Fall Sports

Every spring and fall we give the boys the option to play a sport. This fall they both picked tball. It's very convenient because the tball field is only about 1 mile from the house, and the games never conflict. It's a pretty small league since it's in the fall. They both had their first games on Saturday, and it was actually really fun to watch (despite the 100 degree heat!).

Hudson's league is 3/4 yr olds, and he loves it.

2nd base

William is actually playing "modified tball." Each kid gets 3 pitches from the coach, and if they can't hit it then they get to hit off the tee. Surprisingly for these 5/6 yr olds, most of them can hit when pitched to. They each get 2 "at bats" per game (so, 2 innings). William hit the first one, but his second time he used the tee.

Sweet Faces

 I just love these guys!

Blessings

Last night I got to be one of 2 guests of honor at a baby shower. It was such a great time, with such sweet friends. I am so thankful for such an amazing church family that loves me and my crazy kids. This "go-around" they showered us with diapers. What a treat!

Jennifer and I-- the 2 preggos!

She is due 1 week before me, but I'm definitely bigger!

checking out the cake. A friend of ours from church, Aaris, made this cake! You can't see it from this far away, but there are super cute little pacifiers around the bottom, and baby booties on top! ADORABLE! 

boy booties (for Crew) and girl booties (for Dorothy, Jennifer's baby girl)

the "LOOT"-- I think we're going to be set on diapers for awhile! Thankfully, I think there's only 1 or 2 packages of Newborn size, which is a good thing...this little man is packing on the lbs (or ounces...)

A special thanks to all these ladies who planned, spent money, spent time away from their families, made food, etc. One of the best gifts we received: they gave us the gift of NOT sending ANY thank you notes for all of these diapers, gift cards, and cash! With 3 kids, that is HUGE! I am so thankful for such a special group of friends.

Brotherly Love

I know this is no surprise to anyone with more than 1 kid, but my boys fight. I do wonder sometimes if they fight more often than other brothers. It's not that they are necessarily physically fighting all the time, but they are at each other's throats NONstop. They fight over who's looking out the other one's window in the car, who gets to play games on which iPhone (when Dave and I indulge them to play games..), who's playing with what toy (even if the other has NO interest whatsoever in what the other one is playing), what show to watch, what plate to eat on or cup to drink from, and the list goes on... That doesn't even count all the antagonizing that goes on, also NONstop. I have tried asking them WHY they do this to each other, since it doesn't seem to go down well... I know this is no special phenomenon (as my mom frequently likes to point out), but as a parent, when you're the one going through it, it feels that way!!

There are moments of sweetness, though, like the one below.

And moments like that are what keeps me sane and realizing that there might just be hope that they (and me) will come out of this alive!

just the 2 of us

This morning after we dropped William off at school, I asked Hudson what he wanted to do today. He knew we were going to Target for a few items (which meant that he'd get to explore and play with toys). He was desperate to go to Starbucks for some hot chocolate. I was going to just go through the drive thru and pick some up for him to drink while we ran errands, but he wanted to sit inside with me. 

It was really fun, and we just sat for about 30 minutes chatting together. I treasure these special moments with my little guy!

The Room

Well, I've finally (well, 95%) finished the baby's room. I'm very pleased with how it turned out, and I think Crew will grow to love it as well. :-)

I wanted to do something new, this being our 3rd boy and all. Truth be told, I needed something to get me excited about a third boy, and since I didn't have him in my arms to love on, I had to turn to decorating. And I have to say, it worked! 

We bought this dresser at IKEA a couple of months ago. It game with dark grey knobs, but the colors in the room are dark blue, light blue, grey and orange, so William and I painted the knobs to match the decor. I love how it gives a nice pop of color!

It's a little crowded in there, I realize, but really, how much space does an infant need?

We were given this super nice glider with an ottoman when we found out we were pregnant, but it was pink. So, I bought this fabric, and we had it reupholstered. I just picked it up on Wednesday, and I love how it turned out. As an added bonus, it's SUPER comfy! I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of baby rockin' done in that chair (and I can't wait!!).

After MUCH thought and scouring the internet for ideas, we (ahem, I) decided to go with a robot theme. I found the bedding at Land of Nod and fell in love. It's boyish, but not too babyish. William and Hudson are also big fans.

This is the artwork above the twin bed/glider. William and Hudson drew/colored these. William did the one on the left, Hudson on the far right (I know, it's kind of hard to see), and they both contributed to the one in the middle. They both had so much fun being creative with drawing robots for the baby's room.

Hanging above/in front of the window are gears/spare parts that my dad picked up from his shop and the leases. I thought they would be super cute to hang from the ceiling to give it that 3D look and also add an element of family to the room. He will, I have no doubt, encounter these parts when he's working with Papa in the years to come! William immediately recognized the parts when he saw them, and he loves how they all look like robot parts!

This is the room from the door:

The unfinished part is I want to buy a piece of robot artwork to hang above the crib. The wall is currently blank, but hopefully it will be filled soon. I also have a bunch of bigger parts that my dad gave me, and I plan to put those on a ledge shelf somewhere in the room. But, even as it is, we love it!

Busy Busy Busy!

We wanted to have big plans for Labor Day weekend, but it just didn't happen. Of course, we didn't decide we wanted to go somewhere until less than a week beforehand, so it just didn't work out. We weren't the only ones with that idea. It was a fairly low-key weekend, which was actually pretty nice. Yesterday, though, we decided to go go go.

We left bright and early at 9am for the Fort Worth Zoo. We knew it'd be packed there since it was a holiday, and we wanted to get there before the crowds did. (side note: and it was a good thing too. When we left around 12:30, people were having to park over a mile away!!). It was a BEAUTIFUL day to top it off. I don't think it got above 85 degrees, which was a nice break compared to our 20 degrees higher days from 1 week prior.

LOVE the meerkats!

Giraffes and Ostriches

Elephants 

The lion was super cool this time because he gave us quite a big "roar" which terrified a few unnamed members of our party... :-)

My least favorite thing about the zoo (and course, William's favorite): feeding the birds. 

Hudson managed to get this bird on his feeding stick all by himself!

Another one of the boys' favorite parts of the zoo is the MOLA (Museum of Living Art). The last animal is the Kimono Dragon, which I have to admit, is pretty amazing.

Taking a ride on the Yellow Rose Train

It was the perfect ending for a morning at the zoo!

After the zoo, we headed to a super yummy bakery/cafe called McKinleys for lunch. Afterwards, we were planning to forego afternoon naps and do some other fun outdoor activities, but Hudson was obviously in need/want of a nap. So we came home for a quick 2hr power nap.

I don't have pictures, but after the nap, we headed out to the park for some t-ball practice (the boys start in a few weeks), kite flying, and playground playing. It was a blast! We came home, ate some leftovers for dinner and headed out again.

Our last stop for the day was Putt Putt with Mimi and Papa.

After we finished our "round" the boys wanted to ride the go-carts. Normally, this is MY thing, but Dave wasn't sure I should ride. So, Dave and Papa rode with the boys. You would have thought they were driving the real thing. It was really fun to watch!

Dave and William

Papa and Hudson

It was such a fun day-- 12 hours of pure activity (with a small nap thrown in for good measure)! I will say that I'm paying for it today. I plan to put my feet up a bit while the boys are at school.

What's in a Name?

When we were pregnant with William, and we found out he was going to be a boy, we knew immediately what his name would be. 

William David Dennison III. 

Dave's dad is the first, and he goes by Bill. Dave, of course, is the 2nd, and he goes by his middle name, Dave. We decided from the start that he was going to be William. Not Will. Not Willy. Not Billy. Not Trey (a common nickname for a 3rd). I was going to be "that mom" that corrected people when they shortened his name, or nicknamed him. For some reason, I really wanted him to be called William. I don't know if I would have ever picked those names, had I randomly chosen his name from a book. But, I LOVE the tradition, and the legacy that it brings. And now, he could not be anyone other than William.

So, when we were pregnant with #2, and we found out that he was going to be a boy, we were pretty sure we know what the name was going to be. But, since we didn't have the whole "name book" experience with #1, we at least gave lip service to looking around at random names. But, within a short time, we knew that his name had to be Hudson.  For those of you who don't know, Hudson is my maiden name.  We were unsure of a middle name. We knew it would be a family name, and we were deciding between James (Dave's paternal grandfather) and Bentley (my maternal grandfather). It wasn't until he was born, and we had the paperwork in front of us to sign for the birth certificate that we finally picked his full name.

Hudson Bentley Dennison.

We loved the sound of both James and Bentley as middle names. Bentley was a little more unusual, and since William had all Dennison names, we decided to go with my family for this baby.  I absolutely love his name. 

Here we are at #3. We never really discussed boy names when we found out we were pregnant. We had pretty much exhausted the boy family names that we LOVED, particularly first names. For various reasons, there really weren't any more "family" names that we wanted to use for a first name for a boy. Of course, there are plenty of very good boy names in both of our families, but we just never felt great about any of them. We did decide, however, that we wanted to use James as a middle name.

Dave was fairly indifferent, but I have a self-imposed requirement that this baby has to have a family name. I just couldn't name him some random name and in 15 years he asks me where his name came from. I'd have to say: "from a book", when his brother's have such strong family heritage behind their names. So, the hunt was on to find a name that we loved and went well with James. Some suggested busting out the family tree on all 4 sides, but I just felt like going back more than 2 or 3 generations is sort of pointless. I mean, if we have absolutely no idea who this man was or what his character was like, why would I name my child after him?

I finally resorted to an online baby search, when I ran across the name Crew. No, it's not a family name. No, it's not common. But, my brother rowed Crew in high school when we lived in England and in college when he was at Harvard. It was a big part of his life. He was pretty good at it. And it just so happened that Dave and I both really liked the name, and it sounds good with James. As it stands now, our baby boy #3 will be

Crew James Dennison

Could we change our minds? Sure. Will we? Doubtful. Now that we both like the name, we've pretty much put a halt on the discussion. So, unless something strikes us in our sleep, or we get a really fantastic idea, this will be it. To somewhat seal the deal, I found this the other while will perusing one of my favorite children's clothing stores:

Just Hudson

William's kindergarten is Monday-Thursday (which is one of the reasons I picked this school...to give us one day a week that we can still have FUN together), and Hudson goes T/Th. That gives Hudson and me 2 days a week to just hang out together. I rarely have individual time with the boys, so this first week of school has been fun. I have to admit that it feels a little weird to only have 1 kid around during the day. Although, I know our days will be quite busy once #3 gets here (in a matter of weeks)!

On Monday, as we were eating lunch, Hudson asked me if we could go to the park and feed the ducks/fish and play on the playground. With it being 104 degrees out, I REALLY didn't want to. But, he was desperate to go, and I couldn't turn him down. We were only there for about 30 minutes, but it was fun.

He asked me to take this picture, but because it was so bright out, I couldn't really see what it was aimed at, hence the chopped off head!

Now I just need to find some time to spend with JUST William!