What kind of parents take their 3 year-old to a movie?

Yup, we did it. After a bit of consternation, we decided to take Hudson to see the movie "Cars." We were originally planning to have him see it on video, but ended up deciding that taking him to a theater would make it seem more "set apart" so he'd be less likely to want to see more TV/movies at home. Can you tell he's our first child with all the thought we put into a rather simple decision?

He loved it. He jumped a few times at the loud revving of the engines, but never got scared at all. It was a pretty long movie - about 2 hours and he shifted positions a lot, so we couldn't tell if he was just a being a boy or if he was getting a little tired of it. But when the credits rolled (with some animation re-starting on the side) we asked if he wanted to leave. He said, "Let's wait until the pictures go off and don't come back on."

He's been (we've made him) a victim of the Disney marketing machine. He has a "Cars" coloring book, a "Cars" sticker book, and a few plastic "Cars" figures. So he knew the main characters names before the movie. By the way, it's a cute movie that's fun for any age (apparently down to three).

Landon is still having a lot of fun running around. He's starting to fight back when Hudson takes things with which he's playing - and he's got a pretty accurate slap! He's definitely a second-born: much more adventurous, much more stubborn, not as into precision and detail and more into fun. He is really creating his own identity more and more every day.

Kathryn and Rick are doing well. Rick sprained his ankle playing basketball this week but it doesn't seem all that bad, just pretty swollen.

Thanks for the comments and updates!

Funny Hudson quote:

"Oh no; it dropped the call!"
Said while talking to a pretend person on a pretend call on his pretend Spiderman cell phone.

Is it officially summer already?

Hi everyone. It's seemed like summer here longer than just this week. Everyone is healthy here and we're putting up with the heat well. Work has been reasonable for Rick; Kathryn is doing well and her Tuesday morning Bible studies have started back up. Hudson is still having fun with his cars. Kathryn went to pick him up at the gym childcare center and found all the workers gathered around him being entertained by him identifying all the cars. Landon is toddling around everywhere now and has become a climber. The gym staff told Kathryn that he was but she hadn't really seen evidence of it. That day, though, she took the boys to the library and after getting some books with Hudson found him standing on top of one of the tables.

Smart Hudson Quote:

"It's an amphibious truck."

Hudson explaining why it was OK when he was told that his story shouldn't have the trash truck drive into the water.

June is Here

Hello all. Things are going well here in the Valley of the Sun. Monsoon season officially has arrived. For those of you that don't know, we actually get a fair amount of rain in the heat of the summer. We get monsoons with a lot of wind in the evenings and get a little bit of rain sometimes and downpours others. We also get a lot of lightning and thunder. So far we've had just wind with a little bit of rain and lightning the past few nights. We all pray for more rain than lightning to limit the fire hazard.

The boys are doing well. Landon is now going from sitting to standing and walking by himself - and I might add is very proud of doing so. Hudson continues with his car and truck obsession. Today he guessed that the worker who came to patch a seam in our countertop had driven a white Ford pickup - a good guess based on sales figures - and he was correct.

Kathryn is back in Tuesday morning Bible study after a couple of months off. She's enjoying her group of Moms at her table and the teaching.

Rick had last week off of work and did his honey-do list around the house: fixing some irrigation lines, replanting some lost landscape, cleaning hard water spots off the pool water feature, and cleaning out the garage. He also got a chance to play with the boys a lot and went golfing twice.

Funny Hudson Quote of the Week:

"You can do the underwater parts with Landon."

Said to his daddy while they and Landon were in the pool and were about to do swim lessons. He regularly lobbies to leave out the parts of the swim lessons where he goes underwater.

Smart Hudson Quotes of the week:

"What did the pastor say about the car and it's gasoline?"

Hudson to his mommy on the way home from church. He's been coming to big church with us and seems to be doing his own thing (coloring, driving his cars on the pew) most of the time, but it's clear that he's taking it all in. Pastor Darryl had used an illustration of us following God's word as being like a car running on gasoline, and when we don't, like a car running on corn oil.

"No, that's just some adhesive from one of my old stickers."

Hudson to his mommy after she questioned whether the small, round, gray, sticky object on his finger represented a booger. She didn't even knew he knew what 'adhesive' was.