*Hudson's 1st Birthday Party*

Last Saturday we had a birthday party for Hudson.  It was a month after his birthday because we needed Ryan to be here! We decided to have a Monster Bash, it was so fun and cute! While my mom was here we made each party guest their own sock monster, with little bags for them to take them home in.  
We had it in the morning so we had different cereals with muffins, bagels and fruit.  We now have a 6 month supply of cereal, so if anyone wants some come on over! 
It turned out so fun, I was nervous that 

Hudson was going to have a melt down because he decided to wake up at 6 that morning and not go back to sleep... of course.  But he actually did so well! He loves being around kids, especially older ones.  The kids were outside playing soccer and he would just run after them trying to get the ball, it was so cute!  He is such a social kid.
I can't believe he is one, he seriously is the best little boy in the world.  I love him so so much and I can't be without him.  We are so lucky to have you little buddy!
Now get ready for a serious picture overload!

This is half the cereal that we have left...

everything orange, green and blue.

love that cute face

Party favor caramel/chocolate dipped pretzels 

Monster bags

Marshmallow monster eyeballs

some of the decorations

entry way

Hudson and dad

Me and my babes!

 

all the kids with their monsters

Monster cupcakes

Hudson and his cupcakes

Didn't love the cupcakes, which i knew he wouldn't.  that's why i didn't make him his own cake.

And this is how we found Hudson after his party, Kicking back and watching some TV.

Hudson's 1st Birthday

Wow! Where did this last year go? I can't believe my baby boy is one.  I feel like it was yesterday that I was going into the hospital to have him. 

We had a very relaxing and fun day.  Hudson had been sick a couple days before his birthday and he still wasn't 100%.  
We were so excited that my mom was in town for it, she made it such a great day.  We were so sad that Ryan wasn't able to be here for it, he had a rotation in California.  My sister brought her boys down and we had a picnic at the park.  It was such a nice day, perfect birthday weather for my little buddy.  

We are going to have a birthday party in March for him since Ryan wasn't here.  We are so excited for it.  My mom and I worked away on crafts for the birthday party and I'm still getting everything together.

This last weekend Hudson and I met Ryan out in California for a nice weekend with our friends.  Our friends live out in Hermosa Beach and we had such a great time.  It is so fun to get together with our old friends! We miss them so much! 

My Big Boy & Thanksgiving

I have been looking back at old pictures recently and can't help but feel sad when I look at pictures of Hudson when he was just brand new.  Time has gone by so fast and I really can't believe it.  I found a video of when he was just a couple of hours old and it is so sweet, I never want to loose it.Little babies are just so sweet and special.  

I look at Hudson now just 10 months later and he is so completely different.  This morning I went to get him out of his crib and he had pulled himself up and was biting the crib and stopped as soon as I came in, because he knows I hate when he does that.  He gives me the biggest smiles, the cutest laughs and the best cuddles.  I can't get over this boy, he just gets better and better every day that I am get to be with him.  

Anyways, enough about my sweet little boy.  For Thanksgiving we made the 11 hour drive up to Utah.... the drive was so long.  Hudson did great, didn't have a meltdown ever, but I was just waiting for it. So I was a little nervous the whole time.  But we did great.  It was a short trip, we went up Wednesday night and came back on Sunday.  We spent the weekend with Ryan's family and it was so fun.  There never is dull moment at the Neeley home.  My family was in Denver so we didn't make any trips up north.    

I am so grateful for so much this year, obviously Hudson and Ryan are the most important.  I love them both so much and I would be so sad without them.  I am so grateful for my family.  They do so much for my little family.  They help us so much in these rather tight times.  They are always making trips down here to see us and they are always flying me up to be with them.  I'm very very lucky.  I so grateful for my friends, both in Utah and Arizona.  I love that I can not talk to my friends in Utah all the time but when we get together it is like we have never been apart, I laugh harder when I am with them then I ever do! I miss them so much! (hint hint get out here asap puuuhlllease!) and my friends out here have become like family.  We all live so close so we are always around each other.  It's so nice!  I'm so grateful that my little family are all healthy and strong.  We are so blessed to be healthy and have each other.  I have so many other things I could go on and on.  Its such a great time of year! I hope everyone has a fantastic Holiday Season! 

Hudson Update

I have been so bad about blogging lately and I think about doing it almost weekly because Hudson is doing so many things that I just don't want to forget about. But something always comes up and keeps me from doing it.  So I am going to get some things down in writing so that I will remember them for much longer.

First, Hudson got his two bottom teeth at the beginning of October. They are just the cutest little things. He happened to get them a couple of days before we were going to Denver to visit my Grandma.  So it wasn't the best timing but that's alright.  While we were in Denver we had such a great time, although Hudson was grumpy most of the time he loved getting so much attention from my Grandma.  She was so sweet to him, she is in her 80's and she would get down on the ground with him and play with him and we both tried desperately to get him to start crawling, but he wouldn't, and he still won't.

Second, he is already nine months old.  It is so crazy to me that he is closer to being a year old then to being a newborn.  I swear I was pregnant yesterday and now all of a sudden I have a nine month old! He is the sweetest little buddy, I feel like he is in such a fun phase right now.  He has so much personality, he is constantly either yelling to get our attention and then just laughs at us when we look over or he is laughing and chattering away.  He still won't crawl, he gets up on his hands and knees and sticks one leg straight and then scoots himself a little and then sits on his bum and does this over and over until he gets to where he wants to be.  He is always pointing at our family picture and wants us to take him over to it and tell him who mama and dada and baby Hudson is.  He loves going out on walks and pointing at the trees and saying "ooo" like he is trying to tell us about the tree.  He is saying "Dada" and will occasionally throw in a "Mama" every once in awhile.  He did go through a little phase where when he would start to cry he would say "Mama, baba" and I would give him his

bottle and he would be fine.  It was so sweet!  Everything that he does just makes me smile! I never knew I could love a little baby so much! He has so many reasons to be grumpy (milk allergy, reflux) but he is seriously so happy all the time.  I've never had any problems with him having melt downs in public...(yet) and he is always smiling at people while holding his binky in his mouth at the same time.  He is such a strong little boy, he is solid, when I take him to the doctor she always mentions on how strong he is and that I will have a fun time changing his diapers when he gets older.  He has such a cute muscly little body!
Ryan and I are just enjoying Hudson and our life in Medical school.  We love our house and neighborhood.  Our ward is amazing, and we never want to leave.  We are playing with the idea of moving to Utah next year since Ryan will be gone 4-5 months of the year for audition rotations, but we aren't 100% sure.  Ryan is in his 3rd year of school and he is loving it more and more.

 The second year was defiantly the hardest, with board studying and having a new baby so it was nice to have a year like this.  I am just at home with Hudson and loving every second of it.  We are headed to Utah for thanksgiving for a weekend to spend it with the Neeleys.  We are looking forward to being with them. We are going to Hawaii for Christmas with my family this year.  Hudson and I are going for two weeks and Ryan is going to join us the last week in Maui.  We are so looking forward to it.  We are going from Hawaii to Utah to spend a couple days with family and then we will be headed back to Arizona.  One of my goals this next year is to be MUCH better at blogging! I hope I can do it! I hope everyone has a great Holiday season! Happy Holidays Everyone!!

Hudson's birth Story

So lately I have thought over and over how I need to write down Hudsons birth story before I forget it, but I just Keep putting it off. Tonight while I was blog stalking I read someones birth story and that was my sign! So I'm doing it...four months later... So it all started when I first found out our 'due date' February 16. Sounded great to me but not so great to Ryan. That was right in the middle of his finals weeks which would NOT work out for either of us. He would need to be taking tests and I would need him with me every second. So we talked to our doctor, who was the best by the way and he totally understood and told us we could go a week early. I was so excited because that happened to fall on the 9th which is my Grandpas birthday. So fast forward 9 month to a week before while I was at my last doctors appointment when they gave me the instructions on what to do feb. 8. Call at seven that night, tell them you are going to be induced and they will tell you if you can come in or not. Sounded grea to me. So on the 8th I called in right at 7 told them what I needed to and they told me "all the rooms are full right now so we will call you in a couple of hours maybe" Uhh what?? No no no they told me the 8th and I am coming in the 8th and having this baby on the 9th. It was the plan, I do not go away from the plan! My Mom flew in on the 8th so she could help me for 10 days, I'm not going to waste one of those presious days of help! Well too bad for me I was up all night waiting for their call. 5 o'clock rolls around and still nothing, so I think 'oh they must have forgotten that I called in, I'll give them another call!' well they were annoyed with me and said 'we will call you, don't worry' so 10 o'clock rolls around still nothing, so Ryan calls them and they tell him the same thing and he kindly explains that he has a test that he needs to go and take but doesn't know if he should go because he doesn't want to miss this. So the lady tells him 'don't go and take it, things are starting to clear out here' YES! Victory! I was going in that day... I thought! well the lady calls us and says 'there is not any room for you guys today and usually we have you come in the next day but your doctor is going out of town for the weekend so you will have to call Sunday and try again' DAHH are you serious??? I wanted to punch someone, but there was nothing I could do so I just sat there and cried by myself and felt sorry for myself. Waa waa waaaaa So I was told to do the same thing Sunday night, so I ate a nice big dinner sunday night because you can't eat during the whole birth process and I just knew I was going in! We were all over at Kindis house eating and chatting and anxiously waiting for 7 to roll around, well at about 6:30 I got a call fromt he hospital telling me I could come in and to be there in an hour! Uh holy crap are you serious? I threw my hands up and yelled 'I'm goin in!!' I felt so freaked out/nervous/anxious and excited. Ryan and I quickly went home to get our stuff and then rushed over to the hospital. On the way there I was silent, when i get nervous or scared I don't freak out I just get really quiet. Except for when we were pulling out of our apartment I had a small break down thinking about how I wasn't going to be pregnant anymore and not getting to have the little guy inside of me and getting to feel him kick. But that quickly went away when I realized that I was going to have a baby soon! Eeek! When we got to the hospital we got all checked in and went to our room (Room 14 I believe) I remember laying there just looking around waiting for the nurse to come in and get everything started and just feeling like this was not really happening! We were going to have our little guy here soon! Our nurse came in expalined everything to me what was going to happen, how everything worked and so on. I then got the dreadful, seriously the worst IV I have ever had. That was seriously the worst part of the entire process! I about passed out when she was doing it. Worst thing ever. So she checked me after she did that and I was at a 1. It seemed like it was going to be a long long process. She started me on the pitocin and I wasn't having any pain. She at one point asked if I felt the last contraction and I hadn't felt anything. I was thinking that this was going to be great! So she checked me a couple hours later and I was at a 4, I was starting to feel a little pain and she said that she could give me something that would help take the 'edge' off of the contractions, so I said sure. For some reason I didn't want to get the epidural yet because I was scared it would wear off or something. The stuff she gave me, made me soooo loopy! I hated it, it instantly knocked me out but I was thinking like a million things a second and I would think that I would forget to breath so I would take these huge deep quick breaths and I felt like I was going to swallow my tongue. It was so freaky! They had to then give me oxygen because something dropped or I don't know really why. All I know is I woke up and the doctor was there to break my water and it was 7. So he broke my water and I fell back to sleep. I got woken up again by my new nurse saying that if I wanted to get an epidural I needed to say now because the doctor that does them was going in to do a bunch of c-sections and I wouldn't be able to get it for a couple of hours. So I said yes, because there was no way I was going to wait hours for him while I could be in serious pain! So he came about an hour later, he was so amazing! I loved him, Ryan being in medical school had about a thousand questions and he was so nice to talk to him about everything. They don't let the husbands hold you up anymore when you get your epidural so you have to lean on the nursek, and Ryan was just back there watching him do the epidural and just chattin away, which helped SO much! It took my mind of the whole needle in the back thing tha was gonig on. So I was just leaning on the nurse while the doctor explained everything that he was doing. He told me at one point that I would feel a zing through my legs and I totally did and I kicked the nurse pretty hard! I was dying! I couldn't beleive I did that, but he kind of warned her right? After I got my epidural I fell right back to sleep and they put this huge peanut shaped ball between my legs to help the process go quicker which it did. She rotated me a few times from side to sideand then at 2 she checked me and I was at a 10! I was feeling grea! She said she would call the doctor and we could start pushing in about and hour! I did start to feel some pain in my side so she gave me some more of the good stuff through the epidural, which she told me to push the button only twice and I'm pretty sure I pushed it every ten minutes for an hour. I was feeling good! :) We called my mom and she came down and shortly after she came we started to push. I pushed for about 3o minutes and the dooctor came in and we kept going. One thing that I loved about our doctor was he let Ryan deliver the baby. So when the doctor came in he asked Ryan if he was ready, had him suit up, gave him a few tips and we got started again. I pushed about three more times and the next thing I knew little Hudson was laying right on me! It was so amazing! I could not believe we had done it! He was here! Healthy and strong! I heard his sweet little cry and couldn't help myself from just getting the biggest smile on my face! I didn't cry which I thought I would, I was just so happy I just sat there with a smile on my face! It was the most unreal, amazing experience I have ever had in my entire life. I honestly would do it a thousand times because the feeling that you have is just amazing! I can't wait to do it agian....I can wait though ha ha. Ryan made me a slide show for mothers day of all the pictures from the hospital and it makes me remember all the feelings that I had that day and now I'm so happy I have it written down. Sorry that it was so long, this post was really for myself:)