As a kid Halloween was always one of my favorite Holidays. When I was little I would ask my mom to tell me "spooooky" stories at bedtime, I loved Casper, I loved my older brother Ryan telling me the scary story of the old lady making soup with a...bone! Shriek!

Halloween is still one of my favorites! I love fall, pumpkins, and costumes. It is just as fun being a mom on Halloween.  This year Hudson learned what Halloween really consists of, and excitedly took part in all the classic activities.   All month long he told me he "wanted Halloween!' He was a cowboy, and the weeks before Halloween he would put on his little cowboy hat and ride around on his bike.

This fall has been extra amazing this year.  The past few years fall has felt kind of non-existent and once October rolled around I just started dreading the cold months approaching way too fast.  This year I relished every little thing about fall I love.  Hudson and I went on bike rides/walks up the canyon and watched the leaves changing color.  We crunched dry leaves on the sidewalk every chance we got.  I tried to show him how amazing pumpkin flavored hot chocolate is, but he doesn't get that yet, why would a drink be hot?

This year our Halloween consisted of the classic Halloween church party, where I spent a ridiculous amount of time making Chicken Gnocchi soup to bring, and it one second place, which I felt pretty good about, but I'm still not sure the hours of cooking was worth having the giant pot being gone so fast.  Hudson ran around stage posing for everyone in the costume parade and helped me further realize that his little two year old self is the opposite of my two year old self.

Another belated post, because of course!

My sweet little guy has turned two! Ah! I feel like the past two years have gone by in the blink of an eye, but at the same time I can't remember life before I had Hudson in my life!
I am so grateful and blessed to be this little toddler's Mommy.  He is just the best.
In honor of Hudson officially becoming a toddler, I would love to share some of my favorite things about him.

• He is so friendly.  The friendliest. Every new person is a friend and he can bring a smile to everyone face he meets.
• His singing & dancing.  He likes to strum the guitar or pound the piano and yell out and sing as loud as he can.  Today the song was about, "DADDY!!!"
• All the "delicious" food he "cooks" for me, all day long.
• His smile & his laugh.  Nothing can brighten my day like his squeels and giggles.
• His prayers, they are so cute! Bless Mommy, Daddy, Bee-pas, Be happy. Amen!
• His caring heart. He is always asking me "Are you okay? Okay!" Or, "Are you happy?" "Mommy happy!" For no reason at all.
• His independence.  Sometimes I am not sure that I love this, but most the time I love watching him try to do everything all be himself with such confidence.
• His curly hair, it is mostly poofy and crazy and always adorable.

I always have a list of a million things I want to do every summer, and never really remember them.  By the end of summer I am like, "oh yeah I wanted to do that! and that! and that!" And there is no time left to do it all and it is sad. So maybe if I write it all down and come back to update it as we check off each event, more things will get done?  Maybe I will remember to update this little blog a little more often? So here it is...

This post is long overdue, but the pictures are so cute I had to share!  Basically, I am just proud of my self for blogging, this little blog is so neglected ,whoops!

During Jason's spring break we decided to join the crowds in sunny St. George for a one night get away.  We are really good at these one-night, mini road trips, it seems like that is the only kind of vacations we go on, fun and exhausting.

I love St. George. It is so amazingly different from northern Utah, I love the red rocks and the hot dry air.  My color blind husband may not agree with me about the red rocks though ;)

Let me break down our trip for you; wake up early and drive to St. George, eat lunch at a really good hippie cafe which you would never guess existed in St. George, check into the hotel, take Hudson to a Park to climb on the rocks and get dirty, take Hudson to the Children's museum, swim in hot tub, sleep, wake up, hike Johnson's Arch, stuff our selves on massive amounts of food at Black Bear Diner, drive a tired and cranky toddler home in time for dinner.

We are learning more and more as parents that vacations are no longer a time for us to relax, they are a time for us to think off everything we can to entertain our toddler, which is still pretty fun.

Here is Hudson on his very first hike, he loved it!  Unfortunately we forgot our baby carrier and he insisted on walking almost the whole way, it took us two hours to hike two miles, awesome.

I have always loved Halloween.  Fall time, costumes, and of course candy, what's not to love!?  It is fun to enjoy Halloween a little differently with a toddler and watch him enjoy himself, observing so many new things. We went to the trunk or treat in my parents neighborhood to let Hudson do a little trick or treating. 

I was impressed with how well he picked out candy!  I was expecting him to try and eat every piece he got, but was so good!  He would take his time and look for just what he wanted from the bowl, grab a hand full, and carefully put it in his bucket.

He did get a bit overwhelmed by all the costumes.  For some reason he would not let me or Jason hold him, only my mom, he cried every time she tried to let him walk, or we tried to hold him.  Maybe it was our cowboy hat "costumes" we had on?  But really, I don't think his Grandma was complaining at all.

The next morning I walked into the living room and realized I forgot to put his candy away, he had climbed onto the couch and was sorting through the candy. It was one of those moments where I felt like I was the mom of a boy and not a baby.

On the way to trick or treat we stopped at a park we took pictures at last week, which Hudson loved, to let him play a little, see him in his spooky pjs...