Friday, May 30, 2014

when daddy's away, we must play


Brandon had a wonderful opportunity to travel to London for 8 days for a small groups conference.  While he was gone, Lucas, Lexi, and I took a stretch of 5 days and headed to the mountains!  

The first part of our adventure started in the car...a solo drive for almost 4 hours.  It was a less than pleasant start to the trip since both the human child and the fur child were extremely restless until literally the last 30 minutes of our trip.  I expected Lucas to fall asleep shortly after hitting the road after lunch and was banking on a good 2 hours of quiet.  Well, I was very wrong, and he was busy throwing his toys and telling little lies the entire time!  Lies, yes, lies.  He would say "mommy I have a bug on my head! "Mommy I have a bug on my leg!"  Really buddy, not a funny joke to say when we are driving alone down the interstate.  
 Once we made it to our glorious mountains, the fun began!  Nana ran her tail off with Lucas, putting me to shame with her energy level.  We watered her garden and played around in big boy undies (those pictures are saved for a potty training post...hopefully coming up in the near future).


We went to a toddler gymnastics class at Asheville Gymnastics, and Lucas had a blast!



Oliver was there too, and Lucas has a pretty intense love for the little pup. [excuse the post nap hair...yikes]


We went to the creek...twice.  We splashed in the water and chased butterflies and collected rocks and picked flowers.






And a trip to Asheville isn't complete without a little Friday night drum circle action.  We went prepared with two wooden spoons and a metal flower pot, because you can't go to the drum circle without a drum.



Lucas was pretty fascinated by the crazy people and loud drums.

He took his placed in the section "reserved for drummers" and went to town!

I spy...Lucas and Nana in the bottom left corner!  He was totally into it until the beat got pretty loud and the eclectic group started chanting and howling (for lack of a better way to describe it.)  After that started, Lucas stopped with his spoons in mid air, looked at us and said "ALL DONE."


An older lady ended up giving Lucas $2 for his adorable entertainment.  We tried to give it back to her, insisting that a tip was completely unnecessary and he is just this cute all the time, but she insisted.  So after a few jokes about my dad becoming his agent, Lucas decided to use his tip money on what any good toddler would...ice cream!  We headed to Antler Village at Biltmore Estate for a late evening ice cream run.  They had live music on the lawn and turkey running wild everywhere.  It was a beautiful ending to a beautiful evening. I'm not sure why I didn't take any pictures there except for driving through the estate!  Next time.



We missed Brandon while he was gone but were thankful to have some time away to pass the time quickly.  There is nothing quite like summertime in the mountains!

Sunday, May 18, 2014

a completely excused absence.


Well friends, I totally get a pass on my over 2 month silence from the blog. Why you might ask?




We are expecting baby Hudson #2 this November! Which means I took an excused absence during my first trimester as I, well, just tried to survive. Being pregnant with a crazy toddler running me ragged has been a challenge to say the least. Thankfully I haven't been as pukey sick this time around as I was with Lucas. After the morning wave passes I'm usually good to go throughout the day as long as I snack. But the exhaustion? Ha. Unmatched. On my days off of work it takes every ounce of energy in me to get Lucas down for his nap after lunch, after which I basically run to my bed and collapse into a REM cycle sleep. We aren't talking about couch naps, we are talking under the covers in the bed naps. Therefore all else around the house goes ignored, including blogging.

We told our family of the news in a subtle and adorable way by letting Lucas's new tee shirt do all the talking:


So here we are in the second trimester and I am waiting and praying for my energy to come back! I mopped my kitchen a few days ago for the first time in, well, it doesn't really matter...so, baby steps! Brandon and I are thrilled to be on this journey again. I am a nervous wreck at times, which comes both from my personality and the sometimes messed up job I work in where we see some really scary stuff. But we have relied on the Lord's grace and peace in a beautiful way, and we are doing just fine.

I have enjoyed seeing differences in this pregnancy already, a lot of which have taken me completely by surprise. For example, on Easter Sunday my pants wouldn't zip. I was only 9 weeks pregnant, and already my pants wouldn't zip! Thanks second pregnancy, my abdominal muscles have nothing left to give. There have also been the typical food cravings and aversions, some of the same I had with Lucas. Anything salty, give it to me! Sweets? No thanks, unless it's fruit. Coffee has been a turn off which is a good thing I guess, and water had been less than appealing which is not a good thing.

Our due date is November 25, 2014. So we may be getting a little Thanksgiving turkey this year!  Please keep us in your prayers as we prepare for this new blessing.