Nana's birthday!

We got to celebrate Nana's birthday today after picking her up from the airport this evening. We went to Spin for pizza and cupcakes and the boys helped unwrap her gifts. Jack has been singing Happy Birthday to Nana all day and Hudson had so much fun picking out a new bead for her bracelet. He picked out a music note because Nana loves music. 

Nana put a bow in Jack's hair...the closest thing she might get to a granddaughter!

Wonderscope

Jack's favorite thing to do at Wonderscope was paint his face with the face paint crayons. Then he refused to take it off! 

Hudson loves trying to figure out this machine that blows scarves. 

Hudson has been begging to go to Fritz's ever since we were at Crown Center over the holidays. They had a great time watching the trains. If only the food was better!

January fun

We have been enjoying a low key, rather warm (for KS anyway) January. Here are a few photos from the month so far. 

Jack continues his show obsession and loved wearing Dana's boots!

Dana and Pa came for a weakend to visit and the boys had their first trip to Dunkin Doughnuts. We nearly had a big boy meltdown after they were out of sprinkle doughnuts and Hudson started planning on how we could just go to another store to get one. Luckily by the time we ate, they had made another tray. 

Jack was in heaven and ate way more than his share. 

Carpooling.

Jack carrying his favorite "guys" of the week including Mickey, Clifford and "Chief".

Hudson playing with his Cars.

Where Jack insisted on eating his oatmeal one day.

Watching a movie

At Gage's 5th birthday. It was a tumbling party and Hudson had so much fun. We also went to an open gym at a gymnastics center and Hudson has been asking to take some classes so we might look into that.

Jack painting at parents as teacher playgroup. We also started Kindermusik classes again which he loves.

The boys so badly want to sleep together but despite many different attempts no one seems to be able to get to sleep. The night before last we tried Jack in the toddler bed which sits at the foot of Hudson's bed. Hudson then decided he needed to sleep at the bottom of his bed by Jack. Then Jack would climb up to be by Hudson. Needless to say, this failed. So the next night we try them both in Hudson's bed. They both lay down but then Jack whispered over and over to Hudson, "doggies are sleeping" (we have my mom's dogs at the house this week). Hudson would say "yes they are". Well Jack did this OVER and OVER again and finally Hudson told him, "Yes they are so Jack, only tell me things I don't know, OK?". So this attempt didn't work either. It was so darn cute to hear their little conversations though and at one point they even cuddled with their arms around each other. Maybe someday they can be roomies...

Hudson is showing a big interest in reading and doing pretty well reading some beginning reader books. He is a really quick memorizer though so often times we have to make sure he is reading the words and not just repeating them. He has several pretty long books memorized like his two favorite Cars books. He also LOVES the play the Wii that we got for Christmas and is picking up those video gaming skills quickly. He gets rewarded with Wii time for good behavior so this comes in very handy if we need him to do something!

Jack's vocabulary has taken off recently and he continues to repeat everything he hears. His favorite songs he is heard singing around the house are the ABC's, Twinkle Twinkle, Wheels on the Bus, Frosty the Snowman and Jingle Bells. His favorite movies are Oliver and Company and Fox and the Hound. The boys got these for Christmas and even have named a few plush animals after characters in the movie.

December randoms

Here are a few non-holiday photos from December. 

The boys on the couch with who Jack now refers to as, "John". Hudson does not call him John so he just picked it up. "Daddy, I need milk! Oh, thanks John." 

Feeding Tanner....poor thing.

The latest ride on toy

What happens when you leave him with a dot marker while you try and fix the printer. 

Jack's first hair cut that we had to pay for :)

Our trip to St Louis/New Year's

In between Christmas and New Year's, we headed to St Louis for a few days to see Pa, Dana, and Evan and Lyndi who were visiting there for a few days. 

The boys got spoiled again with another Christmas celebration! They got stuffed animals with a box of candy which was right up their alley, especially Jack. Pa also bought the family a Wii system. Hudson was so excited. He had never played one before but within a few hours figured it out pretty well. 

 

 We had some amazing weather so we headed to the St Louis Zoo one day. 

 Jack had been asking all day to see the elephants and this was the look on his face when he saw there was a baby elephant. He was so excited and kept pointing out the mommy, daddy and baby elephant. He would have watched them all day if we let him. 

 We had dinner with Dana and the boys loved the new hat she "borrowed". 

 Hudson got a lot of tips on Mario from Evan, his new "best friend" as he says. 

 We also spent a morning at the Magic House. Hudson loved the electricity room and kept trying to show Jack how to connect everything. 

 Playing banker....

 and doctor. 

 Hudson was really into caring for the babies in the nursery. 

 Jack stealing yet another cookie from the tin. 

 Helping Pa build a real fire. 

After dinner we took a horse drawn carriage ride down Main Street in St Charles. The boys loved it although Hudson was very concerned about how we were going to get back to our car!

We came back and had a birthday celebration for Daddy's 35th birthday! Jack walked around all day singing "Happy Birthday to John". 

Playing with the nerf gun

On New Year's Day we all went to see the new Muppet Movie.  We were shocked we made it through the whole thing although a large popcorn helped a bit!