The Going to Bed Book

Gwennie decided to read me a story as a change of pace tonight.

Crawford Turns 5

This weekend we celebrated Crawford's 5th birthday bowling at Strike City! All of the girls had so much fun and were sporting their custom made "Crawford's 5th Birthday Bowlarama Ball!" shirts. The girls were so cute in their outfits and had a great time using different bowling strategies (that they all wanted to tell us about). Overall it was a great party and we all went home for a long 3 hour nap!

Also - here are some of Heather's pictures from the visit in Owings Mills

Yellow Ducks....Here I Come!

Today was Gwennie's first day in the "Yellow Ducks" at school and as you can see all of the kids seem to be having a wonderful time there. Luckily most if not all of the kids in the class were from her previous class (the Butterflies") so it was an easy transition. Her new teachers are wonderful and I know them very well. Speaking of which, if any of you have an in with the Panthers, please let me know as one of them is a HUGE HUGE of fan of Muhsin Muhammad and just celebrated 30...yes that's right 30 years of service at our daycare so we are trying to get him to come see her.

In other news, we spent most of the weekend in the backyard playing with the snake (thank you Auntie Hey Hey) and enjoying the nice weather. Corbin is really enjoying his paternity leave, Hudson is getting bigger every day and Gwennie needs a haircut so we are planning for that this week so she can actually see again!

A Visit to Owings Mills and Daddy Leave

It has been a LOOOONG week and as you can see from the lack of pictures, very busy. Thursday Gwennie, Hudson and I decided to give Daddy a break before he started his paternity leave so we headed up to Baltimore to visit Heather (Auntie Hey Hey as Gwennie calls her), Alan, Ari and baby Matthew. As you can see from the picture below, we were loaded up! The last time we were up there Matthew was all of 2 weeks old so it's crazy to see how much he has changed in 6 months. Gwennie and Ari were inseparable. They literally would wake up and want to see each other. Whoever was the first to wake up would walk into the other kids room and say "Good Morning Ari" or "Good Morning Gwennie" and then they were off and running until about 9 PM every night. Luckily Matthew and Hudson were good babies so we were able to keep up with the toddlers. Alan usually took afternoon duty and was amazing. He took them on walks to the park, played out front with them and was so patient with the crazy 2 year olds!

Yesterday Corbin started Daddy leave and had both kids in the house. Gwennie was worn out from her visit so she napped from about 1:30 to 4 and Hudson was equally exhausted so he chilled in the car seat and swing for most of the day. So far he's doing great and enjoying some much needed father/son bonding.

2 Months Old!

This weekend Hudson turned 2 months old and as you can see he's pretty happy about it. We had a nice weekend hanging out with friends and going to the pool. For those of you not in the South, it was HOT. Saturday was about 93 degrees and Sunday was about 96 so we spent most of our time at the pool or in the house with a couple of walks or stints outside in the backyard.

Friday night we had some chicken for dinner and I thought I would grab a few of the funny shots of Gwennie/Dad devouring dinner. Saturday afternoon our friends Mark, Kristin and Ben met us at the pool. As you can see from the pictures Gwennie and Ben really enjoyed themselves.

Big Meeting and Look Who Is Smiling!

This weekend we headed down to Sparkle City to meet some very important family members. Hudson met his Great Grandmother Gary, Great Uncle Bob, Great Aunt Nina, and his cousins Megan (Happy Birthday!) and Caroline. If you follow the blog, you know that Hudson's middle name Ross is shared by Nina and Caroline. We all had a nice visit (Gwennie loves to explore around the back yard) and enjoyed our time together.

Hudson also just started to smile this week (might be gas but we think it's when he's happy to see us) so here are a few pictures from tonight when he was in a great mood before bed.

We also had a nice visit with the cousins Gini, Alex and Blyth. Gini and I must have been having a moment of temporary insanity because we decided around 5 PM on Wednesday night we were going to take all the kids (that's 4 kids - although Alex is 7 and an amazing help!) up to IKEA to get a few things and grab dinner. We must have been crazy! Still...we managed to make it through the night but one funny story I will share - for those of you that did not read about it via facebook - was when we were getting a potty seat for Blyth (who already at 19 months is interested in the potty!), Gwennie saw the potty, grabbed one out of the pile, pulled her pants down and was in the proccess of "going potty" when Gini and I had to stop her and usher her to the little girls room. We both were pretty sure she would have done her business right there had we not stopped her!