January projects

So I mentioned in my last post that the end of January was full of projects.  It's funny because looking back at these pictures I still don't really know how all this stuff fit into just a couple of weeks.  My house was a disaster, I'm sure.  That's usually what goes first. 

To start with, Chris went out of town for 8 days.  Every year I send him skiing for his birthday.  Because I'm super nice like that.   Also, it makes my life easier since his birthday is right after Christmas so I don't have to think of more ideas for gifts!  This year he had a work trip to San Fransisco so he put the two trips back to back so he could save on airfare, which was great, except he was gone a lot longer.  We took lots of family selfies to send to our dad while he was gone.  The kids were good and we had a lot of fun hanging out!

The first night Chris was gone Jaxon had a basketball game.  We ran into his cousin, Ethan while we were there.  Cute little ballers. 

Jaxon's fabulous teacher also came to his game.  I can't say enough good things about her.  She is so nice and sweet and she totally "gets" Jaxon, which isn't always easy. 

I left Hudson home with Steve so after the game I took all the big kids out for ice cream.  It was fun to have a date night with the cousins.  We played the question game, where we take turns asking each other questions like "if you could go anywhere on vacation where would you go?" it was fun!

While Chris was gone, all of the kids got to take a turn sleeping over in my bed with me.  Colton was first.  

Colton is officially the loudest sleeper ever.   He wakes up yelling all night.  Super exciting.  

I took the kids to see the animatronic dinosaurs at the Heard museum.  Hudson was scared of all of them. 

The kids think they are so funny posing for pictures.  

Colton correctly identified this dinosaur as eating fish.  All that public TV is paying off, I guess!

Family picture for daddy.  

We got a new mattress for Christmas for our bed.  So Madison will be inheriting our old mattress, which is a little ridiculous, since no 8-year-old really needs a king size mattress, but she has the "guest room" because it's the only room with an attached bathroom.  So she gets a huge bed, which means she needs new bedding.  Which means we will have to change things up a bit, so we decided to keep the mint walls and do coral and gold and mint.  I finally, finally made a shade for Madison's window.  It's taken way too long.  Her window is a dumb shape, so we don't even have blinds on it.  Poor girl.   We did have curtains but they were thin and our neighbors always keep the light on in their pool so it makes her room bright.  Anyway, problem solved, finally.  

Jason got his turn to sleepover.  

I got all the kids dressed and spiffy for 9 a.m. church all by myself.  I was proud because I even curled Madison's hair and we were totally on time to church.  

A little church selfie for Daddy.  Hanging out in the hall, as usual. 

This is just a random picture of Jaxon.  I love him because he always thinks outside of the box.  Shin guards make good armor. 

Madison and I had a little girl fun for our sleepover.  We did pink and purple cheetah nails on her, not me, though :)

And we both like to listen to audio books before bed, so we hung out and listened to our books together!

Monday was a day of from school so we went to the zoo with friends!

Look at all those kids!

I wish I could say that the zoo trip was a blast, but mostly Hudson was a turd the whole time and Jaxon was being really needy, too.  Turns out Jaxon had an ear infection, so I guess that explains it, and Hudson just needed a nap, which I knew already.  He was in tears by the time we got back to the car.  Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

Jaxon lost another tooth.  This one was funny because he was in the back of the car and he said, "Mom I have a loose tooth.  Oh wait, I pulled it!"  I guess it was super loose!

My in-laws brought me back chocolate covered cinnamon bears from Utah, my favorite.  

Uncle Steve and Hudson are still bffs.  Uncle Steve is still living with us.  Which is fine, but I'm getting really antsy to organize our garage (where all his stuff is stored) and put Hudson in his real bedroom, since right now his stuff is in Madison's room and his crib is moved between her room and the media room.  I can only handle things being out of place for a certain amount of time before I get a little crazy.

While Chris was gone I also decided to surprise him and paint our bathroom and bedroom.  I know, I'm crazy.  I've never painted so quickly, but it was kind of nice to have the deadline.  I got it all done in 3.5 days, which is pretty fast, considering I was still in charge of my normal life, and I had to paint the ceiling in the bathroom, too.  However, I just need to say that the picture below is pretty much the story of my life.  I ALWAYS run out of paint with about 10 square feet remaining.  And it drives me nuts.  First world problems, I know.  

One of Colton's friends gave him his old Powerwheels.  Yep, just gave it to him for free.  It pretty much made his life complete.  

Grandpa came to visit right before Chris got home and he brought the kids little lunch boxes with treats.  Hudson looked so darn cute with his. 

Grandpa came and had lunch with the kids.  

I finished our room!!!  I felt very accomplished and Chris was surprised.  Also I was really tired!

Family selfie at Jaxon's basketball game before Chris finally came home!  I'm glad he doesn't travel much.  I'm okay during the week, but weekends are long!

Dad came home!!  Hooray.  And we got right down to work staining the bunk bed!  Cause I was sick of having it in the garage.  I'm the messiest painter/stainer ever.  It's kind of embarrassing.  I was completely covered by the time we finished.  Chris didn't have a drop on him.  

We played rock band with my dad.  It was pretty fun!   The rock band game is actually Steve's but we are going to have to buy it when he moves out.  We have had more fun playing it with the adults than the kids have!  

We took grandpa fossil hunting in a creek behind the school.  It was so warm that day that I let the kids wade in the creek.  

Hudson was drenched.  

We didn't find any fossils, but it was a fun adventure.  

Grandpa also got out the telescope and showed us Jupiter.  Colton was the worst because he kept accidentally moving it.  Telescopes are a pain sometimes.  

So the whole reason my dad was in town was to help me refinish a really awesome shelf he found for us.  We were staining the bunk bed and refinishing the shelf all at the same time.  I helped where I could but my dad did most of the work. 

Here's the finished shelf!  It turned out awesome and fits perfectly in my piano room.  

And here are the finished bunk beds.  The have been great!  The next project will be to build the trundle that goes underneath!

Then it was Chris's birthday and, not to brag, but I totally nailed it this year.  Not only did I send him to Utah to snowboard, but I also planned a get away for us.  He got a gift card to the Ritz about 2.5 years ago from his company and we haven't had a chance to use it.  So I asked our friends, whose kids we watched at the beginning of January, if they could watch the kids, and we had an awesome, cheap night away!  We went out for burgers and shakes, cause honestly we both just love good American food. 

This is the fancy cake they left in our bedroom.  So up-scale.  

The next day we went to the Dallas Museum of Art.  It was really nice to get away just the two of us!

The next night the kids had friends over and we got Bahama Bucks.  I thought Colton was super cute in his Iron Man outfit eating his snowcone. 

Then Sunday we had the cousins over for dinner and dessert.  I made my new go-to cookie cake, which I have probably over-done at this point, but it's so easy and yummy that I don't really care.  

And finally, some Hudson shenanigans.  I know this post is ridiculously long and random and rambling, but I have to get this all out there while I have the chance.  Hudson is crazy.  And he hasn't calmed down since January.  There is more craziness to come.  He loves emptying out cabinets.  

He's a pain at the store.  I sent Chris this pic one day and told him that out of desperation I grabbed the first edible thing to get him to sit still.  Chris asked me "Can't you just strap him in?"

I strapped him in the next time so I could take this pic for Chris.  He obviously does really great being strapped in.  And the seat belt prevents him from getting hurt.  Not.  

Hudson also loves destroying the pantry.  Just taking things out isn't enough.  He has to also climb in the boxes.  

 

Toilet implements are his favorite.  He loves pulling this plunger around the driveway (I don't think we've used it in about 6 months so it's pretty clean). 

And he likes to pull the toilet paper holder around our room.  Never mind that I give him real toys to play with, he'd rather play with things from the bathroom. 

He did finally get injured, though.  He tried to step down the steps of our patio and totally messed up his face.  Poor guy.  It's on the side of his droopy eye, so it isn't as swollen as it looks, but I still felt bad for him. 

And then January was over....