Christmas!! (a picture is worth a thousand words .. )

With Hudson being born the beginning of December, we jumped right in to one of the busiest times of the year: The Holidays  Christmas time! At 5 days old, Hudson went with Mom and Dad on his first outing to the grocery store. We had plans to host our friends Christmas party Dec. 10, so we had some work to do! Hudson loved his car seat and slept the entire time we were out and about! Thankfully we have a great group of friends that brought most of the food for the party and cleaned everything up at the end of the night! (Hudson and I went to bed hours before everyone left the house) So, party #1 - Hudson 6 days old - success!

Friend Christmas party 2011

My family arrived 5 days later to spend the weekend at our house to celebrate our family Christmas! They were also great about doing pretty much everything (laundry, cooking, dishes, cleaning, etc) while they were here. It was honestly more work for me once they left!

Our family Christmas - complete with a visit from Santa! :)

While staying with us, my mom did a great job of capturing some of our Christmas decor in the house.

Christmas Decor 2011

Just a few days after celebrating with my family, it was time for Cory's family to arrive in town and spend Christmas weekend with us! Again, a blast - and very easy for us!

This was the first time most of the family met Hudson - That means lots of family pictures!  Hud is the first grandchild/great grandchild on this side of the family. Makes for a very special, spoiled little boy! :)

Gidley Christmas

Gourley Christmas

Christmas Day we started off the morning with our little family of 3 :) We slept in, had some coffee, and opened our gifts from Santa that were in our stockings! Let the traditions begin!!

Santa Christmas stockings

Later that afternoon we also had our Christmas party with Grandma Kris and Grand dad Fred! They sure enjoyed their first Christmas with their only grandson!!

1st Christmas with the Gourley's

So, this has been our first 3 weeks home with a newborn baby! Wild and crazy to say the least :) Now it's time to try and figure out what our new normal will be with a baby at home without all the friends, family, and parties filling our days! I'm looking forward to quiet days at home, mommy time, and hopefully finding some good activities in the area with other new mommies and their babies!

Hope you all had a very merry and blessed Christmas and happy New Year!

Hudson Frederick Gourley :)

Ahh.. the joys of motherhood! I've been planning on writing this post for the last 25 days - just sitting down to the computer this afternoon :)

    > Joy #1 of motherhood: no time to sit at the computer with two free hands to type with because I'm too busy holding/entertaining my precious son.

So, at this time I'd like to introduce you to our son, Hudson Frederick. Born December 4, weighing in at 7lbs 6oz and 20 1/2 inches long!

Our first family photo :)

     > Joy #2 of motherhood: Hudson's eyes focus on me when I'm holding him, or when he's with someone else and I talk, etc. :) He knows I'm his mommy and I'm the only one that can be that for him

Don't you just love those big blue eyes?   :) :)

Hudson has been a great baby so far! He is sleeping well (only waking up once a night on average, giving me 3-4 hour stretches of sleep at night!) He's fairly content during the day, and when he's not it's usually because he needs something. I'm working on figuring out what those things are! We're starting to learn what his adorable cries mean and how they're different. He also has the cutest pouty face ever! I'll try get a good picture of it sometime so you can all enjoy it with me :) (that face goes along with the dirty diaper cry) He loves his "daddy time" at night when Cory gets home from work. They spend it doing "tummy time" on the floor and "crawling". (Cory puts his hands on the bottom of Hud's feet so when he pushes against them he scoots across the floor on his tummy) :)

     > Joy #3 of motherhood: My husband enjoys being fatherhood as much as I am enjoying motherhood :)

     > Joy #4 of motherhood: The best thing I can think of to put in this blog to describe the experience so far of having a child is:   :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)  etc

Hudson even enjoys his nursery! (even though he doesn't like sleeping in his crib, he enjoys his "baby chair" that sits on the floor right next to his crib!) My brother painted the jungle leaf canvases above the changing table. He's so talented!

Jungle Nursery