Busy, busy, busy...

It's been a crazy few weeks. I'm sick (What?) at the moment so my brain is a little fuzzy, but I'll try to fill you in. Justin's Grandma passed away, which I think I already said, and I posted a picture of little Oliver in the last entry, add several family Christmas celebrations/dramas, a handful of doctor visits for me and the kids, our basement flooded with every drop of water from our well by freak chance, van windshield got smashed, dog chewed all the hair off his paw for some reason, studio track lighting mysteriously went on fire, business meetings to finalize our hostile takeover of the South Royalton House. Just kidding about the hostile part. It's hopefully going to be a wonderful thing for us. But speaking of hostile, I was terrified to learn that Marc was on that plane back from Amsterdam last week. Thank goodness he's safe. We DID have a great Christmas though. I was all upset for a bit because the thing the boys wanted the most, a huge wooden castle with drawbridges, dungeons, knights and dragons, etc, arrived from the company two days before Christmas and when I opened it, it was the wrong one. A hot pink, princess castle, with unicorns and canopy beds. Not that we have anything against hot pink or unicorns around here, but still... So I was grumped out that I couldn't return it and get a replacement in time, AND it was insanely expensive. Later that afternoon, I popped into a thrift store to see if they had any kids snow boots (after I ditched the last pair we bought for Eli because they had a dead rat inside.) and I literally stumbled over the same wooden castle that I ordered, in perfect condition for FIVE BUCKS! So see, sometimes I am pretty lucky! The other awesome thing is: we ran out of wood COMPLETELY yesterday, like Justin had started chopping up random woodworking projects in the basement to burn, and the Wood Guy, who is totally unreliable and never even delivered the wood we ordered LAST winter, pulled in with a load of wood and dumped it in our yard. Also, I went to the hospital yesterday for surgery to remove a cyst that has kept me on antibiotics for a few weeks. (That's right, I talk about icky things you don't need to hear. Over-sharers Anonymous, here I come.) When I got there, the doctor said it looked like it had shrunk and surgery was no longer necessary. She'll check again in a week, but yay! Anyhow, so that's the good and the bad from the last couple weeks. Looking forward to one more family gathering in Amherst this weekend. Hope everyone else had a fabulous holiday! Love, me

Welcome Baby Hudson!

Oliver Hudson was born this afternoon at around 2:45, weighing 5 pounds, 15 ounces, and measuring 20 inches long. It was a pretty smooth delivery and he is healthy and beautiful! (More pictures on flickr.)

Some Pictures

I'm NOT superstitious, but this was just a wee bit...odd.

OK, I'm completely tired, and rather out of it, but here's something really weird: (I just cut & pasted this story from an e-mail I sent Tamera because I'm too sleepy to rewrite it.) Justin and I decided to watch a movie last night after we got the kids to bed since it wasn't too late. Eli woke up as the movie was ending and couldn't get back to sleep until around five in the morning, which was right about when Ira was waking up. (So, there was no sleep for me until Justin took Ira downstairs and I got a couple of hours this morning.) Anyway, I thought maybe Eli had a nightmare, because all last night he kept talking about ships and "What happens to the people if boats break into pieces?" I tried to reassure him about lifeboats/life vests/radios/etc, but it didn't seem to help. He obsessed and asked about it the entire night. As far as I know, he's never really seen or heard anything too awful in the way of shipwrecks and I sort of chalked it up to his whole pirate thing. The only thing he's seen, I think, was a photo of a sunken submarine in the National Geographics he pours over, but I felt like he was describing the Titanic, and children drowning or something. He was really upset wanting to know that people were safe. So, then this morning, I turn on the computer, and the headline is a story about a family with two little kids that were sailing around the world, when their sailboat was rammed by a South Korean Cargo ship, smashed into pieces and they all drowned, except the mother. The little boy, right away, but then a wave took the little girl, while they were clinging to debris, and the father drowned too, going after her. The mother had broken her back and fractured her skull and had to just lay, paralyzed, watching it all happen. (Sorry it was a very graphic story.) The Cargo ship left them for dead even though they could hear the family screaming for help. (They aren't being prosecuted because of some obscure law about international waters.) The mother spent days floating on a partially inflated raft and was so grief stricken that she actually tried to drown herself several times, but wasn't able to because she couldn't move. She eventually washed up on shore somewhere in Australia and was spotted by a plane. It happened 14 or 15 years ago at this time of year, and she is finally able to talk about it. The story, by itself was unbelievably horrific, and so incredibly sad that I would have been crying anyway, but the fact that Eli spent all night thinking about the exact same thing really freaked me out. I'm sure it's just one of those things, and simply coincidental, but still, how very strange.

In other strange news, Facebook sent me a message today saying that "abusive behavior" had been coming from my IP address, at the risk of my mom saying "I told you so", I'm worried that someone hacked into my account. I mean, it's not really that dangerous for me, since there is no money involved or much personal info, but I, obviously, don't want someone making it look like I've done something wrong. It may be a fluke since they are updating all their security systems. I certainly hope so! They are looking into it. Anyway, excuse this creepy blog entry...We got a foot of snow yesterday. The boys went sledding and got delightfully rosy cheeked. We got our Christmas tree last weekend and will visit Santa at the library on Saturday. I'd upload pictures but I'm on the wrong computer, so later! Hope everyone is well! -Emily


(About two hours later) I just got a call that Justin's Grandma has passed away. Heart attack in her sleep. We will miss her so very much. She was a prickly, sarcastic, funny, sweet, sweet lady, if that makes sense. I think she was 93. Her life was not easy, and life will not be easy without her. She had a very strong connection to the sea. Her ashes will be spread there. Again, I am NOT superstitious, but Eli's sleepless night seems rather well timed.

Spiral Of Lights 2009

Tonight was the Spiral Of Lights at school, which I always love. Peaceful, sitting in the soft darkness, listening to Eve playing the harp while the candles nestled in the pine branches grow brighter as they are placed down by chubby hands. A nice respite from a long, tiring day. At one point, I was inside cleaning the kitchen when Justin came running in the back door with The Baby, who had blood streaming down his face. Like... a lot. He fell on the woodpile and put a huge gouge through his eyebrow. He probably could have used stitches, but was freaking out so badly, we decided to try and deal with it ourselves. Plus both boys were absolutely coated in mud, and getting them cleaned up before heading to the ER seemed impossible at the time.

Thanksgiving at Mom's and then Sharon's was nice. Lots of yummy things...I'm still full... I wish we all saw each other more often. I fell ill with what felt like the Flu Of Flus the day after Thanksgiving, and thought I was down for the count. I seriously couldn't get out of an armchair all day, and then the next day, I woke up and it was GONE. Super weird. I also twisted my ankle and fell really hard on Thanksgiving, so I wonder if that had something to do with it? (Dratted cowboy boots! Why do I love you so?!) Anyway, the boys have also been fighting a cold/flu for a couple weeks. Seems to be on the way out now, I think.

I start teaching a new Swing class tomorrow, which should be fun, if my still slightly sore ankle holds up. Hope so. Lately my knees have been acting up as well, creaking and aching. It isn't terribly handy to be a dance instucter with bum knees and a swollen ankle. Ack.

Right now, I'm squished in between too snoring bubs, with stuffy noses. One has got his fingers twisted through my hair, and the other has his legs draped over mine. My sweet, tiny things. Their faces are so darling at night, like wee, baby mice. Justin is just coming up from the basement where he's been stacking wood. They say heating with wood warms you twice, once when you stack it, and once when you burn it...but since we cut it, haul it, split it, haul it again, stack it and THEN burn it, it warms us more times than I'd like, really.

OK, I'm shutting down now. Over and Out. -Em

This Week

Tamera & Sean have been here, staying in the cabin. Baby shower for Myra & Jim. Justin's Grandma was in the hospital with herat issues. Boys have been rather wild. I'm a tired crankypants. It has been a warm few days, so the fact that we still have to get our firewood in hasn't been a big deal. I'm back to just two regular dance nights a week, etc, etc, etc...I can't think of all that's going on. One of those days...brain drain...kids dragging each other around by their overall straps. I'm attempting to ignore the insanity.

(A later time, Littlest is sleeping, Biggest is singing a never ending song, in what he says is Spanish, under the table.)

I was just talking to some other moms recently...(Oh God, I've started doing that "talking to other moms" thing) and none of us can really remember much about our kid's past. All those moments you don't write about/take pictures of, you just assume OF COURSE you will remember.... well, you don't. First words? Favorite foods? It's freaking me out that they are going to want to know these things someday. My journal is buried in some drawer somewhere upstairs, and gets written in maybe twice a year? It's awful. I'm feeling terribly guilty because this wasn't going to happen to ME. I was the one person who was going to lovingly document every. single. second. of my precious babies lives. After turning five, The Kid had a Birthday Story Day at school, and I was supposed to tell a story to the class about each year of his life. The best I could come up with for age three was...."Uhhhh...he got a baby brother". Four..."He wore a hardhat a lot." (Duh.) I suppose the "Now" is what matters. These perfect, tiny people have no concept of anything else, and I have always been too preoccupied with what is over and done anyway. I just hope my blog doesn't disappear in a puff of cyberspace smoke someday. At least they have my random, Internet mutterings to look back on fondly.

Halloween

I was THIS CLOSE to getting us all in Wonderland garb, but Robot Boy wanted nothing to do with the White Rabbit costume. So, here we are.

We went to Myra & Jim's Halloween party sans kids...the first time ever that The Baby has been away from us. Thought he would be Ok because he sees Jen the most out of our whole family. Apparently he screamed for hours. And Avry added her two cents. Poor Jen. Even The Kid got homesick. We returned at one AM, to find Jen still up, because they had JUST barely fallen asleep. Anyhow, earlier in the evening, they trick-or-treated in the rain and had a hefty heaping of neighborly kindness in the form of sugar, so that may have added to the emotional distress... The Hudson party was fun, as always...lots of fantastic costumes! I'm too lazy to upload them so you'll have to check them out on flickr. Hope everyone had a delicious and spooky weekend!

Fall Hikes

We've spent the last few weeekends doing some little hikes and the Geocache Treasure Quest thing with friends. I feel bad that I've neglected this blog of late...what with dance so many nights a week, senior portraits, school stuff, house stuff, etc, I haven't had much time. And of course, there's flickr and facebook to take up my computer time too... Anyway, not much news around here other than the regular day to day rush. Getting ready for the arrival of Myra & Jim's baby in December. Tamera is visiting next week. We had what I can only assume was the Swine Flu a couple of weeks ago, since it is going around at school. Wasn't all that terrible really, just a sore throat/cough/body ache/slight fever for a few days. The Kid and I had it the worst, The Baby only had a runny nose and was a little whiney, Justin just felt kind of sore. Hope we can have a semi-healthy winter! A used, but very good furnace is headed our way soon, which is awesome because the only heat we've had so far is the occasional wood stove fire-up. I am finishing up an eight week session of dance with the elementary school here in town, they have an after school program that I have been teaching at. It's been fun, but hard to hurry back, after two hours of dance, and head right into my studio for another two hours. And hard for us to juggle our own kids around...Justin has had to come home early at least one afternoon a week to watch them. Oh well, next week will wrap it up for awhile. The annual Halloween party at the Hudson's this weekend, and we need to clean the school. (I'm writing that to remind myself, because we spaced out about it last time. Whoops.) Oh, also I need to remind myself to buy candy for the trick or treaters. Ok, must run and get started on many things that I've been stalling about all morning so far! Happy Hallow's Eve all! Love, Emily

Temps Are Dropping...

Poor Captain!

I guess they like to make faces at my camera...