happy birthday CARSON!

yesterday morning, looooooong before he should have even been awake, carson came BOUNDING in my room to announce that it's his birthday. he also made me sit up and look at how much TALLER he is now. (and then ran in the bathroom and weighed himself).

he's so happy to be growing up and i'm just a bit sad, missing that little newborn with the full head of dark brown hair and the deepest, darkest blue eyes ever.

where does the time go? it's been a busy seven years!

we had a great afternoon with uncle mark, cousin alexis, and friends kent and jana. carson is now in 'action figure heaven!'

here are a few pics of the birthday boy :)

you've heard of a barcalounger? this is a jana lounger LOL

birthday sillyness:

making some wishes:

football buddies:

and lastly, i just love the next picture. jordan picked out a remote control corvette for carson. love the look on her face watching how happy he is. she'll make a good momma some day :)

and the grand total...

for the ingestion of one cent

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$6,912.45

merry christmas hudson. for the next few decades.

it's a GOOD THING he's cute, huh?

HOUSTON, we have SHEETROCK!

wahooo! things are moving along in lee-land :)

electricians and plumbers have done their thing, ceilings and walls have been put in place and now the cabinetry has begun.

the island is not set where it will be...it will move over to the right more, toward the pantry. from left to right: the refrigerator cut out, the sink, the dishwasher, then on the right side, the microwave and oven (the island will have a cooktop) and the pantry.

the view from the breakfast room toward the kitchen (that's the pantry far right) and to the left of the pantry is where the wall-unit oven & microwave will be:

the view from the study (previously the step-down living room) into the great room:

where the fireplace once was, there will now be a built in media cabinet. obviously none of the doors are on anything yet. but we're getting there! (that's the island again in a different spot...i took this on saturday).

keep those prayers coming that it's all 'wrapped up' by christmas. that would be THE BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT EVER!

stay tuned.

xoxo.

not all pennies are created equal

sunday night, hudson set out to prove that SOME pennies are worth FAR more than just one lousy cent.

for some undisclosed-never-to-be-known reason he decided that it would be a good idea to ingest one. so our boring night in adjoining hotel rooms at the luxurious comfort suites (i'm being sarcastic...not the boring part...the luxurious part) became MUCH more exciting once the confession was made.
our pediatrician recommended that we take him in for an x-ray, but was pretty reassuring that we'd be back to the hotel in no time, and then the wait for him to 'produce' the penny from the other end would begin.

as we waited in the ER, even the triage people were making penny jokes. no one was laughing when the x-ray was completed and it was discovered that the penny was lodged in hudson's esophogus (or hud's version: suff-a-guss).

they prepared an O.R., put hudson under general anesthesia and off he went.

the surgeon arrived shortly after. in his quest for the penny, he discovered that it appears hudson's aorta is not where it should be. and so we will be following up with a CT scan to find out more on that.

the price of retracting the penny: some ungodly sum, i'm sure.

the price of discovering a heart anomaly: priceless.

and once again, it all works out for the good!

and because there is ALWAYS some humor to be found in these situations...a quote from hudson, VERBATIM, as we left the hospital parking lot:

'mom, dad...that was FUN. next time when i do it with a marble...'

he didn't get to finish the sentence...

LOL

to be continued...

FOR SHE'S A JOLLY GOOD FELLOW...

i love jordan. she's such a good sport. she didn't even bat an eye at me posting her photo, all house-wived up from her costume party last week LOL


my friend stacey took us out one early evening to take some photographs of jordan. it was a glorious day and i think stacey got some GLORIOUS photos!


here are a few:

stacey is a natural light photographer here in the woodlands, texas. check out some of her other gorgeous photos @ rowanandlucky.com


thank you stacey for capturing jordan so beautifully! xoxo.

and so it begins...

we've waited...and waited...and waited...and finally it's time! our claim is processed, our contractor is hired and our walls are gone!

woohoo!

as of right now, we are staying at a hotel down the road. all of the 'suite' type places with kitchens are booked due to the amount of people who are also experiencing displacement due to hurricane ike. by the end of next week we 'should' be in a 3 bedroom apartment, if all goes as planned.

here are some photos of the progress so far (including some before pics to give some perspective to what it is you're looking at...some photos are from before we moved in, some are from after).

KITCHEN:

FAMILY ROOM:

FROM THE MASTER BEDROOM, LOOKING TOWARD THE FAMILY ROOM (the kitchen WAS on the other side of the wall with the stars):

DINING ROOM/LIVING ROOM (divided by the ugly spindles that i hated). the kitchen will now take up what WAS the dining room and the living room will now be a study with a full wall. PERFECT for our needs:

there used to be a step DOWN to the living room. now it's been filled up with concrete so that the floor plan flows better.

and the view FROM the living room (soon to be study) looking TOWARD the family room/entry way/dining room (soon to be greatroom/kitchen). NOTE the window to the left and then look past that...you'll see that the whole wall that created an entry way is history:

as the work continues, i'll be sure to add more photos!