Happy 1st Birthday Dillon!! (sorry its a little belated)

First of all, I am so incredibly sorry that it is now March, our Little mans birthday was a month ago and I am just now updating the blog! I will eventually get pictures up from the party too, but for now these are his birthday portraits that were taken a couple weeks before he turned 1! Both Dillon and the photographer (my Dad) did a wonderful job! Dillon was not walking at that time yet and barely standing by himself so I wasn't for sure how it would work. He LOVED the cake part, if you couldn't tell. He definitely did not want it taken away!

Dillon's big birthday party was a success! After several months of planning and stressing I can honestly say it was a ton of fun and I'm kind of glad its over! I can't say I'm glad that my baby boy is already 1 year old, but he sure is fun though! The party's theme was "Winter ONEderland" It was full of blue and white snowflakes and big number 1 balloons and decorations. Dillon had so much fun and he loved the attention! By the end of the day he was exhausted though! We went home and he took an almost three hour nap! We would like to thank all of you again that were a big part of his day in coming to celebrate with him and for all of the wonderful gifts you gave! He is definitely a blessed little boy as well as we are blessed to have you all in our lives!

March update:

Dillon started walking a couple days before his birthday and on his birthday he ended up taking off and trying to run even. I can now say he is everywhere and loves that he can do it all by himself! He is definitely getting his little independent attitude. He trys to talk now, saying most words like Mommy, Daddy, Sissy (which is Bella our puppy), he has said Thank you and sheep too. He knows how a lizard goes, and now knows how a lion sounds. No Dog or Cat yet, :) This week has been nice enough to take him outside and play. That is his new found favorite thing to do! Now that hes big enough to run around its so much fun to watch him too. He even cries when we have to go inside. (which was cute the first time, now not so much)

Darren is still loving his new job. He is doing great and has even gotten a couple "praise" emails sent out by the president and big wig people of the company on his success! He has not had to travel too much, a couple overnight trips to Ohio, but nothing Dillon and I can't handle! I am still working and enjoying my job at Abstract and Title. Currently they cut our hours a little bit because of the real estate market being down. So I am now working 8-3 Mon - Fri, and I can't complain at all! I LOVE getting off early and getting to spend an extra hour with my baby boy!

In the Future:

I have scheduled my first vacation away from Darren and Dillon. I have booked a trip to Florida next month with my mom and my sister. It will be a very relaxing trip on the beach, but I am also starting to get pretty nervous about leaving Dillon for five days! I thought for sure I would be totally fine, but he is getting to the point where he does not like for me to leave and he knows when I am gone. I will be fine and I know he will be fine, It will just be hard to leave. I can probably say that this will be the first time I will be glad to come home from FL! :) I am excited to see how it goes and I know that Daddy and Dillon will have so much fun being bachelors for the week! Darren is very very excited to have him all to himself and do little father son things!

Darren and I have a couple weddings coming up that we are excited about too. Both of which Darren is in. One next month and one coming up in June, where Darren and I will be flying to Las Vegas for. We are extremely excited! But again, it will be bittersweet leaving little munchkin at home again! We are hoping to get in a family vacation this summer as well. Probably to St.Louis again (Daddy wants Dillon to watch another Cards game) or somewhere in good driving distance. It will be a different experience with a walking toddler instead of a baby! :) We are excited for our future plans! I promise I will update soon with other adventures we find ourselves on! Thanks for checking in!! WE love you all!! HAPPY SPRING!

The start to a new year...2010

Well we've started 2010 off to a good start. (If you love snow that is) The best thing of all is Darren has started his new job with training. The first week was in Pittsburg, this current week and next he is in Saint Louis for more training. The best thing is, we are starting to get two incomes again! It was a little rough for a while, but we made it and we are very very thankful that he found a job so quickly. He reports that training is going well and he is learning alot of new stuff! It is quite different than selling lawn mowers, but I have no doubt he can do it. He is a very good salesman, Im pretty sure thats how he got me! :) The other main highlight of the year so far is Dillons first snow. We put him in his camo and carhart gear (thanks to grammy and papaw for christmas) and took him outside to play for a minute. Well thats pretty much all it lasted. He crawled around in it for a minute and then one mitten came off and that was the end. I have to say I dont blame him at all! It was cute video and we caught a couple cute pics in the two minutes we were outside. Maybe next time it will be ok! (we can wait until next year for more snow though) I am definitely ready for spring already!! We are currently working hard on planning a special 1st birthday party. I can not believe it is only a month away! Its exciting and sad all at the same time! I can't help but think, where in the world has the last year gone?!? What a special and exciting year it was though! I think thats all for now, we will post back soon! Hopefully sooner than 5 weeks this time! Love to all!

My first Christmas...

I can't believe it has been 5 weeks since I last updated! WOW! As you can tell, we had a wonderful Christmas! It was a long week (and more) of fun family filled events, but we enjoyed and loved every minute of it! Im sure alot of you can also say, you are too glad its over though! Dillon did very well from Santa, Mom and Dad, Grandparents, great grandparents, aunts & uncles, cousins, etc! As you can see in some of the pictures, he was over the whole gift unwrapping thing once we got to Christmas night. He was super tired! He was also running a low grade fever Christmas eve and Christmas day, we have no idea why but you could tell he wasn't feeling great. Dillon's first christmas overall was everything and more than what we expected it to be!

Winter is here!!

Daddy always tells me to get off his TV

Having a ball in Corbins Ball pit, Dillon might have one under the tree this year too! ;)

The next PGA golfer!

Well winter has set in and its begining to look alot like Christmas at the Hughes household! The weather is even helping it look that way. I can tell you, I for one was NOT ready for all of this snow and ice already! I thought all that came in January (normally on my birthday). The only thing Im excited about the snow this year is getting Dillon outside to play in it. Which hasn't happened yet, but Im sure by the looks of the forcasts coming up we will be posting snow pics soon! Darren put our lights up on the house and we have our tree and decorations up inside. It looks beautiful! Dillon loves all the lights and believe it or not, could care less about the tree! We were really worried, but its been really nice!

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We sure did! We had three wonderful Dinners / brunch! And most of all we got to spend some time with the people we are thankful for the most, our Family! Dillon had a great time, he got to try some green beans and mashed potatoes and quite possibly maybe even a bite of some pumpkin roll and sugar cream pie! He loved it all! He loves the new foods he is getting!

Along with eating pretty much everything now, Dillon has learned several new things in the last few weeks. He waves when we go bye bye or when we tell him to say Hi. Its more of a wave with his whole arm, but its absolutly adorable! He also claps when we clap and when he thinks things are funny, or just randomly too. And the thing we love that he does the most right now is when he is standing and holding on to something we will tell him to shake his booty, and he bounces his little booty up and down! haha its soo cute! Sometimes he even sticks out his little hip and does it too. Hes such a stinker and we can definitely see his little personality shinning through! He has gotten a couple more teeth in. He has three on the bottom and almost four on the top. He looks like such a big boy with his teeth shinning in that beautiful smile he has! He is also jabbering a lot now. I think its fun to try and make something out of what comes out of his mouth. He definitely knows how to say momma (mostly when he wants something) , dadda (when momma doesn't answer) and babba. And I swear he says Bella, not quite sure, but I think he says her name too. He is getting so big, and is so much fun! We are so excited with all of our family events coming up and can't wait to show off our cute little munchkin! We have a total of 9 Christmas events this year, and have already had three! We have been and are soon to be very very busy, but we love seeing everyone and spending time with family! (and eating good good food too) :)

Another big Celebration happening in the Hughes household is, Darren found a job! He went out to Saint Louis to interview with a company named Buckeye International this past monday and tuesday and they offered him the job on the spot! This is certainly an answer to prayer and we are very grateful! We are now just hoping and praying this is the right decision and the right path God has for Darren! Although the main headquarters are in Saint Louis, Darrens territory will be in part of Indiana and part of Ohio. January looks for alot of traveling for him, but once trained he will be home everynight but maybe 3 or 4 a month. I will have him post more info about the job soon, as he knows much much more than me and im sure I would mess something up! Just had to throw that exciting update in this post!

Hope everyone is staying healthy and warm! Happy Holidays to you all and we will see most of you soon! For those of you we wont see, we wish you a very Merry Christmas! Keep checking our blog! We will be sure to post pictures soon!

9 Months Already?!?

Wow how time has flown by! I can't even believe it was 9 months ago that little peanut was born! It feels as if it was yesterday, as Im sure it does for a lot of you! As I look back, it is so hard to believe how much has happened and what we've been through in the last 9 months! It has certainly been the best 9 months of my life! We may have been through some rough times lately, but just to come home and know that that beautiful little smiling face is at the door waiting on you is more than enough for me! I just wanted to update on Dillons doctor appointment. We went to see Dr.Emmick again on Tuesday. He weighed in at 19 lbs and 6.5 oz, and he is 29 inches long! He was in the 30th percentile for weight (which is what he always has been in) and he is in the 74th percentile for length! She said the same thing again, HE IS PERFECT! It always makes me feel good to go to see her and for her to tell me that. It makes me think at least Im doing something right! She said his eating schedule is perfect with three meals a day and 4 bottles a day and we can start with some table foods now. We will see how that goes! He is normally a pretty good eater, so I dont forsee any problems. She also told us that we need to start letting him cry himself to sleep at night and putting him to bed without holding him or rocking him. Which it wasn't a lot before, but I liked for him to be almost asleep before I put him down. Needless to say the past couple nights Mommy has been crying herself to sleep too! I know its for the best and it will be soo much better once he learns that new routine, but it was also my cuddle rocking time and I already miss it so much! Other than that, we are just about the same! No new news yet! We will keep you all updated on the job search and the upcoming holidays, and Im sure some more pictures soon! Love to you all!

Hughes Family Update

Had to put a few new pictures in to start off with! We took some more family pictures in our Colts Gear last weekend.

There are a few updates with our family that we thought you should all know about and pray with us about. Firstly, after almost 12 years, Darren is no longer employed with Dixie Chopper. He is currently in the job market and looking very hard for something in the sales or marketing field. We both feel as though God has a bigger and better plan for him and our family and we can not wait to see what that is. In the meantime, we are praying for the patience and understanding that we both need right now. It is a very hard and trying time as Im sure you all can understand and relate to, its just the first of the kind for our family and we know with God's help we will get through! Any job suggestions and information for Darren would be greatly appreciated!! His new email address is d21hugs@hotmail.com.

Secondly, I was just going to update you on our little peanut! He is getting sooo big! (as you can see in the picture above) He is quite mobile and pulls up on everything. He can even pull up to the toilet and when someone (no names, Darren) forgets to put the seat down, he likes to play in the water!! He also thinks that playing and eating Bellas food is fun to do too! We certainly have to keep a close eye on our little stinker!

Thirdly, Darren and I just celebrated our 2nd Wedding Anniversary. I can't believe how fast the last two years have flown by! Its amazing to look back on the past years and think about how much has changed and how different we are. One thing that hasn't changed at all is our love for each other. We have grown so close together and loved each other in many other different ways since the day we got married but nothing less than the day we said I do.

We dont have much else to update on. (as if that is not enough) Darren has been staying home with Dillon lately and he has since seen how it would be to be a stay at home dad. He has decided that would not be in his best interest! It has been very nice for them to get some bonding time though and they both have enjoyed every minute of it. I have increased my hours just until we get things situated with Darren and his job, and even if I am only working an hour more, it makes all the difference in spending time with Dillon. I definitely miss that hour to spend with him!

We are looking forward to Thanksgiving soon. I can't believe it is only 2 weeks away. I feel like it was just last week that I was begging mom to make a full blown thanksgiving meal because I was craving it all! (or Dillon was) :) Its amazing how much faster time flies when you have a baby, that you dont want to grow up yet! Hope you all are staying healthy and enjoying the weather that we have had recently. (at least those of you in the Greencastle area) We will update more soon!

Love to all,

The Hughes'

Trick or Treat...

Our little Colts Fan~Look how big he is!

One night I was a giraffe

The next I was a Lion!

We hope you all had a fabulous Halloween! I just wanted to get on here really fast and update some pictures! Dillon had a GREAT 1st Halloween and he has a lot of snackies to show for it! I will get on soon and update more, no time right now! Happy Fall! We love you all! Thanks for checking in!