Tis the Season

After eating at Chili's Saturday evening, we headed to the mall to see Santa, "see" being the operative word. Neither one of my kiddos wanted to "meet" him; just see him...clearly, from afar.


Thumbie made it a little bit better, but not much.

Hudson wouldn't even enter the general North Pole area, staying well outside it's boundaries, buried in his coat in his brother's stroller. You would never have known that he was so pumped all day to go see Santa...that is until it was time to do more than literally "see" him!

All the "well, how will he know what to get you for Christmas?" wouldn't get that boy anywhere near the North Pole. He's no dummy; he recognizes his mama's mind games when he hears one.

Instead, we let the boys run the train twice and play on the rides. They have just as much fun climbing on them and pushing the buttons; they have no idea the rides can actually do something when given a few hundred dollars worth of quarters for fifty seconds of thrill. Let's keep them on the down-low.

In other news, Papaw Stan made Hudson some Ralphie glasses and he LOVES them! We have been watching A Christmas Story year round, so when Hudson got his very own pair of glasses, he started acting out the seen where Ralphie shoots his eye out and blames the icicle.

Tonight at our church's kids program, I witnessed the most adorably skinny little Santa I have ever seen.
"Ho, ho, ho!"

Christmas Bling

I am loving my purple accented tree in the living room, I am loving watching tv with the tree lit in the corner and I am LOVING my newest Christmas find...


Oh, the picture doesn't do it justice, but it's the cutest little tree in the neatest shade of green that matches my kitchen perfectly. I eyed it all last season at Target but wasn't going to pay full price for it ($20) and missed it in the after-Christmas sales. Well, low and behold, I found it at my neighborhood garage sale for TWO BUCKS!!! I was soooooo excited, I cannot tell you...until I got it out of the attic and it was too tall to fit underneath the cabinets. If something so silly could make a person so sad, I was that person. I was on a mean roller-coaster of emotions, first to be so excited that I found my little kitchen tree for such a bargain, only to be totally dejected when it was too tall! One thing I love about my wonderful hubby is that he welcomed the challenge and didn't rest until he made that dang tree fit! It had an unexpectedly sturdy metal rod down the middle of it that he actually had to get his saw and cut. It was embarrassing, really, how I jumped around and hugged him over and over, like we had just won the lottery when I came in the kitchen and saw the magic. It doesn't take much to make this girl happy!

This tree, on the other hand, only wishes he could sit undisturbed on my kitchen counter. I cannot count the times it has already hit the floor.

And this is just a cute picture of my boys, cuddled in the big chair, hanging out while the big boy tries to watch football amongst all the distraction. And although Car's hand is not in the best location, I still think it's cute and wanted to post it.

Poor Hudson keeps asking me "Is it Christmas?" and has the hardest time understanding that while yes, it's the Christmas season, no, Christmas is still several weeks away. I think I am going to hurry up and make him a paper chain before I go to bed since tomorrow is the first so he will better understand how many days left until Christmas.

Hope you are having a good start to your Christmas season as well.

Thanksgiving in IN

Our Thanksgiving holiday began on Tuesday with Hudson's first ever school program. He was the cutest little Indian I've ever seen, although he was convinced he was dressed up as a turkey! My mom went with me to help with Carson so I could shoot pics and take video, though my dumb, cheap camera made them turn out dark. A nice new camera is certainly on my Santa list (a.k.a. tax check wish list). After treating my Indian chief to lunch, we headed home to pack for our trip to Indiana. I had to have everything packed before I left for work Tuesday night so that Jeff could load the van and pick me up from work the following morning. He managed to remember everything on his full-page list, get two kids up and was only ten minutes late to pick me up!

We were long overdue for an extended family get-together. My extended family has never really gotten together for holidays for various reasons. I've known the Sandefur/Edwards clan for 14+ years now and now realize that a big part of staying close to extended family is the fact that both sides have a strong Christian heritage. There ended up being 19 of us, and that was just one of my mother-in-law's sisters and her family. Imagine what it looks like when her other siblings and ALL their family get together...and we ALL used to every New Year's Day. And that's not to mention the Sandefur side: my father-in-law is one of five children!

After dinner, most of us watched old, old home movies on this old thing...

While others pretended to be a big, big boy and play Nintendo with the older kids.

Jeff and his older bro, Brian.

The most precious thing that occurred that day was my sweet baby found his Great Uncle Mort and found a new best friend. He kept going over to him and wanting him to pick him up and would sit on his lap. Uncle Mort couldn't stop smiling. Right before Uncle Mort and Aunt Jean left, Carson looked up at him and said "PaPa." It melted our hearts!

Julie will kill me for not cropping her out, but like I said, my camera is dumb and cheap and every time I zoomed in, it was even more blurry. We were looking through some old photos and happened upon this one of my nephew Jordan. Remember when I talked about how Carson reminds us of Jordan as a baby? Well, check this out!

This is what I have to look forward to in 18 years! Ha!


You know what they say about turkey...some of us were just wiped out by the day's end.

The rest of our time back home was low-key: eating at some of our favorites and spending time with friends and a few more family members that we didn't see on Thursday. Several family members we normally visit with were out of state for the holiday. We hit Frisch's Big Boy for the first time since moving to TN.

We spent plenty of time, hanging out at Mamaw and Papaw's in our pj's too!

How blessed and thankful I am, not only for my little family of four, but for the Godly heritage that He has given Jeff and me.

Oh, Brother

Here are some pictures of Hudson at the same age that Carson is now. The first two pictures really remind me of Carson's face and expressions. (Click on them to make them bigger.)

I don't even remember this last one, but I had to share it! Look at my poor baby in time-out!

Not twins, but certainly brothers. Similar little face and the same stick-straight hair! What do you think?

Hodgepodge

It seems my posts are turning into a collage of thoughts over the last several weeks, as I am slacking on my blogging. But, that just means I am too busy having fun and being a mom, wife, nurse, friend, sister and daughter!

Saturday, Jeff made the treck up the attic stairs to get down all of our Christmas gaiety. We normally follow suit of everyone else and do it the weekend of Thanksgiving, but we decided to spend Thanksgiving with the Indiana fam and will be gone next weekend. I enjoy my Christmas decor too much to only have it up for 3 weeks or so, so I wanted to go ahead and have our season opener. Jared, Kim and Gavin came over to hang out. We don't hang out with them nearly enough; it sounds silly, really, but I wish we were a bit closer than a 30 minute drive one-way. It is so cute watching Carson and Gavin play together (they are 7 wks. apart). I found all my Christmas books, and the boys had a blast with the Cheerio one.

Random story #2: Had to share the story behind this little sweatshirt. It's from Anderson University, our hometown and where I went to college. This girl has always dreamed of being a mommy and bought it my freshman year when the Haven (the little fastfood-like joint on campus right next to the campus bookstore) caught on fire and the bookstore had the sale of the century. They sent all their merchandise to be professionally smoke-cleaned and then sold it for very cheap. I bought a sweatshirt for my future kids and wasn't even married! Jeff would've been scared had he known. He still perhaps has no idea that this sweatshirt joined a collection of a girl's coat (that I just sold in the JBF sale with the tags on it!), diaper bag, duckie one-piece outfit and matching bib, some hair bows and girl's shoes....all collected while either still single or just married! Talk about a way to scare off a guy: "Hey, baby, wanna see all the stuff I've bought for our future children?"

I have no idea where the photo is of Hudson wearing it; I just looked and can't find it easily. But I did find some pictures of him at the same age that Carson is now, and boy, do they favor each other. Maybe next post. Anyway, check out the cutest little AU Raven!

Random story #3: Perhaps Carson has been watching the new Up movie a few too many times, but the child LOVES balloons! He says "ba-ooo!" and points whenever we go to Publix and Dollar Tree, and Factory Card Outlet about blew his mind! That wall full of them about sent the child over the edge with excitement! He ran all through the house, smiling with glee over his ba-oo's. The pictures are so sweet; it's too bad he's not wearing something cuter instead of a wife-beater!

Randomness, continued: I've been having a blast, making our own pizzas. Check out the new pepperoni mini's; almost too cute to eat! We gobbled it right up!

And last but not least, I am nothing if not resourceful. Jeff accidentally pulled off one of the velcro sticky tabs on a clean diaper and went to trash it. "Oh, no! I'll make it work, trust me. I'll tape it on him if I have to," I say. Well....

Worked like a charm!

And before you call Child Protective Services, the tape only touched the diaper, not my son's precious skin! No mark, no mess, no waste!

Y'all have a blessed Thanksgiving!

Update on my Ex-Linus

Besides that ONE meltdown the next day (read post below), Hudson has not said another word about his blankies!! That makes me feel really good about the whole thing; that it was certainly time. He seems really proud of himself and keeps telling people "I don't suck my thumb anymore!"

What a big boy! I am so proud of him!

So long, Linus

Hudson went to bed last night without his blankie. Blankie=sucking his thumb. To stop the thumb-sucking, blankie had to go. Don't judge: I tried to get both of my boys to take a pacifier, trust me. I didn't want thumb suckers. It just happened. If Hudson had taken a pacifier, it would've been gone long ago, but obviously, you can't cut their thumb off! With Hud, he only sucks his thumb when he has his crocheted blankets made by my grandma. He has his favorites; the ones made with softer yarn, but any crocheted blanket will do. He has four that rotate as they take their turns getting washed, but one of his favorites is this crazy colored bright yellow and green one that Grandma Ann crocheted for me when I was a baby. My mom found it when Hudson first got attached to them, and it was love at first sight.

I've known for awhile that he needed to stop, but quite honestly, they make life easier. It's like a warm bath; they soothe and settle him when he's tired and just calm him. He sucks his left thumb and works his little pinky through the holes of the crocheted yarn. The dentist has been mentioning it on every visit. He can spot a thumb-sucking overbite from across the room, I suppose. Goes with the job. We've known it was time. Just been making excuse after excuse.

We have been laying the foundation for the last couple weeks, telling him that really soon, he was going to have to stop sucking his thumb and get rid of his blankies since he's a big boy and only babies suck their thumb. We talked about it from a dental perspective and how sucking his thumb was messing up his teeth and wasn't healthy for his mouth. We have told him all about when his friend Thomas stopped sucking his thumb. On Sunday, my mom let him pick out a toy from Walmart, yet all week, he has talked about another toy in particular that he saw while there. I have explained that we don't just go buy toys for the heck of it; that he can ask for that toy for Christmas, but we aren't going to go buy it. Then a light bulb went off...."Hudson, if you stop sucking your thumb, Mommy will buy you Kelly" (the Thomas the Train character that he wanted). That's all it took. Wednesday night, right then and there, the boy self-initiated his cold turkey act and said he wanted to put his blankets up in the attic. (TOTALLY his idea; I had said nothing about the attic; just that we would have to put them away.) We went room to room and gathered up all four of his blankies, put them in a trash bag and took the long plight up the attic stairs. I shot Jeff a glance with a frowny face and mouthed "this is sooo sad!" Hudson went to bed shortly after, dreaming about heading to Walmart after school the next day. Little did he know, I went to Walmart Tuesday and bought Kelly, knowing that I wanted to use it to reward him for being a big boy.

I let him wake up Thursday, thinking we would be heading to Walmart after I picked him up from school, and then gave him the toy when he got in the car this afternoon. He did so great!.....that is, until this afternoon when his exhausted little self realized what he had done. He routinely went to get it to cuddle with for an afternoon nap, remembered, and then SOBBED for a good twenty minutes, saying "I want my blankie back!!!!!" He could not be consoled for awhile and was actually mad until he finally let me cuddle with him, still crying, while I told him I was so proud of him and so happy that he was such a big boy. I told him he's gonna miss his blankies, but we can't get them down. I literally had tears in my eyes; it was so sad! This part of parenting is so hard and it's only gonna get harder.

And to think I will have to do this same thing over again, only worse. Carson sucks his all the time. He's not even attached to a blanket, so there's no taking away the blanket to stop him from doing it. One big boy step at a time....