The Big 4!

Headed out the door to go to school as a big 4 year old!

Holdyn had his class party today... phew. This was party and cake #2. We will get hit again with more cake and another birthday party next week for sister's big first birthday! It's crazy busy around here this time of year! At least 99% of my Christmas shopping has been completed!

4 years later

 I look back at the past 4 years and it all seems a blur. It went by so fast! Our sweet baby boy will turn 4 at 6:26 tonight. I sometimes sit down and think, what did I do before I had Holdyn? What did my day consist of? I don't even remember! My life has revolved around him every second of every day for the past 4 years and I wouldn't trade it for anything. He is such a unique child. He is smart as a whip but he is also very hard headed. When he needs something, he wants it to appear RIGHT then.... the boy has no patience at all! He is spoiled rotten, full of life, and the best son and the best big brother on the planet!

 We were induced the night of Tuesday, November 28th. This was the last preggo picture with Holdyn as we were walking out of the door to head to the hospital. I was so swollen with fluid due to our border line pre-eclampsia. My blood pressure was dangerously high so we decided it was time for him to come out at 37 weeks and 4 days.

 Our sweet baby boy weighed in at 7lbs 4.9oz

He was 20 inches long!

Our very first picture as a family of 3 in the recovery room! This was the first time I got to see and hold him.

Our little burrito fresh out of the oven! Holdyn Thomas Udinsky

All of the grandparents were there to welcome their first grandchild!

Getting his first check up by the peditrician. He got a perfect bill of health!

Holdyn was the 101st baby born at Piedmont Fayettville. Kinda like the 101 dalmations :)

Finally we were headed home! We had to stay an extra day due to my high blood pressure but we were discharged on December 2nd. It was a beautiful day but it was very cold!

And here he is today.. the man of the house (or so he thinks!) He is so handsome! I am so thankful for him and we love him to pieces! Happy 4th Birthday lil man!! We love you!

Thanksgiving 2010

We celebrated Hadley's first Thanksgiving at Sun City in South Carolina at Paw Paw and Gigi's house!

Mom and Dad found a note on the front door informing them that they were only allowed to stay for ONE whole minute!! (inside joke!)

Ho Ho was so excited to get his birthday present early from MooMa and DooDa. It was a new Rescue station he found in a magazine that he just HAD to have!

My favorite picture of all time! This was the first time Paw Paw met Holdyn. They came to Atlanta after he was born when he was 4-5 months old. Paw Paw and GiGi were amazed by him!

We love having deviled eggs on holidays!! Yum!!

 Dad always does a great job at carving the turkey! We had 2 this year and they were both pretty big!

                      Hadley's first Thanksgiving consisted of green beans, a big pear, and a banana! Yum!

HoHo loves riding on the golfcart in SunCity! He fell sound asleep half way through the ride! That is one of his highlights everytime we go over the big bridge to see PawPaw and GiGi!

Around the world!

 Mr. R had 2 weeks of vacation so we decided to take advantage of it and go see my grandparents that we rarely get to see. Mr. R's entire family lives in town so we see them all the time. We started off and went down to Pensacola to stay with Aunt Donna and then headed to Hattiesburg to spend a few days on the farm with Granddaddy and Sissy. We then headed to Atlanta to have dinner with Hannah and Sam (our yearly new years eve dates!) and then headed back to Savannah! It was a whirlwind. We had a great time but it is always great to get back home! Hyres went with us and was perfect. Holdyn was great too but Hadley cried pretty much the whole time in the car! That gave momma and daddy a big headache!

Holdyn and Granddaddy had fun reading at the farm with Hyres near by!

Silly brother at Nanas taking a bath with his sun glasses on!

Sister slept probably 10 minutes out of the 10 hour ride down South. She missed all 3 naps a day and was in a mood!! We were glad she at least got 10 minutes of sleep!

Sweet boy having an awesome time on the farm!

Nana and mommy went shopping for a stroller for 2 days straight! I hated the stroller I had. It was great for an occasional use but not for an everyday use. We finally found one that Hadley approved of!

HoHo had fun playing gold at great granddaddys. I caught him one morning in the living room playing golf and swinging the club as hard as he could as I saw balls flying across all of the breakable things in the living room! I quickly reminded him that we only play golf outside!

We bought a GPS to get around and it literally saved us! It was stollen out of our car the first night we were at granddaddys. We had to go buy a new one the next day cause we didn't know how to get from place to place on our vacation. Mean thiefs!! We eventually made it home though! The kids had an awesome time! I wish we had more time to stay at the farm. We all loved spending time with the horses and geese and all being on the farm!

Elf on a Shelf

So I am way behind on the blog!! Mr. R has been on vacation the past 2 weeks and we have had an amazing time! When he is home, I try not to blog. I try to spend as much time with him when he is home and we usually have some type of a project going on! He complained to me today that I haven't blogged in awhile. He hits the road again on Monday so hopefully I can get caught up with all of our fun adventures we have had the past few weeks, but you will have to wait for next week until that!

When I was growing up, we always had 'traditions'. Riding around looking at Christmas lights, Church on Christmas Eve, Matching pajamas on Christmas eve, etc. I want to have our own family 'traditions'. I am so excited that we have started a new one this year that will hopefully help in the behavior department! "Elf on the Shelf" is a new little character that arrived at our home last night. He will arrive every year on Thanksgiving night. He hides in our home and we have to find him every morning. He watches us all during the day to see how our behavior is. At night after we are all asleep, the elf will use his magical skills to fly back to the north pole and report to Santa if the kids were good or bad that day. He will then fly back to our home before we wake up in the morning, but he will be in a different location than the day before! We were told we had to name the elf first. Holdyn named him 'Rob'. Go figure! It was so exciting for Holdyn to wake up this morning to search for 'Rob'. He found him first so he was the 'winner'! We also reminded Holdyn throughout the day that the elf was watching. He seems very excited about our new tradition! The elf came with a book explaining how it works. We read it this morning, but Holdyn asked tons of questions about it throughout the day so we might have to read it again in the morning! The elf will leave us on Christmas Eve and go back to the north pole until next year!

On the elf's first night, he was hiding in Holdyn's stocking! I wonder where he will hide tonight after his visit with Santa!!

Choosing to shop with Holdyn...

 is like choosing to poke yourself in the eyes with dull pencils... seriously! There are some places you can take Holdyn (walmart, grocery store, park, fire station!). There are some places you can NOT take Holdyn (ToysRus!!). The places that I can not take Holdyn too, I try to go to those places and accomplish those tasks while he is at school. Baby sister goes everywhere. Taking her in and out in and out is a pain, but she doesn't act like a nut, running up and down the aisles, putting random things in your buggie, and having to look at everything.single.thing. This week is a 3 day school week so I am extra rushed to get everything done in those 3 days. I planned to finish the last few things today and run errands.... the one day that baby sister slept the entire time Holdyn was at school. Seriously. Yeah I got all of the laundry done, sheets washed, and birthday party goodie bags finished, but those oh so important errands that NEED to be run without Holdyn.. yeah that pretty much didn't happen! I had to run in to ToysRus to get a birthday gift so I decided to knock that out, cause I would rather take Holdyn to a grocery store than a toy store! We HAD to go in to Kroger to get laundry soap and orange juice. Holdyn rarely has 'changes' but when he does, you know. For example, he only used to drink apple juice. He woke up one morning after 2 years of drinking apple juice and proclaimed that he HATES apple juice, and now he will only drink orange juice. So when you are out of orange juice, THAT is a problem. Taking Holdyn in to Kroger can also be a problem... unless he is out of cookies. He refused to go to Kroger with me. Doesn't matter that he is out of Orange Juice. He wouldn't understand the severity of it until he got home and asked for something to drink. It dawned on him that we was out of cookies so on the way home from school he was THRILLED to go to Kroger and get cookies... and see the lobsters. A normal run in grab 2 things and run out turns in to an hour long unloading kids, get juice, detergent, .... and cookies!! then everybody loads back up. Phew. Makes me tired just thinking about it. Shopping with Holdyn + no sleep= no wonder my lymph nodes are swollen and my body is trying to fight off some illness I am trying to get. How convient. Right Before the big birthday party. Right before our big road trip. Excellent.

Speaking of the Birthday party, do people NOT know what RSVP means? I mean seriously. When it says 'Regrets Only' well yeah only call when you can't come. There is a difference when it says 'RSVP' and that means you call regardless!! Jackson's mom and I have been chasing down 3 parents this week trying to find out if their kid is coming.. seriously!! Makes a difference on how many goodie bags I make, how big we order a cake, and how much pizza we order. And don't get me started on the adults... there are SEVERAL adults we invited that I haven't heard a word out of them. When we have to order cake, food, etc. it does make a difference if you can come or not! Do they just plan to show up on Saturday? Or not show up? Guess we will see! I have had several very nice people who have called and won't know if they can come until last minute or not for one reason or another. They don't just ignore the RSVP.... they were nice enough to call. Geez it's not that hard! Ok, off my soapbox.

Kinda sorta missin the hubs today :) goof ball! 

Look how big Hyres is getting! He loves 'stuffed' things. He only has a froggie. Mommy needs to wash froggie! Mommy got him a cute duckie yesterday. He loves it very much!

Speaking of big, look how BIG this sucker is that mommy and daddy brought Holdyn back after our anniversary night out!

 Speaking of  BIG again, look how BIG sweet baby sister is getting! She will be the big ONE in just 3 short weeks. Where in the world has the last year gone?!



Holdyn is now sound asleep for nap time. I knew he needed one after his 4 am wake up! He tried to fight me on it, but within 3.2 seconds, the boy was sound asleep! Thanks goodness. Hopefully he will be in a good mood to have some fun playtime with Emma tonight. They haven't gotten to play all week! It's the 'end of the world' subject with a 3 year old, going on 4!

Tuesday with the Crankdinskys

Everybody better just stay away from our household today! I have been up since 3. Holdyn has been up since 4. I am sure by about 2 or 3 today we both won't be in the best of moods. I guess it's one of those days that I am gonna have to force HoHo to take a nap so I can too today. We have plans with friends at 5:30 tonight and hope we can keep our eyes open! He was laying in bed with me at 4a.m. with firedog telling me about 'firetruck stabilizers, and rescue centers'. I told him I don't think firemen even talk fire lingo at 4a.m. and he needed to go back to bed!

Last week Daddy and HoHo built a little white picket fence for our front yard. It is SO cute and Ho really enjoyed helping and being workerman! He was good at stiring the cement also. Dad could have probably gotten finished in half the time if he didn't have all that good help!

Holdyn became a pro at the post hole diggers!

Sister LOVED watching! She sat in her playpen and played with toys and just watched the boys so quietly! I think she enjoyed the new scenery!

I need to take the final pictures so you can see the finished product but it turned out really good!

5 years ago...

Exactly 5 years ago (well... yesterday.. I am a day late!) I married my best friend. Things have been such a whirl wind ever since. Some days it seems like it was only yesterday. Other days, it seems like it was 100 years ago! In the past 5 years, we have moved 4 times (and don't worry... the house is for sale so we are about to hit move #5.. hopefully!) We have moved to Atlanta for Mr. R's job transfer, then decided the Atlanta life was not for us and moved back to Savannah but returned with a bundle of joy! We have had one doggie death :( , Ripley, and we have recently gained a new doggie, Hyres. Don't worry though, we still have Bay! We have become parents also. We have dealt with complicated pregnancies and ended up with 2 of the most beautiful children anyone could have asked for who are about to be 4 and 1. Marriage is hard. It's not a walk in the park and it is something you have to work at. Our marriage is especially challenging due to Mr. R's job, but he travels so much for our family. To support us so I can stay home with our children and raise them the way they should be raised, and to be able to raise them right next door to their MooMa and DooDa and their MawMaw and Pops. Some days it's frustrating knowing that I am here exhausted at the end of the day and get jealous sometimes that Mr. R is out having nice dinners, not having food thrown on him, having nice quiet showers, and crawls in to a clean quiet bed and sleeps all night with no interruptions. On the other hand, he is alone and has to be away from his family and he does it all for us. I am the one who gets to wake up to those 2 smiling faces (Usually smiling!). I am the one who falls asleep in the living room chair and forgot to eat dinner or take a shower that night. I am the one who gets to scrape off dried on animal cracker off my shirt that I haven't bothered to notice all day I had been so busy with the kids. I am the one who is lucky enough to get to change those diapers (Mr. R doesn't mind missing the poopie ones!) and I am the lucky one to me married to Mr. R and that Mr. R does what he does so our kids can have what they have. I do have to say though, it is all worth it and priceless to see the faces on BOTH of those kids faces when daddy comes home. It would make your day and daddy loves the reaction they both give. Holdyn thinks his daddy hung the moon. Anytime anything is broken he says 'Well just set it on the table and my daddy or my dooda will fix it'. LOL. He knows who the workermen are! And Hadley talks about DADA all the time!! Usually first thing in the morning is her favorite time. It's like she is asking if he is home. She will scream DADA!! DADA!! I tell her not today, but then tell her the day he will be home! Some days she jumps out of my arms to get to him! Hopefully the next 5 years can be a little more calm and relaxing and not so much 'change' and 'challenges', but I wouldn't change the last 5 years for anything!

The tongue!

We tried to have a little photo shoot today to try and get a good picture for our Christmas card. You know I am always well prepared and have my cards in the mail December 1st so I gotta get on it! Sister was very cooperative but just kept sticking her tongue out rubbing her new teeth.. ha! Brother was less cooperative but I finally did get one pretty good picture of them both but you will have to wait until Christmas Card time to see the final product!! For a little teaser here is sweet baby sister!