Hudson James is here!!!

What a wonderful day! Our good friends, Meggan and Trent, welcomed their sweet baby boy into the world this morning at 8:03am. He was delivered by C-section and his Mommy was a true champ! Hudson weighs 8lbs 8oz. and is 19 and 3/4 inches long. He has a precious head of hair and is just perfect in every way! It was so much fun to watch Meggan and Trent being parents today. They are both so good with him! Trent was so brave to do the first "tar" diaper change, and he did a great job too. He can swaddle a baby like nobody's business! Meggan has had a hard day due to nausea from the anesthesia, but her excitement about Hudson seems to be a good distraction. They both seem very "natural" with him! Of course, Uncle Doug and I LOVED getting to meet him! There is nothing like a brand new baby! He has the most precious face and sweet little nose! We just couldn't get enough of him!
 
Meggan is a Mommy!!
 
Daddy feeding Hudson
 
Aunt Holly loving every minute of meeting this baby!
 
Uncle Doug was in on the action too!

 
Precious boy!
 
Snuggling with Aunt Jessica
 
Nana and Papa helped to soothe Hudson while his Daddy did a diaper change.
 
So handsome...

I Heart Heart Day

I've always loved Valentine's Day! What's funny about that is that throughout life, I hardly EVER had a boyfriend or a "someone special" on this day. I have just loved that there is a day set aside to celebrate love (Oh and also, I love chocolate and the colors red and pink). There have been, however, TWO times that I did have a special Valentine.
I got my very first boyfriend on Valentine's Day during 5th grade (I think). He wrote, "Will you go with me?" on one of the Spiderman Valentines that he brought for the whole class. Well, I couldn't have been more thrilled! So, I sent my friend to go tell his friend to tell him that YES, I would go with him! When I got home from school that afternoon, I told my Mom that I was "going with" a boy. Of course, her reply (and I'm going to remember to say this to my child someday) was, "Oh really, and where are y'all going?" It was quite a romance that we had there for those two weeks until the inevitable "break up". I don't remember being very devastated about that.
It was Valentine's Day of 2005 when Doug gave me a Valentine telling me for the first time, that he loved me. I treaure that card, and always will. Even more, though, I treasure the love that we have for each other. I also treasure the love that is shared with our friends and our family. What a blessing it is to love and be loved...it's one of the greatest gifts of all!

A tribute to my main MAN!

I would like to offer a brief, yet heartfelt note of thanks to my husband. On Saturday, I came down with a major cold/flu-ish/bug-ish YUCK! I have been feeling (AND looking) pretty rotten for about 5 days now. For the first few days, I was in the bed, sniffling, snuffling, snorkling, sneezing...doing all the things described on the NyQuil bottle. Well, let me tell me just tell you how blessed I am to have such a sweet husband! He has been waiting on me, serving me, making (and by making, I mean driving and picking up) dinner, cleaning up dishes, bringing thousands of drinks to my bedside, rubbing my back, being funny, putting up with my obnoxious coughing fits throughout the night and just loving on me! At some point in marriage preparation, we heard something about the word husband meaning "to tend to". When I thanked him for being such a sweet help to me, he told me, "I'm tending". Yay for marriage preparation! Yay for tending! Yay for my husband!!! I love that guy!

"You jealous, jealous butt!!!"

 

I know, I know...such a crude title for such a precious picture! But, it would be funny to you if you knew that I was about this age when I would scream, "You're just a jealous butt!" to Mallie following one of our many fights that resulted in her taking her toys, racing out the back door of my house, over the fence, and into her house. Why a jealous butt? Well, I just don't know. I knew at the ripe old age of FOUR that it wasn't nice to be jealous, and I definitely knew that we weren't supposed to say BUTT...so, the two together had to be bad!!
As stated above, this is a picture of one of my dearest, best, and yes...oldest friends (not in age, but in length of friendship). The picture above was taken at one of Mallie's many creative themed Birthday parties. This particular year, we were told to dress up like our Mommies. Well, according to this picture, Mallie's mom was a lady of the night and my mom was a southern belle! Actually, if you look closer, you can see that Mallie is dressed quite appropriately as her Mom in the college years (she went to school in Hawaii). Mal has a pretty flower in her hair and her Hawaiian top on! We're still not sure WHAT I was wearing.
 
Now this picture was taken a bit more recently (last weekend) at Mallie's BABY SHOWER...
What? Mallie is having a baby? How is this possible? After all, wasn't it just yesterday that we were....
1. writing notes to each other signed in our code Spanish names, Josefina and Mercedes?
2. stealing my sister's cigs and smoking down in the creek behind our homes? (By the way...that was funny...we smoked and then came racing home to take a bath...because that didn't look mysterious AT ALL...two 11 year olds running for the tub in middle of the day!)
3. knocking on neighbors' doors and then running away?
4. selling the dreaded Girl Scout cookies to every person in our neighborhood? (Why we tried so hard is beyond me...we always knew that we were never going to win the stupid T-shirt, or whatever prize they were pushing to the highest seller!)
5. on our way to Wimbish Warrior cheerleading tryouts (No, we did not go to Wimbish...we went to Duff...but Duff had no cheerleaders at the time) with me trying to convince Mallie to try out? She changed her mind about 14 times on the way there. But, she ended up doing it!!
6. dying Easter eggs on the back porch?
7. playing "Marco Polo" and "Sharks and Minnows" in her pool...or our other favorite, the Owings' pool?
8. trick-or-treating in one of our MANY fabulous costumes? (We were flappers, genies, pumpkins, cows, valley girls, witches...and on and on and on. (By the way, I think Mallie still trick-or-treats at 31 years of age!
Well, you get the idea. Mal and I have been making memories together since about 1980. We've been in each other's weddings and now, she's ready for the next big leap...MOTHERHOOD!! I can't tell you how proud I am of my sweet friend. She will be such an incredible Mom!! Gates Elizabeth may not know it yet, but she's getting one of the best Mommies EVER!! Congratulations, sweet Mallie.