Pictures From Raleigh Easter

Caed showing Mason his spoils (1 egg)



















Brad "helping" Caed climb a tree















What a big boy!

Sharing Shoes & Other Fun Pictures

Caed's usually the one to try on daddy's shoes, but in a rare moment after dinner last week, Brad decided to try Caedmon's shoe on ... so cute! Caed thought it was very funny.

I decided to take Caed to the Museum of Natural Sciences last week to get out of the house and do something fun in the midst of the rain. With Caed's love for birds, he was right at home. While there weren't any real birds there, he still enjoyed pointing and looking at the stuffed ones. What a little enthusiast! The picture below is of Caed in a mock dinosaur footprint. He thought it was so neat to climb up into it and sit (not something he was suppose to do since there was a sign that read, "No climbing," just beside him.) In my mind, he was content and wasn't causing any damage, so it was fine by me :).

The next picture is of Caedmon and his favorite little, red friend -- Elmo. We're not sure how he came to like him so much ... he doesn't even watch TV for more than a minute or two at a time ... maybe it was the Elmo Manners book ... but either way, he's quite a fan. Grandma Helen and Grandpa got him the stuffed animal for Christmas and he's been sleeping with it ever since. One other thing to note about this picture is the excessive drool streaming from Caed's mouth. It seems like he's been teething for over a month now. Three canine teeth are coming in at once, but thankfully the pain hasn't been too terrible and Caed has been a great sport about it!

The last picture was taken after dinner one night when Brad thought it would be cute to have Caed try on his glasses. So cute! We have a similar picture from when he was 7 months old and another from about two weeks old ... my how he's grown!

Long-Awaited Photos

Sorry that it's taken so long to post new photos. But, here they are ... enjoy!

THE 909 HOUSE BEFORE














THE 909 HOUSE NOW
(during our big snow a few weeks ago)














OUR BEDROOM VIEW OF DOWNTOWN
(sunrise)














CAED @ CHRISTMAS














JUST THE 3 OF US
(at my birthday celebration)

Men at Work

We were very blessed to have my brother and Brad's dad, uncle, and brother with us this weekend to help us with some much needed manual labor at the 909 House. The original plan was to prep the backyard (clear out remaining yard debris), mark the yard for the fence and dig all the holes for the fence posts. With that in mind, Brad went ahead and rented an auger and had it on stand-by for the moment that they finished prepping the backyard. Interestingly enough though, that moment never came.

After cutting up and piling 6 truck loads of yard debris (cut down vines, branches, trees, roots, etc.), driving most of them to the dump (don't ask where the other loads went), clearing out the 4-foot pile of leaves in the back, right-hand side of the yard (a result of many years of leaf blowing from the church behind us), mulching those leaves down with our lawn mower and then scattering them throughout the yard and blowing the remaining leaves to the side of the yard to determine the amount of concrete that was really in our backyard, there just wasn't enough time to start up that auger. As sad as that realization is, it might actually be a blessing in disguise. After clearing out all of the debris and realizing how much concrete really was in the backyard (you may remember that the previous owners used the house as a beauty salon and they paved over a good portion of the backyard to create a parking lot for their customers), the guys discovered that it's going to take a good deal more work and money to dig up the concrete that goes all the way to our property line ... this is exactly where we were planning to put the fence ... and well, you can't use the auger to drill holes through the concrete. So ... needless to say, we're investigating other fencing options that may work around the concrete, or 'through' the concrete, and that may turn out to be a bit cheaper. (Not too bad.)

And plus, you should see our backyard. I'm sure it hasn't looked this good in 15 or 20 years! Thanks guys! We still have a long way to go: Some concrete removal, tilling, new soil and topsoil (if we want to even hope for grass) and plenty of hours of general landscaping. I enjoy that stuff, so that will be something we can look forward to for many years (?) to come. (Hopefully not that long, but I don't want to underestimate it.)

Here are some of the BEFORE pictures of the yard after my mom and I initially cut down a good deal of the vines, bushes and trees that covered the fence line:


















Here's proof of the 'fruit of the guys' labor':
(You'll notice a gradual decrease of yard debris as the weekend went on.)









































In addition to the landscaping work that we (the guys) did this weekend, the floor guy was in on Saturday and sanded the majority of the floors. What a difference! Despite their age, I think they're going to really look beautiful! They're going to finish up around the edges tomorrow and then we'll have to pick our stain and they'll finish them up by the end of the week. How exciting

In Memory of Courtney F. Snyder, My Grandma

Sunday morning we learned that Grandma Courtney passed away. We've been anticipating this for a while now, especially within the last week, but when it actually comes, it's still hard to handle. She had been in a nursing home for about 3 years, and after Grandpa passed away in November, her health steadily declined. I guess that's only natural after 72 years of marriage!

Courtney Snyder, my namesake, was 96 and definitely lived a very full life. She spent the majority of her life in Ohio and enjoyed some of her childhood years in Washington, D.C. when her father worked closely with President Harding, a long-time family friend. Grandma told stories of how her dad would play poker with Harding and the boys, and how she and her family would have picnics on the White House lawn. What fun that would have been!

Grandma grew up playing tennis and was apparently quite the player. She even used a real cat-gut racket. She gave it to me about 13 years ago and I hope to put it on display in our new house.

Grandma was also a wonderful poet, wordsmith and "Grammar Queen," in my book. Whether we liked it or not, she was always on the look out for proper word usage, and thankfully, some of that rubbed off on me and aided in my love for writing and proper grammar use. (I'm not sure what happened to that grammar in my speech sometimes ... but that's another story.) Thanks Grandma!

Come to think about it, Grandma was actually very skilled in many things, even as she aged. She was quite the shark with a hand of cards, Bridge in particular, and she played the organ so beautifully! Birdwatching was a dear passion of hers and you might have even called her a "hummer-charmer". She would take the hummingbird nectar that she would make and stand in the bushes as she held it and the hummingbirds would come right up to her and eat. She helped me do it once and it was very cool! And I believe on one occasion she even nurses one back to health. A baby had broken its wing or something like that, and she made it a little nest in a box and fed it with a syringe until it was healthy enough to return to the wild.

She was even quite a good cook and baker. Mom recently passed down her infamous chocolate cake recipe and gooey chocolate/pecan icing ... emm, so delicious. (But gracious, it definitely wasn't easy to get a hold of that recipe ... I think mom only got it in like 1995 or something like that!) But the meatloaf that I make is her recipe, as well as her peanut butter cookies, cut-out cookies and I'm sure there are many more. The thought about compiling her recipes into a cookbook has crossed my mind ... hopefully if I have time one of these days, I can begin that project.

And wow, Grandma really enjoyed traveling. She did most of it alone, later in life either because of Grandpa's OB/GYN practice or because of Grandpa's bad back, but I believe that she traveled to China on several occasions and brought back all kinds of beautiful memorabilia that decorated their home.

I'm sure that I could go on and on, but when I really think about it, some of the fondest memories I have with Grandma (aside from taking showers with her when I was a little girl and getting to use her scrub brush, and shrieking when Grandpa would "sneak" in and pour cold water on us ... time and time again) were the times late at night, right before bed, when she'd thumb through old pictures or trinkets or jewelry, and share the stories that went with each item. She spoke so sweetly about her life and about her love for Grandpa and her family. Thanks for such sweet memories, Grandma! I love you. I miss you. And I'm so glad that you had the opportunity to meet Caedmon last December. How you lite up when you held him and saw him smile!

Trip to Atlanta // Caed at 10 Months

Caed and I were in Atlanta Wednesday through Sunday of this week while Brad, Dad, David and John had their 1st Annual "My Three Sons" Fishing Get-Away in Destin, FL. (Here's David's account of the trip.) We'll have to let Brad give you an update on the fishing trip, but here are some fun details about our trip to Atlanta.

During our trip, Caed hit his 10-month mark and it seemed like just over night that he acquired new skills. Here are his most recent milestones:

• Picks up grapes, in addition to Cheerios, to feed himself
• Transitions from laying, to sitting, to standing in his crib completely unassisted
• Crawls from one point to another (this just happened yesterday)
• Pulls up on furniture and toys and stands while holding on to something
• Takes several steps at once while holding on to something
• Understands "all done" and can make the sign when he's finished eatting
• Does most of the hand motions for "Pattycake" (thanks for the lesson Grandma)
  
• Two more teeth surfaced and a third is on its way, giving Caed a grand total of almost five teeth!
  

(Caed was quite fragile this week mostly due to his teething ... who wouldn't be if you had three teeth coming in at once!) But aside from that, Helen, Grandma, Caed and I enjoyed our time together and thoroughly enjoyed watching Caed hit these new milestones.

The first time I realized that Caed could "walk" was when we were in the dressing room at Dillards waiting for Grandma to try on some blouses, and just as I got Caed out to stand and hold on to the stroller, he started to push the stroller down the hall of the dressing room! Who would have thought? Here's Grandma's reaction:









Caed was so proud of himself!

Then, after we left Dillards, we headed over to Babies 'R' Us and Helen bought Caed his first pair of Pumas. They're awesome! Thanks so much Helen! While we were trying shoes on, I had Caed stand up and hold on to Grandma's wheelchair (we just had her ride in it while we shopped so that she wouldn't overwork herself). While he did this, he decided that since he pushed his stroller earlier, he would try to push Grandma in the wheelchair. He was however unsuccessful, but he certainly had the right idea in mind. What a sweet boy!

We stayed pretty busy the five days we were there, and it was nice because Helen only had to work until about noon every day, so the four of us were able to do quite a bit together. We took Caed swimming at the neighborhood pool, visited Pop at the National Cemetery, went shopping -- twice, rode the carosel at the mall and enjoyed a couple of nice meals out. Grandma even took Caed and I on a grand tour of Chambrel and ate lunch with her neighbors. Thanks for a great trip, Helen & Grandma. Caed and I had a really nice time!

Here are some more fun pictures from our trip:

There's a Place in My Heart for Michael Jackson

When I heard the news of Michael Jackson's death, I was in disbelief. Not that I have followed him for sometime, but he was just sooo young (he was about our parents' age), and I have such fond memories of his music from when I was a kid. How could he be gone?

As I remember him, I think of 4 things, really:

1. Beat It
2. Black or White
3. Erika Lizotte's Dancing
4. How did a black man make himself look so white? And what happened to his nose?

Beat It
When I was a kid, I think like 4 or 5 years old, I can remember jamming out to Beat It in the back of my aunt Laurel's van with my cousins, Chris and Jon, during our Ohio trips to visit my grandparents. This was our song. As soon as the cassette tape began to play, Dong, Dong, Donnnnng ... we got all revved up. I didn't even know most of the words to the song, but we certainly would belt out, "Beat It, Beat It." And any time I hear the song today, I remember those fun times. In addition, I think this was my very first Pop music tape.

One other fun thought about Beat It is the time I took a trip with Brad and his family to Charleston, SC (we were still dating at this time), and we were playing Cranium. For those of you who are familiar with this game, you'll be familiar with the Copycat category where you're suppose to act out the famous person whose name is on the card you draw. Well, when it was Nancy and Mark's turn to draw, Nancy selected the Copycat category and low and behold, the name Michael Jackson appeared on her card. At first, to act out her card, she hurried over the banister by the stairs and proceeded to dangle a baby doll over the banister, but none of us guessed it. So, after consulting with Mark, she decided to moonwalk across the floor for our entertainment pleasure. She did her best to scoot across the floor and sing Beat It, Beat It, Beat It ... however, it wasn't in the tune that you would normally accompany with it ... it was more mono toned due to her quick-thinking and excitement of the moment (Nancy actually does have a very nice voice, but the heat of the moment didn't showcase it well) ... I can just hear it now ... thanks Nancy for a great laugh. Remember, we're still laughing WITH you, not at you!!

Black or White
Many years after my cousins and I adopted Beat It as our song, Michael Jackson's hit Black or White came out. I'm not sure where we came up with this idea, but during another summer visit to Grandma & Grandpa's house, we decided that it would be fun to put on a show for the entire family to showcase our singing and dancing skills to Black or White. So we cleared out space in the basement, changed the spotlights in the ceiling to red and green (real classy) and worked on our moves. I'm sure that Jon & Chris will attest to this, but it was more their moves than our moves. I can't dance worth a flip and Jon & Chris were showcasing their break-dancing and karate (not sure how that played into the repertoire, but karate was part of the show too and Courtney, yes me, was doing her darn dist to keep up. Ha, what memories!

Erika Lizotte's Dancing
I'm sure Erika's really going to appreciate me including her in this post, but I can't resist. WhenI think of Michael Jackson, I can't help but think of her and how excited she gets when Thriller or Billie Jean comes on. The songs take her back to her childhood as well, but it's not just in thought, it's in the form of dance. And man can she bust it! Go Erika! If you want to see her in action, just invite her to your wedding and play one of these songs. You'll be sure to see a great showcase of her skill! (I wish I had a picture! If anyone has an electronic copy, please let me know :).

How did a black man make himself look so white? And what happened to his nose?
This last thought of Michael Jackson doesn't really pertain to a fond memory that I have of MJ, but when I said that when I think of MJ, these are the 4 things that come to mind ... if I'm honest, I've always wondered about his skin color and nose. Not that it makes much difference to me, but it's always been a bit odd to me.

Well ... Michael Jackson, thanks for the years of great music. Beat It and Black or White helped create some great memories in my childhood and I will always remember you for that.

I came across a neat commentary of MJ's death from Sojourn Music. Check it out if you're interested.

Beach Trip to Kitty Hawk

Caed, Mom and I went to Kitty Hawk Tuesday through Friday of this week while Brad was out in Seattle at an Acts29 Boot Camp. What a fun time! This was Caed's first summer beach trip! (He's been to the beach on 4 other occasions -- once last November with our Community Group ... he was only 3 months old, and then twice to Oak Island before Mom moved ... both times were too cold to really enjoy the beach.) So, this time was really exciting.

Being that Caed still takes 2 naps a day, our time at the beach was somewhat limited ... however, the time we had was great ... any more time and we probably would have gotten burned or would have run out of ways to entertain Caed, even though the sand, birds and all the people are very fun to look at.

The water was still pretty cool and was pretty rough (compared to what we normally see in Oak Island), so we spent most of our beach time in the sand ... Caed was very content with that. (He wasn't so sure of the water at times, but here and there, he got more comfortable with it and did his share of splashing.) At one point he was splashing so much that I didn't realize that he had dropped his paci and before I knew it, paci was floating away! Luckily, I saved the day and rescued poor, wet paci ... Caed was thrilled!

Here's a video of Caed in the sand (None of his splashing footage came out real well):


Here are some pictures from the trip:

Asheville?

A couple of months ago, Brad and I decided that we'd go to Asheville to celebrate our 5th anniversary in June. (We try to take a trip a year around our anniversary to just get away.) But as the events started piling up on the calendar for June, we realized that it was going to be tough to get away. So, a week and a half before Memorial Day weekend, we thought that we'd try to move the trip up to Memorial Day weekend. (At the time, I hadn't looked at the calendar and I thought we had a little more time to plan .... Since when was there a week left in May after Memorial Day?)

Any way, we started planning away and mom had agreed to watch Caedmon for the weekend (our first over-night trip away), so on the Monday before, we decided to make sure that Caedmon would be ok drinking from a bottle instead of nursing (he still nurses 4 times a day). So, that afternoon before his 5pm nap, I tried the bottle and there was no success, just screaming, crying, squirming and sweating! Later that evening before bed, Brad tried the bottle a second time with Caedmon and he experienced the same thing.

What the heck were we going to do? Since mom's only 15 min. away, we thought that she could try to get him to take it, especially if I wasn't around, so I called her at about 10:30pm Monday night and arranged to bring Caedmon over Tuesday morning. I took Caed over to mom's to put him down for his first nap that morning and the plan was for him to sleep over there, play when he woke up and realize that I wasn't around, so he'd know that there was no chance for milk except from his bottle. This attempt, however, was again unsuccessful. Mom tried again 2 more times that day (from a bottle, a sippy cup, a spoon) ... nothing worked. Caed still ate his lunch and a good snack that day, so he didn't starve, but there was no hope for the bottle. So, by the end of the day, we were coming to the realization that we wouldn't be going to Asheville after all.

Brad and I were pretty disappointed. We hadn't put a whole lot of effort into planning, but we were still very excited to go away just the two of us for the weekend, so we were trying to come up with other scenarios that would make it work out. We came up with three options: 1) Take Caed with us, 2) Since mom had offered to watch Caed anyway, why not see if she would want to come along and watch Caed in Asheville while we went out during the day and enjoyed an evening or two out on the town, or 3) Stay in Raleigh, but have mom babysit a night so that we could go out. Thinking about staying in Raleigh was definitely a downer since we had already planned to be out of town, so we thought through options 1 and 2 carefully and decided that option 2 would give us the most flexibility to enjoy our time in Asheville -- just the two of us. So, as romantic as it sounds, we ended up going to Asheville to celebrate our anniversary with Caed and my mom, but it turned out to be a really great weekend! Thanks to mom for being so gracious to come along with us, along with Tucker & Champ, and hang out with Caedmon at the house while we went out and enjoyed Asheville Saturday and Sunday!

When we first arrived, Brad took me up to see the Grove Park Inn. I had definitely heard about it from all the spa ads that you see on TV, but when Brad got to stay there for a restaurant show he was in this past February, I wanted to go and see what the hype was about. Wow, what a gorgeous place! The weather was just perfect when we went, so we strolled around the property, through the main lounge, onto the veranda overlooking the spa and view of Asheville. There was a wedding just beginning on the left veranda, so there was nice music playing as we strolled down the steps to the little waterfalls. Then, as we were about to leave, we grabbed a seat in the rocking chairs by the enormous fireplace (how neat to be there in the winter with the huge fire blazing!) and then we thought we'd have time for a quick drink ... it definitely wasn't a quick drink, but it was so relaxing to just sit back and enjoy the scenery.

That evening, the 4 of us were planning to go out for dinner to Barley's Taproom, but Caedmon was way too tired to make it, so Brad took mom over to the Fresh Market to pick up a salad and sushi and she ended up staying home with Caed so he could get to bed. (Thanks!) So, Brad and I ventured to Barley's alone and enjoyed some good beer and pizza. Then, we stopped by the Thirsty Monk to enjoy another beer after dinner. What a neat little place!

Then, on Sunday morning, we got Caedmon all situated and we headed toward Hot Springs for a day of hiking and sightseeing. We ended up spending most of our day on the Laurel River Trail. It definitely wasn't a very strenuous hike -- all fairly level -- but it was fun to venture out onto the rocks into the river. We picked up lunch from the deli at Ingles (what an experience) and ate out on the rocks, partially under my umbrella (well, just me ... Brad braved the rain).

After a few hours of hiking, we turned back and drove through Hot Springs and up the winding mountain road to Max Patch. This was only a small portion of our day, but it was one of the neatest parts. The views were just amazing and the light breeze and moderate temperature felt heavenly!

Then, after we finally found our way home ... mountain roads can be tricky to navigate sometimes ... good job Brad ... we headed home to clean up and enjoy and evening out at Salsas!! (Our favorite!!!) (Funny thing, when we got there, we ran into Mark (Brad's brother) and Jed. We knew they were in Asheville for a backpacking trip, but didn't get a chance to connect with them to see what their plans were, so it was nice to run into them briefly.) If you haven't been to Salsas, we highly recommend it. The atmosphere is neat and the food is fantastic ... Mexican/Carribean ... yum. This time around, Brad and I shared a nacho appetizer (w/ pork ... yum) and the Cuban Mojo Steak ... yum, yum, yum and I washed it all down with a delicious margharita. We were definitely living it up!

On Monday, instead of getting up early and heading out as originally planned, we ended up sticking around and enjoying downtown Asheville -- Brad, Caedmon, Mom and me -- the fun window shopping that you can do there.
What a fun weekend! It was really nice to get away and be out of town when the entire purpose of the trip was to do just that -- get away. Thanks again, mom for being such a huge help with Caedmon ... we had a really nice time celebrating our 5th anniversary a few weeks early!

My First Mother's Day

Last year, I got a rose at church on Mother's Day since I was already a mommy to the unborn Caedmon in my womb, but this year it was for real ... I am really a mommy and I'm so thankful to have this blessing in my life!

And what a lucky mommy I am! Caedmon and Brad woke up and made a delicious breakfast of strawberry crepes .... yummy, yum, yum, yum! (Caedmon had to take his 9am nap of course, but he dictated his wishes to Brad and Brad carried them out :). Then, we met my mom and brother at church and spent the rest of the day with them over at mom's house. This was the first mother's day in a long time that all 4 of us, now Caedmon, were together ... it was very special!

As I was getting Caedmon up from his early afternoon nap, I noticed an envelope in his pack-n-play that said "Mommy". I opened it and found an adorable card and some really cute pictures of Caed and Brad. (Brad wanted to give me some pictures of Caed and me, but those pictures are very hard to come by since I'm usually the one taking all the pictures.) Here's the one that I like the best:
(It was taken right before we went to Pullen Park on Saturday ... the boys and their red hats.)

As I thought about being a mom yesterday verse 28 from Proverbs 31 continued to come to my mind: "Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her." Not that I'm solely seeking blessing and praise from Caedmon and Brad, but the thought that on this day in 40+ years, I want to be able to look back over my life, see how God has grown me and shaped me into the woman in Proverbs 31, see how He has enabled me to raise and care for my family well, teach them of the glories of God and love my husband well. To be able to know whole-heartily that my family loves Jesus and chooses to use their lives to glorify Him because of how God shaped them through their years at home will be amazing! This is my prayer. And for all of you moms out there, I pray this for you as well.

Happy 40th Anniversary!!

April 19th marked Tony & Nancy's 40th Anniversary and to celebrate the occasion, all the Hodgsons in America got together in Charlotte this past weekend. This was the first time we've all been together in quite a while and it was a lot of fun ... thanks for hosting Scott & Michelle!

The weather was great and we were able to spend some good time on the patio outside, hanging out, cooking burgers, and watching the kids play. And now that all the cousins are at least at the age where they can sit up, Caedmon, they were able to play and have a really fun time together. (Madison was in heaven having both Caedmon and Lucia around to play with and care for.)

Nancy "Nana" and Tony "Dada or Papa Tony" didn't have such a bad time either spending time with all 6 grandchildren at once.

Congratulations, Nancy & Tony ... here's to another 40 years of marriage!