On the mend

 Happy is finally feeling better! She has also gotten at the age where her lil attitude and personality are showing themselves! She clearly lets you know what she wants and doesn't want. When in stores, she is pointing at what she wants and says "Baby!" As if she is telling me that the baby wants that. If you don't give it to her, watch out! In slow motion she lays her head on the nearest object (or even the floor) and just boo hoos her little heart out. It is the saddest (but kinda funny) thing ever! The past few days she has gotten in this phase of hitting me. She thinks it's funny but I have been putting a quick stop to that. When she starts hitting me and grab her hand and hold it still and tell her very sternly 'NOT NICE' and she lays her head down and boo hoos again. She is a little on the sensitive side!

Having some yummy freeze dried yogurt for snack time!

I am missing buddy like crazy! I get to talk to him everyday so that is good! He is having a good time and I know Pops and Granddaddy are having fun with just the lil man! A cute story: Happy and I spent the night with our old neighbors last night to let the kiddos play. The babies had fun but Emma sure was missing Holdyn. Emma showed me one of her family 'drawings'. I noticed that there was one extra family member than there should have been. She went down the line and told me who everyone was. Guess who is in her family drawing?! Holdyn!! Ellen said that ever since we moved, Holdyn has been included in every family art work. When I was leaving this morning we were talking about what night this week we were gonna hang out and get the kids together again. Emma told me "Ms Cindy, when I see Holdyn I am gonna hug him and squeeze him so tight and never let go!" I know Holdyn will probably do the same thing! They have really missed each other.

I have been working on our childhood high chair. It was looking pretty worn and sad. After 30 years it needed a good sand down and some new stain. When it finishes drying and the new cuhion gets here, it will be good to go! I think it is going to match the wood of our dining room table and chairs nicely!

The big road trip

 Holdyn is on spring break this week. I knew we had to find him an activity to keep him busy because I knew he would drive me crazy get bored if we had nothing planned. After a little thinking, we decided a 'Boys Only' trip to the farm in Mississippi would be perfect! They left yesterday to break the trip up and spent the night in a hotel and officially arrived there around lunch time today. He was SO excited to go see granddaddy and play on the farm, to go fishing, ride horses, and see all the geese. Dad said he was great in the car on the way down watching movies and he only asked ten million a few questions on the 10 hour ride! They drove up to the property gate where they get cell phone reception this afternoon to call me to tell me that HoHo caught a bass today! He reeled it in himself and was so proud! Sissy is taking him 4-wheeler riding and horse back riding tomorrow on the farm, and tomorrow night, Pops has a friend coming over with pizza for dinner. Right up Holdyn's alley! I know he is going to have a blast this week. It is strangely quiet around here. I miss him like crazy but I am trying to enjoy the silence :) I took 2 naps today sleeping off the anesthesia from surgery this morning and nobody was around to jump on the bed to tell me it was time to get up and come play! They are going to come back home on Saturday!

Hyres read the newspaper this weekend then decided it would be a good snack for his Saturday afternoon......

Easter 2011

Easter was a whirlwind this year. Hadley has been real sick all week and with us just moving in with mom and dad and getting settled, things have been non stop. Hadley is battling some viral fever, cold/cough thing that she is having a hard time kicking. It has been getting the best of her so she stayed home with daddy Sunday morning! I couldn't eat on Sunday in preparation for surgery this morning. Mr R kept walking by me on purpose eating deviled eggs saying 'Mmmmmm' knowing I couldn't have any. How evil! When we got to the hospital this morning, I told Dr. Tucker I was mad at him for not allowing me to have Easter (really just my deviled eggs!) He said he didn't get to eat Easter either cause he was delivering babies all day. I was in recovery by 9:30 begging to go home. They asked did I want something for pain. I told them I would just wait until I got home (didn't want to prolong getting to my delayed Easter lunch!) Half way home I was regretting my decision but as soon as we got my meds filled, all was good again!

MooMa and DooDa took Hadley home after Easter since we knew we had to be up at 4:30 this morning at the hospital and MooMa had Monday off work so it worked out perfectly. Holdyn was with Pops (more on that later!)

MooMa and MawMaw and Happy right before lunch on Easter. Happy has started calling MawMaw and MooMa 'MeMe'. MawMaw started out as Grannie and Holdyn changed it to MawMaw on his own. Holdyn kept MooMas name the same. Guess we will have to wait and see if Hadley will permanently change their names! It's so cute to see her walking around holding her hands up and wiggling her fingers and throwing that head back saying 'MEMEEEEEEE' when she wants to be picked up!

Dying Easter Eggs! This was Hadley's first year. Right after this picture, Holdyn fell and the green dye and eggs flew everywhere then before I could finish cleaning it up, Hadley was walking through it with her white socks! We all reaked of vinegar for awhile. I can't stand being near the smell of vinegar! UGH! Mom knows I won't go near it. She says it is 'natural' cleaning. I don't care how natural it is. They need to learn how to make their 'natural' vinegar smell better before I will touch it!

Look at her new boy from Great Cindy!

Hadley thought they were pretty tasty...even with the shell on!

The bunny did manage to find us! Out of everything, Holdyn really only noticed the little lego police motorcycle set with a police dog. He could have just gotten that and been just fine! He was THRILLED! Daddy was up at 6:30 that morning building it and he played with it A.L.L. day!

Hadley didn't really care too much about what she got. She just enjoyed taking everything back and then putting everything right back in. Her favorite thing was the Gerber yogurt bites that are freeze dried (yuck but she LOVES them!)

The bunny didn't forget about Hyres and Baily too. This is Hyres 3rd mallard duck. I guess the bunny knew he ate the last 2 and he was in need of a new one. He loves that thing and carries it around all day!

How cute are these?! At first glance, I thought it was a pull toy, but they are chocolates!

It's official...

After putting the boys to work moving all of the furniture and boxes out....

and filling 2 (16 foot) pods...

We officially closed on our Whitefied Ave home today...

and are 'homeless' ... not really homeless because we are staying with mom and dad while we build, but it was kind of a sad day! It is the home where we moved in to when Holdyn was 17 months old, where we brought Hadley home from the hospital, and today we left with a 4 1/2 year old and a 17 month old. We loved the home and neighbors but couldn't take the risk of being on such a busy road with the kids getting older and playing outside, riding bikes, etc. My neighbor has been texting me all night telling me how depressed she is and she has just been ignoring it cause she didn't want it to happen and it sunk in when she pulled in the driveway tonight! Poor Gina! We are still gonna have spend the night parties once a week! Gotta have my Gina fix! Holdyn had a rough night getting to sleep. He does not do well with change, and he has been on an air mattress for a few nights while our furniture has been in the pods. He loved that cause it was cool to 'camp out'! We have to get him used to his new routine. He got to bed so late after so many meltdowns, I hope he makes it to school tomorrow. I know better than to wake that boy up, and we have to leave pretty early now that we are in Richmond Hill and have to drive to Savannah for the next 5 weeks to finish out the school year. He is very confused right now, so we plan on taking him to the lot where we are getting ready to start building on. He is asking a lot of questions. You can tell at certain times when he is worrying about it. It's a lot to take in when you are 4 and a firefighter! He told me today 'Aww man, I forgot, I am on call today and have to go in to work'. Ha! Hadley was only concerned about playing outside today! Pops took her on several walks while Mr. R and I were unloading the cars and getting things settled. I have told dad how he is not allowed to go in and get her in the morning around 6 when she is 'talking'. She usually goes back to sleep until at least 7 or 8 so we don't need to be changing up our routine! Dad says he wants her on his schedule so they can have fun together. She started getting fussy around 6:15 (the time we normal but her to bed for the night) but dad said she was just bored and she couldn't go to bed so early because they still had some playing to do! Pops swooped her up and took her outside. That girl didn't go to bed until around 8:30!

Hyres was being trained today for the first time on an electric fence. He ran through it SEVERAL times and got shocked! I hope he has it figured out now and he is still out in the back yard in the morning! Maybe he can play with the armadillo family that has moved in right behind his dog house. We saw 4 of them today! Mr. R is wondering who is going to win... Hyres or the armadillos?! Guess we will see!

Bless his heart!

I walked in to the kitchen to find tons of grocery bags filled. Holdyn passed me with another empty bag. I asked him what in the world he was doing. He said "I am helping you pack up the house, mommy!" How sweet is that little boy! I look in the bags and find a variety of toys, my SHOES, dishes that were dirty (guess he got them out of the sink?!), socks, and all other kinds of random things. It's the thought that counts, I guess!

The other night he fell sound asleep playing a game on the I-Pad!

Holdyn and Hadley had an Easter Egg hunt in Richmond Hill. Hadley had a blast running to get the eggs and put them in her basket. They had areas sectioned off for the little kids and a different area for the big kids.

Holdyn would pick up an egg and want to open each one to see what he got before he would pick up another one. I had to explain to him that he had to run and gets the eggs before they were gone and then at the end you open them up to see what you got!

Hadley loves her car wagon that Holdyn passed down to her! They might ask Santa for a big wagon for Christmas since we will have a 3 car garage and a good neighborhood for wagon rides!

Big Fireman Jim gave Holdyn a REAL fire helmet.

Little Jim gave Holdyn several things when we went for a visit yesterday. He got a real fire nozzle, an ambulance with lights and loud sirens, a NYFD T-shirt from ladder 22 (see story below), and a fireman cookie jar. Everytime you put your hand in it, it says "If you can't handle the heat, get your hand out of the cookie jar!" Holdyn is going to decorate his new bedroom in fire, police, and ambulance so we are starting to get a good collection! Jim's son brought Holdyn this shirt from New York where he is a fireman. On September 11, 2001 he was on the schedule to work that day. One of the other firemen asked him to take over his shift on the 10th, and in return, he would work Jim's sons shift on the 11th. Turns out, everyone in that unit was killed on September 11th. If he hadn't been asked to swap shifts, or if he would have told the guy he couldn't do it, he would have died also. Jim gets choked up everytime he tells me about it and he was so proud to give Holdyn that shirt yesterday from that company and said even though he was to young to know the story behind it, he knew Holdyn would wear it with pride. I reassured Jim that he would do just that!

School pictures and fire helmets

 Holdyn's favorite firefighter was on duty yesterday so of course we had to go for a visit. We usually leave with some kind of 'goodie' from fireman Jim but he topped it all yesterday. He gave Holdyn the assistant chief's retired firefighter helmet. Holdyn is in LOVE. He slept with it last night. When I get some time I am going to replace some of the reflective stickers (some are peeling off) and it says Assistant Fire Chief on it and I think I will get some letters and put his first or last name on the helmet as well. He loves the 'visor' and how he can pull it down over his face to protect himself from all of the smoke when he enters a fire!  

 Sweet baby sister is always on the move! She wants to live outside. Anytime I try to bring her back in, she just runs away from me as fast as she can cause she does NOT want to go back inside!

Today was Holdyn's class picture at school. He has 4 fire shirts he alternates between wearing to school each day. I prepared him yesterday that he was NOT allowed to wear his normal fire t-shirts for picture day, but right after the picture he could change and put on his fire badge shirt. He agreed with that idea. He has had this firetruck vest for a good 6 months that he (for some odd reason) has REFUSED to ever wear. Well I held him down like a horrible mother and forced it on him. I wanted to capture his personality at this age in the picture without the faded regular t-shirts! He made sure his t-shirt was in his bookbag so he can change asap! He took his fire helmet to school today to show his teachers and all of his friends. He is SO excited!

Baby sister running away from me cause she didn't want to take bubba to school. She just wanted to play outside!

Scrub a dub dub

Look who is in the tub! I think the kids had more bubbles than water! Sorry if you disagree, but I do have THE cutest kiddos on the planet! I am not biased at all or anything ;)



Crazy Kids!!

I do believe Holdyn is part human and part monkey. The boy can climb. I find him in spots multiple times a day that he knows is dangerous and he is NOT allowed to climb in those places that he loves to explore. It's like I am living in 'Where's Waldo' world!

 Speaking of crazy kids, this sweet little girl is crazy full of energy, smiles, and giggles..... and look at all those teeth!! Sorry it's kinda blurry... she was running full speed towards me!

They are rarely this still together. Usually one is climbing on the other!

Packing....

 Yes, we have been SLAMMED packing up boxes this week. We sold the fridge and freezer today so now we are living out of an ice chest.... fun and interesting. Holdyn was thrilled because he said "Well we can just eat daddy's cheese (macaroni and cheese) for every meal out of the pantry!!! Hopefully we can make it for one week until we officialy move! Speaking of moving, someone was trying to help pack boxes today and he got stuck.......

I found him trying to tape up the box with scotch tape trying to put all of his legos in it. Ha! He is a good helper!

Now for some random baby pictures. I have been so busy packing, changing pharmacies, doctors, banks, etc. I think I need some baby love pictures! I'm sure you don't mind either :)



Yes, he scratched his face the DAY before he was having pictures made! I had to cancel them and reschedule when the scratch went away!

He was learnging to be such a great big brother at a young age!