to the happiest place on Earth with Joel and Amy and their family, Jan, and Cherie and Jaime.
Nice picture Fletchy-haha
For such a long time Hudson has been begging us to take him to Disneyland, and we were finally able to make it happen. We woke the boys up last Sunday morning and told them the big news. They were pretty tired but once it registered the boys were excited! Hudson kept pinching himself saying, "is this a dream"-haha!
We met Auntie Cherie and Jaime at the airport, and were grateful for their helping hands. The boys were tired, but so excited to fly. They all did great, however, a MAJOR shout out needs to go out to baby Fletch for being the absolute best traveler!
We were super lucky and everything went very smoothly with our short layover and transfer. The boys wrestling on the airport ground got me a few dirty looks, but other than that they were pretty big champs.
The day we arrived the weather was super hot, so we hung out at the pool and ordered pizza and had an early night.
Fletch workin on his tan:)

The next morning Hudson was so so excited he could barely contain himself. He was up and dressed in his diy mickey mouse shirt super early.I will never forget Hudson barging in my room and announcing "Lets go to Disneyland". We stayed at the Residence Inn(Marriott) and it was AMAZING. I loved the pool, the breakfast was unreal, and they even upgraded our room for free. The room was so great. We will definitely stay there again!

 When we were all ready to go everyone left for the park, and I stayed behind to see if my new stroller would arrive. I met up with everyone about an hour later. The kids went to Fantasyland and went on the dumbo ride, peter pan, the matterhorn- 4 times, the tea cups and it's a small world, all in about 2 hours. There were no lines at all. We then ripped over to Tommorowland. This was where Hudson was able to ride his favorite ride, Star Tours. He went back on that ride several times. We went on a few different rides, like Buzz Lightyear (which I sucked at) before stopping for lunch. I found the amazing baby center, and had a delicious corndog, all things I read about online (very helpful tips:)

Cooper and Auntie Cherie

After lunch we went over to Adventureland and went on Indiana Jones, and the safari ride, Pirates of the Caribbean,. The first day was a big success. Lots of rides, very few lines, but it was CRAZY hot, and our feet were super sore, even with my good shoes. The first day our SUUUUUUPER awesome stroller did not arrive on time, so I just rented a stroller. It made SUCH  a huge difference having a good stroller the following days. Poor Fletcher got a small sunburn on his cheeks, but again was a major champ. It was so much better for him when we got our new stroller.
The awesomest little traveller!!!


Day one we all wore our Mickey Mouse shirts, and it really did make it so so much fun having them. Everyone commented on them. I will make more next time we go for sure. It also made it so easy to find people in our very large group! We liked them so much we all washed them and wore them again on Friday.


Tuesday, I felt was also a very smooth day. We started out in California Adventure and went to Carsland. For all of the hype, I have to say I was not disappointed. I loved the Radiator Springs ride, and when we were staying behind with Cooper and Jade, we saw Mater, Lightning McQueen and  the Firetruck. We lined up and waited not very long, then got fast passes and rider swap passes and were able to all ride the ride a couple times without waiting.

Lightning McQueen

The Firetruck!

Mater:)

 Early in the morning Cherie also got us Fast Passes for World of Color which was SERIOUSLY worth the trip alone!
I loved every minute of it. I wanted to cry when it was over:)Typically we brought the boys home for their bedtimes but that night we stayed late as I had shown Hudson youtube videos of World of Color and he wanted to see it. About halfway through the show he sat himself in the stroller and fell asleep. haha


Our second day we also went and saw the Aladdin show. Again, I LOVED it. Disney is so smart. They have air conditioned shows for kids and parents:) I really loved that show:) The boys went on the Tower of Terror and California Screamin as well as the Toy Story ride, and then we ran into Donald Duck. Hudson was too short for the California Screamin ride which is a huge rollercoaster, and he cried for about 20 minutes because he wanted to ride it so bad-ha! I told him it just meant we will have to go back again one day:)


We met Donald. Cooper insisted on ruining the photo. Our Donald was really funny:)

We also rode another favorite ride, soarin over California. It was such a neat ride and totally made me want to move to CA. :)Again, I feel like we were pretty lucky as we just walked on to those rides, and the people who wanted to got to ride as much as they wanted.



That night for dinner we went to the Rainforest Cafe. I am not sure what was going on, but Cooper was insane! The atmosphere was fun, but holy moly my kids were NUTS!!
Cute Linky and Cole
 On Wednesday we took the day off. It was nice to relax and hang around the hotel. We went back to downtown Disney and took the boys shopping at the Ginormous Disney store and to the Lego store. Hudson wanted "ears" so we let him pick some out. It was nice to just spend time as the 5 of us and move at a slower pace. We also enjoyed some yummy pretzels and ice cream.

Ears!

Cute Happy Boys


The Lego store

One small meltdown(of many)-The happiest place on earth...right?

Thursday we started out back at Disneyland and used out early magic morning pass. It ended up being kind of a bust as most of the rides had longer lines than normal haha. Again it was scorching out, but we came a bit more prepared with lots of frozen drinks. The kids went back on the matterhorn, the tea cups and I got to go on the Peter Pan ride. We also went back and did Indiana Jones and planned on doing all of the wet rides. Splash  Mountain was closed, so awesome Aunt Amy, took the boys to the Jedi Training Academy. I honestly did not think that Hudson would even care about it, but he recognized Darth Vadar from the Star Wars Angry Birds-haha, and ended up LOVING it. It was honestly the cutest thing ever. Cole and Lincoln and Hudson all got chosen for the academy. It again, was the CUTEST!!


Hudson and Darth

Jedi Training



After lunch we planned on heading back over to California Adventure and going on the Grizzly River Run(another wet ride). That is where our trip Drama happened. We had just taken a double decker trolley bus ride and left disneyland, and the ticket checker into CA was suuuuper slow. In one of the lines Cooper got off the stroller, but we did not realize until we were all getting ready to get on the grizzly ride.
Me and Shane started running back to the gate to see if we could find him. It had been at least 5-10 minutes. I talked to someone at the entrance of Disney and they said they had a missing 2 year old, but that he kept saying his name was Kevin and his brother's name was Jake. The trolley driver's name was Kevin, and we had all just said Thank you Kevin.  They made me trek it over to the missing childrens place instead of seeing Cooper aka Kevin. During that time thankfully Shane was reunited with Cooper, and he had gone back to meet up with the rest of our party, but he had my park tickets so when I tried to get back  they would not allow me back in the park. The whole ordeal was really stressful. Damn Cooper:)
After that ride we ended up taking in a couple shows. We went to the Disney Junior Show and the Crush Turtle Talk show. The boys LOVED the Disney junior show and at one point Cooper got so excited he head butted Shane in the mouth and gave Shane a bruised and bloody lip-ha! Shane bought himself a turkey leg, and we bought Fletchy a new outfit as he needed to be refreshed.

The Disney Jr. Show

Show war wounds:)

The cutest, sweetest baby Buzz!!!!


We ended the day by taking the boys on a bunch of quick rides in Bug's Land and came home and passed out
Bug's Land
Friday we decided to all wear our shirts again. We lined up first thing and were able to get our picture with Mickey Mouse. The kids loved it. If you ask Cooper who he saw at Disneyland, he will tell you " Mickey", and that he gave Mickey a hug. So cute!!

The Whole group

Cooper getting his hug.
Space Mountain re-opened on Friday, so we literally RAN to the front of the line and rode it first. It was all done up for Halloween, and it was super creepy. Hudson LOVED it. We then ran over and did the Haunted Mansion, Pirates again and Splash Mountain. After Splash, I was drenched. The boys rode the rides a couple more times, and Cherie and I took the little kids to Toon Town. Amy and Micah had a date at the Bibbity Bobbity Boutique, so we stopped in there on the way to Toon Town. Honestly, it was the cutest thing ever. Micah was so adorable! The older kids went over to the innovations show and Jaime got to meet Thor and Captain America( as they were good looking:)

Splash Mountain

Princess Micah and Jade Post Boutique

Later on, with Micah all dressed up everyone had lunch with the Princesses at Ariels Grotto. My boys were not too interested so we just ate in Disneyland, then went over to C.A. and rode a ton of rides. We went on Monsters inc about 3-4 times, the Ferris Wheel, the Goofy Pilot roller coaster, the jumping Jelly Fish and a few others. We were SOOOO HOT, so we decided to go back to the Pool and cool off. It happened to be Dapper Day in the park, and despite it being 37 degrees Celcius so many people were dressed up. It was so much fun to see.  There really was no lines at all, but it was just so hot! We saw some more characters and Cooper even got some autographs.The kids really were so cute with the characters. They would just get so star struck. I loved it!



Jesse!






The kids really did so well. It was very chaotic at times, but I am so thankful for the memories we made. I think we will wait another 4-5 years and go back when Fletchy can ride all of the rides. I love my family and feel so blessed that we were able to have this fun experience:)


School Boy

Oi! I have to start somewhere, so I will start and hopefully some of my ramblings will make sense.
So many big moments have been happening around here.




2 weeks ago our biggest boy started kindergarden. I can't believe it. Hudson was so super excited. He has been counting down the days for so long. I think we were all a bit nervous. Hudson was up early, and got all dressed, packed his snack and had his back pack on before 8 am. He was adorable. He kept asking me how long until we could go.
Shane came home for lunch and we walked him over. He looked so adorable with his backpack on. We met his teacher Mrs. Nikolaou and she seemed so sweet and great. Cooper sure missed his brother. Hudson was pretty excited when we picked him up. Hudson's teacher was able to recognize his high activity level right away, which was hard, but good. I love my boy so much and am so thankful he has a good teacher. I hope she will love him and help him( and me):)







We are sure proud of our big boy. We will miss having him all to ourselves, but are so excited for all of the experiences he is going to have. We LOVE you big guy!!!