Category Archives: Technology
When your 7yo texts his dad…
Notice the attitude?
Pókemoning in DC with daddy!
We’ve been promising to take the kids Pókemoning in DC since there are A LOT of crazy things there we can’t get here…so Tom took them this morning.
Katie calls the Jefferson Memorial her castle. 🙂
They took over the Jefferson Memorial—Go, Team Hudson!
Apparently the kids are favorites of Japanese tourists, as Tom said they got stopped twice to take a picture. Also, this might be my new favorite picture of them. :heart:
And then lunchtime!
They. had. a. blast. Owen was even sending me texts telling (and showing) me what he caught. They can’t wait to go back!
The live Facebook Q&A with Naturally Slim!
So the Live Facebook event was actually going to take place at the combined offices of Holmes Murphy and ACAP Health, both new partners of Naturally Slim. I was VERY anxious about the event, but Marcia assured me I would do just fine. I was put a little more at ease when she told me it would only be about 20 minutes long—I had thought it would be an hour or something! Phew!
We got there early and Marcia showed me around the offices and introduced to many, many people…most of whom were all like “Oh, wow! I know you! You’re Jennifer Hudson! I recognize you!” It was VERY surreal. They were just as excited to meet me as I was to meet them! The offices were super fun and trendy, with named meeting rooms like the Vineyard (with a wall of bookcases and wine racks) and the Bead Room, which is where we ended up filming—yes, a “room” in the middle of the office space with floor-to-ceiling hanging beads encircling four chairs and a table!
Getting ready to start!
Our view during the event:
And then we were off and running…
Live Q&A with Marcia Upson, President of Naturally Slim
[iOS users, if Safari isn’t showing the Facebook video below, try Chrome]
And suddenly it was over! What?! Already?! Wow that went fast! I had a lot of fun and the time just flew by—I probably could have answered questions for an hour! Of course watching the video later I noticed things I didn’t like (like my roll of belly fat and a few strange looks I made) but overall I think I did pretty well!
And then on the way out, I got to meet Todd (Todd Whitthorne, President, ACAP Health—he’s in quite a few of the program videos)!! And just like Marcia, he was just the same as in the videos, too. And boy was he tall (I’m 5’9″ and you see how he towers over me)! 🙂
What a memorable way to spend my 43rd birthday!!
The best way to wake up on my birthday.
This was waiting for me in my texts. 🙂
Guess which network is hers?
We were sitting out by the pool talking after we got home from dinner and I was telling her about the kids and Pokemon and I was showing it to her on my phone and figured I might as well ask for the wifi password since I was going to be around for a few days. Of course I am always interested in what people name their networks, and hers did NOT disappoint. I love it.
Mom, this is also when I gave her your hug. 🙂
This is real now!
This was published this morning…
Katie cracks us up on camera.
Every once in awhile we find a video like this from the camera in Katie’s room. Cracks us up.
Kids on iPads.
This is what I came downstairs to this morning: Ben on his iPad, Owen on his iPad, Katie on Emma’s iPad, and Emma waiting and half watching Pokemon on TV.
They’d been on long enough—and they really needed to play with each other—so I took them away and suggested Legos. Of course they had a blast. Sometimes I hate the iPads. 😐
Owen’s first Pokemon gym!
Tom took him out last night for some one-on-one time and Owen had his first battle…and won! He was SO excited!!
Tom’s third morning project.
But now we get to take birch pieces home!! (His first two projects were getting the wifi extender and the cell booster installed and running!)
We had been talking about looking for fallen birch pieces to take home (birch trees are rare in Virginia) and my dad said he had a small birch he actually wanted taken down. Say no more. 🙂 Two birds, one chainsaw. 🙂
Happy Shenny!
Happy to be talking with daddy.
Watching TV with Charlie
New Zealand!
The end of the play date.
When we came to pick up the kids, we got a good report…and then we stayed to talk to our friends for a bit and this is what the kids looked like:
Keegan & Owen on the left, the little sister Sheila in the pink, and Garrett & Katie in the back. 🙂
iPad time with daddy
Katie’s school physical.
SCHOOL PHYSICAL!!! What?!?! The doc said her heart and lungs look good, he wasn’t set up to test vision or hearing but I had no concerns so he wasn’t concerned, and she had to get one vaccine (the second Hep A). She was a trooper!
Weight: 35 lbs.
Height: 40.25″
NatSlim update!
I never get tired of seeing Naturally Slim comment on my tweets!
I like my Tivo’s sense of humor.
Owen loves texting me.
This is the run of messages I got today. The blue shirt business is because I took a stained blue polo of his and attempted another bag (like the tee I transformed the other day).
And he just giggles and giggles when he’s texting me. 🙂
Owen and the password
So Owen came upstairs and woke me up about 6:45 to tell me that he couldn’t get on the iPad because it asked for a password. What? Password? We have no password on it. So I’m trying to wake up and be alert and comprehend what he’s telling me and I just have no idea so I tell him I’ll figure it out later.
So, this is what I went downstairs to find:
I asked what happened, and of course he wasn’t very helpful. He said it asked for a password and so he typed in mine. He doesn’t know mine, so I asked exactly what he typed. He said “The little A —” and I stopped him. “What little A?” He pointed to the @ sign and then continued “a JenHudson.” I laughed. That’s not my password anywhere (or username for that matter) but it cracked me up that that’s what he used. I had NO idea why it would ask for a password since we’ve never had one. We do have one set to restrict purchases, so I tried that on the off chance it got turned off and he reset it. Nope. I tried my iTunes password. Nope. AppleID password. Nope. And every time you try a wrong password, you get this:
Except the time increments increase so soon I was up to five minutes. After 10 wrong guesses the iPad erases itself. Hoo boy. I was 99% sure I would be wiping the iPad and reinstalling everything.
So I asked Owen again EXACTLY what happened (while simultaneously asking my online friends for help). He told me he picked up the iPad and it had a black screen then it had the Apple and then it asked for a password so he typed it in. AHA! I asked what he typed in. He quickly answered “qqqq” — so I tried it and BINGO! That was it.
So, what happened? Either the iPad updated itself with a new iOS that night while plugged in or it prompted him to update in the morning and he just said yes. And since we had no password set, when it rebooted it prompted him to enter one (we would normally skip that step) and he picked qqqq. 🙂
Two photos that sum up my day.
Katie was a little shit most of the day. And THEN I discovered this:
What is that you ask? SHE SCRATCHED THE HELL OUT OF THE IPAD WITH A ROCK. (Breathe. Breathe.) WHAT THE HELL?! Needless to say she lost all iPad privileges for at least a week. Luckily it’s just the screen protector that is scratched—the actual iPad glass is fine. But still.
So, after the day I had, this was my dinner:
Boys at play
Tom was home sick today so they were playing games together before school. 🙂
She’s up before she should be.
Her nightlight turns green at 6:30 and she’s supposed to stay in her room until then. But this is what I saw this morning.
Daddy Owen Game Time
Owen’s thank you to the Mythbusters
We watched a recent Mythbusters with the kids. Owen drew a picture and wrote a thank you to Adam and Jamie and wanted me “to send it to them in California.” I told him I’d take a picture and tweet it to them. I briefly thought about asking a friend for insider info to get it directly to Adam (they’re acquaintances) but figured I’d save any potential favors for something a bit more…serious. 🙂
So I tweeted three different times:
And a few hours later, we got this:
How cool is that?! Owen was super excited!
Unfortunately, we haven’t “heard” anything from Jamie yet, but we’re still crossing our fingers. 🙂
Who knew an old desktop would be that fun?
Tom is getting rid of an old desktop and just had it sitting temporarily in the living room. The kids were completely enthralled with it. I was at my computer and I heard Owen behind me clicking away on the keyboard, saying he was texting dad and playing music. He also kept plugging and replugging the mouse and keyboard cords.
Then, of course, Katie got involved. When she wasn’t clicking away she was “on the phone” (the mouse). 🙂
Katie’s turn on the video camera
I’m starting over with Week 1.
A bunch of friends that have been doing Naturally Slim for awhile now have decided to “start over” as if we were on Day 1 of the program again. We’ve all been sort of stalled (maintaining, if you will) or slightly gaining over the holidays and have decided a refresh is in order. And I’ve always said that if what I’m doing isn’t working I will go back to ALL the basics to get started again. (I’ve been following most of the rules, but have gotten a bit slack over the past month and especially slack over the last two weeks.)
As you know, I really wanted to make 100 by Christmas or the end of the year but after this past week I’m pretty sure I’ll have gained two pounds this week (I’ll find out in the morning) and I want the fluff gone before it turns into real weight…so I might as well start ASAP. I was originally going to start with them on January 3, but today thought “Why wait? Why give myself permission to splurge for another whole week?” Which means tomorrow I’ll be starting fresh for my next 30-40#.
I need to do everything by the book, just as I said I’d do if things stopped working.
- I’ve been eating too fast.
- I’ve been eating too much.
- I’ve been eating too much off-schedule sugar.
- I’ve not been drinking enough.
- I’ve not been keeping up with my exercise.
- And I’ve been eating when I’m not hungry.
I tried to have a last glass of wine tonight and it didn’t even taste good (but it was box wine that’s been open for a month) so I dumped it all out. I did splurge on a few peanut M&Ms and caramel corn, but even that splurging wasn’t a quarter as much as a previous splurge would have been.
HERE WE GO!
P.S. Also on my mind? This happened a few days ago on Twitter:
Whoa. So I have extra motivation to GET. IT. DONE!
They love their new hats!
And sharing them, too!
We Skyped with Gramma Jean and Grandpa David today to have the kids open their presents! They loved everything, but the hats seemed to be the big hit!
