St. Patrick's Day fun

For St. Patrick's Day, we headed down town for our parade with my friend Rosie!  

Here are the girls:).

Now it was POURING.  I didn't know how it would go.  I had hoped that the rain would magically disappear by parade time.  I told the kids we could just see how it goes and if we needed to leave we could.  

Hud got to bring his bike and he was ecstatic!  We decorated it a bit and hit under the neighbors tent...until they asked us to leave:(.

Ready to go!  Well at least Hud was...

He was hard core biker!

Hannah eventually perked up...after her 3rd sucker.   

Moments later, she looked this...

Notice she didn't even finish her sucker:(.

This is how we looked in the parade!  It stopped raining exactly the time when the parade started!  It turned out to be a pretty nice day!

Our actual St. Patrick's Day included Bible study and some reading:).

Happy Belated St. Patty's Day!

Skiing

One of Hudson's Christmas gifts was ski lessons.  We had brought him up last year to see what he thought and he clearly wasn't ready.  We talked it up big this winter and he was ready!

First day and he was already carrying his skis!

He even wanted to fill out his name, himself!

Pops giving him a little help with his gloves before his first lesson!

He met with his Mighty Mites group.  They played a few games to get to know one another:).

Then it was time to see what each skier knew how to do.  

Here he is getting on his skis.

First attempt

Then he was put into Grant's group with a few other first timers.

Simon Says on skis, so cute!

Edgy Wedgy time!

Ironically Pops forgot his boots on the first day so daddy and Hannah got to come visit too!

Snow angel fun!

This is Hudson's review on his first day at lunch:

He kept asking if lunch was over and if he could ski more:).

By the afternoon he had already rode the chair lift!  He went up Chair 5, the beginner chair, but I was super impressed!

The next week he was all smiles again!

There were even a few foggy and windy days.  But Hud didn't mind, he was ready to ski!  We talked about how it's cold but true skiers ski in all conditions!  He was ready!

But there were quite a few sunny days as well!  The February/March skiing was really spring skiing.

I think this was his last day, or so I thought.  He had croup pretty bad but the snow was getting scarce so Jared and I let him ski b/c he was begging to!  After this lesson, they canceled his last lesson:(.
We were bummed but had a feeling it was coming.
Then that week, they pushed snow around to open it for Saturday/Sunday.  They had three chairs open: 5, 3, & 2.  We were impressed with Mt. Spokane's dedication and commitment!


Here he is skiing with his group:).

The last two lesson days, Jared took Hud for a few runs after class.  What a thrill it is to see my boys skiing together!

This is how bare the mountain was this year:(.  Sad ski season but Hud still managed to learn!

All in all it was a fabulous season!  We were so impressed with the Mt. Spokane ski instructors!  Hudson almost had one-on-one the whole time until he started skiing!  He loved going up and begged to go back outside every day at lunch, although in all fairness an hour is a long break:).  He can't wait to ski next year!  We will definitely be doing lessons again at Mt. Spokane again next year!  I can't wait to see what he can do next season!  So proud of you buddy!

Field Trip

Hudson's elementary school's philosophy is more hands which includes more field trips than!  His January field trip was up to Mt. Spokane for some snow shoeing!  Apparently Summit owns their own set of snow shoes and this is an annual field trip.  I was excited to tag along this year!  I rode the bus up to the mountain with the kids.  Kindergartener's are too funny!

Thumbs up dude!

First, Mrs. Termath had to explain the directions and expectations.  We were with a first grade group as well.  They were our leaders:).

The hike was all uphill.  Ugh.  Not feeling super well and needing to eat more food but I couldn't, my energy was low. Plus these adorable kindergartners keep losing their snow shoes so there was a lot of picking kids up, putting on snow shoes over and over again.  I was exhausted!

Here we were with a little break.  This is one of Hud's classmates and friend's son:).

Getting Hudson to smile normal that day was a test!

Hiking up the trail!
It has been a low snow year but the trail had plenty for us to hike up.

For some reason, Hudson took it upon himself to race this friend and got VERY UPSET if he was behind him.  The trail was narrow so these two were like running up the trail.  I trudged along and kept up best I could.

Mommy and Hud pic

That smile!

Since the hike was uphill, the way back was downhill...HORAY!  Hudson was running in his snow shoes the whole day down.  Aww to have that energy again:).  

We ate lunch at the Selkirk Lodge.  I never even knew lodge was up there for cross country skiers, snow shoes, snow mobiles, it was nice and big enough for our whole group:).    The kids were very tired by the end of the lunch.  The bus ride home seemed like an eternity and they were getting restless.  Hudson still wanted Gigi and Gpa to pick him up so I headed home early.

We had plans to go out to eat for Jared's birthday as a family but I came up and found Hud doing this

So I let him sleep for a bit.  Then I woke him up so he could sleep that night and we snuggled and watched a movie.  He did end up with a mild fever.  Poor little guy.

Just another sick weekend in the Haak House this winter.

I'm so glad I've had the opportunity to take part of his friend trips this year.  It's funny to watch him in his school environment:).  He's a bit silly and such a boy.  I love it!  I had a great time connecting with other parents in the class and meeting his buddies.  So fun to be in kindergarten!

Haak House News

That's right, baby #3 is due in mid-July!  

Hudson and Hannah are thrilled although I guess I used the wrong terminology with Hudson and said I was "pregnant."  He didn't fully understand what that meant which I learned a week or so later, lol!  Hudson wants a boy, Hannah wants a girl.  Hudson has also decided he wants 2 boys and 2 girls, then he bumped it up to 10 kids.  Wow, ok slow down buddy!  Needless to say there is a bit of excitement here!

We truly thought we were done with 2 but God had other plans.  Jared has this fabulous new job where he doesn't travel and he's home every night and morning to help wit the kids.  Then God laid a desire for just 1 more and a little bigger family.  

  This pregnancy started off great!  I was working out until 7 or 8 weeks and then I started to feel very sick again.  I then took a month off from the gym and could barely eat, resulting in more weight loss.  The doctors are monitoring me every 2 weeks.  I'm trying to eat, it just hurts.  It feels like the flu and when you eat too soon after the flu, it just doesn't sit well.  That's everything I eat.  I can eat spaghetti one night and the next day it hurts me.  It's quite obnoxious.  I can however eat Skittles and Starbursts on an empty stomach or anytime throughout the day.  The doc said that's because I need the glucose/sugar.  If I had to compare pregnancies, I'd say it's much close to Hannah's pregnancy than Huddy's.  

We are choosing to not find out the gender this round.  Boy or girl, we are set!  If it is a girl, which is my guess based on my pregnancy or I'm just getting older..., I am thrilled Hannah will have a sister!  If it's a boy, Hud would get a brother!  Either way we are so excited!  God has the best timing!

While sometimes the logistics of 3 makes me worry, we are so excited for this new addition!

December Break Through New Years 2015

Merry Belated Christmas!  The Haak house was full of Christmas festivities this winter!  

The kids eagerly decorated our tree!

One of my favorite holiday activities is finding Hannah and Hudson's Christmas outfits.  My mom found her dress this year.  I love it!!!

Hudson made this adorable ornament in kindergarten.  Good thing I got a picture of it because it didn't make it through the night.  He had so much fun playing with it, it broke:(.

This is was time for our yearly Santa pic.  Hudson is enamored with Santa this year which I find ironic because we don't celebrate Santa.  He kept telling Hannah all about how he comes down the chimney and brings you presents.  I asked him if Santa came to our house and he said "Yes!"  Ok!  So I downplayed that but we really try to focus on Christ, except for the Harley/Santa pic:).

Engaged in a deep conversation with Santa!

2014

One of our favorite parts is the donuts afterwards!  Yum yum!

Ok, I guess we did another Santa related activity.  No wonder he's confused! 

Our dear friends dad dresses up as Santa around the holidays so they hosted another kid evening with Santa.  We ended up calling him Opa Claus, because it's Colton's Opa, which I liked because then Hudson didn't think it was a real Santa.  

Here's all the kids eating!

Santa pics!

Then each kiddo got a small gift:).

Lego fun!

We came home that night and put together his lego Star Wars ship!  He put it mostly together by himself, except for a few parts.  I was so proud of him!

Finished product!

Then we had some pics done at JcPenny for our Christmas cards.  I love how they turned out!

We did have our annual baking day.  The kids mainly pulled off wrappers on hershey kisses and rolos but they're helping...at least when they aren't eating them:).

That next day I went to work and I only had 10/26 students.  16 were gone with the flu.  I didn't feel the best and wanted to come home early!  The next morning at 4am Hannah came down with a high fever.  I asked my mom if she would watch her so I could go finish my week and celebrate at the Christmas party.

That night Hudson earned his first belt, advanced white belt, at karate.  Warhorse rented out a room at Mirabeau and it was a show, I guess.  They had short skits, black belts performing many sequences with chux, bow staffs, and so on.  I was at home with sick Hannah:(.  Nana and Pops went to celebrate as well!

Strike a pose!  He was so proud!

He also came home with his Hudson Elf.  Too cute!

That night Hannah's fever went throughout the night.  I've never felt my children so hot.  Hearing that one of my co-workers kiddos had influenza, I ran an errand on Saturday morning but decided to take her in.  To test for Influenza, you have to do a pretty nasty nose swab.  Yeah, not fun.  I had to restrain her but it was influenza and we were able to get Tamiflu for her, which cuts the flu in half.  

Then it was a trickle effect...Hudson got it a few a days later and Jared ended up with it on Christmas Eve.    Luckily with Hudson, I was able to call his ped and she sent in the prescription for Tamiflu so he didn't have to do the nose swab and since two household members had the flu, Jared didn't need it either.  Few.  The doc gave me Tamiflu b/c I begged!  My neighbor told me to ask for a family pack and she wouldn't give it.  It would have been nice!  

So our poor daddy was sick, the only one who threw up, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so we left him at home to rest and we went to my folks.  It was weird not having our daddy around.  So after we came home Christmas Eve, he was still throwing up, I let the kids give their "sibling" gifts to each other.  

Hudson was clearly ecstatic with his Playmobile Dragons:).  We had so much fun putting them together and playing with them.

The next day we headed up for Christmas Day festivities at my folks.  I left the kids in pjs so we could eat Nana's delicious homemade Christmas breakfast.  We hurried out the door and I kept the kids in their pjs!  It was worth the rush out the door!

Hannah loves this horse rocker that my Gigi & Gpa got Hudson.  He didn't care for it but she uses it enough for both kids:).  She even added brother Joe's bearie on it.  Too cute!  Both kids love that bear!

The kids, at breakfast:).

Then it was just a nice, relaxing day with family.  Having a small family is nice because other than getting the food on the table, it's pretty relaxing.  

Music time with Uncle Joe!

Sibling snuggles

He always has a weapon of some sort.

Present time...more weapons

Hannah loved her stroller, bearie, shoes, and backpack.  She was ready to hit the town!

Lego movie snuggles

Hanahs' new favorite activity, painting nails:).

Then it was time for some target practice.  Hudson is all about a Bb gun lately!  

Then it was time to head home.  We missed our daddy and we were hoping he was feeling better!

When we got home, we opened a few more gifts.  Probably Hudson's favorite gift was this Boomco gun from the Henrys.   It shoots 20 darts in less than 2 seconds.  We had a lot of gun/nerf wars around the house since we were cooped up for weeks!

Putting together the Playmobile castle.

The next day we went to a Chiefs game.  Jared still wasn't feeling top notch so he stayed home:(.  The kids loved it!  They had a great seat where we could let Hannah run and she couldn't escape!  There was a goal within the first 2 minutes so that got them excited as well!  I think there were 5 or 6 goals total, plus the foot and "nacks" as Hannah says, they were in heaven!

One of my favorites:).

Then it was time to say goodbye to Uncle Joe:(.  

New Years we were still all recouping so we had a quiet night at our house.  Nana and Hud played some intense games of Connect 4.  

Then the siblings took a turn.

The day or so after we finally got snow!  

Hannah thought it was a bit cold but Hud was ready to go!

Since we were all sick, we missed our opportunity to head to Sunnyside for Jared's family's Christmas.  The kids were so sad.  They kept asking when they were going to see all their cousins and Grandma and Grandpa.  So we moved it after New Years.  Well then Grandma was sick along with some cousins.  We had just gotten well too!  So it didn't work out.  The kids were even more bummed.  So my parents offered to meet up at Chuckie E. Cheese to get their minds off it!  It worked!

Princess Hannah.  Cinderellie 

These kids love Chucky!

More snow came the next day and we had a fun family day playing outside!

Daddy pulled the kids on the sleds!

They had a blast!  

This Christmas break didn't go as planned.  It was not ideal, but we really had a nice, relaxing time as a family.  Usually we are so rushed between this activity and that activity, we were forced to relax and that was a blessing!

We hope you had a restful, relaxing break with family!