Classic Hilton's

I'm a little shocked by how poorly I documented the day with photos. From the looks of it you'd think it was all about the food! Ive also run out of free photo storage space, so to see what was captured on film, please visit my share site Three is a Crowd - of Fun . The food was delicious and a great deal of thought and skill went into it, so I'll talk about that first. Mom roasted a turkey for the first time ever. She stuffed it with a yummy cranberry stuffing and it turned out beautifully! Dad fried a turkey that also turned out to be mouth wateringly good! For appetizers we had fruits and veggies with a variety of nut butters. I arranged them to look like turkeys, which was fun. They turned out very cute if I do say so myself!  The day was delightfully laid back. We watched the parade, the kids played outside... Jenna and Brett came up with Brett's parents. We enjoyed good food, great company, and fun games. (Brooklyn is surprisingly good at Apples to Apples and

Grayson James Delano Hilton September 5, 2012 - 18 mos 22 lbs, 7 oz, 31 in The best kind of trouble we could ever wish for. Dear Grayson, At 18 months old you are a tornado of activity!  You more than keep us on our toes! You communicate beautifully with fluent toddlerease as well as a series of gestures and grunts. Most recently (you are 20 months old as I finish writing this - see what I mean about keeping busy??) you have started saying "Yesh" or "Yeah" or "YEAH!!" to pretty much anything we ask for you. It's adorable. You also have words for Nana (nany), Bob Bob (BahahB), Daddy, Mommy, and Madi (baybee). You have a sort of grunt for Brooklyn that you actually say with your mouth closed. It's interesting. You can also make a number of animal sounds and gestures: elephant, cow, pig, horse, tiger/lion/bear/alligator (which all sound the same), Thomas/trains (whoo whoo!), a very girly dinosaur, monkey, anything with a siren, dog, and

October 22, 2012 - Madi Rae officially turned four months old! At your check up you weighed in at a whopping 9 lbs 15 oz, and measured 22 inches long. Based on the growth charts I have, that put you in the 2nd percentile. But hey - at least you were on the charts!!   About a week prior to this appointment, I put you on formula due to a number of eating issues we seemed to be having. First, you had terrible gas every afternoon. We were almost thinking colic, except that it didn't ever last that long and there were lots of tricks to help you feel better such as the football hold. Unfortunately, once I started supplementing with formula, you lost interest in nursing. Considering all the facts, I believe something about the hormones in my birth control had an effect on my milk. My theory is that you were not getting enough at each feeding, which the doctor did confirm as a possible side effect. We gave it our best shot, but between the antibiotics (which I believe had a la

My kids are so great!  Friday morning, Mom took Grayson and flew to Indianapolis. Brooklyn and Madi and I packed up the car, finished Brooklyn's school, ran errands, and then picked Jenna up from work and hit the road for six hours!  Madi struggled a little in the car (poor things gets terrible gas bubbles sometimes!), but we made it to Clarksville, IN in six hours. We got into the hotel and the girls fell asleep immediately and slept through the whole night. It was wonderful! The next morning we finished the drive to Fishers, Indiana where we were throwing my cousin Kaitlyn a baby shower. I was so impressed by how good my kids were! Of course babies are babies and need certain attentions, but overall they were so well behaved!  Again, Madi had some gas before bed, and both she and Grayson woke up with very short night terrors, but some things can't be helped.  I was truly dreading the eight hour drive home. But the kids did so great! Grayson, whom I was especially wo

I'm reading a diet book (contemplating some major changes to our family's dietary habits) and one of the best things I've gleaned from it so far was from one of the success stories. Normally I skim over the success stories because, quite frankly, I don't care that you  lost 100 pounds and are now a marathon runner. You  have no idea what I'm  going through. So good for you - be proud of your success, but I am much to busy and wrapped up in my own stuff to really care.  Anyway, this particular success story had something very good to say.  Those first couple of weeks I didn't feel like eating romain lettuce, collar greens, or Brussels sprouts. I followed the plan. I was heavily addicted to salt, creamy cottage cheese, ranch dressing, cheddar cheese, and crunchy peanut butter. I followed the plan. My son became seriously ill and life suddenly became an out-of-control roller coaster. I followed the plan. He had to be transferred to a hospital in another s

I am too depressed to blog. I have dozens of ideas in the back of my mind, even notes that I've put on my phone so I can remember them later. Great things - updates on what we're doing, Halloween and homeschooling conundrums, parenting anecdotes, scripture insights and questions, marriage stuff, and some really great thoughts on art and theater and that whole cultural conversation. But honestly, by the time I get around to actually writing any of them, the pop culture references or holiday season they fall in will probably be irrelevant.  Is it possible for postpartum to hit as much as four months after birth?  I'm also tired. Even on my best days of great preparation and planning my life seems to move from one interruption to the next. I think I'm getting better at seizing moments, but sometimes I don't know how anything is getting done at all. If it weren't for my smart phone and wi-fi, I don't think I would be in communication with anyone outside my h