Christmas 09 in Oklahoma

We made our trip to Oklahoma as planned the day after Christmas. We made it in one stretch of just over 12 hours. This was great time. We just missed the snow storm and the horrible traveling conditions. The kids were really good. We just stopped for gas, ran to the potty and ate in the car.


We had Christmas with my parents, Sydnie, Jeremy and Margot on Sunday evening. We celebrated with Brent's fam on Monday evening.

Rhett was so excited that the biggest present was for him. It was a"Cars" bean-bag from Aunt Sydnie. **Some family members must not have gotten the memo-reminder that we had to take all our gifts back 800 miles in our vehicle. J/K!

My mom made these aprons. Aren't they cute? Mine and Hollace's match and Sydnie's and Margot's match. Yes, she made an apron for Margot. So cute. She even made one for Hollace's doll.

Rhett got this "Cars" chair from Grammy and Papa Hubbard. He was playing his Cars Wi game, from Nana and Papa, and literally "fell asleep at the wheel". It was too funny.

Here are the kids with their cousin Gunnar opening presents at Brent's parents.

Just thought this was a cute picture. There aren't many of Thad on his first Christmas.

My Birthday Boy

I can hardly believe it has been a year today since this sweet boy joined our family. What a difference a year makes. He is such a blessing and and a joy. This is a LONG post, but I wanted to highlight his first year.

Here I was 9 months pregnant with Thad. WOW!-That is a belly.

Here he is: Thad Aaron Hubbard and his HAIR.

Our first picture as a family of 5. Don't look too close. Remember, it was 3 am and I had literally jumped out of bed and barely made it to the hospital.

Here is our little guy at just a few days old

About 1 month. He spent a lot of time in this sling.

About 3 months. He looks SOOO sweet, but he was NOT an easy baby at this point. He had severe reflux. I think by this time he was on medication and feeling some better.

3 month pic by Papa Larry


6 Months.

Thad's first Halloween. I didn't notice this at the time, but I think he sort of resembles the dragon. Check out the nostrils and those on the mask. Ha.

We will never forget his crawling technique. We call him "little bulldozer"

I think this was about 9 months. Look at that sweet smile.

and here is my 1 year old!!!!

SO what is he up to at a year?

*JUST this past 2 weeks has started crawling with his head OFF the ground.

*He pulls up on everything and has been for about a month. He is still a little wobbly and is not close to standing alone or walking yet.

*Is into EVERYTHING! Has climbed the whole flight of stairs when someone (Rhett) has left the gate open.

*LOVES to play in the toilets. Then LOVES to wash his hands afterward. So it's like a reward when he plays in the potty, then he gets to play in the water-again.

*I think he weighs about 23 pounds (70th percentile)and is about 3o 1/2 inches tall (85th percentile).

*His eyes are still sort of dark grey/green. I think the other kids' turned brown sooner than this.

*Has 8 teeth. 4 middle on bottom and 4 middle on top.

*Nicknames: Thaddy Bear, Baby Bear, Baby Thaddy

*He goes to bed at about 8:30-9:30 and sleeps until about 8:00 most of the time.

*He is not impressed with most table food. He likes crackers, cookies, and other DRY food, but anything moist or wet he just scrunches up his nose at and puts it down or spits it out.

*Still LOVES his binky.

*Says: Mama, Dada, baba (bottle), bye-bye, and Poop, (Yes, when I ask him if he pooped, he tries to say POOP.)

*Waves bye-bye and claps (since about 10-11 mos), and plays peek-a boo (started a few weeks ago.)

*He is a happy baby and is usually content to just play by himself, but usually has someone (Rhett) bothering him and tolerates this pretty well.

Happy Birthday Thaddy Bear!!! We LOVE You SOOOOOO Much!

First Haircut

Thad got his first haircut the day after Christmas. It was MUCH needed. He has always had quite a bit of hair, but it seemed like it got SO long and shaggy all of a sudden.

This doesn't look so bad. This is how it usually looks, kind of swooped to the side

But here you can see how long it really is! Yikes. I wasn't putting it off b/c I was sad really, but b/c I was kind of scared. You never can tell how baby hair will lay. It's so fine and soft. I was nervous.

Brent did the job. He has always cut Rhett's hair, and does a really good job.

Ahhh, isn't he handsome!?

So Much for New Traditions!

Obviously I did not make a New Year's resolution to blog more often. This is the longest I've gone without blogging in a long time. So-I'll start back with Christmas.

This was our first Christmas to not be in Oklahoma-with all of our family. We had always been with family on Christmas Eve, at our house with just us- briefly on Christmas morning, then back to other families' house for the rest of the day. So I had been thinking a lot about what we would do this Christmas. We had decided we wanted to be at HOME on Christmas, and go to Oklahoma right after. I was trying to decide what would we eat, what would we do, etc. I thought this would probably be the start of some new traditions for our family. Sort of set the precedence for how we would DO things from now on. Well let's just say I hope NOTHING about this Christmas becomes a new tradition for us!.......

The week of Christmas the boys had the stomach bug early in the week. I was crossing my fingers, but I knew it was bound to happen. Christmas Eve morning I woke up about 5am with the bug. It was the sickest I had been in a LONG time. After the vomiting stopped I just felt like I had been run over by a truck and beat with a baseball bat! Every inch of my body hurt. It took everything I had to get out of bed and watch the kids open a couple of presents and Brent read the story of Jesus' birth from the Bible. Oh, and doing the Santa thing. If ever there was a time that I wished Santa was real-THIS was IT! I wrapped a few small things and did the stockings, but Brent had to put together a huge doll house by himself. I was miserable. Ok, enough whining. You get that I was sick, right?

Christmas morning I still felt bad, but much better. We got up and opened presents just in the nick of time. As soon as we were done, Hollace started puking and Brent was right behind her. Merry Christmas! So as for the new traditions. There are none. We did manage to do the presents, read the Christmas story and leave a treat for Santa, but nothing new. And I have no idea what anyone ate on Christmas Eve-and I didn't care. I think maybe saltines and Sprite was about the only thing eaten in our house for 48 hrs.

Here are the few pics we managed to get:

Thad hanging his ornament on his first Christmas. He was still throwing up on Christmas Eve too.

Here are the three kiddos in their jammies with their three stockings. I love that we have three stockings on the mantle now. (Do you think I need a new picture on the mantle?)

This is as good as it got. Rhett and his usual picture face. (Do you think Thad needs a haircut here?)

Reading the Christmas story:

I think these next two are the only pics I took on Chrstmas Day. They pretty much sum it up. Doesn't he look sweet with his princess blanket and pillow?

Sleeping Beauty and her puke bowl.

We did manage to head to Oklahoma the day after Christmas as planned. I'll post some from that soon.

Wordless Wednesday

Reflections and Resolutions

I realize I haven't posted anything about our Christmas, but I wanted to get this done while I was thinking about it.

As the new year starts, I was reflecting back on 2009. It was a pretty eventful year for the Hubbard household. There are some years that nothing really big happens. Of course, there are always special day to day things, but 2009 saw some pretty big occasions for us. Here they are, the ones I can think of:

1. Bought a new house.
2. Moved (on New Year's Day) over 800 miles away from our hometowns and families.
3. COMPLETED our family, when we BARELY made it to the hospital to have our third baby.
4. Didn't go back to work-after nearly 8 years of working as a Registered Nurse.
5. Sold our 2 vehicles (including the green Blazer, I'd had since college), and bought 2 different vehicles (including-yes, a minivan-which I LOVE, by the way!)
6. Made our first ever (of probably many) 800+ mile trip to visit family. 12+ hours with three kids with a total age of 7!!
7. Sent my baby girl to kindergarten! (How is she already old enough to be in school?)
8. Made our first visit as a family to Disney World!
9. Hosted my first Thanksgiving at our house- with 11 extra people.
10. Became members of new church, FBC-Hendersonville, the first different church I have been a member of since I first became a member of FBC, Woodward as a little girl.
11. Spent our first Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with JUST our little family, which I was kind of looking forward to- to start some new family traditions and be together, just us. BUT we all had the stomach bug instead-more on that later.)

So there it is, our 2009. Now looking forward to 2010. I have never been one to make New Years Resolutions. Maybe I just don't like to fail. I probably should make some and put them on here for some accountability, but I just don't want to. I really don't want to be like one of those people you see show up at the gym or outside running all fired up in January and then by February they're gone.

Maybe I'll give it some more thought and if I think of something worthwhile that I truly believe I'll stick to I'll post it. For now, though, I just don't think I am a resolution-type person. However, if you are- what are yours? I'd love to hear them.

***Praying you all have a wonderful, blessed 2010!!!***