a long awaited update...

hey there!  long time no blog, right!?!  we have been MIA in blog-world for the last month because our lives have been a whirlwind.  as most know already, we sold our old house and moved into a new one.  during the buying/selling process we decided that there was NO way we were going to risk being stuck with 2 mortgages, so we waited to buy until we were completely sold.  for that reason, there was a 3 week overlap between the time we had to be out of our old house before we got the keys to our new house.  so, to make a long story short, we moved twice! now, you'd think that'd be a pain, but our awesome THRIVE group and family helped us and both times, we were done moving in less than 3 hours...it was AMAZING!!!  we moved our entire house into a storage unit and stayed with mom and dad snavely for almost 3 weeks and then moved again into our new house.  whew, that was whirlwind!  so here's the new place:

   

here are some updates from the last month:

*after having 10 ear infections, we finally pressured greyson's pediatrician enough to get her to budge and refer him to have tubes put in his ears.  he had the surgery at the hospital and did amazing!  and so far so good, no more ear infections yet!!!

   

*hudson is still loving preschool.  we get a weekly report each week and he loves playing in the art, science and math stations.  he loves story time and learning about numbers, colors and bible stories.  it's so cool to see him growing!  he also enjoyed having both grandmas and great grandpa in to preschool to celebrate "grandparents day".  he got to spend the whole morning with them at his school and he loved showing them all around his new school!  pictures of this will come soon (we have to steal them off our mom's cameras).   

*hudson also took his first trip to the dentist.  he was a little nervous at first about going, but ended up loving it!  he did perfectly and he loved holding the big toothbrush and teeth they showed him (see picture below).  he also especially loved getting a prize from the treasure box at the end of the visit.  now he loves going to the dentist! 

*at our new house we have a jacuzzi tub in our master bathroom and the boys LOVE to take baths in it...it's like a swimming pool to them.  well, hudson also thought that the backside of the tub would be a perfect slide and ended up having 5 stitches in his chin after taking quite a spill.  oh yes, the joys of parenthood, right?!?  actually, we can't complain, he barely cried when it happened (thanks to mommy's quick grab of the red towel, so he didn't realize he was bleeding!), he didn't make a peep the whole time we were at statcare getting the stitches and has been fine ever since.  the stitches come out in the next couple days or so.  

    

   

well, about sums up that last month for us.  CLICK HERE to see some snapshots of the boys from the past several weeks!  enjoy!

   

preschool

it's so hard to believe that today was hudson's very first day of preschool.  we've been talking and talking with him about this day in preparation and it finally happened.  he was SO excited to go to "RiverberTree", as it calls it (our church is actually "RiverTree", isn't that hilarious!?!?).  Here are a couple shots of our not-so-little boy's official first day of school.  

   

He did AMAZING and loved every minute of it!!  I think it really helps that it is at our church because he was familiar with the environment and went right in feeling confident and comfortable.  His teachers are so very nice and they said that he was wonderful and seemed to really enjoy himself.   When we picked him up, he gave us a play-by-play of all the fun things they did and he even named a couple "friends" he had made in his class.  we can already tell he's going to grow and learn so much!

Okay, we've always heard that it's really hard to leave your child in the "hands" of someone else (especially like this for the very first day of school), and that is VERY true, but I must say that when we saw this beautiful prayer come home in his backpack, oh my, it made all the world of a difference!  This is a prayer that the his teachers wrote in the newsletter that was sent home: 

"Dear Lord, We dedicate this room to you.  May You bless the children, families, and teachers and all who enter.  May your love, mercy, faithfulness and joy anoint this place and fill our hearts.  We bring these children to You, watch over them and protect them and may they grow in knowing You as their personal Lord and Savior.  Thank you for each and every child and their family and may this be a year of increase knowledge, growth and faith.  Amen"

Wow!  That puts into into perspective, doesn't it?!?  Now, we did good all day and there were no tears shed on hudson or on our part, but that about put us over the edge!  This will certainly be a great year for hudson and we can't wait to share more with about how he's learning and growing!

myrtle beach vacation

Getting away from everyday life is wonderful, isn’t it?!?  Don't get us wrong, everyday life is good and all, but man, a break from the norm is sure nice!  We just returned home from a wonderful, relaxing vacation in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  We stayed in the quiet, family-friendly area of Surfside Beach.  This was the first real trip to the beach with the boys and they did AMAZING!!!  The road trips went very smoothly (we drove through the night, and yes, they slept!), the ocean was absolutely breathtaking, as usual, and we couldn’t have asked for more beautiful weather! 

Our daily routine consisted of getting the beach early each morning until noon, then we’d head back to the condo for lunch and then off the pools for the afternoon.  Naptime gave us a chance to regroup and clean up and then, after naptime we’d get ready for the evening. 

   

Each night, we did something fun and different.  We explored downtown shops and entertainment, went out to dinner, went to the pier at sunset, and more, but the boys most favorite thing was to go to Family Kingdom.  This was a fun, little family amusement park by the beach.  Hudson had an absolute ball!  He’s never really been on amusement park rides before so we weren’t sure if he’d be a big fan or not, but he was such a little boy and LOVED it!  He rode all the rides all by himself, even a roller coaster, and had a BLAST!  It was so cool to see him smiling and laughing on the rides.  Can’t wait till he’s old enough to go on the big ones so we can go on them with him, too. 

Now, lets talk about the beach!  Oh my goodness gracious, we can’t even begin to tell you how much fun we had at the beach!  It’s so hard to put it into words, but hopefully you can get a sense of the boys’ genuine excitement and happiness in the photographs that were taken there.  They absolutely lit up with joy every time we’d hang out there.  The salt water and sand didn’t phase them a bit, they were all about the ocean!  We’re thinking a summer beach vacation will need to be planned from now on…it was just too much fun!!! 

     

Hudson was our tan little beach bum, never getting a hint of sunburn, not even once.  He even went boogie-boarding and wave jumping.  He had no fear whatsoever!  He also enjoyed exploring the water (quickly discovering it was salty!), experimenting with the sand, and searching for seashells.

Greyson loved to play in the sand and run around in the shallow water.  It was hilarious to see him in the water, he would play a game as if the water was chasing him – each time a wave would come, he run and try to get away from it.  The waves would retract and out he’d go and then back again.  The waves would go back and forth and so would he! 

    

Since Mimi and Papa Snavely were with us, we even got a date night where we had a nice dinner and walked in a really cool area called Broadway at the Beach.  It was so nice to get a little break and just be together.  Those times are few and far between and so very much appreciated, not to mention, the boys absolutely loved having Mimi and Papa there.  Grandma and Grandpa Smith happened to be down in Myrtle for a couple days overlapping our trip so we also enjoyed having some beach time with them too as did the boys.  They loved it…it was just like being at home! 

So, after taking way too many over 1,030 pictures, go figure, we’ve tried to narrow it down (which is hard to do because we love them all!) into a slideshow.  We ended up choosing a total of 173 photos, so  CLICK HERE to take a look at the rest of our vacation pictures!

july wrap-up...

since it's the end of the month, we were going through all of our pictures (and boy, there are A LOT of them, as usual!) and realized we forgot to share quite a few miscellaneous july pictures.  so some of the odds-n-end things we did in july that we've not yet shared are: 

• having a bonfire with our wonderful thrive group.  one of the couples in our group own a large piece of land nearby and we all got together and had a hotdog roast on the campfire.  it was great!  they even had a big treehouse, corn-hole, and dirt-bikes.  the boys loved it!  they especially loved (as always!) hanging out and playing with all the other awesome kids in the group...we could have stayed there all night!  

  

• having our snavely "family day" - this is a day once a month that we set aside to intentionally get together as a family (to celebrate birthdays, holidays, or just because). not that we don't see them at other times throughout the months, but we started doing this a few years ago because as we all got older, our lives got more busy and so this was a day, set aside, where we could catch up, hang out and just be together.  we always look forward to them.

  

• hanging outside and swimming.  we've gone over to friends and family's homes to play in the water and hudson and greyson love every minute of it.  definitely a favorite of theirs, especially going down the slide in to the water!

   

• going to atwood lake, boating and swimming at the "boater's beach".  this is, by far, the boys most favorite thing to do.  hudson loves to camp out (he even spent the night with mimi and papa, all by himself), drive the boat, swim at the beach and sit around, what hudson calls the "fireplace" (aka, the campfire).  we'll certainly be making many more trips down there!

CLICK HERE to see some of our miscellaneous july pictures!

and, don't forget to read our 100th post below!  we have a request of you!!! :-)

CALLING ALL READERS...

...yes, that means YOU!  hey, we've been wanting to do this for a while now, and since this is officially our 100th POST on our blog (can you believe it?!), the time has finally come.  so are you curious yet?? let us explain...

since the time we began our blog the purpose has always been to be a venue to regularly update our friends and family on our family, which originally began with the birth of hudson 3 1/2 years ago.  since we have many friends and family members out of state, whom we love so dearly, this has been a great way to allow them to be part of our lives even though miles may separate us.  in addition, it serves as a way of documenting our lives, because lets face it, the older you get the more you forget, right?!? and we don't want to forget anything about these precious years with our boys.  you know, some people scrapbook, others journal in notebooks, and, well, we blog.  it's been super cool to be able to look back at where we've been and what we've done over the years by reading older posts.  you an always go back in time too if you browse through the blog archive (to the right and scroll down a bit). -->  

unlike a lot of other blogs, we have no way of knowing how many people view/read our blog and sometimes we wonder if people are actually looking at it.  the only way we really know is if you leave us a comment, which not many have in the past.  and just so you know, if you make a comment, don't worry- it doesn't go straight on our blog page for the world to see, it comes to us first in an email, from there we can approve or hide it.  so if you'd like to make a comment or be in touch with us, you can simply leave us a comment.  if you'd rather it not be shared publicly, just mention that you 'do not wanted it posted publicly' and we'll certainly respect that. 

so, to cut to the chase, sometimes it takes a lot of time to update our blog regularly and we want to know if updating is is really worth the time.  so, since leaving a comment is the only way we know who is reading and since some of you are shy about commenting, how about this:  if you regularly read our blog or even just check it every once in a awhile, leave a comment for us on this post and name the state in which you live- this can be done anonymously, too, if you'd like.  simply click on the "comments" link underneath this post and follow the steps, it's really quite simple.  after you write your comment, type the silly security code it states (if it asks), and then it's easiest to just click the button next to "anonymous" before you click "publish comment".  

this will be fun, not only seeing how many readers we have, but to see where you all are reading from.  oh, and you can view the comments too, but clicking on the link.  okay, let's get going...don't be shy!!! :-)

cleveland metroparks zoo

this past friday along with uncle nick and rachel, we took the boys here:

hudson had never been to this zoo before and he thought it was so much fun and he especially enjoyed the company of nick and rachel.  he enjoyed getting piggy-back rides, looking at the animals and the tram ride.  it was so cool to see that he knew most of the animals since he's familiar with them from books, tv, etc. 

   

this was greyson's very first trip to a zoo and he absolutely LOVED it!  he was so into looking at all the animals.  it was so cute to see him SO excited and he would point at them and try and talk to them.  he was hilarious!

   

out of all the animals, our favorite were the giraffes.  if you know us, this comes as no surprise!  they were awesome - so big, quiet and graceful!  we could have watched them forever! 

   

what an awesome experience to see all of the animals, each so different and unique.  god is incredibly awesome, isn't he!?!  in gensis 1, God saw all that he had created and said that "it was good"...it was most certainly good!  

CLICK HERE to see some more zoo pics!

oh, and THANK YOU to leanne, for getting us the tickets for the boys birthdays...perfect idea, we had a blast! :-)

sold

we are so excited to share that, after only being listed "on the market" for a week, we officially sold our house.  isn't this picture precious!?! (click to enlarge).  it's one of those pics that we'll be able to look back at for years to come and remember how old the boys were when we moved.  we already bought another house and, of course, there will be pictures coming soon!  moving day will be in about a month.  exciting!!! :-)  and oh, by the way, if you need a great realtor, call this number!

blueberry picking

   

we wanted to do a little something special for hudson today.  being a big brother is tough work sometimes and everyone needs a little break now and then, right!?!  so, greyson stayed home with grandma (thank you, grandma!) and we took hudson blueberry picking at wade's fruit farm in paris, ohio.  of course, we had to snap a couple quick shots by the cool, rustic-looking barn before we began.  

   

if you follow our blog, you may remember that we did this last year and he absolutely had a ball, so we thought we'd try it out again this year!

the trip was fantastic!  hudson had sooooooo much fun!  it was so great to see him in his "own"- running through the fields, picking blueberries, and throwing them in his bucket.  he climbed on tractors and tried to climb the oil rig.  he was mooing at cows and laughing as he was running through the aisles of blueberry bushes.  he looked like such a little man!  it's amazing how to see how God has so perfectly created this little boy and fashioned him as His own in such amazing ways!  what an incredible blessing it is to sit back and take in the overwhelming joy that God has place in our lives through our precious boys.  thank you, God, for a wonderful day!  

CLICK HERE to see some pics from our blueberry picking adventure!