I have a niece!!!

I'm too tired to make a full post about it now, but here is a quick picture of my precious little niece Elle. Congrats Jamie and Joe! We love her so much!!

Published Work - April 2011

Well, Jamie's STILL not in labor... But in the meantime, here are some shots of our published work in Celebrate Magazine for April 2011!

What a Weekend!!

Well, unfortunately Jamie, who is 39 weeks pregnant and absolutely dying to be a mommy, didn't go into labor, but we all had a great weekend nonetheless! It was our last weekend of until our anniversary in July (thank you Jason for thinking to x that one off so we can do something fun, by the way!), and after that, it's the last one off for pretty much forever! Not that I'm complaining mind you... Busy is good!

Anyway, the weather actually cooperated for once, and we had a full and lovely weekend! Let me run down the events for you. Since I last blogged we:

1. Bought a Suburban (with cash!! Thank you, Dave Ramsey!) Now we can strap the boards on top, pop a trailer on the back, load up all the kids (and two of their friends if we wanted!), and drive out to Colorado with plenty of space leftover for luggage and legroom. Woo-hoo!
2. Walked around Gulley Park to try (in vain) to get Jamie to go into labor
3. Found a random and adorable puppy in Gulley Park who was wandering around with a leash and no owner.
4. Searched all over creation and Craigslist for the puppy's owner
5. Temporarily named said puppy Esther June Hudson.
6. Fell completely in love with said puppy (who we CANNOT keep even if we don't find her owners, since we have 2 parents, 4 kids, 3 cats and 4 frogs living in this house already!)
7. Went to Common Grounds for a lovely lunch with Jamie
8. Hiked around the Lake Fayetteville Trail with both babies and Esther in tow
9. Canvassed the park once more for Esther's parents
10. Spent a lot of time cuddling on the couch and watching movies enjoying the perfect bliss of having nowhere in particular to be!

I think that pretty much covers it! : )

Anyway, if you know someone who is missing a tiny adorable chihuahua/rat terrier type dog (or someone who would like to adopt her if her owners don't show up!), please drop me a line! In the meantime, here are a few iPhone photos of our adventures!!

***Esther June Hudson!***

***THE BURB!!!***

***Mommy and Norah at Common Grounds***

***Daddy, Norah and Esther at Lake Fayetteville trying out the awesome backpack kid carrier that my parents got us for Christmas!***

***Norah and Shiloh at the park. How does that girl manage to look adorable even while picking her nose?***

***Shiloh enjoying a nice cold one on the patio at Common Grounds. : )***

***Norah and Daddy!***

***Mommy, Shiloh and Esther!***

Oooh, and also, over the past couple of weeks, I have been redecorating our bedroom, and I absolutely LOVE the way it is turning out! I will post pictures when it is finished.

Anyway, i8t was a great weekend, and the fun continues today! For Jason's birthday, I arranged a babysitter and picked up a couple of tickets to the Lady Gaga concert at the Bok Center in Tulsa for tonight. The seats are AMAZING, and we can't wait!!! Just keep your fingers crossed that Jamie DOESN'T go into labor tonight! Any time after that would be great though. : )

Happy Monday, everyone!!

In case you didn't believe us...

Here is VIDEO PROOF!!! You can't Photoshop a video!! Just click the picture below to watch!





**Be sure to watch to the end... There is a cute part with Norah and Shiloh! Enjoy!**

Shiloh has something to tell you...

We're totally famous.

Well, maybe not famous exactly, but we do really appreciate Olivia Sellers at NWA Media for writing this story about us that appeared in Sunday's Democrat-Gazette! How fun!!




ps. To all of my friends who know that I am crazy and vaguely OCD, please know that I realize that "complement" is misspelled in the headline and that there is a comma missing in the first paragraph. I didn't write it, I just read it on Sunday like everybody else. I know I'm crazy, but I just had to get that out there. *whew!

Autumn is her Mama's Girl! : )

When I went to pick up the kiddos from school yesterday, I could tell even as I was waiting in the line that something was up with Autumn. She was wiggling all over and grinning from ear to ear, and I found out what was going on the second the van door opened... "GUESS WHAT!!! I WON THE YOUNG AUTHOR'S COMPETITION!!!" I type that in all caps and with so many exclamation points, because I swear you could hear them in her voice. : ) She was soooo excited! It was adorable.

Because she won, she gets to be a representative for her school at a luncheon and conference at the Richardson Center featuring author Cynthea Liu. She also gets a signed hardback copy of Ms. Liu's latest book, Paris Pan Takes the Dare. But mostly she gets to feel really proud of herself, which is awesome.

She wrote and typed the whole thing herself, and she worked really hard on her final submission, which featured a purple cover, a title page, table of contents, about the author section, etc... It was so cute! I don't have copies of all of it on my computer (she did it all on her laptop), but I did upload the actual piece itself to the web so you guys can check it out if you want. Just click HERE!

Way to go, Autumn! We're so proud of you!!