Sweet Emory

We went to the park last week to play with Emory (and I forgot my camera, so I totally had to hijack these picks from Cami). Reed had a great time playing...we really need to do thing like this more often. They are the funniest pair. Reed sat at the top of the slide with poor Emory behind him, begging him to go down so she could have her turn. He finally would and you could tell he thought he was so funny and clever (yeah, like she would really enjoy that game). Then as they would run around the playground, that sweet little 2 year old redhead would be squealing at Reed "Come over here! Come here!" Cami said they are working on her "bossiness", but hey, she's a girl! We need to be bossy to keep those boys in line!

Sunday at church, Reed saw Emory for the first time since the park. She spotted him and started running towards him. He dropped his color sheets from class, opened his arms up wide and planted his feet - you could tell he was ready for the hug of his life. Emory stopped about 3 feet short of him. He stuck his arm out towards her and wiggled his fingers as to say "You come here to me!" She gave him a hug and it was the cutest thing I have seen in a while!

They are certainly sweet friends!

Potty Training...UGH!

This picture of Reed just came across my screen (my screen saver is a slide show of all of the pictures on the computer) and as I remembered the story behind it, I just had to post. This picture was taken about a year ago. Reed loved temporary tattoos and I was trying to potty train him. I told him that if he pooped in the potty, I would put every tattoo that I could find on him. He though it was awesome (and so did I)!

As some of you know, I had a HECK of a time potty training this child. After he turned 3 (the age that boys should be trained - or so the books say), I started to talk about the potty. Not only did he not want to do it, when I would ask him about it, he yelled that he didn't want to do it. He would sit on the potty and cry. I tried everything that I could think of or read about. Prizes, charts, etc., and so on. I was really hoping that he would do it before Hudson was born. Nope. Maybe after Hudson was born, he would not want to wear diapers like the baby did. Nope. Finally, one day he took a shower with Brian in the morning, got out and said he wanted a diaper. I had hidden them all and told him I didn't see any diapers and he would have to wear underwear. He said "Well, okaaaay." WHAT??? Why didn't I just force him sooner? Over the next couple of days, he only had 2 accidents and it has been awesome ever since.

So, in the end, my child potty trained 2 months before his fourth birthday. So to all those people who said "Oh, don't worry, he won't go to Kindergarten in a diaper....", I was beginning to wonder...

Growing up fast

Today I was taking the boys out to my mom's to spend the night. On the way out there, Reed was full of his normal chatter/questions. In the midst of all of it:

R: Mom?
M: Yeah?
R: What do you call a box that is full of ducks?
M: (Thinking this is one of the weirdest questions he has ever asked me) Honey, I have no idea.
R: A quacker box!

I died laughing. It was a joke that he heard on TV and I thought it was so funny that he just worked it into the conversation.

It got me thinking on just how big my little boy has gotten. I remember looking at him (not too long ago) and thinking how he was growing out of the "baby" look and into a little boy. Now, before I know it, he'll lose the little boy look and be a young man. My boys are so wonderful and the time feels like it being swept out from under me! Dating, going to college, finding a career, getting married, etc. seems so far away, but it's just around the corner. Most importantly, the things that we do now lay the groundwork for who they will become. I hope and pray that Brian and I raise two men who not only are hard working, generous, thoughtful and respectful, but also awesome men of God.

Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. Proverbs 22:6

The Testaments

On the way home from church tonight:

Reed: "Mom?"
Me: "Yes?"
R: "There are 66."
M: "66 what?"
R: "There are 66 in the testaments."
M: "Do you mean 66 books in the Bible?"
R: "Yeah, that's what I mean."

Short Pause...

R: "Mom?"
M: "Yes?"
R: "There are 2. The Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament comes before the New Testament."
M: "That's exactly right - very good, buddy!"
R: "Do you know why there is an Old and a New Testament?"
M: "No, why?"
R: "Because the first one was too old so they had to get a new one."

New teeth!

Some exciting news today...Hudson has teeth! Woo-hoo. My mom (she also found Reed's first tooth) just happened to feel around in there and said "He's got a tooth!" Actually, he's sprouting both bottom middle teeth at once, poor kid. You know that's gotta hurt! Anyway, I tried to get a picture, but you can't see anything. Maybe we'll try again in a few days...

Quick update to this post - Something I've noticed....My post about teeth is odddly similar to my friend Carissa's post about her son getting teeth (yes, he's two months younger, but that is beside the point. If you'd like to read her post, check out "Haynes Happenings" on my list of blogs I read). It actually seems as though I stole some of her wording - we have the same title! That was by no measn on purpose...could it be that I am too engrossed in the blog reading and I am inadvertenly stealing other people posts? Hmmm...that's no good...

"Just Spell it!"

One of the great many things about my 4 year old...

Susan was here was we were just having a normal conversation about nothing and everything. She was talking about something and used the word "stupid". Uh oh - big mistake. That is a word that Reed is not allowed to say, so if you say it in his presence, you are promptly corrected. He looked her squarely in the face and said "You shouldn't say stupid. But you can spell it though - Mom does that sometimes."

Well, so much for that.

Mmmmmm....Fall!

I love fall. I love when the weather gets a little cooler, we can break out our light jackets and enjoy all the things that come with fall. It seems like everyone is getting back into the swing of things and it makes me want to get organized! We are having a garage sale next weekend so I am cleaning out various things in the house.  As I was cleaning out old clothes of the boys, I came across Reed's old Halloween costumes. Of course I had to try them on Hudson.

My puppies - Reed above, Hudson below

My punkins' - Hudson above, Reed below

Here is Hudson's costume for this year. My mom found it at a re-sale shop of some kind for cheap and called me to see if I wanted it. It was so cute on him! I don't know if the extra puffiness at the bottom will even let him fit in the stroller for trick or treating, but we sure are gonna try!

Marker Mayhem & Matching Camo

I realize I've been posting almost daily, but there's always somethin' happening at the Blevins' household. Yesterday..no exception. So I'm on the phone with my mom and I hear a panicked "MOM!" come from the living room. Well, that's never good. So I run into the living room where I find the following: Reed is standing in the middle of the living room floor, holding a brown Lightning McQueen marker with a look of fear and alarm on his face. As I see the look on his face I also notice the trail of brown ink blotches starting at his hairline and going all the way down, appearing to stop in his right armpit and then starting again on the inside of his right leg down to his ankle. He said "I think the marker exploded!" I wanted to say "Ya think?" but decided as a parent that it probably wouldn't be the most appropriate response. So I told him to run throw the marker in the trash. I asked if he had gotten any on the carpet and he said "I don't think so." again with the panicked look. I'm pretty sure the panic all comes from me...he gets in trouble if he get anything on the carpet, but I don't know why I even bother. Our carpet is so stained, it's pitiful. Our logic is that we'll build a house in a few years and when we sell this one, we'll just get new carpet in it before we sell and all will be well. Let the kids take out their spills and messes on this carpet and they'll be older & more responsible in the new house. At the same time, I want to teach them respect for the things they have and that they shouldn't treat things in a disgraceful manner and that we should be thankful for what we do have...I'm getting way off base. So, back to the marker, I went and got my camera and any time Reed sees a camera, I think the smile is just his knee-jerk reaction. So here is my sweet boy, brown stripe/dots and all...

One other cute picture...Heading out to my SAHM study on Thursday morning, I dressed Reed in his new "Skagway, Alaska" shirt, I was in Hudson's closet and spotted his John Deere onesie. How cute would it be to make them match? I'm really not that kind of mom. At all. But, for some reason, I felt the need. The John Deere onesie is a 3-6 month, so I had to strain to get that thing snapped, but I it was worth it. Awwww...I love my boys.

Toys Galore

I've been trying to get the house cleaned today and I was enlisting Reed's help in entertaining his brother. Hudson was in his room and I said "Reed, could you go get him a couple of toys to play with?" I went to go check on him and found this scene...
I wonder if that'll be enough?

Sunday at our house

Today I have a few pictures to post...

First, this morning I was trying to figure out what to put on Hudson for church. He has outgrown a lot of his clothes, so I got down the basket from the top shelf of the closet that holds his 12 month size clothing. Yes, 12 months. It makes me sad, but at the same time, I have to face facts that we have a big boy. Anyway, after digging through, I found this Polo overall set. For some reason, it wasn't very cute on the hanger...I wouldn't have bought it at the store (we actually got it at his baby shower) but I put it on him and OH MY GOODNESS! He looked so precious that I just had to take a picture! Could it be that I think he is one of the 2 cutest boys in the world?

Second, we had two showers at church today and I was asked to make a cake for one of them. It was a bridal shower where the colors were pink, orange and yellow. I couldn't figure out how to make a cake in those colors without it looking like a birthday cake. So, I decided to do all white and decorate with flowers. A little backstory - in the past, when it has rained, I have trouble with fondant. It was raining yesterday when I made the cake, so I decided the best route to go would be to ice it in buttercream. The pitfall? Buttercream is HARD to get smooth. Very hard. I've only been at this cake thing a few months, so I am by no means a pro. So after messing with this cake for a about and hour, I decided to use a decorative comb technique on the sides. I tried to get the tops as smooth as possible and then I covered the freakin' thing with flowers. Probably too many flowers in hindsight, but hey, it's 20/20 right?

Lastly, Reed and I were having a discussion yesterday about Halloween. Reed likes to plan. He gets up in the morning and right after his request for breakfast, he says "Where are we going today?" So, he needed to get his Halloween costume order in early. Last year he wanted to be Spiderman and I waited a little too long. He ended up with a Spiderman costume I got off of Ebay for $10 that I later saw at the store for $9.99. And the one from the store even included the mask. The one I got just had a silly hat that ended up looking like the goofiest thing ever. But, I digress... So this year he told me he wanted to be Black Spiderman and if I couldn't find that, he wanted to be Batman (you can tell I've trained my child to always have a back-up plan 'cause #1 might not always work out!) Today after the shower, my mom and I ran by Wal-Mart to pick up our Alaska pictures and we walked by the costumes. Being the good mom I am (!), I thought I might go ahead and check for a Black Spiderman. Eureka! I grabbed it and he was so excited when I got home. I told him he could TRY it on to make sure it fit, then we had to put it up until Halloween. It does fit and has been quite the hit around here. He tried to convince me that he needed to put it back on once Brian got home to show HIM that it fit... Quite the conniver if I do say so myself...

On a side note, I've had a few people ask me why Brian didn't go on the Alaska trip. There are a couple of reasons. First, as most of you know, Brian owns his own business. He has put a LOT of time and effort into his shop and it is our livelihood. Anyway, he cannot leave it for such long periods of time to travel. Second, he's actually not much of a traveler. I don't know how this happened since his parents are traveling maniacs, but he missed that gene. He has told me that he likes to sleep in his own bed. And yes folks, he's only 31. Truth be told, when I am gone for a few days, I find myself missing my bed. Maybe it has to do with the fact that he requires a certain thread count in our sheets (and I've gotten used to that)...but that's another post for another day.

The boys

I took this picture of the boys the other day. I just love it. I am so thankful that I have two healthy, sweet boys. They make my life so fun and I just love them to pieces. I try to cherish this time as much as possible. Reed will start school next year and I know our lives will change dramatically. I'm not necessarily looking forward to it - not only because I'm going to sit in the school parking lot crying, but because these days of the three of us being home together, playing and talking is almost over! I love having them both at home and watching how they interact with each other. I'm so thankful for what God has given me!

Cakes & Carrots

While I was caking yesterday (what I call my cake baking/decorating) my mom and dad came over. Pepaw took Reed and they had lunch and did other various manly activities - Cabela's being one of them. Anyhow, Mimi was feeding Hudson for me and he tends to get a little excited when the baby food makes it's appearance. He was eating his carrots and in his pure happiness, smacked the spoon causing a bit of a carrot-tastrophe....

He also hates green beans - I keep trying, just hoping that he'll eventually eat something green! This is his face EVERY time he tries them.

And if you're curious, here's the cake I made yesterday. Reed asked me "Mom, why do you make so many zebra cakes?" I said "It's what people want." And in his wonderful 4-year-old voice, he said "I don't understand why so many people want cakes that look like animals."

Pictures I Need to Explain...

I have some pictures that I took on our trip that I wanted to post, but they need some type of explanation or caption. Since we were paying for the internet by the minute, I didn't want to expand upon things too much! Here are my "free" ramblings...

First, here is the picture of Reed in his pirate hat and face paint that he wanted so badly. He 's such a spaz - when i asked him to smile for the camera, for some reason, jazz hands popped up. Strange child.

In Ketchikan, we ate at AnnaBelle's and Reed order a grilled cheese and fries. When his plate came, they had the cutest french fries I have ever seen - I just had to get him to pose with one.

Our state room on the ship had two twin beds and a bunk that pulled down. We pushed the twin beds together for Mimi and Hudson to sleep on. He had a little bit of trouble staying out of the "crack". We started laughing because it looked so funny and the more we stared at him and laughed, the madder he got. It was funny, though...he just kept sinking....

Here's a picture of the creek in Ketchikan. This was a view from Creek Street - the boardwalk type street where the building were built above the little river running through the town. There were TONS of fish in it as you can see. Uncle Brandon would have fished on the spot if he could have!

Here's Pepaw and Hudson on the trip back down from White Pass. They both had just a little too much excitement...
One last story that was too funny...we had been eating from the buffet and getting room service throughout the trip on the ship, so we were kinda spoiled. Our last night in Seattle, we were in our hotel room and Reed looked at my mom and said "Mimi, could you call somebody and tell them to bring us something to eat?" Uh-Oh. I think the next few days might be long ones.

Winding down...

We spent yesterday at sea heading back to Seattle. We spent a lot of time out on the deck watching the scenery go by. Reed saw another kid with their face painted and a pirate hat on and said "I want to do that!" I took him back to the Aqua Kids Club and he stayed for 3 hours and had a blast. I have a good picture, but my USB cables are packed up...I'll have to post that one later! We packed up our stuff and got ready to leave this morning. As we were walking off the ship, Reed said "I don't want to go home!" He has had so much fun - I'm sure because he's gotten to do so much and I've let him get away with a lot. He's gotten dessert with every meal and most of the time as snacks, Mimi and Pepaw have bought pretty much almost anything he said he liked...what could be bad? The last few days have flown by and I can't believe we'll be home tomorrow, but I am ready. I'm missing my husband and I'm sure my little guys are missing their daddy.

Glacier Bay & Ketchikan...

Yesterday we cruised Glacier Bay. It was gorgeous. After breakfast, we went out on one of the top decks and took lots of pictures. The water was so smooth with little chunks of ice floating here and there. The glaciers themselves were awesome. I never did get a picture of when a piece broke off, but it was so cool. When it did happen, the chunk would hit the water, and then we would hear a big crashing sound. Reed wasn't all that impressed and kept wanting to go back inside. Here's some shots from the day...
We ate dinner at Teppanyaki. We all sat around the hibachi table and Reed loved it. He really like Miyako's in Granbury, but this was more of a "show" . Lots of knife twirling, egg throwing, etc. The cook really made it a priority to involve Reed which was neat. We all really enjoyed it.
This morning we docked at Ketchikan. It was awesome - my favorite port by far. The town was so cute was in such a beautiful spot. Mimi, Uncle Brandon & Reed started out to explore town while Pepaw, Hudson and myself stayed behind to see the ships' doctor. Hudson had a cough that was really bad when we woke up this morning. After seeing the doctor, he diagnosed it as a cold (no ear infections, throat irritations, sounds in his chest or dehydration). After we saw the doctor I felt so much better - I had been on pins and needles! Anyhow, Pepaw stayed with Hudson and I met everyone else to look around. We walked along Creek Street which was a bunch of shops built over a creek that was filled with fish. Reed had a fascination with totem poles, so Uncle Brandon took him to the museum and we had to get him a souvenir. There were a lot of things that we wanted to see, but the boat was leaving at 2:00, so we caught a quick lunch and headed out. A few pics...

Skagway...

Yesterday we went to Skagway. We docked early and went into town to look around. Pepaw volunteered to had stayed behind to with Hudson - I didn't want him out in the rain and cold. Since we are on such a different schedule as everyone else, we got there early and escaped the crowds. It's a cute little town. And when I say little, I mean little. They have one grocery store and it has about 5 aisles. We got a few souvenirs and headed back to the boat. We ate some lunch and got on our White Pass Train tour. We rode the train up in the mountains and took a bus back down. It was beautiful! Here are a few pictures from the tour...

The tour took about 5 hours total, so by the time we got back to the ship, we were all pretty beat. We boarded, put on our pajamas, ordered room service and had a "picnic" on the bed. Reed loved it and thought is was so much fun. Today we aren't going to dock, but just cruise Glacier Bay. It's still pretty foggy outside with very limited visibility, so hopefully it will clear up soon.
Ketchikan is tommorrw...see ya then!

Juneau...

Here are a couple of pictures I took while we were at sea yesterday...

Mimi & Pepaw catching a few quiet moments...they are hard to come by on this trip!

Last night after I posted, we went up to grab something to eat and as we were sitting there, people started crowding around the windows in the reaturant. We got up to see what the deal was and there were dolphins jumping through the water EVERYWHERE! If I had to guess on the number of them, I'd say there were at least 50. It was awesome and something neat that Reed got to see. I left my camera in the cabin, so sorry, no picture! We finished our meal and I took Reed to the Aqua Kids Club. It's a neat little place where you can take your kids and they do games, coloring, watch movies and so on. He LOVED it. As I mentioned in my last post, he gets tired of "just sitting", so the AKC (which I will refer to it from now on) has been a blessing. I went to pick him up yesterday afternoon and they were having a birthday party for everyone. I don't know all that was involved, but when I got there, he was playing pin the nose on the clown. As I stood there watching, I was amazed at how well he was doing. He ended up getting it right on the clown's nose! One of the workers looked at him and said "Can you see through your blindfold?" and he said "I can see a little bit." Well, so much for that. He made a neat "birthday" hat and had his face painted so I had to get a picture...




Our schedule is so much different than everyone elses - we still feel like we are on Texas time. We're getting up around 4 or 4:30 (6 or 6:30 Texas time) and going to bed around 7:00 (9:00). Last night was a little rough. I woke up in the night and felt the ship rocking like crazy. Luckily I am doped up on dramamine and have a motion sickness patch behind my ear...if it wasn't for that, I'd be in big trouble.
Yesterday we docked in Juneau and walked around a bit - the scenery is beautiful! It was pretty chilly for us Texans, so we had to bundle Hudson up!



Juneau is very touristy and has a gillion jewelry stores. We ate at the Red Dog Saloon - it's one of those touristy places and Pepaw really wanted to go, so we had a quick bite to eat. The piano player had quite the mouth, so we got out pretty quick! We had some gelato and coffee and found that our phones would work, so we made some calls home. It was really good to hear Brian's voice and I know he enjoyed talking to Reed. We ran into some great picture oppurtunities with Reed and various dead wildlife - here's ahuge bear we found.

What a beginning...

We have had quite the eventful trip up to this point and that is why I have neglected to write (also the internet wouldn't work at the hotel and I had to go get a cable to use on the ship)! I won't give too many details because I believe they would be quite boring to you all. We started out Saturday morning headed to the airport. We dropped of luggage and parked the car and headed to check in, we hit a couple of snags with Hudson (we didn't buy him a seat, but still had to have a boarding pass), but everything worked out fine. We had two flights, the first from DFW to Phoenix (very rough with all the turbulence). The bad news? I threw up. The good news? I made it to my airsick bag. The second flight from Phoenix to Seattle was also pretty bumpy but not near as bad. Both boys did GREAT on the flights - hallelujah! Here's a pic of Hudson finding a new use for the tray table.

We got our bags and by this time Pepaw wasn't feeling so well. We got our rental van (it was a minivan, but I gotta say...it was kinda neat) threw our bags in and headed to get something to eat. Pepaw was horribly sick, so he slept in the car while we ate. We had a quick dinner and off to the hotel. Pepaw got up feeling better in the morning, bit still a little nauseated. Uncle Brandon and Reed got sucked into a "chrane game" and about $3.50 later, Uncle Brandon "caught" Batman and Reed was ectstatic!

We drove around Seattle a little to sight see. Here's some pics from Puget Sound.

From this point on, this had to be one of my least favorite days ever. It was a pain. We hadn't ever been on a cruise ship before, so since we didn't know what to expect, it was tiring. Uncle Brandon dropped us at the pier and drove the car back to the rental office. I sat out with our carry-ons and the kids while Uncle Brandon, Pepaw and Mimi took our obscene amount of luggage to baggage. After about 30 minutes, we went to check in. Hudson was tired and not pleased with being in his stroller, so we ended up carrying him a lot of the time which ended up making everything kinda hard. We had 4 backpack, 3 rolling carry-on suitcases and a 12 pack of Dr. Pepper for my addicted brother. Then there was Reed. Poor, sweet little Reed. He was SO tired of all the boring stuff of dragging luggage around and he was being very patient...I told him when we got on the ship to eat dinner, he could have ANYTHING he wanted..more about that later. SO, after checking in, showing our keycards 84 times (while holding a crying. exhausted baby), we finally made it on the ship. Our staterooms weren't ready so we went to find a restaurant to eat. After pulling all the above metioned stuff around for 2 decks (nobody we asked sent us to the correct place) we finally found the Summer Palace. Hot diggity - I wanted to sit down!! I let Reed pick and he ordered ice cream with chocolate syrup. Whatever. At this point I would've let the kid eat the sugar packets off the table if he wanted to. We got to our stateroom, unpacked and before long, it was time for our lifejacket drill. The whole time Reed was pulling on his lifejacket saying "This hurts my neck! This hurts my neck!" OH. MY. GOODNESS. I'm not a drinker, but after all the mess we dealt with that day, I firmly believed I could easliy turn into one. We explored the ship a little last night, but we were exhausted and went to bed fairly early. We haven't done much today - the water has been exceptionally choppy - but I'm looking forward to sightseeing in Juneau tomorrow!