Hudson is finally 5!  We are so excited for him.  We celebrated the day with a carnival in the backyard and a few of his friends.  Hot dogs, kettle corn, face painting, balloon animals…we tried to keep them all busy!

We tried out some old school carnival games  and I think the kids enjoyed them.

Will did point out that my painted clown looked a little creepy, but it didn’t seem to bother any of the kids.

We had some serious competitors.

We had to give out tickets so kids could claim some prizes in the end.

Annie came back onto the scene about an hour after the party started.  We had a major melting down about 5 minutes into the party from her.

Happy birthday Hudson!  We love you!

Hudson is hitting the big 5 in a couple of days and I have been having so much fun planning (i.e.-the chocolate cupcakes, pictured…thanks Will for snapping the shot).  A thanks goes to my sister-in-laws Sarah and Heather for giving me the cupcake idea.  I’m pretty sure Will thinks I’m over planning’ but it’s always better to adequately prepare in order to prevent disaster.  I’m comfortable in noting that the previous statement is the most significant thing I learned as a teacher.  How interesting that I’m reminded of it on a daily basis with my kids.  Needless to say, I’m not always able to adhere.  As a result, I have my fair share of disaster.  Here’s hoping his birthday celebration is prepared enough to prevent any major disasters.

I find that I struggle whenever it comes to making big announcements.   Parties, galas, radio announcements, proposals on the Jumbo Tron, the list is endless when it comes to proclaiming good tidings to the world.  Break out the banner flying airplane because, “We’re going to Brazil!”(Just kidding, we aren’t really leaving the country.  I just couldn’t resist.)  There is a place and a time for everything and to each his own.  In those cases, just sometimes, the actual tenderness of the moment is trivialized or over looked.  Believe me the irony of my making any sort of announcement via blog just kills, but what can I do?  So when you read this, just pretend we’re sitting in a little bistro chatting and eating PinkBerry or maybe sharing some peanuts at a baseball game.  What better way could you tell a friend that your family would soon grow a size bigger?  What’s that you say?!  Yes, we have been packing away the Halloween candy like it’s going out of style, but the growing of my waistband due to candy was not the reference I was making.  So watch out!!  Will’s expecting firework from me come the 4th of July…ok or technically the 5th.  Stay tuned.  We’ll try to keep you updated as we start the expansion process.   For those of you who feel I’m being a bit elusive, our countdown to baby #3 is at 32 weeks  or 224 days.

We had our first round of family pictures this year.  Really it was a recipe for disaster, but everything turned out great.

What made me think, pictures will go great during dinner time-the kids can wait.  They don’t look that hungry. As I wonder to myself, why are my children running up and down the stairs?  Why is Annie throwing books? Not a stellar, shining mom moment, I know.  That is neither here nor there and Jessica did a great job with them.  In the end I have a family picture that is unique and very much us!  The kids faces were completely unprompted.

We even got a few of Will and I that I love!

This is the last shot we have of Annie and her piggies.  As of Sunday afternoon, they went, “Wee, wee all the way home.”…via Hudson.  He was so kind to free the piggies and her long sweeping bangs.  This last week Annie has been yelling at me to cut her piggies off every time I go to do her hair.  I should have seen it in the cards.  I didn’t think she would get this desperate.  We aren’t quite sure what happened, but Hudson did eventually fess up to being the barber who made it all happen.  He confided in Will and made him promise to not tell me.  Too bad I was walking down the stairs when the conversation was still in progress.  Obviously from Hudson’s reaction, I did not handle this mommy moment with grace and dignity.  Finding more patience and kindness is on my to do/to find list.

You can see where the piggies were and now where they are not!   So Monday morning found us out to get Annie’s hair fixed and Hudson grounded from the Wii for 3 days.  Of course his response to the consequence was, “I didn’t feel like playing it on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday…only Thursday, Friday and Saturday.”  Wrong answer Hudson.  Had I been a vengeful mommy, I would have extended it to a week with those words. Let’s just say that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday have proved to be much longer than he thought.