Owen drew a big picture for his new friend he made at Thanksgiving. This is the outside:
To: Westin
From: Owen Hudson
I miss you. We had lots of fun. Thank you for inviting us for Thanksgiving Dinner.
Category Archives: Owen
Two in a coat.
I wore this coat while I was pregnant with Owen so thought it was appropriate that we still fit in it together. 🙂
Time to decorate!
The kids were super excited about putting the tree up (since the bag had been sitting in the living room for a whole day)!
Owen was excited when I handed him two bags of Christmas Legos! He had forgotten about them!
Katie’s placement of her first three ornaments:
They were both really good helpers and I didn’t even have to help them much! Yay! And my OCD-tendencies don’t bother me at all—I don’t much care where the ornaments end up!
I don’t think this is nearly enough food.
We were invited to a friends’ house for Thanksgiving. She and her other guests cook in quantity like we do…so there wasn’t quite enough food for six adults and nine kids. 🙂
Katie’s dinner? A roll, crackers, and cheese. For dessert she tried pumpkin pie, said she liked it, then proceeded to eat just the whipped cream.
Owen’s dinner? A roll, ham, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream.
I did really well overall. I splurged on two glasses of wine throughout the evening…and it was deeelicious. (I haven’t had a glass of wine in probably four months.) Foodwise:
- 1oz deep-fried pork loin
- 1/2oz smoked turkey
- about 3T each of Easter/funeral potatoes, cornbread stuffing, sweet potato casserole, and smoked corn casserole
- 2 deviled eggs
- 1 small Hawaiian roll
Dessert was cheesecake. I took a full slice intending to eat the whole thing dammit. And then about halfway through I said “This doesn’t even taste good anymore.” And that was that. Voodoo. 🙂
This is what she picked to wear. And she was damn cute. 🙂
The kids all had fun playing and the adults ended up watching Planes, Trains and Automobiles. 🙂
Yep, he’s a photog’s kid.
He was sitting there looking totally cute so I grabbed my phone, asked him to smile, and I instantly got this:
A turkey came home today!
Abe made Thanksgiving. (Well, technically, Thankging.) 🙂 I asked what Abe was. “It’s short for Abraham Lincoln.”
We celebrate Thanksgiving because it is special.
Thanksgiving is nice for people.
Just a quick shot before school.
Sometimes cheap fun wins.
They co-opted Tom’s box and were pretending it was something I can’t remember from Minecraft. They were both running around wearing it and having a blast!
Could he be any sweeter?
Owen will randomly say that he misses Grandma Marsha and he knows that we have a tiny bit of her ashes. Today he wrote this note and put it with the ashes. /bawl
We still remember you. I am sad that you died.
Painting snowflakes
Art night ceramics at school! I was clueless as to how to decorate my snowflake…until I finished it…at which point my mind flooded with ideas, all of which I liked better than what I did. The kids’ are great, though you are only seeing the boring back side because they were still drying. And Tom’s impressed me, too…the only one that looks like an actual snowflake! A fun night!
Little marines
Someone has his first Chuck Taylors!
So now he can be twins with daddy.
Anyone else hate doing art projects with their kids?
Owen’s pieces usually start out decent enough but then he keeps adding stuff and adding stuff and adding stuff and soon it’s unrecognizable. I realize a first grade project isn’t a big deal but my OCD can’t handle it.
This is disguising Tom Turkey so the farmer can’t find him for Thanksgiving dinner.
- There was one zig-zag string of lights and it was perfect…and then he just off and scribbles on another zig-zag strand on the side.
- I thought the yellow star on top was good…then he decided to color it green.
Maybe I need to start drinking wine again…
Veteran’s Day Part 2
The school posted a slew of pictures on Facebook from the assembly today and I snagged these:
I knew from some of the faces it was Owen’s class but it took me a minute to find…his head. 🙂
Two of the three marines in the audience (they played each branches song while the appropriate members stood up).
And lookie here. 🙂
Flu shots for three!
We finally made it in for flu shots at the hospital this morning! I figured what better morning than the morning when we were all already up and showered by 7:15. :/
Owen was adamant about not wanting the shot so got the mist. Katie probably could have gotten the mist but one of the rules is you had to keep your hands completely out of your face all day and we weren’t sure she could do that…so she got the shot. She squawked for the 1.3 seconds it took and then she was fine. Owen made more of a stink about the mist than Katie did about her shot! He knew it wasn’t a shot but he just gets himself so worked up over nothing it’s silly. And then when it’s over and it was no big deal, he acts like he knew it was no big deal the whole time. Kids.
Katie showing Owen her band-aid. (As she repeated many times: “Mama and me got band-aids because we got shots. Owen got drops.”)
Enjoying her stickers:
I’m a monster, I know.
I wanted to throttle both kids by 6:45am.
Owen went downstairs to play on the iPad—which he knows he’s not supposed to do. And then got mad at me when he got in trouble for it. (I’m a monster, I know.)
Katie had wandered around this morning and gone downstairs to find Owen and consequently couldn’t make it to the potty in time (when it was actually time) so peed all over the stool and the rug and her PJs…and screamed when I took her PJs off because she still wanted to wear them. (I’m a monster, I know.)
Owen had tried to clean up the pee—with toilet paper, so it was a sopping mess (but at least he tried!)—but after I dumped the TP I tried to clean the stool off in the tub but Owen had left the shower knob on so I got a head and shoulders full of water instead (which normally wouldn’t have been too awful but my hair is currently straightened so that messes that up).
Needless to say I lost my shit just a little bit. Dealing with that crap is never fun, but even less so before 7am.
Gym Birthday Party
Of course we were there early, so we waited in the car for a few minutes.
They got to start playing before anyone else got there:
And then it got a little chaotic with 20 kids…but we got to stay out of the crazy and visit with the other parents (and I really hit it off with another mom—which was a bonus!). The end of the party had everyone zip lining which they all loved!
Sunday Swim
The kids’ lessons are progressing nicely…but today we just get a video of Katie going down the slide during play time. It’s funny—last week was the first week she was even somewhat interested, and one of the instructors made sure to help her climb up and wanted to wait for her at the bottom of the slide. I had to tell them she’s an old hat at big slides and they didn’t need to worry! She showed them today!
Owen helping her up the first time:
Veteran’s Day
We all went to the Veteran’s Day Assembly at Owen’s school. It was very nice, and each of the grades performed either a song or poem. During one of the songs, every child who had a military family member stood up and waved a sign that said “Thank you, Service Members!” (This is a photo from a random person on Facebook.)
We were a bit too far back to see well, so it wasn’t until afterwards we learned that Owen didn’t stand up…because he was shy. Poor kid. It wasn’t like he was the only one, either—there were probably (conservatively) 50 other kids standing up, too.
This was what he brought home from school:
1st Grade Veteran’s Day Assembly project
Owen’s teacher emailed me last night to see if I could help with a class project today for the Veteran’s Day assembly on Wednesday. It was last minute but she thought maybe I could do it since I was already going to be in the classroom (for a makeup P/T conference). I quickly agreed because I like helping out—and I could bring Katie. 🙂 She said she’d let me know what the project was when I got there.
Hoo boy, LOL.
It wasn’t just a CLASS project, but a GRADE project. An ART project. Where I had to paint everyone’s hands to make the stripes on a flag. And stick their name stickers on as well. So, around 100 kids 2-10 at a time in a hallway…ON MY KNEES the whole time.
I gave up control of hand placement on about the fourth red hand, LOL.
I had on the wrong clothes—a tank with a swingy top which kept flapping about getting close to the paint (washable, of course, but still…I’d have worn something different if I knew I’d be painting).
I had the wrong hair—I wore it down, but with all the moving around and kids and close quarters and paint…I would have worn it up.
And my knees. My poor, old, broken knees. I can barely deal with kneeling for five minutes, let alone an hour. I wouldn’t have said no even if I knew, so it doesn’t really matter…I’m just lamenting my old knees and how I took some strong drugs and am currently writing this entry sitting with my feet up because it hurts to walk. 🙂
It was fun overall (though a bit messy and chaotic), some kids recognized me as Owen’s mom, the teachers really appreciated me being there, it turned out cute, and I was too busy to worry about Katie but Mrs. Talley said she was just fine…and I walked in after to see Katie just sitting with the kids (not even with Owee!) watching the math lesson. 🙂
First 1st grade P/T conference
On the way in, we stopped to see Owen’s Hero submission for Veteran’s Day in the main hallway:
Overall, Owen is doing great!
He’s ahead in reading—she said she’s had to keep moving him up levels! He’s currently on Level 8 (levels are much different than back in our day) and needs to be at Level 16 by the end of the year…which his teacher said she wasn’t worried about at all.
He’s doing well in math—he got 13/14 on a recent makeup test from the week he missed (but she didn’t give him any instruction like the rest of the class had). And the question he got wrong he just didn’t pay close attention to the instructions because he was likely going too fast (it was 4 + 2 = ___ + 3 and he wrote 6).
He’s also doing well in social studies, science, and writing—and I got to quickly look at his journals.
He uses his time well (an improvement from kindergarten) and behaves in class.
His teacher said he had no major areas that needed improvement (yay!)—just basic (expected) things like using upper/lower case consistently and correctly, spacing between words when writing, etc…all stuff we know and are working on.
And we got a list of questions we need to ask when he does his daily reading to help prepare him for the state testing at the end of the year (like Who was the main character? What happened first?) as well as more critical thinking like this:
Owen is leading us into war.
With a ruler for a sword, of course, because that’s what he picked to bring today. 🙂
And a shot of his new haircut, courtesy of daddy this afternoon.
They are both so sweet.
So we’re watching Inside Out and some scene comes on where the characters are crying.
Katie: What’s he doing?
Tom: He’s crying. It’s good to cry. It’s how we deal with things.
Owen: Like when Grandma Marsha died.
Tom and I look at each other and get teary.
Me: Exactly.
Owen: And we won’t forget her…
Katie: Because she’s always in our heart.
Tom and I look at each other again and just about lose it. The kids weren’t phased at all and just went back to watching the movie.
I’m glad the things I’ve said to them have sunk in, even if Katie doesn’t specifically understand yet.
We surprised Owen at lunch!
Tom was home today so we decided to surprise Owen during his lunch!
Don’t you love Katie’s lunch? Sometimes I just make life easy. 🙂
Owen seeing us!
A walk after a long drive
After two kinda long days in the car—and a week of no real exercise—we pulled in, unloaded the car, then headed directly to the park for our favorite hike!
Packed to the hilt!
We were heading home with just a bit more stuff than we arrived with…and the kids were completely packed in.
Gramma and the kids
Time change + pool time = wiped out
Letting our little fish swim!
After the events of the past few days, we wanted to let the kids have some fun!
And a compilation of slides…
Halloween in Grayling
The kids were super excited about treak-or-treating at Gramma’s house…and we were, too…until the Michigan weather happened. Yeah, it was 38° and rainy. Egads. If you look closely enough you can see Katie’s polka-dot long johns under her white tights (and she also had on pink tights!).
On the front porch where my Halloween picture was taken every year…
Everyone (including Uncle Rob) ready to head out!
There weren’t many houses lit up but the ones that were were handing out TONS of candy! You see how full their bags look? We had only hit maybe six houses at this point!
After about 15 minutes they gave up on the umbrellas and just ran from house to house while we waited at the road. Soon enough we were back at Gramma’s door!!
Home after an hour of being out in the rain—they were soaked but happy!!
Tom gave the kids a hot shower and put them in PJs while I made them hot cocoa!
Eating Mallow cups from daddy and Uncle Rob—they were Grandma Marsha’s favorite treat and someone brought a bag of them for the boys.
LOOKS AT THEIR HAUL!! The weather sure stunk but it was great for quick candy accumulation. They got 9# of candy from less than 20 houses!
