Independence Day

We had kind of a low key Independence Day, since Dustin and I were getting back from Houston in the morning, and then Dustin played in a golf tournament in the afternoon. But the boys and I wanted to make fun things for dinner, even if it was just for us. We made pizza rolls, a fruit flag and red, white and blue drinks. The drinks were their favorite. We had a little science lesson on how the sugar content makes liquid heavy, and they loved that the blue gatorade stayed on top of their cranberry juice. Unfortunately, the white drink that we had must have had a sugar content that was too close to the red, because it sank and didn't sit on top. But- still a fun experiment nonetheless.

 Then the boys and I met up with Dustin at the golf course to watch fireworks. The weather was quite nice and the kids had a blast running around on the 18th green playing with the glow sticks I had for them. They also had a band that played live music (although not during the fireworks show) and someone sang the national anthem.

 The fireworks show was good too, except that the wind was blowing straight at us, and we kept getting rained on with pieces of ash and junk from the fireworks. Hudson totally loved the fireworks and kept saying, "Whoa!" and "Yeah! Lights!" and "Pretty!"

Of course, we had some tired and cranky kids today, but I'm glad we got to have a fun 4th of July together!

Ain't Going Down till the Sun Comes Up

Dustin has been a Garth Brooks fan for a long time. We really wanted to go and see him while he was playing in Las Vegas, but we didn't ever get the chance. But when Garth's tour announced that they were coming to Houston, one of our friends suggested that we go and surprise Dustin with tickets. So I bought the tickets, and put this big poster up in his office that shows Garth inviting him to his concert in a little word bubble off to the side. As it turns out, Dustin is way too smart to be surprised…because he checks our credit card purchases all the time. :)

 We ended up going with our friend Naomi and she brought her daughter, Dorothy, who was celebrating her birthday. I'm so glad we got to go with our friends!

 

I found it hilarious that when he sang any of the ballads, everyone would get their phones out and turn their lights on! It was a very cool effect, though!

 This was my first ever concert, and while I had fun, and I enjoyed the performances from Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, I don't know that I'll be running out to buy concert tickets again. It was too loud for my taste, and the amount of alcohol consumption going on all around us was crazy. But we had fun going to Houston for a date night, spending time with friends and each other.

Little Boys

This week was crazy with Dustin's schedule again. I ended up having to take Carson to cub scouts this week, and because Dustin was gone, all the brothers came along. We decided to wait for Carson at the park near the church. The weather was perfect and the playground was pretty much ours. Jensen kept asking me to take his picture. So I finally did.

 This was Hudson's favorite thing at this park- he drove around his crazy brothers like a pro!

 Grandma Brudnicki gave the boys these cute "Future Missionary" badges for Easter last week, so I had them all put them on before church this morning. They were still wearing them when we got to church and several people commented on how neat they all looked. Surprisingly, Mason was the only one who left his on his pocket (J ended up using his as a tie tack and Carson and Hudson wanted to take their tags off) but they looked so cute, I couldn't resist posting it.

This Easter...

This Easter I got the boys baskets ready early and despite being dead tired the night before, took the time to hide them (per tradition) before crawling into my bed.

This Easter we got to watch General Conference at home and I did our basket of goodies, like usual, to help them stay focused on listening to what people were talking about during the Conference.

This Easter I also printed off plenty of activities to help the kids be somewhat reverent, to help them learn a little and allow me to be able to listen to Conference.

Unfortunately, 

this Easter I had a bunch of whiney, hyper, and disobedient kids who were pretty ungrateful for all the things I had prepared for them. I also had a husband who has been worked to the bone at the office and at home this week and who kinda checked out for the day. Wasn't our best Easter. 

But at least I didn't have to make dinner.

While we were at Grandma and Grandpa Brudnicki's for dinner, the boys got to have a little egg hunt. (They had fun, and I was generous and let them keep a little bit of the candy…)

To top it all off, I got to get everyone in bed and clean up the wreckage that was left over from the day. By myself. 

Not the best day I've had as a mom, but it is comforting to know that even when we have bad days, Jesus is there to help us begin again tomorrow. Even when we've made a mess of a situation, He is there to help us clean it up and mend it. Easter truly is the most important day of the year- to celebrate the beauty of knowing that what we do everyday is worthwhile, because of what He did for us. I may not have had what I thought was a delightful day, but because of the atonement and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, my day, and my life, is still of infinite value.

Hudson Turned 2!

Our little "baby Huddy" turned 2 yesterday. It doesn't feel quite like 2 years has passed, and maybe it's because he's "the baby" but it seems like he's still a baby to us.

 And since he's 2 and doesn't really have any friends, we just had another family party. He loved that because he loves his family- especially his baby cousin Emmett. I decided to have a "Puppy Party" theme and we ate corn dogs and brats for dinner. I also made this super cute (and pretty easy) puppy cake. Hudson loved it!

 Also, because he was turning 2, and he doesn't really know any better, I didn't have the boys buy him any birthday gifts. But that didn't stop them from finding toys and books around the house, wrapping them up, making cards and giving them to their favorite baby brother. It was seriously beyond precious. It also warmed my heart to see Carson and Jensen helping Mason wrap his present for Hudson, and writing the words on his card. It was a proud mama moment watching them work together to do something nice for Hudson. 

 And even though I didn't go and buy Hudson any gifts, that didn't stop Daddy from getting him something! Hudson got his very own Wii controller (minus any batteries) since he demands to have one of the remotes but refuses to let anyone help him use it when the Wii gets turned on! Problem no more. When the boys played after opening presents, Hudson excitedly drove his Mario Kart car with the best of them…in his cute little imagination!

 Funniest present of the night went to Uncle Jason, Aunt Jen and baby Emmett. They gave Hudson this big box:

Inside: A puppy of his very own! Complete with food (Puppy Chow), newspaper, and even some puppy poop (which the boys gobbled up right away!!!) 

 Hudson has been carrying around his new dog, which he calls "Puppy" instead of "Fuff, Fuff" which is what he calls all dogs. Sigh. He's growing up already!

 Quite possibly the strangest and funniest thing that happened was Hudson crying when we sang "Happy Birthday" to him. This was particularly crazy, since we sing "Happy Birthday" multiple times a day…every day. It's his favorite song. I still don't know why he got upset. But I'll always remember that he did!

Spring Break '15

We never seem to plan anything spectacular during spring break. I did, however, manage a couple of playdates with friends during the week, which went a long way with my boys.

I think this picture was before spring break, but I couldn't resist posting it. All 4 of them were happily, somewhat quietly, and cooperatively painting together. Well, Hudson wasn't painting, but he was feeling pretty cool about doing something at the table that the big boys were doing!

I love this picture, too. This was Saturday before the week of spring break. We had invited some friends over for dinner, and while I was doing some cleaning, Dustin busted out a game to play with the boys. Mason and Hudson weren't playing but they were happy to sit on the table and hang out with the boys. I love all these guys.

 Thankfully we had several days of playdates with friends, and that kept the boys busy. We also enjoyed pretty fair weather, even though the week had been forecasted to have a lot of rain. So everyday that the rain stayed away was a day to play outside! Lately they've been going out into our "woods" and climbing their favorite tree. Carson and Mason still have some climbing skills to develop, but Jensen is helping them along.

 And since Hudson isn't much of a tree climber, he enjoyed the boys' other favorite outdoor activity- basketball!!! (Of course, the big boys play on the big hoop out front, but this little hoop is where Hudson dominates!!!) You see that smile on that little boy's face? You see that ball catching nothing but net? He really likes playing basketball with this Hudson sized hoop.

We capped off the week by going out for pizza and ice cream. Nothing fancy, but we enjoyed a laid back spring break.

Birthday Minecraft-ing Style

It hardly seems right that Jensen is 7! When we originally started planning his birthday party, we hoped to be able to do something off-site and super easy for me (since I had some other events going on) but when those plans fell through, he decided on a Minecraft Birthday Party. Fortunately, I found lots of resources, via Pinterest, and most of them had great printables, which made our party so much more manageable. 

Here's Jensen with his banner, creeper (which we attempted to knock down with Nerf guns, but that proved to be quite a challenge!) and his wolf (which the kids had to throw bean bag "bones" into his mouth to tame him.)

 I loved that Jensen chose the easiest cake we saw on Pinterest- with no prodding from me! It was cute and SO EASY. And yummy.

 I don't normally go to the trouble of doing theme food, but the ideas were so fun that we couldn't pass it up. It was probably my favorite part of the party!

 Jensen got very nice presents from his friends. It was all stuff he loved (games, Legos, science kits, candy, cash!) and as I was cleaning everything up, I loved reading all the kids cards that they had made for him. I love when kids make their own cards, in their own handwriting, with their own artwork. You can't buy that kind of precious! 

 On Sunday I gave Jensen his present from us. He's been taking some of my old scriptures to church, but he didn't have a proper bag, so he was (clearly) excited to receive this and take his scriptures to church in a real scripture case!

Monday was his actual birthday, and even though it felt like we had been celebrating the whole weekend, we went out to dinner. And I got to take my standard once-a-year-birthday-photo with Jensen. I love this boy so much. He is such a wonderful person and I know he's going to be successful in whatever he does in life because of his hard working and happy attitude!