Need a little more Dylan and Hudson in your life? I don’t blame you – these guys are FUN 🙂
This blog is my photojournalistic attempt to share my adventures with Dylan and Hudson. I hope you enjoy!
In the meantime… photo highlights of the 3 of us from the past few years:
Well there was no Leap Day this year, so we basically started celebrating on Sat, Feb 20th (Hudson’s bday party) and haven’t stopped since! Which helps solve the problem of choosing between Feb 28th and March 1st for Hudson’s “actual” birthday 🙂
Aaanyway – we kicked off with a birthday party at Watkins Regional Park in MD, which has a Wizard of Oz themed playground and little farm. It was snowy and cold, but so many of Hudson’s buddies showed up and when we said “thank you for coming!” we REALLY meant it, because it’s kind of hardcore for DC people to play outside in that weather 🥶😳
The next day, we drove to Liberty Mountain and went snow tubing. SO FUN. And yes these boys do sleep very well at night after all these activities 🙂
As if that weren’t enough, Hudson won the birthday lottery this year (other than, you know, the whole pandemic thing) and we took a train (in a private sleeper car) down to Florida to see Omi and Opi on his bday!! Left on 2/28 and arrived on 3/1. I’ll write a separate post on our trip. But suffice it to say it was a very special way for Hudson to (continue to) celebrate.
Omi, Opi, and Aunt Judy ALSO made Hudson’s birthday extra special.
Aunt Jude has always made trips to FL such a blast 🙂
Happy birthday to my mischievous, happy, kind-hearted and hyperactive Hudson!!
Can’t say it’s my favorite holiday, but it IS an excuse to eat pink and white ice cream, so that’s what we did! Make-your-own sundaes 🙂
Did they LIKE the sundaes? I can’t say they did. They were super excited about the ingredients but then when they went to eat, both boys concluded there was “too much stuff” getting in the way of their strawberry and vanilla ice cream. So I had to scoop out the “stuff” and eventually just eat it myself. Parenting is hard, what can I say 🤷🏻♀️
We also did some Valentine’s Day art projects. I swear I gave no instructions and they both ended up making me jewelry and V Day cards. So sweet.
Hudson made that heart necklace for me, and I’m basically not allowed to take it off unless I’m sleeping. He was pretty strict that I should wear it while working out too. Good thing I like it!!
Hope everyone had a happy Valentine’s Day!
Well, we didn’t have school this year, so we certainly didn’t have school photos! I took matters into my own hands:
You are correct, they are THE CUTEST. But also SO DIFFICULT to photograph, despite evidence to the contrary 😂 Here are some brother pics – I just gave up at a certain point because there was so much wrestling and so many tears over someone’s hand touching someone else’s shoulder. Even lollipop bribes did not help!
We did have fun getting Mommy haircuts, showering and using a little hair gel before the photo shoot though 🙂
And here are some bonus shots of Hudson, who was very happy to tell me knock knock jokes so I could shoot away!
Don’t worry, I’m not quitting my day job just yet!
One thing about the pandemic that continues to crack me up is the outdoor winter birthday party!! We had a great time at Dylan’s, hopefully the weather will be bearable for Hudson’s in a couple weeks, and in the meantime we had a lot of fun today at one of our friend’s pirate-themed party at a great playground on the Anacostia River.
Outdoor winter birthday parties make us sound hardcore, but truth be told it was 50 degrees and sunny today. The boys are just thrilled at any opportunities to see their friends.
And there was a piñata!!!
So grateful for our neighborhood buddies, who make this wacky period of time feel normal and fun!
We occasionally take a break from incessant lego building, and when we do, the boys are really starting to enjoy card and board games! Tonight it was Bad Rhino 🙂
We were SO NERVOUS that Hudson couldn’t even look at certain times….
Have I mentioned they are so fun 🙂
Guess what?? Dylan and Hudson got out of town!! It’s a bit more of a rare occurrence during the pandemic, but I’m trying to still make it happen when we can.
So we had a few goals for this trip: eat yummy food, stay in a fun / new house, see Civil War sites, and go snow tubing for the first time. Mission accomplished on all counts!!
We stayed in a little 2 bedroom apartment right in downtown Gettysburg, which is basically just a tiny couple quaint streets full of ice cream parlors and war paraphernalia shops. The boys loved the change of scenery, sleeping in their sleeping bags, and having a little attic-type playroom for legos and card games.
First order of business: jump on the bed.
That’s Dylan pretending to read the newspaper like Opi, above 😂
We ALMOST didn’t make it out the next day because it was so cold, but I’m glad we did.
We were walking distance from all the major battle sites and war memorials in Gettysburg, and we really enjoyed checking it out (and climbing on cannons and statues).
Dylan, who usually tosses his coat at the playground and sleeps in shorts and a t-shirt in the winter, was pretty miserable in the cold (but was still able to walk a couple miles through the battlefields). Hudson, on the other hand, could not contain his excitement about all the cannons and was thrilled each time we saw one. He kept thinking they were from WW2, his “favorite” war.
In case you were wondering whether it was too cold for ice cream….
The next day, we attempted an auto tour through the battlefields, which was about as successful as you’d expect for a 7-year-old and almost-5-year-old. We’ll try again in a few years 🙂
We headed straight from there to Liberty Mountain for some snow tubing! I wasn’t sure how it would go over since we everyone had to go up the mountain on a conveyor belt and down the mountain in a tube by themselves. D&H have been known to be nervous about these things!
There was a kids-only “lane” on the mountain, so they just kept going on that one and I was snow tubing by myself for a bit! Not exactly how I intended it! 😂
Perfect winter trip with my boys! Next year hopefully we’ll have a tropical option too though 🙂
In March, I smugly remarked how lucky we were to have gotten to celebrate the boys’ bdays pre-pandemic. Well, here we are and we’re all having pandemic birthdays!!
How DOES one celebrate a winter birthday during covid? You dress warmly, that’s how 🙂 We rented a campfire at a park in MD to roast s’mores with Dylan’s best buds, and despite a number of snafus, it was a blast.
First of all, everyone went to the wrong park… and once there, the playground was covered in snow (it had all melted in DC!) The kids had so much fun running around that we stayed for a while, had amazingly delicious baked and wired cupcakes, and then headed to the correct park a little later 😂
Dylan’s party was on a Saturday, but Sunday (December 20th) was his actual birthday, so I let him pick whatever he wanted to do and eat on that day. He chose: stay in pajamas and play legos most of the day with Hudson, ice skating, and pizza / French fries / ice cream for dinner – solid plan!!
His day actually started like this, letting Mommy sleep in a little:
We opened presents, including a special lego ninjago that Hudson picked out for Dylan.
Lastly, if that wasn’t enough, we also went to NYC a few days later (more on that soon) and included some birthday surprises for Dylan, including this one:
He had a great birthday! Dylan is becoming such a big boy – he takes showers now, reads incessantly, continues to love math quizzes and factoids about animals, and has become an eloquent advocate for himself. He also loved hearing how I became “Mommy” the day he was born (I was only “Cheryl the lawyer” previously). Love this little guy.
So Dylan fell at the playground a few months ago and needed stitches in his chin. Total trooper. Marc took him to urgent care, and then I took him to the pediatrician to get the stitches out a few days later.
Dylan is fascinated by painkillers and medicine. So many great conversations about this. And he’s enjoyed telling everyone who will listen about how he got stitches on his chin, Daddy got stitches on his face, and Mommy got stitches on her vagina. Kids!!
Anyhoo, in what we know now was EPIC foreshadowing, a couple weeks ago Dylan said “everyone in our family has gotten stitches besides Hudson!” And THEN, on a random Tuesday in December, as Hudson was running excitedly down the hall, he tripped over his feet and fell forward into the corner of a wall. Eek. He got a deep gash in his forehead and there was no question he needed stitches.
I dropped off Dylan with Marc and rushed Hudson off to Children’s Hospital, which was amazing. They have a specialist whose only job is to stitch up kids- perfect! Hudson was a total champ and basically just played with his new Chanukah toys (transformers) and mustered all his sass to make sure I spelled his name correctly at check-in. I would go so far as saying that he had a great time at the hospital 😂
Genuinely, he impressed everyone by how calm he was – they put him in what was basically a straight jacket to hold him in place, and he didn’t mind a bit (while watching minions). The only time they had to ask him to hold still was when he was laughing 🙂
It is quite possible that he will look back on the experience fondly, what with apple juice, fun toys and some special Mommy time. He did so great!! And the first thing he did when back in our building?? Race down that exact same hall, “full speed ahead!” (as he’d say). It’s okay, I can handle a few more grey hairs 🙂
2020 is going to be known for a lot of things, and (on a lighter note) let’s add matching Chanukah jammies to the list 🙂
It’s true, we’re very cute! The boys were with me for 5 nights of Chanukah (they lit candles and opened presents with Marc on the other nights too!) and we had a lot of fun between the Isaac family zoom and, also new for 2020: Chanukah theme nights!
Our theme nights were:
1. Family night : open presents from the fam.
2. Pj night: matching pjs, slippers, Chanukah socks and a llama snow globe (because Mommy is a “law ma”!! Get it??)
3. Learn about money night: we got a cash register, piggy banks that divide money into “spend,” “save,” and “share,” played with gelt from Unkey, and each boy picked an org to donate to (Dylan – National Zoo, Hudson – Building Museum).
4. Brother night! All gifts were for both boys to share, and each brother got the other brother a gift. So sweet.
5. Book night. Self-explanatory. Except we hit a snafu – spent the evening with Hudson getting stitches at the hospital! Will save that story for a separate post. But book night was technically books-the-next morning 🙂
We snuck in some homemade latkes (not a hit, sigh), and sufganyot from a local donut shop (success!) The donut shop was on the wharf right by my office, so we had a lovely evening on the water and made s’mores by the fire as well.
We also went ice skating one night with friends (our now-regular covid winter activity!!
And now on to Dylan’s birthday!! Late December is hard work!
11+ years in DC and somehow I never made it to Great Falls! But fast forward to covid, and I found myself there 3 times in 1 month and now have an annual pass (for both the VA and MD sides!)
So Dylan and Hudson are now regulars, and we’ve added Great Falls to our long list of pandemic parks.
The boys are happy to hike along trails, and Hudson is quite partial of finding “walking sticks” and turning them into pretend weapons. Sigh. I reminded him that he’s attended gun control rallies in the past (SMH).
They love climbing on rocks and using their active imaginations to create pirate ships and laboratories and home bases. So fun.
Beautiful spot – I’m excited to be a regular here!!
Dylan + Hudson: the Wonder Years 